The Identity Man (4 page)

Shannon gathered his roll and strode quickly across the foyer to the keypad. He kept the flashlight clenched in his teeth so that the blue beam played over the keys. He tapped in the code Benny had given him—half expecting it to fail, half expecting the full alarm to blow like the last trumpet. But no, the code worked. The alarm was disabled. The house went silent around them.

Benny had his flashlight out now, too. It was bigger than Shannon's and had a bright white beam. He shone it only long enough to pick out the way to the stairs, then turned it off. He moved to the stairs and went up two at a time. Shannon rolled up his tools and followed him.

Later, Shannon remembered that he noticed something at this point. He noticed there were no lights on anywhere in the house. He had seen that glow through the glass of the door, so there must have been a light on before but now there wasn't. That didn't make sense, but Shannon dismissed the thought before he really considered it. Maybe he didn't want to think about it now that he was in so deep.

On the second floor landing, Benny shone his flashlight beam briefly again and picked out a door across from the stairway. He tilted his head at it. Shannon went to the door and picked the lock with one of his triple-nine bump keys. He went through, into a small cluttered office. Benny stayed by the door, but he shone his flashlight at a wooden cabinet built into the wall behind the desk.

"In there," he whispered.

Shannon went around the desk. He knelt in front of the cabinet and spread out his roll of tools. In another few seconds, he had the cabinet door unlocked and open. There was the safe inside, a combination box, as old-fashioned as Benny had said. Shannon used a stethoscope to listen for the tumblers, but he hardly needed it. He could feel the discs fall into place with his fingers. In another few seconds, he opened the door. His flashlight's blue beam danced over the stacks of money inside. It looked like a lot, thousands of dollars.

Shannon was surprised by the sight of all that cash. From the very start, he'd been expecting everything to go ass up. He'd expected the alarm to go off or the guards to show up at an odd hour or the safe to be empty. But here they were and there was the safe with the money inside. For the first time, Shannon began to hope this was going to come out all right.

And, of course, right then and there—the minute he dared to hope—that was when the disaster struck.

A floorboard creaked on the landing. Shannon tensed, his hand frozen reaching for the cash. He turned to see Benny's dark shape likewise frozen by the door. In their silence, they heard light footsteps running on the hall carpet. All the pieces—all the half-acknowledged thoughts—fell into place in Shannon's mind and he understood: there was someone in the house. There had been someone in the house all along. That's why he'd seen a glow at the door. The someone must have heard them break in. The someone must have turned the light off in order to hide his own presence. Now the someone was trying to get to the stairway and escape.

For another second, Shannon hoped things might still turn out all right. All they had to do was let the someone go. Then they could grab the money and get out of here before the police showed up. Even with Benny's supercharged engine roaring for all the world to hear, they might still get away without being spotted.

But then Benny moved—and he moved so fast Shannon had no time to stop him or even call out. His shadow flashed through the door like a streak of black lightning. When he flashed back he had the someone in his hands.

It was a woman. Benny was gripping her by the throat. He shoved her up against the wall hard, hard enough to make the room shudder. He shone his flashlight in her face and then down the whole length of her. She was in her twenties, very pretty, with a curvy figure pressing through her blouse and skirt. In the outglow of the flashlight beam, Shannon could see Benny's bright eyes and the teeth in his fierce smile as he breathed over her. His breath was a low, laughing growl of triumph and desire.

Shannon jumped to his feet. He shone his own flashlight on Benny, the blue beam crossing with the white beam in the dark.

"What the hell're you doing? Let her go," he said in a harsh whisper.

"Shut up. Get the money," Benny said. He shoved his flashlight in his back pocket. He held the girl by the throat with one hand and tore open her blouse with the other. The buttons of the blouse pattered on the carpeting. Benny grabbed hold of the girl's breast. The girl struggled, crying out in anguish and pain.

"I called the police," she managed to say. Then her voice ended in a gasp as Benny squeezed her hard and pressed himself up against her.

"Damn it, there's no time for this shit!" said Shannon.

