Hopscotch Read online

  A huge ceiling fan revolved slowly, stirring the heat; the place was perfectly preserved, a relic of forty years ago, the few unshelved patches of wall crowded with faded photos of forgotten pugilistic champions and rifle meets. There was even a sody-cracker barrel by the fountain. The proprietor went by the name of Leroy; he had the suspicious face of mountain inbreeding and his belly made a perilous arc over the waistband of his beltless Levi’s. “How do, Mr. Hannaway.”

  “Sure is a hot one,” Kendig said. “Draw me a beer.”

  He was representing himself to be a writer who’d come into the piney woods in search of solitude to finish a book. He’d let it drop that it was a book about fishing the Arkansas River—a topic he’d chosen because he’d once used up the better part of a two-week vacation flatboating and fishing out of Fort Smith at the insistence of Joe Cutter. It had taught him he despised fishing but it had also taught him the lingo and enough local color to bluff out any questions that might be asked. Not many were likely to be asked; he’d picked the deep South to go to ground because it was a country of close-mouthed xenophobia. But it was also the most cheerless land he’d ever entered and it was already on his nerves.

  He drank his beer in silence; then he bought a newspaper and a magazine and sat at the counter over them and gnawed on a chicken-fried steak and cornbread. It had been a slow day for news; a school-bus wreck had made the headlines. He read the paper and the magazine from cover to cover and finally it was five minutes to five and he finished his third beer and went outside and hung around the phone booth pretending to look up a number in his pocket notebook until it was 4:59; then he stepped into the booth and made the call.

  The number was that of a public phone in a booth in the lobby of the Pan Am Building in New York. It rang only once before it was picked up and the operator said, “Please deposit eighty-five cents for the first three minutes.”

  The coins bonged and pinged. Then Ives’s voice said, “You’re right on time.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “Desrosiers balked a bit but he finally went the price. And I think we’ve sewed it up with the New York publisher. When we’ve got that one signed the rest of them will fall in line. In London they’re drooling over it—they can’t wait to have the finished manuscript, they’re planning a crash schedule to get it on the market as fast as they can. I’d say you’re in fabulous shape.”

  “Have you been approached by government types?”

  “I had a call this afternoon from someone named Ross. He was pretty vague about his function but I gathered it was official. He wants to come up and meet with me tomorrow morning.”

  “All right. Tell him the truth—whatever he asks.”

  “Yes.”

  Kendig said, “You won’t hear from me again for quite a while. I’m on my way out of the country tonight.”

  “Well—good luck to you then.”

  Kendig cradled it and went straight to the car and drove back into the pines.

  – 9 –

  ROSS DISLIKED JOHN Ives immediately and it was reciprocated: he sensed the underlayer of distaste and it came to the surface before he had been in the office five minutes. Ives said, “I know why you’re here. Let’s not waste each other’s time.”

  “That suits me. All right, you’re representing Miles Kendig.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “I thought we weren’t going to fence. Claude Des-rosiers’s publishing company is negotiating a contract on Kendig’s book through you, isn’t that right?”

  “When a contract’s pending I don’t make it a habit to give away information,” Ives said. He was young and smooth but the brown beard made Ross think of porcupines. “This is a competitive business, Mr. Ross. And I regard the agent-client relationship as confidential.”

  “I don’t represent a rival publishing house.”

  “I know. Miles Kendig warned me I’d be questioned by people from your agency. He instructed me to answer any questions with the whole truth. If you find me evasive it’s my own doing. You see I don’t like dealing with people like you. I don’t like what you stand for.”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t got time to get sidetracked into a philosophical debate,” Ross said. “But I’d advise you to obey your client’s instructions. It would make things painless for both of us.”

  “And the alternatives?”

  Ross couldn’t help smiling a little. “I didn’t come here to make any threats. Why, were you expecting me to? Are you by any chance recording this conversation?”

