Graveyard Plots (2 page)

Is there?

—Bill Pronzini

San Francisco, California

January 1985

T
he first thing Cain did when he arrived in San Francisco was steal a car.

He stepped off the through-Portland bus at the Seventh Street Terminal, carrying a blue airline overnight bag; it was a few minutes after midnight. He walked through the terminal, without haste, turning south to Mission Street and then east along there to a shadowed, unattended parking lot between Sixth and Seventh. He prowled among the scattered few cars still parked there until he found a dark blue, late-model sedan that satisfied him. From the pocket of his tan overcoat he took a thin piece of stiff, oddly shaped wire and bent to the door lock. Moments later, he slipped in beneath the wheel, placing the overnight bag on the seat beside him. He probed the ignition slot with the wire, and after a few moments more the sedan's engine began rumbling softly. The entire operation had taken perhaps two minutes; if anyone had been watching, it would have looked like he was entering his own car with his own set of keys.

Cain put the sedan in gear, switched on the headlights, and drove out of the lot, crossing the double yellow lines illegally to turn west on Mission. He picked up Bayshore Freeway South at Tenth and Bryant, eight blocks away. Traffic was light at this hour, but Cain remained in the center of the three lanes, maintaining a moderate speed.

Some twenty minutes later, he left the freeway at the Poplar Street exit in San Mateo. He drove through the dark, quiet, deserted streets, crossed El Camino Real, and entered the prosperous, well-landscaped community of Hillsborough. On Devaney Way, Cain made a left turn and went three blocks. In the middle of the fourth, he eased the sedan to the curb in front of a sprawling, two-story red-brick home with ornate grillwork balconies. On the left side of the house, just ahead of where Cain had parked, was a crushed, white-gravel drive, bordered on both sides by a six-foot hedge. He could not see the front door of the home because the hedge extended down to parallel the street in front, broken only by a grillwork gate to the rear of where he was parked. But he could see the open, empty garage clearly; a pale, hooded light burned over the door.

Cain shut off the headlights, but left the engine running. It was an extremely quiet engine, and he had to strain to hear it himself; he was sure no one in the red-brick house—or in any of the adjacent or facing houses—could hear it. He set the parking brake, and then slid across the seat to the passenger side. He wound down the window there, then lifted the blue overnight bag onto his lap and zippered it open and took the .45-caliber automatic from inside.

He held the automatic on his right thigh and looked at the luminescent dial of his wristwatch. One-ten. Cain slid down in the seat until his eyes were on a level with the sill of the open window.

At twenty-seven minutes past one, headlights appeared on Devaney Way, coming toward him. Cain drifted lower on the seat. A red directional signal, indicating a left turn, came on below the headlights as the car—a cream-colored Cadillac—approached. Cain nodded once in the darkness, his fingers tightening around the butt of the automatic on his thigh.

The Cadillac turned smoothly onto the white-gravel drive, red stop lights winking. Cain watched as the driver—the lone occupant—maneuvered the car into the open garage. Cain, ears straining, heard the faint slam of a car door moments later.

He raised up on the seat, placing his arm on the window sill, the
automatic extended toward the garage. A shadowed figure emerged from inside, stopped, and there was a faint whirring sound as the automatic garage door began to slide down. Then the man turned and Cain could see him clearly in the pale light from above the door.

He squeezed the trigger on the automatic three times, sighting along the barrel. Each of the three shots went exactly where Cain had intended them to go: into the garage wall above and slightly to the left of the man there.

The man threw himself to the white-gravel drive, rolling swiftly toward the green hedge on his right. Cain dropped the automatic into the overnight bag, slid over under the wheel; with his left hand he released the parking brake, with his right he dropped the automatic transmission into Drive. The rear tires on the sedan screamed against the pavement, as Cain's foot bore down on the accelerator. He had time for one quick glance in the direction of the garage; the man lay partially hidden in the shadow of the hedge, head raised slightly, looking toward him. And then the sedan was moving away, gathering speed. In his rearview mirror, Cain could see lights being flicked on in neighboring houses. He took the first corner, left, and when he had cleared the intersection he switched on his headlights. Two more blocks and a right turn, and Cain reduced his speed to the legal limit of twenty-five.

Just short of half an hour later, he reentered the San Francisco city and county limits. He exited the Bayshore Freeway at Army Street, turning right off there on Harrison, and parked the sedan in front of a warehouse driveway. He got out then, taking the overnight bag, and walked quickly up three blocks to Mission Street; he caught, almost immediately, a Municipal Railway Bus downtown.

He left the Muni at Sixth and walked up to cross Market. On the corner of Taylor and Geary, he entered the Graceling Hotel, registered under the name of Philip Storm, and was given a room on the third floor. Inside the room, he removed the gun from the bag, oiled and cleaned it, and reloaded the clip from a box of shells. When he
finished, he replaced the automatic in the bag, put it under the bed, and lay down on top of the sheets.

It was almost dawn before he finally slept.

The man who had been shot at in Hillsborough was named James Agenrood.

Following the shooting, he sat in his mahogany-paneled, book
lined study. He was alone; his wife, who had been badly frightened,
had taken several sleeping pills and gone to bed.

Agenrood poured brandy from a crystal decanter into an expen
sive snifter and tasted it without his usual enjoyment of the im
ported liquor. He had regained his composure, but his nerves were
still agitated.

