The Great Pretender: A Hector Lassiter novel

by Craig McDonald

  “Dear God, no,” Hector said, his back up. “Not at all. But my politics, what little I have of them, well, it seems they’re in season this year.”

  “One of those, huh? Well, I can forgive you that, I guess.”

  “No percentage in this kind of sorry talk,” Hector said. “You know what they say about religion and politics. So let’s get back to the hotel. I want some more time with you out of your clothes before we start this scavenger hunt. I don’t read palms, don’t believe in foreordination, as you know, but I can already predict this probably ending somewhere wide of where any of us expect.”

  CHAPTER 28

  THE CRADLE WILL ROCK

  Hector pulled the covers up over Cassie. She nestled in deeper, smiling in her sleep.

  Naked, he stood by the window, looking down on the street. He lit a cigarette and ran a thumb across the engraved words on his Zippo.

  That old word game it alluded to set his mind to running faster—one man starts a sentence and another tries to quickly finish it, straight and truly as possible.

  Their shadow, the mysterious American, he was down there on the street, taking refuge in the recessed doorway of a barbershop. Hector resisted the urge to wave. There was probably at least one more in the lobby, or, to be more efficient, maybe one more man staking out the couch at the end of the corridor just outside near the lift, watching their door. That would make far more sense. It would certainly be more efficient, if not at all subtle.

  Hector glanced at his phone. Orson was probably awake. Hell, he’d admitted he was still prone to the intense insomnia that had plagued him last year through the trauma of the Dahlia murder and beyond. Now here was Hector, suffering his own nuit blanche or white night, despite the toll their torrid lovemaking had evidently taken on Cassie.

  Bewitching Cassie. She’d confessed to him before falling asleep that after exhausting all that he’d written, she’d reluctantly turned her reading attention to Brinke’s novels, now safely back in print, thank God, despite the war years’ severely enforced paper rationings.

  Hell, half of Hector’s own books were presently still out of print according to his most recent publisher’s form letter—being held back “to help the war” that was so long over.

  “I loved her books,” Cassie had confided. “I’m sure I would have liked Brinke, too.”

  Hector was pretty sure that allure would have been mutual, and perhaps even have run deeper than Cassie might think, given Brinke’s bisexuality. In the end, more than once, Hector and Brinke had shared similar tastes in women.

  The temperature must be dropping Hector thought, as the rain turned to sleet before his eyes, the stuff making more noise as it struck the fogging glass. Music reached him from some distant room—Winter Winds.

  Hector rested a hand briefly on a radiator coil to warm and to steady himself, as he was overcome by a sudden wave of nausea. He prayed it wasn’t the flu. Maybe in addition to nausea, it was simply nostalgia he told himself. That particular song took him back in raw ways to Paris—he’d finally made the connection.

  They claimed loss got easier with time, but as Hector settled deeper into his own middle age, he found he thought more often of Brinke and missed her even more; he even found her taking up a kind of permanent residence in some part of his head.

  Hector ground out his cigarette and brushed his teeth. Shivering, he slid between the covers, spooning up tight against Cassie’s long, bare body. He cupped his hand around her right breast, moving softly against her. She pressed her hips back against him, then stretched and cooed as they became one.

  Despite their joining, she said, “You can’t possibly be up to this again.” She turned and wrapped a leg around his waist, even as she said it, guiding him back inside her.

  “It’s a problem if I am?”

  She smiled and said, “Way you’ve worked me up already, it’s definitely a problem if you can’t.”

  ***

  Cassie and Hector stood off a distance behind Gregory Ratoff’s director’s chair.

  Orson was garbed in black velvet and shiny baubles that recalled that infernal medallion that dominated their talk and actions these hours. On the black fez that topped Orson’s head there was pinned a shining Masonic symbol. Hector thought his friend was just on the edge of over-playing his role as the notorious wizard or warlock—the novelist wasn’t too familiar with the historical figure Orson was playing and so figured either term was close enough.

  Orson had understated director Ratoff’s accent: so far, it was utterly impenetrable to Hector.

