Breakout Read online

  She thought about it. “He’ll call,” she decided. “He won’t come here, because they’d catch him, but he’ll call.”

  “And that’s when,” Goody said, “you send him to me.”

  “To you? Why to you?”

  “Don’t you think the cops’re gonna be keepin an eye on you? Don’t you think they know who you are, where you are? But you’re right, Brandon’s gonna call, and when he does, you send him to me, cause the cops don’t know about me, and we can work it out together.”

  She was frowning again. She said, “Why you wanna do that?”

  “Cause I always liked old Brandon,” he told her. “And I always liked you. And I was playing with my police scanners, and I heard the first report, so I know I’m ahead of the news here, and you and me can plot and plan before anybody else even knows anything.”

  She nodded, thinking about it. Then she said, “It’s for sure, now. He broke out.”

  “It’ll be on the news,” he told her, “the first anybody else knows about it. It’ll be on the news. What time is it? Half an hour, it’ll be on the news.”

  “Poor Brandon,” she said.

  “He’ll call you, you know he will.”

  Slowly she nodded. “Yes, he will.”

  “And you send him to me. Maryenne? You send him to me.”

  “All right,” she said.

  “Good.”

  “Thank you, Goody,” she said.

  “Oh, I knew I had to do it,” he assured her. “Soon as I heard that police report, I knew I had to be on hand, I had to help old Brandon somehow.”

  Yes, and by then, for certain sure, there would be a very nice reward out on good old Brandon’s head.

  4

  The class was called Low Impact Rhythm and was theoretically a preliminary for classes in ballroom dancing, but was actually merely an exercise class with slower music. In addition to Brenda, there were eleven other students here this evening, nine women and two men, and of them all, if she did say so herself, she was the youngest, the fittest, and the cutest. She didn’t need to take some flab off her ass, like that one over there, or learn not to move like an elephant on downers, like that one over there. Watching herself in the side-wall mirror, echoing herself echoing the instructor, a whippet-thin black man in black leotards, she knew she was already at what this class was supposed to move you toward.

  The mirror was twenty feet long and eight feet high in this long room, with barres on the end walls, a piano (ignored) at one side, and soundproofing in the ceiling to keep the reverb down. Brenda was interested in the mirror not only for what she saw in it, her own cute ass, firm body, rhythmic movements, but also for what she couldn’t see beyond it.

  This hardwood floor she and the group were step-step-stepping on was part of the parade field from the building’s military days. The field, she knew, continued on under the mirrored wall. Over there, imaginable in her mind’s eye, was the jewelry wholesaler, like something out of the Arabian Nights. Another reason to smile at the mirror.

  When she traveled with Ed Mackey, Brenda called herself Brenda Fawcett. Since she seemed to travel with Ed all the time, she might as well be Brenda Fawcett, so a while ago, for a birthday present, Ed had given her various kinds of ID—driver’s licenses from different states, credit cards she shouldn’t try to use—all in that name. What made it a real present was, all the IDs made her a year younger.

  She’d called herself Brenda Fawcett here at the Johnson-Ross Studio of the Dance out of habit. She wouldn’t be flashing ID here because she was paying for her lessons—this was the third—in cash, explaining to the receptionist at the initial interview, showing a smile that was both confidential and sheepish, “I don’t want my husband to know. Not yet.”

  The girl smiled, charmed by her. “Oh, that’s nice,” she said. “You’re not the first like that. It’s such a sweet surprise, I think.”

  “Me, too,” Brenda said.

  One of the nice things about this low-impact routine, you could have a quiet conversation under the music because, if you were in any shape at all, what you were doing didn’t use up all your breath. The first session, Brenda had taken a position next to a petite blonde in a pink leotard, who turned out to be named June and to be just as gabby as she looked. In two hours and counting, Brenda had learned a lot about June’s love life, which tended toward the high impact, but also about this city, this dance studio, and this building.