He tasted the brandy again, and then slid the telephone toward
him across the desk, dialed a number. It rang several times; finally, a
sleepy voice said, "Hello?"

"Len?"

"Yes?"

"Jim."

"This is a hell of a time of night to be calling anybody, Jim," the
sleepy voice said irritably.

Agenrood took a measured breath. "Somebody tried to kill me tonight," he said.

"
What!
"

"Yes. About an hour ago."

There was silence for a moment, and then the voice, which was no longer sleepy, said, "Do you have any idea who it was?"

"No.

"Professional?"

"I'd say so. He seemed to know my habits, that I always go to the
Club on Wednesday nights, and that I usually get home around one-thirty. He was waiting out on the street."

"Just one man?"

"I think so."

"Did you get a look at him?"

"It was too dark."

"How about the car?"

"Dark sedan, maybe last year's," Agenrood said. "I saw part of the license plate. DRD."

"Did you call the police?"

"No. I made sure the neighbors didn't either."

"I'll get somebody on it right away."

"I'd appreciate it, Len."

"Listen, Jim, whoever it was isn't affiliated with us. You know your standing with the National Office."

"I didn't think he was."

"Just so you know."

"Thanks, Len."

"I'll drop by your office tomorrow."

"All right."

"And Jim . . . be careful, will you?"

Agenrood laughed, but there was no trace of humor in his gray
eyes. "I'll do that, don't worry."

He cradled the receiver, lifted the decanter of brandy again; he poured another drink—his fifth since the shooting. He sat staring into the snifter. His face, in the pale light from his desk lamp, was an inscrutable mask etched of solid stone.

C
ain awoke at eleven the next morning, dressed leisurely, and then called room service and ordered a pot of coffee and some buttered toast. When it arrived, he carried it to the small writing desk. In one of its drawers he found notepaper and plain white envelopes and several soft-lead pencils.

He printed a short, two-paragraph note on one of the pieces of paper, folded it, and slipped it into an envelope. He addressed the envelope, sealed it, finished his breakfast, put on his overcoat, and went out to the elevator.

In a drugstore two blocks from the Graceling Hotel, Cain bought
a twenty-two-cent stamp. There was a mailbox on the opposite corner, and he dropped the envelope inside after noting on the front the times that mail was picked up there.

Before returning to the Graceling, Cain bought a newspaper from one of the sidewalk vendors. In his room, he read it carefully. There was no mention of the episode in Hillsborough. Cain had not expected that there would be; for one thing it had happened well past midnight, too late for the morning editions; for another, and more importantly, he knew that Agenrood would not have called in the police. But he read the paper thoroughly just the same.

He lay on his bed, thinking, for the remainder of the afternoon. At five o'clock, he went out to a nearby restaurant and ate a light supper. On the way back from there, he stopped at a parking garage that had a telephone booth. He inserted a dime and dialed a number from memory. A man's voice answered.

"Hello?"

Cain did not say anything.

"Hello?" the voice repeated.

Cain held the receiver away from his ear.

"Hello? Hello? Who is this?"

Cain hung up and left the garage.

T
he distinguished-looking man who sat in James Agenrood's private office at Consolidated Trades, Incorporated, tamped the dottle from his briar pipe and said, "Let's have a look at this note, Jim."

Wordlessly, Agenrood passed a folded sheet of paper across his marble-topped desk. The distinguished man picked it up, unfolded it, and read:

Agenrood:

What happened Wednesday night can happen again,
if
there is a need for it. And
if
there is, you can be sure a garage wall will not be my primary target. Stay by your phone this weekend.

The distinguished man folded the paper again and laid it carefully
on Agenrood's desk. "No signature," he said.

"Did you expect there to be one?"

"Easy, Jim."

"I'm all right."

The distinguished man refilled his pipe. "What do you think he
means?"

"It's obvious, isn't it?"

"Maybe."

"He wasn't trying to kill me the other night at all. He's not a
professional assassin."

"Unless he's freelancing."

"That's possible, I suppose," Agenrood said. "In any case, he knows a lot about me. I don't know how, but he's got my private telephone number at home."

"He called you?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Last night."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. I could hear him breathing on the other
end of the line, and then he hung up."

"How do you know it was him?"

"It was him," Agenrood said.

"You haven't talked to the police, have you?"

"I'm not a fool, Len."

"I didn't mean to imply that," the distinguished man, Len, said.

"I've put Reilly and Pordenza on it. They're good men."

"Sure."

"They learned that a dark blue sedan was abandoned in the Mission District some time Wednesday night. It had been stolen earlier
in the evening from a downtown parking lot. First three letters on the plate were DRD. It looks like that was the one he used."

"That bases him in San Francisco," Agenrood said. "The envelope
this note came in was postmarked there."

Len nodded.

Agenrood said, "Did Reilly and Pordenza learn anything else?"

"No."

"Well, whoever he is, he's got to be known to the National Office," Agenrood said. "Only somebody within the Circle could find out as much about me as he seems to know."

Len rubbed his nose with an index finger. "Can you think of anybody who has a grudge against you? Anybody you pushed, no matter how lightly, at one time or another?"

"None that would try anything like this."

"Give me their names anyway."

Agenrood wrote several names on a sheet of paper from his desk and gave the list to Len. He glanced at it briefly and tucked it into the pocket of his olive silk suit. "Are you staying home this week
end?"