by Thomas Perry
Mary was reaching for the bottle of milk on the table. “No!” Jane said sharply, and knocked it to the floor. Mary cringed and stared at her without comprehension.
“I poisoned everything.”
Mary seemed to notice the two men on the floor for the first time. They had died in terrible pain and convulsions, and their faces were so contorted that they didn’t look quite human. She seemed to marvel at them. “They look so young,” she said. “I thought they were older.” Then she seemed to remember something she had known before. “The devil is always exactly your own age.”
“Come on,” said Jane. “We’ll forget the clothes for now.” She dragged Mary out of the kitchen and onto the porch. She tried the car key in the van, but it didn’t fit. It opened the white station wagon, so she eased Mary into the passenger seat, started the engine, and drove up the driveway. “Here,” she said, and put the black sweatshirt on Mary’s lap. “It’s dirty, but it’s better than nothing. Put it on.”
Jane drove the next mile staring into her mirrors and up the road ahead for signs of Barraclough and Farrell. When she reached the place where she had parked the gray Toyota, she pulled the station wagon up to it, put Mary in the back seat, and drove up the road. She said, “Keep down on the seat and rest. Whatever you do, don’t put your head up. Do you need a doctor right away?”
“I don’t want one,” said Mary. Her voice was raspy and brittle, but it was beginning to sound stronger.
“We’ll get you some clothes and some food as soon as we’re far enough away. Nothing’s open yet.”
“Just get the clothes. I can eat on the plane.”
“The plane?”
“I have to go to Texas.”
Jane felt a reflex in her throat that brought tears to her eyes. She didn’t want to let pictures form of what they had done to Mary, but there was no way to avoid thinking about it. She wasn’t dead, because her heart was still beating and she could form words with her bruised face, but she could easily spend the rest of her life in a madhouse.
“Ask me why.”
The voice was self-satisfied and coy, almost flirtatious. Now Jane was going to have to follow Mary down whatever path her deranged mind was taking. She owed her a thousand times more than this tiny courtesy. “All right. Why?”
“Because I can remember numbers.”
Jane tried to keep her calm. “I know, Mary. I noticed you were good with numbers the first time we talked. You’re an intelligent, strong woman, and you’re going to be okay.” It was a lie. She was not going to be okay. Jane had done this to her. Barraclough had taken the bait and chewed it up.
“They finally made me give them the money I stole.”
“I know,” said Jane. “There’s nobody who wouldn’t have done what you did. Forget the money.”
“Let me finish,” said Mary impatiently. “They knew I had stolen it from banks, but they thought I did it by being an insect or a rat or something who crawled in and took it. It didn’t even occur to them that the reason I could do it was that I know all about the business, and that I was smarter than the people I took it from. They filled out bank-transfer slips. They listed my bank account numbers and the number of the account where the money was supposed to go. I signed them all, one after another, so I saw it six times.”
“Saw what six times?”
“There’s no need to write it down. I can close my eyes and read it any time I want. 08950569237. He’s transferring all the money into his bank account at Credit Suisse in Zurich. He has a numbered account, and that’s the number. I captured it.”
As Jane drove, Mary lay on the back seat talking at the roof of the car. “It has to be Dallas.”
“Why Dallas? You told me once that you couldn’t go there because people knew you.”
“And I know them,” said Mary. “They have you, and you have them. It’s like the tar baby.”
Jane tried to choose her words carefully. There would be nothing accomplished if she managed to nudge her own agitation into hysteria, but Mary had to know that it wasn’t over. “I killed those two men back there. Barraclough wasn’t there.”
“Yes,” said Mary. “He’s in San Francisco.”
“How do you know that?”
“That’s where the big West Coast banks have their main offices. What he’s doing right now is riding the jet stream, and you can’t get on it very easily in some branch office in Stinkwood, Minnesota. All they can do for you is to ask the big offices to do it for them, and he can’t fool around all day and let all those people know what he’s doing.”
“What do you mean by ‘riding the jet stream’? Is he flying to Switzerland?”
“No,” said Mary. “That’s way too slow. Stock exchanges, bond markets, commodities, currency, the treasury securities of a hundred countries go up and down a hundred times a day. Some tyrant is shot in South America, and before the ambulance reaches the hospital, billions of dollars from Hong Kong are already buying up copper and coffee beans in London and New York. Barraclough isn’t going to travel to Europe and then to the Caribbean to hand six tellers withdrawal slips and collect fifty-two million dollars. He’s got to move the money the way big money moves—electronically, in thin air. Bonn, Paris, London, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, L.A., Zurich, Melbourne, Singapore, Hong Kong.” After a breath she added, “Dallas.”
Jane tilted the rearview mirror to get a glimpse of Mary on the back seat. She was bloody, bruised, and exhausted, but she seemed to be describing something that was real. “You mean you want to try to get your money back? Is that what this is about?”
Mary Perkins gave a quiet cough, and Jane realized that it had been a kind of mirthless laugh. “You told me before and I didn’t get it, did I? You have to strip yourself clean. Lose everything: friends, clothes, medical records, your name, even your hair. The money was the last thing to go. That’s gone, Jane. I had to give it to him, and I put it right in his hands so I could see which pocket he stashed it in.”
