forest-green-painted garden bench and sat down.
She planted herself in front of him, arms crossed, a determined look on
her face. Her summer tan was starting to fade.
She wore a creamy brown fedora from under which her long hair tumbled
across her shoulders. Her pants were perfectly tailored to her elegantly
slender form. Polished leather boots encased her feet and disappeared
under the pant legs.
“We won’t be carrying a mortgage, Jack.”
He looked up at her. “Really? What, are they giving us the place
because we’re such a terrific young couple?”
She hesitated, then said, “Daddy is paying cash for it, and we’re going
to pay him back.”
Jack had been waiting for that one.
“Pay him back? How the hell are we going to pay him back Jenn?”
“He’s suggested a very liberal repayment plan, which takes into account
future earnings expectations. For godsakes, Jack, I could pay for this
place out of accumulated interest on one of my trusts, but I knew you’d
object to that.”
She sat down next to him. “I thought if we did it this way, you’d feel
better about the whole thing. I know how you are about the Baldwin
money. We will have to pay Daddy back.
It’s not a gift. It’s a loan with interest. I’m going to sell my place.
I’ll net about eight from that. You’re going to have to come up with
some money too., This is not a free ride.” She playfully stuck a long
finger into his chest, driving home her point. She looked back at the
house. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it, Jack? We’ll be so happy here. We were
meant to live here.”
Jack looked over at the front of the house but without really seeing it.
All he saw was Kate Whitney, in every window of the monolith.
Jennifer squeezed his arm, leaned against him. Jack’s headache moved
into the panic zone. His mind was refusing to function. His throat went
dry and his limbs felt stiff. He gently disengaged his arm from his
fiancee’s, got up and walked quietly back to the car.
Jennifer sat there for several moments, disbelief chief among the
emotions registering across her face, and then angrily followed him.
The Realtor, who had intently watched the exchange between the two while
seated in her Mercedes, stopped writing up the contract, her mouth
pursed in displeasure.
IT WAS EARLY MORNING wHEN LuTHER EMERGED FROM THE small hotel hidden in
the cluttered residential neighborhoods of Northwest Washington. He
hailed a cab to the Metro Center subway, asking the driver to take a
circuitous route on the presumption of seeing various D.C. landmarks.
The request did not surprise the cabbie and he automatically went
through the motions to be replicated a thousand times before the tourist
season was officially over, if it was ever truly over for the town.
The skies threatened rain but you never knew. The unpredictable weather
systems swirled and whipped across the region either missing the city or
falling hard on it before sliding into the Atlantic. Luther looked up at
the darkness, which the newly risen sun could not penetrate.
Would he even be alive six months from now? Maybe not.
They could conceivably find him, despite his precautions.
But he planned to enjoy the time he had left.
The Metro took him to Washington National Airport, where he took a
shuttle bus across to the Main Terminal. He had prechecked his luggage
onto the American Airlines flight that would take him to Dallas/Fort
Worth, where he would change airlines and then head to Miami. He would
stay there ovenught and then another plane would drop him in Puerto Rico
and then a final flight would deposit him in Barbados. Everything was
paid for in cash; his passport proclaimed him to be Arthur Lanis, age
sixty-five, from Michigan. He had a half-dozen such identifying
documents, all professionally crafted and official-looking and all
absolutely phony. The passport was good for eight more years and showed
him to be well-traveled.
He settled into the waiting area and pretended to scan a newspaper. The
place was crowded and noisy, a typical weekday for the busy airport.
Occasionally Luther’s eyes would rise over the paper to see if anyone