by Thomas Perry
She grasped Dahlman’s arm in her free hand and gently tugged him out to the car, then started it and drove back onto the highway.
“What are we going to do?” Seeing himself on television seemed to have destroyed the last of Dahlman’s confidence.
Jane looked at her watch. “It’s now two thirty-five. He could be in there an hour or so before somebody stops for gas and goes looking for him. But somebody could come along in five minutes. Either way, we’ve got to get as far as we can while we can. I don’t think there’s much chance a kid who works in a gas station won’t give the police a good description of the car, do you?”
Dahlman held up his hands in a gesture of helplessness and shook his head. “I don’t have any idea.”
“It’s obviously been a while since you were nineteen. Nineteen-year-old boys care about cars.”
“I suppose so.”
Jane frowned. “Don’t go all limp and worthless on me now. Please. What we do next has got to work, or we’re caught.”
“What are we going to do next?”
“Take the map and look for the nearest airport.” Jane knew approximately where the next airport was, because Akron was only about ten miles away. She had driven Route 224 before. It ran in nearly a straight line to the west across Ohio. Policemen looking for people had to watch the big interstate highways that ran in the same direction—80 in the north and 70 in the south—because people who ran were strangers, and strangers took the interstates.
“Right here.” Dahlman pointed at the road map. “It looks like eight or ten miles, straight ahead. It’s the Akron airport.”
Ten minutes later Jane took a ticket from the machine at the entrance to the long-term parking lot, drove in, and began to search for the right car. When she found it, it was a nine-year-old Chevrolet Impala that had good tires and would not have been as shiny if the engine didn’t run. She could see it had no mechanical locking device across the steering wheel, and there were no glowing lights inside that could be an alarm. She parked beside it and studied it. It wasn’t in mint condition, so it wasn’t somebody’s old friend. More likely someone who traveled a lot had bought an old car he didn’t mind leaving in airport parking lots so he could keep his fancy car locked in the garage at home.
“Get out with me,” she said. “Open your suitcase, and keep your head down, as though you were checking to be sure you haven’t forgotten anything. Warn me if anybody drives into the lot.”
Dahlman opened the trunk and leaned into it to fiddle with his suitcase while Jane moved to the other car. He watched her while she slipped the long, flat strip of sheet metal into the space between the Chevrolet’s window and door, and wiggled it a bit.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a slim-jim,” she said. “Tow-truck drivers sometimes carry them because people lock their keys in their cars.” She tugged upward and the lock button on the door popped up. “Keep looking for cars.”
She sat in the driver’s seat, used the hammer to drive the screwdriver into the space between the ignition switch and the steering column. She pried the ignition switch out of its receptacle with the screwdriver, yanked the wires out of it, and stripped back the insulation a bit. “Bring the roll of adhesive tape from the suitcase.”
Dahlman carried it to her and watched. She taped the ignition wires together. Then she pumped the gas pedal once, and held the two starter wires together. The engine turned over. When it caught, she pulled the starter wires apart and listened. “Fairly smooth for a cold engine. It’ll do.”
She put their suitcases in the back seat, then walked down the aisle of cars until she saw the one she wanted. She popped up the lock button, took the parking ticket from the floor under the driver’s seat, then locked the car again and went to find another one with a ticket in it.
When she returned to Dahlman she said, “You’ll drive the Chevy. Follow me. I’m going into the lot at the terminal.” She handed him one of the two stolen tickets.
Dahlman was agitated. “But we have a ticket.”
“It says we came in the lot five minutes ago.”
He was even more frustrated. “Why are we doing any of this?”
She looked around her impatiently, but no sign of headlights could be seen. “We can’t drive the rented one any farther because the kid at the gas station saw it. If we leave it in this lot, the Youngstown office where we got it reports it missing. If we return it to their rental agency here, nobody reports anything.”