  Which was the point. What Ed did was always illegal and sometimes dangerous, especially when he was teamed with Parker. More than most people, he needed somebody to watch his back. That’s what Brenda did, and she’d come in useful more than once. To know the territory was, she believed, part of the job.

  And June was happy to talk about the territory. “There wasn’t anything like this here before,” she explained. “You’d have to go to LA to see a facility like this. Or maybe Vegas.”

  “Then we’re lucky it showed up,” Brenda agreed.

  “It’s all Mrs. Johnson-Ross,” June assured her. “She’s a local girl, she went away to New York, she had a career there, and when this opportunity came along, all this space, she came back and snapped it up.”

  “Good for her. And good for us.”

  That conversation had been during lesson number two. Now, in lesson number three, they were both being quiet, following the leader’s sinuous movements, Brenda feeling the stretch in those long side muscles it’s so hard to tone, and then, in the mirror, she saw the door centered in the wall behind them open and a woman walk in.

  Not for a second did Brenda doubt this was Mrs. Johnson-Ross. Tall, too blonde, she carried her just-a-little excess weight as though it were a fashion accessory she was pleased to own. She dressed in verticals, a long dark jacket open over a darker pantsuit with deep lapels, in turn over a blouse in two shades of vertical light blue stripes. The effect was to make the body fade away and emphasize the blonde-framed face, slightly puffy but still very good looking.

  Dramatically attractive. How old? Midfifties, maybe.

  Brenda turned her head toward June: “There’s the boss.”

  June looked at the mirror, and beamed with pleasure. “Isn’t she something?”

  “She certainly is.”

  Mrs. Johnson-Ross, Brenda knew, herself only took individual students, in modern and jazz and ballet, in other smaller rehearsal rooms, leaving the ballroom dancing and aerobics to her staff, though she did occasionally, like now, drop in to see how one of the classes was coming along. Brenda watched her watch the class, then suddenly she realized she was making eye contact.

  Mrs. Johnson-Ross did not look away. Expressionless, her blue eyes cold, she looked at Brenda through four beats of the music, as though to memorize her. Then, abruptly, she turned away and, as silently as she’d come in, left the room.

  Jesus, she’s tough, Brenda thought. I wonder what that was all about.

  5

  The most exciting part of it, Henry Freedman knew, and the thought frightened him as much as it titillated him, was the knowledge that he could be caught at any second, exposed, ruined, as much a pariah as any biblical outcast in his cave. Even more than the sex, it was the danger that aroused Henry. Maybe not the first or second time they’d been together, but every time since.

  In the car, driving to or from the assignations, or on the phone, spinning out more tortured lies to Muriel, he kept telling himself he had to stop, he had to stop now, the thrill wasn’t worth the risk, he wasn’t that kind of man. He was fifty-two years of age, for God’s sake, he’d never been unfaithful to Muriel in twenty-two years of marriage until the last year and a half. And now he was helpless, he was like a hypnosis subject, it was as though Darlene had a hand inside his trousers and just steadily, inexorably, pulled him toward her.

  He’d met Darlene Johnson-Ross more than five years ago, when she’d moved her dance studio into the Armory, the neighbor of his father Jerome, and for nearly four years she’d merely been the attractiv
e if somewhat over-the-hill person he occasionally saw when he visited his father or met with Harrigan, the Armory manager. Henry was one of the more active principals in Armory Associates, the consortium that had bought the old white elephant from the GSA and given it, and the downtown around it, a whole new life. He’d been proud of his part in it, and he’d never for a second suspected that the Armory would be the source of his ruin.

  Oh, well, he thought, driving yet again toward the Armory, grin and bear it, though in fact he was doing neither. Tortured, obsessed, so deeply mired in his midlife crisis he couldn’t even see it, like a disoriented diver plunging toward the depths while trying desperately to reach the air, Henry drove the Infiniti around the Armory that late afternoon at five-thirty—at least he could still take pride in that, the elegance of the conversion—to the garage entrance at the rear, where the massive moatlike gates of the army’s time had been removed without a trace.

