Chameleon by William Diehl Page A

say?’ Garvey asked.
    Hooker handed it to him. There were three names on the slip of paper:
    AQUILA
    THOREAU
    WOLFNAGLE
    ‘He’s everywhere,’ Hooker croaked, ‘he’s like the mist, like some foul fog.’ He tilted the box, looked inside and paused for a moment before reaching in and taking out a man’s gold watch. He turned it over and read the name engraved on the back.
    ‘We’ve still got Bradley,’ Garvey said. ‘He’s one of the best assassins in the world. If anybody can terminate Chameleon, he can.’
    ‘Afraid not,’ Hooker whispered and his voice quivered with rage. This is Bradley’s watch.’

BOOK TWO
    A true friend always stabs you in the front
    —OSCAR WILDE

I
    The frigid February wind swept in off Boston Bay, and Eliza Gunn and George Gentry huddled in the arched doorway to avoid the stinging snow that was swept along with it. The car was half a block away. James, the sound man, a latter-day hippie who was only slightly larger than Eliza, would be sitting in there with his cowboy hat pulled down over his eyes and the heater on, listening to the Top Forty while they froze their onions here on Foster Street.
    It had been four days since they started following Ellen Delaney, making like the FBI, changing cars twice a day, keeping in touch on CB Channel 11. So far, it had been a waste of time. But by now George knew better than to bitch. The minute he did, the Delaney dame would o something dumb. And they would score. It always turned out that way. Eliza had strange instincts, but they worked. So he kept his mouth shut and turned the collar of his jacket up a little higher and pulled his head down into it. ‘I’m catching pneumonia,’ he said. ‘Somebody ought to put a sticker on your butt, It should say:
    “Caution, the Surgeon General has determined that Eliza Gunn is dangerous to your health.”
    ‘A big guy like you, complaining,’ she said. ‘You should be ashamed.’
    ‘There’s three times as much of me to get cold,’ he growled.
    George Gentry was over six feet tall, and his weight ranged between two-twenty and two-fifty, depending on how well he was eating. Eliza Gunn was barely five feet and weighed ninety-eight pounds, no matter what the ate. Mutt and Jeff, freezing their onions in a doorway because Eliza had a hunch.
    ‘How come James always gets the car and I always get the Street?’
    ‘He drives better than you do.’
    ‘I’ll be goddamned!’
    ‘Now, Georgie—’
    ‘Don’t gimme any of that sweet-talkin’ shit.’
    ‘Trust me, Georgie-boy. My instincts are going crazy. All my Systems are on go.’
    ‘The last time this happened,’ George said ruefully, ‘I had four Mafia torpedoes baby-sitting me while I shot your exclusive interview with Tomatoes What’sisname.’
    ‘Garganzola.’
    ‘Hell, his name isn’t Garganzola. Tomatoes Garganzola sounds like something off a Mexican menu. I thought at any minute you were gonna ask the wrong question and we were all gonna end up in the foundation of some bridge somewhere.’
    ‘But I didn’t. Besides, Tomatoes was cute.’
    ‘Right. The DA’s after him, the Feds are after him, everybody but the goddamn Marine Corps was on his ass, for every felony on the books — and you, fer Chrissakes, think he’s cute.’
    ‘It won us an Emmy, Georgie.’
    ‘I work for wages, not glory.’
    ‘Oh, bullshit.’
    And George started to laugh. He always laughed at her profanity. It was like hearing a child cuss.
    She ignored the cold, watching the office building through binoculars.
    ‘If we had—’ he began.
    ‘George!’
    ‘Hunh?’
    ‘There she is,’ Eliza said.
    ‘Lemme see.’
    She handed him the binoculars. ‘Coming out of the bank building, in the mink jacket.’
    ‘How about the blond hair?’
    She took the glasses and zeroed in on the Delaney woman
    — tall, over five-ten, and stacked. Eliza checked her out again, especially the legs, the walk: It was Ellen Delaney, all right. She was positive. ‘It’s a