Death Benefits_ A Novel Part 1

Death Benefits_ A Novel.

by Thomas Perry.

To Jo, Alix, and Isabel

1.

Ellen leaned forward over the sink and took a last, critical look at her makeup in the bathroom mirror. She could see that the eyes were good. The way to look trustworthy was to look trusting, and her eyes seemed big and blue and wide-open. The color on the cheeks was good, too: she could tell it was clear, smooth, and natural, even though the mirror was pocked with black spots, and the light in here was harsh and yellow. But she intended to be there early enough to slip into the ladies' room, do a recheck, and make any necessary revisions before she was seen. She had been training herself not to take anything for granted since she was nine years old, and she was twenty-four now. Not to antic.i.p.ate problems was to invite them.

She went back into her kitchen, picked her purse off the table, and slung it over her shoulder, then opened her thin leather briefcase to be sure she had everything. She always carried a small kit consisting of the brochures and forms necessary to commit a customer to one of the common policies: term life, whole life, health, home owner's, auto. Before she had left the office last night, she had added some of the more exotic ones to cover art, jewelry, planes, and boats. The application forms she carried always had her name typed in as agent, with her telephone extension and office and e-mail addresses in the other boxes, and her signature already in the s.p.a.ce at the bottom. She never left the home office in doubt about who should get the commission.

Clipped to the inside of her briefcase she carried a slim gold pen that felt good in a customer's hand when he signed his name, and she kept an identical one, never used, out of sight below it so there could never be a moment when she was ready to close on a customer and couldn't. Taking a few simple, habitual precautions was usually enough to keep her from lying in bed at night worrying about lost opportunity, failure, and humiliation.

She reached into the other side of the divider in her briefcase, pulled out the claim forms she had prepared, and examined them. She was not proofreading the entries. She knew there were no mistakes. She had been up late, studying the files, filling in the blank s.p.a.ces on the forms with a typewriter, so there would be no real paperwork left to do. This morning she used the forms to test her memory of family names, addresses, dates.

She had no illusion that she was engaged in anything but an act of dissimulation. It was conscious, studied, and practiced, and anything less than a flawless performance would be a disaster. When she had all the personal details by heart it made her listener feel as though she cared about him. Having them wrong was to be caught out as a hypocrite and a fraud. If she convinced her listener that she cared-really had his interests at heart-then she was not halfway there, she was all the way.

Ellen made sure the coffee was unplugged and the lights were all off before she went out the door and locked it. As she turned, she heard a sudden noise over her shoulder and jumped. She stared in the direction of the sound, and decided it was nothing-just an orange falling from the tree in the corner of the yard. But it was still an hour before the sun would be up, and even Pasadena could be a bit creepy in the darkness and silence.

She knew that if she screamed, she couldn't expect the other four girls who lived in the small apartments in this building to come to her rescue, but they would at least wake up and look out their windows to see what was going on. If somebody grabbed her, she must not rely on her neighbors' altruism. She must yell "Fire!" while she fought. She had read that this was what the experts advised, and so that was what she would try to do.

She wished she weren't feeling so jumpy. For the past two days she had been increasingly anxious, and the discomfort seemed to have gotten more vivid this morning. She had to remind herself that this was not something to be afraid of. It was an opportunity. If she used it well, it was a step toward getting everything she wanted.

She looked down the empty driveway at the street, then stepped toward the open garage where her car was parked, and took the time to check and be sure the car was locked. This compulsion to check everything made her a bit ashamed. She had not just been worrying about accomplis.h.i.+ng what she had to do this morning. She had been having feelings that something was wrong. At times, she had detected the sensation that someone was watching her. Yesterday she had been walking down the street in Old Town, looking in shops not far from the office, and had sensed eyes on her. She had stopped abruptly, pretending to look in a store window, and studied the sidewalk behind her in the reflection. She had waited until the other pedestrians had walked past her and had determined that they all appeared harmless before she moved on. She had told herself that she had just sensed some man staring at her. They did that, after all, and they meant no harm. But she had not convinced herself: when they meant no harm, they were always easy to catch. They wanted to be caught.

