The Face-Changers

22

The electric alarm clock gave an insistent high-pitched chirping sound, and the woman rolled over to reach for it, her long black hair streaming behind her on the pillow. She turned it off and listened to the sounds of cars and trucks moving on the street below the window: New York. She squinted at the display on the clock. It was three A.M. She slipped out of bed quietly, then padded across the carpet to the bathroom, closed the door, and stepped into the shower. The warm water came out in a hundred hard jets and made her skin feel alive again. She could not possibly have had more than two hours of sleep, but she was already alert.

She emerged from the bathroom with one of the hotel’s big soft towels wrapped around her, and saw that the man was just sitting up in the bed. His voice was hoarse when he said, “It’s still dark. What time is it?”

She moved closer and smiled down at him apologetically. “It’s three-fifteen. I’m sorry, but this is part of the game, too. When you have to travel, you try to do it in the dark when nobody else is likely to see you.”

He reached out and grasped her hand, then gave a gentle tug that made her sit on the bed. She let him kiss her neck. “That’s all,” she announced, and stood up. Her eyes softened. “It was wonderful. But if you make me forget I have to get you out of here on time, then it won’t happen again. The flight to Morocco leaves at six, so you’d better get in the shower.”

He swung his legs to the floor, rubbed his eyes, then ran his hand through his hair, stood up, walked to the bathroom, and closed the door.

She waited until she heard the shower running, then opened her suitcase. She pulled out a blue skirt and jacket and put them on, then reached to the bottom of the other section and took out the clothes that she had selected for him.

As she spread them on the bed, she studied them critically. The gray suit looked surprisingly good. It had been bought at a thrift shop in Chicago. The shoes had been picked up in a big discount chain store in North Carolina, and the shirt had been left behind by another runner months ago. It was just the right sort of outfit. Tracing it would lead a person in all directions at once. She heard the shower stop, waited a minute, then went to knock on the door.

“David?”

He swung the door open, took the toothbrush out of his mouth, and said, “Change your mind?”

She rolled her eyes. “Afraid not. It’s nearly three-thirty. We have to be outside in about fifteen minutes.”

David dried himself briskly as he walked out of the bathroom. He looked at the unfamiliar clothes she had laid out for him, then picked up the suit. “Where in the world did you pick these up?” He tossed the coat back on the bed and stepped into the pants.

She put her arm around his shoulder and looked up at him with amusement. “You’ve got to go through customs. Your passport belongs to a teacher in North Carolina. You have to look like a teacher. If you dress like a successful lawyer, they’re going to take a second look.”

He looked closely at the necktie she had picked out for him. “This isn’t so bad.”

She grinned. “I must have slipped up.”

He stopped in the middle of tying it, not sure whether she was serious, so she tightened the knot herself. “You’re a teacher, not some hayseed. You can’t afford a Savile Row suit, but you can buy a nice tie to dress up the suit you can afford.”

She walked around the room wiping off surfaces with his damp towel, then went into the bathroom, wiped the handles and faucets, and dropped the towel on the floor. As she came out she studied him judiciously.

He noticed, turned around once, and looked at her inquiringly.

“You’ll do.” She glanced at her watch. “Time to go. I’ll slip out and look for our ride. You take the suitcase, go down and check out.”

His face went slack, and he didn’t move. She could see that he was embarrassed. “I …”

She snapped her fingers. “Sorry. I forgot you don’t have any money left. I’m not used to getting up this early, I guess.” She went to the window and looked down at East Forty-ninth Street. “They’re here already. Let’s go.”

She opened the door handle with a handkerchief, then closed it quietly and followed David Cunningham down the deserted hallway to the elevator. After the door had closed them in, she said, “You take the suitcase out and put it in the trunk. As soon as I’m finished at the desk I’ll join you.”

David walked purposefully across the lobby and out the front door. A blue car with two men inside pulled up at the loading zone. The big blond man in the passenger seat got out, took the suitcase out of David’s hand, and said quietly, “Get in the back seat.”

David sat in the car and the door closed. The man behind the wheel was the smaller, curly-haired one he had met months ago, just after his troubles had started. The man turned his body in the seat to smile at David. “You’re in the home stretch now. How does it feel?”

“Better than I expected,” said David. Much better than he was allowed to say, he thought. The woman had said she didn’t want any of the others to know that she had spent the night with him. He could hardly blame her. She was unattached and so was he … now, anyway. She had a right to do what she wanted, but she was in a business surrounded by men: criminals, when you came down to it. She was probably smart not to give them the impression that she was accessible.

He heard the trunk slam, then both doors opened and he saw the dark woman slide into the front seat. The big blond man got in beside David, and the car pulled away from the hotel. David felt a bit cheated. After last night, he would have expected her to sit in the back beside him—that she would have wanted to be near him for the ride to the airport. She had told him she wouldn’t be able to fly over to North Africa for a visit until late fall, maybe even December.

