by Thomas Perry
She stood and glanced across the room at Janet McNamara. She was leaning against the wall. Her hands were at the sides of her face like claws clutching at nothing, and her teeth were bared as though a scream had been caught in her throat. She was wearing a flannel nightshirt that had been unbuttoned in front from the neck to the thigh.
“Put on some clothes,” said Jane. “This place doesn’t seem to have worked out.”
28
Jane drove out of the quiet neighborhood, down Colfax Avenue, east on Ventura Boulevard, and up the entrance to the Hollywood Freeway. Finally she looked at Janet McNamara. “Are you up to having a serious talk?”
“I don’t think so.” After a few seconds, she said, “But if I won’t, I’m in worse trouble, aren’t I? I’m lost, just as though I were floating on some dark ocean. Nothing in any direction—left, right, above, below.”
Jane reached out and touched the woman’s shoulder, but the woman cringed and shrank back. Jane said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Is that man dead? Did you—did we—just kill him?”
“If he’s dead, I killed him. I’m not interested in sharing the blame,” said Jane. She looked at the woman. “Did he rape you?”
The woman glared at her, but said nothing.
Jane said, “No matter what he did, it’s over. I’m not going back there to kill him again.”
“So he is dead.”
“I’m asking about you. I need to know if I’m looking for a doctor or an airport.”
“He didn’t. I’m sure you know exactly what happened. You set this up.”
Jane held her breath for a few seconds, then let it out. It had to be now. “I don’t actually work for the people who hid you. I didn’t set this up. I took you there because I wanted to see them without having them see me. When I realized they had arranged to meet you in an empty building, I got worried.”
“What are you saying? You don’t work for them? You said you did. You said—”
“I lied.”
The admission stopped the woman, made all of the evidence she was arranging in her mind irrelevant. Or maybe it didn’t: maybe this was the lie. “Why should I believe you’re telling the truth now?”
Jane looked into her eyes for a moment. “I’m not telling you the truth because I’ve suddenly become a sweet person.” She turned to look at the highway ahead. “I’m doing it because I think it’s to my advantage right now, and I don’t think it will cost me anything in the future. Listen carefully, because the truth doesn’t come trippingly to my tongue, and I use it only as a last resort. I’ve been trying to spy on those people to learn who they are and where they are so I’ll be able to destroy them. I was waiting for them in Minneapolis, and saw one of them taking you to the airport. I had two or three seconds to decide whether to follow him or to divert you. I picked you.”
“Why?”
“I thought you might tell me things. I knew the man driving you to the airport wouldn’t.”
“What are you—some kind of policewoman?”
“No. I’m Jane.”
“You’re … I don’t understand.”
“For thirteen years I was a guide. I took people who were in danger and moved them to places where they weren’t in danger. I gave them forged papers, taught them how to stay hidden, and left. Sound familiar? It was quiet, it was private. It wasn’t a business. But people heard about it. Now the ones you met seem to be using my name.”
The woman’s eyes flashed. “You used me to get revenge because they stole your trade name?”
“No,” said Jane. “These people have become a danger—to people I hid over the years, to people I love who have nothing to do with the disappearing business, and to me. I did use you.” Jane stared at her, unblinking. “But here you are.”
“You mean you put me in a fire and pulled me out before I got burned?” She was angry and Jane could tell that her vision was narrowing—she was literally seeing red. “Well, it wasn’t in time.”
“You said nothing happened.”
“Something happened. Not that, but something.”
Jane kept the emotions she felt from slipping into her voice. “What happened?”
Janet McNamara’s body began to shake. It was a slow movement of her head, the tears hidden as though she were refusing to give in to them. Then she sobbed, and gasped in a breath. The next sob was loud, as though she were angry at Jane for causing it and was defiant. But she didn’t sob aloud again. Her shoulders shook harder for a minute or two, and then she lifted her head and spoke just above a whisper. “I found out that I’m not smart, and I’m not strong, and I’m not brave.”
Jane’s tone was gentle, reasonable. “He was a man who hurt people for a living. He had a loaded gun. You had nothing. Smart is being able to walk away at the end of it. You’re smart. He’s not.”
The woman seemed to let Jane’s words go past her, because she had something to tell. “I went to bed, and when I woke up he was standing there in the bedroom doorway. It was like one of those dreams where there’s something big and awful that you can’t quite see. I sat up so fast I was dizzy. He said he was there to check on me.” She glared at Jane. “Just as you said he would.”
Jane didn’t answer. The woman needed to get something said, so she didn’t try to interrupt her with some disclaimer that would have to be a lie.
The woman looked out the windshield. “I pulled myself together a little bit after that. I remember actually laughing—a nervous little laugh—because finally something was happening the way somebody had said it would, and that meant everything was on track again. But it wasn’t. He said, ‘Get up,’ and switched on the light. He turned away, so I thought it was some clumsy attempt to be polite, because I was only wearing my nightgown. But when I got up I saw he was going through my stuff: my suitcase and my bag. I said, ‘What are you doing?’ and he said he was collecting the money I owed.”
