The Nomination (19 page)

Well, hell. She didn't. She didn't trust anybody. Hadn't for a long time.

For that matter, she didn't suppose Jimmy would trust her. Nobody could get away with what he'd been getting away with all his life by trusting anybody. Besides, he knew she used to be a cop.

He pulled into the motel lot at seven on the button. Driving a dark green Jeep Cherokee. The bald head, the stub of an unlit cigar in the corner of his mouth. Jimmy Nunziato was a cliché in his own story.

He backed the Cherokee into a space toward the rear corner of the lot so he could keep an eye on the entrances. Jessie smiled. She appreciated his caution.

The two of them could do this dance all night, holding back, watching each other, waiting to see who'd been followed.

She let him sit there for five minutes. Then she picked up her cell phone and called him.

“Hey, Jess,” he said. “Where are you?”

Jessie started up her car and drove to the exit from the strip mall with her cell phone against her ear. “What the hell, Nunz?” she said. “You checking up on me?”

“Course I am, pretty girl. You wouldn't want it any different. So where are you?”

“I'll be there in a minute. Hang on.” She found a hole in the traffic, darted across the street, drove into the motel lot, and pulled up beside his Cherokee. “Here I am,” she said into the phone just about the time he turned his head and smiled at her.

She got out of her car and climbed into the passenger side of his. She leaned over and planted a kiss on his bald head. “So how you been?”

“Good,” he said. “Keepin' out of trouble. You?”

“Oh, the same,” she said. “Trying, anyway. You got my stuff?”

“Of course,” he said. “You got mine?”

“Still three grand, right?”

He shrugged. “For you, sure.” He handed her a manila envelope.

She peeked in, then took the wad of bills from her pocket and gave it to him.

He stuffed it into his jacket pocket.

“You gonna count it?” Jessie said.

“No need,” he said. “I can always find you. I know you know that.”

She smiled. “Anybody ever cheated you, Jimmy?”

“One guy did. That was quite a few years ago. You wanna know what happened to him?”

Jessie rolled her eyes. “No, that's all right.” She pulled out the documents he'd prepared for her. Illinois driver's license. Birth certificate. Social security card. Passport. Two Visa cards.

She was now Karen Marie Donato, age 33, of 79 State Street, Chicago, Illinois. Jimmy had done a good job with the picture. Cutting and lightening her hair, making her look several years older than she'd been in the old head shot, the one he'd used when he created Carol Ann Chang. The magic of Photoshop.

“It all looks excellent,” she said. “These cards, they're open accounts?”

“Yep. You can use 'em if you need to. Better not to.”

“I won't,” she said.

“Here.” He handed her a cell phone. “Take this, too.”

“Right,” she said. “Stupid, I didn't think of that myself. Thanks.” She flipped open the new phone. “Prepaid?”

He nodded. “Only way to go. I'm number eleven on your speed dial, there, okay? Here, gimme that old one.”

Jessie handed her phone to Jimmy. He smashed it against the steering wheel a couple times. The plastic shattered in his big hand. He dropped the pieces out the window. “Take care of that problem,” he said.

“Professionally done,” she said. “So who's Karen Marie Donato?”

He grinned. “You, that's who.”

“No,” she said. “I mean, who
was
she?”

“Some girl, she was from Steamboat Springs, Colorado, went missing back in '87.”

Jessie thought for a minute. “She was, what, twelve or thirteen?”

He shrugged. “Something like that. You can do the math. All I know is, she's long gone and hard to find and probably dead. So now you're her. It's good, somebody's gonna get some use out of her, don't you think?”

“Missing,” said Jessie softly. “She's probably got parents, brothers and sisters, a boyfriend, still thinking about her, praying for her, hoping she's alive somewhere.”

“So why don't you go visit 'em?” he said. “Hey, you're her now.”

“You're sick.” Jessie squeezed his arm. “Well, thanks, Nunz.” She unlatched the car door.

“Hey, where you goin'?” he said.

“We're done here, aren't we?”

“You planning to keep driving around in that Civic?”

She shrugged. “I've got to drive.”

He pointed at the glove compartment. “In there.”

