Deadline (16 page)

Joanne Sayers had locked them in the closet together, and had slept through the day on Walker’s bed. Then they were on the road. They hadn’t talked much in those early hours. Joanne Sayers had given the orders, and Walker did what he was told. In the time they were locked in the closet, Joanne Sayers had tried to do something with her hair. But the rain had wrecked it. It had matted against her face while she slept, and brushing had only made it worse. Walker drove all the way that first day. Occasionally his eyes met hers in the mirror. She was alert; she had slept well. As they neared Philadelphia, she directed him off the freeway and down into a commercial-residential subdivision. They drove for a long time, skirting the city and apparently lost in the suburban sprawl. But she knew exactly where she was going. They came around toward the south, and she directed him to turn in again toward the city. They were on a busy street of businesses and gas stations and drugstores. She told him to turn again. By then it was dark. They had pulled into a narrow alley behind a row of stores. The buildings were connected by a common front, and each had an upper-floor apartment.

“Get out,” she said.

They walked along until they came to a back door. By then it was so dark they could barely see her. She motioned them aside and knocked on the door. When no one came, she knocked louder. At last a light came on in the window directly above them.

“Now,” she said. “You two will do exactly as I say. Exactly.”

A moment later the old building began to creak as someone moved toward them from inside. “You will not speak,” she said. “You will not talk either to me or to each other. I will introduce you as friends, and that’s all anybody needs to know. I’ll direct you to a room and you’ll stay there until my business here is finished. It may take all night.”

Walker grunted as the door opened, revealing a shaggy-looking man in a sweatshirt and jeans. The man had long hair and a beard. He seemed startled to see Joanne Sayers, and even more startled to see someone with her. The words between them were short and to the point. It was obvious that she had come to cash in some old debts. The man clearly was frightened. He led them through a back room. Joanne Sayers brought up the rear. They went into a bookstore, then took a winding set of stairs into the upper apartment. The upper floor consisted of three rooms and a kitchen. The rooms ran the length of the building, and were laid out one after another. Joanne Sayers directed them into the farthest room. There was a double bed with no sheets, and a table and two chairs and a lamp. There was one window, in the far wall, which looked down into the alley where the car was parked.

Joanne Sayers turned on the lamp. She had closed the door and the three of them were alone in the bedroom.

“I hope you’ll be comfortable here.” She said it without sarcasm, as though she meant it. She moved around and looked at the window. It squeaked loudly when she opened it. “Just like an alarm clock.” She looked down into the alley. “That’s a long drop, people. With four legs, chances are you’ll break at least one of them. But just to make sure, I’ll sleep in the car.”

She left, and returned a few minutes later with blankets and a sheet. “Make yourself comfortable. It’s not the Hilton, but it beats the hell out of a closet.”

They didn’t see her again that night. Walker didn’t go near the window. Diana didn’t even suggest it. She made the bed and they crawled in together, fully clothed. She hadn’t said much the whole day and didn’t say anything now. He lay beside her in the dark, wondering what she could possibly be thinking.

Walker awoke several times during the night, once to the sound of arguing voices. He heard the man scream, “Are you crazy? Have you completely gone nuts?” And in that icy clear voice, Joanne Sayers said, “You keep your goddamn voice down, Billy. Now I’m not gonna tell you that again.” There was a long silence, and Joanne Sayers said, “There are people trying to sleep back there.” Their rage settled into a subdued intensity, but the argument went on for a long time. Much later the light went out, the thin yellow line disappeared from the bottom of the door, and the arguing stopped and the house was quiet.

She came for them before first light. She sat on a chair in the dark, about ten feet from the bed. “Billy’s cooking us up some breakfast,” she said. In the pale light Walker couldn’t see the gun, but he knew it was there somewhere. She crossed to the window and looked out. “I’m glad you didn’t try to jump. Really glad.”

Walker sat on the edge of the bed. “Like you said, it’s a long way down.”

For almost a full minute her back was to them. It would have been easy to jump her. She turned and put on the lamp, and some of the desperation had melted out of her eyes. She even smiled a little. “I didn’t sleep in the car. I figured what the hell, if you jump, you jump. There comes a time when you don’t care as much.”

