Bannerman's Law (31 page)

“
Look, Claude
.
.
.
”
Molly,
she thought,
will never
understand this.
”I want you to do two things. Take her
jewelry and get out fast. Right now. There's someone
coming there.
He`s
my friend but so are you. I don't want
him to find you there
.”

A long pause.
“
Were you trying to catch me, Carla
?”

”I wanted Hickey. Not you. Get out of there, Claude
.”

“
Okay
.”

“
Call me tomorrow about the jewelry. Tomorrow morning. Will you do that, Claude
?”

”I guess
.”

She looked at her watch.
“
Claude
?”

“
That
's
not really my name
.”

”I know. But thank you. Now go
.”

Carla broke the connection. She looked up to see Molly
Fa
rr
ell standing in the doorway.

₂₄

For the second time in two days, Barbara Weinberg cov
ered the ta
l
l arched windows of Carleton
Dunville's
office. She had spotted four guards thus far, all armed with assault
rifles and in varying degrees of concealment. There would
be others at the main gate.

She was not greatly concerned. She had even consid
ered releasing the two guards now held in the lavatory,
if only to make that facility more accessible to the five
who remained.

There would be no attempt to storm the office while
both Dunvilles were there. The guards would wait for them
to leave. They would probably try for two head shots as
they approached one of the Du
nv
ille Mercedes. Until, that
is, they saw Carleton the elder walking between them with
the barrel of the Ingram in his mouth.

Her one disquieting thought was that Carleton the younger
might
,
if left behind
,
order them to go ahead and shoot unless
his relationship with his father improved markedly between
now and then. They'd better bring both of them.

Her husband sat at
Dunville's
desk, sipping a cognac
from a bottle he'd found in one of the drawers. He was
studying the files. With greater care this time. As he finished each set he placed them in Ca
r
leton the younger
’s
briefcase, the contents of which he had also studied and,
for the most part, discarded. One item in the briefcase was
a small cardboard wallet containing the key to a safety deposit box. He fingered it, curious as to the box's con
tents. No use asking, he supposed. And the key did him
no good. He left it on the desk.

Weinberg had already packed the cash from the safe.
It amounted to almost $40,000. Hardly a full re
f
und.
Barely ten cents on the dollar. But it would do until they
could safely gain access to their own money.

He had tried, earlier, to send another message by fax.
Carleton the younger had replaced the broken machine.
The fax did not go through. He stared at the machine for a moment, then shrugged. Although he did not seem greatly
troubled by its failure to send, Barbara knew what it proba
bly meant. The machine in Santa Fe must have been
found, probably destroyed, Rui
z—o
r whomeve
r—a
long with
it. He returned to
Çarleton's
desk.

Two more hours until dark.

She understood her husband's desire to wait. Darkness
makes escape easier and pursuit more difficult, but that
was not the half of it. He did not want to ride around
looking like a mummy in broad daylight. People would
notice. He might frighten children. Nor did he want to
remove his bandages in the presence of either Dunville
because he preferred not to show them his new face. That
was why, she realized, he'd asked for their medical files.
They included
before
photographs and computer render
ings of what they'd look like
after.
The rendering
s
could
probably be reconstructed from memory but, if so, there
was at least a good chance that they would fall short of
the real thing.

She glanced over to check on Nellie. The actress was
seated in the far corner, out of the way of any possible crossfire or shattered glass. Barbara had half-expected her
to wander off as was her habit when in the presence of
staff. But she hadn't
.
She sat glaring at Ca
r
leton the elder.
When her eyes did glaze over from time to time, Barbara
imagined that she was seeing the face of young Lisa
Benedict.

Both of the Dunvilles seemed to find her presence unsettling in the extreme. She wasn
'
t sur
e
why. Perhaps they
were searching their minds for any remark
s
made within
her hearing over the years. Or any deeds done within
her sight.

The younger Dunville had tried to negotiate. He offered
his word, his personal guarantee, that none o
f
them would be harmed. He acknowledged that all o
f
this had been the
fault of his half-brother and now his father. He would do
anything within reason to make amends provided that no further damage were done. He even pointed out the
l
udicrousness of two swollen-faced fugitives and a ninety-
some-year-old movie queen in a stolen car hoping that
they would not attract attention.