She opened it and took out an envelope. Inside was an automobile registration for the Cherokee. It was registered to Mary Ferrone. There was a title to the vehicle and insurance papers, also in Mary Ferrone's name.

She looked at Jimmy. “So who's Mary Ferrone?”

He smiled. “My Aunt Mary. Died last summer.”

“What if I get stopped and they check?”

“These ain't fake documents, Jess. This car really belonged to Aunt Mary. And you really are Karen now. You're a real person. Your license, Aunt Mary's registration, all legit.” He hesitated. “Still, try not to get stopped, though, okay?”

“You think of everything.”

“I do,” he said. “I got to.”

Jessie smiled. “So what do I owe you for the car?”

“Gimme the Civic. Fair swap.”

“It is like hell.”

He shrugged. “Close enough.”

They got out of the Cherokee, and Jimmy helped her move her stuff from the Civic to her new vehicle. Then she gave him a hug, got behind the wheel, turned on the ignition, and rolled down the window.

“Thanks, Nunz,” she said.

He shook his head. “Don't even think about it. Good luck, Jess.”

She reached out and patted his cheek.

“Hey,” he said. “When you get to wherever you're going, gimme a call, all right? I wanna know you're okay. Speed dial eleven.”

She gave him a thumbs up.

Jimmy smiled. “Good luck, kiddo,” he said. Then he went over to the Civic, gave Jessie a wave, climbed in, and pulled out of the lot.

Jessie sat in the Cherokee for five minutes, then drove away, too.

Her eighteen months with Howie Cohen and his crew had taught her that there really was such a thing as honor among thieves, and Nunz was about the most honorable thief she'd ever met, and the most thorough and careful, too.

But there was no sense taking any chances. Staying at the Motel 8 in Deer Creek, Illinois would've just been asking for trouble.

She headed for the interstate, eastbound. She figured she'd drive for another hour or so, put some distance between herself and Deer Creek before she started looking for a place to spend the night.

“I
t is now Friday, and I have not talked with you for a few days, dear Mac. I have not been feeling well. But you will be visiting me tomorrow, and I wanted to finish this part of my story.

“I was telling you about how it was with Thomas. Perhaps now you understand why it is painful for me to tell you my stories. Perhaps now you understand that these memories are like knives to my heart. They made wounds that will never heal. Throughout my time in Paris and then in Hollywood I was bleeding inside, remembering May, and I still bleed, remembering the foolish dreams that Thomas Larrigan encouraged me to dream. It is better not to have dreams at all than to come to the end of your life and realize they will never come true.

“I told you how he hit me on the head with his gun that rainy day in Saigon. I was badly hurt, Mac. Much of what I am about to tell you was told to me. It is not part of my actual memory. There are still holes in my memory.

“The night that Thomas hit me on the head, Bunny came to my rooms to visit. She found me unconscious on the floor and used her influence with the Red Cross to find a hospital bed for me. I was told that Bunny saved my life. If she hadn't come that night, I would have died. There was bleeding inside my head, and my brain was swelling from where Thomas had hit me. The doctors drilled a hole in my skull. They worried that I would not regain consciousness. They worried that even if I did, my brain would be damaged. Perhaps it was, I cannot tell.

“I was unconscious for many days. When I awakened, I found myself in a hospital. I was tended by Vietnamese nuns in their flowing black habits. They told me that my skull had been fractured and I had been in a coma.

“I was very sick, Mac. My mind was jumbled and dizzy. I had terrible headaches, and I was nauseated most of the time. I faded in and out of awareness. I had frightening dreams. I suppose they were giving me drugs, too. God help me, it was many days after I woke up from my coma before I remembered May. When I asked one of the nurses where May was, if she was all right, the nurse just shrugged and shook her head. I believed then that May was dead.

“I was terribly depressed, Mac. I would have killed myself if I could.

“Then one day Bunny came to see me, and I asked her about May. Bunny sat beside me and took my hand in both of hers. ‘I don't know where May is,' she said. ‘When I found you, your baby was not there.'

“I began to scream. ‘I want my baby! Where is my baby?' I tried to get out of bed and fell on the floor. Bunny helped me back into bed and a doctor came and gave me a shot.

“Several days passed before Bunny came to see me again. Then she said, ‘I have news of May.'

