Blood Money (36 page)

Jane turned off the radio by the bed. She took a deep breath, then glanced down at Rita. The girl’s eyes looked frightened and childlike. Jane’s urge to shout at her dispersed. Jane sat on the bed beside her. “We’ve got a problem.”

“What?”

Jane said gently, “I know you miss your mother. I don’t blame you for wanting her not to be worried. I never specifically said, ‘Don’t write any letters to your mother.’ But I wish now that I had.”

“But I didn’t tell her anything. I didn’t say where I was, or who you were, or say Bernie was alive, or anything.”

“How many letters did you write?”

“Two. And they were to my mother, not anybody else. What—I can’t write to my mother in prison?”

Jane sighed. “The problem with prisons is that they’re filled with criminals. I think somebody read your letter. It had to be the first one, because I read the second.” Jane pointed toward the window. “Out there somebody has set up a blind.”

Jane heard Bernie move into the room behind her. “A blind what?”

“A blind. Like a duck blind. A little camouflaged barrier you hide behind to shoot something.” She looked at Bernie, then at Rita. “It’s set up to give them a view of this house and the road to town. It’s fresh—maybe a day old. Was anybody out there today?”

Rita said, “Not me.” Bernie didn’t answer, but the look on his face indicated that the question was unnecessary.

Jane said patiently, “I mean did you
see
anybody out there?”

“No,” said Rita.

“Then it’s probably pretty much what I thought. They were getting ready for tonight.” She glanced at her watch. “It doesn’t seem to make sense to plan to shoot somebody from a distance when they’re asleep. I think they’ll come when they
expect to find us still awake and walking around in front of lighted windows.”

“You always struck me as a smart girl,” said Bernie, “but—”

“When did you go to bed last night?” Jane interrupted.

“I don’t know,” Bernie answered. “It wasn’t this early.”

“Eleven-thirty,” said Rita. “I watched the eleven o’clock news.”

“Then we’ve got two hours at the outside. Let’s assume it’s one hour.” Jane bent over, picked up Rita’s sneakers, and tossed them on the bed beside her. “Both of you get packed as quickly as you can. Don’t bring anything you’re not going to need badly, but don’t forget things like money and the IDs I gave you.”

Bernie went to his room and Jane could hear him opening and closing drawers. Rita put the suitcase Jane had bought her on the bed, then lifted armloads of clothes and tossed them inside. By the time Bernie returned, Rita had finished packing. She put on her shoes.

“All ready? Good,” said Jane. She opened her jacket and handed Rita the packet she had prepared. “These are new IDs for you and Bernie. What you’ve got to do is get into your car and get out of here. Go east, not toward town. That’s the way they seem to be expecting you to run.”

Bernie said, “What about you?”

Jane looked at him in surprise. “I’ll be safer without you. Henry said we have to take the hard disks out of the computers and destroy them. That will take me a few minutes. After that, I’ll be on my way too.”

As Jane headed for the doorway, she heard Bernie say to Rita, “I’ll wait for you downstairs, kid.” Jane reached the dining room and a moment later, Bernie was at her shoulder.

“How did they find us?”

Jane didn’t look up from the computer. “I don’t think I want to tell you.”

“Rita got in touch with somebody, didn’t she?”

Jane nodded. “Her mother.”

Bernie looked sad, but he wasn’t angry. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Jane looked at him in surprise. “Sorry?”

“She’s just a kid. Don’t blame her. Her mother is all she ever had. I just wish that you weren’t here for this. You didn’t have to come back. That wasn’t the deal.”

“We’ll all be out of here in a few minutes, before those guys get to their blind.”

“I don’t think that’s the way it’s going to happen,” he said.

Jane moved the computer closer so she could see it better, and opened the cowling on the side. “A few yards from the blind they dug a six-foot hole with lime in the bottom. What do you suppose that was for?”

“I don’t mean that,” said Bernie. “That’s probably what you think it is. But the plan isn’t right. It might be what they’d do, but it’s not what they’d want to do.”

“What do they want to do?” asked Jane wearily.

