“All right, what?” she said.
“I’ve been thinking about the World Weekly Record,” he said. “It comes out today. Coast to coast, your pictures are out there. But I think that was an accident, a coincidence.”
She looked at him in surprise, waiting for him to explain.
He said, “If the Colombians, or anybody else, wanted a paper to break the story, to force our hand, why the Record? It’s a rag, it only comes out once a week, and it’s national. They knew we had to be in Manhattan or damn close. That’s task force jurisdiction. No—if they wanted to flush us out into the open, why not use a daily paper, a local one? The Record should be their last choice.”
“But it still made us move. And Conlee said hardly anybody knew about the move. Unless he’s lying.”
“Right,” Montana said.
The thought was a dark one and kept haunting her. Conlee, their one official liaison to the outer world, could be lying.
She stared at Rickie lying in a snow drift, laughing loudly and throwing snow into the air. The pines stood like a dark wall behind him. “It always comes down to the same question,” she said. “Who do we trust?”
“We trust each other,” he said. His hand moved to the back of her neck, rested there.
Neither of us is used to trusting anyone, she thought. That’s the one thing the fates didn’t shape us for. But she said nothing.
Rickie picked himself up and ran in wild circles. Snow had started to fall, and he held his hands out to catch it, raised his face to feel it, stuck out his tongue to taste it.
Laura watched him, moved by his apparent joy. He was a city child; he had never before experienced winter in the country. He spun about until he got dizzy and fell backwards into the snow again. He crowed with laughter and immediately began to make another angel.
But her heart felt as frozen as the landscape. “What happens if we do make it to Canada?” she asked. “We might never be able to go home again.”
“Home is where you make it,” Montana said.
Rickie was on his feet again, whirling and running. “Mole skink,” he shouted in excitement. “Five-lined skink. Gilbert’s skink.”
She watched the boy thinking, He can love life. He can. He has every right to live. He has to live.
That afternoon Montana took the phone into the main bedroom to call Conlee.
“All right,” Conlee said. “I can’t hold it up any longer. They’re slapping a federal warrant on your ass at midnight. That’s it. The longer you stay out there—”
“Don’t waste your breath telling me to turn ourselves in,” Montana said. “Tell me what’s worth knowing.”
“Everybody’s on the run,” Conlee said, bitterness in his voice. “Dennis Deeds has disappeared from the face of the earth. Now the Mafia’s after him because of the Scarlotti and Zordani killings. But he’s the invisible man.”
“What about Deeds’s hit men?” Montana asked. “These so-called free-lancers? Have you got a line on them?”
“We’re doing everything we can.”
“Which means you know nothing—right?”
“Montana, you know what these people are like. The guys that did the hit may be back in South America. They may never set foot in this country again.”
“Yeah, and they may be fifteen minutes away, loading their Uzis.”
“They might be, Superman. So if anything happens to those kids, it’s on your head. If you come in now, the bureau’ll guarantee their protection. The bureau’ll get them someplace so secret that—”
“The bureau had its chance,” Montana said. “Tell me how Fletcher is.”
“He can’t walk, can hardly talk. He’s still time-traveling. Thinks some nurse is his wife. Montana, you’re going to be in big troub—”
“Your five minutes are up,” Montana said. He hung up.
From the front room, he heard Trace coughing and Jefferson’s voice, patiently droning out stories from the tabloids.
He knew Laura was at the table, having Rickie draw pictures of glad faces, sad faces. Tell Laura what a frown means. Tell Laura what a smile means. Tell Laura what tears mean.
Montana, grim, looked at his watch. The time was just after two o’clock. They had less than ten hours until midnight.
Then, from border to border, they would be wanted, all state and local police looking for them. And he would be a felon.
“Fuck it,” he muttered to himself.
He opened the door and went out to the dining room table to try to help Rickie learn what smiles meant, what tears meant.
FOURTEEN
Jorge Hepfinger was passionate about details. He collected them, compared them, scrutinized them as lovingly as a miser hoarding and admiring coins.