  The lights flickered. Thunder rumbled and shook the cameras and some glassware set up on a banquet table. Ratoff looked to his sound man. The technician drew a finger across his throat.

  Orson presumed to call “Cut,” then added, “Thank beneficent Christ for this blessed storm!” He then dared to go further: “You know the weather here. I say that’s a wrap for the day, eh Greg?” The actor savagely ripped off his latest false proboscis—Orson still rarely appeared on film with his natural, God-given nose.

  Hector counted seconds between the next dimming of the lights and the ensuing rumble. Orson was probably right, he decided—the worst of the storm was to come and definitely bearing down on them, approaching with real speed.

  The actor strode toward them, dangling his false nose in hand, and said, “Give me a few minutes to wash off the rest of the silly war paint. I say we go straight off to our search now.”

  “First, we’ve got a fresh shadow to lose,” Hector said. He drew his sleeve across his damp forehead. He was overcome with this fresh wave of dizziness. “Do point me to a starving actor I can pay to distract the man following us when we take our leave from here,” he said thickly.

  ***

  Standing again in the grand nave of the St. John in the Lateran and the Cloister, Orson said, “Damn it, there are paces to be measured. It’s clear the search begins right here, at this place of worship, but the measurements? Where do we start here, specifically?”

  Both men looked to Cassie.

  Earlier, when it was just the two of them, Hector had said to Orson, “I’m surprised you brought Cassie in on this. Figured it would gall you enough to have me as a partner,” he’d told Orson. “Three-way split seems even more unpalatable from your perspective, at least based on how I read you.”

  “Oh, you’re not wrong,” Orson had said. “But Cassandra’s a necessary evil, especially with my unusual enemies and current precarious situation with the forces of darkness. Also, I figured you could bend her to our will.” The implication of that statement had made Hector bridle—namely, that Orson implied by extension he could bend Hector to his own will.

  Cassie looked around the cathedral again, then said, “There are two logical places to start from, as I figure it, not that either of you has asked me outright. The threshold at the front door is my first choice. It’s the least ambiguous place in which to start. I say we try that first.”

  Orson said, “And your second theory?” A half-smile. “I mean, since we’re already here…”

  “The altar,” she said. “But it’s such a long way back there and so spread out, and Mr. Rosenblum’s time was so limited by all accounts that I incline away from that as the start.” She shrugged her padded shoulders. “Of course, I could be wrong.”

  “No, it makes sense to me,” Hector said. “Let’s start right out front.”

  ***

  As they walked back out into a driving rain, a sodden and legless man crouched on a wheeled board begged money from them. Orson ignored the vagrant; Hector dropped a couple of low denomination notes into the man’s crudely carved wooden cup.

  “Right sentiment, but the wrong action, Hector,” Orson said, sour-faced. “With the economy in its present state, with tourist dollars being so essential here after the war, the police actually punish do-gooders like you more often and harshly than they do the panhandlers you all would help. They don’t want to encourage beggars, don’t you k
now. You’re lucky no police saw your donation just now. They might have arrested you on the spot.”

  ***

  The medallion’s map led, or seemed to lead, away from the church to a railway station lunch counter and a particular stool. From there, they made their way to a public fountain.

  By Hector’s reckoning, they had four more sites to arrive at before they reached the presumed hiding spot of the Holy Lance. Standing and staring at the fountain, fishing his pockets for coins to make silly and sentimental wishes, Hector said, “I presume they don’t arrest you for doing this, too?” He felt very tired now. He thought he could lay down and go to sleep on the spot if his friends would only let him. He couldn’t remember the last time he that he felt so drained, so weak.

  Orson just shrugged. Cassie said softly, “Fellas, our shadow has found us again.”

  Orson said, “You mean that man over there? That one looks like FBI to me. God knows, I’ve seen my share of his kind lurking these past few years.”

  “That’s what Hector thought, too,” Cassie said. “I think we have to confront that man. We certainly can’t continue a search with him dogging our heels.”