  Ives made no answer but his expression revealed that Ross had scored a hit. Ross shook his head. “I’m only going to ask you to do your duty as a public-spirited citizen. I’ve got no power to force you to do anything against your will. But we’re concerned with possible violations of the national security here. Kendig is threatening to publish material which is highly classified.”

  “No,” Ives said flatly. “You can’t take that tack.”

  “Why the hell not? It’s perfectly true and you know it.”

  “I know it damn well, Mr. Ross, but it’s something you can’t take into court. If you accused Kendig of stealing legitimate government secrets you’d have to admit under oath that the material in Kendig’s book is true.” Then he grinned infuriatingly.

  “It’s not. He’s a liar, obviously.”

  “I see. And his motive?”

  “How much money do you suppose this sensationalist tract will earn him if it’s published in fourteen countries, Mr. Ives? Isn’t that motive enough?”

  “Not for a man as wealthy as Kendig.”

  “Has it occurred to you that he may have lied to you about the extent of his wealth? Kendig was a salaried government employee for twenty-five years, Mr. Ives. I can assure you none of us has much opportunity to salt away a fortune on a civil service salary.”

  “I have reason to believe he’s made quite a lot of money since he retired from government service.”

  “But you have no real evidence of that, have you. Still, even if it were true, he might be doing it for notoriety. Celebrity is quite a temptation to most people.”

  Ives said drily, “I doubt you people would permit him to appear on television programs.”

  “I’m suggesting to you the possibility that Kendig is merely trying to do Clifford Irving one better, Mr. Ives. You’ve got to admit it’s possible.”

  “Anything’s possible. But I notice you’ve made no effort to refute any of Kendig’s charges.”

  “Would you believe me if I did?” Ross smiled again in an effort to be disarming. “I’m only asking you to grant us the benefit of the doubt.”

  Ives’s shoulders lifted slightly, and dropped. “In any case I’ve told you what my instructions are. Ask your questions, Mr. Ross, and then get out of here.”

  The plane’s vibration made concentric ripples lap at the rim of the coffee cup. He watched through the scratched Plexiglas port while the shuttle flight made its descent toward Washington National. He had rather enjoyed hectoring Ives because smug righteousness always annoyed him.

  Cutter was waiting to collect him and he got into the car talking. “He was bugging it.”

  “Naturally.”

  “About all he got on the tape was his own opinionated claptrap. I hate moralizers.”

  “Do you?”

  “They sit on the sidelines and carp. What have they got to lose? They never have to make the decisions.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Hard stuff? Well the best bit is he heard from Kendig yesterday afternoon. A prearranged phone call to a booth in the Pan Am Building—Kendig probably expected we’d have Ives’s phone tapped by now. Anyhow Kendig told him he was on his way out of the country. It was a long-distance call from a pay phone. The operator had a Southern accent and it cost Kendig eighty-five cents for three minutes. That was either just before or just after five o’clock.”

  “There’s a difference in the rates.”

  “I kn
ow. I tried to pin Ives down but he really wasn’t sure about it. He wasn’t trying to fudge it.”

  “What else?”

  “When money comes in for Kendig, Ives is supposed to send it to Switzerland in the form of a cashier’s check. It’s Kendig’s brokers, I’ve got the address here.”

  “We’ve already got that in the file. It won’t help us—they wouldn’t know where he was.”

  “I got the names of the fourteen publishers.”

  “For all the good it’ll do us.”

  Ross said, “We probably can discourage the New York publisher.”

  “What’s the good of that if it’s published all over the rest of the world? There’s no way to keep it secret. We’ve still got to stop him from writing the rest of it.”

  Cutter parked in the Official Cars Only zone and they went into the FBI building.

  Tobin was waiting for them. “We’ve got a line on your man.” Ross disliked his complacency instantly.

  Tobin was all but smirking. Cutter said, “Yes?”—withholding a great deal from his tone of voice.

