It didn’t matter if Tommy was everything he had claimed when he’d come and asked to be my father again. It didn’t matter if he was as sorry as he said, as sad as he seemed. Maybe he wasn’t. It didn’t matter.
I couldn’t be the reason he died.
He was all I had left.
Outside, I heard a siren coming closer, and I didn’t think it was coming here, and I didn’t know what I would do if it did. The wail climbed, fell, climbed, and then receded, passing by.
I made my way into the bathroom, turned on the light over the sink. There was a gash on my forehead, not very deep, but long. The skin was torn, and in the opening I could see red flesh, still seeping. The blood that the Parka Man had smeared was already dry, tight on my skin. There was some bleeding on my scalp, too, showing through the curls where the Parka Man had torn hair.
I splashed water on my face, and the cut stung, but in its way that made me feel a little better, made me focus a little more.
A million dollars, that was a lot of money, but I had more than that. It couldn’t be that hard to get the cash, and Parka Man had given me most of four days to do it.
I’d get the cash.
Explaining the cut, that would be something else. It looked like I imagined a gash from the edge of a piece of furniture might look, if for example someone had tripped and not caught themselves in time. Something a drunk might not even remember doing to herself if she had gotten really hammered after her brother’s funeral.
I can do this, I told myself. I can do what needs to be done.
I didn’t think I was lying this time.
CHAPTER 25
It was stupid, but it was the only disguise I could think of, so I wore a ball cap and sunglasses when I went to the bank. I’d bought both of them at a Walgreen’s down the block from my branch, and maybe it was the cut, or maybe I just didn’t matter that much anymore, but no one seemed to recognize me when I made the purchase.
There was a small group waiting in the teller lines when I got to the bank, the last of the lunch crowd, and I stayed out of their way, trying to be inconspicuous, and it totally backfired and people stared. Maybe sunglasses and a ball cap would do it at the movies, but in a bank, it just made me stick out a little more. I got a withdrawal slip from the stand and filled it out precisely, and waited until the line died down before attaching myself to the end. That didn’t work, either, because another three people came in right after I’d done it, and assembled behind me. They were all women, professionally dressed, and none of them looked much older than I.
Four people in front of me, and the line had just shortened to three, when I heard one of the women say, “You know who she looks like? She looks like the girl from Tailhook.”
“That’s not her. She’s too short to be her.”
“Not Van, not that one, the other one, the one whose brother just got killed.”
“That’s not Mim.”
“I don’t know, it looks like Mim.”
“It could be.”
“No it couldn’t, she doesn’t live in town, she lives out in Lake Oswego.”
“That’s Van, Van lives in Oswego. She has that big house they showed on television that time.”
The line had shortened to one, and I really wanted the women behind me to shut up.
“Did you hear about the photos? There was this bit on the news about these photos.”
“Oh, God, I know! My boyfriend showed them to me, can you imagine letting someone do that to you?”
“You could ask her, you could ask if that’s her.”
“I wouldn’t want to be rude.”
There was a teller open, and I moved to his station. He was middle-aged, balding, and he smiled at me when he took my withdrawal slip, then looked at it and laughed and handed it back to me.
“I think you need to fill out a new one,” he said with a very amused smile.
I checked it, shook my head, slid it back. “No, it’s correct.”
“I think you wanted those zeros after the decimal point, not before.”
“No, it’s correct.”
He stopped being amused. “Young lady, you’re not very funny.”
“I’m not trying to be funny. I need it in cash, please.”
The teller took the slip once more, went over it again, then frowned at me with suspicion. He asked me to wait a moment, then began tapping on the terminal to the left of his cash drawer. He scowled at the figures on his screen, and I figured he was just making certain that the money was there. Then his posture changed, and he leaned forward on the shelf, gesturing for me to come closer.
“I’m terribly sorry, Miss Bracca,” the teller said. “I’ll get the manager.”
I started to protest, but he was already out of the station and heading down the row of fellow tellers. I told myself not to worry, that he probably needed the manager’s permission to access that much cash. I was a little surprised he hadn’t already asked to see some identification.
Along the line of tellers, one of the women was finishing her transaction. I caught her staring at me, and when I caught her, she blushed and turned away hastily.
My teller came back, flanked by an older woman. The woman wore glasses, and had red hair, and it was obviously dyed.
“Miss Bracca,” the woman said. “I’m Catherine Lumley, why don’t you come with me?”
“Fine,” I said, and got out of line. Catherine waited for me at the end of the counter, and she pulled the short door back, allowing me through. With her free hand, she pointed to her office, past the vault door, and I headed inside. She followed close behind me.
The office was carpeted, and then had an Oriental rug on it, to add to the plush. There were four filing cabinets and a big desk and three leather chairs. The cabinets and the desk were some dark wood, like the rosewood used in fretboards, and all of the handles for all of the drawers were brass and shiny. I could almost feel the money.
“Please have a seat,” Catherine Lumley said. “Would you like something to drink? Coffee? Water or anything?”
I took one of the chairs facing the desk, and she surprised me by staying on my side and taking one of the seats beside me.
“I’m fine,” I said. Even knowing the balance in my account, I was starting to feel like an imposter.
“You should have come to me right away. As a valued client, if you ever have any trouble with any of our personal bankers, you should never hesitate to speak to the manager.”
I looked at her blankly. Then I took off my sunglasses and repeated the look.
“If you’d like, I can call Mr. Rodriguez in here.” She added it in the same apologetic tone that the teller had used.
“You mean the teller? No, I mean, he was fine, everything’s fine.”
“He should have recognized you, of course. But I can call Mr. Rodriguez right now.”
“Okay,” I said. “I give up. Who is Mr. Rodriguez?”
Lumley chuckled, then stopped when she realized I wasn’t kidding. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I thought you knew. He’s your banker.”
“I don’t have a banker. I have a bank, this bank. This is the bank I’ve been using since high school.”
“Yes, and we do appreciate your continued patronage, Miss Bracca. But in cases of accounts in excess of one million dollars, we always provide our clients with personal banking facilities. Alexander Rodriguez has been handling your account since February.”
“Doing what?”
“Ideally, whatever you require.”
“I see,” I said. “Well, I require withdrawing a million dollars in cash, if that’s all right.”
She hesitated, and I was afraid she was going to ask what I needed it for, and I realized with a little feeling of panic that I didn’t have a good lie ready. “I hope this doesn’t mean you’re closing the account?” she asked.