The Face-Changers (22 page)

Finally she rested both shoulders on the seat and seemed to relax.

She looked at him. “You can talk, you know. That’s why I rented this car. Nobody could have put a bug in it. So let’s hear some sweet nothings.”

“I love you,” he said. “How bad is it on your end?”

“Pretty bad.”

“Here too. I was hoping that by now Dahlman would be safe in Illinois again, and we could forget about him and go back to living a normal life.”

“Me too.” She watched him as she said, “I’m afraid that’s not exactly imminent.” He looked as though his lungs were deflating. Then he straightened, and began compulsively glancing in the rearview mirror. When he had seen her, his hopes must have ambushed him, she thought. “But I’m curious,” she said. “What could a fellow like you mean by a normal life, and what makes you so sure you want one?” He looked at her, and his lips slowly came up into a smile that turned into a small, rueful laugh. He was Carey again.

“There are many ways of assessing these matters,” he said.

“But I find that what the term really means is frequent sex.”

“Why, you terrible man!” She leaned close and kissed his cheek again. “No wonder I couldn’t stay away.”

“What else can you tell me that will make me happy?”

“Nothing happy. Dahlman’s recovering from your hasty ministrations. I had to go over your shoddy tailoring with a needle and thread in a motel room.”

“I’ll bet that wasn’t your idea. Did he teach you the coroner’s stitch?”

“Sort of like laces?”

“That’s the one.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t call it that. You’re such a morbid bunch. I left him in an apartment so I could come back here and play house for a bit.”

“You mean he’s already doing that well?”

“No, but I figured you’d be doing that badly.” He winced. “I think I am. The police knew within a couple of hours that I worked with Dahlman years ago. They know I had something to do with his escape.”

Jane frowned. “Are you positive?”

“Yes. They don’t know what, exactly, or I’d probably be in jail.”

She stroked the back of his neck softly. “I’m afraid that’s not necessarily true.”

“It’s not?”

“No,” she answered. “If you’re right, then they’re probably watching you to see if someone comes to visit you or calls –

either Dahlman or a co-conspirator. Your phones will be tapped. As your co-conspirator, I can tell you that having them listening really dampens the urge to put that quarter in the pay phone. If I had, they’d have me. And they’d have you.”

“We’re in trouble, huh?”

Jane shrugged. “Let’s say we’re in a delicate position. It doesn’t sound as though we have much hope of convincing the police we’re innocent bystanders. The only thing we can do now is to convince them that what we’re guilty of is relatively minor and that they’ll never have enough evidence to be sure we’d be convicted.”

“What are you talking about? Helping a murderer escape from the police – how can that be minor?” Her voice became quieter and more worried. “It’s not. It’s major. Minor is something like neglecting to notice that an innocent man walked out of a hospital. We have to do everything exactly right, and that means understanding the game. The police know it inside out, so they start way ahead.

Dahlman isn’t a murderer unless he goes to trial and gets convicted, right?”

“I guess, so… yes.”

“Until they catch him, he’s just a murder suspect.”

“The distinction isn’t exactly enormous.”

“It means nothing to most people, but it’s important to us now. The police think they’re going to catch him. They think that when they do, he’ll either tell them who helped, or they’ll find a witness, or pick up some evidence with him that proves it – not to them, but to a jury. They also think it’s possibte –

even probable – that by watching you they’ll hear or see something that will help them catch him. That’s their priority.

They think he’s a killer and they want him yesterday. If they charge you or put you in jail, it will be in the papers and on television. So you won’t be good bait anymore. Even Dahlman wouldn’t be dumb enough to call you.”

“Even Dahlman? He isn’t a stupid man.” Jane sighed. “No, but he doesn’t seem to be able to get over the idea that the world will spontaneously come to its senses –

that his résumé will convince people he’s innocent. I think I’ve scared him enough to make him stay put until I get back.”

“What do we do?”

“What you do is play yourself as convincingly as you can.

You’re not worried, you’re not scared. You’re a doctor who operated on a patient, and that’s all you know. If they ask you for theories, you don’t have one.”

“They already did.”

“What did you say?”

