Runner

by Thomas Perry

  Jane took Christine into Shattuck's office. He was working on another piece of paper like the one Jane had seen before. This time, because she was standing, she could see that the type in the center of its filigreed pattern said CERTIFICATE OF LIVE BIRTH.

  Shattuck looked up. "You're Christine Monahan."

  "Yes, sir." The sir was a surprise to Jane, but said in Christine's small voice it seemed not to be ironic.

  "Is that your given name?"

  "Yes, it is. Christine Ellen Monahan."

  "And your actual birth date is...?"

  "August 24."

  "How old?"

  "I'm twenty."

  He wrote down the information, and said, "It's good to make these things a little bit off, so nobody notices you have the same birthday as the missing Christine Monahan, or takes your picture and shows it to someone in the right high school class. Can you live with being twenty-one?"

  "Yes, sir. Being older might help get people over the fact that I'm pregnant."

  "And when would you like your birthday?"

  "Uh, I don't care. How about April first?"

  "April Fool's Day. Is that a joke?"

  "No, sir. I just thought I'd be sure to remember it if it was the first of the month, and my baby should be born in September, so I wanted to save that part of the year for him or her."

  He nodded. "Good thinking. Kids like to feel special, and people are born every day of the year." He gave her a half-smile that Jane interpreted as reassuring. "You'd be surprised at how many of them are born right here."

  "Yes, sir."

  "All right," he said. "Now I'm going to take your picture. There will have to be several shots that look like they were taken at different times. They'll look like you, but don't expect them to be flattering. Try to look attractive—no deer in the headlights or anything—but don't try too hard. No real photograph on a driver's license is pretty. There are a few that are all right on passports, because people get to pick, so we'll take more time with those."

  He took her across the room to a plain wall that looked a bit whiter than the others. "Put your toes on the yellow tape." He moved a lamp on a stand to a spot where there was a blue tape strip, then took a digital camera out of a drawer and began to take pictures. He would snap one, then look at the display on the camera, and do it again. Finally he said, "That's good. Okay. New outfit. Francine?"

  The woman opened the door and leaned in. "What?"

  "Have you got anything different that she can wear as a top?"

  "How about a sweater, like it's winter?"

  "Great. Maybe after that a jacket, like for a suit."

  "I'll be right back." She disappeared.

  Shattuck sat at his table and began to make marks on a certificate, as though his drawing were automatic. "You might want to fool around with your hair, too. Anything that doesn't look like all the pictures were taken on the same day."

  Jane opened her purse, took out a brush, and brushed out Christine's hair, then pulled it into a ponytail and held it with an elastic band. She produced a pair of earrings, and handed them to her. "Put on these earrings, and some eyeliner."

  When they were finished with the photographs, Shattuck set his camera beside his computer and said, "Okay, ladies. Give me three hours, and I'll have the first set ready. The other set will be in your mailbox within six or seven weeks."

  Francine said, "Come this way." She led them out of the room into the hallway and then to a large red sitting room with overstuffed Victorian furniture and a grand piano. She said, "I'm sure you're exhausted. I remember what this was like. Those two couches on that side of the room are the most comfortable for sleeping."

  But Christine had stopped near the door. She was staring at the wall, where the paintings were hung five high. They were all nudes—standing in a bath, sitting in a garden, reclining on a couch. Christine said, "That's you on this couch," and pointed. She looked at Francine again. "They're all you." Then she looked flustered, as though she had no idea of the appropriate thing to say. "You're beautiful."

  "Thanks."

  "He painted them?"

  Francine nodded. "Of course."

  "He's so good. He should..." She had hit the barrier. There was no way to finish the sentence, so she didn't.

  "He does," said Francine. "Get some sleep. Before daylight comes, you have to be gone." She turned off the lamp near the door, walked out, and closed the door, so the room was nearly dark.

  Christine said, "I'm sorry. I should have kept my mouth shut."

