By Reason of Insanity (62 page)

Now it all was clear.

The way Solis had it planned, his insurance was the letter in the hands of somebody unknown to Hansun. As for Messick, he figured he was safe as long as Hansun didn’t know he was wise to the Idaho identity and location. An obvious act of hostility by both men against someone who had bankrolled them when they were down and out.

Carl Hansun got so mad at the thought he reached into a table drawer and pulled out a pack of Camels and broke it open. In a moment smoke was pouring out of him. He sat stonily still and fumed for a long time. He had helped both of them and all he had asked in return from Solis was a small favor having to do with Senator Stoner. From Messick he hadn’t even asked anything in thirteen years. He had proved himself a friend and expected the same from them.

Instead they had consorted to betray him. To put his position and even his freedom in jeopardy. Don had returned the favor, all the while planning to stick a knife in his back. And Johnny had twisted it. They were equally guilty.

He had to get the letter and destroy it. It wasn’t just the old robbery rap; he might even beat that since it was so long ago. But Stoner was a big man now, and getting bigger, and he had a piece of Stoner. It wouldn’t do to have the senator investigated like they were doing to Nixon. He might be the next governor or United States senator. After that, who could say? And he owned a
piece
of the man!

Nor could he allow his past to interfere with his complex business activities. He was Carl Pandel and he controlled a half dozen companies. He was one of the state’s leading citizens, admired and respected by some very powerful men. He was a man of power himself Whatever else might happen, that position was not to be disturbed.

He would have to get the letter.

Which still left Don Solis and Johnny Messick.

He would do something about that too.

Which would leave only him.

He checked his watch. His loving wife would soon be home from her Sunday-night hospital committee meeting. He missed her whenever she was away, no matter how brief a time it was. When she came home they would play a little cards or watch TV or just talk. After all these years they still liked to talk to each other, still had much to say.

He ground out the cigarette and put the pack back in the drawer. He wouldn’t smoke anymore before bed. No use staying angry. Business matters always came up that had to be taken care of, no more and no less. He would take care of them, as he always did.

He walked into the kitchen and got himself a glass of grapefruit juice. Then he sat on the porch and waited for his wife.

THE OBJECT of Carl Hansun’s anger also intended to go to bed shortly, and not alone either. For sixteen years Don Solis had lived without women, and after five years of freedom he was still trying to make up for lost time. They were there to be used, like tissues or plastic bags, and he intended to use as many as possible. The more the merrier and the younger the better. Young teenage girls were the best of all, to his way of thinking. They were still full of the juice of life.

At the moment one of them was in his hotel room, sharing a pint of bourbon. She was sixteen, a runaway from a small town near Fresno, and she lived down the hall with a young man who had picked her up on the road. He was away on ajob and she was bored.

Solis had seen the two of them in the hall a number of times and little by little had caught her eye. He seemed to have the right rhythm for very young girls of a certain type, who found him slightly menacing and therefore a challenge. The first time he saw her alone in the hail he started a conversation. It wasn’t overly subtle but it was effective. She giggled and sighed and rolled her eyes and was thrown off balance. He had sized her up correctly. After that it was easy.

Now he watched her as she took a long pull on the bourbon, her huge breasts thrust forward in obscene fashion. When she finished smacking her lips he kissed her, placing his hand firmly on a breast. She moaned in acknowledgment and drew tighter. By the time he had inched her to the bed her hand was on his penis. He opened her blouse and she did the rest as his eyes widened in anticipation. She had a roller-coaster body and he had his ticket right in his pants. He would ride her as long as the park was open.

Consciously carnal, the teenager shivered with thrills as she felt his thing explore her. It felt very professional. She hoped he had a lot of staying power because she surely needed it. Needed something, for certain.

To Solis, smothered in sensuality, life was looking up again. He had the business with Carl Hansun straightened out, and his letter was safe with Johnny Messick. He was making money in the diner and he would make even more. He had plans.

Throughout the night, between bouts of sleep, the two combatants fitfully coupled and uncoupled as the flesh moved them.