He moved suddenly and the gun came out.

“I’m not at that point yet,” she said. “So don’t make me shoot you. I wouldn’t like that.”

“What do you want from us?” Diana said.

“From you, nothing. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. So you come with us.”

“I’m due in at work today.”

“That’s tough, lady.” Joanne Sayers sat in the chair and looked at them. “Will you be missed?”

“You’d better believe it.”

“Must be nice. Me, I could drop dead and fall off the end of the world. Nobody’d miss me.”

“People already miss you,” Walker said. “They’re looking all over for you.”

“That’s funny, mister. You’re a real scream at six o’clock in the morning.” She paused, then said, “You know, I had a hunch something was wrong, the minute you came at me with that Jason Webster act. Oh, you were good, but I have this sixth sense that won’t let me rest. Only sometimes it doesn’t start working till too late. Like that night, after you’d gone, it struck me that something wasn’t quite right about you. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Chemistry maybe. Do you believe in ESP, Mr. Walker?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I’ve got it. Not real strong like some people, but it’s there and I know it. Maybe half a dozen times in my life I’ve known things without being told. The day Martin Luther King died, I kept seeing visions of a black man lying in blood. I tell people that and they think I’m making it up. Do you think I’m making that up, Mr. Walker?”

“I don’t know you well enough. Some people would make up something like that, just for effect.”

“Not me. I don’t do things like that. I’ve been told I should work on it, develop it, but I wouldn’t want to do that either. But I know it’s there. Like when Robin died. My little girl, remember, Mr. Walker? I knew then that it would lead to something like this.”

“It had to figure, didn’t it?” Walker said. “Did you really think you could keep that covered up forever?”

“Why not? It was just an accident. What did she ever have to do with any of this? All this got started years before she was born. She was just a sweet little kid.”

“With no name. Didn’t you think somebody would be curious about that?”

“We didn’t think at all.” She took a deep breath. “Sure, I thought of that. But we’d given up thinking individually so goddamn long ago. As a group we just reacted, like animals. That’s what you do when they’ve been after you that long. Just react. And when they get close, you’ve really got just two choices. You either run or you dig in and try to ride it out. What would you do, Mr. Walker? We’d been there for a good long while and nobody had ever come close to us. We were as secure as we’d ever been, and we were all so fucking tired of running. We had done that, years ago. There was no organization any more, nobody to help us hide until we could start again somewhere else. Sure, I wanted to go anyway. The hell with the houses. I just wanted to leave ’em there and get the hell out. I had bad vibes from that first damned day. But George wouldn’t hear of it. He always had to run things, George. Your classic male chauvinist pig, and look what it got him. My judgment always was better than his.”

“Look.” Walker sat forward on the bed. “Why don’t you turn yourself in? You haven’t got a chance.”

“I see. Is that your best advice for today, Mr. Walker? Well, we’ll see.” She pursed her lips and looked at Diana. “What do you do, dear?”

“I’m a dancer.”

“No kidding. Where do you dance?”

“Radio City.”

“No kidding.”

They just looked at each other. After a while, Joanne Sayers said, “I always wanted to see the Rockettes, ever since I was a little girl. I never did get to see them. I was going to take my little girl over next month, for her birthday, to see the Empire State Building and the Rockettes. Maybe we’d have seen you there. Jesus, that must be a buzz.”

“It’s a kick,” Diana said, smiling.

Joanne Sayers smiled back. She looked at Walker. “Your girlfriend’s got herself a sense of humor. I like her.” She stood and moved to the door. “Breakfast is about ready, if my nose tells me anything. So I’ll give you the script for the day. Right now we’ll go out and eat. Then you, Mr. Walker, will sign a paper giving Billy title to your car.”

“Why should I do that?”

“So we can sell it. Never mind, you’ll do okay. I’ll see that you get a much better car in trade. That’ll be my gift to you, Mr. Walker, for being such a sport. Then you, Miss…what’s your name?”

Diana told her.

