Inside Out (23 page)

53

Washington, D.C. Saturday

Sean awoke at eight
A.M.
without receiving the wake-up call she had requested for seven-thirty. Based on what she had seen of the place, she had no trouble believing that the management hoped she would sleep past the ten
A.M.
checkout time so they could charge her for a second night. The room stank of stale smoke, the carpeting was stained and the curtains frayed. As far as she could tell, the sheets were clean.

She showered under a weak stream of lukewarm water with a minuscule bar of soap and dried herself with a thin towel hardly larger than the washcloth. She rinsed her mouth with tap water and used her fingertip to clean her teeth. She studied the dark bruise on her lip as she ran her fingers through her wet hair.

Now able to think with a clear head, she felt relieved her life was back under her control. She started a mental list of the things she needed to accomplish in the next few hours.

She slipped into her stale clothes, opened the telephone book, and looked for the places most likely to help her with her next step. She found a likely candidate, memorized the address, pulled on her leather coat, slipped her purse into her briefcase, and left. She had eluded the marshals and, at least for the moment, she had what mattered most—her life. Now all she had to do was keep it. She asked the desk clerk to call her a cab.

The sign on the building read,
URBAN WARFARE.
Below those words, smaller print added,
FASHIONS FOR THE BATTLE OF LIFE.
Sean studied the mannequins in the windows and decided that they looked as though they had been brought in off an active battlefield. She felt exhilarated as she contemplated the leather and the T-shirts brandishing insults intended to pass for social statements. Satisfied she would find what she was looking for, she walked inside.

The saleswoman peered at her from behind a glass counter. She had luminous white skin, jet-black clothes to match her hair and lipstick, and an extremely large hoop that seemed to run through her septum. Her hair looked like it belonged on a doll found in a landfill. She was wearing dark-framed reading glasses.

“Yeah?” When the woman spoke, a stud in her tongue sparkled.

“I need a new wardrobe.”

“No offense, but you're more the Junior League type. My stuff is a bit more cutting-edge, don't you think?” The clerk's raspy voice sounded like it had been tuned by twenty years of cigarette smoke and liquor.

“I need a change.”

“You think I don't know who you are?”

Sean was stunned. She had assumed it was too soon for Manelli's network to be looking for her.

The woman came from around the counter. “Judging by the lip, you gotta change your look and then run like hell.”

The clerk had her pegged for a battered wife on the run.
Perfect.

“What appeals to you?”

Sean looked at the tag on a pair of jeans. “You take Visa, MasterCard?”

“I have to take plastic, but I hate the shit. Costs me three points. I always prefer cash.”

“These clothes are sort of expensive.”

“Quality costs. Some of these are originals. I get famous people in here, you know. Johnny Depp shops here—anyway, he did once. I got an autographed picture he sent me around here somewhere. People are funny. Something's cheap, they stick up their noses, if it's real expensive they'll stick up a bank to get it. My name's Hoover. I own the place.” She glanced at Sean's wrist. “Nice watch. Could I see it?”

Sean promptly removed the watch and handed it over.

Hoover studied the watch. “Real?”

“A gift from my husband.”

“Fakes are so good now. This one's real, it goes for what, four grand?”

“Twelve,” Sean said coolly.

“How do you know it's not a copy? Guy who hits you, sweet pea, could be a liar, too.”

“I had the band shortened myself at Cartier and it's been on my wrist ever since. If it was a fake, they'd have told me.”

Hoover raised her brows. “Tell you what. Let's get you outfitted up and we'll discuss payment options.”

Sean fixed her eyes on Hoover's. “Here's the deal. I need a few changes of clothes, the trimmings, something to carry them in, hair and makeup to fit.”

“Sergio next door is a great hairdresser.” Hoover extended her arms out, cocked her hip in a pose that reminded Sean of a model on a revolving stage posing in front of a new automobile. “He does mine.”

“Perfect.”

Hoover studied Sean carefully, then she nodded. “Let's get started, angel. We'll stick to basic black. You got a great body for my clothes.”

Sean had no problem with black. She was, after all, a widow.

Sean only knew that she was the person staring back at her from the mirror because she had been in on the transformation process. Two hours had passed since she entered the store. Now Hoover and Sergio stood at the counter evaluating their creation.

“You look eighteen!” Sergio cried. “Could be my best work.”

“Yep, a true work of art, sweetie. Now, get the hell out.” Hoover waved a hand in the air, dismissing him. “We'll settle later.”

Sergio blew them a kiss from the front door and was gone.

Hoover folded the clothes they had chosen into a new nylon duffel bag. Sean put her computer and her purse into a small backpack and set her empty leather briefcase on the counter. “My financial situation is this: What cash I have, I'll need for my relocation.”