Barbara had to agree. And she tended to believe him.
So did her husband. Young Carleton might even have been
able to back up the guarantee because it was clear that a
palace coup had taken place before their eyes. Several
times now, he had angrily ordered his father to shut up,
once threatening to shoot him himself. The father, for his
part, could not get over the fact that his son had, once
again, left those files in an office safe that
,
by now, might
as well have been a box of chocolates for all that it deterred Barbara Weinberg. She had to agree with that as
well. Still
.
.
.
gift horses
...

But the question of an armistice was moot.

Ca
rl
a Benedict was in town. She knew where her sister
had spent the last day of her life. She would be coming.

True, the younger Dunville might simply insist that if
the girl had come to Su
r
La Mer at all, the visit had to
have been covert. She sneaked in. But he would not be
able to explain why Lisa Benedict's apartment had been
subsequently stripped of any reference to Sur La Mer.
And, now, he would not be able to produce the woman
she came to see. That, or he'd try to pass someone else
off as Nellie.

“
Want to see something
?”
Her husband spoke, rising
from behind the desk.

She nodded, keeping one eye on the activity, or lack
of it, outside, the other on the Dunvilles.

“
Better close the drapes
,”
he said, approaching.
“
We'll be backlit soon
.”

He was right. She saw that the shadow cast by a jaca
randa tree was already longer than its height. She'd al
lowed her mind to wander. Very dangerous. But she heard
no reproach in his voice. He pulled the drawstrings himself
and returned to her side.

”I think I've found the children
,”
he said, whispering.
There were several files in his hand.

“
Nellie's
?”
she asked softly.

“
Maybe. It's hard to tell
.”
He separated one of the
older files, dated 1943, into its
before
and
after
segments
.
Each showed a photograph. Although nothing so radical
as plastic surgery had been done, the difference was striking. The man in the
before
photograph was about twenty
pounds overweight, seemed in his late thirties and had a
cruel, rather stupid face. The same man, months later,
could have been a banker. The extra weight was gone, the
hair fashionably cut; he had a trim mustache and conserva
tive clothing. Even the expression had changed. It was,
thought Barbara, like looking at an actor
'
s composite. One
actor playing two very different roles.

“
This one
,”
said Weinberg,
“
came here with a
woman, apparently his mistress. By the time they left, six
months later, they were not only
‘
married
’
but they had a
child who was already a year old
.”

“
Which means they got it here
?”

Weinberg pointed to a notation at the bottom of the
after
file. It identified the baby's mother, although only
initials were used. It described her coloring, her ancestry and the nature of her illness. The notation speculated that
the illness was not likely to be hereditary.

“
Whose initials are they
?”
''

“
A former member, I assume. Probably another actress.
She's not here now so she's probably dead
.”
He
ri
ffed
through the papers he was holding.
“
I've found about
twenty just like this
,”
he said,
“
and I'm not even halfway
through the
fi
les
.”

Barbara's expression darkened.
“
You're saying they
used this place as a baby farm. To provide ready
-
made
families
?”

Weinberg nodded.

She could not quite believe it.
“
They never offered us
one
,”
she said.

“
Dunville asked
,”
he reminded her,
“
how we'd feel
about having a child. He said that a family is an excellent
cover. You wouldn't discuss it
.”

“
Because I can't
.
My insides are
...
”

”
I know
,”
he said soothingly.
“
He saw that you had
strong feelings. He backed off. But h
e
was not talking about having your own
.”

She stared, remembering. Still, she was skeptical.
“
But
where would they get a child now
?”
she asked.
“
The
members
.
.
.
they're all old
.”

Weinberg only shrugged. But he could guess. Babies
were stolen all the time. From maternity wards, from
strollers outside supermarkets, from playgrounds. Also
children, up to five or six years old. He had little doubt
that if Barbara had shown interest, a child, even two,
would have been found for them. Custom ordered. The
right coloring. Probably from a nice young Jewish family.

But he chose not to say that to Barbara. Although she
could no longer have a child of her own she was still very
much a woman. It was the sort of thing that would eat at
her. Distract her. She needed to keep her mind on how
they might survive the night.

“
Those initials
,”
she asked.
“
Do any of them stand
for Nellie Da
m
eon
?”

“
Not that I've found
,”
he lied.

“
Ask Dunville. The father. Take him into the bath
room. Shove his face in the toilet and
.
.
.
”

“
Darling
...
” He touched her with his elbow.