Stalking Horse (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  “Was the counter staked out at twelve-thirty?”

  “No.”

  “What about ‘F’?” Friedman asked, shifting to a more comfortable position on the bed. “Doesn’t anyone close to Ryan have an idea who ‘F’ might be?”

  “So far,” I admitted, “except for Ferguson, I haven’t been able to talk to anyone who might know. The senator just arrived, and everyone’s busy.”

  “Do you get the feeling they’re holding something back?”

  “Yes,” I answered slowly, “I guess I do. I don’t get the feeling of a conspiracy, but I get the feeling they know more than they’re telling. Not a lot more. But a little more.”

  “A little here and a little there,” Friedman said. “It all adds up.”

  A knock sounded. As I nodded to Canelli, Friedman swung his legs off the bed and levered himself to a sitting position facing the door. A big man with close-cropped gray hair and the square, stolid face of a middle-aged prizefighter stood in the doorway. He wore a dark suit and quiet tie, the uniform of Ryan’s entourage. With his huge shoulders squared and his clenched hands held rigidly at his sides, he seemed to be standing at attention as he spoke to Canelli.

  “Lieutenant Hastings?”

  Amiably, Canelli shook his head, pointing to me. “That’s Lieutenant Hastings, there.”

  The big man came into the room and stopped before me. Without offering his hand, he said, “I’m Lloyd Eason.” His voice, like his face, revealed nothing. Staring into mine, his eyes were as expressionless as agates, sunk deep beneath his heavy brows.

  Introducing him to Friedman, I said, “Mr. Eason is Donald Ryan’s bodyguard.” And to Eason I said, “You’ve worked for him several years, I understand.” As I said it, I motioned him to a chair. He sat as he’d stood: solidly, shoulders squared, feet flat on the floor, hands clenched one on either knee—at attention, awaiting orders.

  “Since 1952,” he said, looking from me to Friedman, then back to me. He spoke slowly and carefully in a deep, rough voice. Like his slab-sided face and his thick, muscular body, Eason’s voice was heavy and ponderous. He was a Neanderthal man incongruously dressed in a carefully buttoned business suit.

  “Did Mr. Ferguson tell you to see me?” I asked.

  He shook his massive head. “No. James said I should see you.”

  “How’s the senator feeling?” I asked. “How’d he stand the trip?”

  “He’s feeling fine.” Still staring at me with his impassive eyes, he spoke quietly, without inflection.

  “How’s Mr. Ryan’s health?” Friedman asked. “We understand that he had a heart attack, and that he’s recuperating from it. Do you think he’s making good progress?”

  “Yes,” Eason answered, “I think he’s making good progress.”

  “But it’s still necessary for him to be protected from stress. Is that correct?”

  Gravely, Eason nodded. “That’s right. Absolutely right.”

  Remembering James Ryan’s statement that Ferguson hadn’t decided to call in the FBI until he’d talked to Eason, I said, “Do you know about the letters that Senator Ryan has been getting—the threatening letters?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you find out about them?”

  “Mr. Ferguson told me about them.”

  “Did he show them to you?”

  “Yes. Just now. Today. About an hour ago.”

  “When were you first told about the letters?” I asked.

  He frowned, then said, “Two or three weeks ago, I think.”

  “Were you aware that others besides you and Mr. Ferguson knew about the letters?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ask around?” Friedman said.

  Eason studied Friedman a moment. The question obviously puzzled him. Finally he said, “No, I didn’t ask around.”

  “Weren’t you curious?” Friedman pressed.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.” He looked at me, as if for help. Looking at him in return, I wondered how this serious, slow-witted man fitted into the high-powered, high-styled group that surrounded Senator Ryan.

  I glanced at Friedman, then passed the copies of the letter and the envelope to Eason. “This came about one o’clock,” I said. “It was delivered here, to the hotel.”

  Eason took the letter, looked at it, then handed it back. His face was still utterly expressionless. His eyes were calm. Dead calm.

