sleep, but maybe he would consider a benefit for the hospital a part of his work. She had just taken out the good dress she had brought from California in case she needed it in Las Vegas and begun her preparations when the telephone rang.

“Yes?” she said into it.

“It’s me.” Earl sounded angry.

“Hi,” she said. “Have you got anything yet?”

“Zero,” he said. “I’ve watched his goddamn car for a week. If he’s in Billings at all anymore, he doesn’t drive anywhere. He’s also not visible in any hotel, motel, or park bench in the city. If you don’t have anything for me soon, I think we might want to begin considering our alternatives.”

“What alternatives?”

“Make some fake ID with Hatcher’s picture on it that won’t fool even a Montana cop, rent an apartment in that name. We salt the apartment with the ID and the mail we found in Las Vegas, and anything from the car that has Hatcher’s prints on it.”

“Then what?” She knew he wasn’t serious. He was saying it because it sounded desperate and risky, and the thought that he was contemplating such a fraud would affect her.

“Pop some guy Hatcher’s size and shape, put him in the car, and torch it. Once the police run the prints we leave in the apartment and identify the photograph on the fake ID, they won’t have any reason to strain themselves with a lot of tests, and Seaver won’t be able to. If anybody’s real curious they might go to the Denver apartment the car’s registered to and find more of Hatcher’s prints there. We collect the rest of the money from Seaver. End of story.”

“What happens if Pete Hatcher shows up later?” She sounded as worried as she would have been if she believed Earl would give up. Earl didn’t need safety as much as he needed to win.

“Honey, if I can’t find the bastard, you think anybody else is going to?”

“Of course not. Nobody’s better than you, Earl. I’m just talking.”

“If we wait too long, we might have to do it in reverse.”

“What do you mean?” asked Linda.

“Cut and run before Seaver’s bosses send somebody for us. Find a man and woman and make it look like this specialist Hatcher hired set a trap and killed us first.”

“Please don’t do anything yet, Earl,” she said. “I won’t disappoint you, I promise.” Her own voice, sounding breathy and submissive, gave her an erotic shiver. She experimented with making her voice break, not quite a sob. “I’ve been trying really hard.” The effect was good. “I’ll have something for you in a few days.”

“I sure hope so,” he said. “I’ve got nothing. I’ve been running computer checks on the two names he used so far, her name, car rentals, everything. None of it leads anywhere in particular. So I’m beginning to think she picked him up and they were long gone before I got here.”

“I know it’s up to me,” she said. “I won’t forget it for a second.”

Carey McKinnon stood in front of the mirror in the bedroom and studied the man who stared back at him. He had been aware long before tonight that he looked foolish in a tuxedo, but he had consoled himself by renting a tuxedo to look foolish in instead of owning one, and by picking out the plainest model that Benjy’s Midnight Tux had to offer, with black cummerbund and white plastic studs and cuff links. Probably the last time this one had been out of Benjy’s, it had been taken to a prom. The shoes were his, but only because Benjy’s selection of shoes for big feet had the sturdy spit-shined look of military footwear.

With resignation, he brushed his hair into place one last time. The warring cowlicks would reassert themselves in the car. Then he turned off the light, walked downstairs, and stopped. He looked at the telephone before he opened the door. He had been looking at telephones all over the house for two hours, each time remembering that the way they looked had nothing to do with ringing.

It was two hours earlier in Montana, so it was still about five o’clock there. His mind warned him that thinking about time was the first step into treacherous territory. The second was to ask himself what she could possibly be doing that made a telephone call to her husband such a hard thing to accomplish at any hour of the day or night. That brought a hundred contradictory answers into his mind together, elbowing past one another to the front to be acknowledged.

He left the lamp by the door burning and hurried out to his car. As soon as he had started the engine, he noticed the fuel gauge again and cursed himself for forgetting. He hated to stop at the full-serve side of the gas station and wait by the pump helplessly until the attendant happened to glance out the window and notice him, then get so lonely and bored that helping a customer was all he could think of to do. But Carey was determined not to pump gas in a tuxedo. The unwritten laws of physics meant that the pump nozzle would backwash or the hose would leak.

He backed out of the long driveway quickly, drove up the street, and stopped at the light. He hoped the needle of the fuel gauge was still just working its way upward to its correct reading. The light changed, and he turned left to drive the familiar route back to the hospital.

When he reached his reserved parking space he found a big black Mercedes had been backed into it. He paused for a moment with his foot on the brake, then drove on into the visitors’ parking lot, took a parking ticket, and found a space. As he walked toward the building, the argument the muscles of his mouth and tongue were rehearsing was that taking a surgeon’s space in a hospital parking lot could cost the driver’s child the five minutes that might have saved his life some time. He clamped the argument to the roof of his mouth with his tongue. He wasn’t going to say it. He wasn’t going inside to save anybody’s life. He was going in there to kiss that Mercedes owner’s rich ass with enthusiasm and sincerity, and hope it bought the hospital a new children’s wing.

It was probably somebody he had met before. Around Buffalo, most big money was old money, handed down from the days of the Erie Canal, or at least the days of Civil War profiteering, enhanced by practices like buying up the tax liens on family farms in the surrounding countryside during the Depression and turning them into suburbs.

He walked into the foyer and glanced into the garden. He could see a few fat penguins and their bejeweled consorts loitering out there, flicking cigarette ashes into the shrubbery and sipping drinks where their cardiologists couldn’t catch them at it.

He caught a glimpse of Lily Bortoni, the wife of his friend Leo, an orthopedic surgeon. She looked as serene and elegant as she always did at these affairs, every shining chestnut hair in place and with just enough makeup so her skin looked like the smooth surface of a sculpture. She was staring unperturbed through a cloud of cigar smoke at a potential donor as though he were saying something important, so Carey couldn’t catch her eye.

As he walked on, a series of conflicting thoughts flashed through his mind. The sight of Lily made him miss Jane and feel annoyed with her at the same time. He felt sorry for himself for having to show up here alone, felt guilty that Leo’s wife, Lily, had to work the crowd while Jane escaped it, dreaded having to explain ten times in the next hour why Jane wasn’t here. Then he remembered that she could be running for her life right now. He forced the idea out of his mind: she was out finding a new address for some moron. It was unfair to Carey and inconvenient for her, but the danger was over. She was doing what she felt she had to do, and he would just have to cover for her until it was over.

He stepped into the cafeteria, and a hand patted his arm. He turned to look down at Marian Fleming. She had managed to confine herself in a beige evening gown with metallic filigree on the front that looked as though its purpose was to protect her from body blows. Her blond hair was sprayed and sculpted into a spun-sugar helmet, and her ice-blue eyes fixed him with a stare that told him he was not about to be offered any choices. “There’s somebody you’ve got to meet,” she said.

Carey understood the words “got to,” so he waited.

“Where’s Jane?” Her eyes flicked around behind him.

“She’s out of town,” he answered. “I’m on my own tonight.”

He did not miss the tiny twitch above her eye as Marian’s mind punched Jane’s card. She was already pivoting to push him along toward someone, still talking. “Here’s the doctor I told you about.”

“You did?” asked Carey.

“Susan Haynes, this is Carey McKinnon. He went to Cornell too.” She gave Carey a perfectly benign empty look. “So did his wife, but she’s not with us tonight, so he’ll have to do.”

Carey looked at the woman and smiled. Her blond hair beside Marian’s was the difference between polished gold and yellow paint. Her eyes were big, a bright green with flecks in them like malachite, and her lips were full,

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