  "It's all right," said Jane. "This time, anyway. She seems to be benevolent. But Stewart is an artist. He couldn't do what he does without talent, but he also has training. It's what got him in trouble."

  "Trouble? You mean he's already in trouble?"

  "He was studying in Europe. He was nearly broke, and got desperate. He got involved with a gallery owner who sold things to col-lectors—mostly visiting Americans—who thought they knew more than they did. He hired Stewart to paint copies."

  "Of paintings?"

  "Yes. He told me he started with a few small Dutch paintings that weren't terribly well known. The owner presented them as seventeenth-century copies by apprentices in the studios of the masters. They did so well that the owner started thinking bigger. In those days there was still a lot of talk about art that the Nazis had taken to Germany during the war and the Russians had taken to Russia afterward. The Russians had some in the Hermitage Museum—mostly French Impressionists—but they never would release a list of what they had. What that did was help create a market for paintings that looked exactly like Renoirs or Cézannes but didn't have any provenance. The gallery owner sold them to specially selected customers as what they would have had to be—stolen paintings that had probably belonged to murder victims. That way no buyer would hang them in public or have them appraised. It worked until one of the buyers died, and his granddaughter found a Monet hanging in a closet. After a quick look at the buyer's canceled checks, the police visited the gallery. Stewart had to leave the country quickly."

  "It makes me sad," said Christine.

  "Take a closer look at Francine, and at those paintings you found on the wall. Life is good to Stewart." She lay down on one of the couches. "And I'm tired." She arranged herself so she would be comfortable and closed her eyes. After a few minutes she pretended to sleep. Soon she heard Christine's breathing slow and deepen. While Christine slept, Jane lay with her eyes closed, thinking about a few men she had met at other times who might be looking at their computer screens tonight and learning that they could make a hundred thousand dollars just for finding a pregnant twenty-year-old.

  5

  "Wake up."

  Jane sat up, and saw Francine standing in the doorway of the Victorian sitting room. When she moved, Jane followed her down the hallway.

  Francine said, "I wanted to talk for a minute before you go."

  "All right."

  "I was on the run once," she said.

  "How did you find your way to Stewart?"

  "Luck," said Francine. "I got lucky and met somebody who had the same kind of problem I had, and she showed me her identification. She told me where she got it." She stared at Jane for a moment. "Stewart tells me that you're somebody we don't ever have to worry about. He said you were reliable. Is it true?"

  Jane stared back at her. "I try to be. I've been out of this life for a long time. Before I quit taking on runners, I had found a few people I believed were safe to do business with, and Stewart was one of them. For all I know, all the others are dead or in jail now. So he's pretty important to me right now."

  Francine kept her large, dark eyes on Jane. "I want you to know that I'm not jealous of you or paranoid or something. The reason I was running is that I killed somebody who deserved it. If the police take me in and fingerprint me, it's not going to make a bit of difference why, then I'm gone."

  "I'm sorry," said Jane. "For my sake and yours, I hope they never find you or Stewart. You
seem to care about him."

  "When I got here, I didn't have any money left. I didn't have anything much to trade. I told him that I would pay him by being his personal whore."

  "You don't have to tell me this."

  "Yes, I do, because I want us to understand each other. When I was running I got to the point where I knew I would do anything to be safe again, and I figured that was something he'd want. It was going to be pure business, but I discovered that the idea, the badness of it or something, excited me. What happened since then is that we fell in love. If I had to open somebody's artery again to hold on to the life we have here, I'd do it in an eyeblink."

  "Not mine. I'll keep your secret."

  Francine glanced toward the door to the sitting room. "Will she? She's a kid."

  "I'm betting my life on her."

  "You are," said Francine. "There are people looking really hard for her and for you. Things have changed since the last time you were running. There are more people in the chasing business these days. I want you to be careful, because if you fuck this up, I'm probably dead."