  “None of the other letters were signed,” Friedman said. He paused a moment, waiting for Eason to look at him. Then he said, “The fact that it’s signed and the fact that the writer probably delivered it in person suggests that he’s getting bolder, more threatening. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yes,” Eason said. “I agree.” He paused. Then, heavily thoughtful, he said, “It’s getting worse. More dangerous.”

  “Susan Ryan received a threatening phone call, too,” I said. “The caller threatened her father.”

  Now Eason’s eyes hardened. His big fists clenched as he said, “He called Susan? Here? In San Francisco?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “He called her yesterday.”

  He didn’t reply, but instead sat staring down at the floor. Along the side of his thick, heavy jaw, I saw muscles knotting.

  “Do you have any idea who’s writing these letters, Mr. Eason?” I asked quietly.

  “No,” he answered. “I wish I did.” As he said it, his hands unclenched, then clenched again. Subconsciously, he was grappling with an unseen antagonist.

  “What about the letter ‘F’?” Friedman asked. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  Slowly, he shook his head. “No. Nothing.”

  “Are you sure? Can you think of anyone—anyone at all—with a first or last name beginning with ‘F’ who has ever threatened Mr. Ryan?”

  Once more, he shook his head.

  “You’ve worked for Mr. Ryan since 1952,” I said. “That’s a long time. I don’t see how you can answer so quickly.”

  He studied me for a moment before he said, “You’re right. I’ll think about it.” He dropped his eyes again to the floor. A curtain had fallen.

  “What’s the nature of your work, Mr. Eason?” Friedman asked.

  Eason frowned, transferring his attention to Friedman as he said, “I’m Mr. Ryan’s bodyguard. I already told you that.”

  “I know you did,” Friedman said amiably. “But I’d like to know a little more about how you work. Do you have a staff?”

  “No. There’s just me.”

  “So you go everywhere with Mr. Ryan.”

  “Yes,” he said with one more slow, grave nod of his grizzled gladiator’s head.

  “Do you live with him? In the same house?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you’ve been with him since 1952,” I said, “you were with him before he got into politics.”

  “Mr. Ryan was making airplanes when I first knew him, airplanes and movies down in Los Angeles.”

  I frowned. “Movies?”

  “Mr. Ryan made two movies before he went into the TV business.” He said it with a kind of quiet satisfaction, as if he were describing the successes of some favored member of his family.

  “Why did he think he needed a bodyguard when he was making movies and airplanes?” Friedman asked. “That seems strange.”

  Eason examined Friedman for a moment before he said, “Mr. Ryan—Mr. Donald Ryan—didn’t hire me. His father hired me.”

  “But why?” Friedman pressed.

  “Mr. Ryan’s father had enemies,” Eason answered.

  “That was Patrick Ryan,” Friedman said. “The tycoon’s tycoon.”

  Obviously disapproving of Friedman’s jocular tone, Eason didn’t reply, but simply sat silently, impassively observing Friedman.

  “After all those years,” I said, “you must know everything there is to know about the Ryan family. If anyone outside of the family could steer us to this ‘F,’ it should be you.”

  “But I can’t,” he answ
ered. “I don’t know anyone with that initial.” He hesitated, then said, “Mr. Ryan doesn’t tell me everything, you know. All his business affairs, and his work in Washington, he never tells me about those things.”

  “But if he had an enemy,” Friedman said, “one particular enemy, you’d know about it.”

  “Yes.”

  “And has he ever had an enemy? Has anyone tried to harm him?”

  Eason shook his head. “No. No one’s tried.”

  “But I understand,” I said, “that he’s received threatening letters before.”

  “That’s only since he got into politics,” he said. “Especially the past few years.”

  Impatiently, I nodded. “I understand that. But—”

  At the door, someone was knocking. At a signal from me, Canelli swung the door open. Dan Kanter, the Sentinel’s crime reporter, stood on the threshold. Without being invited, he strode into the room. Eason, meanwhile, rose to his feet, saying, “I’d better be getting back.”

  I handed him my card. “If you think of anyone,” I said, “or if you need any help, call me. If I’m not in, leave a message.”