“That he was probably still in the hospital. I said I didn’t know anything about the murder. I didn’t think he would kill anybody. Since I hadn’t seen any evidence, I couldn’t prove it.

In other words, I played dumb.”

“See?” she said with a smile. “All those years of practice paid off. Make sure your schedule stays as busy as ever, and keep at it Do nothing that surprises them.”

“I think I just did,” he said. “Didn’t I?”

“Yes, but it’s not serious. Just because they lost you for a while doesn’t mean you planned it. I had to talk to you alone, and this could be die last chance. Have they asked you about me yet?”

“No.”

She frowned and considered. “I guess that’s good, because it doesn’t put anything on the record. Here’s the story. I was out of town when Dahlman arrived. I’m home now, but this is powwow season, and I’m involved in Native American political issues, so I’m making the circuit – coming and going for much of the summer.”

“But why tell them something like that?”

“It’s not really telling them anything but my race. They’ll already know that much about me. Trust me on that. It’s been going on all my life: 'This is Jane. She’s an Indian.' So we’ll use it. The F.B.I, will run a trace and turn me up on some list or other: maybe one of the groups I belonged to in college, or just the Seneca enrollment list. It will give them an independent verification from their own sources, and that usually makes them overconfident. I’m going to give you a schedule of powwows and festivals and things. When they ask where I am, you look at the schedule. If they want to see it, let them.”

“Won’t they find you?”

“No. The doings are simultaneous and overlapping, all over the country. It’ll look like an itinerary, but at any given time I could be anyplace or on the way. If I get the chance, I’ll call once in a while at the right time from the right place. If I do, we’ll talk about nothing. No code words, no clever tip-offs you make up on the spot.”

“But what if – ”

“What if nothing. The people they’ll have monitoring our phones decipher telephone codes for a living. We’re no match for them.” As they passed an intersection, Jane looked away from Carey. “Oh, that’s too bad,” she said. “They’re looking for us.”

“How do you know?”

“I just saw two police cars on parallel streets, like a grid search. I was hoping the two we left at the office would be dumb enough to sit tight for a few more minutes.” She paused for a moment, then said, “We don’t have much time, so I’d better say this now.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“Afraid so,” she said. “It’s unlikely that this whole thing is going to end well. The only hope Dahlman has – or we have, either – is if we can keep him from going to trial until the evidence isn’t all against him. All we have going for us is – ”

“You,” he interrupted. “We have you. Or I do, anyway.”

“Very sweet,” she said. “I love stupidity in a man. The time could come when the situation gets to be impossible – you lose track of me, or Dahlman ends up dead, or the police show signs that they’re ready to put you away. At that point what I want you to do is this: go to Jake’s house without letting anyone follow you. I’ll leave a packet with him. It will have identification for both of us, passports, a lot of cash, and things like that. There will be an address in the packet. Go there and wait for me.”

“What if you don’t show up? You know how flighty and unreliable women are. How long should I wait?”

“If I’m alive, I’ll be there. If I’m dead, what will I care?

You have my permission to fly to the Middle East and start recruiting a harem.”

“Hmmm,” he said. “Something to consider.”

“Of course, you’d be wise to make sure I’m really dead.”

“I’ll wait at least an hour before I get started. By the way, how in the world am I going to get anywhere if the police are about to arrest me?”

“I’m not sure if I should tell you. But I will as soon as I’ve gotten a better look at who’s doing the watching.”

“Jane?”

“No, I won’t give you advice on how to find the women.

Find your own women.”

“I’m being serious.”

“All right.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sure you know that, but I have to say it anyway. If I had known what was going to happen – that this was going to destroy our lives – I would never have gotten you into it.” He looked at her sadly. “I’m sure you know that, too.” She shrugged. “There’s always more than one way to look at it. If we hadn’t done this, you would have found Dahlman murdered in his hospital bed. That’s not speculation – I saw the two men on their way to do it. Then we would have had to try to live with the knowledge that a man you admired and owed a big debt came to us for help, but you refused because you wanted to keep your nice, safe life. Could you do it?