  The garage, one flight down a reinforced ramp, had held obsolete army vehicles for many years, but didn’t show it now. At the foot of the ramp, arrowed signs led residential tenants through a locked gate straight ahead, dance studio customers to the left, and Freed-man Wholesale Jewels employees—not customers— through an elaborately alarmed gate to the right.

  Henry never parked in the dance studio area. As an Armory Associates partner, he had a right to the electronic box on his visor that opened the simple metal-pole barrier to residents’ parking, which he now used. He left the Infiniti in the visitors’ section, rode the elevator up one flight to the main floor, and emerged into the broad low-ceilinged lobby. No one got up to the residential area without being vetted by the doorman.

  Who Henry knew very well. “Evening, George,” he said, striding across the lobby toward the inner door.

  George, in his navy blue uniform with golden piping, had been standing flat-footed, hands behind his back, cap squared off on his head as he gazed out at the street through the glass of the front door, but now he said, “Evening, Mr. Freedman,” and moved briskly to his wall-mounted control panel, where he buzzed the inner door open just before Henry arrived, hand already out.

  Henry was noted for his “tours of inspection” of the Armory, and saw no reason why anyone would think twice about them. He’d been doing the same thing, though not as often, for years before he’d become besotted with Darlene.

  The inner lobby was more spacious, with never-used sofas, all in muted tones of gold and avocado. At the left rear, past the second bank of elevators, was an unmarked gold door to which Henry had the credit-card-style key. Now he inserted it, saw the green light, removed the card, and stepped through into Darlene’s private office, all stark silver and white, with accents of an icy blue. But it was empty.

  Usually, Darlene was here when he entered, not one to tease by being late, to keep him waiting. Usually, she was right here, either elegant in her businesswoman mode or hot and perspiring in leotard from a private lesson, when she would be girlish and giggly and out of breath, crying, “Oh, I’m all sweaty, let me shower, I’m too sweaty!” And he’d say, “I’ll lick it off. Come here, let me help, don’t wriggle so much.”

  But today she wasn’t here. The office was actually part of a suite, with a small bedroom and bath and kitchenette, but when he went through they were all empty as well.

  He got back to the main office just as she came in from the hall, beyond which were the studios. She looked very different, not her normal self at all. She was still beautiful and desirable, today the businesswoman in a long dark jacket and pantsuit and blue striped blouse, but her manner was troubled, almost angry.

  “Henry,” she said, and her manner was not at all sexy or kittenish, “I’m glad you’re here.”

  What an odd thing to say. “Darlene,” he reminded her, “we have a date.”

  She blinked at him, as though trying to make him out through some sort of fog. “Yes, of course we do,” she said. “But it’s just—I’ve come across something, and I don’t like it.”

  Doom! he thought, and his heart contracted like a rubber ball. “Come across something? What?”

  “There’s a young woman here,” Darlene told him, and Henry’s heart and body and mind all relaxed. This was just business, that’s all, it wasn’t exposure. Not yet.

  Darlene was saying, “She’s in the low-impact class, I wouldn’t have noticed her, except she’s in better shape than most of them when they start in that class; in fact, they start there because they need to get in shape—”

  “Darlene,” Henry said, ready to be helpful and reassuring, now that it was merely a business problem, “just tell me what’s wrong.”

  “All right,” Darlene said. “Make me a drink.”

  She usually didn’t have her scotch-and-water until after they’d been to bed. He said, “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure,” she said, in a tone that asked for no argument.

  “Fine, fine.” Lifting his hands in amiable surrender, he went over to the credenza behind her desk where the liquor cabinet and glasses and tiny refrigerator were concealed.

  While he made her a drink—pointedly, nothing for himself—she said, “I wouldn’t have noticed a thing, but Susanna told me—you know, the girl now on the front desk.”

  “Is that her name?”

  “She told me, this new one, Brenda Fawcett, was paying cash because she didn’t want her husband to know she was learning to dance. We get some like that from time to time. I don’t think it usually turns out to be the happy surprise the lady had in mind.”