  "I'll do my best." Jane put her arms around Francine and held her for a moment, then released her.

  Jane heard a door open behind her. "Jane?" It was Christine. Francine opened the door beside her and disappeared into Shattuck's workshop.

  "What was that about?" Christine asked.

  "We were wishing each other good luck."

  "Good luck?"

  "Yes. You'd be amazed at how much depends on luck."

  "Now you're scaring me."

  "Good."

  The door opened and Francine said, "He's done. Your traveling documents are ready."

  Jane went inside and examined the driver's license, the Social Security card, and the birth certificate. They were superb forgeries, all in the name Linda Welles. "Who's Linda Welles?"

  Stewart said, "I like to give an old customer like you a bargain now and then. Linda Welles is an identity I grew. The Visa card is real, the birth certificate is a duplicate of a real one. The license has a counterpart in the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles. All I changed was the photo."

  "Thank you." Jane took her cell phone and a credit card out of her purse. She looked at the phone number on the back of the card and dialed, listened to a recording, punched in the numbers on the front of the card, and then handed the card to Stewart. "Hello. Yes. My name is Cecilia Randazzo. The reason I'm calling is that I'm about to make a kind of big charge on my card, and I wanted you to know it's real. Forty thousand dollars." She answered a series of questions from the woman on the other end of the line, then disconnected. She said to Stewart, "All done. Charge away."

  He scanned the card in his scanner, then returned it. Jane gathered up the false identification and said, "Thanks, Stewart. Take care of Francine and keep her safe." She turned to go.

  "See you, Janie."

  Jane stepped out the door, swept Christine to the front entrance, and stopped while Francine scanned the neighborhood. Jane said, "Persuade him that he's got enough money to retire, and get him out of here."

  In a minute Jane was driving, and they were already out of town. It was after four A.M. now. They didn't speak much, just let the dark landscape float past the windows and the headlights reveal new stretches of road that weren't different from the last ones. Route 20 intersected with a big county road a couple of miles past the next town, and Jane felt an urge to take it, but she decided it would be better to keep going on the highway for a bit longer. They were making good time, and she wanted to do most of their traveling before the sun came up.

  She began to consider where she would go when the road reached the Hudson. Years ago, when a runner showed up at her door with chasers close behind, she had simply started the car and begun to drive. When she was sure she had built up enough distance, she had gotten them both on an airplane. Even in those days, when she could walk into an airport, dream up a new name, and buy a ticket, flying had been a risk. Once a person stepped onto a plane there wasn't much mystery about where and when she would step off.

  As Jane crested a rolling hill and began to coast down, she saw two big unmarked black American cars pulled across the center of the road in a V shape, with a third in the right lane about ten yards beyond. That would be the chase car, in case someone ran the roadblock. She said, "Roadblock up there. Sit up and look innocent."

  Christine sat up and looked. "Is it the police?"

  "It looks that way. I don't see how it could be the people who are searching for you."

  "I don't either," said Christine. "They'd have to be psychics. But I'm scared. Can we turn around and go back the other way?"

  "I don't think so. That's the best way I know to get stopped and have the car searched."

  "So what? We don't have anything illegal in the car, do we?"

  "Nothing but a few thousand dollars in cash and a few driver's licenses in different names."

  "But what if it isn't the police? What about those people—Stewart and Francine? Did you tell them Richard's name? They could have called him while we were sleeping."

  "That didn't happen." Jane slowed her Volvo and watched two men get out of one of the cars and step toward them. There was one walking toward each side of the car, and each held a large flashlight in his hand. That wasn't reassuring to Jane. It looked like what police did when they were checking cars looking for a fugitive.

  She rolled down her window so she would be able to hear them. She could see that the two wore sport coats. There was a badge pinned to the belt of the man who was walking toward her. She said, "See? That one has a badge."

  "No!" said Christine. "That's—"

  "It's them!" the man shouted. He sidestepped quickly as he reached across his chest and under his coat.