"Shut up," Benny said. He was crazy. "Get the money."

Shannon hesitated. His blue flashlight beam played over the girl's face. He could see her terror and then her despair as Benny's hand started fumbling under her skirt. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her eyes went up and her lips moved silently. Shannon could tell she was praying.

His heart went out to her. He was surprised by the force of the feeling. It was just one of those things you didn't know you would feel so much until you were in the situation. Now he was here and he was looking right at her, looking at her tear-streaked face. He could see her praying and choking, helpless in Benny's hands. And he felt awful for her. He knew he ought to forget about it, ignore Benny and just grab the money so they could get out when Benny was done with her. He knew if he started trouble now, they were sure to get caught. That meant prison for Shannon, prison for life.

But look at her,
he thought. An image flashed in his mind of the girl getting dressed for work in the morning, turning this way and that in front of her mirror, pleased because her blouse looked pretty on her. And now Benny had torn the blouse and her face was twisted in fear and agony.

Shannon had one more moment of indecision. Then he thought:
Shit.
Then he thought again:
Shit!
Because he realized there was no way he was going to just stand there and let this happen.

Shannon had fought characters like Benny a couple of times in prison, and this is what he knew: there was no talking involved in it. Benny was big and mean and drugged out of his mind. There could be no threats or poses or hard-guy exchanges with him because by the time you got through with that garbage you'd be dead. So he simply bent to his roll and slipped his crowbar out of its pocket. It was small but it was heavy enough. He stepped around the desk and took half another step and he was next to Benny. Benny was choking the girl hard and mashing her hard with his hand under her skirt. Shannon could hear strangled phrases of her prayer: "
Santa Maria ... Madre de Dios...
" That settled it for him somehow. Without another thought, he brought the crowbar whipping around in a low Laredo sidearm and shattered Benny's kneecap.

Benny did a sack of potatoes, dropped right down to the floor,
boom,
clutching his leg and shrieking like a woman in a horror movie. All of which was fine with Shannon, because what a piece of garbage this guy was.

The girl, meanwhile, staggered away from the wall, clutching her throat with one hand and the front of her skirt with the other. She straightened and glanced at Shannon, confused. Then she looked down at Benny. Benny was writhing on the floor. His shriek had sunk away to a series of gibbering sobs. What a piece of garbage.

The girl looked up at Shannon again, hesitating, uncertain. Even in the dark, he could see she was trembling violently.

"My knee!" groaned Benny Torrance.

"Aw, shut up," said Shannon. Then he turned back to the girl. "Go on, sister, get out of here. No one's gonna hurt you now."

He didn't have to tell her twice. She stumbled to the door and out onto the landing. But just as she got there, the long, urgent cry of a siren came to them through the night outside. The police. She really had called them, like she said. By the sound of it, they were turning off the street, coming down the drive to the house. Shannon's heart just about broke when he heard them. He was finished. He was going to grow old in slam. He'd always known this was going to happen if he kept at it and it was his own stupid fault, but that didn't make it any easier now that the time had come.

"You broke my knee!" cried Benny Torrance.

"Shut up, I said," said Shannon sadly.

The girl was still on the landing. She had halted there at the sound of siren. As the siren drew closer, she looked back at Shannon. He could see the whites of her eyes in the shadows. She tilted her head down the hall.

"There's a back way," she told him.

Shannon gaped at her. The sudden rush of hope gave him vertigo. The siren stopped. He could hear the police radio right outside the door.

"Hurry," the girl said.

Dumbfounded, Shannon glanced back at the money in the safe, at his tools on the floor. He glanced down at Benny. Benny writhed and held his leg and went, "Ah God. Ah God."

"Hurry," the girl said again.

Shannon let the crowbar slip from his fingers. He took two long steps and was out on the landing next to her. Instinctively, she recoiled from him, her arm pressed protectively against her breasts. He was close enough to smell her fear and her sex and her perfume and the vomitous smell of Benny on her.

"Thanks, baby," he said.

Still recoiling fearfully, she nodded.