Women were always trying to give the impression that they were more romantic than men. But the minute it was over, what did you hear? “Yeah, yeah. The earth moved, you changed my life, you’re the best, now let’s get downstairs so you can buy me dinner.” This one had a way of dropping the temperature from cool to cold. He had said, “You know my real name. Don’t you think it’s time I knew yours?”

She had answered, “I have lots of names, and they’re all real.” He supposed that in her business, she had to be that way. The people who had something to run from got to change their names and looks, then disappear. She had to stay around while they went off to places like Morocco.

He had accidentally reminded himself, and it made him frightened. He had made it this far, but the only real hurdle was still ahead of him. Staying free all this time was no big accomplishment, because he had not been face-to-face with a federal official since the last time he had walked out of the courthouse.

He still couldn’t believe that he had let this happen to him. When that Mullins character had come to him and presented the scheme, it had seemed simple. All he had to do was take the cash a bit at a time, and place 80 percent of it in an escrow account against the purchase of an imaginary piece of real estate, as though the man were building up a down payment. Then he would make out a check to a different name, hand it to the same man, and keep his 20 percent in cash. Deal closed. Of course, it was money laundering. He didn’t like that part of it, but he had liked getting an under-the-table payment in cash. Everything had seemed fine, even after the man had stopped showing up. After he had missed four consecutive weeks, David had begun to see the three hundred thousand in the escrow account as found money.

That was when the man’s boss had come to the office. His name was Maggio. He had explained to David that Mullins had been a professional bagman, merely delivering Maggio’s money. If David would simply hand over the check for seven hundred and fifty thousand, he would be on his way. It was then that David had seen it all, as though it were carved in his forehead. Mullins had fooled them both, but Maggio was never going to believe it.

David had considered calling the police. He would be disbarred and convicted of money laundering, tax evasion, and some currency-reporting violations. He had considered asking Maggio for time to pay the money back. But he could tell that this man was not the sort for that. Had he actually said that he had killed Mullins? No. David had inferred it from the way he had spoken about Mullins in the past tense from the beginning, always with a weary, philosophical distaste. Finally, David had written out the check for seven fifty, and begun to pack his bags so he could be gone before the check bounced.

Her voice jarred David. “He doesn’t have any money with him. Did you take care of that?” She was talking about him.

The blond man beside David said, “There’s five hundred in cash and two thousand in traveler’s checks in his flight bag.”

“Good,” she said. She turned in her seat so she could see David’s face. “David, remember. When you get to Morocco, take a cab from the airport to your hotel. Spend a few days resting up and getting used to the climate. Don’t go right to the bank and start withdrawing lots of money. They could put you under surveillance for a day or two just because you’re a foreigner.”

“Don’t worry,” said David. “Once I’m on that plane, I’m a different person. I’m never going to hurry again.” The car coasted to a stop on a quiet street lined by brownstones. “Why are we stopping?”

“We’re going to change cars here,” said the curly-haired driver. “Just sit tight while we shift your luggage to the other car.”

David sat alone in the back seat while the others got out. He watched them through the rear window until the trunk lid went up and he couldn’t see them anymore. After a few seconds, the blond man opened the door and said, “Come on.” When David was out, the man took his arm and ushered him around the back of the car.

David didn’t see the gun come out, and the silencer never touched the back of his head, so he never felt anything. He saw the dark woman looking into his eyes with an expression of intense curiosity. The bullet passed through the back of David Cunningham’s skull and emerged high on his forehead, and the blond man gave him a hard push from behind. His body toppled forward against the rear bumper and bent at the hips over the rim of the open trunk, so his head and torso were inside. The two men grasped David Cunningham’s legs and heaved them upward to push him the rest of the way in, and the woman closed the lid over him.

In a moment the woman had taken David’s place in the back seat, the two men were in the front, and the car was making its way toward the Queensboro Bridge.

The curly-haired man looked over his shoulder at the woman. “Morocco?” The blond man beside him chuckled.

The dark woman said, “One of the things he thought he was running from was the federal government. Was I supposed to tell him Biloxi?”

“It just has a ring to it, that’s all: ‘Your money is in a bank in Morocco.’ ”

“Just make sure you bury him deep,” said the woman. “And I keep thinking about the clothes. Maybe you should strip him first, and burn the clothes someplace far away.”

“All right,” said the curly-haired man. “You going straight to the airport this time?”

“Yes. Drop me at the United terminal.” She tapped the blond man on the shoulder. “So bring me up to date.”

The blond man said, “The girl we have on hold in Chicago is getting restless.”

“Is everything ready for her at the other end?”

The blond man shrugged. “Pretty close.”

“When it is, move her.” She stared out the window at the buildings as they drifted past. She muttered, “I know you haven’t killed Jane yet. If you had, you would have been falling all over yourselves to tell me.”