  Tobin sat back and ticked the items off on his fingers. “He entered the country a couple of weeks ago on a Pan Am flight from Lisbon. P.O.E. Dulles. He rented a car there and turned it in twenty-four hours later at Newark Airport.”

  Cutter said, “Then he went into New York.”

  “Did he? Well anyhow. He shows up again two days later in Philadelphia—another rent-a-car. Then we lose him for a week. But he turned the car in.”

  You bastard, Ross thought. “Okay. Where?”

  “Down South somewhere?” Cutter said.

  Tobin gave him an irritated look. “That’s right. Charleston, South Carolina.”

  Ross nodded. The Southern-accented operator.

  Tobin said, “So we’re a lot closer behind him now.”

  “Unless he stops using those credit cards,” Cutter said. “All right, thanks for the update. Keep on it, will you?”

  “We’ll nail him cold for you, brother, don’t give it another thought. Any time we can be of service.” Tobin grinned at them.

  Out on the sidewalk it was Cutter’s turn to smile. “Those guys gloat too early. He’s put one over on them.”

  “How?”

  “We’ll see. You don’t suppose there’s a phone booth in this neighborhood that the boys back there haven’t bugged for practice, do you? No, why take the chance—we’ll drive a few blocks.” They went around to the car and Cutter said, “When we find a booth I want you to call Customs and Immigration. Check on all planes and ships that left Charleston in the past ninety-six hours. Find out if James Butler was on one of them.”

  They found a booth and Cutter double-parked and sat in the car until Ross came back from the phone. “Okay?”

  “All set. Now what?”

  “Back to the salt mines. We’ve got to catch up on the paperwork.”

  At four-fifteen the call came from Bu Customs. Ross took it and wrote down the information and hung up. Then he swiveled to Cutter. “James Butler took passage on a steamer for Capetown three days ago. One of those freighters with accommodations for twelve passengers. The Cape of Good Hope, Panamanian registry. First port of call is Casablanca on the nineteenth.”

  Cutter nodded. “Sure. That’s nearly two weeks away.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Two weeks from now we’ll nab him coming down the gangplank in Casablanca. He’ll look like Kendig and he’ll be carrying James Butler’s credit cards and passport, but he won’t be Kendig.”

  “Maybe that’s what he wants us to think.”

  “No. Because he knows we’ll be there on the pier to meet the guy whoever he is. Kendig wouldn’t box himself into a trap like that. It’s got to be a ringer.”

  Ross said, “It could be he’s made some arrangements to transfer to another boat while they’re at sea, you know. Then we’d never find him. Suppose they get to within half a day of Casablanca and a small boat comes out and takes him off?”

  “No. He’d like us to worry about that but he won’t play it that way. For one thing it would mean depending on a second party. Suppose the boatman chickened out or got appendicitis on the wrong day? No, Kendig’s too independent—he never relies on anybody else to pull him out of anything. For another thing he’s too restless to confine himself to a ship like that one. He’d get cabin fever. Kendig needs a lot of room around him—he needs several exit doors. He won’t trap himself on any ship.”

  “You know him better than I do,” Ross said, “but let’s not ignore the fact that he may be using your knowledge of him. Maybe he knows how you’ll figure it and he’s acting accordingly—by doing exactly what you don’t expect him to do.”

  Cutter gave him a slow nod. “I’ll tell you what, Ross, if it’ll make you feel better you can send a radiogram to the captain of the Cape of Good Hope—ask him to signal us immediately if James Butler leaves the ship.”

  “Hell they can’t be that far out to sea yet. We could probably reach it by helicopter right now.”

  “And do what?”

  “Well—apprehend him. That’s what we’re trying to do, isn’t it?”

  “On a Panamanian ship on the high seas? What would you use for a warrant, Ross, a stone tablet from God? Or would you prefer to go in shooting and mow him down in front of two dozen witnesses?”

  Ross spread his hands. “At least we’d find out if it’s Kendig or not.”