“‘Where is she?' I said. ‘I want to see my baby.'

“Bunny was shaking her head. ‘I'm sorry, Li An. May is gone.'

“‘Gone? What do you mean, gone? Where has she gone? What has he done with her?' I began shaking and crying, and that made me dizzy and nauseated. I believed that Thomas had taken May away from me.

“Bunny held me and whispered to me. She said that May was all right, and she kept repeating it until finally I calmed down. Then she told me what she had learned. On the day that Thomas hit me on the head, he took May away with him and turned her over to an American agency that cared for Vietnamese orphans. He told them that he had found May abandoned, that he didn't know who her parents were, that it looked like she was the baby of an American soldier and a Vietnamese mother. The agency arranged for such children to be adopted, and that, Mac, is what happened to May. While her mother lay unconscious in a Saigon hospital, little May was given new parents.

“They sold her, Mac. It was corrupt, of course, as everything in Saigon was in those times. May's American parents paid a large sum of money to the agency. She was flown to Paris where her new parents met her, signed some documents, and took her away with them.

“‘May is safe,' Bunny said to me. ‘She is in a good American home where she will be well loved and well cared for.'

“‘But she is no orphan,' I said. ‘She is my child.'

“‘Think about it,' said Bunny. ‘The war is all around this city. There are bombs and fires. People are dying in the streets. There is famine and disease. It will get worse. May is better off.'

“And I did think about it, Mac. I thought that I had no hope for any future, no means to care for a child in Saigon in those times, no reason to expect that I would even survive the war. Oh, I cried for my baby. But gradually I realized that I was crying for selfish reasons, for the love I felt for little May, for the emptiness of my life without my baby.

“Bunny was right. By the time they discharged me from the hospital, I had hardened my heart. May had a better life than I could have given her. She was lucky. I was grateful. Thomas had stolen my child from me. But he had done the right thing. Whether he acted out of kindness to his daughter or cruelty to me, I do not know.

“By the time I left the hospital, my hair had started to grow back, for they had, of course, shaved my skull. I had lost a lot of weight. I was not beautiful, Mac. I had no place to go except to Mai Duc. She was kind to me. She took me in, fed me, gave me some little chores to do for her while I regained my health and my beauty.

“And then she put me back to work, giving comfort to those who would pay for it. No longer was there any joy or satisfaction for me in this. I had allowed myself to have hopes and dreams, and then they were taken from me. There was a hole in my heart, Mac, a place where May had lived. And nothing would ever fill it.

“One day Mai Duc called me to her office. An elderly man, a French diplomat, was there, and Mai Duc told me that she had made an agreement with him, an arrangement such as she had made with Thomas Larrigan. I bowed my head and nodded. It did not matter to me. Nothing that happened to me mattered any longer.

“He was a gentle old man who made few demands on me, and when the evacuation of the city began soon after he purchased me, he told me he would bring me to Paris with him if I wanted. I would no longer belong to him, for he had family there. But he said he felt a responsibility toward me. He would give me money and find a place for me in Paris. He would visit me now and then, but I would have no obligation to him. I was free.

“He knew important people in Paris, he told me. They would help me.

“By this time I had lost track of my dear friend Bunny, who had saved my life. I never had the chance to say good-bye to her or to thank her. Of course, I never did see Thomas Larrigan or his friend Eddie. I always assumed they all were killed. Or perhaps they had returned to America.

“I recently learned that Bunny, at least, survived. That made me happy. I do not know what happened to Thomas or Eddie Moran.

“I visited Mai Duc on the day I was to leave for Paris. I thanked her for caring for me all those years, for being a mother to me.

“‘Everything is changing, Li An,' she said to me. ‘I am happy that you are escaping our country. I myself hope to be leaving soon. I have loved you as my daughter. I will miss you.'

“‘And I will miss you, my mother,' I said.

“She opened the drawer of her desk, removed an envelope, and handed it to me. ‘This is my farewell gift to you,' she said. ‘Do not open it until you arrive in Paris.'

“I did as she asked. I flew to Paris with my benefactor, and I waited until he had delivered me to the little apartment he had rented for me before I opened the envelope Mai Duc had given me.

