Thomas Perry - Blood Money

“I don’t want to be the perfect runner. I don’t want to be a runner at all.”

“What do you want to be—dead?”

“No,” said Rita. She began to pace, agitated and angry. “I told you what I want. I want to be somebody who does things, not somebody who goes where people tell her, just to keep breathing. This is my chance to do something that matters, and I’m hiding.”

“What would you do?”

“Fight them.”

Jane stared at the floor and shook her head sadly. “I admire you. Really, I do. What you’re thinking isn’t wrong. It’s just not a strategy that can work this time. You can’t fight these people just by saying you’re not afraid and standing your ground. They would happily scoop you up and torture you to death while they asked you questions about Bernie that you can’t answer. If you were to fight them, here’s how you would go about it. We would drive to the local FBI office. There’s sure to be one in San Diego. You would tell them you want to testify against the people you met at Bernie’s. Let’s pretend you’re there now.”

“All right.”

“I’m the FBI agent. Tell me their names.”

“I don’t know.”

“Tell me the crimes you saw them commit.”

“Money laundering. Hiding money from the government, and not paying taxes on it.” Rita seemed proud of herself.

“What money? Did you see any money?”

“Well, no. But I saw them. And I know that’s what they were doing at Bernie’s.”

“So does the FBI, probably, but they didn’t catch them at it, and neither did you. Thank you very much for your help, Miss Shelford. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

“You’re saying they won’t believe me?”

“Do you remember the day I met you? I asked you a lot of questions that probably didn’t make much sense to you at the time. As soon as I heard the name Delfina, I was hoping that you had seen something or found some evidence. But you never saw him, and didn’t even know who he was. You’re not lying, but you’re not a witness to anything.”

“I was there when they broke in and searched Bernie’s house.”

“Eight or nine nameless men you’d never seen before were in the house, probably with a key. That’s not even good evidence of breaking and entering, even if they didn’t all have alibis, which they certainly will, if anybody ever asks.”

“They tried to keep me from leaving.”

“Not hard enough to make it a crime.”

“They said they were taking me to Mr. Delfina.”

“Which proves nothing, because they didn’t do it.” Jane sighed. “Enough. The only way to fight them is to let the cops do it for you. If you haven’t got any evidence, you run.”

“But you’re not running.”

“I plan to. I’m just delaying it long enough to take away some of their motivation for chasing us. The second the money is gone, I’ll be running as hard as anyone.”

Rita stared at her for a few seconds, then turned, went upstairs, and quietly closed the door.

After midnight, Jane went to the door and heard soft, even breathing. She quietly opened the door and walked to the side of Rita’s bed. On the sheet around Rita, arranged against her sides from her armpits to her thighs, were a clutter of objects.

There was a small coin purse that had been thickened by a few folded bills. There was a dog-eared, smudged envelope with a flap that had come open to reveal part of an official paper with scrollwork around it like birth certificates and diplomas had. The cheap blue windbreaker Rita had retrieved from the hotel in Niagara Falls was folded neatly and placed with the other things, and there was a photograph in a plastic frame. Jane knelt by the bed to look at it.

It was a picture of Rita at the age of about twelve, sitting on a white beach bordered by palm trees, and above her, a blond woman who must be her mother. The mother had been in the process of walking away, then had half-turned to look when the photographer had called to her. She seemed no more than thirty, but her eyes were squinted into the sun to reveal the beginning of a collection of crow’s-feet beside the blue eyes. At first Jane thought there was a smudge on the picture, but then she saw it was part of a tattoo of a rose. The petals began just above the waistband of the bikini and extended downward, so the process of getting it must have been less an embellishment than a relationship.

Jane slowly retreated without waking Rita and closed the door. As she walked toward the stairway, she told herself that this was just because of Rita’s recent troubles, but she could tell that was not true. She knew that the girl must have slept like this always, placing her few, pitiful treasures around her body so they could not be taken from her in the night.

11

Jane brought the clothes into Rita’s room and began laying each hanger on the bed without speaking. She held Rita’s face in the corner of her eye. At first Rita appeared unaware, then indifferent, then intrigued. Jane laid the fourth outfit across the bed and went into the hallway to get the fifth, then returned to find Rita slowly running her hand along the crease of a new pair of pants.

Rita quickly withdrew her hand, then conceded, “I always wished that I was the kind of person who had clothes like this.”

“It doesn’t take anything important,” said Jane. “Courage, intelligence, even taste. If you don’t know what to buy, go to the best store in town, then pick out a clerk who looks terrific. She’ll tell you. All you need is enough money to feed the cash register.”

“Am I supposed to be rich?”

Jane said, “Not rich. Just a single working woman who’s too young to care about saving, and has nothing to spend it on but herself, like the rest of the girls in this complex.”

Rita’s eyes stayed on the clothes, but they had a soft focus. “At the hotel, I would sometimes look.”

“Look at what?”

“I would be cleaning a room, and it would be late enough so the people weren’t just downstairs having breakfast, so I figured they’d be gone at least until lunch. I would open a suitcase and look at everything inside. Not to take anything, just to look.”

“Did you see anything interesting?”

“Rich people are old-fashioned. They don’t want to own anything that’s plastic, unless it’s the kind that looks like ivory. Or maybe it was ivory. I probably wouldn’t know. Everything is leather, wool, silk, silver, wood. I would look at it, especially the clothes, and wonder about the women who owned it. When people travel, they always have a lot of new clothes. I would find something, and half the time the tags would still be on it.” She looked up at Jane in wonder. “I remember one time it was just a pair of jeans, and I saw the price and swallowed my gum. They cost more than I took home in a week. Just jeans.” She frowned, and her shoulders crept up as though she were preparing to endure a blow. “I got caught once.”

“Somebody came back while you were in her suitcase?”

“Not that. It was my boss, the housekeeping supervisor. She was real cold and nasty at first. But I asked her to search my pockets, my cart, everything so she would know I didn’t take anything. So she did. Then she kind of took my arm and gave me a little smile. She said she used to do the same thing. But she made me promise never to do it again. She said that after you looked in a hundred, they were all pretty much the same stuff as the first one, and if you got caught you’d get fired and go to jail.”

“Did that cure you of it?”

“Not completely, but I forced myself just to look at the clothes while the women were wearing them. I still liked clothes, but I never thought I would ever have anything like these.” She petted a sweater as though it were alive.