Dahlman got into the car and did as he was told. When Jane had gotten them both out of the long-term parking lot, returned the rental car to the agency lot, and dropped the key in the lockbox, she climbed into the stolen Chevrolet with Dahlman and drove back onto the highway.
“How long can we go before the owner of this car reports it missing?” asked Dahlman.
“Maybe a day, maybe a month,” said Jane. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You mean we’re not going to keep it even a day?”
“No,” said Jane. “It’s time to get some help.”
13
Jane guided the car up the quiet street above the little lake and stopped. The moment that the breeze through the open windows died, she could feel the weight of the humidity settle on her and make her arms heavy. She turned around to face Dahlman on the back seat. “Time to get up.” She leaned closer to the steering column, pulled the two wires apart, and the engine was silent.
Dahlman slowly unbent himself, sat up, and looked around him. “Where are we?”
“Minneapolis. You slept most of the day. The sun will be down in a few minutes. How do you feel?”
“I’m a little stiff, but I don’t feel as though the wound is inflamed, and that could be a wonderful sign.”
He had not used a word like “wonderful” before, thought Jane. Maybe all it meant was that he really was getting better, but maybe it meant that last night’s discussion about justice had made him decide to stop telling her the truth. “We’ve got to go for a walk now.”
Dahlman ran his hands through his hair, made an attempt to straighten his clothes, then got out of the car. Jane locked the doors, then set off along the crest of the grassy slope above the lake. There were mallards bobbing on the darkening water, then lifting their heads to the sky to clap their bills in a shivering, jittery little movement to sift bits of food.
A car glided past on the road around the lake, and Dahlman moved a little lower down the slope, but Jane didn’t join him. She stopped walking. “Don’t hide yourself,” said Jane. “The way is along the ridge.”
“But it’s the same direction.”
“No. Come back up.” She waited while he joined her. “I’ll explain this as well as I can. There’s a house a little higher up the hill at the end of the lake. There’s a man in that house I want to see. In order to get into that house, you have to go a certain way. It shows another man that we’re okay. This one is a very unpredictable, suspicious man—the sort of person who hits back first—and he’s studying us through a spotting scope.”
“A spotting scope?”
“You’ll probably see it. It’s a sixty-power telescope on a tripod at an upper window. In the day it is, anyway. When the sun goes down, they switch to a nightscope with infrared to pick up your body heat. You have to walk along the crest so they have time to get a good look at who you are and what you’re carrying, and who else is nearby who might be following you.”
“What happens if you’re the wrong person?”
Jane shrugged. “It depends. If you’re just enjoying the scenery, nothing. When I was here before they always had cars waiting with the keys in them, and beside the spotting scope there was another tripod with a Heckler & Koch G7 rifle on it. They have lots of options.”
“Exactly who is this man we’re going to see?”
“Just a man who knows how to get things accomplished.”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know, exactly. It doesn’t matter.”
Jane frowned, and there was an edge in her voice. “I need to say a few things, so listen carefully. As long as I could, I’ve kept you in the part of the world that you’re familiar with. People aren’t entirely rational in that world, but they behave as though they were, and they make sure that their actions have to do with attaining reasonable goals—that is, things that they’re allowed to want. Their way of getting them is by a logical series of causes and effects: you work, you get paid. You’re patient, you get rewarded. You’re pleasant, people like you. I kept you in that world for several reasons. You’re a success in that world, so you know how it works and can move around in it without raising eyebrows. Something as simple as speaking grammatical English and holding a fork correctly makes you almost invisible. You also feel comfortable there, and that makes you look innocent. But the main reason I kept you in that world is that it’s safer.”
“Safer than what?” Dahlman’s voice was skeptical.
“Safer than where we’re going now.”
“And where is that? What do you mean by other parts of the world? Are we leaving the country?”
