Thomas Perry - Shadow Woman

As he waited for sleep he thought of the woman in the supermarket. He wished, more fervently now than ever, that he could have responded to her differently when she had spoken. She had been in the market on a Sunday afternoon with nothing much to do, and she had liked him. She had not wanted to put him in danger. She had wanted somebody to play with—to ride bikes, like kids. He had thrown away her telephone number, but maybe he could still find her. He could buy a bicycle, go to one of the places she had mentioned, and just happen to meet her.

No, it was impossible. She would talk, and he would have to talk too—pay out to her an endless series of lies, like beads on a string. There was something too quick about her for that. She would remember what he said, see that bead sixty-seven wasn’t the same as bead nineteen. Or she would tell people about him, even make him meet them, and then he would have two or three strings of lies going at once, then more. They would all get farther and farther out of control until he got himself tangled in lies. She would never be in this bed with him, lying with her soft chestnut hair on his chest. Not her, not anyone. The difference between being alive and being dead had all but vanished.

He awoke to the glare of the sun hitting the window above his head and throwing a square patch on the wall. He closed his eyes again and lay perfectly still. If they had come into the apartment while he was asleep, they would have gone straight to the bigger bedroom, and their muffled creaking and rustling would be what had awakened him. He listened for a long time, as he did every morning, at length satisfied himself that no sound had caused him to wake, and sat up. He sensed a change. The world was different this morning.

He went into the big bedroom, laid out some of his favorite clothes—the plain blue oxford shirt, the blue jeans between new and broken in—and stepped into the shower. This was the best part of the day. It always seemed to him that in the morning the universe was starting out clean and fresh. Anything could happen.

It wasn’t until he was dressed and eating his breakfast under the open kitchen window that he recognized what was different. It was David Keller. He was through holding his breath.

He found the car after an hour of looking in the newspapers. He knew he couldn’t buy something like a Mercedes. Even an Audi or a Saab was pushing his luck. It should be dull and American and cheap. The sliver of an ad said, “96 SL2, 4 door, air cond., automatic, PS. $12,000 OBO.” He called the number and he could hear a baby crying in the background. The woman said, “You should probably come after dinner, when my husband is home. I can’t answer any questions about it. I don’t know a thing about cars.”

He made his voice sound worried and disappointed. “Oh. That’s too bad. I just got to town, so I’ve got nothing to drive, and I start work in a couple of days …” A little of Pete Hatcher seemed to come back to him. He could sense there was something bothering her. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m being stupid. Your husband’s not home so you don’t want some stranger showing up. And of course, I don’t want to buy a used car in the dark. So I guess I’m out of luck.… Hey, I have an idea. Is the car on the street?”

“No, but I could move it.”

“Great. I’ll just come by and take a look at it. If it’s not what I want, I won’t bother you.”

“I guess that would be all right.”

He took a cab to the house and stood beside the gray car for a time, peeked at the underside, cupped his hands to lean against the window to peer at the number on the odometer, wrote down the license number and serial number, examined the tires. He was running out of things to do when the door of the old duplex opened and a young woman came out on the porch carrying a one-year-old girl on her hip. She had a corkscrew strand of blond hair that kept coming down across her left eye. She had been watching him, as he had hoped, and decided he didn’t look like a psychotic.

She said, “You the one who called about the car?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry to come at such an inconvenient time.” He smiled at the little girl. “Hi, cutie.”

“That’s okay,” said the woman.

“Well, I’m interested.” He looked back at the car. “Is there anything I need to know about the car? Any accidents?”

“No. My husband’s dad bought it, drove it for a year, and died. He seemed to like it, and he took care of it. I’m not going to be working again for a while, so we’d just be paying insurance on it for nothing.”

“I understand,” said Keller.

“Would you like to drive it?”

Keller said apologetically, “If it’s all right.”

“I called my husband and he said it was okay.” As she held out a set of keys, Keller sensed that she wasn’t telling the truth.

He took the keys and said, “I’ll be right back.” Keller drove the car around the block and pulled up in front of the house. This wasn’t exactly the way Jane had said to do it. It seemed better. The woman had seen him for a few minutes, could suspect him of nothing, and seemed too busy and housebound to talk to anybody about him. He got out of the car and walked to the porch. She came out and he held up the keys. “I’d like to buy it.”

She brightened. “Well, wonderful.” After a second she added, “My husband will be happy. It kind of reminds him of his dad.”

“Do you know what time he’ll be home? I’d like to get this done today.” He showed her the envelope. “I brought the money.”

“In cash?”

“I didn’t want to have to wait for a check to clear. I’m not exactly an old customer of the local banks.”

“We don’t need to wait for him. Come on in.”

Keller followed her into the house. She opened a drawer of the buffet, where she kept the dishes, and pulled out the pink slip. Keller handed her the envelope and watched her count the hundred-dollar bills. When she had finished, she leaned over the coffee table and signed the pink slip and handed it to him.

Keller glanced at the slip. It had been signed by Ronald Sedgely with the new owner as Maura Sedgely, and now she had signed it. The car was hers? There was no husband coming home tonight. Either Ronald Sedgely was her father, and she wasn’t married, or she had gotten the car in a divorce from Ronald Sedgely. The discovery made him feel elated, filled with confidence.

He wasn’t the only one. Everybody was lying. Everybody was hiding some vulnerability. Opening your face and telling people the truth about yourself wasn’t normal. She was normal. She was a single mother trying to deal with a man who called on the telephone and might try to cheat her on a car deal, or might even be a maniac who would rape and kill her in front of her baby. Pretending there was some guy who had to approve the deal and knew all about cars, and just might pop in to protect her, that was the sensible thing to do. She was perfectly normal. He was normal.

Keller drove the car to the D.M.V. to register it, drove to an insurance office he had picked out in the telephone book to insure it, and found that neither was as difficult to do as he had feared. They wanted to know the answers to questions he had prepared for a month ago. Jane had assured him that his driver’s license was genuine. It must have been true, because everybody’s computer loved David Keller. He had no outstanding warrants, no problems of any kind, and not even any disturbing blank spaces. He had gotten a new license a year ago, after driving in New Jersey for twelve years.

As David Keller drove around town, he couldn’t help feeling grateful that human beings were so simpleminded. All he had needed to do to break free of the depression that had been paralyzing him was to get out and drive around in a car on a summer day with his window rolled down. It was such a small improvement that it made him laugh.