“You will call Radio City, whoever you call there, and quit your job.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“It’s better this way. Nobody to wonder, nobody to come looking for you. And it’ll just be for a few days. When they find out why you had to do it, they’ll fall all over themselves forgiving you. Take my word for it, people are like that. Once they hear how you were taken prisoner by the big bad public enemy, they’ll fall all over themselves giving you your job back. Right now you’ll do it the way I tell you. No extra words, no fooling around with the phone. I’ll tell you what to say and you’ll say that. Then you’ll hang up.” She looked at Walker.

“You going to make me quit too?” he said.

“I don’t know. Your job seems more flexible.”

“I’m an eccentric. The only time they’ll worry about me is if I do call in.”

She laughed. “That’s lovely. You’re both lovely. Such lovely people.”

“We’re going to Chicago,” she said later. They were sitting around the breakfast table, finishing the coffee that Billy had made for them. “We’re going to drive there in Mr. Walker’s new car, which Billy is going to buy for him. There’s only one hitch in all of this. Billy must not be implicated in this in any way. I want your word on that. Both of you.”

They didn’t say anything.

“In exchange, you, Mr. Walker, will get a new car and a big story. And you, Miss Yoder, will get out of it older and wiser, and without harm.”

Billy looked at them, and there was fear in his eyes. “Believe me, I got nothing to do with it. I’m just doing what she says, just like you. Jesus, I could get screwed to the wall for this.”

“They can see that,” Joanne Sayers said. “Can’t you see that, Mr. Walker?”

“Sure, I can see that.”

“Then give us your word.”

“Sure,” Walker said.

“What about you?”

“I’m not anxious to get anybody in trouble,” Diana said.

“I didn’t ask you that.”

“All right. You have my word.”

Billy looked from face to face. “How do we know…”

“Oh, Billy, you don’t know. Sometimes you take a chance. What other choice do you have? You either trust them or kill them, right? I don’t want to kill them, do you?”

Billy fidgeted.

“Everybody knows how reporters are,” Joanne Sayers said. “He won’t turn you in. It’s that silly code they live by, something like protecting a source. Isn’t that what you call it, Mr. Walker?”

“Something like that.”

Billy looked into Walker’s eyes. “I don’t like it.”

Joanne Sayers ignored him. She opened her cloth bag, resting the gun carelessly on her lap, and took out several large bundles of cash. She gave the money to Billy, and told Walker to hand over his car keys. “Now, let’s make this short and sweet. Real simple. Billy’s going downtown and buy us a car, using my money and your car as a trade-in. He’s going to get it registered to Joan Brox. That’s me. I have a bank account in Chicago under that name. When we get there, I’ll sign it over to you.”

Billy took the key and stuffed the money into his pocket.

“Get us something nice,” she said. “A station wagon, something with lots of room. You like a station wagon, Mr. Walker? And you’d better get snow tires. The Midwest isn’t any picnic this time of year.”

Billy left. For a while none of them spoke.

“Four thousand dollars,” Joanne Sayers said. “Four grand plus your car. Billy knows cars. He should be able to get us something nice.”

“You sure throw your money around,” Walker said. “I thought you needed money.”

“Things have changed since that night, Mr. Walker. Where I’m going now, I won’t need money at all.”

They were on the road again, driving a pale blue Plymouth wagon with twelve hundred showing on the odometer. They had stayed another night in Billy’s back room, and now Joanne Sayers seemed more relaxed, more willing to talk. She asked about their jobs, and prodded them for details. And in time, she talked about herself. “Can you possibly imagine what it’s like, being bottled up that long? You get to where you’re scared of your own shadow. Every man who looks at you twice becomes something sinister. For a while you forget that sometimes men look at women for other reasons, that everybody on the streets isn’t a cop waiting to bust you. In a real sense, George Lewis was my jailer, Mr. Walker. Can you understand that?”

“Sure.”

“I doubt it. What do you know about jails? George called all the shots. I was under his thumb for such a long time, and that can be a special kind of hell, Mr. Walker. Having your life depend on someone whose mental process is so different from yours. The one thing George had was a track record, and I respected that. We had been hiding for years, and for the last five years without a goddamn soul to help us. George had proven himself smarter than the whole FBI. The Feds had gotten to the others, but never to George. He was too smart for them.”