He tried to decide why he wasn’t leaving, and it came down to the fact that he wasn’t ready to give up Mae yet. He couldn’t detect any particular attachment to her when he tried to detect one. He knew that someday he was going to get into his car and drive away, and when he imagined it, he could not imagine wanting her to go with him. He just wasn’t ready to leave yet. He liked having sex with her: the shape of her body, the sound of her voice, the shine of her hair, even the smell of her perfume all seemed pleasant to him. He wasn’t ready to quit yet.
Even with his new hair and clothes, he couldn’t go back to Buffalo and hope to walk into his bank and come out with enough cash to last more than another month. He was going to have to wait longer before he went back there. He had a lot of cash in a safe-deposit box in Chicago. It was over a hundred thousand. Chicago would not be as dangerous as Buffalo, but he wanted to stay invisible for as long as possible.
He decided that on his way to lunch he would stop by the office and try to come to some agreement with Tracy. He walked, and noticed that he was going by a long, indirect route that he hardly ever took. For a few blocks he told himself he was doing it because the extra exercise was good for him, but after he had gone too far to go back to his usual route, he admitted that he had just been putting off talking to Tracy.
Varney remembered there was a good restaurant three blocks ahead. He had been there with Mae about two weeks ago. What was it called? Antoine, or Auguste, or something like that. He stepped inside and ate lunch by himself. The food was still the same, and he noticed that the prices were lower on the lunch menu. He seldom ate much during the day, but he’d made an exception and ordered a steak. By the time he was outside again it was two o’clock, but he felt better, more ready for Tracy.
When he reached the office he climbed the steps and went into the Crestview Wholesale office without knocking. Tracy was sitting behind the desk with her head down, staring from six inches away at a necklace made of silver and turquoise. She raised her eyes at him, sighed, and looked down again. “Damned things,” she muttered. “We don’t get much turquoise. What do you suppose this is worth?”
“I don’t know.”
“More than we can get for it. The fake stuff they make now is so good you need a chemist to catch it. And Indian silver work is so distinctive any insurance company can tell you who made it, where, and when, so you have to ship it practically to the moon to sell it.” She looked at Varney as though she had just noticed him. “But that’s not your problem, is it?”
He shook his head.
“What is? Mae?”
He stared at her. He wasn’t sure what she meant.
“I’m afraid I’m going to need her again tomorrow, too. I’ve got a couple more men coming back from the road, and I promised them a party if they’d behave themselves while they were out there.” She chattered on, as he stood there, not quite believing what he was hearing. “I’ve got two girls out sick. They’re roommates, so it’s probably some damned thing they ate. But there’s nothing else I can do.”
“You’re using her for parties? I’ve been paying you, and you’re—”
“That’s an ugly thing to say,” Tracy snapped. “I never said that for five hundred bucks you could own her. She’s a free person, and this is America, not some sandbox country where women wear veils and stay home. I just asked her if she wanted to pick up some extra money, and she did.” She let her irate glare soften a bit, and she looked at him with bleary, mock-sympathetic eyes. “Maybe the poor thing is worried. After all, you did fall a little behind on your payments . . .” Her voice trailed off so he could finish the thought himself.
“What do I owe?”
Tracy’s eyes glowed, opening wide to let a flash of greed show through for an instant. “Let’s see. A hundred a day for two weeks for the apartment suite is fourteen hundred. Five hundred a day for Mae for a week is thirty-five. I’ll only add a hundred for the lost interest, and keep it at an even five thousand, if you’ve got it today.”
“You want me to pay interest when you’re charging me in advance?”
“Sugar,” she said in a wheedling voice, “I’m just going by the due date. If money is due on a certain date, and you’re late, you always pay interest, don’t you?”
“I thought you were doing this as a favor.”
“I am, honey, I am. I’m fronting for you, putting up my own money in advance, keeping you safe. If you have the money today, I can knock off the interest, and make it forty-nine.”
“I don’t have it on me.”
“I know you walked here, but I can drive you home to get it.”
“It’s not there.” He could see the skeptical look coming into her eyes, so he said, “I’ll have to drive someplace out of town to pick it up. It’s going to take a couple of days.” He frowned. “I want to take Mae with me.”
Tracy sighed deeply and rolled her eyes. “You don’t even have the money you already owe me—let alone poor Mae—but you want everyone else to change our plans at the last minute?” She raised a penciled-in eyebrow. “Maybe you ought to get a job.”
No sign of emotion appeared on his face. He might have been a photograph of a man looking off into the distance. When Tracy saw that, she felt relieved. She had been surprised by an instant of hot panic after she had said the part about the job, thinking maybe she had gone a tiny bit too far. Her own word “job” had reminded her of what he did for a living. As he walked out of the office, she began to feel the cool relief begin to turn into pride, then anticipation. The next time she saw him, he would be bringing more money.
25
Prescott began to work on his identity the day after he arrived in St. Louis. He rented an apartment in a building that was a new imitation of an old-style residence, designed by an architect who had not been able to resist adding ugly embellishments. He threw away his generic suitcase and began shopping. He bought an eight-year-old Corvette that had been badly rebuilt after an accident. He bought clothes from thrift stores, everything originally on the expensive side, but just a bit out-of-date. Then he went to a store that sold surplus military gear.
He wandered up and down the aisles looking for precisely the right items. He bought a navy watch cap and a black turtleneck sweater, then found a navy blue hooded sweatshirt. He found an olive-drab tool bag, and a pair of thin black leather gloves that were labeled “police-style.” He went next to a big hardware store and picked out a selection of tools that looked convincing: a battery-operated drill, a few punches and picks, a long, thin screwdriver, a pry bar. He bought a glass cutter and a suction cup with a handle on it made for carrying sheets of glass. By then the tool bag was full, so he stopped.
The second day, he drove the three hundred miles to Chicago, checked into a hotel, and slept. When he woke, he began to shop in earnest. He went to camera shops, computer stores, electronics stores, buying any item that appealed to his eye. Always, he searched for good deals on high-end merchandise that was used, but sometimes he had to settle for new. He spent most of his time looking at estate jewelry. He bought several watches—a couple of Rolexes, a Cartier tank watch, some women’s watches with diamonds, and a variety of others that had some resale value. He bought a wide assortment of women’s jewelry, being sure to include some spectacular finds and some junk. He picked up some men’s items too—a couple of sets of cuff links and studs that contained a lot of gold and semiprecious stones but weren’t in style, a stopwatch, fancy lighters, money clips, rings.