“It contained a single sheet of paper. On it was typed a name and address in America, and under that was a note in Mai Duc's hand. ‘These are your daughter's parents,' it said.

“Their name was Church. They lived in Chicago. They had given May the name Jessie.

“And that is my story, Mac. I was in Paris for only a short time before my friend arranged a small part for me in a low-budget French film. The people who made the film thought I should have a French name, so they called me Simone Bonet, and I have been Simone ever since. I do not like to think of myself as Li An. It reminds me too much of my years in Vietnam.

“I think that first film was a bad one and I was a bad actress. I was required to take off my clothes and do sex scenes, which did not bother me, because I had no pride and no joy in my life, and nothing mattered. Because I bared my breasts and my bottom, and because my body was considered attractive, I was given more sex roles, and pretty soon I began to get some recognition. You would not consider those films particularly racy by today's standards, but back then they were. I knew that. It did not matter to me.

“After a few years I was invited to America to audition for a part in a Hollywood movie. I accepted, of course. In America I would be closer to my daughter. I dreamed of finding her one day, of revealing myself to her. Or perhaps she would see me in a film and somehow know it was I. That idea inspired me to try to be a better actress and to choose better roles, although I know I was not very good.

“I never did see or hear from May, and after a while I came to accept that. I realized that her life was better than any I could give her, and certainly she would not want to learn that her mother was a prostitute from Saigon and a French porn star. So I let her go. I had her new family's name, Church, and I knew they were, or had been, living in Chicago. But I did not try to find her. I let that selfish idea die. May was better off without me.

“I have enjoyed believing that my May grew up to become a beautiful and successful young American woman with loving adoptive parents. I like this dream. It contents me.

“Then just a few weeks ago I saw a photograph in a newspaper. It was Jessie, my May, although the name she was using was Carol Ann Chang, from San Francisco. I know in the center of my heart, the way only a mother can know, that the young woman in that photograph is my child. She is a beautiful young woman, Mac. I can see both myself and Thomas Larrigan in her features.

“It seemed as if fate had delivered my daughter back to me. And so I wrote to her. Now I wait to see what will happen. It has been several weeks now, and she has not replied to me, and I am beginning to wonder if she is my May after all. I will not allow myself to abandon that hope, although it is hard sometimes. That hope gives me the strength to fight against my disease and to tell you my stories. As I have told you before, I tell these stories in the hopes that one day May will read them and learn who she is.

“I will speak of Hollywood another time. I am very tired now, and I want to be alert and beautiful when I see you tomorrow.”

AS NEAR AS Eddie Moran could tell, the main industry in the little hamlet of Beaverkill, New York, was trout fishing, and it appeared that the month of May was prime time for it. The commercial center, such as it was, was clustered around a crossroads at the only traffic light in town. The parking spaces were filled with vehicles—most of them SUVs—with more license plates from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Connecticut than from New York. They sported Trout Unlimited and Federation of Fly Fishers decals on the windows and aluminum rod tubes and chest-high waders and tackle bags in back.

Moran counted four shops apparently devoted to fly fishing, three restaurants, two hole-in-the-wall lunch counters, and one high-end camping and outdoor-clothing store. There were several motels and a couple of run-down old hotels and a diner on the outskirts of town. The sign in front of one motel read, “Fishermen Welcome.”

Moran drove around until he found the Beaverkill town offices in an old Victorian building on the road heading east just out of town. He put on a pair of oversized horn-rimmed glasses and a necktie, grabbed his briefcase from the backseat, and went inside.

It was a big open room with tall windows and high ceilings and fluorescent lights. A waist-high counter ran its length, front to back. On the left side of the room behind the counter were desks and work cubicles. On the right side were some offices with the doors ajar. They appeared to be empty.

The heavyset white-haired woman behind the counter, the town clerk's secretary, barely glanced at the business card he showed her. It identified him as Charles C. Metcalf, Water and Natural Resources Commission for the State of New York in Albany. Eddie Moran had a card for every occasion.

He asked to see the current listing of property assessments. She asked him if there was something specific she could help him with. He smiled, said no, thanks anyway, he could take care of it, trying mainly to remain as bland and bureaucratic and forgettable as possible behind his big glasses.