So much for being inconspicuous.
The good news was that Remo could sense the difference between your average rubbernecker’s stare and the furtive, glances that were standard in surveillance. Checking out the crowd this morning, he saw nothing to suggest that anyone was waiting for them in the Windy City.
At least they weren’t starting with a handicap.
They had a Plymouth Sundance waiting at the Avis counter. Remo signed the forms, including overpriced insurance. The credit cards and driver’s license in his wallet bore the name of Remo Walker. It was not a whopping change from “Williams”, but it didn’t have to be, since Remo Williams shared one trait with Thomas Allen Hardy.
He was officially dead and buried.
They had reservations at a modern chain motel in Ashburn, a Chicago subdivision two miles east of Burbank. Remo took Chiun’s lone steamer trunk upstairs and checked the local telephone directory while the Master of Sinanju staked out his place in front of the TV.
Devona Price was listed, but Remo didn’t call ahead. There was no point in giving her a chance to run when he could simply show up on her doorstep and surprise her.
Sixty-two years old. That made her five years Hardy’s junior, thirty-one or thirty-two when he was put to sleep. She had been living in Nevada at the time, turned up in various directories for Reno and Las Vegas, which was no surprise. The Silver State was big on transients, chasing jobs in the casinos, restaurants and cocktail lounges, strip joints, service stations, brothels—whatever would serve to cut the mustard in a modem Wild West atmosphere complete with instant marriage, legal prostitution, no state income taxes and the infamous six-week divorce.
But she was now quite a bit older, and almost certainly retired. The twilight years were unforgiving this close to Lake Michigan, and Remo wondered what had made her leave the desert warmth behind.
Another question he would have to ask her, if he got the chance.
“I’m going now.”
“Give my best to Big Foot,” Chiun answered. He was already engrossed in a program-length commercial for something called the Psychic Pals Web. Remo left him to his educational programs.
It was twenty minutes from the motel parking lot to Burbank, driving west through morning traffic. The boundary line was marked with tasteful signs—Welcome To Burbank—but the markers were unnecessary. Anyone with eyes to see could spot the change: more trees and grass, tract houses giving way to styles with just a little more imagination. Nothing fancy, mind you—this was strictly middle-class…but tasteful. If Devona Price owned land here, she had done all right. If she was renting, Remo figured she was still two steps ahead of most unmarried women in her age bracket.
CURE’s background search had turned up nothing useful on the woman who was Remo’s first—perhaps his only—handle on the mystery of Thomas Hardy and his killer look-alikes. They had a birth certificate from Oakland, California, along with evidence that she had lived in L.A., San Diego, Phoenix, Denver, Reno and Las Vegas, once she got out on her own.
From all appearances, the long road ended here. The house on Greenbriar Drive was blue-painted stucco, on the small side—Remo guessed two bedrooms—with grass and well-kept roses out in front and an attached garage. There was a shaded porch of sorts, with ivy climbing on a trellis to the left. The storm door was constructed out of metal trim and glass, a normal wooden door behind it. Both were closed when Remo parked his Plymouth at the curb and walked up to the house. He rang the bell.
It was a wait, and a salesman might well have given up before Devona Price responded to the bell, but Remo had all day. He heard the dead bolt turn at last, and a:short, round, gray-haired woman filled the doorway, staring at him through the storm door.
“Who’re you?”
He read her lips, but frowned and pointed to his ear, pretending that he couldn’t hear her.
She cracked the storm door to repeat the question. “Who’re you?”
“Name’s Remo Walker. Agent Walker. FBI.” The badge and ID card he showed her would have passed inspection at the Bureau’s headquarters in Washington.
“You have a warrant?” asked Devona Price.
He smiled and shook his head. “Just questions, ma’am, for now. I’d rather handle this the easy way. It’s best for all concerned.”
“What kind of questions?”
“It’s a matter of some delicacy,” Remo told her. “We can talk about it on the porch, if you insist, but privacy might be a good idea…for your sake.”
“Lemme have another look at that ID.”
Remo obliged her, waiting patiently.
“You won’t mind if I call the federal building and check you out?”
“I recommend it, ma’am,” he said, and rattled off a number. “You’ll want to ask for Special Agent Smith. He’s my supervisor.”
“Humph.” She thought a moment Shrugged. “I guess I’ll let it go. You may as well come in.”
She closed the door behind him, leaving it unlocked, and steered him toward a parlor on the right. There was a smell of citrus-scented cleanser to the house, and every inch of woodwork he could see was polished to a glossy shine. The furniture was aging well, and while the carpet had seen better days, she kept it clean. The coffee table hosted a display of blown-glass figurines: three unicorns, a smiling frog, a poodle and a wriggly shape that could have been a worm or chubby snake.
“Want coffee?” asked Devona Price. “No, ma’am. I’m fine.”
“Stop ‘ma’am’ing me, for heaven’s sake. I know how old I am. No need to rub it in.”
“No, ma—I mean, all right.”
They sat, Devona on the couch, and Remo in an easy chair that faced her from an angle, to her left. She wore a shapeless housedress, and the hem kept both knees covered, even when she crossed her legs.
“Let’s hear the questions, then,” she said. “You figure I’ve been up to something federal in my golden years?”
“Not quite. I’m looking into something that went on a while ago. Some thirty years ago, in fact.”
Devona Price was pale already, like a woman who preferred to spend her time indoors, rose garden to the contrary, but Remo saw her face lose color as he spoke.
For all that, though, her voice was firm as she replied, “I’m listening.”
“It has to do with Thomas Hardy,” Remo told her.
“Tom?” She covered fairly well, but there could be no doubt that she was shaken now. “He’s dead.”
“I’m well-aware of that.”
“You figuring to dig him up and file a few more charges, Agent Man? He paid the biggest price he could. Why can’t you just let well enough alone?”
The last thing Remo planned to do was fill her in on details of the recent murders and the mystery of Thomas Hardy’s deadly doppelgangers. If she didn’t know the story yet, there was no reason why she ever should. Conversely, if she was a part of the conspiracy, it would not help to tip his. hand.
“We’re tying up some loose ends in the files,” he told her. “There were more than twenty murder charges pending on your friend when he was executed in Nevada, back in ’65. Some of. them still aren’t technically resolved.”
“My friend?” She spoke the word as if it left a bad taste in her mouth.
“You claimed his body,” Remo said. “I can’t imagine that was charity extended to a total stranger.”
“Can’t you? No, I suppose you couldn’t. Ask your questions and be done with it.”