Thomas Perry - The Face-Changers

Jake followed her into the kitchen and watched her turning off lights and checking windows. “I’d like to go with you.”

Jane shook her head. “Sorry. One geezer per trip.”

“He’s weak. You can’t drag him around and watch your back at the same time.”

“I said no,” she said. “If you’re so eager to take one more unnecessary risk, I’ll accommodate you. Give me a spare key to your car. Call a cab tomorrow morning to take you to the airport. After he lets you off at the terminal and disappears, stroll over to the short-term lot, find your car, and drive it home.”

“That’s it?”

“No,” she said. “Make sure this place is clean when we leave. Wipe off anything Dahlman could have touched. And when you think of it, tell Carey I love him.”

6

Jane walked into the airline terminal and saw the clock on the wall. It was ten-fifteen already. The first flight out would have to do. But as soon as she was on the escalator and had ascended near enough to the top to see the second floor, she knew that it was too late.

It was likely that a stranger who seldom flew into Buffalo would not have noticed the change. The single sleepy security guard who spent most of his time talking to the airline man who weighed luggage and issued tickets was still downstairs at the door, but here on the departure level, where the people slowed down and formed a line to pass single file through the metal detectors, plainclothes policemen loitered, their eyes on the procession. The time was up. They had discovered that Dahlman was running.

She skirted the departure area and kept her eyes on the windows of the shops and restaurants. As long as she stayed away from the metal detectors, the cops would not consider her eligible for close scrutiny. There would be some kind of cut-off team up here too; if Dahlman got this far and saw the cops waiting, he might turn and head for the door.

Jane went into one of the shops and bought some items that wouldn’t be wasted—toothbrushes, toothpaste, a hairbrush and comb, all in compact sizes for travelers. When she came out she joined the stream of tired passengers who had come off an airplane and were now headed toward the baggage area.

Jane was one of several in the group who stopped just before the escalators at the row of car-rental counters. She rented a big, roomy Oldsmobile Cutlass. In Buffalo the car-rental lots were all outside the door behind the terminal, so it took her only a few minutes to join the next crowd heading downstairs, get out the door and into the car she had rented.

She drove it to the short-term lot and helped Dahlman step out of Jake’s car and into hers. She put the two suitcases into her trunk and drove out onto Genesee Street.

Dahlman looked alert and maybe even a little scared. “Where are we going?”

Jane shrugged. “There are police waiting in the airport, so right now we’re only one very small jump ahead of them. What we’ve got is a big new car with a full gas tank, and that’s about it. In a minute I’m going to turn left on Bailey Avenue. That’s Route 62. By midnight we should be passing Warren, Pennsylvania. Then we switch roads and make a pretty straight run down to Pittsburgh.”

“Why Pittsburgh?”

Jane said, “I know this is all very strange. You’re in pain, you’re weak, you’re tired. In fifteen minutes we’ll be out of the congested area and going through farmland, with a little town every ten or twenty miles. You can stretch out on the back seat and sleep.” She turned south onto Bailey Avenue and accelerated slightly.

“I’m not ready to sleep,” said Dahlman irritably. “I asked you a question, and I’d like an answer. What’s in Pittsburgh?”

Jane glanced at him. The momentary glare of a set of oncoming headlights showed her the sharp little gray eyes glittering. At some point he was going to collapse, but until he did, his agitation had to be borne. “Okay, here’s the situation. Staying in town is a bad idea. There’s a term for people who thought they knew some city better than the local police. They’re called ‘convicts.’ We don’t seem to be able to fly out, so we’re driving. We can’t get on the Thruway, because there are toll booths, and in at least the first few around here, the State Police might be waiting for you. But once we cross the border into Pennsylvania, some of the searchers will be left behind. You’re a fugitive from Illinois who escaped from custody in New York. Unless the Pennsylvania police have some reason to believe you’re headed there, then you’re just one of a thousand or so New York criminals they’ve been warned to keep an eye out for this year. You’re very important to the Buffalo police because you embarrassed them by walking out of the hospital and you might be dangerous. To the Pittsburgh police you’re just a name that’s most likely to be somebody else’s problem. They have at least a thousand murderers of their own to catch.”

“I’m not a murderer.”

“I’m glad.”

“You don’t believe me?” He was incensed.

Jane looked ahead and paid attention to her driving. If he had been young and healthy, she might have put him into the trunk and avoided the chance of his being seen at a lighted intersection. It was too bad he wasn’t young or healthy. “It’s not that I don’t believe you. It just doesn’t matter right now. I think that should be your first lesson,” she said. “For tonight, it doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do. If you could listen to the police radios right now—or even the television news—you would hear that you’re an escaped murder suspect, armed and dangerous, probably desperate because you’re wounded. They’re warning each other and everybody else who’s awake.”

“I’m a well-known physician who has not only saved thousands of lives, but taught a fair share of the best surgeons in this country how to—”

“Then use your brain and think about it the way they do,” said Jane. “If you’ve suddenly killed somebody who isn’t related to you, it means you’re crazy. The fact that you’re a doctor who slipped out under their noses means you’re devious and probably smarter than they are. The fact that you’re famous only means they won’t have to rely on one of those crude police drawings. They have lots of pictures of you—probably great ones.”

He was silent for a moment, and she looked at him again. She decided she had better tell him the worst of it at the beginning. She spoke more gently. “If they can’t take you under ideal circumstances, they’ll kill you. It’s not because they want to, but because they know that people like you seldom surrender.”

“I’m trying to tell you that it’s a mistake. All of it.”

“And I’m trying to tell you that it doesn’t matter. Don’t imagine that your credentials and accomplishments will convince people you’re innocent, or that you’re harmless. Deep in the back of your mind you seem to have the notion that those things will make this come out all right—that the truth will save you. Maybe it will. But right now it won’t, and right now is reality. The future is just a theory.”

Dahlman sat in silence for a full minute. A few times he looked as though some retort was on his tongue, but each time he decided not to speak. Finally, he said with exaggerated patience, “It’s just that you mentioned Pittsburgh. We could stop and see if we could get some help. I have friends there.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I just told you—”

“Listen carefully, because this is important. You haven’t told me who was chasing you hard enough to make you run to Buffalo. But I know who has been chasing you since then, and I think I know who will join in the hunt. You came through several states and committed crimes in two.”