“The clothes, the hair, and makeup, glasses, boots, socks . . . Normally that'd run twenty-five, twenty-six hundred, plus tax.”

Sean rested her hands on the briefcase. “This was eleven hundred new.”

“It's used and, anyhow, do I look like I'd carry a case like that? Tell you what, just use your credit card, and, for you, I'll eat the three points.”

If Sean used her plastic, Hoover would get her money, but, it would lead people straight to the store. When Hoover described how Sean now looked, she'd be easier to find than ever. Sean slipped off the Cartier and set it on the briefcase. “This will cover what I owe you and then some.”

“I can't take it.”

“Eighteen-karat. Look at the hands. The second hand sweeps. That means self-winding Swiss movement, not quartz. Listen to it. Look at it. Feel the weight.”

“I believe it's real. Problem is, I can't make change on that. You said twelve grand? What would I do with it? This is no pawnshop.”

Sean thought about it. The watch was worth ten used. It was a magnificent piece of engineering, precious metal, and art. Besides, Dylan had given it to her, which made it worthless. She had another thought.

“Hoover, you wouldn't happen to know where I can get a gun, would you?”

Hoover's right eyebrow rose. After a moment, she reached under the counter near her knees and lifted up a very large revolver. “Forty-four. Storekeeper's best friend. I get some tough customers.”

“I was thinking something smaller.”

Hoover promptly reached into a drawer behind her and took out a small dark revolver with checkered hickory grips. “Smith and Wesson .38 Chiefs. It conceals like a champ, holds five shots, and has plenty of punch. And it's not hot.”

Sean studied the gun. “The Cartier for everything, the Smith and extra bullets if you have them. We both know a jeweler who thought my watch was stolen would pay three grand, which gives you a nice profit on the clothes, which probably cost you twenty-five percent of what the tags say. Gun's value is maybe three hundred on a good day.”

Hoover slid the gun across the counter to Sean, then lifted the watch and slipped it onto her wrist. “Done.”

Sean lifted the revolver, broke it open, and pressed the ejector to empty the shells into her palm. She looked into the empty ports, eyed the inside of the barrel for dirt. She reloaded it and closed it with a snap. “And keep the change.”

Hoover reached into the drawer behind her again and placed a box of shells on the counter. Then she offered her hand. Sean set the gun down and the two women shook on it.

Sean bought a newspaper before she boarded the train. The front page of
USA Today
carried two seemingly unrelated stories. A jet carrying United States marshals had crashed while trying to make an emergency landing at an abandoned airfield in rural Virginia. The names of the dead marshals were being withheld until notification of next of kin. In the second article, six sailors at a radar facility on Rook Island, just off the coast of North Carolina, were dead. Neither the Navy nor the FBI would confirm reports that the incident was a shooting rampage perpetrated by one of the six sailors, who subsequently took his own life. An FBI spokesman said only that the details of the tragedy would be forthcoming as soon as their investigation was completed. The names of the six dead sailors were also being withheld. Sean closed her eyes and bit her lip.

54

Richmond, Virginia

Sean carried her bag out of the railway terminal on her shoulder. She was about to hail a taxi when one made a tire-squealing U-turn and pulled up to the curb in front of her. It happened with a suddenness that froze her in her tracks. Other taxi drivers, already in line, honked in protest.

The driver's voice carried out over the blaring horns. “Get in quick before one of those old fuckers starts shooting!”

Sean leaned down and instantly understood why the driver had done what he had. He was a kindred spirit of the girl Sean had become. He was wearing a T-shirt that advertised German beer, and his jeans were two washings away from becoming shop rags. Tattoos covered both arms to the wrists and most of his neck. His hair was blazing orange with bright-blue tips, and he had stainless-steel hoops through his earlobes, studs in his nose, and a ball under his lower lip. A pair of enormous blue eyes were set in an enthusiastic face that looked like a clean page waiting for experience to line it.

Sean climbed in the front door—the one the driver threw open. She rested her duffel between them and placed the backpack in her lap.

“Where to?” he asked as he pulled out into traffic.

“What I need is a hotel room where I can get some work done. Where it's quiet and not too expensive.”

“What kind of work?”

“I'm working on a novel.”

“No shit? I know a place that's perfect. My aunt used to stay there, paid by the month. It's a great old place. Classy, but it's in a funky part of town.”

“Sounds good,” Sean said.

He reached into an ashtray overflowing with receipts and gum wrappers and found a business card. It had a lightning bolt hand-painted on it,
WIRE DOG
was hand-printed over the bolt, and a phone number written below it. “They call me Wire Dog.”

“Wire Dog?”

“I'm a soundman. Electronic wires. Dig?”

“I dig, Dog.”

