Thomas Perry - Blood Money

“What happened to our deal?” asked Bernie. “When are we going to get started?”

“Soon.”

“I just want to remind you, we’ve got a little time problem,” said Bernie. “At a lousy six and a half percent, we’d be making two million a day. We’re making more. It’s like crabgrass. If you want to get rid of it, the sooner you get started, the less there is.”

Jane felt the beginning of a headache. “I know that,” she said patiently.

“We’re safe, right? You did it already. This place is great. It’s comfortable, but nothing about it says ‘money.’ The town is not too big, not too small. I don’t think God knows where we are. Now what’s the holdup?”

Jane sighed. Her eyes rested on Rita for a moment.

“No,” said Rita.

“I’m afraid it’s time,” Jane said. She turned to Bernie. “Get used to the place. If you’re up to it, begin writing down the information we’ll need to retrieve the money. When I get back, we’ll need all of it.”

Jane picked up her purse and walked to the kitchen door. “Come on, Rita,” she said.

Rita hesitated. She looked at Jane, then looked at Bernie, her eyes desperate and pleading. “I haven’t been a problem, have I?”

“No,” said Jane. “That isn’t the—”

“And you shouldn’t leave Bernie here alone,” she interrupted. “People need company. What if he falls down and breaks his hip or something?”

“Then I’ll crawl outside so the vultures can clean my carcass beyond recognition,” Bernie snapped. “Look, kid. You’re wasting our time.”

Rita sighed. “I’ll go get my stuff.” She turned and walked heavily up the stairs.

Jane and Bernie sat in the kitchen, their eyes fixed on each other. “Well?” asked Jane. “What am I supposed to do?”

“I didn’t say a word,” said Bernie. “I can be sorry to see her go without letting her do something stupid, can’t I?”

They heard Rita’s footsteps on the stairs, and fell silent. When she came into the kitchen she was carrying her thin blue jacket with the bulging pockets. She went to Bernie, put her arms around him, released him, and stepped back. “I have to ask just one more—”

Bernie put his finger over her lips. “Don’t bother, kid. Anybody who stays in this house with me is probably going to die. So what’s the right thing to do? Get out of it.”

In a moment, Rita was in the rental car sitting beside Jane, watching the clumps of dry, spiky desert plants slide past her window. Here and there a tree—or what passed for a tree in this part of the country—jutted upward in the distance. Jane drove her into the city, then south on the big highway toward the interstate.

“Why are you doing this?” asked Rita. “Why do you want to ditch me?”

Jane considered for a moment, trying to find the way that she could say it that would mean anything to this girl, a person who knew so little but had seen so much so young. “It’s the only thing I know how to accomplish that makes any sense. A person like you—someone who hasn’t done anything to deserve it—is in danger. I know how to take her to a place where nobody wants to hurt her.”

“You’re just dumping me,” said Rita. “You want to get back to Bernie and his money.”

Jane let the jab go past her, then diverted it a little. “That’s not precisely what’s happening,” she said. “When you came to me you asked for something reasonable. You wanted to stay alive. It’s something I thought I could give you, so I agreed. But you have to stick with what you asked for.”

“Things have changed since then. Bernie being alive changed everything. You act like I’m a child. People my age have kids, fight wars.”

“Sorry,” said Jane. “I’m not much in favor of them doing either.”

“I’m not afraid, you know.”

“I noticed that, and it worries me. A little bit of the self-preservation instinct wouldn’t be out of place in a girl your age.”

“I can help. I can shop and do whatever else has to be done outside, so you and Bernie can be invisible. I can cook and clean and do chores, so you and Bernie don’t have to. I’m really good at not being noticed.”

“Good,” said Jane. “Then you’ll be even safer in San Diego, where nobody’s even looking.”

“San Diego?” asked Rita in distaste. “I don’t know anything about San Diego.”

“It’s pleasant, and it’s big. It’s one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, so there are lots of newcomers, particularly young ones. It has no winter, which is something you’ve never experienced and would certainly hate, and it’s on the ocean, which is what you’re used to.”

“Please,” said Rita. “Don’t do this to me again.”

Jane watched her eyes fill with tears. “Again?”

Rita said, “It’s what people always do to me. For as long as I can remember, my mother was always doing this. She would get me into the car by telling me we were going someplace nice. Then, when we got there, I’d find out it was just me that was going there. She would stop just long enough to go into some other room alone with the woman who lived there—some friend of hers—and talk her into keeping me for a day, and she would leave. Sometimes she would be gone longer than she’d expected, or at least longer than she’d told the woman, and I could tell. The woman would start to look at me funny, like it was me that lied to her. When I got older, my mother couldn’t do that anymore. I would just get home from school and find that she was gone. Usually a couple of days later she would be back. On the good times, she would just be nervous and depressed and nasty. But about once a year, she’d bring home a new boyfriend. I would come home and see the front door open and the windows, and I’d be so happy. But then I’d come up the walk and I’d hear her voice inside, and I would know that she couldn’t be talking to herself.”

“That’s … I’m sorry,” said Jane. “But this isn’t the same. That’s over.”

“No,” said Rita. “It’s not over. It’s always like this. The world just goes on, and everybody’s so busy, doing things together, and I’m always the one that’s alone on the outside, wondering about it. I can’t ever get in, and I can’t do anything to get included. I used to look at the people my mother spent her time with—laughing at what they said—and I’d think, ‘I’m funnier than that.’ I’d watch her look at them and smile, and I’d think, ‘But they’re all ugly, and this one’s mean, and that one stole from you. Why don’t you want to be with me?’ ”

Jane said carefully, “I’m sure she did want to. Your mother had a drug problem, and that seems to be a full-time occupation. It doesn’t leave much time or energy for things like raising children. But you’ve made it this far, and you’ve done some difficult things since then, and that proves to me that you survived it. There’s no reason you can’t have a terrific life from now on, if you’ll just let it happen.”

“It’s not going to happen,” said Rita. “There’s something about me—something missing. I didn’t tell you everything, because I wanted to make myself sound better than I was. When I went to Tampa, it wasn’t some brave new start. I went because I knew a boy from school who was there. I didn’t find myself a job. He asked them to hire me. I didn’t even find my own place to live. He just took me in, because he had an old couch in his apartment.”

“I take it he wasn’t a boyfriend?”

Rita looked down at her lap. “I thought it meant something, like he wanted to be with me. I kind of worked myself up and got all nervous wondering when something was going to happen. But he never felt that way at all. It was just that he was a busboy, and the rent cost so much that he couldn’t afford a car, so he needed a roommate to help pay. After a couple of months he had enough for a down payment on an old car, and he found a girlfriend. I came home from the hotel one day, and he had already moved her in. Her stuff was all over the place so you could barely walk, and she was in the bathroom, using my hair dryer.”