Thomas Perry - Blood Money

She said, “Keep it,” pushed the button to raise the tinted window, and drove out of the lot. She put three blocks behind her, then took last-minute turns at the next three corners, watching her mirror. She found the entrance to Interstate 90, drove north for ten minutes, and got off at North Avenue.

Jane drove west for a few blocks toward the strip mall. She was sure that she had not been followed, but the drawing still frightened her. It was a fairly good likeness—good enough for the man in the Seattle-Tacoma airport, anyway. She knew that she had just been seen by two men who had looked at the drawing, and neither had apparently recognized her, with her haircut and glasses. But the sheer reach of the families terrified her.

The little delay at the parking lot had reminded her of how completely the Mafia was built into people’s everyday lives. Unless there was a fresh scandal, people didn’t even think about them. Maybe they were involved in this business or that one, and their extortion added ten cents to the price of a product. But maybe that was just a rumor, and the increase was just because of a strike, or a rise in the price of raw materials. You were never going to find out, and you couldn’t do anything about them any more than you could control the weather, so you bought the product at the new price and didn’t waste any time thinking about it.

Jane drove past the little strip mall and studied it. The stores were still the same: the doughnut shop, the hair-and-nail salon, the small hardware store, the dry cleaner, the mailing service, and the ever-changing restaurant. This time, the restaurant was Chinese. Last time, it had been Cuban, and before that, barbecued ribs and chicken. There was something about the building’s position on the planet that made each tenant open a restaurant and fail, always to be replaced by another tenant with a restaurant.

Jane was used to coming here once or twice a year to visit the rented mailbox of the Furnace Company and pay her bill. The Furnace Company was a genuine corporation she had formed eleven years ago. She was neither the sole owner nor the sole officer, but none of the others happened to be made of flesh. When the Furnace Company received mail, it was forwarded to another box in Buffalo.

The Furnace Company had been a useful entity. It allowed her to request credit checks and background information on people without raising eyebrows, gave her another mailing address with an extra layer of anonymity, and had given her a few easy ways of providing histories for runners. Sometimes she requested references or school records for employees of other companies, changed the names, and passed them on. Sometimes she had presented the Furnace Company as an executive-search service that had already checked all references.

Jane drove around the block and pulled into her favorite parking space on the little strip of asphalt. She stepped into the mailing service and waved to Dave, the owner.

“Hey, Mary!” he said. “About time you got here. What the hell did you do with your hair?”

“Why, did you want it?” she asked.

Dave rubbed his bald head thoughtfully. “Nah. Doesn’t go with my body. You got a shipment back here.”

She moved to the counter and watched as he walked to the corner of the back room. She could see the ten boxes bearing the labels she had made in Santa Fe. “Gee, that’s good time. I didn’t think they’d get here so soon.”

“Not so fast,” said Dave. “Forgetting something? I’m a businessman, not your relative.”

“What do I owe you?”

“Fifteen a month for the box is 180, plus 205 for forwarding, that’s what? Three eighty-five.”

Jane pulled out four of the hundred-dollar bills from her visit to the bank. Then, on an impulse, she handed him two more. “Here’s for the next year,” she said. “In case I don’t get here again … for a while.”

He counted out her change, then pulled a sheet of paper from under the counter and gazed at it, then at Jane. “I was saving this for you, but it’s not as good as I thought now that you cut your hair.” He spun it around quickly, staring into her eyes for a reaction.

It was the same drawing Jane had seen at the parking lot. This time it said, “Woman missing since July 20. Large reward.” She couldn’t recall whether the telephone number was the same. Jane said, “Are you saying that looks like me?”

He looked at it again. “I thought you’d get a kick out of it.”

“ ‘Large reward,’ ” Jane mused. “Maybe I should try to turn myself in and collect. Where did you get it—the police?”

He shrugged. “Some guy came in and stuck it on my bulletin board. He didn’t hang around long enough to hear about how my board space ain’t free. I mean, this isn’t the post office. Am I wrong?”

“You know me,” said Jane. “The world’s most rabid capitalist. Hey, you mind if I take that picture?”

He handed it to her. “I saved it for you.”

“Thanks. I’ve got to get a second opinion.” She folded it into her purse and surveyed the bulletin board to see if there was another with a picture of Rita, but if there was, it had not stayed on the board.

He laughed. “You want a hand loading your mail?”

“It’s the least you can do.”

She got her keys out while Dave slipped his hand truck under the first five boxes, tipped it back on its wheels, and brought the boxes out the door.

He followed her to the Explorer and shoved the boxes into the back, then went inside again. When he returned with the last five, Jane was rearranging the first five in the aisle behind the front seat. “Thanks,” she said.

“See you next time,” said Dave.

As Jane drove off, she wondered whether she had paid him a year’s rental in advance to be fair because she never intended to come back, or because it was beginning to look as though she would not live that long. She held the wheel with one hand and pulled out the portrait. If they had this picture, then she had made some terrible mistake.

25

“What the hell is this?” shouted Catania. “Will somebody please tell me?” He stood up so fast that his belt buckle hooked on the edge of the table and upset his glass of orange juice. The two men across the table from him watched the pulpy liquid soak the deck of cards, then moved their chairs back to watch it drip onto the floor near their feet. The floor of the Rivoli Social Club was very old wood, and over the years a lot of things had soaked into it, but neither of the men wanted orange juice stuck to the bottoms of their shoes.

Pescati glanced at the cards in his hand, then at the wet deck on the table, and tossed his cards beside it. “It could be just a story.”

“Yeah?” said Catania. “What’s the point of making up a story that proves you can’t find your own ass with both hands? Or that some little chick kicked the shit out of you and took your car?” Catania began to pace. “This is unbelievable,” he muttered. “It’s got to be a joke.” He stopped, grasped thin air with his hands, and shook it. “Has the whole universe suddenly gone crazy?”

“If it did happen, it’s just one of those things,” said Cotrano.

“One of what things?” The two men could see that Catania was working himself into a blind rage. Since his rage was not directed at them, they were not afraid. If they could be polite long enough to weather it, they would be all right. “What kind of things? Talking dogs? Pigs with wings? Lifetime guarantees?”

“He means it’s just a temporary setback,” said Mosso in a soothing voice from the other side of the room. “They said she surprised Langusto’s guy in the Seattle airport. I suppose it’s possible she did. What does it take to trip a guy in the middle of an airport, with a million people around? Even if he was in the mood, he couldn’t exactly gut her and skin her in the middle of a crowd, could he?”