  Eason stepped closer to me, asking quietly, “Do you think there’s really danger? Really something to worry about?”

  Glancing over his shoulder at Kanter, who was frankly trying to listen, I said, “I don’t know, Mr. Eason. I’m just not sure.” I shook hands with him. For a big man, Eason’s grip was gentle. Not soft, but gentle.

  When the door closed, Kanter looked at both Friedman and me in turn, his eyes lively. Kanter was a small, wiry man, almost totally bald. His ruddy face was as seamed as a seafarer’s. His bushy mustache and matching eyebrows bristled aggressively, coarse and spiky, salt-and-pepper gray. He talked quickly, moved quickly and thought quickly. In his earlier years he’d been a jockey. When he retired at forty, he’d gone to the Sentinel as a sports writer. But he’d always been fascinated by crime, and he quickly changed to the police beat. At sixty years of age, Kanter was a thorough professional: energetic, resourceful and fair. He professed to be unsentimental, a total cynic. Yet, occasionally, his stories betrayed a strong sense of outrage, especially aimed at wanton crime and the senseless toll it took.

  “Well,” Kanter said, sitting down—still uninvited. “Is there danger?”

  I looked at Friedman. Because he was a fast thinker and good talker, Kanter was one of Friedman’s favorite sparring partners.

  “Danger of what?” Friedman asked blandly.

  “Danger to Donald Ryan,” Kanter said. “You know, the most powerful man in America, according to his publicity staff.”

  “Politics is a risky business,” Friedman said, elaborately yawning as he resumed his position on the bed.

  “Come on, Pete. Something’s up. The lobby is crawling with cops, yours and the feds both.”

  “Like you said,” Friedman countered, “Donald Ryan is a very powerful man. When he’s in town, we’ve got to be careful.”

  “I happen to know,” Kanter said, “that you guys have been working for about three days on some threat to Senator Ryan’s life. Naturally, I didn’t want to break the story without talking to you.” He looked quizzically at both of us in turn. Speaking to me, he said, “You’ve got that stubborn look on your face, Frank. As long as I’ve known you, that means only one thing. It means you’re sitting on a story that could get me that Pulitzer.”

  I smiled. “You’ve been talking about that Pulitzer ever since—”

  The phone rang. Canelli questioned me with thick eyebrows upraised, but I shook my head and took the call.

  “This is Susan Ryan, Lieutenant. Inspector Culligan says you wanted to talk to me.”

  “Oh—yes. Where are you?”

  “I just got home. Is anything wrong?”

  “No, nothing’s wrong. But I want to talk to you. I’ll call you in fifteen minutes. You’ll be there?”

  “Yes. I’ll wait for your call. But I’ve got to leave in about an hour.”

  “I’ll call before then. Thanks.”

  As I hung up the phone Kanter asked, “What was that all about?” His bright, lively eyes danced from me to Friedman. With his bald head fringed with gray hair, his imp’s face and his adolescent body with its small, improbable paunch, Kanter always reminded me of one of the dwarfs in Snow White.

  “You may as well tell me,” Kanter said cheerfully. “I’m going to print something. It might as well be the truth.”

  I exchanged another look with Friedman, who shrugged his beefy shoulders. His message: the rules of the game required that we give Kanter something. Since the case was my responsibility, it was I who must decide how much to give him.

  “It’s no big deal,” I said. “The senator got a crank letter about a week ago, in Washington. Since he was scheduled to come here to dedicate the new federal building, we got the job of trying to find the letter-writer.”

  “The letter came from San Francisco,” Kanter said.

  I nodded.

  “Was it just one letter?” Kanter asked, fixing me with his shrewd, speculative stare.

  “There may have been more. We started with one. Originally, it was an FBI case. It still is, really. We’re just handling the local investigation.”

  “One nasty letter gets you this?” Kanter asked, waving his hand around the room. “You expect my city editor to believe that?”

  “We got this,” I said, “when someone dropped a threatening letter at the desk downstairs. That’s the reason for all the troops.”

