Spiral (35 page)

Haydon had looked away from her, through the windshield to the golf greens stretching toward the pines. Garner had been right— these people had to have some prominent connections. You couldn't expect to execute a plan of this scale in the States without a considerable amount of cooperation from somewhere. But he couldn't bring himself to accept the implications of Celia's story.

"What am I supposed to do now?" she snapped at him, her nerves getting the best of her. "I don't know why the Bureau isn't offering me some protection, or something. Where the hell are they?" She started crying, burying her face in her hands, the purple cord dangling down in front of the black satin camisole. She leaned her head against the window and cried until her shoulders shook. She lifted the long folds of her skirt and held it to her face, trying to stop crying as she wiped her eyes. A sob escaped as Haydon handed her his handkerchief. She gained control, wiping under her eyes with the handkerchief, trying to clean up the dark smudges of mascara.

"God," she said finally, her voice thick and scratchy from the crying. "What a mess. I can
not
believe this."

Haydon looked at her. His gut feeling told him she was telling the truth—as she knew it. But he also had a strong suspicion that she had been deceived. He didn't believe she had been dealing with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"You're not going to be able to go back home," he said.

"Yeah," she nodded, wiping her nose. "I know."

"Why did you ride your bicycle to the station instead of driving your car?""They know the car. I'm afraid of . . . car bombs ... of, I don't know, being shot to pieces in it, like Esteban. Christ!" She wiped her nose again with Haydon's handkerchief. "I'll wash it," she said, wadding and unwadding it nervously in her lap. She looked at him. "So what am I supposed to do now? You going to be like the FBI, and drop the ball on this?"

She was talking bravely, but Haydon had been watching her twitchy movements. She was scared to death.

He turned and flipped on the car lights, put the car in gear, and started backing out of the cove, the headlights panning across the pines.

She jerked her head up and looked at him. "Now what?" she asked nervously. Haydon straightened out the Jaguar in the street and accelerated into the first sharp turn. "I think you'd better come home with me," he said.

Chapter 35

H
AYDON
took Fountainview off Woodway and stopped at the first telephone he saw along the street. He called home first.

"Nina," he said, "I'm bringing Celia Moreno home with me. Would you ask Gabriela to get one of the guest rooms ready?"

"What's the matter?"

"I think she's going to be the key to all this," he said, looking through the glass booth at her sitting in the Jaguar. "But she's got to be tucked away somewhere for a few days."

"Okay."

"I'm at a telephone booth on Fountainview. I'm going to call Bob, and then we'll be coming home."

Nina said fine. She didn't ask any more questions. Haydon hung up and dialed the dispatcher, who took his number. He waited, leaning on the aluminum shelf, watching Celia. She was still wiping at her eyes. She pulled down the car visor and looked at herself in the lighted mirror there, shook her hair, ran her fingers through it, and shook it again. She ran her fingers over her eyebrows. She stared at herself, not blinking, not fussing with her face, then in a frustrated gesture flipped up the visor. She propped her elbow on the windowsill and started chewing on a red thumbnail, looking out at the traffic.

The telephone rang, and Haydon picked it up.

"This is Dystal."

"Bob. Listen, I'm at a telephone booth out on Fountainview. I've got Celia Moreno with me. Did your men get hold of Daniel Ferretis?"

"Not exactly," Dystal said. "They got over there and he wasn't there, but a real worried wife was. She told 'em he'd called from his office at the University of Houston—he's a professor of political science there—earlier this afternoon, and told her he was going to be late tonight. But it's already a lot later than he told her he'd be."

"How about his office? You've checked that?"

"Yeah, sure did. It's been ransacked."

"Damn."

"They're checking with the political science office, and gettin' the names of the other professors teaching this afternoon, gettin' names of the students in his afternoon class to see if anybody noticed anything. That's gonna take a while. What about Moreno? She know anything that's gonna help us?"

"A lot. I'm getting ready to take her home with me. She'll be staying there. You're going to find what she has to say pretty interesting."

"Well, this is purty damn bad over here on Stang, but I think Pete's about got it whipped. I'll be over there as soon as I can."

"There's going to be a lot to sort out."

"Listen," Dystal said. "I hate to bring this up now, but I don't think I can cover you on this anymore. We got too much happening, Stu. You gotta understand that."

"I understand," Haydon said. "I appreciate what you've been doing."

"I'm on my way," Dystal said, and hung up.

Haydon put Dystal's last remarks out of his mind and stepped out of his booth. He went around and got into the car.

As they drove to Richmond and then turned east, Haydon's mind was jumping as far ahead as his imagination would allow with the available facts. He wasn't paying any attention to Celia.

"What's going to happen now?" she asked finally.

"You're going to stay with us until we get some of this sorted

out."

In his peripheral vision he could see her looking at him.

"I mean, right now, tonight," she said.

"I've called my superior officer, Lieutenant Dystal. He's going to come over to my house and I want you to go over everything with him. Everything you know from the beginning." He looked over at her. "Did you keep copies of your reports to the FBI?"

"No. There was a strict rule about that."

"Obviously we're going to want to know everything you can tell us."

He could see that she was continuing to stare at him, but she didn't say anything else. After a while she settled back and turned her eyes out the window on her side of the car.

Less than a block from the house, Haydon pushed the remote control on the gates, and they drove through to the brick drive without even stopping. He lowered the windows on the Vanden Plas to let in the fragrance from the damp lawns in the night air, an odor that often brought him outside to the terrace on summer nights despite the oppressive heat. As they followed the curve of the drive to the porte cochere, Celia sat up and bent forward, looking through the windshield at the old limestone home with its Belgian slate roof. When Haydon stopped in front, they could see through the tall front windows into the living room, and from outside, the incandescent lights made the shell-white interior appear fawn.

