do.'
The front door opened again to admit Gorman and Maloney. Wylie looked up to acknowledge them. 'This lady has decided to lie to me instead of answering my questions.'
'That would really be stupid, ma'am,' Gorman said. He pulled his jacket aside to show her the badge he had used in Los Angeles, and made sure the woman could also see the gun he had in a shoulder holster. 'Obstructing police officers in a murder investigation is about as serious as it gets.'
Wylie kept his left hand on the woman's throat as he used his right hand to drag her to a sitting position. 'I always heard that Texas cops didn't put up with this kind of crap, so you should know better. We came all the way from the city of Los Angeles hunting a dangerous escaped killer, and sure as hell won't go home just because somebody tells us lies. Now tell us where Sarah Shelby is right now.'
The woman was beyond terror now. 'Are you really police officers' She didn't see Wylie's hand move before the slap on her left cheek spun her head to the side. She cringed and tried to look away, but the open hand slapped her again. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I didn't mean anything.'
She was shocked, but not hurt. She made the assumption that Wylie had finished. She seemed to relax for an instant, but then Wylie slapped her face several times, harder each time, then stopped and moved his face close to hers. She was trembling and a low moan escaped from her throat.
'I'm helping you get used to your new world. As of now you aren't somebody who can keep the bad things out just by shutting your door. You just gave that up. Sarah Shelby is off aiding and abetting the escape of a murderer. A wife killer. You know that already, because you're obviously a friend of the family. But you don't seem to realize that anybody who helps a murderer get away is going to share his fate.'
'I didn't do anything, and she didn't tell me anything. She just went away.'
He didn't hit her, just clutched her arm. 'Here's all the education you'll need, all in one afternoon. If you lie to the police when we come around trying to find a murderer, you're as much a criminal as he is.'
'Are you going to arrest me'
'What happens to you is up to you. It's a kind of race. If you talk before Jim Shelby kills another innocent person, and before somebody else tells an officer what we need to know and he's captured, you'll do okay. If you don't, things will go hard.' His head was behind the woman's, so she didn't see him nod to Gorman.
Gorman said, 'Jesus, chief. She makes me sick. Why don't we just take her out and shoot her now You gave her a chance. Now the offer is expired.'
'Not just yet,' Wylie said. He took her head in his hands and turned it so she had to look at him. He studied her for a few seconds, then released her. 'Okay. Put the cuffs on her.'
Gorman stepped forward and grabbed the woman's wrists.
'Wait!'
It was her voice, drastically different from before. 'She did leave an address and phone number, just in case something happened here.'
'What is it'
'It's written down. I folded the paper and put it inside one of the books in the bookcase. The one over there that says Cats of the World.'
Maloney stepped to the bookcase, pulled out the book, flipped the pages, and found the folded sheet. He opened it and read it. '3592 Dryden Road, Ithaca, New York. And there's a phone number. Seven one six-'
'Save it,' Wylie said. He picked up a pillow from the couch, unzipped the cover, and pulled the pillow out. He put the pillow cover over the woman's head, zipped it tight to her neck, wrapped the pillow around his pistol, and held it up to the woman's head.
'Please, please,' she said. 'I helped you.'
He fired one shot. The sound was muffled, but the woman's head jerked to the side. There was a splatter of bright red liquid soaking the pillow cover, and the woman's body followed the head, tilting to the right and falling to the floor.
'Not bad, eh' he said. 'No blood spatter all over, and only one shot in case one of the neighbors came home. They hear one shot and they stop what they're doing for a second, listening. If they don't hear another one, they figure it was nothing-a firecracker, a backfire, a door slam. A squirrel fell on their roof.'
'Yeah, and when he hit the shingles, his gun went off,' Gorman said.
Wylie looked out the front window, craned his neck to see up and down the street. 'Let's go. We'd better get started.' He opened the door, and the three men walked across the street to their car. 'We've got a long drive ahead of us.'
7.
Shelby was waiting for Jane when she returned to the hotel room. She stepped inside and closed, locked, bolted, and chained the door. She smiled. 'There's some good news.' 'What'
'Your sister listened to what I told her. She left her house in Texas, and drove to Ithaca, New York, to wait this out.'
'Thank God.' His legs seemed to give out and deposit him on the bed. 'Is she going to meet us here'
'I'm afraid not,' she said. 'If she gets on an airplane, the people who are after you might be able to trace her, and the police certainly will. We'll have to drive up there and get her.'
'When do we leave'
'I drove here from Las Vegas for most of the night. When I wake up, we'll talk some more.'
She took the spare pillow from the closet shelf, lay on the couch, and slept. When Jim Shelby saw the process, he was intrigued. She seemed to move from a state of hyper-awareness to deep sleep in less than a minute. He had found the couch reasonably comfortable, but she had no blanket, and she didn't undress or make any other preparations. This was something he had noticed about her from the beginning. She had control over herself. Her movements were always economical, never aimless or nervous. When she looked at anything-a person, a building-she seemed to pick out instantly the part that was important. When she had looked at the crowd at the courthouse, she had instantly separated the bystanders from the enemies, and both from the police, and had begun to act before anyone else. Her mind was always focused-looking, thinking, noticing.
He intuited that part of the reason she allowed herself to sleep at the moment was that he was here to watch over her. He knew that she had no illusion that while he was still recovering from a knife in the back he could protect her from an intruder, but he could delay one, and he would fight hard enough to make a lot of noise. He understood what she was feeling, and he knew that what she wanted was for him to find something to do that wasn't noisy, look out the window occasionally to check for the men who had caught her in Los Angeles, and stay with her.
He lay on the bed reading the magazines the hotel had left on the coffee table. They were almost entirely ads for women's clothes and jewelry, and for the restaurants where women could wear them. He still couldn't quite imagine ever again having money to spend on a woman, but for now being out of prison was enough. Every surface in the prison was designed to be harder and rougher than a man's bones and skin. It was as though the authorities wanted prisoners to see how small and weak they really were. It was as ugly as they could make it without letting on that they were trying-light green paint over uneven, chipped surfaces of walls and barred windows. Ugly brushed concrete floors.
He dozed at some point. He didn't remember a last impression. The magazine was at his side, his fingers still on it. The woman was across the room, sitting in one of the chairs from the small, round table and staring out the window. He sat up. 'How long have you been awake'
'A half hour or so.'
'I'm sorry to make you wait. I didn't expect to fall asleep.'
'It's fine. Now that I've rested a little, I've been able to think.'
'There's something I've been wondering about,' he said. 'When you came to the prison, and even at the courthouse, you were Kristen Alvarez. I assume that isn't who you are.'
'No, I'm not Kristen Alvarez. I just borrowed the name of a real lawyer.'
'Now that we're out of the courthouse, do you mind telling me your name'
'That depends,' she said. 'Whenever I take on a runner, I've got to know certain things that are dangerous to you-your new name, your address. But I will die before I reveal them. If I tell you my secrets, will you do the same
