admit I took, because I was already broke. The prosecutor could use a ridiculous number to help her look good, and I would declare bankruptcy and never have to pay a dime. It didn't work that way. Now people think I was one of the ones who ended up with the big money. They want it. I don't have it.'
'Who are these people?'
'That's part of the problem. It could be anybody.'
Jane looked at her for a moment. Mary was slouching in the passenger seat, looking out the window at the darkness. When she turned to meet Jane's gaze her eyes were wide with wonder and a touch of injury. What she was saying coincided with the truth in one spot: there was no way of limiting the number of people who might be interested in robbing a woman who had stolen millions of dollars. But this did not alter the fact that Mary Perkins knew who was after her tonight, and that she insisted she didn't. Jane said, 'Why were you in county jail?'
Mary Perkins shrugged. 'Parole violation. I saw those men and tried to leave town.'
Jane stifled the annoyed response that rose to her tongue. Mary obviously was experienced enough to know that the best lies were short and simple. Where did the lie begin? She might have noticed that men were following her, but she had not tried to leave town because of that.
Something else must have happened first - something that told her what they wanted. All of the hours Jane had spent hustling this woman around the country settled on her chest like a weight. 'Where do you think you could go where there would be the smallest chance you'd be recognized?'
'Smallest chance?'
'That's what I said.'
'Let's see. We just left California, so that's out. Texas is also out.'
Jane concentrated on the mechanical details for the next few minutes. At Ann Arbor she took the Huron Street exit. She said, 'When was the last time you slept?'
'I slept maybe four hours last night. Jails never seem to quiet down until you start to smell breakfast.'
'We'll sleep now.'
There was a motel just after the exit. Jane pulled into the lot and walked into the office by herself to rent a room. She opened the door with the key, locked the door, checked each of the windows, tossed the key on the table by the door, undressed, and lay down on the nearest bed without speaking. Mary Perkins had no choice but to imitate her. When she awoke, the sun was glaring through a crack between the curtains and Jane was sitting on the other bed reading a newspaper. Mary sat up and said, 'What time is it?'
'Ten. Checkout is twelve. We've got a lot to do.'
Mary Perkins rubbed her eyes. 'I guess we'll make it.' She smiled. 'It's not as though we had to pack, is it?'
'No.'
Mary Perkins swung her feet to the floor and stood up. She had been surprised to see that Jane was dressed, but the newspaper suddenly caught her attention. 'You've been out.'
'Yes,' said Jane, not looking up. Mary Perkins could see that she had circled some little boxes in the want ads. Jane also had set a medium-sized grocery bag on the table beside the key.
'I never heard you,' said Mary on the way to the bathroom. 'You must be the quietest person I ever met in my life.'
'I figured you needed to sleep.'
Mary examined the shower and found that the knobs were hot and the tub was wet. She thought about the woman in the other room. A lot of people could tiptoe around pretty well, just like little cats. But how did this one get everything else to be quiet - appliances and fixtures and things?
Mary Perkins got the water to run warm and stepped under the spray. She felt good, she had to admit. Here she was in a clean room with a clear head a couple of thousand miles away from danger, and taking a shower. Once again whatever it was that had always kept the luck coming had not failed.
But now that she was alert and not particularly frightened, she had time to think about that woman out there on the bed. What she sensed about Jane Whitefield was not comforting. No, the animal wasn't a cat. Just because it looked like it had soft fur and the eyes were big and liquid and it didn't make any noise at all didn't mean it was cuddly and gentle. Mary was not the sort of person who lost fingers at zoos. Whatever this one was, it had that look because it happened to be the female of its species, not because it was something you wanted around the house.
The person who had recognized Jane Whitefield in jail was a short black woman named Ellery Robinson. The word on Ellery Robinson was that she had been pulled in on a parole violation. That didn't make her seem interesting until Mary learned that the conviction was for having killed a man in bed with an old-fashioned straight razor. She had served six or seven years of a life sentence in the California Institution for Women at Frontera, one of those places in the endless desert east of Los Angeles. She was in her fifties now, small and compact with a short, athletic body like a leathery teenager. She never spoke to anyone, having long ago lost interest in whatever other people gained from listening, and having gotten used to whatever it was they expelled by talking. But sometimes she still answered questions if they weren't personal.
Mary was in the mess hall one morning when another woman pointed out Jane Whitefield and asked Ellery Robinson if she knew anything about her. Ellery Robinson had actually turned her whole body around in the chow line to stare at her before she said, 'She makes people disappear.' Then the conversation was over. Ellery Robinson turned back to eye the food on the warming tables. When a young woman down the line on her first day inside saw the same food and started crying, she looked at her too for a second, not revealing either sympathy or contempt, but as though she just wanted to see where the noise was coming from.
Mary Perkins had come upon Ellery Robinson sitting in the sunshine in the yard, a headband around her forehead and the sleeves of her prison shirt rolled up to make it fit her child-sized frame. Mary Perkins smiled, but Ellery Robinson said only, 'What do you want?'
'I heard you know who that woman is that came in yesterday. Tall, black hair, thin?'
'Yes.'
'Is it true that she hides people?'
Ellery Robinson closed one eye and tilted her head up to look at Mary Perkins. 'Why aren't you talking to her?'
'I thought I'd better rind out what I could first.'
Ellery Robinson abruptly lost interest in Mary Perkins. She seemed determined to end the conversation, so everything came out quickly in a monotone. 'I heard that if a person is in trouble - not the kind of trouble where the cops take them to court, but the kind where the cops find their head in a Dumpster - the person could do worse than see her.'
Mary Perkins stared at Ellery Robinson, but her face revealed nothing. 'You sure nobody made her up?'
Ellery Robinson nodded in the direction of the cell-block. 'There she is.'
'If you know her, why haven't you talked to her?'
For the first time Ellery Robinson's facial muscles moved a little, but it wasn't a smile. 'I don't have that kind of trouble. If you do, go meet her yourself.'
Mary Perkins looked uncomfortable. 'This is all new to me. It's the first time I've been arrested.'
'No, it isn't.' It wasn't an accusation. There was no trace of reproof or irony. There was nothing behind it at all. Then she seemed to acknowledge that her words were what had made Mary Perkins take a step backward. 'Lots of bad girls in here. You aren't the worst.' She closed her eyes and moved to the side a little so she would be in the full sun again and Mary's shadow would be gone.
Now Mary stood in the shower in Michigan, feeling safe. She had begun to relax when she sensed something had changed again. She tensed and swung around to see the shape outside the shower curtain.
'Dry off,' said Jane, 'but leave your hair wet.'
Mary turned off the water, snatched a towel off the rack, pulled it inside the curtain with her, and turned away to dry herself. 'Why?'
'Why what?'
'Why leave my hair wet?'
Jane reached into the paper bag and pulled out a box with a picture of a fashion model on it. 'We'll dry it after it's dyed.'
'Dyed? What if I don't want it dyed?'
