Thomas Perry - Dance for the Dead

Jane drove the next mile staring into her mirrors and up the road ahead for signs of Barraclough and Farrell. When she reached the place where she had parked the gray Toyota, she pulled the station wagon up to it, put Mary in the back seat, and drove up the road. She said, "Keep down on the seat and rest. Whatever you do, don't put your head up. Do you need a doctor right away?"

"I don't want one," said Mary. Her voice was raspy and brittle, but it was beginning to sound stronger.

"We'll get you some clothes and some food as soon as we're far enough away. Nothing's open yet."

"Just get the clothes. I can eat on the plane."

"The plane?"

"I have to go to Texas."

Jane felt a reflex in her throat that brought tears to her eyes. She didn't want to let pictures form of what they had done to Mary, but there was no way to avoid thinking about it. She wasn't dead, because her heart was still beating and she could form words with her bruised face, but she could easily spend the rest of her life in a madhouse.

"Ask me why."

The voice was self-satisfied and coy, almost flirtatious.

Now Jane was going to have to follow Mary down whatever path her deranged mind was taking. She owed her a thousand times more than this tiny courtesy. "All right. Why?"

"Because I can remember numbers."

Jane tried to keep her calm. "I know, Mary. I noticed you were good with numbers the first time we talked. You're an intelligent, strong woman, and you're going to be okay." It was a lie. She was not going to be okay. Jane had done this to her. Barraclough had taken the bait and chewed it up.

"They finally made me give them the money I stole."

"I know," said Jane. "There's nobody who wouldn't have done what you did. Forget the money."

"Let me finish," said Mary impatiently. "They knew I had stolen it from banks, but they thought I did it by being an insect or a rat or something who crawled in and took it. It didn't even occur to them that the reason I could do it was that I know all about the business, and that I was smarter than the people I took it from. They filled out bank-transfer slips. They listed my bank account numbers and the number of the account where the money was supposed to go. I signed them all, one after another, so I saw it six times."

"Saw what six times?"

"There's no need to write it down. I can close my eyes and read it any time I want. 08950569237. He's transferring all the money into his bank account at Credit Suisse in Zurich. He has a numbered account, and that's the number. I captured it."

27

As Jane drove, Mary lay on the back seat talking at the roof of the car. "It has to be Dallas."

"Why Dallas? You told me once that you couldn't go there because people knew you."

"And I know them," said Mary. "They have you, and you have them. It's like the tar baby."

Jane tried to choose her words carefully. There would be nothing accomplished if she managed to nudge her own agitation into hysteria, but Mary had to know that it wasn't over. "I killed those two men back there. Barraclough wasn't there."

"Yes," said Mary. "He's in San Francisco."

"How do you know that?"

"That's where the big West Coast banks have their main offices. What he's doing right now is riding the jet stream, and you can't get on it very easily in some branch office in Stinkwood, Minnesota. All they can do for you is to ask the big offices to do it for them, and he can't fool around all day and let all those people know what he's doing."

"What do you mean by 'riding the jet stream'? Is he flying to Switzerland?"

"No," said Mary. "That's way too slow. Stock exchanges, bond markets, commodities, currency, the treasury securities of a hundred countries go up and down a hundred times a day. Some tyrant is shot in South America, and before the ambulance reaches the hospital, billions of dollars from Hong Kong are already buying up copper and coffee beans in London and New York. Barraclough isn't going to travel to Europe and then to the Caribbean to hand six tellers withdrawal slips and collect fifty-two million dollars. He's got to move the money the way big money moves - electronically, in thin air. Bonn, Paris, London, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, L.A. Zurich, Melbourne, Singapore, Hong Kong." After a breath she added, "Dallas."

Jane tilted the rearview mirror to get a glimpse of Mary on the back seat. She was bloody, bruised, and exhausted, but she seemed to be describing something that was real. "You mean you want to try to get your money back? Is that what this is about?"

Mary Perkins gave a quiet cough, and Jane realized that it had been a kind of mirthless laugh. "You told me before and I didn't get it, did I? You have to strip yourself clean. Lose everything: friends, clothes, medical records, your name, even your hair. The money was the last thing to go. That's gone, Jane. I had to give it to him, and I put it right in his hands so I could see which pocket he stashed it in."

Jane dressed Mary in a pair of blue jeans because the welts and bruises on her legs were so bright and angry that a dress would not have covered enough of them, and it was impossible in the small store in Gilroy to buy any other kind of women's pants in a length that fit an actual, living woman. The blouse was off another rack in the same store, a plain blue shirt that would attract no attention and was big enough to let her shrink inside it without having much of the fabric touch her skin.

Jane left the car in the long-term lot in San Jose because Mary insisted there was no time for a more elaborate arrangement. "Get me to Dallas," she said. "After that I don't care."

"What don't you care about?"

"Anything."

Mary ate and drank on the plane, then slept the rest of the way to Dallas. At the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, Jane rented a car. As she drove it out of the lot, she asked, "Where is it?"

"Bank of Sanford, corner of Commerce and Field. Turn left here."

"It must be almost closing time," said Jane. "But we may be able to catch your friend coming out."

"We don't want to catch him coming out," said Mary. Her voice was still even and low, as though it were an enormous effort to talk. "We'll catch him on the way in. Everything happens at night."

They waited in the bank lobby until Jane saw that each customer who approached the wide glass doors hurried to give the nearest handle a tentative tug to be sure they weren't locked, then stepped inside with a small sigh of relief, and then during the walk to the tellers' windows, looked up at the clock built into the wall.

At one minute before four a man about forty years old with hair that was combed straight back to emphasize the gray hair at his temples entered the bank. He wore a lightweight suit that had a slight sheen to it, and on his feet were a pair of brightly shined shoes that it took Jane a second to recognize as cowboy boots.

"There he is," said Mary Perkins. She stood up quickly, but the barely audible groan she gave showed that it had cost her something. She stepped in front of the man. "Hello, Gene," she said. "It's me - Mary Perkins."

The man looked at her, puzzled, while he inhaled once, and then puffed the breath out when he remembered. His eyes shot around him in a reflex, as though he were checking to see who was watching. He said uncomfortably, "Well, now, Mary. How are you these days? I heard you had some problems a while back."

"Yes, I've been away," said Mary. "I can see that you're thinking I don't look like the experience did me any good. You're absolutely right."

The man's brow wrinkled a little to tilt his eyebrows in sympathy, and his mouth forced itself into a sad smile. "Well, I can see it's behind you now, and that's the main thing."

Mary said, "Do you still have an office? I'd like to talk to you about some business."