“immediately cremated.” The neighbors had been told that Cathryn Vreeland and her children would be staying that night with her sister-in-law; since she did not have a sister-in-law, this could not be swiftly followed up.
“If you find yourselves unable to avoid the press,” said Dr. Vreeland, “then say nothing factual. Make only generalized, emotional statements about me”—he smiled—”preferably laudatory. I will be leaving the apartment in disguise as soon after five as possible.”
Denise asked, “Won’t Jim think it unusual that a stranger he didn’t let in is leaving the building?”
“No. First, Dominic will be on by the time I leave, and if he sees me, will simply assume that this ‘stranger’ came in before his shift. Second, I don’t intend leaving through the lobby. I’ll use the fire exit out to Seventy-fourth Street.”
Cathryn Vreeland brought a plate of sandwiches from the kitchen, joining her family at the table. “Spam,” she said. “It was all the Shopwell had left yesterday that I had ration tickets for.”
Dr. Vreeland picked up a sandwich, bit into it with a grimace, then continued to talk and to eat intermittently: “The three of you will leave this apartment at 7 p.m., and will rendezvous with me on the west side of Park at Seventieth Street, where I’ll be waiting with a rental car—and to anticipate any questions, all arrangements have already been made. From the moment we get in that car, we will no longer be in the Vreeland family. We will all be carrying full identification, including passports, exit permits, and visas—each with our new names—and we’ll continue using them until we legally identify ourselves in our country of final destination.”
“You still haven’t said where that is,” said Denise. Alongside Night
33
“To be perfectly candid, I don’t know yet. We will be driving to International Airport, taking, at 10:05 tonight, Air Quebec Flight 757 to Montreal—one of the cities in which I have emergency assets and a number of friends. We might be there just a few days, but if much longer, you’ll have a chance to practice your French.”
“Et ensuite?” asked Elliot.
“Trop compliqué,” replied Dr. Vreeland, referring both to variables involved in choosing their next destination and to his inability to say all that in French. Dr. Vreeland paused several seconds, then managed to regain his original train of thought. “In packing your belongings, anything with our real names on it—or any pictures of me—must be left behind, no matter how treasured, no matter how valuable.”
“We’re going to have to leave almost everything behind, aren’t we?” Denise asked wistfully.
“I’m afraid so. There’s very little here that can’t be replaced, nor would I, in any case, consider personal possessions to be worth risking my family’s imprisonment. Even if your mother considers me excessively paranoid.”
“I’ll say,” Mrs. Vreeland confirmed.
Everyone turned to her. Cathryn Vreeland rarely ventured unsolicited opinions; when she did, they commanded full attention. She would have commanded it anyway: the flamehaired woman could easily have been a top commercial model, and though she was thirty-nine, bartenders still demanded her proof-of-age. “When Marty first told me his plan, I suggested that he leave alone, while we three stay behind long enough to close out affairs here normally. He wouldn’t hear of it.”
“And still won’t,” Dr. Vreeland said. “I am not about to flee the country, leaving my family behind to answer FBI questions. There will be too many discrepancies in my story within twenty-four hours. If we were leaving the country under normal circumstances, we’d be selling and giving away most of 34
Alongside Night
our belongings anyway.”
“One set of items we will risk taking,” continued Dr. Vreeland, “is twenty-five Mexican fifty-peso gold pieces—at today’s European exchange worth about eleven-and-a-half million New Dollars.” Elliot whistled. “Don’t be too impressed. When I bought them back in 1979, I only paid nine thousand old dollars for them, and they’ll buy about four times that in real goods today. But, Ell—this concerns you personally—I don’t want its value to cloud your thinking. If by ‘losing’ it or paying it as a bribe I can improve our escape chances one iota, I won’t hesitate to do so for one second.”
“Are they here?” Elliot asked.
“No, that’s just where you come in. You’re going downtown for me to get them.”
Elliot’s eyes widened.