Thomas Perry - The Face-Changers

She knelt on the floor and worked faster. She ran the vacuum cleaner cord all the way up the hollow wooden pole of the lamp. She reconnected the ten-inch loop frame that went around the bulb to hold the shade in place. She pulled the two sides apart so they were two prongs, then connected the two bare wires at the end of the cord to them.

As Jane worked, she was acutely aware of the sounds of the two voices in the next room. They were louder, more rapid. The woman’s voice had a cry in it now. She was scared, maybe hurt. Jane ran into the hall, then plugged the cord into the wall outlet beside her. She put her ear to Janet McNamara’s door and heard her say, much louder, “Don’t. You don’t need a gun.”

Jane rapped on the door, ducked back, and waited. The footsteps were heavy: the man. She held the pole in both hands. The door handle turned, the door opened an inch, then stopped.

Jane said, “I was going by outside and heard someone yell. Is everything okay?”

Her tentative, apologetic female voice made the man sure it wasn’t the police or armed men who had heard, so there was no tension in his voice. “Oh, sure. We’re fine. Just a little family discuss—”

Jane hurled her shoulder against the door. She felt no resistance as the door swung freely six inches inward, then hit something solid. Then it swung inward again and she fell into the room. The man was staggering backward, his hands cupped together covering his nose and mouth.

As Jane regained her balance, the man’s eyes opened and he reached under his coat, groping for what could only be a weapon. Jane shouted, “No guns!” and jabbed the prongs of her pole lamp against his elbow. A line of blue lightning flashed between the prongs.

The jolt stung the man into a reflex like a spasm. His left hand chopped down from his bleeding nose and lip, his right hand shot out of his coat, and both lunged for the pole. Jane yanked it backward, but he was too quick.

His hands missed the wooden pole, but the metal prongs wouldn’t come away from him. His body jumped, froze, then gave a convulsive jerk, and the lights in the hall went out. The man collapsed to the floor.

Jane poked at him with the pole, and heard the woman scream, “Stop it!”

Jane kept her eyes on him as she said quietly, “The electricity’s off. The circuit breaker popped.” She opened his coat with the pole, quickly crouched to snatch the pistol out of the shoulder holster, then retreated two paces and aimed it at his chest. She waited a few seconds, then cautiously knelt and put her hand on his chest. She moved the hand up to his carotid artery, then took it away.

She stood and glanced across the room at Janet McNamara. She was leaning against the wall. Her hands were at the sides of her face like claws clutching at nothing, and her teeth were bared as though a scream had been caught in her throat. She was wearing a flannel nightshirt that had been unbuttoned in front from the neck to the thigh.

“Put on some clothes,” said Jane. “This place doesn’t seem to have worked out.”

28

Jane drove out of the quiet neighborhood, down Colfax Avenue, east on Ventura Boulevard, and up the entrance to the Hollywood Freeway. Finally she looked at Janet McNamara. “Are you up to having a serious talk?”

“I don’t think so.” After a few seconds, she said, “But if I won’t, I’m in worse trouble, aren’t I? I’m lost, just as though I were floating on some dark ocean. Nothing in any direction—left, right, above, below.”

Jane reached out and touched the woman’s shoulder, but the woman cringed and shrank back. Jane said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Is that man dead? Did you—did we—just kill him?”

“If he’s dead, I killed him. I’m not interested in sharing the blame,” said Jane. She looked at the woman. “Did he rape you?”

The woman glared at her, but said nothing.

Jane said, “No matter what he did, it’s over. I’m not going back there to kill him again.”

“So he is dead.”

“I’m asking about you. I need to know if I’m looking for a doctor or an airport.”

“He didn’t. I’m sure you know exactly what happened. You set this up.”

Jane held her breath for a few seconds, then let it out. It had to be now. “I don’t actually work for the people who hid you. I didn’t set this up. I took you there because I wanted to see them without having them see me. When I realized they had arranged to meet you in an empty building, I got worried.”

“What are you saying? You don’t work for them? You said you did. You said—”

“I lied.”

The admission stopped the woman, made all of the evidence she was arranging in her mind irrelevant. Or maybe it didn’t: maybe this was the lie. “Why should I believe you’re telling the truth now?”

Jane looked into her eyes for a moment. “I’m not telling you the truth because I’ve suddenly become a sweet person.” She turned to look at the highway ahead. “I’m doing it because I think it’s to my advantage right now, and I don’t think it will cost me anything in the future. Listen carefully, because the truth doesn’t come trippingly to my tongue, and I use it only as a last resort. I’ve been trying to spy on those people to learn who they are and where they are so I’ll be able to destroy them. I was waiting for them in Minneapolis, and saw one of them taking you to the airport. I had two or three seconds to decide whether to follow him or to divert you. I picked you.”

“Why?”

“I thought you might tell me things. I knew the man driving you to the airport wouldn’t.”

“What are you—some kind of policewoman?”

“No. I’m Jane.”

“You’re … I don’t understand.”

“For thirteen years I was a guide. I took people who were in danger and moved them to places where they weren’t in danger. I gave them forged papers, taught them how to stay hidden, and left. Sound familiar? It was quiet, it was private. It wasn’t a business. But people heard about it. Now the ones you met seem to be using my name.”

The woman’s eyes flashed. “You used me to get revenge because they stole your trade name?”

“No,” said Jane. “These people have become a danger—to people I hid over the years, to people I love who have nothing to do with the disappearing business, and to me. I did use you.” Jane stared at her, unblinking. “But here you are.”

“You mean you put me in a fire and pulled me out before I got burned?” She was angry and Jane could tell that her vision was narrowing—she was literally seeing red. “Well, it wasn’t in time.”

“You said nothing happened.”

“Something happened. Not that, but something.”

Jane kept the emotions she felt from slipping into her voice. “What happened?”

Janet McNamara’s body began to shake. It was a slow movement of her head, the tears hidden as though she were refusing to give in to them. Then she sobbed, and gasped in a breath. The next sob was loud, as though she were angry at Jane for causing it and was defiant. But she didn’t sob aloud again. Her shoulders shook harder for a minute or two, and then she lifted her head and spoke just above a whisper. “I found out that I’m not smart, and I’m not strong, and I’m not brave.”

Jane’s tone was gentle, reasonable. “He was a man who hurt people for a living. He had a loaded gun. You had nothing. Smart is being able to walk away at the end of it. You’re smart. He’s not.”

The woman seemed to let Jane’s words go past her, because she had something to tell. “I went to bed, and when I woke up he was standing there in the bedroom doorway. It was like one of those dreams where there’s something big and awful that you can’t quite see. I sat up so fast I was dizzy. He said he was there to check on me.” She glared at Jane. “Just as you said he would.”