Jane dressed Mary in a pair of blue jeans because the welts and bruises on her legs were so bright and angry that a dress would not have covered enough of them, and it was impossible in the small store in Gilroy to buy any other kind of women’s pants in a length that fit an actual, living woman. The blouse was off another rack in the same store, a plain blue shirt that would attract no attention and was big enough to let her shrink inside it without having much of the fabric touch her skin.
Jane left the car in the long-term lot in San Jose because Mary insisted there was no time for a more elaborate arrangement. “Get me to Dallas,” she said. “After that I don’t care.”
“What don’t you care about?”
“Anything.”
Mary ate and drank on the plane, then slept the rest of the way to Dallas. At the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, Jane rented a car. As she drove it out of the lot, she asked, “Where is it?”
“Bank of Sanford, corner of Commerce and Field. Turn left here.”
“It must be almost closing time,” said Jane. “But we may be able to catch your friend coming out.”
“We don’t want to catch him coming out,” said Mary. Her voice was still even and low, as though it were an enormous effort to talk. “We’ll catch him on the way in. Everything happens at night.”
They waited in the bank lobby until Jane saw that each customer who approached the wide glass doors hurried to give the nearest handle a tentative tug to be sure they weren’t locked, then stepped inside with a small sigh of relief, and then during the walk to the tellers’ windows, looked up at the clock built into the wall.
At one minute before four a man about forty years old with hair that was combed straight back to emphasize the gray hair at his temples entered the bank. He wore a lightweight suit that had a slight sheen to it, and on his feet were a pair of brightly shined shoes that it took Jane a second to recognize as cowboy boots.
“There he is,” said Mary Perkins. She stood up quickly, but the barely audible groan she
gave showed that it had cost her something. She stepped in front of the man. “Hello, Gene,” she said. “It’s me—Mary Perkins.”
The man looked at her, puzzled, while he inhaled once, and then puffed the breath out when he remembered. His eyes shot around him in a reflex, as though he were checking to see who was watching. He said uncomfortably, “Well, now, Mary. How are you these days? I heard you had some problems a while back.”
“Yes, I’ve been away,” said Mary. “I can see that you’re thinking I don’t look like the experience did me any good. You’re absolutely right.”
The man’s brow wrinkled a little to tilt his eyebrows in sympathy, and his mouth forced itself into a sad smile. “Well, I can see it’s behind you now, and that’s the main thing.”
Mary said, “Do you still have an office? I’d like to talk to you about some business.”
The man reflexively leaned back away from her. “Mary, you have to understand that things don’t work the way they once did. It’s nice to see you, but—”
Mary turned and nodded to Jane, who was still sitting in the overstuffed chair next to the marble table where the pens were chained. She stepped forward to join them, but she didn’t smile. Mary said, “This is Katherine Webster from the Treasury Department. This is Gene Hiller, my old friend.”
The man looked from one to the other. “Now wait a minute,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t worry,” said Mary. “If your time is coming, I don’t know about it. Let’s talk.”
Jane began to open her purse and fiddle with the little black wallet, as though she were about to pull out a badge.
Gene Hiller looked around him again, then said quickly, “This way.”
His office was small, a place where he could hang his coat while he was out in the computer room. As soon as they were inside, Mary closed the door and stood in a place that made it impossible for him to sit behind his desk where he felt safe. Jane could see that Mary had once been very good at this.
“Here it is, Gene,” she said. “I’ve made a deal with Katherine here. I’m going to give the money back voluntarily.” She seemed to notice the sweat forming on his pale forehead. “I’m not—confirm this for me, Katherine—not expected to testify against anyone who may have had anything to do with any of the illegal activities in which I was once engaged.”
The muscles in his shoulders seemed to relax so that his neck actually got longer. “What … brings you here?”
“It seems I can’t go to Zurich, pick up a check with a lot of zeros on it, and fly back here to hand it over.” She gave Jane a sarcastic smile. “There’s very little trust left in the world.”
“I see,” said Gene, but all he could see was that in Mary’s mind Jane represented what was stopping her.
“My attorney tells me that in order to get past the judge a week from now, it has to be voluntary, and apparently spontaneous, as evidence that I feel remorse and have been rehabilitated sincerely. I can’t appear to have bought my way out with the Treasury Department. This puts me in a serious bind. Consequently I have to ask old friends for help.”
The threat was not wasted on him. If for some reason she could not give them the money, there was something else she could give them. “What do you want me to do?”
“An electronic transfer,” she said. “Receive the money, then send it on a second later. Write this down, and get it right. Credit Suisse, 08950569237. If they need a transfer request, I’ll sign one and you can fax it. If they ask for verification tell them I’ve furnished identification. The name I used was James Barraclough.”
Gene looked at her for a moment. “Want to tell me why you put a false name on a numbered account in a Swiss bank?”
Mary said, “I’m rehabilitating myself these days, not giving anybody lessons.”
