Another good sign, she thought as the tension eased from her face. She had learned long ago that you could get into a lot of places you weren't supposed to be if you stared straight ahead and kept going, and if you masked yourself in an aura of authority. In a place this big, there were a lot of chiefs and the Indians were more concerned with the work at hand.
She came upon an area where there were several laundry hampers standing about. The voices of women neared her. Mary figured one woman alone might not ask questions, but someone in a group possibly would. She stepped around another corner and waited, pressed against a door, until the voices had gone. Then she went on, concentrating on her path and how to get back to the stairwell. She passed through a room full of steam presses, washers, and dryers. Three black women were working there, folding linens on a long table, and as they worked they were talking and laughing over the thumping noise of laboring washing machines. Their backs were to Mary, who moved past them with a fast, powerful stride. She came to another door, opened it without hesitation, and found herself standing on a loading dock at the rear of St. James Hospital, two panel trucks pulled up close and a couple of handcarts left untended.
When she closed the door behind her, she heard the click of a lock. A sign read PRESS BUZZER FOR ADMITTANCE. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. She looked at the buzzer's white button beside the door grip. There was a dirty thumbprint on it. Then she walked down a set of concrete steps to the pavement, and she began the long trek around to the parking deck, her gaze alert for security guards.
Joy sang in her heart.
It could be done.
As she worked on the uniform, Mary began to think about her pickup truck. It was fine for around here, but it wasn't going to do for a long trip. She needed something she could pull onto a side road and sleep in. A van of some kind would do. She could find a van at one of the used car dealers and trade her pickup for it. But she'd need money, too, because the trade surely wouldn't be even-steven. She could sell one of her guns, maybe. No, she didn't have papers on any of them. Would Gordie buy the Magnum from her? Damn, she hadn't given any thought to money before. She had a little over three hundred dollars in the bank, and a hundred more stashed around the apartment. That wasn't enough to last her very long on the road, not with a van needing gas and a baby needing food and diapers.
She got up and went to the bedroom closet. She opened it and brought out the boy-sized Buckaroo rifle and telescopic sight she'd taken from Cory Peterson. Maybe she could get a hundred dollars for this, she thought. Seventy would be all right. Gordie might buy this and the Magnum. No, better keep the Magnum; it was a good concealment weapon. He might buy the sawed-off shotgun, though.
As Mary returned to the bed, she caught sight of a figure walking out on the highway in the dim gray light. Shecklett was wearing an overcoat that blew around him in the wind, and he was picking up crushed aluminum cans and putting them into a garbage bag. She knew his routine. He'd be out there for a couple of hours, and then he'd come in and cough his head off on the other side of the wall.
Ought to be ashamed, living like you do with all that money you've saved.
Paula had said that. In the letter Mary had taken from Shecklett's trash and taped together.
All that money you've saved.
Mary watched Shecklett pick up a can, walk a few paces, pick up a can. A truck rushed past, and Shecklett staggered in its cyclone. He fought the garbage bag, and then he picked up another can.
All that money.
Well, it would be in a bank, of course. Wouldn't it? Or was the old man the type who didn't trust banks? Maybe kept money stuffed in his mattress, or in shoeboxes tied up with rubber bands? She watched him for a while longer, her mind turning over the possibility like an interesting insect pulled from underneath a rock. Shecklett never had any visitors, and Paula – his daughter, Mary supposed – must live in another state. If something were to happen to him, it might be a long time before anyone found him. She could easily do it, and she didn't plan on sticking around very long after she took the baby. Okay.
Mary walked into the kitchen, opened a drawer and got a knife with a sharp, serrated blade. A knife used for gutting fish, she thought. She laid it on the countertop, and then she returned to the bedroom and the work on the nurse's uniform.
She was long finished with the job by the time she heard Shecklett coughing as he passed her door. Aluminum cans clanked together; he was carrying the garbage bag. Mary stood at her door, dressed in jeans, a brown sweater, her windbreaker, and a woolen cap. She listened for the clicking of Shecklett's keys as he slid the right one into his door. Then she went out into the cold, her.38 gripped in her right hand and the knife slipped down in her waistband under the windbreaker.
Shecklett was a gaunt man with a pockmarked face, his white hair wild and windblown, and his skin cracked like old leather. Shecklett barely had time to register the fact that someone was beside him before he felt the gun's barrel press against his skull. "Inside," Mary told him, and she guided him through the open door and slid the key out of the lock. Then she picked up the garbage bag full of cans and brought that in, too, as Shecklett stared at her in shock, his pale blue eyes red-rimmed with the chill.
Mary closed the door and turned the latch. "Kneel," she told him.
"Listen… listen… wait, okay? Is this a joke?"
"Kneel. On the floor. Do it."
Shecklett paused, and Mary judged whether to kick him in the kneecap or not. Then Shecklett swallowed, his big Adam's apple bulging, and he knelt on the thin brown carpet in the cramped little room. "Hands behind your head," Mary ordered. "Now!"
Shecklett did it. Mary could smell the fear coming out of the old man's skin, what smelled like a mixture of beer and ammonia. The window's curtains were already drawn. Mary switched on a lamp atop the TV. The room was a dreary rat's nest, newspapers and magazines lying in stacks, TV dinner trays strewn about, and clothes left where they'd been dropped. Shecklett trembled and had a coughing fit, and he put his hands to his mouth but Mary pressed the Colt's barrel against his forehead until he laced his fingers behind his head again.
She stepped away from him and glanced quickly at her wristwatch. Nine-oh-seven. She was going to have to get this done fast so she could find a good deal on a van before she changed to the uniform and made the drive to St. James.
"So I called the cops. So what?" Shecklett's voice shook. "You'd have done the same thing if you heard somebody hollerin' next door. It wasn't nothin' personal. I won't do it again. Swear to God. Okay?"
"You've got money," Mary said flatly. "Where is it?"
"Money? I don't have money! I'm poor, I swear to God!"
She eased back the Colt's hammer, the gun aimed into Shecklett's face.
"Listen… wait a minute… what's this all about, huh? Tell me what it's all about and maybe I can help you."
"You've got money hidden here. Where?"
"I don't! Look at this place! You think I've got any money?"
"Paula says you do," Mary told him.
"Paula?" Shecklett's face bleached gray. "What's Paula got to do with this? Jesus, I never hurt you, did I?"
Mary was tired of wasting time. She took a breath, lifted the Colt, and brought it down in a savage arc across Shecklett's face. He cried out and pitched onto his side, his body shuddering as the pain racked him. Mary knelt down beside him and put the gun to his pulsing temple. "Shit time is over," she said. "Give me your money. Got it?"
"Wait… wait… oh, you busted my face… wait…"
She grasped him by the hair and hauled him up to his knees again. His nose had been broken. The ruptured capillaries were turning dark purple, and blood rushed from his nostrils. Tears were trickling down Shecklett's wrinkled cheeks. "Next time I'll knock out your teeth," Mary said. "I want your money. The longer you screw around, the more pain I'm going to give you."