Jane looked at him, and there was a touch of regret in her eyes. “I’m trying to prepare you for a shock. I hope it’s not a big one, but it might be. The people we’re going to see are not like you, not like Carey. I’d like to say they’re not like me, either, but this isn’t the first time I’ve been here.” As soon as Jane said it she realized she had identified the hurt that had been constricting her chest. She was back in this life. It was as though she had happily fallen asleep in the old house beside Carey, and awakened with a start along this path by the lake. The place where she walked now wasn’t a point in space; it was a point in time, in the past. Falling back into this place was not like being abducted. It was like being unmasked.
“You mean they’re not honest.”
“Categories like honest and dishonest don’t apply to them any more than they do to your cat. These people have certain principles and habits and inclinations, but you don’t have time to learn them all. Be alert. Be observant, and listen to every word that’s said in your presence, but believe nothing unless I say it. Don’t ask questions or express an opinion. You’re a passenger.”
Dahlman gave a little chuckle. “You’re treating me as though I were a child. Speak when spoken to, and don’t be afraid.”
“Oh, no,” said Jane. “That isn’t what I meant at all. Be afraid. Just don’t show it.”
Dahlman walked along in silence for a time, then said, “Is that why you won’t tell me his name? Are you afraid to?”
“No. One of the things he sells is forged identification. It’s the reason I know him. But he’s like a tattoo artist.”
“A tattoo artist?”
“Every tattoo artist gets tired of waiting for the right customer to come in the door and ask for the right picture, so they all end up working on themselves. Some of the old pros are covered, from their toes to their collarbones. The man we’re going to see doesn’t concede that he should be permanently limited to one name, and he doesn’t have to be, so he isn’t. He uses an identity until he’s tired of it, and then picks a new one. I know what he was calling himself last time. He was Paul Carbin. But it’s been three or four years. He’s probably been several people since then.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
Jane walked a few more paces. “Until now, the police have probably been operating on the theory that you were still in Buffalo, or near it. The night we left, I had enough of everything on hand—money, forged IDs, clothes—to keep us out of trouble for a while if we got out and kept going. We were spotted last night at a gas station on an interstate in the Midwest, and that means we change our strategy. We’ve got to dig in somewhere, get an identity that’s tailor-made for you, and then prepare to wait.”
Jane led Dahlman to the end of the lake, then up the hill on the sidewalk to a Victorian three-story house with a stone-and-masonry facing that had originally been the foundation and at some point had been raised to the height of a man. She climbed the steps to the wide wooden porch and stopped to beckon to Dahlman. Dahlman hesitated, then climbed the steps, stood beside her, and looked around him.
There was a security screen door with steel mesh and bars set in so that it was much stronger than it looked from a distance. Behind that was a steel fire door with wooden panels glued on to fit the decor. For the first time, Dahlman noticed that the shutters on the lower windows were closed.
The fire door swung open and a thin young man whose pale skin didn’t look entirely clean to Dahlman stared out with a bored, sullen expression. After a moment he muttered, “He said you could come in if you want to.”
“We want to,” said Jane.
The young man slipped the bolt on the screen and Jane stepped inside, then held it for Dahlman. “Come in,” she said. “If I let it close, it’ll lock.”
Dahlman stepped in behind her. The room had once been a spacious foyer. There was a straight staircase leading upward to a second-floor landing, but the railing up there seemed wrong. It was out of proportion, the spokes too short and the base too high. Then Dahlman saw a pair of eyes peering down at him between the spokes. A girl about the same age as the boy at the door sat up, and brought with her a small, square-looking piece of black metal that Dahlman didn’t recognize as an automatic weapon until she turned it away from him and he could see the short barrel in profile. She stood and sauntered off to dissolve into the shadows of the upstairs hallway.
“Well, what do you think of her?” The voice came from somewhere to the left of them, a loud baritone.
Dahlman turned his head to see that Jane was already staring in that direction, into a room beside her that looked almost as it should have. It was the library of the old house, and it was still lined with ornate oak shelves that held rows of leather-bound volumes. There was a tall, bearded, broad-shouldered man with a fat belly that showed a little between his T-shirt and his jeans sitting in a wing chair in the dimly lighted room.
