It was five minutes till ten when he emerged from an adjacent parking facility, driving a new, light brown, two-door hardtop. He had had no difficulties.
The luminescent dial of Cain’s wristwatch read ten-forty when he parked the hardtop less than half a block beyond James Agenrood’s red brick home on Devaney Way in Hillsborough. He eased his body down on the seat, remaining beneath the wheel; he adjusted the rearview mirror until he could see clearly Agenrood’s garage, and the pale light that burned above its electronic door. He was not worried about being seen there, or of anything happening to him so near Agenrood’s home; but he kept his right hand on the automatic in the pocket of his overcoat just the same.
Agenrood came out at eleven-thirteen; Cain saw his face clearly in the garage light. He was alone. He disappeared into the garage, and moments later the cream-colored Cadillac began to glide backward to the street. Headlights washed over the hardtop, but Cain was low enough on the seat so that he was sure Agenrood could not see him. The Cadillac swept past, and through the windshield now he watched it turn the corner at the first intersection and then vanish from sight.
Cain remained where he was for five minutes, timing it by his watch. Then he straightened on the seat, started the hardtop, and drove off in the direction Agenrood had taken.
Cain turned off Sharp Park Road, south onto the Coast Highway, at twenty minutes before twelve. He drove through Pacifica and Rockaway Beach; the Pacific Ocean lay smooth and hushed and cold on his right, like a great limitless pool of quicksilver in the shine from the three-quarter moon overhead.
He began to slow down when he saw the black-shadowed shape of the closed Standard station ahead of him. He came parallel to it and then made a left-hand turn across the highway and swung up onto the square of asphalt in front of the station. The cream-colored Cadillac sat dark and silent by the forward pumps. Cain touched the headlight switch, shutting the beams off; immediately, he flicked them back on again. He drove across to the opposite side of the asphalt square, waited there to allow a large truck to pass, and then swung out onto the Coast Highway again, resuming a southerly direction.
He looked up into his rearview mirror and saw Agenrood come out of the Standard station and fall in behind him.
Inside the cream-colored Cadillac, one of the two men hunched down on the floor of the back seat — Pordenza — said, “Where do you think he’s heading?”
James Agenrood’s hands were slick on the steering wheel. “I don’t know,” he answered.
“Well, I hope he gets there damned quick,” Pordenza said. “I’ve got a charley horse in my leg.”
“Just stay out of sight.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Agenrood.”
“We know what we’re doing,” Reilly put in quietly.
Agenrood watched the crimson lights two hundred yards ahead of him. A fine sheen of perspiration beaded his wide forehead. They continued for another mile, and then the left directional signal on the hardtop winked on; the car began to reduce its speed.
Agenrood said, “He’s going to turn.”
“Where?” Pordenza asked.
“There’s a narrow dirt road up ahead. It winds up into the hills, to some private homes scattered across the tops.”
“Anything between the highway and those homes?”
“No.”
“That’s it,” Reilly said.
The hardtop turned onto the dirt road. Agenrood followed. They began to climb steadily; the road twisted an irregular path, with several doglegs and a sharp curve now and then. High wisps of fog began to shred in Agenrood’s headlights, and he could see that at the crests of the hills, where the private homes were, it was thick and blanketing.
The hardtop came around one of the doglegs and its stop lights went on, flashing blood-red in the gray-black night. Agenrood said, “There’s a turnout up ahead. I think he’s going in there.”
The hardtop edged into the turnout, parallel to the upper end, where a slope was grown thickly with bushes and scrub cypress. “He’s stopping,” Agenrood said.
“Pull up behind him,” Pordenza directed from the floor of the back seat. “Leave a car’s length between you.”
Agenrood complied. When he saw the headlights on the hardtop go out, he shut his own off. It was dark then, but the moonlight — though dimmed now and then by the tendrils of fog — bathed the turnout with sufficient light to see by.
“What’s he doing?” Pordenza asked.
“Just sitting there.”
“When he gets out of the car, let him get clear of it by a few steps. Not too many. Then let us know.”
Agenrood could hear faint stirrings in the back seat. He knew Reilly and Pordenza had moved one to each of the rear doors. They were waiting there now, with one hand on the door handles and the other wrapped around their guns.
“When we go,” Reilly breathed from the back seat, “you get down on the front seat. Just in case.”
“All right,” Agenrood said, and the sweat on him was oily and cold now, flowing wetly along his body.
Cain sat very still beneath the wheel of the hardtop, his eyes lifted to the rearview mirror. There was no movement from inside the Cadillac; at least, none that he could see.
With his right hand, he took the automatic from the pocket of his overcoat and held it tightly in his fingers. He put his left hand on the door latch, and then took a long, deep breath, released it, and opened the door and stepped out onto the dusty surface of the turnout. He held the automatic low and slightly behind him, so that it was hidden from Agenrood’s view by his leg.
Cain’s muscles tensed, grew rigid. His eyes, unblinking, never left the Cadillac. He took one step away from the car, another, a third step toward the Cadillac.
Three things happened simultaneously.
There was a hoarse, muffled cry from inside the Cadillac; Agenrood’s body disappeared, falling sideways; the rear doors of the Cadillac flew open and two men came out, very fast, guns extended in their hands.
Cain threw himself to the ground, rolled once, twice, came up on his knees, bracing himself. Twin flashes came from either side of the Cadillac; the two explosions were so close together the sound of them became one. Dust splashed up to one side of Cain; at the same instant, he felt a jarring impact high on the left side of his chest, a quick cut of pain, then the area went numb. But he did not lose his balance, and his eyes were clear. The automatic bucked twice, loudly, in his hand. He saw the man on the driver’s side of the Cadillac whirl and fall, crying out.
The second man ducked behind the fender on the passenger side. Cain tried to turn his body there and couldn’t; his entire left side was without feeling now. The man on the passenger side rose up cautiously, extending his gun, aiming, and then three rapid shots sounded from the scrub cypress on the slope. The second man stood up briefly, pirouetted, and vanished from sight.
The automatic dropped from Cain’s fingers and he let his body sag forward until he lay huddled in the cold dust. He heard the whirring whine of the Cadillac’s starter; then there were several shouts and the sound of running feet. A door was wrenched open. The Cadillac became silent again.
Cain tried to smile, but he was unable to move his facial muscles. He closed his eyes. A single pair of running feet approached him, and he felt a hand on his shoulder and heard somebody speaking to him. He could not understand the words.
Blackness began to unfold behind his eyes, and then there were no more sounds at all.
The private hospital room in Pacifica had greenish walls and smelled of ether and antiseptic and, faintly, of the day nurse’s rosewater perfume. Cain sat propped up by several pillows on the single bed; his chest was bare, and the upper half of it was swathed in bandages.