Could I? It wouldn’t have killed us, but that wasn’t the person I wanted to marry. I wanted to give myself to a big, strapping, manly blockhead who could be counted on to sacrifice himself to my every whim. But if you wouldn’t for Dahlman, you wouldn’t for me either. This sort of behavior is what I wanted, I guess. So I deserve it.”

“Thanks,” said Carey. “I knew I could find comfort in there somewhere.”

“Where?”

“ ‘Manly.’ It has a positive, endearing connotation, and definite sexual overtones.”

“It does not.”

“Oh?” said Carey. “It certainly does. Try the reversal test.

What if I were describing you and used the word ‘womanly’?” She thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay, you got me. I must have been thinking about you in shameful, lustful ways. Pull over there at the curb.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“You’re a prude all of a sudden?” She laughed. “No, but I’d like to drive. This is probably the last time when there can’t possibly be anybody spying on us or eavesdropping. If they happened to spot us on the way to the hotel I picked out, I would be a very disappointed girl.”

Marshall sat behind the cashier’s counter of the little gas station on a chair that must have been purchased in the sixties.

The burlap-colored upholstery had a texture like military webbing, and six cigarette burns that were becoming familiar to him. The chrome on the frame had worn thin and begun to show rust specks. He said, “So you were sitting right where I am now?”

Dale Honecker said, “Yes sir,” and nodded his head emphatically. “I heard a car, so I stood up to look.”

“What could you see from here?”

“The old guy, and a woman driving. She gets out – ”

“Wait,” said Marshall. “She gets out. Which side?”

“This side. He’s on the other side.” Marshall thought about it. The gas cap on a Toyota Camry was on the left side, so she should have been on the other side of the pumps, where she wouldn’t have to drag the hose across the car to fill it.

“Are you sure?”

“Uh… yes.” So she was trying to keep the passenger away from the gas station, where the boy couldn’t see him, thought Marshall.

“Then what?”

“Then she gets out, walks in, hands me a twenty, and says she’s going to fill it.”

“Describe her,” said Marshall.

“Long, dark hair…”

“How old?”

“I don’t know. Maybe twenty-five. Thin, pretty.”

“Eye color?”

“I don’t remember.”

“What were you thinking?”

“I… I don’t understand.”

“It’s very late at night. A car pulls up. You probably haven’t seen many cars since around midnight. You look out the window. Why?”

“Because you get kind of jumpy sitting here alone in this lighted room all night. When somebody pulls in, I take a look to see if they look like they might rob me.”

“Good. So what did you think when you saw this car?”

“I guess I felt kind of relieved. An old guy and this woman probably aren’t about to stick me up.”

“It’s kind of an odd combination, though, isn’t it? You didn’t recognize Dahlman right away, did you?”

“No.”

“So you had to think they were something else, right?”

“I guess so.” Then he amended it. “I didn’t really think.”

“You’re a night cashier in a self-service station,” said Marshall. “When I used to work dull night shifts, and somebody came in, I used to play a little game, and sort of make up stories about them. You’ve got an old guy who pulls in with a woman maybe a third of his age, it’s kind of interesting.”

The young man looked alarmed. “I didn’t make none of this up.”

“I don’t mean that,” said Marshall. “I meant you might have thought, ‘This is a father and daughter. He’s sick, and she’s taking him to the emergency room, but suddenly she sees she’s out of gas. So she’s in a hurry, maybe looking scared.’

Or, ‘This is some rich old guy who’s making a fool of himself with a woman who’s probably a hooker.’ Or, ‘This is an undercover policewoman who’s taking the editor of the local paper on a ride-along to show him a crime scene.’” Marshall paused and waited. The young man’s blue eyes were opaque, like marbles.

“I guess the last one.”

Marshall wondered if he had heard correctly. “You mean you thought the woman was a police officer?”

“No,” said Dale. “I didn’t think anything. But if it was one of them, that would probably be the one. She wasn’t scared or nervous, and she seemed kind of… tough. Not like prostitutes.”

“Have you seen prostitutes?”

“Yes… not exactly. I mean I think I’ve seen them, but seeing them on a street isn’t proof that’s what they are. What I mean is she didn’t look like the ones looked that I thought might be.”