“They want their money. They don’t know I’m alive, so they’re looking for Rita, and they’re looking for anybody who’s with Rita. Probably they want you alive, so they can find out what happened to their money.” He paused. “This is not entirely good news, of course. Getting caught would be worse than being dead. But they won’t just open up on you from a distance. It’s not what they did when Tony Groppa hid his skim from the horse money, or the way they got Tippy Bono after he hijacked the Augustinos’ bagman, or—”

“I thought you didn’t know things like that.” She opened her pocketknife and used it as a screwdriver.

Bernie held up his hands in a gesture of innocence. “Hey, they told me. These guys kill somebody, and it’s a story to tell for years. The ones who didn’t do it, they think about it too, want to know every detail.”

“Suppose they think the money’s already gone? They’re above revenge?”

Bernie said, “They might send two guys with rifles to pop somebody they couldn’t get close to, but what’s stopping them here?”

Rita appeared in the doorway with her suitcase. “I think Bernie’s right. Even if they want to kill us, wouldn’t it be easier if we were asleep?”

Jane gave them an exaggerated version of a cheery smile
as she pulled out the last screw. “That would be great. That would give you even more of a head start. Why don’t you two talk about it in the car? That way, risking my life to come and get you won’t have been a waste of time.” She bent down and used her knife to pry the disk drive out of the first computer and disconnect the wires. She muttered to herself, “At least this is easy. Thank you, Henry, wherever you are.”

“We can’t just go out there and drive off,” said Bernie. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. If somebody knows we’re here, they wouldn’t just go away and come back later, like they would with a normal hit in the middle of a city. They have to be watching the road, so we can’t get out.”

Jane pulled out the second disk drive and put both of them into her jacket pockets. “I can’t tell you how all this information makes me feel.” She paused. “Because it would take longer than I’m going to be here.” She walked toward the kitchen door.

“I wouldn’t go out there,” said Bernie.

Jane turned. “Everything you say is probably true. What it means is, if we stay here, we’re dead. If we take the car, we’re dead. If we try to make it out on foot before they get here, we have some chance.”

Rita looked at Jane, then at Bernie. “What do you think, Bernie?”

Bernie shrugged in irritation. “I’ll do what you want. It’s nothing to me. I’m old.”

“Then leave the suitcases,” said Jane. “Take the money and IDs.” She stepped to the broom cupboard and opened it. “I’ll take the shotgun.”

Jane picked up the shotgun and turned the door handle, but Rita’s voice said, “Go with her, Bernie.”

Rita was pale, her hand quivering as she moved it to the counter for support, but her voice was steady and strong. “The best way is the one you haven’t said. I’m the only one they want, and I’m the one who did this. There’s no reason for them to know there was anyone else. I’ll keep moving, turn lights on and off, play the radio loud—anything I can think of to let them know I’m still here.”

Jane stepped closer and stared at Rita for a moment, studying her closely. Rita held her head high to show that she was not going to give in this time. Without warning, Jane’s right arm shot out, the heel of her hand struck Rita’s shoulder and spun her body around, and in the same motion snaked over Rita’s right shoulder and clutched her left armpit.

Rita gasped, but the arm wouldn’t let her lungs inflate enough to let air out in a cry. In a second she had been jerked backward out the door and onto the porch.

Bernie stepped out and locked the door behind him, and Jane released her grip on Rita.

Rita whispered, “Why—”

But Jane hissed, “Because I don’t have time to be persuasive. Get across this open ground as quickly as you can. After that, there’s some cover.”

They walked rapidly, their feet crunching on the dry stubble that surrounded the house. The stars were beginning to show in the black sky, but at least the moon wasn’t bright. Jane’s major worry was Bernie. Rita was a healthy teenager who could walk all night, but Jane sensed that Bernie would be in trouble. He was a bent-over silhouette in the darkness, and his breathing began to sound labored when they were only halfway across the open ground. It occurred to her that he might not be capable of walking the four or five miles to town.

Just as Jane reached the end of the open field, her ears picked up a faint car noise. She hurried on, still listening. The sound was regular and even, but it began to seem a pitch lower than the engine of the usual car. She turned and looked toward the road.

Around the curve she could see the dark shape of a car crawling along with its lights off. When it reached a spot on the far side of the house where the bushes shielded it from the front windows, it stopped. Around the bend came a second car, then a third and a fourth. One by one, they pulled onto the shoulder of the road and stopped.