“Did you owe them money?” asked Jane.
“No,” said the woman. “I paid all the expenses, and gave them fifty thousand dollars. That was supposed to be it. But he said I was mistaken.” She looked down at her hands in her lap.
“Did he explain what he meant?”
“I didn’t really listen carefully to the rest. There was something about extra expenses because I wasn’t on the plane, and that meant they had to look for me. And fees for other things. Once I knew where this was all leading, it hardly mattered what he called it.”
“Did you argue with him?”
“Sure. I wasn’t trying to run away from things I’d done and live in luxury or something. He was taking the money I was going to need to stay hidden and get started again. I was desperate. I started to yell at him.”
“And then what?”
“And then I stopped.”
Jane looked at her closely. “You figured it out, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said the woman. “I did. It was one of those surprises that come, and when they do, the biggest part is wondering how you could be so stupid that you didn’t know before. All you had to do was step out of your own skull and look at yourself from anywhere but your own eyes. I saw him looking at me, and saw that the shouting didn’t make him nervous. He raised his voice too, but he wasn’t mad. He was just showing me he wasn’t afraid of being heard. He could make all the noise he wanted.”
“And you couldn’t.”
“No. I couldn’t. I saw it in his eyes. They were … amused. I don’t mean he thought I was funny. I mean that he was watching my face while it all occurred to me, and he was enjoying each step.”
“Each step?”
“I’m thinking, ‘Why am I yelling?’ The reason you yell is to bring other people—neighbors, passersby, police. If that happens, I’m going to be caught and shipped back to Washington and put in jail. Or maybe it’s more basic, less civilized. I’m angry, like an animal. My throat tightens and my mouth opens wider. But what does my animal anger mean to this other animal? He’s m
uch bigger and stronger and faster than I am, and he knows how to fight—has fought. So yelling is not only pointless, it’s actually self-destructive. Yelling and fighting were out.”
“You said he was watching you figure that out. Did he say anything?”
“He said, ‘The maintenance fee will be five thousand a month.’ ”
“What’s a maintenance fee?”
“I’m surprised you don’t know. Or maybe you do, and you want me to say it. He said they’d continue to check on me to be sure I was okay, and if I needed things, they would get them for me.”
“What sorts of things?”
“Renew my licenses and cards and things. Even that had never occurred to me. I had a wallet full of fake cards, but what happens in a year when they’ve expired? What if I needed a college transcript or a reference for a job?”
“Did you agree to it?”
She shrugged. “I told him I didn’t have enough money. When I ran away I had two hundred and five thousand dollars. I paid them fifty to help me. I put up another twenty-five for expenses: that Sid Freeman guy, plane tickets, hotels, cars, hair, clothes, and I don’t remember what else. He was taking another twenty-five right then. So if I never spent anything at all—never even bought any food—I could only pay for twenty-one months. Then I thought, ‘Well, okay. Maybe I can find a job quickly, and that will buy me more time.’ Isn’t that amazing?”
“It sounds fairly sensible.”
“No, it doesn’t. What I’m telling you is that it took me maybe five seconds to hear it, and accept it, and get used to it, just like the yelling.”
“You didn’t have much choice, and you had already figured out that arguing with him tonight wasn’t going to get you anywhere.”
“I didn’t have any choice at all. I was being robbed and I couldn’t fight or yell for help. I was getting scared. I thought about running. I was in a strange city across the continent from anything or anybody I knew. I had no credit cards or licenses or identification except the ones they had given me, in a name they chose, and no hope of getting any others. How far would I get? But the big, big surprise was that it took me maybe five more seconds to see everything that had happened the way it really was.”
Jane wondered if she did. “How was it, really?”
“They had promised to make me disappear. I had thought of it as hiding, but it wasn’t. They made me cease to exist, and what was left was this woman that they had invented. Whatever they decided was all right with me, because it had to be. They owned me. I was already not really evaluating what he was telling me, because I knew it was settled. But I was listening, because I had to know what he wanted so I could do it.”
Jane guided the car onto the circular interchange for the San Diego Freeway and accelerated up the long hill to the south toward the airport. “It’s over now. Don’t blame yourself. If anybody is to blame, I guess it’s me.”
The woman looked at her with glazed eyes. “I should hate you, but I don’t seem to be able to bring back enough of myself to feel it. I think it, but it’s just something I know is appropriate, not an emotion.”
“It’s a start,” said Jane. “Being in a situation like that isn’t something that changes you into a different person. He was holding a gun on you.”
“No, he wasn’t. If you want to know what really happened, I’ll tell you. He said I would pay them five thousand a month. I said I couldn’t for very long. He said a smart girl like me would think of a way.”
“This isn’t necessary,” said Jane. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
“Yes I do,” said the woman. “I said, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ So he reached out and tugged my nightgown so the hem came up over my knees. He said my legs weren’t bad, so there might be hope. I batted his hand away and pulled back from him. He just stood there and put his hand on his hip. That opened his coat so I could see the gun. He never touched it, just looked at me and waited.” She squeezed her eyes closed, and Jane saw tears stream down her cheek. “I said, ‘You don’t need the gun.’ And I started to take the nightgown off. He didn’t even have to ask. I’ve never done anything like that in my life, never thought of it. I just knew that was what I was supposed to do, and I was thinking I would save myself some little bit of nastiness if I just did it.”
