Chameleon by William Diehl Page B

wig. Look at the coat. I’d know that mink anywhere. She was wearing it the day Caldwell disappeared. Must have cost ten thou at least.’
    ‘You know how many mink jackets there are in the city of Boston?’
    ‘Not like that one. That’s a sweetie-pi e mink, George.’
    The woman, holding her jacket closed with gloved hands, started up Foster toward Congress.
    ‘That’s just the kind of coat the head of the biggest bank in Boston would give his honey,’ she said, still watching.
    ‘Now what?’ George asked.
    ‘She’s hoofing it toward Congress,’ Eliza said. ‘Gimme the walkie-talkie. I’ll follow her; you go back to the car with James and stand by, just in case she decides to make her move.’
    ‘Which you’re convinced she will.’
    ‘Sooner or later. She’s a lady in love, George, and I know how a woman in love thinks. She’s going to want to see her man.’
    She grabbed the walkie-talkie and took off on the run, her short legs propelling her along the snow- swept Street, her short black hair dancing dervishly in the wind. George walked around the corner to Eliza’s car, a dark green Olds whose front end looked as though it might have been used, on more than one occasion, as a battering ram. He climbed in and flicked off the radio.
    ‘You’re not gonna believe it,’ George said to the sound man, ‘but she actually spotted the Delaney woman.’
    ‘Oh, I believe it,’ James said and laughed. ‘I been wrong too often not to believe it.’
    ‘You know how she spotted her?’
    ‘Tell me.’
    ‘The mink coat.’
    James laughed again. ‘Neat,’ he said, ‘if she’s right.’
    Five more minutes in that goddamn doorway, I woulda been in intensive care.’
    Eliza followed the tall woman in the mink coat along Foster to Salem to Congress. The woman entered a drugstore and went straight to the prescription counter in -the rear.
    Eliza crossed the street, looking at the posters in front of a theatre, her back to the store. ‘This is E.G., you reading me?’ she said into the walkie-talkie.
    ‘Gotcha,’ George answered.
    ‘Salem and Congress, across from the Rexall drugstore. Get in close.’
    ‘On the way.’
    Ellen Delaney got a package, signed the slip and came out. She started up Congress again, then suddenly veered across the street to Eliza’s side, flagged a cab, jumped in and headed back down Congress in the opposite direction.
    ‘Oh, shit!’ Eliza said to herself.
    The green Olds appeared seconds later and she jumped in. ‘U-turn! She’s in the Yellow Cab heading back that way,’ she yelled.
    James swung the Olds in a tight turn, cut in front of a truck, almost went up on the curb, and screeched off after the taxi. ‘Is she on to us?’ he asked.
    ‘Nah,’ said Eliza, ‘she’s just seen too many James Bond movies,’
    ‘They’re headin’ for the tunnel,’ James said.
    ‘Shit, Caldwell wouldn’t be caught dead in North Boston,’ George answered.
    ‘That’s probably what he hopes everybody thinks,’ Eliza said. They followed the cab through the tunnel and out into the north side. It moved slowly, weaving through the trucks and vans that choked the narrow streets of the market section.
    ‘That slowed her down,’ James said.
    The cab turned into a quiet street of restored town houses and stopped. The woman got out, looked around and went inside one of the houses.
    ‘He’s in there. Betcha a week’s salary.’
    ‘Instinct again, Gunn?’ George said sceptically.
    ‘Guessing,’ she said. ‘We’ve been on her for — what, four days now? Caldwell’s a diabetic. I’m betting she just picked up his insulin for the week.’
    ‘Wanna cruise down past the place?’ James asked.
    ‘Let’s just cool it and see what happens. I don’t see her Mercedes anywhere.’
    ‘Lemme see the glasses a minute,’ George said, and began to appraise the street. He focused on the house she had entered.
    ‘It’s got a garage built in,’ he said.
    ‘So much for the missing