37
At nine o’clock the following night, the rental car from Terre Haute pulled up on the street across from the Evansville police department and stopped. The old man at the wheel looked nervously at the wide front doors as a pair of uniformed policemen walked down the steps, then at the young girl beside him.
“After everything that’s happened, being this close to them still gives me the creeps.”
“You’re not a criminal anymore, Bernie. They’re here to protect people like us. Well, maybe not people like us, exactly, but the kind of people we’d be if we hadn’t done anything.”
Bernie looked at his watch, then at Rita. “You know, I was hoping that I wasn’t going to have to say this. But the chance that she’s going to show up isn’t very good.”
“I know,” said Rita. “But she’ll be here.”
“I know she’d want to be here,” he said gently. “And I know she’s smart. But sometimes smart isn’t enough.”
“What are you saying—that you want to leave without her?”
“No,” said Bernie. “Not at all. I haven’t got any pressing engagements. I figured we could wait here a while without attracting those cops. Then we could get some sleep and come back tomorrow night at the same time. It’s just that … well, she’s used up a lot of chances. If things had gone the way she wanted, I think she would have been here, waiting for us. That means things didn’t go the way she wanted. So I think maybe we ought to figure out what’s going to happen next—what we do if she doesn’t show up.”
“I don’t know,” said Rita. “Do you?”
“Well, she’s a specialist, and she seems to have been good at it. I think that we probably ought to do what she told us to. We’ll go someplace, use the identification she gave us, get settled, and try to take care of each other.” Bernie was silent for a few seconds. “Is that okay with you?”
Rita turned, leaned toward him, and gave him a small kiss on the cheek, then looked straight ahead. Bernie could see that there were tears in her eyes.
There was a sharp rap on the window that made Bernie jump. He turned, and Jane was opening the door. “Let me drive,” she said.
Bernie got into the back seat, and Jane took his place and drove up the street.
“What happened?” asked Rita. “Are you all right?”
Jane looked at her, then said quietly, “I’m terrific.” She drove a few more blocks, then said, “Bernie?”
“What, honey?”
Bernie said thoughtfully, “It’s a hell of a long drive, but on the other hand, it’s not much like Florida, and I’m sick of Florida. Come to think of it, I’m sick of the Midwest, too. And Coos Bay is right on the Pacific, so Rita would have a chance to go to the beach. Don’t care much for the beach myself, but—”
“I wasn’t asking your opinion.”
“Oh,” he said. “Well, Interstate 64 across to St. Louis, then switch to 70. The junction comes right after you cross the Mississippi River, so it’s hard to miss. If you cross Seventh Street, you’ve gone too far. Then you drive a couple of days, take a jog up 15 to 84 in Utah. You get off at Route 20, go across Oregon, and turn left at the ocean.”
It took four days to drive across the country once more. Jane found a house on a hill overlooking the ocean and entered into a lease-to-buy arrangement with the owner in the name of Michael Daily.
When Rita saw the papers, she said, “What about me? Who am I supposed to be?”
“You’re his only living relative: his granddaughter.”
Rita looked embarrassed. “Bernie, if you don’t like that, I can just be your housekeeper again.”
“No, you can’t,” said Jane.
“Why not?”
Jane sighed. “In the first place, the identification I made for you has the same last name. The reason I did so is that in the long run, your best chance is if you protect each other. If something happens to one of you, the only one who can even go into the hospital room is a relative. Bernie is pretty spry, but he’s already over seventy. If he’s suddenly out of the picture, a housekeeper isn’t going to be allowed to live in his house. A granddaughter will inherit it, if we get around to making a will. If you get arrested, they’ll release you into a grandfather’s custody, but not the custody of an elderly employer. I could go on this way for a long time, if you had the patience to hear it.”
“I’m sorry,” said Rita. “I just didn’t want to be a lot of trouble.”
“Let her do it her way, kid,” said Bernie. “After it’s done, I don’t think I want to call her back to do it again.”
Jane bought a car for Michael Daily and his granddaughter, Karen, then spent a week teaching them how to make themselves look a bit different from Bernie “the Elephant” Lupus and Rita Shelford, and how to use their new environment to keep hidden rather than draw attention to themselves. She took them to the stores they could patronize safely, and drilled them in the different ways of getting away from the area if they were recognized. She helped them open joint bank accounts. The last thing she did was take them to a lawyer. Bernie made out a will, leaving all of Michael Daily’s worldly goods to his granddaughter.
When Rita awoke the next morning, Jane was packing a bag. She noticed Rita standing in the doorway watching her. Rita said, “I’m going to be sorry to see you leave.”
Jane smiled. “It’s time.” She hesitated, then said, “You were at my house the day we met. This is your new life, and that’s mine. The one thing I ask is that you remember your promise. Never mention anything about it to anyone.”
“I understand,” said Rita.
“And one more thing,” Jane said gently. “I know you miss your mother. But please, give it a couple of years. Wait until she’s out of prison and has had time to lose whoever is watching her. Then don’t write a letter. Go there at night, pick her up, and talk while you drive.”
She noticed that Rita had begun shaking her head before she had gotten through the first sentence. “What?” she asked.
“My mother’s dead.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve known a long time. Practically since it happened. I started checking the Florida newspapers every chance I got since Albuquerque. One day it was in there. She got killed in prison.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to know.” After a moment, she added, “Don’t ever tell Bernie. It would make him feel sorry for me. Nobody is ever going to feel sorry for me again.”
Jane took Rita into her arms and held her for a moment. “I won’t tell him,” she said.
Jane picked up her bag and walked outside to the car. Bernie was waiting for her. “I brought your purse out,” he said. “It’s on the front seat. I knew you’d probably forget it, and we’d have to take some big chance to get it back to you.”
“Thanks,” said Jane.
She opened the car door, but Bernie stopped her. “One last thing. Don’t worry. Right now it looks like they all got together for the sole purpose of hunting us down. It won’t last. I know them. They get distracted. If they’re looking for a pile of hundred-dollar bills and happen to see a kid with a nickel in his hand on the street, they’ll stop to get the nickel. Then they’ll fight over the nickel.”
Jane shrugged. “I hope you’re right.”
“Of course I am,” snapped Bernie. “I’m B … Michael Daily.” He turned and walked toward the house, then stopped. “Thanks for the ride.”
Jane waved, then hugged Rita. “I’ll think about you.”
Jane drove all day and into the evening before she stopped to make a call at a pay telephone under a street lamp in Provo, Utah. She dialed the number of the house in Amherst, and heard the answering machine.
Jane said, “I’m on my way home. It will take a few days. I love you.”
She hung up, and reached into her purse to put her extra change back. In the corner of her purse she detected something unfamiliar. It felt like tissue paper. Could she have left that in since she had bought this purse? She pulled it out, but it felt heavier than it should have. She squeezed it between her fingers. There was something hard and round in it, like pebbles. As she took it out, carefully pulled apart the folds of tissue paper, and looked down, she remembered Bernie handing her the purse. The light from the street lamp glinted off the facets of the diamonds, and made them look like small, cold stars.