Thomas Perry - The Face-Changers

His laugh induced a sensation in Jane that wasn’t exactly revulsion. It was the absence of pleasant surprise—what she might have felt if she had looked into an empty barrel and verified that it was still empty. Christie had been Sid’s—what was the term? “Girlfriend” sounded like something playful and innocent, and their closeness had always seemed to be a fetid amalgam of eroticism and conspiracy. Christie had always been putting her lips close to his ear and whispering secrets that had to do with money. But Jane had been sure that whatever minuscule level of affection Sid was capable of, it had been reserved for Christie.

Jane said, “I assume we don’t have to worry about anybody who’s in the house right now?”

Sid Freeman shook his head so that his shaggy hair whipped against his forehead. He pushed it back. “Worry about the kids?” He gave an amused snort. “They’re my greatest possession. They’ve eased the way out of my midlife tragedy and into my reclining years. I picked the first pair up to help me do some hunting—you know, to put Christie and Quinn to rest. They turned out to be ferocious—no hesitation, unencumbered by thoughts, either first or second. And they’re sleek and beautiful to watch, like tigers. So I kept them and got some more. Four so far. I’m hoping they’ll breed. But you don’t want to climb in the cage with them, if you know what I mean: Sid Freeman doesn’t indulge in the marital arts except with blue-haired ladies of his own generation. For you, of course, I’m willing to accept false ID.”

Jane gave a little smile and shook her head slowly from side to side. “Not if you were driving the last bus out of hell and I was made of ice cream.”

Sid Freeman shrugged. “Which, incidentally, is not an inaccurate description of your present predicament.”

“That’s how I know,” said Jane. “I asked myself what I’d do for you if you got me out of this, and the answer already came back: ‘Not a thing.’ ”

“You’re not a spontaneous person,” he chuckled. “But you wouldn’t be here if something weren’t making your little heart go pitty-pat. What is it?”

“Top of the list is that I had to hot-wire a car in an airport lot in Akron, Ohio. It’s on the street with two suitcases on the back seat.”

“J.C. saw it when you got out of it. Old Chevy?”

“That’s the one,” said Jane.

Sid Freeman stood up and walked across the foyer into the kitchen. Dahlman could hear him muttering, and then two or three pairs of feet walking across the floor and a door closing. When he returned, he said, “They’ll dissolve it for you and bring in the bags.” He stared at Jane in a leisurely way. “Is that it?”

Jane nodded at Dahlman. “I take it you know about him.”

“Sure,” he said. “They said he took a hot one from a constable somewhere.” He suddenly poked his finger toward Dahlman. Although Dahlman was five feet away, the surprise made him involuntarily tighten his pectoral muscles and cringe to protect the wound, then wince at the pain it caused. “Right there.”

Jane said, “He’s been sewn up, he’s got antibiotics, but he’s going to need to stay in one place for a while and rest. While he’s healing, I go out and prepare a place for him to be somebody else, do the necessary shopping, and come back.”

“Big shopping?”

“I’ll be gone one week, two at the outside. We both stay two more weeks after that. During that time you help me cook up a first-rate identity: family pictures, school records, work history, credit record, driver’s license, the works. And I want a second identity that’s almost as good, in case he’s spotted using the first one. I could do it alone, but each step takes time and I don’t want to use time that way right now. When we leave, it’s in a good car with a clean title.”

Dahlman watched as Sid Freeman’s face took on a new expression. Dahlman could tell it was only an approximation of a face Freeman had once seen that had carried concern and regret, which he had found intriguing. “Ah, Janie,” he moaned. “Where have you been? You’re such a prize.”

“I quit doing this about a year ago, on the stupid assumption I could have a life,” said Jane. “Anything on that list you can’t handle?”

“Let’s see,” said Freeman. He squinted down at his fingers as though he were counting them, then waved the whole hand. “All of it.”

“Why not?”

“Janie, Janie, Janie,” he said softly. “You disappear without a footprint—which, after all, is what anybody with a brain always thought you would do—but then you come scratch at my door, wet-puppy style, and talk as though you’re still a fixture of the landscape. You nodded off, times changed, annelids turned.”

“Annelids look pretty much the same on both sides,” she said, unperturbed. “Now, human beings—”

“Sid’s not human,” Sid interrupted. “He’s humanoid: two arms, two legs, wears corrective lenses, takes money.”

“Oh, money,” said Jane. “If we’re just haggling about price, let’s hear numbers.”

“Sid doesn’t haggle,” he said. “Janie, I love you more than I hope for tomorrow’s dessert. But I can’t do business with you this time. I just let you in because you remind me of my mom.”

“So your kids aren’t chopping the Chevy for me?”

“They like the activity, so I threw that in as part of my lapse into sentiment. On the house. Besides, I can’t leave a thing like that on my doorstep and expect to do business. But Sid can’t fill your shopping list of goods and services.”

“Why can’t he? Did Sid get too rich in the last couple of years?”

He scowled. “Let’s explore your problem.”

“That’s better. How much will it take?”

“You have this baggage with you, this multiple-homicide suspect, escaped from custody in two states. You know more about the rest of this game than anybody alive. You tell me who’s hunting, what they’ll use, and where the game ends.”

Jane glanced at Dahlman, then answered. “If he were on his own, it would be over already, but he’s not.”

Sid Freeman shook his head. “I mean starting from now. Anybody making odds will say it ends by some TV zombie recognizing him and calling the police. The boys in blue don’t need to go it alone, because the F.B.I. has already invited them to call in. So they do, and pretty soon there’s a battalion. Are they then going to say, ‘Come out with your hands up’ loud enough for him to hear and reload? No. They’re going to batter down walls and make everybody for miles around gulp tear gas. You and Foxy Grandpa will have many more holes than you started with.”

“Will you miss me?”

“Will I have time? The next day, the F.B.I. demonstrates its zero tolerance of the brand-new Fleeing Felon Problem it just discovered by tracking down whoever gave you the papers, the car, the clothes, and whatever else they found near your bodies. They won’t get me, of course, but they’ll need somebody. They could scare clients, choke off a couple of my sources and suppliers. Very inconvenient. And for what?”

“What has it ever been for, Sid? Money.”

He stared at her body from the feet up to the neck. “If you were carrying that kind of money among your various curves I’d see it, and you wouldn’t leave it in a hot car, so it’s on a pay-later basis, right?”

“I could get more during my shopping spree.”

“I don’t want to be depressing, but this time wanting to come back does not mean I’ll hear your footsteps on my front porch. When your suitcases get here, I’ll drop you someplace. Final word.”

“You know who framed him,” Jane said.

Sid’s face froze in its mask of annoyance. It stayed that way for a few seconds. His mouth opened once to say something, then closed again. Finally the mask vanished and was replaced by another, softer one. “You drop off the radar screen for a couple of years. Do you think you invented the disappearing business, so you can take it with you when you go?”