Down the stairs, he saw the flashing red and blue lights of the police cruiser playing over the beveled glass of the door. He saw the shape of a lawman approaching.

"Don't leave me here!" cried Benny Torrance, clutching his knee.

Shannon took off down the hall.

IT WAS A LONG WAY
back to his place on foot. Up hills, down empty streets, the night full of sirens. By the time Shannon pushed through the door of his apartment, he was breathless and sweating. He was scared, too. It wasn't hard for him to figure out what was going to happen next.

Benny was done—that was the fi rst point. Benny was diddled, heavily diddled every which way. Once the shock wore off and the girl started talking, she'd get her Mex temper going and give the cops an earful. She was no illegal. You could tell just by looking at her. She had nothing to hide and no reason to hold back. She'd have Benny on agg sex assault and attempted rape and felony B and E, plus God only knew what the law had working on that psycho already. That was it for Benny. Jesus Christ would be back on the street before him.

Which meant Shannon had to hit the wind. He had to grab his bag and go—now, right now. Benny would give him over as soon as he could get the words out of his mouth, before they patched up his knee even. He'd be screaming Shannon's name as they gurneyed him into the ER. Why not, after what Shannon had done to him? It would be sweet revenge and a chance to deal down, all wrapped up in one. It had probably already happened. The cops were probably already on their way. Shannon was just lucky he'd gotten here before they did.

The apartment was empty. Karen must've gone out with her friends like she said she would. Shannon was sorry about that. He would've liked to see her one last time. He would've liked to say goodbye. She was a good girl, easygoing and good-tempered, and always willing to get it on unless she was pissed off about something. They'd had some laughs.

He went to the closet in his bedroom. On his hands and knees, he knocked a panel out of the back wall and pulled his stash from the hole there. He left a couple of fifties for Karen, but he couldn't afford to be too generous. She had her own job and she could sell his car if she needed more cash. He stuffed the money in a gym bag and stuffed some clothes on top of it. He got his traveling kit out of the bathroom and stuffed that in, too.

Before he left, he stood in the center of the living room and looked around, trying to think if he'd forgotten anything. His eyes made natural stops at the wood sculptures decorating the place here and there, sculptures he had made himself: a wall relief of a sailing ship on a stormy sea, a free-standing Indian on the coffee table, a freestanding city skyline on a shelf, a wall clock set in a relief of an eagle gazing at the moon.

He was sorry to go. He was sorry to lose Karen and the life they'd had here. He was sorry he would never see the face of the woman he'd been planning to carve in the block of white ash. He didn't have much hope for the future. He didn't think he had much chance of escaping in the long run. A traffic stop, a D-and-D—anything—and he'd be behind bars until he died. He was sorry about all of it.

As he stepped out of the apartment door, he heard a siren approaching on the street below. He halted in the doorway, his stomach turning sour. But the siren passed by.

Calm down,
he told himself.
Don't go paranoid on me.
It was only a break-in, after all. He didn't even get away with the money. It wasn't like the cops were going to send the dogs and choppers after him.

That's what he thought anyway. He had no idea how bad things really were. But he was going to find out soon enough.

About half an hour later, not four blocks from where he'd done the job, he was outside the Greyhound station. He stood across the street, watching the place. A late wind had risen, a warm wind smelling of dust. The tangled fibers of eucalyptus bark rolled down the pavement like tumbleweed.

The bus station had storefront windows on two sides and was brightly lit so he could see the interior clearly. There were a couple of travelers on the benches in there and a couple of scurvy characters who might be ticket-holders or might not. No cops for now, but Shannon knew they'd be around in the normal course of things. They would drop by to chase the bums and scout out whatever types were hanging around or passing through.

Shannon figured this was as good a time to go in as any. He put on a self-assured demeanor. He crossed the street with swift, businesslike steps and pushed into the station, out of the hot, dark night and into the cold, stinging brightness of the interior. He crossed to the Plexiglas window of the ticket booth without looking to the left or right. He was aware of the voice of a newswoman speaking from the TV hung on the wall behind him.