She made her way down the driveway to wait for the cab to arrive. She glanced at her watch. It was still not even five A.M. A.M. There was no reason to feel impatient. The cab wasn't late; she was early. Probably she had been spending too much time alone lately. There was no reason to feel impatient. The cab wasn't late; she was early. Probably she had been spending too much time alone lately.

She defended herself from her own accusation. The isolation had not really been her fault. Even after a year here, the people in the Pasadena office were still the only people she knew in southern California. She had seen at the beginning that none of them were likely to become close friends. At best they were allies, and at worst they were obstacles, fixed objects she would have to work her way around. To get what she needed, she would have to deceive them about her feelings, keep certain information she picked up away from them, and use it to her advantage, all the while smiling and evading. She had done that. No wonder she was nervous.

She stared up the dark street, searching for headlights. In the heavy stillness of the residential neighborhood, she could hear distant engine sounds at the far end of the next block, where the street met Colorado Boulevard. Every few seconds, a car or truck would swish past the intersection, but none of them made the turn. The faintness of the sounds reminded her of how alone she was.

She had read an article in a women's magazine that said if a person had a feeling-an uneasy intuition that something was wrong, that a man she was with made her uncomfortable, that a place made her feel vulnerable-she should not ignore it. Her eyes had probably seen something, her ears had probably heard something, but her mind was trying to brush it aside and explain it away because denial was easier than facing the danger.

Ellen caught herself forming a clear mental image of John Walker. She could see his dark brown hair, his calm, wise eyes. She was sure it was the uneasiness that had brought him back. When she had been with him, she had always felt safe. It was not just because he was tall and broad-shouldered and physically fit. He had a quiet, thoughtful manner, and he was reliable. She felt a sharp pang that surprised her. She could have been with him-maybe not married him, because that would have ruined everything, but at least had him nearby. Driving over here before dawn to pick her up was exactly the sort of thing he would have done, and she would have known-positively known-that he would be here on time. She made an effort to push him out of her mind and obscure his image in her memory. The worst thing for a person to worry about was some decision she had made in the past.

She saw a pair of headlights turn off Colorado, took in a deep breath, and waited. The car pa.s.sed under the first street lamp so she could see the white bar on the roof. It was the taxi. She let the breath out in relief. The cab began to make its way up the quiet street slowly. The driver must be searching for her house number, but he wasn't even on the right block yet. She stepped down to the street and waved her arm in the air. He didn't seem to be able to see her yet. He was still crawling along. How could he not see her? It was as though he were looking at every house, every stretch of sidewalk, to reach her by the process of elimination.

The cab crept to a stop at the end of the driveway. From here she could not see the driver's face, only a pair of big hands on the wheel in the soft glow from the dashboard. She hesitated. She reminded herself that she was being childish. She had called for a cab and here it was-she glanced at her watch-and it was actually early. The rest was just her overheated imagination.

She stepped toward the back seat of the cab, but the man didn't get out to open the door for her. He only waved his hand in a "get on with it" gesture. She pulled open the door, got in, and pulled it shut.

"I'd like to go to the airport, please."

"I know," he muttered irritably.

She began to regret calling a cab. It was a decision she had reached two days ago. She had made the call right away to reserve the cab, then repeated it this morning in case they forgot. She had meant to keep herself free and unenc.u.mbered this morning, but she could have driven her own car down there. A cab meant relinquis.h.i.+ng control, and this driver was not very pleasant. At least the traffic would be light at this hour, so it wouldn't take very long. She could collect her thoughts before she had to start being convincing.