At his work he was tireless, his eye quick and discerning. He could glance at a column of figures and instantly see which fit and which did not.
No lead was too small, no connection too tenuous for him to note. He had almost all the information that the FBI did, thanks to the industrious moles of Mesius Estrada. Fueled on coffee and obsession, he pursued his quarry eighteen hours a day.
This morning Estrada had sent over the scaly-faced Santander with a folder of raw data spirited from the bureau. “Stay,” Hepfinger had told Santander. “I may need you.” And Santander, like the good dog he was, stayed.
Hepfinger devoured the new data greedily. It was the file of phoned-in tips about the Valley Hope killings. Some callers identified themselves but many were anonymous. Some were concerned and responsible people. Others were pranksters, and some were, quite simply, barking mad.
The calls came from everywhere, and went everywhere, to dozens of different branches of law enforcement, to this headquarters and that.
The FBI plodded. Drearily it would shuffle through these leads, one by one. But Hepfinger’s mind did not plod. It flew, skimming at almost supernatural speed, swooping down on unexpected morsels of information with hawklike precision.
After two hours of such high-flying and swooping, Hepfinger thought he’d seized on a lead that should be checked out quickly, before the bureau made its ponderous way in the same direction.
He turned in his gilded chair to face Santander, who sat on an expensive sofa reading a cheap magazine about crime. In screaming red letters its cover announced, “Crazy Dentist’s Sex Slave Murders!” Santander looked at him, a wary curiosity in his flat eyes.
“There are two calls to two different agencies,” Hepfinger said, patting the stack of faxes. “One’s clear, one’s garbled. They convey different information. Yet”—and he smiled his cherubic smile—“they were made minutes apart. By a whispering man. From the same pay phone.”
Santander blinked, slowly, like a lizard. But he said nothing.
“A phone not far from Valley Hope,” Hepfinger said in his jovial way. “I’ll check it out. We may be taking a ride.”
Santander nodded and turned his attention back to his magazine. He was not a man who cared for whys and wherefores. When action was needed, he would provide it.
Hepfinger picked up the cellular phone and dialed the number from which the two calls had been made. According to Hepfinger’s information, the FBI had not yet noticed the duplication, had not yet traced the phone’s location. With luck, it might not do so for hours, even days.
The phone rang a dozen times. At last a gruff voice answered. “Yeah? Ernie’s Mobil.”
Hepfinger’s heart quickened, dancing in his chest. But he used his stodgiest voice. “This is Allen Kinsolving of New York Telecommunications. We’ve had a service complaint about this number. This is five-five-five, six-one-eight-oh?”
“Yeah?” The word was as much a challenge as an answer.
Hepfinger’s body tingled, but he kept his tone superior and slightly bored. “You say this is Ernie’s Mobil? My note says this number belongs to Triple-A Storage. You’re in the Bronx?”
“Queens,” growled the man. “This is Ernie’s, and we ain’t had no complaint th
at I’ve heard about.”
“Ernie’s,” Hepfinger repeated. “In Queens. But the number’s five-five-five, six-one-eight-oh—right?”
“Yeah.”
“All right,” Hepfinger said smoothly. “My information must be mistaken. Thanks for your time.”
The only reply was the sharp report of the receiver at the other end being hung up.
Hepfinger’s blood raced with the excitement of the hunt. Somebody had used Ernie’s pay phone to call both the police and FBI. He had told the police about the blue Bronco, and the FBI that a man, woman, and two children had gone to Philadelphia.
Neither the information about the Bronco nor that about Philadelphia had been made public. How had the caller learned these things? Who was this whispering man who knew so much?
Hepfinger rose and faced Santander. “We’re going to Queens,” he announced. “To make some inquiries. You have your gun?”
Santander nodded, his face impassive.
“Excellent,” said Hepfinger, his eyes crinkling and his pink cheeks dimpling.
Rickie was restless, almost wild, by afternoon recess time. Laura and Montana took him out to play. “This time,” she told Montana, “you’re in charge. Completely.”
