Cut and Thrust

40

The Grosvenor Gulfstream IV landed smoothly at Oakland and taxied to the Business Jet Center. The stewardess took their hand luggage while the pilots and linemen moved their larger baggage from the rear compartment to their Bentley Mulsanne, which stood, idling, beside the big jet.

“Anything I need to know about the last twenty-four hours?” Charles asked as he helped Barbara into her coat.

“Nothing you want to know,” she said, pecking him on the lips. “Just remember I haven’t been out of your sight the past couple of days, except to go to the hotel salon.”

They walked down the airstair door and into the Bentley.

“Home, James,” Charles said to their driver, whose name was actually James. He had been invalided out of a career as a pro football linebacker by a knee injury during his fourth season and was now a factotum for the Grosvenors.

James delivered them to their apartment on Green Street, just off Nob Hill, and they took the elevator to the penthouse while James and the doormen dealt with the luggage.

Charles called his dealership and got a report from the sales manager, then he hung up. “We sold two Flying Spurs and a Mulsanne while we were gone, and four used vehicles. I wish Bentley would deliver new cars at the factory in England — we’d sell four or five more a year to people who want to tour in their new cars.”

“Keep after them, Charles,” Barbara said. She turned to the maid who was unpacking her bags. “Run me a bath.”

Late in the afternoon Chico Morales and Stockton Croft got off a flight at San Francisco International that had been somewhat less comfortable than the Grosvenor Gulfstream. They picked up their plain, underpowered rental car and drove to their blank-faced business hotel on an unfashionable block off California Street. There was no valet service or doorman, so they had to park on the street and carry their own luggage, after Croft had extracted a police placard from his briefcase and slipped it over a sun visor. He hoped the meter maid wouldn’t notice that the badge it displayed was from L.A.

“So, what’s your plan?” Morales asked.

“I don’t have a plan,” Croft replied.

“You always have a plan.”

“I have a dinner plan, but not a work plan — until tomorrow morning. I know a good restaurant that won’t shock our cashier when we turn in our expenses.”

“I place myself in your hands,” Morales said.

“Smart move.”

They dined at the bar at the Huntington Hotel, a block away from theirs, and failed to pick up anybody.

Barbara and Charles Grosvenor dined on their terrace, which had a sweeping view of San Francisco Bay.

“We’re having such beautiful weather,” Barbara said. “I thought I’d run up to Napa for a couple of days.” They had a house in the wine country outside St. Helena. “Would you like to come?”

“I really should spend the time at the dealership, my darling,” Charles replied. “It does need my attention after a week away. You go and enjoy yourself.”

Billy Burnett sat in the restaurant at the Huntington Hotel and spotted the two Los Angeles detectives immediately as they came into the bar. Billy’s presence was partially screened by a potted plant, and anyway, even people who had met him rarely noticed him in such circumstances, since he was not a noticeable person, and in any case, he had selected a hairpiece and mustache from his makeup case, and he wore glasses he did not need.

Billy had spent much of his day searching databases not available to the public. He could log on to the CIA mainframe and from there enter virtually any other computer in the country while leaving no trace of his visit. He had compiled quite a dossier on Barbara Eagle and her British husband; he was getting to know them quite well. They had a house in London, an apartment in New York, a place in Palm Springs, and a house in Napa, in addition to their Green Street apartment. He had obtained the tail number of their Gulfstream from the tower computer at Burbank earlier in the day and had lifted their flight plan. He had landed his own airplane, a JetPROP — a single-engine turboprop — at Hayward, on the eastern shore of the bay, south of Oakland, and checked into the Huntington, using a credit card and a California driver’s license in another name, part of his little inventory of identities.

Tomorrow, Billy would do some scouting around, then, perhaps, pay Mrs. Grosvenor a visit. He looked forward to meeting her.

Morales and Croft ambled back to their hotel and, along the way, spotted a parking ticket on their rental car. Written across the bottom of the ticket were the words Welcome to San Francisco, schmuck!

“I never liked this town,” Croft said.