“I heard there’s a woman who hides people.”
Stillman blew out a quick puff of smoke. “A lot of women hide people.”
Seaver slowly shook his head. “This one is a professional. If you’re in trouble, you hire her to get you out of it. She comes and whisks you away—makes you disappear. I guess she must get you a new name and new papers, maybe a job.”
“Which are you?”
“What?” snapped Seaver.
“You thinking of disappearing, or are you looking for somebody?” His head was cocked to the side, and his eyes squinted through the smoke.
Seaver gave a half smile and a snort. “Do I look like somebody who has that kind of problem?” He shot the cuffs of his immaculate white shirt so he could be sure Stillman saw his watch and the perfect fit of his tailored suit.
Stillman shrugged. “You look like somebody who might develop some problems if you got sent to a place like this—or even if somebody in here got out. If you know the captain, maybe you put some of them in.”
“Could be,” said Seaver.
Stillman nodded with amusement. “That’s it, isn’t it? Somebody you don’t want to turn your back on dropped out of sight?”
“No,” Seaver said. “I’m interested in this woman because she made somebody scarce that I want, but the last person he wants to see is me. I’d like to ask her about him.”
Stillman shifted in his chair and lifted both hands to pluck the cigarette from his lips. He stepped on it with deliberation. When he raised his face again his blue eyes were opaque, but Seaver could tell he was taking the offer seriously.
“I don’t know her.” Stillman grinned and held up his chained wrists. “I bet you could have guessed that.”
Seaver nodded. “But you’ve heard of her.”
Stillman nodded too. “If you’re in here long enough, you probably hear every way that words can be pulled together. I’d like to get a few favors. But there’s another side to this. If you can get me goodies, you can also get my ass kicked or worse. What I know is just rumors: thirdhand stuff. I send you off, you’re probably going to come back and tell the captain I shined you on. I don’t know you, but I know him.”
Seaver studied him. Something else was on his mind, and the only way to hear it was to get through the easy ones. “Okay, I’ve been warned. You tell me what you heard, and I won’t hold a grudge, as long as you don’t add anything of your own.” Then he added, as a precaution, “Anyway, I know plenty about her already, so I can figure out which parts you heard wrong.” He handed Stillman another cigarette and struck a match, then held it out so Stillman could lean into it and puff until the tip ignited.
Stillman leaned back and said, “Say there really is a woman like this? There would be people in the joint who know about her. Maybe they got helped by her once, then fucked up again and couldn’t get to her in time. Maybe they didn’t get to her even the first time, but they hope some day they’ll make it.” He smiled and shook his head. “Even though a germ couldn’t get out of here, about one in five of these guys thinks he can.”
Seaver’s smile mirrored Stillman’s. “A lot of sheets get tied together, but you don’t see many of them hanging outside the walls of these places.” He shrugged. “Anyway, this isn’t that kind of situation. I’m not interested in charging her with anything, or even putting her out of business. I want this guy, and I’ll pay her for him. She’s nothing to me.” He caught a hint of skepticism in Stillman’s stare, so he said quickly, “Of course, if she draws down on me, I’ll have to kill her. But even then, nobody would know you told me about her.”
Stillman put his tongue to his lips and spat out a flake of loose tobacco. “Okay, then I know some things.”
“Go on.”
“It’s probably none of it true. People talk about things like that. There’s a pair of Siamese twins in Vacaville they have to let out every other week, because one of them didn’t get convicted. There’s a four-fingered lawyer in San Diego who knows one thing they forget to do in almost every trial, so he can get anybody off who will send him a finger. One of the contractors who built this place was getting kickbacks on the materials, so just in case they caught him, he put a secret tunnel under the infirmary. There’s a woman who takes people out of the world and gives them new lives.”
“A little bit past her prime with blond hair, right?”
“Not in the version I heard. It was black. She had long black hair, and she was nice looking. I don’t vouch for that, because in stories the girl is always that way. It wasn’t like you said before, either. I heard the way it works is, you have to come to her. And you have to clean yourself before you do. If you want to bring something you left behind—maybe what you stole, maybe a girlfriend—she’ll tell you you’re not ready for her. If what you want is another chance to kill the one who set you up, she’ll tell you to go do it and not come back. She’s in the running business, not the fighting business. You don’t just give up your name, you have to give up everything you ever were, ever saw or did. You’re a new person, who doesn’t know any of that.”
“I heard that,” Seaver lied. It occurred to him that maybe Hatcher wasn’t planning to resurface after all—that maybe this was all a waste of time. But it was way too late for that kind of thinking. It just weakened him, distracted him. The partners had made their decision, and they were waiting. “Where do you go?”
“You mean where does she take you?”
Seaver spoke patiently, almost respectfully. “No. You’re on the run. You collect a pile of money for her fee. Where do you take it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who did you hear all this from?”
“I heard it a few times, and I can’t sort out which part I heard which time. The first one was seven or eight years ago, in Alameda County Jail. It was an old guy, and he was telling a kid. See, the kid was in for the first time. They had a running tab on him. It started out as some kid thing—vandalism or something. He tried to run: resisting arrest. He hot-wired a car to get away: grand theft auto. He drove it fast until a police car crashed into him to run him off the road, so it was attempted vehicular manslaughter. He struggled, so it was assaulting a police officer. On and on. He tried to hang himself, but the old man cut him down with a shank he carried. He said to the kid, ‘You got to get yourself in shape so the guards don’t know about this. On the day of your arraignment, you’re going to get out on bail for a month or so while they dream up more charges. That’s your chance. But if they know you did this, they can keep you here and watch you.’ He helped the kid get rid of the homemade rope and cover the welts, and then told him about the woman.”
“In front of you?”
“No. The old guy never talked to me at all. He didn’t like me from the minute he laid eyes on me. The kid came to me later and asked me if the old man was crazy—just jerking him around, or what.”
“How did he tell the kid to get in touch with this woman?”
“That was one of the things that made me think it was bullshit. He wouldn’t tell the kid the address, because the kid was too green to make it that far. The kid had to wait until he was out and write her a letter, then let her say where to meet her.”
“Do you remember where the letter was supposed to go?”
“A post office box in L.A. The next time I heard it, there was a house somewhere.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who mentioned the house?”
“Some counterfeiter. Just what they do is so stupid that you can’t believe what they say. They all get caught, then go out and do it again.”
Seaver sighed and looked at Stillman. He had seen Stillman’s record. The man had been in jails for twelve of his thirty-one years, and there was something he’d done before the adult record had begun that had put him in youth camp. If he ever got out again, he’d be a three-time loser before he even did anything.
Stillman went on. “He wouldn’t tell me where the house was. He said the only reason he had the address was because his girlfriend gave it to him just before he got arrested. She didn’t get arrested, though. She got away, and never got caught.”
“Is that true?”
“I once saw a thing on TV where they said nobody ever saw a U.F.O. until somebody said he saw one in