They hiked a path that led through the woods. Rickie would dart first ahead of them, then behind them, changing directions like a rabbit.
The path ended at a large, snow-covered pond, almost large enough to qualify as a lake. Montana and Laura reached it first because Rickie had stopped to knock icicles from a thorn bush.
He came after them, running as hard as he could, then skidded to a stop at the pond’s edge. He squinted at the frozen water, scowling.
“Frogs,” Rickie demanded. “Where are the frogs?” Laura gave Montana a significant look.
“They—the frogs are asleep, under the ice,” Montana told him.
“Asleep under the ice,” Rickie repeated. “Under ice. Under ice. Under ice.”
Ranged along the pond’s surface, about twenty feet out from the shore, was a line of narrow little buildings.
“What’s that?” Montana asked out of the side of his mouth. “It looks like an outhouse convention.”
Rickie was fascinated by the tiny houses and tried to run toward them. He slipped and slid on the thick ice. Montana had to follow to make sure he didn’t get so excited he went out of control and hurt himself.
“Hold it, chum,” he warned. “Not so fast.” Laura stayed at his side. “What is it?” he asked her again. “The Smurfs’ winter places? Phone booths?”
“They’re ice-fishing houses,” she told him. “My grandpa had one. It’s for fishing in the winter.”
Montana looked dubious. “You sit in that thing and fish?”
Laura smiled. “Well, he didn’t sit alone. He usually took a buddy and a radio and a six-pack. You cut a hole in the ice, you’re sheltered from the wind and snow, and you catch fresh fish. It’s a guy thing.”
“Not this guy,” said Montana. “I’ll have pastrami on rye, thanks.”
Rickie slid so wildly that he crashed into the side of one of the little buildings and fell. Montana picked him up, dusted the snow from his jacket, and warned him not to be so reckless.
But Rickie swooped and skidded on, more wildly than before. He discovered that one of the fishing houses was unlocked, and Montana almost had to pry him out of it.
Rickie was delighted with the little building. It had folding chairs stacked in a corner and a worn blanket hung from a nail on one wall.
“This isn’t our house” Montana said firmly. “You can’t play in here.”
“Pronouns,” Laura whispered. “Pronouns confuse him.”
Montana sighed in resignation. “This house isn’t Rickie’s. Rickie can’t play in the house. Come back on the ice.”
Rickie agreed mechanically, wrenched away from Montana, and lost himself in more sliding. He slipped, skidded, spun, whooped. He careened, he fell, he laughed his raucous laugh, got up, and started all over again.
Laura shook her head. “When he wants to, he’ll ignore pain. Once he fell down stairs and broke his arm. He never even whimpered. He wanted to go to lunch. It was time.”
Montana put his arm around her shoulder. “When I talk to him like that it seems so damned unnatural.”
She watched Rickie, then turned to Montana. “You get used to it. And you have to teach him all the time. Not to do dangerous things. Not to step into traffic. Not to break glass. Not to touch fire. He can be fearless about things like that. But he’s scared of Santa Claus. And swans. And owls. Why? Maybe we’ll never know.”
Montana was silent a moment. “I’ll take good care of him. I promise you that.”
She lifted her chin and got the strained, stubborn feeling she always did when she spoke of separation. “I don’t see how you can do it. Where will you get the money to live? Find a job? What do you do with him then?”
“We cross bridges one at a time,” Montana said. “We do what we have to. That’s all.”
“Do we stay in touch? How can we—and still stay safe?”
“I’ll find a way.”
Her exasperation grew. “But how? And what if we can’t ever go back? Do we stay apart forever?”
“No. We won’t. But until then, we take it as it comes. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” she asked, frustrated and irritated. “That’s the only answer you can give?”
“That’s it.”
Rickie slid until he was too tired to go on. Then he crouched at the pond’s edge and broke the stalks off dead cattails. The stalks were encased by ice, and each made a satisfying snap when broken. Fragments of ice cracked off, and he gathered them into a heap as if they were precious gems.