  “Agreed.” Hector pulled her close and hugged her tightly. As he did that, he slipped his gun into her pocket. “Let’s split up,” he said softly in her ear. “You two head to that café. I’ll continue on somewhere, as if moving to the next point. You double back and follow at a distance. We’ll get the drop on this guy in a few minutes and soon have our answers with some luck.”

  “Won’t you need your gun?”

  “Got a knife, too,” Hector said. “I think this little chat will likely go better close in. Besides, he might have friends, in which case you can maybe do more with that gun to help the cause than I can.”

  ***

  Things went more or less to Hector’s impromptu plan. His scheme bought him five minutes alone in a darkened alley with this most recent shadow.

  Knife to the man’s throat, a feverish Hector dragged an arm across his beaded forehead and said, “You are a Hoover minion, aren’t you? FBI, yes?”

  The man wet his lips. Panting, breaking a sweat in the rain to match Hector’s own odd perspiration, the stranger said, “Agent Tilly speaks well of you, Lassiter. Ed says you’re one of the smart ones as Hollywood types go. And a Republican to boot.”

  “What’s your name, agent?”

  “Special Agent Mosley Horton.”

  “Funny, Agent Tilly has never spoken of you to me,” Hector said. “So you might as well be anybody at all for what I care just now. That fact in mind, why are you here, following us? And why are you so far out of your range to boot, to borrow a phrase.”

  “I’ll remind you I’m a government agent, Mr. Lassiter. Therefore I’m under absolutely no—”

  “What you’re under is no authority,” Hector said, cutting him off. “You’re under no authority whatever, not way out here on the wrong side of the ocean, fella. I’m former OSS, and I’ve got more juice and rights here than you do. If you were CIA, I might just be a little worried. But you’re only FBI, in Europe, and so all your powers stopped at shore’s end back home. Here, you’re just another maybe luckless tourist who could succumb to death by misadventure in some Italian alley.”

  Hector pressed his knife’s edge harder against the man’s throat. “On that note, are Mr. Hoover’s secrets really worth your life, Sad Sack?”

  “You can’t be serious,” the agent said. “You just can’t. And be careful with that knife. You look quite ill…”

  With a cold smile, Hector said. “Under the weather or not, I’ve still got the edge, so to speak. If Agent Tilly’s really told you anything at all about me, you most certainly know better than to think I wouldn’t cut your throat and leave you to bleed out in this infernal Italian alley like some luckless and car-struck doe.”

  Spraying spittle, the man said, “I’m off-duty, for Christ’s sake. I mean, mostly off-duty. I mean that I have family. I mean, my daughter, Mina, she needs braces. And my boy, Chester? Chet’s getting older so there’s college to think of. I mean, I only…”

  “So you’re here for Hoover on special duty, if you will,” Hector said. “And at some special pay rate, trying to help make ends meet at home? What on earth is possibly worth Mr. Hoover going off the books and sending your kind so far from home and out of your obvious depth to chase the likes of me, special agent?”

  “Mr. Hoover has been director since 1924,” the FBI agent said. “Nobody’s held the position that long. Despite Mr. Hoover’s protestations and continuing success, President Truman’s becoming increasingly loud about wanting to replace Mr. Hoover…”

  Hector shook his head. “Hell, practically every president since Coolidge has wanted that little frog-faced monster out on his fat ass and rightly so. Hoover’s fucking evil. To that point, purportedly your boss has consistently succeeded in blackmailing ensuing chief executives into perpetuating his dubious reign.”

  Hector indulged a way-out-there leap in logic. Presumably, Hoover was surreptitiously as superstitious as naïve young Orson claimed to be.

  Could that be it? Could Hoover really be as crazy as to think possession of the “Spear of Destiny” could somehow perpetuate his unholy regime as FBI director until God or the Devil at last called the little monster home?

  Hector elected to go darker in his treatment of Hoover’s latest stooge. He said, “You really love your children? You truly cherish your health?” Hector raised his eyebrows. “If you do, then you report that you failed here. You tell your overlord that Rome was a very dead end. Convince him Orson and I bore no fruit for him in that way.” Hector bit his lip. He said, “Hell, it’s been years since anyone cared about Orson, me and that… thing. What’s got you all freshly going again on it now?”