The cab pulled away from the curb and moved down the street. A few seconds later, she noticed that the back of the driver's head was easier to see, and then the mirror threw a bright reflection across his eyes. She saw him squint for a moment before he flipped the mirror up so the reflected glare was cast on the ceiling. Another car was behind them. She was surprised. She had not seen any car come off Colorado since the taxi had arrived, and she was almost sure she would have noticed if any of her neighbors had slammed a car door or started an engine in the silence.

The glow from behind did not go away, and ugly possibilities began to float into the front of her mind. She had heard that cab drivers who worked in the hours of darkness often got robbed. She had always imagined them being robbed because they were alone. But why wouldn't a robber strike when there was a pa.s.senger in the car? Certainly he would get more money, and she couldn't stop him. She looked at the back of the driver's head. He must know that he was a potential victim, but he didn't seem to be concerned. He did glance in the side mirror now and then, as though to verify that nothing had changed.

She waited for the driver to make the first turn, then another to head back toward Colorado, and looked behind. The car was still there. It had fallen back a bit, but it had not gone away. The driver turned again, and she waited. She counted to ten slowly, then extended it to twenty. The lights were visible again. Then it occurred to her that there was a reason why this might be happening, and she felt foolish for not thinking of it before. She worked for a big company in a compet.i.tive business. For over a year, she had been polite but aloof with her supervisors and colleagues. She had worked alone, developed her own leads, and pursued them. She had been earning commissions that were multiples of the ones other salespeople made. She had told her boss two days in advance that she would not be in today, because she was meeting a client. She had told him too much. She was amazed at herself for being surprised. Big companies spied on their employees all the time. Would it be so strange if the company had her followed?

She looked back. The car followed them onto the freeway entrance. "That car has been behind us a long time."

The driver said, "Really? I didn't notice." He looked into the side mirror again and shrugged. "Probably a cop."

"No," she said. "I don't think so. It's a compact car."

He was silent for a few seconds. "A lot of times, people who aren't sure where the airport is see a cab and follow. This time of day, you take a cab, that's probably where you're going."

It made no sense to her. He seemed to think she was a fool, and that made her panicky. "I know it's probably nothing, but it gives me the creeps. Can you please lose him?"

"How? We're on a freeway!"

"I don't know. Take an exit, then get back on, I guess. Nothing illegal or dangerous. I'll give you an extra twenty."

He looked behind, then pulled off the freeway at the next exit, went down the street a half block, and headed up the entrance ramp and back onto the freeway.

Ellen looked ahead for the car, then looked behind, and watched the ramp until the freeway curved and she could not see it anymore. No other car seemed to follow. She sat back and relaxed. "I think it worked."

The car radio crackled and buzzed, and she could hear a man's voice under the static. "Larry, where you at now?"

The driver lifted his microphone and held it so close to his mouth that Ellen could hear the amplified sound of his lips brus.h.i.+ng it while he murmured, "Still on the One-ten south, heading for LAX." He fiddled with a dial on the radio. There was a lot of squawking and crackling, so that Ellen couldn't hear the dispatcher's next words, but she heard the driver say, "Okay."

She looked at the cars going nearly the same speed in the lane beside her, held there where she could study them. She was trying to see inside and speculate about who the pa.s.sengers might be and where they were going. But in a moment the one she was staring at was slipping ahead, and the next two simply glided past. She looked over the driver's shoulder. He was slowing, pulling onto a freeway exit.

"Where are we going?"

"Got to pick somebody else up on the way. One of our cars broke down, and the guy's going to the airport too."

She looked at the dim, ugly, unfamiliar street that had replaced the freeway. They were pa.s.sing through an area that seemed to be nothing but small stores with iron grating across the doors and windows, and a few larger buildings that were old and seemed to have some industrial purpose. She knew that the car breaking down was a lie. Mechanical breakdowns were a code, a vague, almost tactful thing that people in the transportation business said to silence people they felt were not ent.i.tled to an explanation. "You know," she began, "I'm sorry, but I don't feel comfortable with this. I don't want to share the cab. Please take me to the airport, and come back for him."