His eyebrows slowly began to rise. He smelled something. “Where exactly do you want these funds sent?”
Mary took a deep breath and blew it out. “Turn on your payroll computer and punch up the account number where you send the money for federal tax withholding. Can you do that?”
“Sure. What then?”
“Transfer all of the money from the Swiss bank into that account without ever having it appear on your computers as a transaction received by this bank. Give it to the I.R.S.”
She looked at Jane Whitefield. Her eyes were wet and red and hot. “You think that will do it?”
Jane nodded solemnly.
Gene Hiller took the paper and walked into the computer room. There was a screen with a long list of transactions he was supposed to monitor—money the Federal Reserve was lending the bank overnight, money the bank was moving into accounts all over the world to cover investments it had made during the day, adjustments to the accounts of the various branches, like water being poured from a pitcher to even out the levels of a hundred little cups.
Gene ignored these and went to another terminal, typed in the name of the Swiss bank and waited while their machine signified that it had heard and recognized his machine. Then he told it he had authorization to close a numbered account and transfer the money. He typed in the number and waited. After a moment he said, “You sure this number is right? It doesn’t usually take this long.”
“It’s right,” said Mary firmly. “Tell them again.”
As he prepared to do it, something happened. Letters and numbers appeared on the screen to fill in blanks. He stared at it for a moment, then looked up at Mary. “Jesus, Mary, two hundred and six million dollars? You stole two hundred and six million?”
Mary almost smiled. “No, Gene. I only stole fifty-two. The rest I inherited. Send it now.”
Gene typed in the number of the Internal Revenue Service account and tapped his return key. Before his fingers rebounded from the keyboard, the money was gone. He stared at the screen as though he were having trouble believing what he had seen, and certainly couldn’t believe what he had done.
Mary said, “Probably nobody is ever going to ask you about this, but if they do, you don’t know a thing. You didn’t do it. That’s part of the deal I made. There can’t be any way in the world for anyone to get a penny of it back.” She patted his shoulder. “That means you too, Gene.”
“I’m not that stupid,” he said. “Anybody who asks the I.R.S. to refund his two hundred and six million dollars is going to get a lot of things, but none of them will be a check.”
“Right,” said Mary. She leaned down and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Thanks, baby. Now I’ll leave you alone for the rest of your life.”
She walked out of the computer room with her head high and her shoulders back. Jane could tell that she was in pain, but she stood erect until Hiller had let them out the fire door and they were around the corner getting into the car. As soon as she sat down the strength seemed to go out of her, and her head rested on the seat.
“Mary?” said Jane. “You okay?”
“It was better than I ever dreamed. All the time I was in that house I was so scared, so hurt, that I thought he had opened an account just to take my money. But you have to open a numbered account in person. How could he do it that fast? He had me, but he had no place to put my money except in the account where he kept all the money he had stolen for years. I got to take every penny he had and pour it all into a sewer.”
Jane drove fast across the flat plains of northern Texas. The night was just beginning, and she knew that she would need to use this time well. The trip from California to the Texas bank had taken them all day.
She tried to imagine what Barraclough was doing now. She was convinced that Mary knew enough about money to be reliable in her guess that Barraclough had driven to a bank in San Francisco that morning. He and Farrell could not have returned before about noon to find Mary gone and his two trainees dead.
He would have found Farrell’s white station wagon by one o’clock and figured out that Jane and Mary had gotten into another car. Then he and Farrell would have spent more time disposing of the two
bodies, cleaning the farmhouse of evidence that a woman had been held there, and removing any objects or prints that connected him with the property. That still left him with a van and two cars, with only Farrell to help him drive. He needed at least one person, perhaps two more people, he could trust to drive the vehicles back to Los Angeles. The most likely candidates would have to come all the way up from Enterprise Development in L.A.
She guessed that Barraclough would have been finished with all of this by nine or ten in the evening, about five hours after the time when all of his stolen money had disappeared. She said, “Is there some way Barraclough would know his account in Switzerland was gutted?”
Mary didn’t answer. Jane glanced over her shoulder and saw that she was curled up like a child, asleep on the back seat. The question would have to wait. Probably the bank would send him some kind of written closing statement.
Jane couldn’t risk going back to the airport and flying Mary out of Dallas tonight. If Barraclough had the presence of mind to ask for confirmation that the gigantic deposit he had made was credited to his account, he would be told that his account was closed. Even if the Swiss bank didn’t know that the transfer to the Internal Revenue Service had been initiated in Dallas, there would probably be a way to find out. She had to assume Barraclough would have people searching Dallas before the sun came up.
She looked at Mary again, then returned her eyes to the road. She had been holding down the feelings for days, but now she let them surface. What she had done was unforgivable. She had used this woman for bait and let the beast have her. All she could do now was try to preserve what was left. Whatever had been holding Mary together—the delay of physical sensation that came from shock, or maybe merely the energy of sheer hatred—had apparently drained out of her now. Before she had fallen asleep she had been weak and vague enough to make traveling a risk. Jane would have to get her indoors before morning. She used the last eight hours of darkness to run north out of Texas and up the short side of Oklahoma.