Read Online Hour of the Assassins by Andrew Kaplan - Free Book Online

still with him. He registered under the name Charles Hillary, the identity he had picked up in Hollywood the previous night. The long-haired bellboy, who looked like a college student except for his cynical expression and knowing eyes, took Caine’s suitcase up to the twelfth floor. Caine barely glanced at the plaster Roman statues set in niches along the corridor as he followed the bellboy to his room. After the bellboy had put away the suitcase and fussed about the lavish suite a bit, Caine gave him a five-dollar tip—adequate in case he wanted to buy a little something extra later, but not enough to make the boy remember him—and locked the door as soon as he was alone.
    He lit a cigarette and sat down in the large easy chair opposite the bed. The room was opulently furnished, with oversized furniture on an ankle-deep gold carpet. The living area was separated by arched dividers from the bed that stood on a raised platform with steps. Caine walked over to the window and looked down at the city. The hotels and golf courses were spread out below him like the toys of a giant. He turned away and looked at the immense raised bed again and grinned. The place was a standing invitation to debauchery.
    Then his brow furrowed. He would have to flush the tail and find out who was after him and why. But he could take care of that later. He only planned to be in Vegas for a couple of days, so the Hillary cover should hold. But it was annoying that he had to worry about his cover so soon. After all, he had just acquired it a few hours ago.
    The first thing C.J. had done yesterday morning was to take a snort of coke and go down on him. Then she straddled him, her sea-blue eyes fastened on his like a leech, as they bucked and heaved in a sweaty tangle. For the first time, he was truly aware of her, not of her body but of her, and he groaned as he came into her. Afterward she tenderly nuzzled his neck and ear.
    â€œIt was better this time,” she said.
    â€œMuch.”
    â€œKarl said you have to leave. Will you be coming back?” she asked, and wouldn’t look at him.
    â€œI’ll be back,” he said and wondered if it was true. She smiled and snuggled against his shoulder.
    After a leisurely brunch at Alice’s on the Malibu pier C.J. had dropped him off at the airport. But instead of heading straight to Vegas, as he had indicated to Wasserman, he had doubled back and rented a car. He drove the freeways to Hollywood and checked into a cheap motel on Highland Avenue. He spent the rest of the day in his room, except for brief excursions to a stamp shop, a stationery store, and finally a costume store on Sunset, where he bought a curly black wig, a mustache, and a red silk shirt. On his way back to the motel he stopped at a photographer’s studio and had half-a-dozen passport photos made, paying extra for immediate development.
    Back in his room he wrote himself a meaningless business letter filled with buy-and-sell agricultural commodity quotations taken from The Wall Street Journal . He carefully glued the Mauritius one-penny stamp to the envelope and, next to it, two other canceled Mauritian stamps that had come in a two-dollar packet from the stamp store. He wrote a return address on the envelope from a nonexistent Mauritian company, but left the name of the addressee blank, since he didn’t know what cover name he would be using. Then he burned the remaining stamps. He also burned the hundred-dollar bill that Wasserman had first sent him, using it to light a cigarette. He knew it was childish, but it was something he had always wanted to do, and besides, he had to destroy the bill in any case, since it had Wasserman’s number on it and was the only physical link connecting them. The last thing he did before taking a nap was to ring the desk and instruct them to call him at 8:00 P.M.
    He met Charles Hillary at the Peacock Lounge on Hollywood Boulevard, the second gay bar he had hit that