KENTON AWAKENED at 8 A.M. right on schedule, rested and alert. By 8:30 he had showered and shaved and was ready to sit down to breakfast, which he ordered sent up. When the awaited merchandise was delivered at nine o’clock he was in the middle of two eggs fried pancake style and a muffin burned black. He gave the man one thousand dollars in cash and watched it being counted. Twice.

For the next twenty minutes he read about Carl Pandel, Senior. Besides heading up Western Holding, Pandel controlled or was a principal in all the satellite companies, including Rincan Development, of which he was chief executive officer, and the Pacifica Construction firm, which he owned outright and served as president. He was big money and had big political clout. He was also fifty-seven, his wife fifty-six. Two sons, Carl, Junior, now in New York, and Charles, in his second year at Stanford. Owned property in Idaho, Washington, Oregon and northern California. Lived in Idaho at least twenty years. Served in a number of administrative capacities in Boise and on several state commissions. A Republican, Pandel was known for his generous political contributions. Investment portfolio included a dozen major stocks, mostly in energy-related fields, and a wide assortment of state and municipal tax-free bonds. A heavy trader in lumber, mineral and precious metals commodities on both the West Coast and Chicago commodity exchanges. Also the Calgary Exchange in Canada. Believed to hold major equity in several Canadian mining ventures. Believed to have a Swiss bank account. Traditionally made unusually low income-tax payments for such a high gross income. Had individual trust funds set up for wife and sons …

The financial report went on and on and as Kenton read it through, he noted two obvious conclusions. Carl Pandel was apparently interested only in his own land and mineral ventures in the West and held no directorships or corporate seats on the boards of other businesses or in other geographical areas, such as New York. Pandel also was seemingly not himself involved in the business underworld, though he might have associates who were so involved. Such men often did.

Kenton noticed there was nothing in the report about the man’s background and early years, and he wondered about it. But since his interest was focused entirely on the present, on what was happening at the moment, he soon let the thought slip from his mind.

He had found nothing unusual about Pandel or his business activities, nothing that would shed any light on either Chess Man or Senator Stoner. Evidently it was just a coincidence that the man who was behind Western Holding had a son who was a suspect in the search for the maniac. Coincidences happened all the time, even stranger than that. Like the fact that Senator Stoner got valuable land for next to nothing from a satellite of Western Holding. Or like the fact that the top corporate people at Newstime—Mackenzie, Dunlop, most of the other big shots—all had a piece of Western Holding, which was very big in lumber which made paper for things like magazines. Even though the antitrust laws frowned on publishing corporations owning forests. But Newstime didn’t own any forests. Western Holding did. Newstime people just owned a piece of Western Holding. It probably was a smart buy and they all saw it and simply bought at the same time. Just another coincidence.

Adam Kenton didn’t believe in coincidences. He was willing to admit that the Pandel boy coming briefly into the picture was an oddity. But the Stoner deal was strictly malodorous. So was his company’s fancy footwork, though everything was no doubt legal. He knew what to do about Stoner but he wasn’t sure about Newstime. He’d probably just tell them to sell their holdings. The stink from the Stoner publicity would do the rest.

Assuming they printed the story when he wrote it.

God help them if they didn’t! He would be forced to go after all of them like an avenging demon.

The power of the press. And didn’t he love it!

When he had finished his reading and his breakfast Kenton took the report to his office and put it in the safe. The time was 9:50 into the morning of November 5.

INSPECTOR DIMITRI’S meeting was just breaking up at the i3th Precinct on East 21St Street. The mood this time was not quite so confident as that of the initial assembly two weeks earlier. By now the homicide detectives were beginning to realize they were up against somebody a little more resourceful than a slobbering madman or a wild-eyed berserker. Their enemy was shrewd and dispassionate. He went about his hideous business with a professional instinct, his every step calculated. Much like a chess player plotting his next move. He was obviously a master of disguise or else possessed the legendary cloak of invisibility. Thousands of hotel people in the city had his picture—dark, menacing. Other thousands of posters were in supermarkets, post offices, car-rental agencies and sales lots, bus and airline terminals, gas stations, banks, anywhere he might be recognized. Sooner or later their efforts would pay off at least they were still sure of that. Most of them anyway.

