CHAPTER

43

MCKENNA

Alcalay and I are in Tiny Naylor’s in West L.A. Only a scattering of customers in the franchise coffee shop. It’s almost 4:00 A.M. We’re pounding caffeine and reviewing where we are. I don’t know about him, but I’m exhausted.

Alcalay tracked down Lester the Locksmith, who stated that all he saw removed from the vault were the missing reels of sound track, which Keeler Barnes identified and took away. And then Keeler confirmed to Alcalay that he stopped off at the studio and the sound track is again under Panorama lock and key. Has no idea where David Weaver might be.

I mention going past Zacharias’ apartment in Sherman Oaks. No one home. I stuck one of my cards in the doorjamb. Wrote on the back for him to call me ASAP.

“So where y’think he’s at?”

“Who knows?” I say. “Zacharias could be hiding the Weaver kid in the trunk of his car and tear-assing to the Mexican border. Or maybe he propositioned one of his tourist ladies tonight and got lucky, he used to be quite a pussy hound.”

Earlier, after I left Jana, I reached Alcalay by phone and he assigned an unmarked cop car to watch her house. Now he tells me he woke up a judge to authorize a wiretap on her home phone.

“And her work phone at the studio?” I ask.

Alcalay nods, he did that, too. “Know something, I’m glad I let you into the case. Gave you a lot of shit, tried to run over a lot of what you said, but you hung in there like a real pro and played it straight up.” Clearly he thinks the case is solved and the rest is just mechanics. “We’re almost done, so why are you looking so gloomy?”

“You know. I just don’t like loose ends.”

“Then you’re in the wrong fuckin’ business.” Alcalay drains the last of his coffee. I think I liked him better when he disliked me.

*   *   *

“It’s all over but the shouting,” Clyde Tolson gloats on the secure phone line. It’s still predawn in L.A. and this is the second time I’ve called the deputy director at home tonight. The first was to alert him to Leo Vardian’s murder.

“There are still some nagging inconsistencies,” I mention.

“Naturally, but I’m sure they’ll clarify as you fellas button it up. My compliments, this has been very well managed. The berserk son of a Commie who fled a HUAC subpoena runs amok. That’ll go a long way to convincing some of the doubters that the Red Menace is still to be reckoned with. Good work.”

Then Tolson shares with me as if I’m already part of the top tier. “Timing could not be better, Brian. You and the L.A. police will run this Weaver terrorist to ground just in time for Congressional consideration of our annual budget. So be very watchful, please. We don’t want this apple cart upset, you understand?”

I know this isn’t the moment to ask him about the job heading up the countrywide bank robbery unit. That’s not how the game is played. Bureau protocol, unwritten but understood by all us long-timers, dictates that I wait for them to introduce it. Giving me the opportunity to pretend surprise and express gratitude.

Tolson, like Alcalay, is assuming only insignificant details remain. That catching the Weaver kid is simply a matter of hours. I don’t contradict him, but I’m not at all sure. After all, here’s a guy who’s been trained by the Army Rangers to evade capture in hostile territory.