By Reason of Insanity (68 page)

So he, Kenton, had picked something Bishop would do. Something the police wouldn’t think of, not knowing the man. The city’s mail drops. And he picked the first week, which was also in Bishop’s pattern of immediate action.

When he pulled up the net, Bishop should have been inside.

Only he wasn’t.

And Kenton didn’t know why.

He asked Grimes again if the city officials had gone to all the drops in Manhattan. If they got all the recent names from each. If the detectives checked all those names for eligibles. If they investigated all twenty-seven finalists.

As far as Grimes knew, the answer was yes to all.

Kenton went back to staring at the wall.

IN THE early afternoon Kenton took a long lunch and then worked for an hour on the Stoner article, his mind far away. Toward the close of the day a thought popped into his head and he called Mel Brown, The secretary reported him away for the afternoon on business and Kenton said he’d call again in the morning.

BISHOP LEFT the lights on in the studio. He didn’t expect to be away very long. When he returned with the model it would be his last opportunity to play photographer, a role he rather liked, and the thought saddened him. He would at least try to make it an outstanding performance, one the model would remember for the rest of her life.

Outside the air was brisk, and Bishop shuddered a bit as he turned left into early evening shadow.

SHE WAS late as usual, and as she ran out the door she dashed off a note to her roommate that she was going to model for a magazine with a photographer named Jay Cooper. Somewhere downtown, she didn’t know exactly where.

Back in a few hours.

DORY MADE herself walk over to the car. This time she wasn’t frightened by the two men, not terribly anyway. Her mind was on money and they had it. And she had what they wanted, at least the information, She told them the letter was kept in a steel desk at home. Messick had this room that he used for business and making calls, it was really a second bedroom. Earlier in the day when he was out, she had looked at the desk. On the right side was a little door, like a safe. It opened with a key but it didn’t look all that strong.

Was she sure about the letter?

She shook her head. Don Solis. Right. She was sure.

They believed her.

When would she get the money?

When they got the letter.

She couldn’t open the safe by herself

They would take care of it. All she had to do was open the front door for them. Friday morning. They’d get the letter and she’d get the money.

What about Messick?

He wouldn’t know anything about her part.

And what should she do meanwhile?

Nothing. She’d done enough already.

KENTON THOUGHT Mel Brown might see something he missed. The detectives checked everybody for those who could fit the description. Came to twenty-seven. Then they got pictures and reports on those twenty-seven.

One thing Brown couldn’t understand. How did they check everybody initially?

By taking a quick look at each one.

That was what he couldn’t understand. Were they all available to be looked at? Nobody traveling for a few weeks or away on a job? Nobody giving a wrong address? And did every single name have a local address that could be checked out?

Eyes narrowed, Kenton called Fred Grimes. Would he ask the detective agency if they had any names they could not reach, names with no local addresses? Right now?

He got his answer in minutes. There were eight names with no local addresses given. They all were out of state. Many individuals and firms from other areas of the country kept convenience addresses in New York from which the mail was routinely forwarded. The agency considered the eight to be of that type and didn’t list them because it was presumably looking for an individual who actually lived in the city.

What about Manning in Florida? He was out-of-state.

True. But he had given a local address as well.

Kenton wanted the eight investigated immediately. That very minute. Each had to be verified by the renter. And he wanted the information by 5 P.M. if at all possible.

IN SACRAMENTO, Roger Tompkins told Senator Stoner of the several original letters and copies he had in his possession which might prove embarrassing to the senator. They would, however, remain in his possession since he had no intention of resigning from the senator’s staff. Not at the moment anyway.

Stoner said nothing. As a politician he knew all about power.

AT 11 A.M, Kenton informed James Mackenzie that he was close to Chess Man but he needed more time. Mackenzie said they were running out of time. It had been a week now and he had hoped—.

Maybe just a few days, Kenton pleaded.

The others in the room were in favor of continuing.

Mackenzie told John Perrone to go ahead with the editorial calling for the President’s resignation. They would take their chances.

But—he could not guarantee more than a few days. Another week at the very most, when the new issue would be out. That was it.

BY 4:30 Kenton had answers on five of the out-of-state rentals. Three were small industrial firms in Ohio, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The fourth was a man from a hollow in Kentucky who was a mail addict and liked the prestige of a New York address. The fifth was from New Mexico, a woman who used the drop in her mail-order occult business. All had been verified.

The three left, all individuals, were from Denver, Los Angeles and Chicago. The search was on. They would know in the morning.

Los Angeles. Kenton thought of Bishop’s stay in Los Angeles after the escape. Of his mother being raped there, his father killed there. Of Caryl Chessman’s life there. Of his own Los Angeles article on Chessman, which must have been a beacon to Bishop and a godsend to Stoner. Everything came out of Los Angeles.

Now Bishop was in a box.

Kenton had a feeling it was Los Angeles.

THE ROOMMATE was worried. Pam had not been home all night or all day. Now another night and she still wasn’t home. It wasn’t like her. She had no steady boyfriend. An art student, she stayed home mostly and worked.

The roommate looked again at the note. Model for a magazine. Jay Cooper. Somewhere downtown.

Well, she’d give her until morning.

BISHOP HAD a change of heart. He had intended to leave that morning, after disposing of the final model. Now it was after nine at night and he was still at home. He had already decided to take nothing extra with him, not the camera or any of the books or his radio or even his extra clothes. He would start all over again as Thomas Wayne Brewster. Everything different. But he wanted one more final night as Jay Cooper in the only real home that had ever been his. The danger was there and it was real. Yet he was giving them too much credit. He was far too clever for them, He was the Chess Man, the Bat Man. They could never kill him or even capture him. He would outlast and outlive them all. What did they know about him? Nothing. And they never would.