"Jesus," Celia said, leaning into Haydon and looking through his window at the front of the house. He felt the cushion of her breast against his chest.

In the entranceway Haydon introduced Celia to Gabriela, who, excited to have a guest, had come in as soon as she heard the door open. She asked if Celia would like to freshen up in her room, and the two of them started down the hall.

"We'll be in the library," Haydon said.

He turned and went up the stairs to their bedroom, where Nina was finishing dressing, sitting in front of a mirror combing her hair. She had bathed and changed dresses.

"How did it go?" she asked, stopping and turning to look at him.

He immediately took off his suit coat and flung it on the bed as he walked over and kissed her.

"Better," he said. "I think we're getting somewhere." He loosened his tie, walked into the bathroom, and turned on the cold water, letting it run while he rolled up his sleeves. "If Celia Moreno knows half of what I think she does, she could break it open for us, maybe keep Gamboa from getting blown away. If we have time."

He took off his watch and laid it on the marble vanity while he washed his face, holding it in the cold water cupped in his hands. Taking the soap, he worked up a thick lather and washed his arms to the elbows, then his face, and rinsed in more cold water. Drying with a towel, he walked back into the bedroom.

"Bob's on his way over, too," he said.

"What's the situation with Celia Moreno?"

"In essence she'll be in protective custody here. I was afraid to take her back to her place tonight to get clothes, so she's only got what she's wearing. We'll have to go over there tomorrow and get some of her things for the next few days."

He returned the towel to the bathroom and came back to the dressing table, where Nina was trying to decide whether to put her hair up in a chignon or leave it down.

"Why don't you leave it down?" he said, buckling his watch band. "Would you mind sitting in on this interview? I'd like to get your reaction."

"My reaction to what?" she asked, picking up her brush and running it through her hair a couple of times.

"To Celia Moreno."

The buzzer for the front gate sounded, and Haydon walked over to the wall and pressed the intercom.

"This is Dystal." The lieutenant's drawl sounded tired. Haydon pushed the button to open the gates, and they went downstairs.

Celia was coming down the hall with Gabriela just as Haydon and Nina got to the bottom of the stairs and Dystal rang the doorbell. There was a little disorganization until everyone had been greeted and introduced, and then Haydon asked them into the library. Both Dystal and Celia turned down offers to get them something to eat, but accepted his suggestion for drinks.

When they finally settled down, Celia Moreno was visibly uneasy. Haydon was sympathetic. He didn't know what she might have expected, but this certainly wasn't it. He saw her watching Nina. Even for a savvy young woman who was used to operating in the fast lanes of the Post Oak world, Nina was a class act that definitely had a humbling effect.

Haydon himself was not entirely at ease. He was well aware that Dystal had gone far beyond the jurisdiction of official license in letting him operate in the way he had, and sooner or later was going to have to explain—exactly, or with a considerable strain on the truth—how all this new material had come to him from outside the official investigation being organized by Lapierre. It was possible to attribute a great deal to "tips," but this wasn't going to fit. He and Dystal would have to work it out.

"Celia," Haydon said, "I've told Lieutenant Dystal only a little background regarding your situation, so I want you to start at the beginning, just as you did with me. Try to present as much detail as possible." He glanced at her. "I'm going to record this. It's standard practice. There's simply no way we can remember it all otherwise, and we want to have something to reference when we ask you questions later."

"Fine," she said. "But I've got one question." She looked a little apprehensive, yet determined, as if she were going to ask the question even though it might be inappropriate at this point. "Where does this put me with the FBI? I mean, couldn't this be construed as giving some kind of evidence against them? Can't they prosecute me for this? Where do I stand if there's a federal-state conflict over this?"

Haydon glanced at Dystal again. The lieutenant's eyes were settled on the girl as if the rest of the room did not exist. Celia's reference to the FBI had concentrated his attention. He wasn't going to miss anything about this woman, and when she was through talking to them he would have very strong opinions about her story, and about Celia Moreno.

"I don't think there's any conflict here, Celia," Haydon said. "I'll tell you why later. Right now I'll give you my personal guarantee you're not going to get yourself in legal trouble by talking to us." It was a guarantee that meant nothing. Dystal didn't flinch.

Haydon got up and turned on the recording system. A microphone sat on a small vitrine between them so it could pick up all their voices. He stated the date, the circumstances, and the people present at the interview.

"Okay, Celia. Go ahead."

Chapter 36

BlAS
MEDRANO
drove back to La Colombe d'Or and went up 1 his suite. It was shortly after eight o'clock when he sat down at tl desk in the living area and picked up the telephone book. He looked under railroads, Southern Pacific Transportation Company. Their were several numbers listed, so he called the general offices. There was a recording saying the office was closed and giving the hours it w open and numbers that could be called for passenger service, freight service, and the roadmaster's office for reporting repairs.

Before dialing he made a few notes about the questions needed answered, mentally going through the mechanics of his ph Then he picked up the telephone.

"Roadmaster's office." The woman sounded like a dispatcher, a switchboard operator.

"Yeah, I need to speak to somebody about repairin' a track
c street crossin'," he said. He slipped into a heavy Chicano speech f tern, knowing he wasn't going to be able to disguise his Mexican flections anyway, and that in the subsequent investigations a distinguished voice would simply be described as Mexican.