"No, I'm sorry," said the man, mimicking her tone exactly. His voice turned sharp and angry. "I'm within a couple blocks of his place. This is a good customer. I can't just stiff a regular customer for somebody I never saw before."

She felt as though she had been slapped. She tried to think of a tactic that would work. If she said "Let me out," it would mean marooning herself in this deserted industrial area alone before dawn. Probably the reason the regular customer had to be served was that few cabs ever came down here-might not even be willing to come. She was also a bit embarra.s.sed because she had asked the driver to lose the car that had followed. She was aware that he already thought she was a stupid, hysterical woman. She sat in silence, trying to decide what to say, her eyes beginning to water.

The driver pulled to a stop at a red light where the street crossed a major thoroughfare. She looked out the window and craned her neck, trying to find a street sign that might tell her where she was. She could not see one, but she did see something else. It was a dull yellow cab, stopped at the curb on the cross street, where there was a lighted doorway of a tiny doughnut shop. As she watched, a pudgy middle-aged man came out the door, already eating a doughnut and drinking a cup of coffee he must have bought in the shop. He stepped around the front of the cab to the driver's side and set his cup on the hood.

She decided. She swung the door open, slipped out of the cab, and slammed it shut. The driver's reaction was to make a tardy grab for her arm. That made his cab lurch forward a couple of feet, then stop with a screech so that it rocked on its squeaky shock absorbers. "Hey!" His voice was m.u.f.fled, but he pushed a b.u.t.ton to open the pa.s.senger window. "What the h.e.l.l are you trying to do?"

She pushed three twenty-dollar bills through the open window onto the pa.s.senger seat. "I'm taking another cab."

He yelled, "You can't do that!"

She said, "I'm not cheating you, I'm just leaving," turned, and stepped toward the other cab. She walked with her head up, feeling pleased with herself for speaking quietly and not relinquis.h.i.+ng her dignity. She could see the pudgy cab driver chewing and watching her, so she made sure her performance was good. When she was near enough, she said, "Would you be able to take me to the airport?" It was only after she had said it that it occurred to her he might say no.

He nodded and swallowed. "Sure."

There was a loud blare of a horn, and Ellen looked back to see the cab she had just left still in the intersection. The driver twisted in his seat to look out the rear window. The light had changed, and there was a truck behind him. Reluctantly, he glared in Ellen's direction, then accelerated ahead to get out of the way and disappeared behind the building on the corner.

The new driver said, "Have a problem with the other cab?"

"Sort of."

"If you have his number, you can report him."

"It's nothing like that," she said. "I need to get to the airport, and he was taking me out of the way to pick up another person. I didn't get his number anyway."

He got in and started the engine. "Don't worry. We'll get you there." He carefully set his coffee into the drink holder beside him, and stuffed the rest of his doughnut into his mouth.

Ellen slipped into the back seat, and they were on the 105 freeway in a few minutes. Her heart began to beat hard. It was the same sensation she had felt the only time she had been in a car accident. Her heart had begun thumping like this, not during, but after the accident, when the danger was already past, and she had time to think about how suddenly and unexpectedly it had come. She consciously relaxed her body, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply until she felt better. When she opened them again, the driver had brought them onto the San Diego Freeway, and she recognized the stretch ahead.

When the driver came off the freeway on the long, straight ramp at Century Boulevard, he said, "What airline?"

"Just drop me at the Hilton Hotel," she said. "It's up ahead. On the right."

The driver was mildly surprised, and a bit confused, but it was not the sort of confusion that required him to ask the young woman any questions. He knew where it was. He knew all the major hotels. He pulled up into the circular drive, got out to open her door and accept his payment and tip. He got in again, recorded the fare in his log, then picked up his radio mike to call in, and let his eyes follow the young woman through the gla.s.s doors of the lobby. He watched her until she disappeared. Then he drove out onto Century Boulevard and maneuvered into the Arrivals lane of the airport entrance. At this hour, he was probably going to spend a lot of time in the taxi staging area, waiting for his turn to drive up and take on a fare. After he got there, he was still wondering.

