13

It was a good, solid press conference that Millie and Anne Jones had put together. Miss Herzog, our bookkeeper, served coffee and thin sandwiches, for which she had a well-deserved reputation, and Millie took care of the early drinkers. We offered Cuban cigars, a lure few cigar smokers can resist, and we catered to quality and got quality: the wire services, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Herald-Examiner, the San Francisco papers, San Diego and a dozen others who mattered.

I opened with a five-minute introduction to Andrew Capestone and his mission, and then informed them that Capestone’s publishers had just been on the phone to inform me that they were going ahead with a new paperback edition of his book. Then I took questions.

“Just how dangerous is this mission?”

“I don’t know—yet. The Rhodesian government is the bad boy of the colonial world, but whether they would arrest or take sterner measures against Capestone if they found him, I can’t say.”

“What sterner measures?”

“Diplomats have been assassinated for less cause.”

“Have there been any death threats?”

“None that I know of.”

“What has Capestone been doing previous to this?”

“For some years he has been busy with a major work on colonialism—which took him to Vietnam, Indonesia and then to Africa. As you may have gathered, he has abjured publicity.”

“What made him change his mind?”

“His situation in Africa. He’s in real danger. Publicity helps.”

“And what does he look forward to after this mission?”

“His dream has been to work with the United Nations.”

A tall, slender black man, who wrote for Ebony, stood up and said, “You speak of an Ad Hoc Committee for Black Liberation. As I am sure you know, Mr. Brody, ad hoc simply means to this or for the sake of, and since it is a committee for black liberation, the first two words neither define it nor designate it. I myself know of at least a dozen committees for South African or Rhodesian black liberation or independence, any one of which could be the committee you refer to.”

“Precisely,” I agreed.

“Would you elaborate on that?”

“I am afraid I cannot—without endangering either Capestone or the committee itself. I have the right to do neither.”

“Can you give us the name of the head of the committee—or some of its sponsors?”

“No, for the same reasons.”

“And what is the program of the committee?”

“Nonviolent liberation—in the tradition of Gandhi’s movement. When you read Mr. Capestone’s book, Law and Civilization, you will find that he devotes an entire chapter to Gandhian ideas of progress and liberation.”

“And does he look forward to a Gandhi-like movement arising in South Africa?”

“He would not be there if he did not.”

There were a dozen other questions, and then it broke up. They knew they were dealing with a flak’s rigging, but it was still possible that Capestone might be the man of the hour someday; and if it were no page one story, it was certainly worth half a column on page three or four. The food was good, the drinks were generous, and the cigars were in the fifty-cent range. And when I picked up the Los Angeles Times at my door the following morning, I found the story on page three and very well treated indeed.

On the same page I found this smaller item:

A small-time drug-pusher and hoodlum, Joe Leone, was found dead in Long Beach yesterday morning. He had been shot three times, once in the head and twice in the body. According to the police, Leone had been executed elsewhere and his body brought to where it was found in Long Beach, at the edge of an abandoned pier. His legs were roped together, indicating that perhaps his killers were engaged in weighting the body for a drop into the water when they were disturbed at their task and had to take off. Leone has a police record of nine arrests and three prior convictions. He served five years at San Quentin and two years at Soledad, and he has been suspected of connections with one of the larger drug rings operating from south of the border. According to the police, there is little doubt that this is a gangland execution, but so far they offer no motive for the killing.

I read through the entire story because the name jabbed at my memory. But where? When? Certainly I had never known anyone named Leone. I don’t forget the names of people I have known. Even Capestone’s name came back to me after twenty-five years.

That struck a spark. I went to my desk, got out Capestone’s wallet and riffled through the papers. There it was, the slip of paper with the single name on it—Joe Leone.

I think I sat staring at it for perhaps five or ten minutes. When I picked it up, my hand was shaking. I put it back in the wallet and returned the wallet to my desk and sat there for perhaps ten minutes more. What was it Millicent Patience Cooper had said to me when I told her I knew what I was? Words to the effect that I hadn’t the vaguest notion what or who I was. I had created an image for a living man who was a rich nonentity, and I more than anyone or anything else had put him into the United States Senate. When he put me down, I took a small boy’s revenge and decided to do the same thing with a dead man. But where was I going with Andrew Capestone? I asked myself. What had gotten me into this incredible mess? And now, how could I get out of it?

I had come off my high, as the lads say. I had finished my trip. I was Al Brody, press agent. I made a quick, deliberate and irreversible decision. Andrew Capestone was to disappear into the Rhodesian jungles or grasslands or whatever they had in Rhodesia, forever. The American public has a twenty-four-hour memory; next week as few would remember Andrew Capestone as had known him last week.

Meanwhile I would check on the cremation. I had to know that the corpus delicti had become ashes.

Decision made, I breathed my first sigh of relief—of real relief—and decided that I would now breathe my second in a few moments. I dialed the number of the Loving Care Funeral Home and spoke to the funeral director.

“This is Mr. Brody,” I said. “You will remember me—Andrew Smith’s cremation. I presume that all went well.”

“I find this in very bad taste, Mr. Brody. Certainly you should have informed me. I suppose you will want your money back now. You must understand that our contract calls for a surrender of ten percent of the total price. There are additional charges for the use of the hearse, whether with or without the deceased.”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“The fact that when our hearse arrived at the Hospital of the Immaculate Conception, we were told that you had made other arrangements and that the deceased had been removed.”

“That is impossible.”

“Bad taste, Mr. Brody. Ourselves, we try never to do anything in bad taste.”

I finished with him and telephoned the Hospital of the Immaculate Conception and asked for the pathology room. I told them that I was a friend of Andrew Smith’s, and would they be kind enough to tell me whether his body had been removed.

“Yesterday morning, sir.”

“To what funeral home?”

“If you will wait just a moment—” I waited, and then the voice said, “Hillrest Mortuary.”

“Do you have an address?”

“Twenty-two hundred Wilshire Boulevard.”

I put down the phone and got out the Yellow Pages. There was no Hillrest Mortuary at 2200 Wilshire Boulevard or indeed anywhere else. I then called information and learned that there was no such mortuary or funeral home anywhere in Los Angeles County.

I did not take the second breath of relief. Instead, I proceeded like a somnambulist to the garage, got into my car and drove to my office. The creation was over. If I remembered properly, the deluge followed.