Jane said, “This isn’t what I want to know.”
“But it is what I want to tell you. It took about fifteen minutes to reduce me to that. He had come to make sure I understood that I would have to do what they wanted, and this was the most painless way I had to tell him that I got the idea: he didn’t have to hit me or cut me or something. And you know what? Before it happened, I was already used to it. It had already sunk in, and seemed perfectly natural in the new order of things. I had already learned that I could get by without my money, and now I told myself I could get along without whatever this was, too. But having to be hit in the face or have an arm broken, or even having to stand there and listen to him saying it, and then have to do exactly as he said, seemed worse than just getting it over with quietly. Then you came in.”
Jane drove in silence, watching the lanes behind her. At the last second, she decided to drive past the Century Boulevard exit. The Los Angeles airport was too big, too obvious, too chancy. She kept going.
The woman said, “You’ve lost all respect for me, haven’t you?”
Jane looked at her and shook her head. “No.”
“Oh, that’s right. You didn’t have any respect for me in the first place. Why should you? I did a terrible thing and ran away. And now this.”
Jane said, “I’ve been trying to tell you that you did the best you could under the circumstances. That’s all anybody can do.”
“Not you,” she said with hatred. “You didn’t volunteer to strip for that man. You came in and zapped him. No hesitation, no fear. But I’m not like that, and if I were, I wouldn’t have the slightest idea of how to do it.”
Jane shook her head sadly. “There was lots of hesitation, and that’s why you got into trouble. I’m sorry. I misread the signs at first. The reason he wasn’t afraid that anybody would come when you made noise was that there’s nobody else living in the building yet. They undoubtedly own it, and you’re the only tenant at the moment. His car was the only one in the lot at almost midnight, so I came in. And I do feel fear.”
“No you don’t,” said the woman. “You don’t know what it is.”
“I’ve felt convinced that everything has fallen apart and I’m surrounded and outnumbered and unthinkable things are going to happen and I won’t be able to do anything. Not anymore.”
“You just decided to stop?”
“In a way. I’ve been at this a long time. The problems all have shapes now, and I try to guess what might be done to get rid of them. What I’m afraid of is that I’ll miss something, that I won’t move fast enough, or I’ll guess wrong. Those are fears I can do something about, so I do. It doesn’t leave as much space in my brain for just being frightened. It’s a trick, and you’re going to have to learn it.”
“I can’t.” The tears came again, and the big, gulpy sobs shook her body. “I can’t. I don’t know what to do.”
Jane said quietly, “I’m going to take you somewhere now. I’ll give you new identification that will hold up until I can tailor something for you. I’ll give you a quick course in how to get along.”
“And then what?”
“After that, if you’ve paid attention, you’ll get along.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
29
Jane let her choose her own name, but she didn’t know how. Jane sighed and asked, “What’s your real name?”
“Janet McAffee.”
Jane shook her head in surprise. “I’ll bet they don’t do that very often.”
“Do what?”
“Give a runner the same first name. The reason to do it is because you’re used to being a Janet, so a new last name is no big mental s
train. A hundred million women have done it without much fuss, and we’re all prepared for the possibility from the age of ten. But it means they didn’t think anyone would be looking for you very hard. Now they are, so you’ll have to do better this time. With your hair and eyes you don’t have to be Irish. Is there anything else you’ve ever wanted to be?”
“I don’t know. How about French?” It was a moment or two before she admitted to herself that it was because of her college roommate, Denise Fourget. She had always envied the way Denise looked, the way she moved and talked. She spent a few seconds feeling foolish, and another few seconds asking herself whether it mattered where the name came from, then chose the name Christine Manon.
Chris Manon was not sanguine about Cleveland. It was no more run-down or dirty than Baltimore, but the old buildings didn’t seem to have the eccentric grace of the ones she was used to. They weren’t even as old. She suspected that when the summer ended, it would get cold in that ferocious, windy way that midwestern cities did, with snow that was frightening instead of pretty. But those were petty complaints, and she was ashamed to say them out loud.
The apartment Jane rented was not even as nice as the one in Los Angeles. It was drab, and had endured a lot of damage over the years that seemed to have been repaired by a landlord’s handyman instead of a real carpenter. There were mismatched tiles here and there in the foyer and hallways, and the cheapest kind of faucets in the kitchen and bathroom.
Jane had been very pleased when she found it. “Second floor is best, so always try for it. If the building has three or more floors you can slip out when you need to and go up or down the elevator or the stairs, then out the front or back door. A visitor can’t easily climb in your window, but you’re low enough to go out with a rope. You can see the street better than they can see your apartment.” Jane had put on the mailbox the name Joseph Manon, and assured her that any mail for Christine Manon would still get to her.