  “So now there’re two letters.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Were both letters written by the same guy?”

  “Personally, I don’t think so,” I lied. “I think two crazies are involved, neither one of whom is very serious. Still, we’ve got to do what we can. But there’s one problem—a big problem.”

  “What problem?”

  “Senator Ryan hasn’t been feeling well. It’s nothing that he won’t get over, but his doctors put him on a reduced schedule until Labor Day, when Congress convenes.”

  “So he doesn’t know about the threats.”

  I nodded again.

  “And he’s not going to know, if you can help it,” Kanter said.

  “It’s not my idea to keep it from him. Personally, I don’t see the harm in telling him. He’s gotten threats before. But I’m following orders.”

  “And the orders come from the top,” Kanter said, eyeing me narrowly.

  “That’s right,” Friedman put in meaningfully. “All the way from the top, from the people who bust detectives to patrolmen and turn big-shot reporters into copy boys.”

  Blandly ignoring the threat, Kanter mused, “Why shouldn’t Ryan welcome the idea of a story about a threat to his life? Handled properly, the publicity would be a plus.” As he said it, Kanter stared at me with narrowed eyes, thoughtfully speculative. “Unless, of course,” he said slowly, “the senator is really sick. And if that’s true—” Looking away, he was chewing busily at his mustache. He was sorting out the bits and pieces, calculating how he could parlay his speculations into an angle that might bring him closer to his Pulitzer.

  As if to confirm my thoughts, Kanter said, “We could be on the trail of something big here. That’s the feeling I get, that we’re looking at the tip of what might be a very big, very promising iceberg.”

  “By ‘we,’” Friedman said, “are you including Frank and me?” He smiled a knowing, horsetrading smile. “Because if you are, I don’t see why we can’t all turn a profit on this thing.”

  “Oh, Jesus—” Kanter threw me a broad look of mock distress. “Whenever I see that grin on Pete’s face, I automatically feel for where my wallet should be.”

  For a moment we all sat silently, considering the possibilities. Then Friedman said, “I suppose you’re the only one who’s on to this thing.” He spoke casually, as if Kanter’s answering nod had been taken for granted.

  “Well, then,” Friedman said, once more smilin
g, “I don’t see that we’ve got a problem. You just sit on the story for a few more days while Frank and I see if we can get someone in handcuffs. If we make the collar, then you get the first phone call.”

  Kanter’s expression didn’t change as he stared stonily at Friedman. Finally he said, “You know as well as I do, Pete, that once you collar someone, every crime reporter in town will know about it.”

  “That may be,” Friedman countered smoothly. “But they wouldn’t know the background. And they wouldn’t get it from us, either. Not until we’d told you. And with a story like this, background’s everything.”

  Suddenly Kanter released a breezy, what-the-hell smile. He got to his feet and nodded genially. “Okay,” he said, “it’s a deal. Just don’t forget my number.” He waited for Canelli to open the door, waved jauntily, and was gone.

  I turned to the phone, dialing Susan Ryan’s number.

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” she said, “what is it?” Her voice sounded tense, anxious.

  I read her the note, including the signature, and described how it had been delivered. Immediately she realized the note’s significance. “It’s the first time he’s signed himself,” she mused. “Is that it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “He’s closing in,” she said softly. “That’s what my phone call meant. That’s the significance of his delivering the letter in person. And the signature, too. It’s all part of a plan.”

  “I agree.” I let her have a minute to think about it. Then: “Does ‘F’ mean anything to you, Mrs. Robinson?”

  “No,” she answered slowly. “No, it doesn’t. Nothing at all.” She hesitated, then said, “Have you talked to Jack Ferguson—asked him?”

  “Yes. He couldn’t think of anyone.”

  “Who else did you ask?”

  “I asked Lloyd Eason. Same thing.”

  “If anyone would know,” she said, “Lloyd would. He didn’t have any ideas?”

  “No. None.”

  After a moment of silence she said, “What about Katherine Bayliss?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to ask her about it yet.”

  “You should.”

  “I will.”