The Identity Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

he growled.
    He got out and led the way to a narrow drive between a fabric store and a dry cleaner. Shannon followed him, alert, looking for trouble this way and that. He was wearing a black windbreaker now. He had a canvas roll tucked into the inside pocket.
    They went down the drive to where it ended at a quaint house hidden among trees. It was a three-story Victorian clapboard with a porch and a gabled roof and a fanciful turret and blue trim painted around the windows. There was a painted sign at the entrance to the porch steps: THE WHITTAKER CENTER . There were cheerful swirling vine designs around the words.
    It was a foundation of some kind. A charity or something. Benny had a friend who worked security there. The guy had given Benny the patrol times and the alarm codes and told him where there was an old combination safe full of cash. Apparently they kept a lot of cash around. People could just drop in and get a handful of dollars if they needed it badly enough.
    Shannon took a look around the place as they went up the porch steps. He was reassured by the location, the way the house was set back from the road. No one driving by on the street was likely to notice them and there were no neighbors who might spot them with a glance out a nearby window either.
    But one thing did worry him. The front door had a top pane of beveled glass and he could see a yellow glow through it.
    "There's a light on in there," he said in a soft voice.
    "Just for security," said Benny. They were shoulder to shoulder and Shannon could smell the vomitous scent of old beer on him. "The guard only comes by on the even hours. I told you. They just walk around outside."
    Shannon nodded. Benny
had
told him that, but he was not convinced.
    Shannon knelt in front of the door. He had a small penlight that sent out a blue beam. He held the penlight in his teeth so that the beam shone on his work. He brought out his canvas roll, laid it on the porch, and spread it open. It was the same kind of roll he used for his gouges when he carved wood. It was lined with pockets for his tools. He drew out a snapper pick for the front door and was through the lock in five seconds. The alarm warning sounded, a steady shrill, but soft, too soft to be heard outside the building. There was a sixty-second delay before the real alarm went off. Benny had told him that, too.
    Shannon gathered his roll and strode quickly across the foyer to the keypad. He kept the flashlight clenched in his teeth so that the blue beam played over the keys. He tapped in the code Benny had given him—half expecting it to fail, half expecting the full alarm to blow like the last trumpet. But no, the code worked. The alarm was disabled. The house went silent around them.
    Benny had his flashlight out now, too. It was bigger than Shannon's and had a bright white beam. He shone it only long enough to pick out the way to the stairs, then turned it off. He moved to the stairs and went up two at a time. Shannon rolled up his tools and followed him.
    Later, Shannon remembered that he noticed something at this point. He noticed there were no lights on anywhere in the house. He had seen that glow through the glass of the door, so there must have been a light on before but now there wasn't. That didn't make sense, but Shannon dismissed the thought before he really considered it. Maybe he didn't want to think about it now that he was in so deep.
    On the second floor landing, Benny shone his flashlight beam briefly again and picked out a door across from the stairway. He tilted his head at it. Shannon went to the door and picked the lock with one of his triple-nine bump keys. He went through, into a small cluttered office. Benny stayed by the door, but he shone his flashlight at a wooden cabinet built into the wall behind the desk.
    "In there," he whispered.
    Shannon went around the desk. He knelt in front of the cabinet and spread out his roll of tools. In another few seconds, he had the cabinet door