permission to stay in the purser’s office till they landed, to protect Jane Ann, and the distracted Jerry agreed, but they didn’t hear any more about what was going on. The action had apparently moved to the security office.
When at last they docked in Albany, Jerry was as good as his word. He personally escorted them to the lounge near the exit, he spoke to the first police officers who boarded, and there was no problem about departure from the ship.
Mike showed his fake chauffeur’s ID, gave Jane Ann Livingston’s spurious address in a mansion on the Hudson, and three minutes after the ship had tied up at the dock he was pushing a thoroughly beat-up Noelle down the gangplank and through the departure building and out to the parking lot, where for the last time he did the elaborate ramp arrangement that got her wheelchair into the van. Then he got behind the wheel, and drove them away from there.
The second traffic light they hit was red, and while stopped he looked at her in his inside mirror and said, “How you doing?”
“Ask me,” she told him, “three beers from now.”
10
Ray Becker woke up. Holy shit, he fell asleep!
Around ten he’d driven away from the cottages and down into a nearby town to a pizza place, where he got a small pizza and a can of Coke, and came back, and sat here on the porch in the dark, looking out at the black river, with the living room and kitchen lights on in the cabin behind him, and while he ate he thought about where he’d go, once he had his hands on the money.
He wished he could just get completely out of the United States, but he didn’t dare. He wasn’t sure he could cross any border without ID, and he didn’t have any ID he’d care to show anybody official. And if he went somewhere else in the world, what would he know about the place? The laws, the systems, the ways things worked. What would he know about how they handled things? He’d be crippling himself, that’s all, and for what?
No, he’d have to stay in the States, which meant he’d have to go somewhere that was both out of the way and far from home; he wouldn’t want to run into any old high school pals on the street.
But it couldn’t be just anywhere. There were states, for instance, like Florida and Louisiana, that had a floating population of petty crooks and therefore had a lot of police forces alert to the idea of checking out any strangers who hung around too long. For similar reasons, big cities like New York and Chicago were out; but they were out anyway, because Becker had never felt comfortable in big cities.
He’d thought about Oregon and he’d thought about Maine, but the idea of the weather in both those places daunted him. On the other hand, if he went too far south, he’d stand out too much.
Maybe some place like Colorado or Kansas. Move in to some medium-size town, just settle in for a while, then get fresh ID, invest some of the money in a local business, start a new life.
ID wouldn’t be a problem, he knew how to do that. You’d choose a good-sized city Omaha, say, or St. Louis and look in the newspaper obits there for the year you were born, where you’d eventually find a child that had died before its second birthday. Using that child’s name, you’d write to the Hall of Records in that city to ask for a copy of your birth certificate. Using that, you’d go to the nearest Social Security office and explain you’d lived outside the U.S. since you were a kid, with your parents, but now you were back and you needed to sign up. With those two pieces of ID, and the same off-shore story, you’d go get your driver’s license, and all of a sudden you were as legit as any citizen in the country.
Kansas, he thought, that’s where I’ll go, check it out, see if that’s the place for me, and on that thought he’d fallen asleep.
Only to spring awake, with the realization that he’d almost made a huge mistake. A hugemistake. If the robbers came back with the money and Ray Becker was sprawled in this chair asleep, that would be it. No questions. No more chances.
Kansas? Bottom of the Hudson River, more likely.
The lights are still on! What time is it?
He was trying to look at his watch and jump up from the Adirondack chair, both at the same time, when a voice said, “Whadaya suppose they left the lights on for?”
Becker froze. Someone in the kitchen, directly behind him. He stared ahead of himself, out at the blackness that contained the river, and he listened very hard to the space behind him.
A second voice: “Maybe so they could find the place from the river.” Younger, more nasal, than the first voice.
“We’ll leave it the way they left it,” said a third voice, older and heavier and beerier, like the first one. And how the fuck many of them werethere? “We want those boys walkin in here all fat and sassy.”
Now he knew why he’d come awake. He must have heard them arrive somehow, a car door slamming or the front door opening or whatever it was.
Get off the porch; that’s the first thing. Slowly and silently, without attracting attention, get off this goddam porch.
Becker eased forward off the Adirondack chair onto his hands and knees. Behind him they were talking, making themselves at home, opening and closing the refrigerator door. A beer can popped.
The screen door off this screened-in porch was ahead and to the right, and it opened inward. Becker crawled over there, found the door by feel, pulled it a little way open, and for a wonder it didn’t squeak. Holding the door with his left hand, he shifted around to a seated position, then slid himself forward on his rump into the doorway, until his feet found the log step out there between porch level and the ground.
Easing himself out, and down onto that step, without letting the door slam, was damn tricky, but he did it, holding his hand between door and frame at the last, until he could get his feet under him, and reach up to the knob. He pushed the door open just a bit to free his hand, then eased it shut.
Darkness outside, with canyons of light vaulted from the windows. Becker eased along next to the building, peeked in the kitchen window, and saw three of them, all now with beers in their hands.