The latest victim had been found the previous Wednesday evening. This was Monday morning. Four days and no further killings. None discovered, at any rate. A few of them, the inveterate optimists, thought the worst might be over.

Dimitri knew better. His man had found a hole somewhere. Or had made one for himself, which was really all he needed. With a base of operations, he could sneak out whenever he wanted, and then slip back. Wherever too. He was already branching out. Not only prostitutes but girls living alone. Next time it could be any female anywhere.

But why the change to bat man? Why write a new name? What was its significance? There were some in the Department who believed the latest killing was the work of an imitator. Yet the M.O. was identical to the others. It had to be the work of the same madman. The imitators would come later, after the original was dead and gone.

Dimitri frowned in thought. He hoped he was around to see it. Couldn’t tell for sure, though. They never did catch Jack the Ripper.

Meanwhile he had ten more men and could use a hundred. But the net was widening every day. Something was bound to fall in.

For no reason he suddenly had a vision of vampire bats. They lived on blood. Maybe that was what Chess Man meant. He was a vampire bat. He could not be killed and he would not be captured.

Dimitri had a helpless feeling that things were going to get worse before they got better.

BY ELEVEN o’clock Kenton had listened to the entire Stoner tape for the second time. On it was talk of the land purchased from the real estate outfit, as well as mention of several other questionable and highly suspicious business deals. One section concerned the Solis incident. It sounded as though someone had set up the whole confession story to benefit Stoner but no names were mentioned. There were other things too, sleazy political deals and scatological opinions of prominent politicians and much obscene sexual material. All of it added up to enough for a withering investigative report on Senator Stoner.

Kenton put the tape in the safe. He would work on the article concurrently with his other investigation, mostly at night. It shouldn’t take him more than a week.

John Perrone called to assure him that all phone taps had been removed. In turn he was told that the story on the politician would be in his hands by the following Monday, hopefully. He wanted to know who it was. Kenton told him.

Perrone asked for a preliminary discussion first and a look at what they had in the way of information. That seemed fair under the circumstances and Kenton agreed. Ordinarily his stuff would go through a senior editor and then to one or more of the assistant managing editors before reaching Perrone’s exalted desk. But he was on special assignment and responsible to Perrone personally. He wasn’t sure that was altogether a good thing in this instance.

At 11:30 he called Amos Finch in Berkeley but got no answer. From Mel Brown he learned that Thomas Bishop had been born in Los Angeles in 1948. He didn’t have the exact date or the hospital, if any. Kenton quickly sorted through the stack of papers on Vincent Mungo from the safe. What he sought was near the bottom. All about Bishop’s father’s death and the mother resuming her maiden name. Which meant that Bishop was Owens at birth and his mother had nothing to do with Caryl Chessman. No! It meant only that Bishop wasn’t Bishop at birth. Best to make certain. He skipped down the notice until he found what he needed. Born in Los Angeles County General Hospital on April 30, 1948. Just about the time Chessman went to prison for good.

He called Los Angeles. The administration office wasn’t open yet. Frustrated, he stared out the window at a gray New York morning.

Eventually he called Fred Grimes. When would the private detectives be finished checking out the Manhattan mail-drop list?

By that evening. Why?

Forget the other boroughs. They should immediately get on the twenty-two young white males. Plus whatever other eligibles they came up with. A total screening job.

What would they look for?

Anything out of the ordinary. Anything recent. Maybe someone just moved in but didn’t say from where. Maybe he acted funny. Maybe he liked knives. Maybe anything strange.

Chess Man lived in Manhattan, Kenton was sure of that now. He had studied his prey for a month, thought of him, dreamed of him, lived with him in his head until he was almost beginning to feel what Chess Man was feeling. Like any animal, he wouldn’t stray too far from the kill.