Jane turned toward Rita and saw that she was staring, wide-eyed, at the cars. Jane pushed her forward, then lingered
to keep Bernie moving. She looked over her shoulder, then saw the first two doors open up, and men begin to climb out.

“Is that what you were expecting to see?” she whispered.

“Roughly,” said Bernie. “What now?”

“Let yourself get scared,” she said. “It helps you move faster.”

A
s soon as Jane had hurried the others past the blind, she paused again to look back. There were now several silhouettes making their way toward the doors of the house. Some of them walked with one arm held straight toward the ground, as though they were carrying pistols. Then she saw movement in the foliage near the parked cars and felt a growing alarm. There were men there too, moving into the brush carrying long-barreled weapons. She tried to count them, but the darkness and the bushes near the road made them difficult to make out. One would be visible, but then she would lose sight of him. She would see another movement, but not be sure whether it was a man or the wind.

Finally she saw two men carrying rifles step out of the brush behind the house. When she saw them break into a trot toward the low stubble she had just crossed, she sucked in a breath. They were heading toward the blind.

She spun and trotted to catch up with Rita and Bernie. “We’ve got to get away from here.”

“What does it look like we’re doing?” asked Bernie. “Figure eights?”

She took him by the hand and pulled him along. “Once we’re away from the blind, we’ll be behind them.”

Bernie moved more quickly, but Jane could tell that the additional effort was costing him. He was beyond attempting to disguise his heavy breathing now. His jaw hung slack to keep his mouth open, and his breath came out in huffs. His feet seemed to slap the ground, not push off it. Jane knew he was going to have to rest soon, and for the next hundred yards she searched her memory of the trail for places where they could hide. As the minutes went by, she gradually conceded to herself that he wasn’t going to make it.

She stopped and held Rita’s arm. “Here,” she said. “You take this.” She held out the shotgun, and Rita accepted it, doubtfully.

Jane squatted. “Help Bernie up on my back.”

Bernie was horrified. “What?” He gasped. “You can’t carry me.”

“I can try,” said Jane.

“I’m not dead yet,” he puffed. It took a moment for him to get enough breath to say, “I can walk.”

“Not fast enough. Do it.” Jane’s voice was quiet, but Rita could hear in it something hard that reminded her this wasn’t a game. She guided Bernie up behind Jane. Bernie brought his arms around Jane’s neck and clasped his hands, and Jane slipped her arms under Bernie’s knees. Rita pushed Bernie upward to help Jane straighten.

Jane said to Rita, “You lead the way, and I’ll follow. Go as fast as you can without tripping or backtracking, and I’ll try to keep you in sight.”

Jane took a last look back. The two men with rifles were nearly across the burned stubble. As soon as they reached their post at the blind and got their rifles comfortably sighted in, she knew, they would give some kind of signal for the assault to begin.

Jane set off again, making her way through the dry chaparral and spiky plants, threading between rocks and along gravelly inclines, straining to see Rita’s shape ahead of her. She could feel the effect of the extra weight on her feet, calves, and knees, but if she kept her hands clasped at her
belly and her back straight, she found she could move at a good walking pace.

In ten minutes, her shoulders and neck were tight and painful, and when she heard hard, sharp gasps, they were her own. The sweat had begun to run down into her eyes and sting them, then fall in drops from her nose and chin.

When Jane reached the dry arroyo, Rita was waiting for her, staring at her in horror. Jane stopped, bent her knees, and let Bernie down. Rita whispered, “How can you do that?”

Jane sank to the ground and lay there. She answered in a strained and winded voice, “I kept reminding myself of what would happen if I didn’t.” After a minute, her voice was stronger. “How do you feel now, Bernie?”

“Better.”

“Good,” said Jane. “Rita, give me the shotgun. I’ll go ahead for a bit. Walk with Bernie at his pace. If there’s a problem, run ahead and get me. Don’t call out.”

“Okay,” said Rita.

Jane got to her feet. “Watch your step here. There’s a slope.” She went down into the arroyo and came up on the other side, then slowly increased her speed to a trot.

Far behind, Jane heard the sound of glass breaking, then a loud creak and bang, as though the front door had just burst inward, the dead bolt wrenching the frame off with it. She kept moving until she thought she heard distant shouts. She glanced over her shoulder.