Thomas Perry - The Face-Changers

“Safer than what?” Dahlman’s voice was skeptical.

“Safer than where we’re going now.”

“And where is that? What do you mean by other parts of the world? Are we leaving the country?”

Jane looked at him, and there was a touch of regret in her eyes. “I’m trying to prepare you for a shock. I hope it’s not a big one, but it might be. The people we’re going to see are not like you, not like Carey. I’d like to say they’re not like me, either, but this isn’t the first time I’ve been here.” As soon as Jane said it she realized she had identified the hurt that had been constricting her chest. She was back in this life. It was as though she had happily fallen asleep in the old house beside Carey, and awakened with a start along this path by the lake. The place where she walked now wasn’t a point in space; it was a point in time, in the past. Falling back into this place was not like being abducted. It was like being unmasked.

“You mean they’re not honest.”

“Categories like honest and dishonest don’t apply to them any more than they do to your cat. These people have certain principles and habits and inclinations, but you don’t have time to learn them all. Be alert. Be observant, and listen to every word that’s said in your presence, but believe nothing unless I say it. Don’t ask questions or express an opinion. You’re a passenger.”

Dahlman gave a little chuckle. “You’re treating me as though I were a child. Speak when spoken to, and don’t be afraid.”

“Oh, no,” said Jane. “That isn’t what I meant at all. Be afraid. Just don’t show it.”

Dahlman walked along in silence for a time, then said, “Is that why you won’t tell me his name? Are you afraid to?”

“No. One of the things he sells is forged identification. It’s the reason I know him. But he’s like a tattoo artist.”

“A tattoo artist?”

“Every tattoo artist gets tired of waiting for the right customer to come in the door and ask for the right picture, so they all end up working on themselves. Some of the old pros are covered, from their toes to their collarbones. The man we’re going to see doesn’t concede that he should be permanently limited to one name, and he doesn’t have to be, so he isn’t. He uses an identity until he’s tired of it, and then picks a new one. I know what he was calling himself last time. He was Paul Carbin. But it’s been three or four years. He’s probably been several people since then.”

“Why did you bring me here?”

Jane walked a few more paces. “Until now, the police have probably been operating on the theory that you were still in Buffalo, or near it. The night we left, I had enough of everything on hand—money, forged IDs, clothes—to keep us out of trouble for a while if we got out and kept going. We were spotted last night at a gas station on an interstate in the Midwest, and that means we change our strategy. We’ve got to dig in somewhere, get an identity that’s tailor-made for you, and then prepare to wait.”

Jane led Dahlman to the end of the lake, then up the hill on the sidewalk to a Victorian three-story house with a stone-and-masonry facing that had originally been the foundation and at some point had been raised to the height of a man. She climbed the steps to the wide wooden porch and stopped to beckon to Dahlman. Dahlman hesitated, then climbed the steps, stood beside her, and looked around him.

There was a security screen door with steel mesh and bars set in so that it was much stronger than it looked from a distance. Behind that was a steel fire door with wooden panels glued on to fit the decor. For the first time, Dahlman noticed that the shutters on the lower windows were closed.

The fire door swung open and a thin young man whose pale skin didn’t look entirely clean to Dahlman stared out with a bored, sullen expression. After a moment he muttered, “He said you could come in if you want to.”

“We want to,” said Jane.

The young man slipped the bolt on the screen and Jane stepped inside, then held it for Dahlman. “Come in,” she said. “If I let it close, it’ll lock.”

Dahlman stepped in behind her. The room had once been a spacious foyer. There was a straight staircase leading upward to a second-floor landing, but the railing up there seemed wrong. It was out of proportion, the spokes too short and the base too high. Then Dahlman saw a pair of eyes peering down at him between the spokes. A girl about the same age as the boy at the door sat up, and brought with her a small, square-looking piece of black metal that Dahlman didn’t recognize as an automatic weapon until she turned it away from him and he could see the short barrel in profile. She stood and sauntered off to dissolve into the shadows of the upstairs hallway.

“Well, what do you think of her?” The voice came from somewhere to the left of them, a loud baritone.

Dahlman turned his head to see that Jane was already staring in that direction, into a room beside her that looked almost as it should have. It was the library of the old house, and it was still lined with ornate oak shelves that held rows of leather-bound volumes. There was a tall, bearded, broad-shouldered man with a fat belly that showed a little between his T-shirt and his jeans sitting in a wing chair in the dimly lighted room.

Jane shrugged and walked to the entrance. “She’s way too young to be sincere. She’ll take your money and cut your throat.”

The big man laughed and shook his head. “I was referring to the backup for the door. That’s an innovation since you were here. See, they get past the door—”

“How?” she interrupted. “It would take a half hour with a battering ram.”

“But if they did—say by guile and artifice—then Cindy opens up from the balcony with the Ingram. She’s behind a layer of steel and bricks, and they’re standing down here blinking.” Dahlman saw the man’s eyes settle on him thoughtfully. He didn’t look pleased.

“What’s your name these days?” Jane seemed to be trying to break his train of thought.

“Sid Freeman.”

“Pleased to meet you, as usual,” said Jane.

Sid Freeman’s face was set and expressionless. “Who’s he?”

“I was just getting to that,” Jane said cheerfully. “He’s my runner. His name is Richard Dahlman.”

Sid Freeman stared at Dahlman for seven or eight seconds, then turned to glower at Jane. She avoided his gaze and looked around her as she said, “I don’t see any of the old faces.”

Sid Freeman snorted. “Death, plague, and conflagration on many fronts. Quinn got into the habit of wearing a Rolex and driving to unsavory parts of Chicago in a major piece of automotive extravagance. He made a stop one night while he was on the way to deliver a very big payoff, and the combination was too much for some people to resist.”

“Sorry.” Jane used the moment to inwardly celebrate the absence of Quinn. Sid was unbalanced, but Quinn had been frightening. She had once stood beside him at the window when he had the rifle pressed to his shoulder, watching an unidentified man strolling along the path by the lake. He had been gripped by a tense, aching longing to squeeze the trigger just to see the man’s body jerk and the blood flow. Jane had stared into the spotting scope and said the man’s earphone was a hearing aid, and his glasses were too thick to let him qualify as a cop. Quinn had kept the rifle to his cheek and his finger tapping eagerly on the trigger guard until Sid had taken a turn at the telescope and told Quinn not to fire.

Sid shrugged. “It’s probably better that he’s gone. He would have fallen eventually to a dirty needle or unpremeditated sex; he never considered an evening complete without both.” He looked sadder as he said, “The lovely and talented Christie got caught in a sudden reverse of the natural order. She was killed by a New York cab driver. Actually, he wasn’t a real cab driver—just stole it and spent the evening cruising hotels looking for a rich mark, when Christie was there making a delivery for me. But it makes a better story that way: CABBIES FIGHT BACK!” He laughed at the thought.