The Naked Face

"Do you know where he is now?" asked the younger of the FBI men.

"No. We had a tail on him, but he lost him. He could be anywhere."

"He’ll be hunting for Dr. Stevens," said the second FBI agent.

Captain Bertelli turned to the FBI men. "What are the chances of Dr. Stevens staying alive?"

The man shook his head. "If they find him before we do – none."

Captain Bertelli nodded. "We’ve got to find him first." His voice grew savage. "I want Angeli brought back, too. I don’t care how you get him." He turned to the detective. "Just get him, McGreavy."

The police radio began to crackle out a staccato message: "Code Ten…Code Ten…All cars…pick up five…"

Angeli switched the radio off. "Anyone know I picked you up?" he asked.

"No one," Judd assured him.

"You haven’t discussed La Cosa Nostra with anybody?"

"Only you."

Angeli nodded, satisfied.

They had crossed the George Washington Bridge and were headed for New Jersey. But everything had changed. Before, he had been filled with apprehension. Now, with Angeli at his side, he no longer felt like the hunted. He was the hunter. And the thought filled him with deep satisfaction.

At Angeli’s suggestion, Judd had left his rented car in Manhattan and he was riding in Angeli’s unmarked police car. Angeli had headed north on the Palisades Interstate Park-way and exited at Orangeburg. They were approaching Old Tappan.

"It was smart of you to spot what was going on, Doctor," Angeli said.

Judd shook his head. "I should have figured it out as soon as I knew there was more than one man involved. It had to be an organization using professional killers. I think Moody suspected the truth when he saw the bomb in my car. They had access to every kind of weapon."

And Anne. She was part of the operation, setting him up so that they could murder him. And yet – he couldn’t hate her. No matter what she had done, he could never hate her.

Angeli had turned off the main highway. He deftly tooled the car onto a secondary road that led toward a wooded area.

"Does your friend know we’re coming?" Judd asked.

"I phoned him. He’s all ready for you."

A side road appeared abruptly, and Angeli turned the car into it. He drove for a mile, then braked to a stop in front of an electric gate. Judd noticed a small television camera mounted above the gate. There was a click and the gate swung open, then closed solidly behind them. They began driving up a long, curving driveway. Through the trees ahead, Judd caught a glimpse of the sprawling roof of an enormous house. High on top, flashing in the sun, was a bronze rooster.

Its tail was missing.

Chapter Twenty-One

IN THE SOUNDPROOFED, neon-lit communications center at Police Headquarters, a dozen shirtsleeved police officers manned the giant switchboard. Six operators sat on each side of the board. In the middle of the board was a pneumatic chute. As the calls came in, the operators wrote a message, put it in the chute, and sent it upstairs to the dispatcher, for immediate relay to a substation or patrol car. The calls never ceased. They poured in day and night, like a river of tragedy flooding in from the citizens of the huge me tropolis. Men and women who were terrified…lonely…desperate…drunk…injured…homicidal…It was a scene from Hogarth, painted with vivid, an guished words instead of colors.

On this Monday afternoon there was a feeling of added tension in the air. Each telephone operator handled his job with full concentration, and yet each was aware of the number of detectives and FBI agents who kept moving in and out of the room, receiving and giving orders, working efficiently and quietly as they spread a vast electronic net for Dr. Judd Stevens and Detective Frank Angeli. The atmosphere was quickened, strangely staccato, as though the action were being staged by some grim, nervous puppeteer.

Captain Bertelli was talking to Allen Sullivan, a member of the Mayor’s Crime Commission, when McGreavy walked in. McGreavy had met Sullivan before. He was tough and honest. Bertelli broke off his conversation and turned to the detective, his face a question mark.

"Things are moving," McGreavy said. "We found an eyewitness, a night watchman who works in the building across the street from Dr. Stevens’ office building. On Wednesday night, when someone broke into Dr. Stevens’ office, the watchman was just going on duty. He saw two men go into the building. The street door was locked and they opened it with a key. He figured they worked there."

"Did you get an ID?"

"He identified a picture of Angeli."

"Wednesday night Angeli was supposed to have been home in bed with the flu."

"Right."

"What about the second man?"

"The watchman didn’t get a good look at him."

An operator plugged in one of the innumerable red lights blinking across the switchboard and turned to Captain Ber telli. "For you, Captain. New Jersey Highway Patrol."

Bertelli snatched up an extension phone. "Captain Bertelli." He listened a moment. "Are you sure?…Good! Will you get every unit you can in there? Set up roadblocks. I want that area covered like a blanket. Keep in close touch… Thanks." He hung up and turned to the two men. "It looks like we got a break. A rookie patrolman in New Jersey spotted Angeli’s car on a secondary road near Orangeburg. The Highway Patrol’s combing the area now."

"Dr. Stevens?"

"He was in the car with Angeli. Alive. Don’t worry. They’ll find them."

McGreavy pulled out two cigars. He offered one to Sullivan, who refused it, handed one to Bertelli, and put the other one between his teeth. "We’ve got one thing going for us. Dr. Stevens leads a charmed life." He struck a match and lit the two cigars. "I just talked to a friend of his – -Dr. Peter Hadley. Dr. Hadley told me that he went to pick up Stevens in his office a few days ago and found Angeli there with a gun in his hand. Angeli told some cock-and-bull story about expecting a burglar. My guess is that Dr. Hadley’s arrival saved Stevens’ life."