  "Get down." Jane wrenched the wheel toward the man and pressed the gas pedal. He sprinted for the side of the road. When his feet hit the gravel shoulder, he spun around to face the Volvo with the gun in his hand. His instant of understanding was visible in the headlights as he realized that he had not run far enough. There was a loud thump as the Volvo hit him, and a series of bumps as he rolled up and over the hood toward the windshield. Jane held the wheel to the left to keep the car spinning, and the centrifugal force threw him off onto the pavement. Jane saw him bounce, roll, and then lie still.

  Jane turned off the headlights and accelerated up and over the hill. She realized she had heard shots behind them, first one gun firing a round, then three rapid shots, and then a second shooter firing steadily.

  Christine yelled, "You hit him!"

  "We each had a weapon, and mine's bigger," said Jane. "Sometimes I wish it were faster." She stepped harder on the gas pedal, steering with both hands and straining her eyes to keep the car on the pavement.

  "My God," said Christine. "How can you see anything? It's completely dark."

  "I don't have to see much—just where the road is." Jane steered for a few more seconds, still accelerating, but then let the car's speed stay constant. "We're out of sight and out of range for the moment. Did you hear any bullets hit the car?"

  "I don't think so. What does that sound like?"

  "You'll know when you hear it. We're alive and the engine still runs, and I think we're going to have to get rid of this car anyway. It'll just be easier with no holes in it." Jane looked in the rearview mirror every few seconds. "They're not following us. I wonder what's keeping them." She looked again. "I get it."

  "Get what?"

  "There weren't five of them back there, only three. They must have gone ahead to set up the roadblock, and the others have been coming along behind us. Now they'll be waiting for us somewhere along this road."

  "What can we do?"

  "There was a turnoff for a county highway back there. We'll head for that as fast as we can. Most likely the two who were following us will have heard we're coming back this way, and they'll be trying to block the road so we'll have one roadblock ahead and one behind. If we're faste
r than they expect, then maybe we can make the turn and never meet them."

  Christine felt the car accelerating again, and pushed her body back into the seat. "Don't you think we could turn on the headlights?"

  "I can make out the broken white line. As long as I keep it a foot to my left, we'll be okay. Just check your lap belt so it rides around your hips, tighten the chest belt so it's comfortable and holds you still, and let this happen."

  Christine was silent, just did as Jane had said. Jane watched the dark road, concentrating on keeping her speed as high as she dared, and steering partly by the memory of the road she had from driving it in the opposite direction and partly by staring down at the blur of lines coming at her from the darkness like projectiles, then slipping past her left tire. After a couple of minutes she caught herself letting the moonlight on a stretch of bare ground ahead fool her into interpreting it as part of the pavement, but she managed to correct the car's course and stay on the road. She looked into the rearview mirror for a second, but saw no sign of the cars from the roadblock, not even a glow of headlights approaching the top of the rise. Jane returned her eyes to the road ahead, and after the next turn, the rise was out of sight.

  A set of headlights appeared far ahead of them, then another set. "Two cars," said Christine. "Do you think it's the others?"

  Jane squinted at the two sets of headlights coming toward them. One car pulled to the left as though to pass, but it was the front car. Now there was one car coming at them in each lane. Jane switched on her headlights.

  The car approaching in Jane's lane blinked its high beams on, then off.

  Jane switched on her brights and left them on. She kept her foot on the gas pedal, maintaining her speed toward the car in her lane.

  "Don't play chicken with them!"

  "I'm not playing," said Jane.

  The pair of cars stayed together, streaking toward them. In one of the cars, the driver punched the horn three times, then stiff-armed it, holding it down so the sound started high and seemed to go down the scale as the cars approached.

  The row of four headlights kept growing bigger and brighter. The two cars seemed to be linked, impossible to separate, impossible to avoid. Christine put her hands in front of her face. "Oh God oh God," she said.