He was going to go out to a bar and pick up a woman and take her to his first home on his last night and hold a final celebration. She would be part of his celebration, a very big part.

In the morning he would leave alone, as he always was and always would be. World without end.

AT 8:20 A.M. Pam Boyer’s roommate called the police to report her friend missing. She gave the particulars and read the note, including the name Jay Cooper. The information was routinely dispatched to Missing Persons Bureau. Because of the current publicity concerning several such women, the report was also marked for special attention Task Force.

AT 9:10 Jay Cooper left his home for the last time. Wearing his wool socks under brown boots, wrapped in his muffler and suede leather jacket, and carrying only his portable TV set, he walked to a subway that would take him to a new life.

He was alone.

AT 9:25 Adam Kenton was told that it was not Los Angeles that hid Chess Man behind its New York mailing address. The rental was paid by an irate client who apparently used it for purposes not entirely legal. But he was confirmed as its lessee and he was not Thomas Bishop. Nor was it Denver, where the customer was a self-employed businessman who was in New York one week a month.

It was Chicago.

Jay Cooper was a Chicago resident who knew nothing about a mail address in New York City. It wasn’t his. How could it be? He didn’t even like New York. Hadn’t been there for years.

It was Bishop.

Somehow he’d been able to latch onto Jay Cooper’s identity. The rest was easy. No, not easy. Just a lot of thought and careful planning. That was never easy.

Kenton had the face and he had the name. All he needed was the address.

Now was when he should go to the cops. From here on in he could be accused of anything and they’d be right. He was withholding, interfering and probably a lot more. But he hadn’t come this far to hand it over to someone else. He wasn’t built that way. Never would be.

Mackenzie had given him a few more days.

He would take them. And the consequences too.

By ten o’clock he was talking to the manager of the midtown detective agency, explaining what he wanted. An all-out effort to locate one man. His mailing address was downtown, so he probably lived downtown. East Village, Bowery, Soho. Copies of the drawing of his face would be ready by midafternoon for the detectives. They should show it everywhere in the area, especially in stores and restaurants. Other operators were to go after the name. Jay Cooper. Somebody must’ve heard it. He paid rent under the name. Maybe worked or had a phone or rented a car or applied for something. Cost was no object. Whatever it took. The manager was to throw everybody he had into it. If that wasn’t enough he should get more.

Kenton was to be kept informed. Right through the night at the St. Moritz. They should work round the clock. He needed results and he had no time left.

ELSEWHERE IN midtown a telephone operator for an answering service thought she probably was being silly, but it seemed like all those girls who disappeared had called one of her clients. She remembered hearing their names on the phone. Johnson. Daley. Ubis. Boyer.

She stared at the names in the paper. Lots of people have the same name, Sure, that was it. She was just being silly.

NOVEMBER 15 was a day Adam Kenton afterward swore he would long remember. He sat in his office hour after hour, unable to work or even concentrate. Each time the phone rang he jumped for it, then had to tell people to get off the line. Several times he checked with the agency. Each time the answer was the same. Almost fifty people were in the field. Other shifts would take over in the evening. They would work all night if that was what he wanted.

At 6 P.M. he finally went home. He ate a quick meal and spent the evening watching television with the sound off. He didn’t think he would sleep at all but eventually he did, the phone by his ear.

THE TELEPHONE operator decided that maybe she should mention her suspicions to her boss. Even if it was silly, so what? They were supposed to be alert and conscientious, weren’t they?

So that was what she would do in the morning.

THE CALL came at 7:43 A.M.

Kenton leaped up so suddenly he knocked over the ashtray, and crushed cigarettes spilled onto the floor as he speared the receiver.

They had found Jay Cooper. Where he lived. A three-story building on Greene Street in the Soho district. Had a loft there. No one else living in the building at the present time.

They had found him through a petition filed by the building’s owner to have the property’s tax assessment reduced. He was listed as a business, Jay Cooper Novelties, since the area was not zoned for residential use.

A man was already stationed near the house, watching it.

Kenton said he would meet them in forty-five minutes. Where?

In Ray’s, a restaurant on Centre Street near the Criminal Courts Building that opened at 7:30.

All the way downtown in the cab Kenton kept thinking that something would go wrong. When he got there the restaurant would be gone or the phone call was a wrong number. Something crazy.

But they were waiting for him, three bulky private detectives with guns. And now as they rode in silence, Kenton in the front seat, his hands clasped on his lap, he hoped his luck would hold out just a little longer.

IN FRESNO, California, Don Solis listened for a few seconds to Sinatra singing “It Was a Very Good Year.” He hummed a few bars. He was feeling good on this bright Friday morning and his future looked even brighter.

He didn’t have a worry in the world.

With soft music filling the car, he reached out and turned on the ignition and his whole future blew up in his face.

FARTHER SOUTH, in San Diego, two men walked up to a home on a quiet street. They were soon let in by a young woman.

Once inside the house they shot the woman with silencer-equipped pistols, then went into the bedroom and killed John Messick in his sleep.

In the second bedroom one of them got a short crowbar from under his jacket and in seconds had the desk strongbox opened. They took the envelope marked “Don Solis.”

Within three minutes they were out of the house and in their car again.

THE SEDAN stopped down the block and four men got out and walked to the loft building. One of them used some small tools on the front door. Soon it opened and they entered cautiously.

They quickly were at the second-floor landing, guns drawn. Ahead of them the door was open. They peered into a large room with a white-papered wall and a camera mounted on a tripod.

Nobody was home.

Two of them squeezed through the boards to the top-floor landing and slowly started up the stairs.

INSPECTOR DIMITRI had compared the name given him by the telephone operator with that in the previous day’s report of a missing young woman. They were the same.