She had been angry, and maybe just a little bit afraid of the other cab driver. He knew she was not the sort of person to argue about the cost, because she had given him an unusually generous tip, so she had probably told him the truth about the driver trying to double up on her and make her late.

On the other hand, everything else had been a lie. She had said the airport, but really wanted to go to a hotel. When he had heard where she was really going, he'd decided she had to be some kind of businesswoman on the way to a breakfast meeting, with that briefcase and all. Everything about her implied that she was meeting some big executive who had flown in from somewhere, and she was here to sell him something before he flew out again. That impression had only lasted a minute. When she had gone into the lobby, she had not gone to the front desk. She hadn't gone to the concierge's table to pick up the phone and tell somebody she was here. She hadn't gone to the dining room. She had walked straight to the elevators to head upstairs.

n.o.body wore a suit like that to go to a hotel for an affair, and he had never seen anybody arrive for that purpose at five-thirty A.M. A.M., either. That convinced him. This young woman had done everything possible to make this look like business, so it wasn't business. After all, what else was upstairs but people's hotel rooms? And changing cabs on impulse was a pretty good way to be sure you had not been followed by some private detective trying to prove you were fooling around.

He thought the incident through one more time, to be sure he had not misinterpreted any of the evidence, and was satisfied, but not glad. He had instinctively liked that young woman from the moment when he had seen her jump out of the other cab and walk up to him, trying to look sure of herself. He hoped she had not gotten herself into something that she would regret when she was a little older, but he supposed she probably had. Everybody seemed to make a few mistakes after they looked grown up, and then really grew up while they were trying to make up for them. He p.r.o.nounced a silent benediction on her and turned his attention to the airport dispatcher, who was already waving him forward. After that he was busy, and the young woman left his thoughts and then his memory. It was as though she had stepped into that elevator, and it had carried her out of the world.

2.

"He's asking people questions," Maureen Cardarelli announced. She sat still, her eyes wide and expectant, waiting for Walker's reaction.

"Like what-'Can Cardarelli be trusted?'"

Her eyes took on a half-closed, suspicious look that still managed to be oddly seductive, her face lowered so a curtain of coal-black hair would fall to place it in half-shadow. "He hasn't talked to you?"

"No," said Walker. "Maybe he can tell I'm busy." He let his eyes move significantly in the direction of the pile of papers on his desk, then back to meet hers.

She said with slow malice, "Odd that he hasn't said anything to you, of all people."

"Why me?" Walker pretended that her uncharacteristic lack of subtlety had not made his mind stall for an instant while he searched his memory for guilty secrets.

She shrugged and stood up, then said, "It's a big building. Lots of departments, lots of places to camp out, but he seems to like it near you." She smiled indulgently to imply that it had been a playful slap and he was still one of her closest confidants. "Well, I'd better let you go back to sleep."

Walker watched her walk to the opening of his cubicle and spin around the corner to take her first few steps in that special way she had. It was at once too graceful to be conscious and too efficient and purposeful to be anything else. As she walked toward the elevators, everything from the set of her shoulders to the pock-pock-pock pock-pock-pock of her high heels on the terrazzo floor insisted that she was on a mission of importance. of her high heels on the terrazzo floor insisted that she was on a mission of importance.

Walker tried to force himself to return to his work. He looked down at the stack of handwritten papers on his desk, then surveyed the figures on his computer screen, but he could not keep his eyes from moving warily over the top of the monitor. There was Max Stillman again, just to the left of the opening in Walker's cubicle, sitting at a desk in the open office everyone called "the bay," surrounded by young typists and phone reps. Several times Walker had noticed, always with surprise, that Stillman was not an exceptionally large man. What he had was the curious quality of conveying ma.s.s and solidity, as though he were something very large that had been compressed into a dense, volatile object.

