Midnight Black. Taking off his clothes, Jeffrey went directly into the bathroom and followed the directions on the box. By the time he put the styling gel in his hair and brushed it straight back from his forehead, he looked like a different person. He thought he looked like a used car salesman or like someone out of a 1930s movie. Comparing his image with the small photo on the license, he thought he could pass for Frank Amendola if no one looked too closely. And he still wasn’t finished.
Back in the bedroom, Jeffrey opened the larger of the packages and took out a new dark blue polyester suit he’d bought in Filene’s Basement and had altered at Pacifici of Boston. Mike, the head tailor, had been happy to do the alterations while Jeffrey waited. Jeffrey didn’t have much done to the suit because he didn’t want it to fit too well. In fact, he had to resist some of Mike’s suggestions.
Going back to his parcels, Jeffrey pulled out several white shirts and a couple of unattractive ties. He put on one of the shirts and a tie, then slipped on the suit. Finally he searched through the bags until he found a pair of dark-rimmed protective glasses. After he put them on, he returned to the bathroom mirror. Again he compared his image with the photo on the license. In spite of himself, he had to smile. From a general point of view, he looked terrible. In terms of looking like Frank Amendola, he looked reasonably good. It surprised him how little facial features mattered in generating an overall impression.
One of the other parcels contained a new duffel bag with a shoulder strap and a half-dozen compartments. Jeffrey transferred the packets of money to these. He’d felt conspicuous carrying the briefcase with him and was afraid it might be a way for the police to recognize him. He even guessed it might be mentioned as part of his description.
Going back to the briefcase, Jeffrey took out a syringe and the vial of succinylcholine. Having worried all morning about Devlin suddenly appearing as he had at the airport, Jeffrey had come up with an idea. He carefully drew up 40 mg of succinylcholine in the syringe, then capped it. He put the syringe in the side pocket of his jacket. He wasn’t sure how he would use the
succinylcholine, but it was there just in case. It was more of a psychological support than anything else.
With his plano glasses on and his duffel bag over his shoulder, Jeffrey took one last glance around his room, wondering if he was forgetting anything. He was hesitant to leave because he knew the moment he stepped out of the room, the anxiety of being recognized would return. But he wanted to get into Boston Memorial Hospital, and the only way that was going to happen was if he went over there and applied for a housekeeping job.
Devlin rudely shoved his way out of the elevator on his way to Michael
Mosconi’s office without giving the other passengers time to get out of his way. He got perverse pleasure out of provoking the people, especially men in business suits, and he half hoped one of them would try to be a gallant hero.
Devlin was in a foul mood. He’d been awake for most of the night, uncomfortably propped up in the front seat of his car watching the Rhodes’s house. He’d fully expected Jeffrey to come sneaking home in the middle of the night. Or at the very least, he expected Carol to leave suddenly. But nothing happened until just after eight in the morning, when Carol came out of the garage like the Green Hornet in her Mazda RX7 and left a patch of rubber in the middle of the street.
With great difficulty and not very high hopes, Devlin had followed Carol through the morning traffic. She drove like an Indy 500 driver, the way she weaved in and out of the traffic. She led him all the way downtown, but she’d merely gone to her office on the twenty-second floor of one of the newer office buildings. Devlin decided to give up on her for the time being. He needed more information on Jeffrey to decide what to do next.