would have high medical bills also. Some is paid by Medicare, and the rest by the patient himself or his private insurance carrier. But our costs don’t go up much, so the fees don’t either. You also should know that for the first few years, your father will be overcharged. As he ages and needs more care, the surplus he paid will have gone into the trust and been invested.”
“That works?”
Mrs. Paxton grinned. “So far. We’ve been here since 1948.”
Jane tried to communicate a low-level worry. “If my father decided to stay, would he be free to leave?”
“Of course.”
“I mean, suppose one day he decides he wants to hop on a plane and visit me, or go to Europe. What would he have to do?”
“Call a travel agent, I suppose. Our regular shuttle bus would take him to the terminal and pick him up.”
“There’s no way he could be prevented?”
“No. If you wanted to do that you would have to go to court and have yourself granted a conservatorship of his person. But you haven’t said anything that would indicate—”
“I didn’t mean to,” said Jane. “I just want to be sure he can do as he likes.” She said, “What about crime?”
“Crime?” Mrs. Paxton seemed confused.
“I saw private security guards, gates, and fences.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Paxton, suddenly sympathetic. “This is a small, quiet seaside community. He wouldn’t have to worry about that sort of thing. Of course, there’s no place in California that’s very far from a freeway, so we can’t let strangers come onto the complex. If you came to see him, you would give your name at the gate, and they would find it on a list, so you’d be admitted immediately.”
Jane kept at Mrs. Paxton, asking the questions she thought a daughter would ask, and Mrs. Paxton seemed to have prepared for all of them. When Dahlman returned from his walk, Mrs. Paxton went off to get an electric golf cart for their ride around the grounds.
“Well?” said Jane.
“Not bad. It’s not the way I had hoped to spend my old age, but the people I met seem happy. It must be incredibly expensive.”
“I’ve seen the price tag,” said Jane. “It’s outrageous, but it would be a bargain at ten times that much. You can move around freely and do as you please, and if you want to leave, they’ll drive you in a shuttle with five or six other people your age. Outsiders can’t come in except to deliver groceries and cut the lawn. With any luck we won’t have to pay for long.”
“What about the other campers?”
“Guests. She says a lot of them come here to forget things like newspapers and television, and the staff tries to keep everybody too busy for them. That should help. The hair should help. The more you behave like Alan Weems and the less like … anyone else, the better.”
He considered for a moment. “I suppose it’s not on the list of places I’d go to look for a fugitive.”
“Why can’t just anybody spread a deck of cards face-down on a table and pick out the king of spades?”
Dahlman looked at her impatiently. “Why?”
“It’s not a trick question.”
“Well, to begin with, they’re all the same. The king of spades doesn’t look any different from …” He paused, then nodded.
Five days later, Alan Weems was installed in a condominium at the Carlsbad Senior Rancho. His belongings were said to be “in storage” in Michigan. He arrived with only a few suitcases full of clothing that was as new as the suitcases, a large box of recently purchased books, and a valise that contained “personal papers.” He said good-bye to his daughter privately, and she was recorded as leaving the gate at midnight.
20
At 3:35 A.M. Violet Peterson awoke to the sound of many feet walking through the high grass outside her motel room. She silently eased herself off the bed, stepped into her jeans, pulled a clean sweatshirt over her head, and then sat down on the bed to tie her sneakers.
By the time the door burst open, she was sitting at the small table by the window, her purse across the table from her where they would see it immediately, and her hands palm-down on the tabletop.
Before the door swung far enough for the knob to bang the wall, the first man in had barreled across the room to her left like a football player, knelt behind the bed, and rested his elbow on it so his rifle would stay trained on her chest. But the second was already in place by that time, since all he did was sidestep through the doorway to his left. The third crouched in the doorway and swept the room with his eyes, his rifle turning wherever he looked. The fourth stepped past him and turned on the glaring light.
Violet watched the proceedings with intense interest. It was good that Jane had explained how to receive such visitors. She spent the next few moments thinking about her daughter and her son, and marveling at how having them had changed her. At one time she had been very impressed by her own physical beauty—even awed by it, since it was unearned and had come unasked for—and she would, at a time like this, have been terribly afraid that something would happen to shatter it. But having her children—not just bearing them, which had distorted that body temporarily and proved for the rest of time that it was not delicate or fragile, but watching the children grow and devoting her life to them—had moved her beyond little fears.
The moment when the first one, Victoria, had begun to walk and talk, Violet and even Billy had in some subtle way become the old generation, superseded by the next. She was very afraid of these men because they might make some mistake and obliterate her children’s mama. She knew that reason dictated that she be afraid for herself, and she told herself that she would be; she had only put it off until she had time to think.
The fourth man through the door advanced close to her cautiously, taking little side steps. She could tell that much of his caution was devoted to staying out of the gun sights of his friends. He snatched her purse off the table and then said, not in the brutal shout she had been expecting, but in a quiet, normal voice, “Listen carefully. I want you to keep both hands in sight at all times, and away from your body. Now slowly stand up and turn to the wall.”
Violet stood up with her hands out like a tightrope walker and stepped to the wall. Before she expected it, big, strong hands pushed her forward so her hands had to lean against the wall, then quickly moved up and down her body, but the touch was not personal. It was like a strong wind riffling her clothes. Then other hands grasped her wrists and brought them around behind her. She felt the handcuffs click shut and she began to feel better.
Jane had told her that this was the time she should eagerly await, because it meant the real danger was over. Once the handcuffs were on, the men would begin to relax and there would be little chance that they would make some mistake and hurt her.
The men kept her standing there for a long time, her face a few inches from the wall. She could hear men going through her purse, shuffling through the money Jane had given her, like a bank teller counting it. She could hear the little slap as each piece of plastic was placed on the table—her driver’s license, her credit cards. She heard the click and snap as they opened her suitcase, and the quiet rustle as they examined the clothes. Somewhere beyond the bed, men were systematically opening drawers and moving furniture.
It was the man who had taken her purse who grasped her shoulders and turned her around. “Sit down, please.”
Violet obeyed. A new man was standing outside the doorway talking quietly with one of the raiders, their backs turned away. This one wore a dark gray suit, and he seemed to be in charge, because he couldn’t dress like that and do all these acrobatics, breaking down doors and diving onto floors with a rifle.
The new man was a person to whom other people brought things. One man showed him the contents of her purse, then brought them back and returned them to the table. Others, one at a time, would go to him and whisper the way the first one had.
Finally, the man turned and looked in at her. He was big, not athletic-looking exactly, but the way that
