Callie had been put into the city’s foster-care program, which meant she grew to adulthood with virtually no supervision at all. To the various families to which she was sent, she meant an extra check in the mail every month, nothing more. So she’d built her own life, among her own kind. And like all thieves, she looked upon the straights as a bunch of fools.
Until she’d been caught.
Callie was no stranger to the inside of various juvie detention centers, but that was when she was still green and learning; never before had she done serious time. But during those endless days in prison, Callie had finally stopped hating her mother. Birdie had done the best she could; she didn’t know any other way to live. She’d taught her illegitimate daughter everything she knew about how to survive. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been enough. For either of them.
Sal finished with the sailor, whose girl was properly awestruck at seeing her name over his heart. Sal collected his money and hurried them out. “Show your friends,” he said automatically.
Mrs. Gagliardo let out a soft snore.
Sal plopped down in his chair and looked at Callie. “Know another guy needs a driver.”
She couldn’t get away with ducking out twice. “I got a car,” she said quickly.
“False plates?”
“Out-of-state. When’s this one?”
“Thursday night.” Sal went over to the small desk and pawed through a drawer until he came up with an index card with a phone number written on it. “Ask for Mario.”
Callie slipped the card into a back pocket of her jeans, knowing not to ask questions. “Thanks, Sal.”
“And yes, you can stay here until he comes out.”
“Who?”
“The mark you’re waiting for. Garden of Eden.”
She laughed shortly. “Rusty.”
“Naw, you hid it pretty good. You forget I’ve known you all your life.”
Sal was the biggest gossip on the waterfront. Callie didn’t have to feign an interest as she caught up on who was running what scam, who was doing time, who had dropped out of sight. Which new cops to watch out for and which were willing to do a little business. Then out of the comer of her eye she caught movement across the street. “There’s my mark.” She stood up and glanced at the old woman asleep in the chair. “Tell your mama I said goodbye.”
Sal nodded and waved her out.
Hal Stanwyck’s sojourn in The Garden of Eden had left him thirsty; he headed straight for Chez Stinky, a dive three blocks away. Callie followed him in; it was a good place to pass on a smuggled chip, as Stinky didn’t believe in bright lights. She thought the place had changed its decor from the last time she’d seen it, but she couldn’t be sure in that half-light.
Chez Stinky was a skinny rectangle, narrow and deep. Callie had to walk right past where Stanwyck was sitting at the bar to reach the tables in the back. She took one, in shadow against the wall, that gave her a good view of the bar, one of only two tables not occupied. Hal Stanwyck wasn’t acting like a man waiting to meet someone — no looking around, no consulting his watch.
When Callie pulled the billfold from her back pocket to pay for the drink she’d ordered, she also pulled out the index card Sal Gagliardo had given her. She wouldn’t call this Mario, whoever he was, but she wouldn’t throw away his number, either. A contact was a contact. And that’s what Mr. Upright-Citizen Bass was paying her for, her contacts.
Again it came, that wave of hatred that blinded and incapacitated her. She fought it off with an effort and gave in to a moment of despair. Was it always going to be like this? Instant paralysis every time she thought of the man?
Hal Stanwyck got up from the bar and went to the Gents. Callie gave a mental cheer; she’d been feeling the need herself. On her way to the Ladies, she passed a table where two couples were sitting and laughing. One of the men had taken off his jacket and draped it over the back of his chair, leaving his billfold in the jacket pocket, the stupid jerk. Just by flexing her knees slightly, Callie was able to lift the billfold without even breaking stride.
Inside one of the stalls in the Ladies, she examined her pickings. Over three hundred in twenty-dollar bills plus a few ones. But the plastic the jerk carried was worth ten times that.
Who was fencing credit cards now? The last she heard — Callie broke off her line of thought, appalled. My God. That easily. That easily, she’d slipped right back into her old pattern. She gritted her teeth and squeezed the billfold with both hands as hard as she could. Strangling temptation.
When she’d recovered her composure, she left the Ladies and on the way to her table slipped the jerk’s billfold back into his jacket pocket, keeping a couple of the twenties for her trouble.
Hal Stanwyck was already back in his place at the bar. Callie settled down to wait.
A young couple at the next table started quarreling loudly. Callie shrank back against the wall as customers at the bar started craning back to see what the ruckus was. But Stanwyck wasn’t one of them; he sat staring into his glass, oblivious to everything around him. Callie relaxed a little and shot a dirty look at the noisy couple at the next table.
And got a shock: The man looked disturbingly like Billy. A little older, but they could have been brothers. Billy, sweet Billy, whom Callie had married when she was not yet eighteen and he only a year older. The quarreling couple got up from their table to leave. Callie watched them until they went through the door and disappeared. Which was very much what she would have liked to do herself.
She’d turned a sort of corner in prison. One day, after an especially humiliating full-body search for drugs, Callie had taken an honest look at herself for the first time in her life. She was supposed to be in her prime, but look at her! Locked up as felon, owning nothing... the food she ate and the very clothes on her back were paid for by the state. She was alone — no family or friends. Callie Darrow didn’t have friends; she had contacts.
The conclusion was obvious: If the way she’d been living wasn’t working, then find a different way. The idea of living life as a straight so bemused and disturbed Callie that it was three or four days before she could settle down to making plans. It wouldn’t be easy. She had no marketable skills, no work record. She’d never paid income tax. She didn’t even have a Social Security card.
She could say she was born in Port Wolfe but lived most of her adult life in Australia, until her husband died — that would account for her lack of a work history. It would not account for her American speech. Oh, this could be tricky! But it was doable, Callie felt. There was much to be taken care of. She was surprised to find that her days in prison had suddenly become bearable, now that she had a plan.
A major part of that plan was getting away from Port Wolfe. It might mean violating her parole, if she ever got parole. But her best chance for survival lay in disappearing from Port Wolfe forever. Too many people knew her, knew what she did. There were too many traps for her here... and too many temptations. Callie wasn’t sure of her ability to stop being a thief. But she was sure of her determination to try. A fresh start, where no one knew her. She started daydreaming about where she’d like to live. Someplace clear on the other side of the country. San Francisco sounded good.
Then the day finally came when that iron door clanged shut behind her. She was wearing a cheap prison-issue suit and blouse, and she had only a few bucks in her dime-store handbag — but she was free. San Francisco, here I come!
But a man had been waiting for her... silver-haired, shrewd-looking, with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Standing by his car parked near the prison entrance, he’d said he ran a detective agency and was there to offer her a job. Sam Bass was having trouble finding women operatives who could go into the dangerous parts of town without drawing attention to themselves. His background check on her told him she could blend into the waterfront district as well as anyone, and it was that ability that he wanted to hire.