He was such a strong, handsome boy, she thought, his cheeks rosy with cold, his dark hair stirring in the breeze. What if she were never to see this child again? Or Montana.…
Montana seemed to sense her sadness. He drew her closer. She laid her head against his shoulder.
How odd, she thought, to depend on another human being again. After her divorce, she’d thought she never would. Even if the feeling of trust was an illusion, how good it felt, how comforting.
“I’ll try to teach him, Laura. I can’t be as good as you, but I’ll do my best. I swear it.”
She tried to swallow the knot in her throat. “You have to teach him to act as socially acceptable as possible. I mean, maybe you think I program them like little robots or parrots, but it’s for their own good. So people aren’t frightened by them, don’t reject them.”
“You’ve done a good job,” he said. “A hell of a job. They’re good kids.”
“They are good kids,” she said, turning her face to his. “They’ve got limitations, but they shouldn’t be treated like freaks or outcasts. They’re part of the human family, the same as you and me.”
Montana kissed her. His lips were cold at first, and he held them against hers until both their mouths grew warm again.
Rickie, still crouched at the pond’s edge, suddenly shrieked out a rhyme:
“First comes love, then comes marriage,
“Then comes Laura with a baby carriage.”
Embarrassed, Laura pulled away and stood apart from Montana. “I’m sorry,” she said, staring at the ice. “That’s something else he learned on the playground.”
He adjusted her jacket collar so that it stood up to keep her warmer. Rickie’s taunting voice rang out again.
“First comes love, then comes marriage,
“Then comes Laura with a baby carriage.”
Montana gave him a severe look. “Rickie, don’t say that. It’s not polite. It’s teasing. People don’t like to be teased.”
“People don’t like to be teased,” Rickie said mildly, staring at his handful of ice shards. “People don’t like to be teased.” Then he seemed hypnotized by the sparkling of the ice.
“We should take him back,” she said softly. “He’s getting cold.”
“He doesn’t act cold,” Montana said.
“He is,” she said. “He just doesn’t know it.”
“You’re cold yourself,” he said. “You’re starting to shiver.”
She hadn’t realized it. She was shivering. And Rickie was reluctant to leave the pond, so at last Montana picked him up and carried him back to the house.
Rickie protested at first, but then became absorbed in his newest pet phrase.
“There’s frogs in the bear hair,” he sang loudly. “Frogs in the bear hair. Frogs in the bear hair.”
He started shrieking, wild laughs that rent the air. Laura winced. “That,” she said, “is the sort of thing he shouldn’t do in public.”
“Hey,” Montana said with that false joviality adults reserve for children. “I—Montana has a game for Rickie. Be quiet five minutes. Look at Rickie’s watch. Rickie can be quiet five minutes.”
Rickie pulled up the sleeve of his jacket, glanced at his watch, and clamped his lips together. Then he stared up into the sky, his head rolling, his eyes squinted as if furiously counting something only he could see.
“That trick doesn’t keep on working,” she said to Montana. “It wears out fast.”
“Hey,” he said with the ghost of a smile. “Maybe it will for me. It could be guy stuff—a manly contest.”
She shrugged and thrust her hands into her pockets. Montana didn’t look unnatural or uncomfortable carrying the boy. And Rickie no longer resisted him. He had one arm draped loosely around Montana’s neck.
Laura thought, If only it could stay like this. If only it could be this way forever.
• • •
Hepfinger, like a chameleon, changed to suit the situation. At Ernie’s Mobil Station, he became “Detective Sergeant Curtis Enfield,” and introduced Santander as “Sergeant Perez.”
Hepfinger had a collection of official-looking business cards, identity cards, and badges. He could flash them so convincingly and speak with such authority that few questioned him.
The brusque, gaunt-faced attendant on duty wore a grease-stained jacket that had the name “O’Malley” embroidered in red script on the left breast. He was the person Hepfinger had spoken to on the phone; the curt, gruff voice was the same.
See How They Run Page 22