  “Take my word for it,” Cutter said, “It’s not Kendig.”

  – 10 –

  BY THE END of the third week in the pines he’d written and blue-penciled one hundred and eighty pages of double-spaced material but for several days he’d realized there was no way to wrap it up in two hundred pages; it was likely to run at least half again as long before he got it all said.

  He wasn’t bored with it. But the steady work was getting to him. He was getting jaded; he had concentrated too intensely for too long without respite. It was like repeating a word so often that suddenly it lost its meaning. He’s lost his grasp of the thing. It wasn’t irretrievable but he needed a day away from it.

  He thought of packing and moving out: going to Mexico or Africa and getting back to work in new surroundings. It was a little unnerving to spend too long in one place. But in this stage it was best to stay inside the United States because it kept him out of Cutter’s technical jurisdiction. It didn’t mean Cutter wasn’t hunting but it meant Cutter couldn’t mobilize much manpower. They’d have to use the FBI. The Bureau had its talents—like establishing Communist cells so that its agents would have something to report on—but the FBI wasn’t likely to track him down unless he stood in Constitution Avenue waving a Soviet flag.… And if he stayed in the States he might as well stay here because it would be hard to find a better place.

  But he’d need certain things when he began his run and they weren’t obtainable in the backwoods. The nearest cities were Atlanta and Birmingham and he decided on Birmingham because he knew its workings.

  It was September seventeenth, a Tuesday. The drive took nearly seven hours. At two in the afternoon he saw the industrial smudge on the sky and at half-past three he was parking the car against the curb on a hill as steep as anything in San Francisco. He spent the next hour buying articles of clothing, luggage, cosmetics, automobile spray-paint, a leather-worker’s sewing awl and a few other items. The city was acrid with coal fumes from the great steel furnaces. Its faces were predominantly black.

  He bought a ream of bond paper, carbons, erasers, masking tape, a thick stack of nine-by-twelve manila envelopes; as with all his purchases he paid cash and asked for a receipt because if you did that it meant you had a legitimate business reason for buying things.

  He had a meal in a mediocre restaurant and there was still time to kill; he walked back to the car and stored his purchases in the trunk and then he sat through the first hour of The Outfit in a theater redolent of stale buttered popcorn and unwashed feet. When the movie’s
climax began to build so that nobody was likely to leave his seat Kendig went into the men’s room and made his few simple cosmetic preparations, darkening his hair with a mascara rinse and poking a few wads of cotton up into his cheeks to fatten his face. Ordinarily he wore his hair parted on the left and combed across his forehead; now he combed it straight back without a part. Then he knotted the tie he’d bought an hour ago and would throw away after this one use; he turned his reversible sports jacket inside out to show the plaid side which clashed stridently with the necktie and then he stood at the urinal until people started coming out of the movie house; he blended into the crowd and went up the street.

  He could see the building from several blocks short of it—a fifteen-story office tower and the neon sign was still there, Topknot Club; there wasn’t much chance it had changed hands in seven years, it was too profitable a front. He went through the heavy glass doors into the lobby and the doorman gave him an incurious glance before he got into the express elevator behind an expensively dressed couple who talked excitedly, all the way to the top in accents so relentlessly thick he lost one word in four.

  The elevator gave out into a wide foyer with judiciously spaced spots of colored indirect lighting. The carpet was as deep and silent as spring grass. The man at the desk was clean and well dressed but the muscles and the attitudes were there: not exactly a gorilla but not far from it in function.

  Kendig waited for the Southern couple to show their membership cards and go through the door beyond the desk and then he said, “I’m from out of town. A friend brought me up here once a few years ago.”

  “You can buy a one-night membership. Cost you three dollars.”

  Alabama had local-option drinking laws and you had to be a member of the club to drink here but all it did in effect was give every bar the right to skim a cover charge off every customer. Kendig paid the three dollars and the man in the dinner jacket pressed an ultraviolet stamp against the back of his hand and waved him through.