Jane shrugged and walked to the entrance. “She’s way too young to be sincere. She’ll take your money and cut your throat.”
The big man laughed and shook his head. “I was referring to the backup for the door. That’s an innovation since you were here. See, they get past the door—”
“How?” she interrupted. “It would take a half hour with a battering ram.”
“But if they did—say by guile and artifice—then Cindy opens up from the balcony with the Ingram. She’s behind a layer of steel and bricks, and they’re standing down here blinking.” Dahlman saw the man’s eyes settle on him thoughtfully. He didn’t look pleased.
“What’s your name these days?” Jane seemed to be trying to break his train of thought.
“Sid Freeman.”
“Pleased to meet you, as usual,” said Jane.
Sid Freeman’s face was set and expressionless. “Who’s he?”
“I was just getting to that,” Jane said cheerfully. “He’s my runner. His name is Richard Dahlman.”
Sid Freeman stared at Dahlman for seven or eight seconds, then turned to glower at Jane. She avoided his gaze and looked around her as she said, “I don’t see any of the old faces.”
Sid Freeman snorted. “Death, plague, and conflagration on many fronts. Quinn got into the habit of wearing a Rolex and driving to unsavory parts of Chicago in a major piece of automotive extravagance. He made a stop one night while he was on the way to deliver a very big payoff, and the combination was too much for some people to resist.”
“Sorry.” Jane used the moment to inwardly celebrate the absence of Quinn. Sid was unbalanced, but Quinn had been frightening. She had once stood beside him at the window when he had the rifle pressed to his shoulder, watching an unidentified man strolling along the pat
h by the lake. He had been gripped by a tense, aching longing to squeeze the trigger just to see the man’s body jerk and the blood flow. Jane had stared into the spotting scope and said the man’s earphone was a hearing aid, and his glasses were too thick to let him qualify as a cop. Quinn had kept the rifle to his cheek and his finger tapping eagerly on the trigger guard until Sid had taken a turn at the telescope and told Quinn not to fire.
Sid shrugged. “It’s probably better that he’s gone. He would have fallen eventually to a dirty needle or unpremeditated sex; he never considered an evening complete without both.” He looked sadder as he said, “The lovely and talented Christie got caught in a sudden reverse of the natural order. She was killed by a New York cab driver. Actually, he wasn’t a real cab driver—just stole it and spent the evening cruising hotels looking for a rich mark, when Christie was there making a delivery for me. But it makes a better story that way: CABBIES FIGHT BACK!” He laughed at the thought.
His laugh induced a sensation in Jane that wasn’t exactly revulsion. It was the absence of pleasant surprise—what she might have felt if she had looked into an empty barrel and verified that it was still empty. Christie had been Sid’s—what was the term? “Girlfriend” sounded like something playful and innocent, and their closeness had always seemed to be a fetid amalgam of eroticism and conspiracy. Christie had always been putting her lips close to his ear and whispering secrets that had to do with money. But Jane had been sure that whatever minuscule level of affection Sid was capable of, it had been reserved for Christie.
Jane said, “I assume we don’t have to worry about anybody who’s in the house right now?”
Sid Freeman shook his head so that his shaggy hair whipped against his forehead. He pushed it back. “Worry about the kids?” He gave an amused snort. “They’re my greatest possession. They’ve eased the way out of my midlife tragedy and into my reclining years. I picked the first pair up to help me do some hunting—you know, to put Christie and Quinn to rest. They turned out to be ferocious—no hesitation, unencumbered by thoughts, either first or second. And they’re sleek and beautiful to watch, like tigers. So I kept them and got some more. Four so far. I’m hoping they’ll breed. But you don’t want to climb in the cage with them, if you know what I mean: Sid Freeman doesn’t indulge in the marital arts except with blue-haired ladies of his own generation. For you, of course, I’m willing to accept false ID.”