Stillman appeared to be about fifty, with more gray at his temples than brown, and a hint of gleaming cranium under thin wisps of hair on top. He hunched over the desk with his thick forearms resting on either side of an open file, his eyes fixed on it with cold concentration. He would sometimes glare at a page for five seconds, then set it aside and move to another one, and at other times he would sit, unmoving, for fifteen minutes. When he reached the end of a file, he would always close the folder, place it neatly on the stack at the right corner of the desk, and replace it with a file from the pile on the left.

Stillman had materialized nearly a week ago like something that had been conjured, already standing halfway down the center aisle of the bay just at noon, when the first s.h.i.+ft of specialists and clerks and receptionists was streaming past him toward lunch. He seemed not to watch for anyone or even to pay much attention to them. He looked, Walker had thought, like a man standing in a room by himself, preoccupied with trying to remember something.

Walker still considered himself the first person to have noticed Stillman, although he knew that was nearly impossible. It would be very difficult for a stranger to make his way past the guards in the lobby, all the way to the seventh floor of the San Francisco office of McClaren Life and Casualty, without being asked some questions. This was headquarters, the spot where the firm had originated nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, and not a field agency: n.o.body sold insurance here. Walker had stepped out of his cubicle, smiled rea.s.suringly, and said, "Can I help you, or give you directions, or something?"

Stillman's eyes had darted to Walker's face with an abrupt movement that had the alertness of a bird of prey, but his body had not stirred. An expression that was not quite friendly, but that Walker had interpreted as unthreatening, had come over his face. "Name's Stillman. Did McClaren tell you to expect me?"

Walker had grinned. "McClaren?" He had to remind himself that it was not a ridiculous idea. He sometimes forgot that there actually was a Mr. McClaren, and rumor had it that he spent most days in an office five floors above them.

Stillman nodded. "Right."

Walker had said, "He may have had someone call my supervisor. I'll take you there."

Stillman had followed Walker to the corner office. Joyce Hazelton had been standing at her window, staring out at the array of tall buildings across Van Ness Avenue, when Walker knocked. She had spun around, a distracted expression in her eyes.

Walker had not seen that she was on the telephone, because the receiver had been hidden by her dark hair, and the cord had been in front of her. "Sorry," he'd said from the doorway, but he'd heard her say, "I think he's here now ...Mr. Stillman?"

Stillman had nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

She had said, "Mr. McClaren wondered if you had a minute to talk to him." She had handed Stillman the phone, then put her arm around Walker's shoulder to propel him out of the office with her, and closed the door behind them. She'd stood outside her own office for a few seconds, and the novelty of it had made Walker consider asking her who Max Stillman was, but the impulse had lasted only a moment, because her manicured hand had made a little sweeping motion to shoo him toward his desk.

He had turned and gone back. The day's figures for payouts in the casualty end of the business made a difference, but the unannounced arrival of some old rich buddy of the current McClaren was like a cloud pa.s.sing a mile above him. There had been a shadow for a few seconds while it was overhead, but it had moved on.

When Walker had returned from lunch, Stillman had been planted at the unoccupied desk in the open bay that was usually reserved for temporary workers, and Joyce Hazelton had been scurrying around gathering piles of reports and policy files. Walker had taken a couple of steps closer to offer help, but she had acknowledged him with a perfunctory smile and given her head a little shake.

Late that afternoon, Bill Kennedy had slipped into Walker's cubicle to deliver the morning's figures from the field. "He's still out there, I see."

Walker had brought himself back from the structured, silent, logical world of statistics. "Who?"

Kennedy's voice had gone lower. " 'What bear?' huh? Good strategy, John. That's why possums rule the earth."

Walker had glanced over his computer monitor into the vast, open office. Stillman was glaring down at another file. "He's just some friend of Mr. McClaren's."

"He's a spy."

"On what?"