  Henry brought her her drink: “Don’t be cynical.”

  “It’s hard not to be.” She sighed. “All right. The first thing I thought, if this Brenda Fawcett is here to learn dancing behind her husband’s back, why is she in the low-impact class? Why isn’t she in ballroom dancing?”

  Henry shrugged. “Getting in shape, like you said.”

  “She’s in shape.” Darlene took a healthy swallow of her drink. “Then I noticed,” she said, “our Brenda doesn’t wear a wedding ring.”

  “Some people don’t,” Henry suggested.

  “Some men don’t,” Darlene told him. “Women wear that band.”

  Marriage discussions with Darlene could be a tricky area. “Fine,” Henry said.

  “So,” Darlene went on, leaving marriage behind, “I looked at the card Susanna filled out, when Ms. Fawcett first enrolled, and it’s all false.”

  Henry frowned at her. “It’s what?”

  “The home address,” Darlene told him, “the phone number, all fake. And she’s paying in cash, so she doesn’t have to prove her identity. So what’s she up to?”

  Oh, my God, Henry thought, because he knew. Private detectives! That’s what it was, that’s what it had to be!

  Muriel must have found out—the way he’d been flaunting himself, for God’s sake, she had to find out— and instead of confronting him, she’d done it this way. Private detectives.

  Yes, that was her style, that’s how she’d handle it. No discussion, no hope for forgiveness. Just get the evidence, sue for divorce, all open and public and forever damning.

  Darlene paced, frowning at the carpet. “All I can think is,” she said, “the IRS. Or more likely the state tax people. That’s why she’s paying cash, trying to trap us, see what we do with unrecorded income.”

  I can’t tell her the truth, Henry realized. I should pack a suitcase, keep it in the trunk of the car. In case… Whenever…

  “The little bitch!” Darlene raged. “Henry, am I right? What else could it be?”

  “You’ll just have to—” Henry began and coughed, and tried again: “You’ll just have to keep an eye on her. I believe I’ll—I believe I’ll have a drink now, too.”

  “No, wait,” she said, surprising him.

  He paused, halfway to the drinks cabinet. “Why not?”

  “That class is almost over,” she told him. “Go get your car, bring it around front. We’ll follow her. We’ll see if she doesn’t
wind up in the State Office Building.”

  Or the private detective’s office, Henry thought. Much more likely, the private detective’s office.

  But wouldn’t it be better to know the worst, know it and be able to decide what to do?

  Looking around the office, eying the open bedroom door, he said, “Our lovely afternoon.”

  “We’ll still have it, Henry,” she promised him. “We’ll follow her, we’ll find out what she’s up to, and then we’ll come right back here. Henry…”

  He looked at her. “Yes?”

  He loved that lascivious smile she sometimes showed; not often enough. “It’ll be better than ever,” she whispered.

  On the way back to the Infiniti, he thought, I’ll have to phone Muriel, I’m going to be later than I thought. I’ll have to phone her, I’ll have to tell her… whatever I tell her.

  6

  When CID Detective Jason Rembek, a big shambling balding man with thick eyeglasses sliding down his lumpy nose, reached his cubicle at Headquarters at 8:34 Saturday morning—according to the digital clock on his desk, which was never wrong—the overnights were stacked waiting for him, escape-related materials on top, lesser cases underneath, just as he’d instructed.

  The flight of the three hardcases from Stoneveldt Thursday afternoon had kept him on the hop all day yesterday. He hoped things would be quieter today. He had other Opens on his desk, not just these three punks taking a little vacation.

  Detective Rembek had been on the state force fourteen years, with very little experience of prison breaks. None, from Stoneveldt; that trio had made the record books. Nevertheless, it was his own experience and the experience of others he’d talked to or read about, that the boys in prison were mostly there in the first place because they didn’t know how to handle life on the outside, not even when they weren’t on the run. Very very rare was the guy who disappeared forever, or showed up thirty years later a solid citizen, mayor of some small town in Canada.