Read Online The Crimes of Jordan Wise by Bill Pronzini - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Bill Pronzini
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go by faster than you think. We'll talk on the phone at least once a week."
"I can't make love to the phone."
"Well, you could, but it would probably be painful."
She laughed and nipped my neck. "Messy, too."
I said, "I'll be thinking of you all the time."
"Same here."
"And of how'U it be for us on St. Thomas."
"And of all that lovely money."
August.
I called Annalise from a pay phone the day after she flew to Chicago, to make sure she'd arrived safely and gotten settled into the apartment. She didn't like the place. Statement of fact, not a complaint. There wasn't much about it for anybody to like. I'd explained why I picked it and why it was important for her to establish residence in Chicago well in advance of October 1. She'd be bored and antsy back there alone, but she'd manage all right.
I increased the amounts on each of that month's dummy invoices, to bring the aggregate close to $500,000. The last set, to be put through the following month, would push it well over the half-million-dollar mark, to a final total of $600,000. My motive now wasn't greed so much as added security The more we had, the more I could invest for the future, and the better our new life would be.
Later in the month, I made a careful inspection of my belongings, to be certain I left nothing behind that might help the authorities. There were no recent snapshots or posed photographs of me—no one to take any, no reason for the taking. I did find an envelope of old, mostly black-and-white photos my parents had taken. I'd forgotten I had them, wasn't sure why I'd bothered to save them; I had no sentimental attachment to my family or my past. The photos of me were infant and childhood images, mostly. Three had been snapped in my mid-teens; they showed a four-eyed kid I barely recognized or remembered. Shuffling through them had a depressing effect. I tossed the lot into the trash.
I had also saved my high school senior yearbook. My graduation photo was a fair likeness, but in those days I'd worn nerdy hornrimmed glasses and my hair was in a stiff butch cut that made my ears look larger than they were. Nearly all of the senior-class pix had multiple caption lines; mine had only two. "Activities: Math club. Ambition: To do something important someday."
I laughed long and hard when I read the second line. Oh, Jordan, you teenage schmuck, if you'd only known! I ripped that page out and tore it into little pieces and flushed the pieces down the toilet. The rest of the yearbook went into the trash with the old photos. Investigators would be able to track down another copy, but why make it easy for them?
The only other picture of me in existence was my driver's license photo, four years old. A copy would be on file with the DMV, but it was another fair-only likeness. Average height, average weight, average build, no distinguishing marks or characteristics other than the blue eyes and glasses. Mr. Average. Richard Laidlaw was somebody, Jordan Wise could be anybody.
One other group of items needed to be disposed of. I boxed up the books on the Virgin Islands and my small collection of sailing and seafaring adventure books, and took them around to a trio of secondhand shops, where I traded them for a variety of nondescript fiction and nonfiction hardcovers and paperbacks. These I took back to the apartment and set out on the shelves.
In a new bookstore I bought a history of Mexico and a travel guide to Mexico City. I cracked their spines and thumb-marked and creased some of the pages to make them appear well-read, then tucked them in among the other books. That was the first step in the final phase of the Plan—the laying of a false trail that would lead nowhere.
September.
The closer it got to the end of the month, the more relaxed I became. No trouble sleeping, no worries, not a single tense moment. There is something about overseeing a daring and dangerous scheme
"I can't make love to the phone."
"Well, you could, but it would probably be painful."
She laughed and nipped my neck. "Messy, too."
I said, "I'll be thinking of you all the time."
"Same here."
"And of how'U it be for us on St. Thomas."
"And of all that lovely money."
August.
I called Annalise from a pay phone the day after she flew to Chicago, to make sure she'd arrived safely and gotten settled into the apartment. She didn't like the place. Statement of fact, not a complaint. There wasn't much about it for anybody to like. I'd explained why I picked it and why it was important for her to establish residence in Chicago well in advance of October 1. She'd be bored and antsy back there alone, but she'd manage all right.
I increased the amounts on each of that month's dummy invoices, to bring the aggregate close to $500,000. The last set, to be put through the following month, would push it well over the half-million-dollar mark, to a final total of $600,000. My motive now wasn't greed so much as added security The more we had, the more I could invest for the future, and the better our new life would be.
Later in the month, I made a careful inspection of my belongings, to be certain I left nothing behind that might help the authorities. There were no recent snapshots or posed photographs of me—no one to take any, no reason for the taking. I did find an envelope of old, mostly black-and-white photos my parents had taken. I'd forgotten I had them, wasn't sure why I'd bothered to save them; I had no sentimental attachment to my family or my past. The photos of me were infant and childhood images, mostly. Three had been snapped in my mid-teens; they showed a four-eyed kid I barely recognized or remembered. Shuffling through them had a depressing effect. I tossed the lot into the trash.
I had also saved my high school senior yearbook. My graduation photo was a fair likeness, but in those days I'd worn nerdy hornrimmed glasses and my hair was in a stiff butch cut that made my ears look larger than they were. Nearly all of the senior-class pix had multiple caption lines; mine had only two. "Activities: Math club. Ambition: To do something important someday."
I laughed long and hard when I read the second line. Oh, Jordan, you teenage schmuck, if you'd only known! I ripped that page out and tore it into little pieces and flushed the pieces down the toilet. The rest of the yearbook went into the trash with the old photos. Investigators would be able to track down another copy, but why make it easy for them?
The only other picture of me in existence was my driver's license photo, four years old. A copy would be on file with the DMV, but it was another fair-only likeness. Average height, average weight, average build, no distinguishing marks or characteristics other than the blue eyes and glasses. Mr. Average. Richard Laidlaw was somebody, Jordan Wise could be anybody.
One other group of items needed to be disposed of. I boxed up the books on the Virgin Islands and my small collection of sailing and seafaring adventure books, and took them around to a trio of secondhand shops, where I traded them for a variety of nondescript fiction and nonfiction hardcovers and paperbacks. These I took back to the apartment and set out on the shelves.
In a new bookstore I bought a history of Mexico and a travel guide to Mexico City. I cracked their spines and thumb-marked and creased some of the pages to make them appear well-read, then tucked them in among the other books. That was the first step in the final phase of the Plan—the laying of a false trail that would lead nowhere.
September.
The closer it got to the end of the month, the more relaxed I became. No trouble sleeping, no worries, not a single tense moment. There is something about overseeing a daring and dangerous scheme
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