“Cab belongs to my old man. He's down with bottle flu at the moment. I pick up a few coins this way. You got a name?”

“Sally,” Sean lied. “Sally McSorley.”

“Anytime you need a ride, Sally, call Wire Dog. Best ride in town and reasonable. Hotel Grand it is.”

The neighborhood had seen better days. A few of the buildings were boarded up. The structures which had businesses in them—a thrift shop, a beauty supplies store, and a used office furniture store—seemed to be holding their collective breath so they wouldn't be noticed by wrecking crews. The cab passed a church where a half-dozen disinterested people were perched on the steps taking in the sunshine. Wire Dog pulled up in front of a hotel skinned in stained brick with carved sandstone accents and air-conditioning units plugging a majority of the windows from the second floor up. He carried Sean's duffel into the lobby. The Grand had once been an elegant establishment, but age had added a subtle patina that made the interior resemble a photograph taken in another century.

The front desk was directly across, forty feet from the front door, at one end of a cathedral-like lobby at least sixty feet long. The floor and counter were covered in marble. Two twenty-foot-tall columns, located just inside the front door, stopped at a ceiling laced with detailed plaster molding. A chandelier loomed over the lounge, which consisted of two facing leather couches and four armchairs all set on a massive oriental carpet. The elevator was at the far end of the lobby, positioned between a pair of columns identical to the ones framing the front door.

Wire Dog dropped Sean's bag at the desk and palmed the bell.

An elderly man dressed in a sports coat and green tie shuffled from the office.

“Hello, Skippy,” he said to Wire Dog in a surprisingly deep voice like a Shakespearean actor's. He lowered his bald head and stared at the boy over his reading glasses. “New earring? Is that a ball bearing under your lip?”

“You aren't moving forward, you're sitting still, Max.”

“And more tattoos. Aren't you afraid of ink poisoning?”

“They're vegetable-based.”

“Imagine how much that's going to cost to remove when you grow up.” Max peered at Sean. “Room?”

“Yes, please.”

“How long?”

“Three or four days.”

“Forty-five dollars per night. How will you be taking care of this?” Max asked.

“Cash.” She pulled folded bills from her jacket pocket.

Wire Dog sighed out loud. “Aw, Max, give her a price break. She's a friend of mine. If she had a lot of money, why the hell would she stay here?”

“Oh, a friend of
yours,
Skippy! In that case it should be double. No telling what manner of sand a friend of yours might kick up. For old time's sake, I'll call it thirty-five a night, payable each day before two in the afternoon. Skippy's aunt Grace,” the old man explained to Sean, “was with us for almost thirteen years, which makes the boy family once removed.”

“I'll be out for a while if anyone is looking for me, Max,” an elderly woman's voice chirped.

Sean pulled the guest card toward her and started filling it in with lies.

“I'm just going to the coffee shop,” the old woman continued. She was frail and bright-eyed like a bird. “If my niece calls, tell her I'll call her back. Do I have any mail? I'm expecting a note from my great-nephew Peter.”

“I'll be right here, Betty,” Max promised. “No mail delivered yet today.” He took the card from Sean. “Phone calls are extra. No loud music, no overnight guests.”

“No getting drunk and setting fires, no bothering the resident spooks, and no cloning sheep in the rooms,” Wire Dog added.

Max scowled at Wire Dog. “No cloning of anything.”

Sean said, “I'm a writer looking for a quiet place to edit something I've been working on. You won't even know I'm here.”

“She's a novel author,” Wire Dog boasted.

“A novelist.” Max winked at Sean and held up a finger. “Room four-sixteen will be perfect. Tom Wolfe stayed in that room once. Native son, you know. If you need anything, just let me know.” He looked down at the card Sean had filled out. “Miss McSorley.”

Sean handed over the cash and took the receipt.

The brass fence on the ancient elevator gleamed. The operator looked as if he had come with the equipment. He was a stooped man in a crisply starched white shirt with cuff links and a belt cinched tight just below his chest. He called out the floors as the numbers crept by outside the cage. “Two. Three. Your floor, ma'am. Four.”

Four-sixteen was unexpectedly large, with high ceilings and tall narrow windows, which, when she opened the drapes, let in plenty of daylight. She could get onto the fire escape platform by unlocking the window without the A.C. unit. The push-button telephone and the TV set were the only contemporary evidence in an otherwise perfectly preserved '40s room. There was a small brass plaque on the front of the table which read:
AUTHOR TOM WOLFE SAT AT THIS DESK ON 10
–
13
–
1969.

The tiled bathroom had a deep, claw-footed tub, a pedestal sink, and a toilet with its porcelain tank set up high on the wall. Sean wouldn't have been surprised to have found a
TOM WOLFE SAT HERE
sign on the seat.