Thomas Perry - Vanishing Act

"Of course," said Felker. He glanced at Jane with a wince.

Feng went to a shelf where there were ream-size packages of paper with the wrappers still on them. He lifted one off the pile, tore it open on a workbench, pulled a piece of paper out, and set it in front of Felker.

"Here is your birth certificate. The form is genuine. The signature is forged, but the county clerk in question is both real and dead." He paused while Felker glanced at it, then reached into the package again. "Driver’s license. This is genuine. The written examination and driving test were taken, and the license issued. The only thing on it that we’ve added is your photograph. The military discharge papers and the old tax returns are convincing but false. You can use them with anyone but the government. The Social Security card is genuine, but its value is limited. The only way to get one was to have an eighteen-year-old with a second birth certificate in your name apply for it. So you can safely use it and pay taxes into the account, but I’m afraid you would have to wait forty-seven years to collect the benefits."

"I’ll just have to save my money," Felker said.

Lewis Feng betrayed no amusement. "I know this doesn’t seem like a big penalty compared to your present problems, but you need to know. If you misuse these documents, you could be ... embarrassed."

"I understand," he said; "Please, go on."

"This diploma is a Bachelor of Science from Devonshire-Greenleigh College, a reputable small college in Pennsylvania that ran short of money about eight years ago and closed. We maintain the fiction that there is still a registrar’s office that employers can write to for a transcript, funded by the alumni, so if you need academic records, just write to the address on the envelope."

Felker picked up the diploma and read, "John David Young."

Lew Feng said, "Many of our clients are Orientals, so we use Oriental names that don’t attract attention in North America: Young, Lee, Shaw, and so on. Jane specified the first name John, and we had a John Young."

"Had one?"

"We had been building one. Jane asked for the deepest kind of cover, and that takes time. The credit cards are real. The car was bought from a dealer in John Young’s name—"

"Car? I have a car?"

"It’s the safest way to cross the border."

Felker looked at Jane, then at Feng. "What is all this going to cost?"

"We were paid in advance," said Lewis Feng.

"We’ll talk about it," said Jane.

Lewis Feng went on. "This is the key to your apartment in Medford, Oregon. It was rented for you by a legitimate apartment-finding service, so nobody is going to be expecting you to look like the person who put down the deposit."

"This is all safe?" asked Felker.

"Nobody knows anything except members of my family, and I protect them by making sure they never see the customer or know anything more than a long list of new names we make up. I have to keep some record of the information that we’ve generated so that when you need additional documents, we won’t create inconsistencies. But it’s well hidden and it’s never cross-referenced to your original identity, which I don’t know. As I said, our mutual lack of curiosity is the foundation of our relationship."

He handed Felker a crisp manila envelope for his papers and keys and held out his hand. Felker shook it numbly. "Good luck in your new life, Mr. Young."

"Thank you."

They walked out of the shop in silence, then down the street for two blocks. "This is your car," said Jane. It was a gray Honda Accord, with Oregon license plates, parked by the curb. He stopped to look, but Jane pulled him along. "Leave it. I don’t want them to see it at the hotel."

He stopped again. "Where did the money come from?"

"People give me presents. I gave you one."

"I have my present. I’d be dead if you hadn’t—"

"Hold on to your cash. You’ll need it until you’re settled."

She flagged down a taxi, and they got into it. They didn’t speak all the way back to the hotel. When it pulled up in front of the entrance to let them off, she said, "Wait for me." Felker pulled her aside. "What’s going on?"

"You’re alive," she said. "You’re a new man, with a suitcase full of cash and a new car and a new apartment. You have a fresh start. See if you can do something with it."

"Let’s talk about this inside."

Jane shook her head. "I’ve already checked us out of the hotel. The doorman has our bags, and my plane leaves in two hours."

"You mean it’s over?"

"This is over. The old John is missing, presumed dead."

"You know what I mean."

"Maybe sometime you can get in touch with me, if you live. If I live, I might meet you someplace." She looked up into his eyes, then threw her arms around his neck and hugged him hard. She whispered, "Happy birthday, John Young." Then she walked to the doorman’s cubicle, handed him a receipt and a Canadian bill, and took her suitcase.

As she stepped into the taxi, she said, "Airport, please." As the cab pulled away from the curb, she didn’t look out the window at John Young. She opened her purse and pulled out her wallet. She reached into the little pocket and pulled out the photograph. It was her favorite one. It was the one she had taken before he was ready. Telling him she had sent Lew Feng all three pictures was the only lie she had ever told him.

Twenty minutes later, John Young walked up to the Honda Accord. He put his suitcase into the trunk, hid all of the documents except his new driver’s license in the wheel well, and closed the trunk. Then he got into the car, drove it around the block, and parked it again. From here he couldn’t see the ocean, but he could see the fog coming in, the ocean’s presence beginning to obscure everything else. He sat perfectly still and prepared his mind for what he now had to do.

18

Jane stepped off the airplane at five in the morning. While she went about picking up her suitcase and finding a taxi, the sun used the time to rise high enough to irritate her eyes. She had slept the last couple of hours on the plane, but it had only made her feel hollow and light-headed. The Buffalo airport was small and simple, but the emptiness and lack of distractions gave her time to succumb to the feeling that she didn’t want to be in the flat landscape outside the windows. While she was still inside an airport, she was still in transit, in motion. She could turn back and choose a gate, and beyond it would be the world. But once outside the door, she was only in western New York again, back where she had started.

At other times when she had arrived here, the sensation had been relief that she was finally home. Even the grimy, wet pavement of Genesee Street used to feel friendly to her. Today she clenched her teeth until she was on the Thruway, and then the houses she could see beyond the fences were small, dirty, and depressing.

She had no trouble understanding it, because she had been trying to prepare herself for this morning from the second when she had walked out of the hotel in Vancouver. She shouldn’t be here. She should be with him. She reminded herself that she had invented all of the rules, and what they said was that a guide was not in the business of transporting people with all their attachments to other addresses—a guide took them out of the world. When she set the rabbit free, he had to be a new rabbit. He could only be that if he was alone.

When he arrived unencumbered and uncomforted, he would be forced to form new relationships, to dig deeper into the new ground and quickly become indis -tinguishable from the people around him. People who had never had anything happen to them always seemed hard and unchanging, but they weren’t. Human beings were vulnerable and malleable. Within a couple of years they picked up regional accents, walked differently, changed their preferences and habits without ever noticing it. They didn’t do it to fool the chasers; they did it because it was the only way to touch the people around them, and touching them left an imprint, made them like the people they saw every day. People needed not to be alone.