  The G-Man looked around to make sure they were still alone. He said, “For ten years, these German types—ex-Nazis, I guess—have watched that church you and Welles both finally visited today and yesterday. This legless beggar watches the church for the Germans. He’s done that for years. This part sounds crazy to me, too, but Mr. Lassiter, I hear for ten years, we’ve watched these Germans watch that church. Today, I guess it was just my turn. And just my sorry luck, I suppose, that you finally came along.”

  Ten years of overseas surveillance of some hoary cripple running watch on a church in exchange for presumed chump change? Hector actually shivered afresh.

  Jesus, Hoover must really have the bug bad, he thought.

  Hector pulled away his knife. “Do you have any grasp what it is exactly that Hoover is looking for? Do you really have a sense why he would want this thing?”

  “It’s not for me to judge,” the agent said finally.

  “So I’m to infer you know just enough to know it makes your boss even loopier seeming than some already believe him to be. If I were you, pal, I’d look for another line of work and I’d do that pronto. If your boss is that out of touch with the simple ground, I’d expect some heavy-duty shake up, top to bottom, in your agency soon. Any new head of the FBI would be well-advised to engage in wholesale house clearing. All it’ll take in the end is a president who can keep it in his pants and not stray from his first lady. That’s all that’s needed to see Hoover out on his ass. Either way, are you prepared to stand down here, right now?”

  “What do I really tell the director?”

  “Nothing too far from the truth,” Hector said. “Orson lost interest when the questing didn’t prove easy. Say I mocked Welles for a fool and for his ever believing in all this hokum. Report to Hoover we’ve all started plans to leave Rome empty-handed. It’s all perfectly in character. And, as it happens, it’s all true.”

  CHAPTER 29

  THE SILENT AVENGER

  Once again in full costume as the dark wizard with his false nose, moustache and goatee firmly glued in place, Orson said, “Maybe you have and maybe you haven’t put the FBI out of the picture, at least for now. I suspect we both know Mr. Hoover is
n’t easily shaken off. But it seems there’s a new threat, old man. I found this on my bed when I got back.”

  Orson tossed something—some little wad of floppy cloth at first glance—Hector’s way. The writer caught the scraps on the fly. “What the hell, Orson?”

  “It’s a fetish of a kind,” Cassie said, taking it from the novelist with a cautious hand. “An avatar. What I guess you might call a voodoo doll. The bottom line is our friend has been freshly hexed. You might be next, Hec. So, like Orson, you’re going to wear one of these around your neck. You’ll sleep with it under your pillow.”

  She held up a black bag about the size of a small change purse and suspended from a length of twine. “Put this around your neck, please. Do it now. It should rest over your heart in order to be most effective.”

  Hector scowled. “What the hell is this thing?”

  Cassie said softly, anticipating his rebuttal, “It’s a hex bag.”

  Hector rubbed his nose. “Thing reeks and I already feel sick to my stomach. What’s in it?”

  Cassie popped the cork on a bottle of champagne. Orson had ordered up a case of the stuff to “stave off the doldrums.” The crew happened to be currently filming in the grand ballroom of their venerable hotel so Orson didn’t have far to travel.

  She filled three flutes with bubbly. “You really don’t want to know the answer to that question, Hector. Put it this way, when you shower, I’d suggest refrigerating that bag in an ice bucket, however briefly. They might be a bit gamey in just a day or two otherwise.”

  “Gamey in a day or two? It already stinks.” Hector, accepting his glass with a shaking hand, looked to Orson. “Tell me you’re not wearing one of these right now under all that.” Orson’s hand reflexively moved to his chest.

  “Well, I’m not going to,” Hector said. He drained his glass, feeling desperately thirsty for some water. “And I’m certainly not putting one under my pillow.” He tossed the bag to Orson. “Here, twice the protection. Although I wouldn’t count on getting any dates going forward, kiddo. Not with those things on you.”