The Honorable Traitors

by John Lutz

  “The Shapeshifter isn’t going to suddenly get sloppy at this point. If he really was an Iranian agent, he never would’ve mentioned the Shah.”

  “He’s just trying to throw us off, you mean.”

  “He has to figure that we’re on his trail. That we’re smart enough to make the connections between the murders of Orton and Lester and the fact that their fathers were stationed at Hunter’s Point.”

  “For all the good it does us. We keep showing up too late. If only we could get ahead of the bastard.”

  “Who’s next on your list, Ava?”

  “For all we know, the Shapeshifter has all the information he needs to find the bomb. He doesn’t need to go looking for any more descendants of Hunter’s Point officers.”

  “If that’s true, we’ve hit a dead end. So let’s assume it’s not.”

  “Lucky Laker.” She was looking over at him. “You really believe your luck will hold, don’t you?

  “When I have no other choice.”

  They had reached the freeway entrance. Laker took the turn and accelerated up the ramp.

  “We’re heading back to the airport?” Ava asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then where?”

  “You tell me. Who’s next on your list?”

  “Laker, I have nothing worthy of being called a list. Dozens of Hunter’s Point officers have children still living. A couple of them are still alive themselves. There’s no logical way to determine who could have been an accomplice of—”

  “Once you had Orton, you figured out Lester. Now you have the two of them. Who’s next?”

  “All I have is a best guess. Based on the lines and boxes on the Hunter’s Point organizational chart. And the fact that before the war this man was assigned to a cruiser based at Pearl Harbor, where he could have been recruited by Hirochi Ryo. Maybe.”

  “The name?”

  “Lieutenant Commander Morgan Walker. He has one child still living, Harry Walker.”

  “Living where?”

  “Cleveland.”

  “Then that’s where we’re going.” Laker glanced at his watch. “If your guess is right, we’re only twelve to fifteen hours behind the Shapeshifter. Let’s hope that’s good enough for us.”

  “Let’s hope it’s good enough for Harry Walker,” Ava said.

  43

  At House Supply, a big-box store in a mega-mall near I-480 in the Cleveland suburbs, Harry Walker was working the evening shift, doing greeter duty. He was a wiry old guy, more hair on his forearms than his head, eyebrows like inverted Vs and a goatee he’d dyed to its original black. It was a face like a child’s drawing of the Devil, and smiling didn’t make Walker look any more benevolent. He probably wasn’t cut out to be a greeter.

  The floor manager Mr. Berkholder—Walker loved having to call a man thirty years his junior Mister—had told him he’d have to make the greeter concept, which was new to House Supply, work. It was up to him and his fellow geezers to keep the do-it-yourselfers from being intimidated as they entered the vast, impersonal store. Make it seem as friendly as the little hardware stores House Supply had driven out of business. The greeters would also serve as good PR for the caring corporation that gave jobs to retirees who couldn’t make ends meet on their pensions.

  That covered Walker. He’d made a career of being downsized just before he vested. Now he was scraping along on Social Security only. The pittance he earned here made a big difference in his life. Enabled him to put gas in the car, take his grandson to an occasional Browns game. He had to make it work, as Mr. Berkholder said.

  So he stood in front of the doors saying, “Welcome to House Supply!” Most shoppers didn’t get the concept. They looked right through him and walked on by. Others ducked their heads and muttered they didn’t need any help. The ones who did want help were a real pain. They’d ask him where some exotic tool was and he’d have no idea. One old guy silently placed a strange, oily mechanism in his hands and gave him an imploring look, expecting him to fix it on the spot.

  Eventually Walker’d had enough. He moved over to the side and leaned on a shopping cart. When the doors opened he called out “Welcome to House Supply!” Nobody figured he was talking to them.

  When he looked back on his life, as he had too much leisure to do, he always concluded things had started to go wrong when he dropped out of Ohio State. His dad said that was all right, Ohio State had too many defense contracts, just as well not be involved with them when they were doing evil.

  Morgan Walker was against all forms of violence, even bawling out his son for partying and skipping class. He’d been a career Navy man, but World War II made him do a one-eighty. He spent the rest of his life working to ban the bomb. Harry’d grown up in a chaotic house, full of envelopes to stuff and lists of congressmen to be called. There were always strangers sleeping on the couch, in town for a protest march. Morgan regularly spent nights in jail, having been arrested for civil disobedience.

  Long before he was old enough to grasp the complexities of nuclear disarmament, Harry had known instinctively that his dad just didn’t understand what life was about. Namely, money. Let Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave do the demonstrating. His dad ought to be supporting the family. But between the absences and the arrests, Morgan Walker had a hard time holding on to a job. Any job.

  Life had played the same practical joke on Harry that it’d played on other baby boomers. He spent his youth pointing out his father’s mistakes. And his adulthood repeating them. Too many mornings he turned off the alarm and got in late. Too many times he argued with co-workers. Harry couldn’t hold a job, either. Only difference was, he didn’t have a Cause.

  He put his hands in two of the many pockets of his carpenter’s apron in House Supply orange. Gazed idly out the glass doors into the parking lot. The sun was low in the western sky, but the lot was still full. He couldn’t see any empty spaces, except the handicapped ones just across from the door.

  A sleek red car with rear fenders like a supermodel’s hips pivoted nimbly and slid into one of those spaces, right under the “Handicapped only, $50 fine” sign. It was a Ferrari, the new 458 Italia model. A young guy hoisted himself out of the driver’s seat and headed for House Supply. No sign of a disability. Blond hair, expensively cut, sunglasses, a tan linen suit, white shirt, no tie. Walker was thinking of calling the cops. See if a $50 parking ticket would make any impression on this beauty. He reached for his cell phone. Then it came to him.

  This might be the guy he was waiting for.

  His hand came out of his pocket and he moved back to his position in front of the doors. They slid open and Mr. Ferrari walked in.

  “Welcome to House Supply,” Walker said.

  The guy hadn’t taken off his sunglasses. He approached Walker with a smile. Perfectly even teeth, white against his suntan. He read Walker’s name tag.

  “Harry Walker. Just the man I want to see.”

  “Yeah? Who are you?”

  “Brent Armitage.”

  He put out his hand. Walker looked down at it. “I just greet verbally. Hugs and handshakes are against the rules.”

  “Sorry.” The hand dropped. “I’d like to talk to you about a matter of mutual interest. Let me take you to dinner.”

  “My break’s not for another hour. And it’s only twenty minutes.”

  Armitage was still smiling. “I understand the constraints. Why don’t we take a stroll, as if you’re escorting me to the section where I can find the item I’ve asked for?” He had a stilted way of talking and a faint accent, German or something. “Would that be allowed?”

  “Sure.”

  He turned and they set off down one of the wide, busy aisles, lined with merchandise up to far above the level of their heads. House Supply looked more like a warehouse than a store.

  “So?” Walker said. “State your business.”

  “It’s highly confidential. Can we go somewhere a bit more secluded?” Armitage asked.

  “Secluded
? Sure. I know just the place.”

  * * *

  Laker had a thing for cars. He didn’t talk about them much, which Ava appreciated, but she knew he was restoring a ’64 Mustang. And she’d seen his eyes light up when the guy at the Hertz counter at Cleveland-Hopkins Airport said he had a Camaro convertible available. Now they were barreling down I-480, Ava slumping in her seat and holding the brim of her hat down with both hands. He’d been driving fast since they’d left Harry Walker’s apartment building, where his neighbor informed them of where he worked.

  Shouting above the wind-roar, she said, “You seem to think Walker working as a greeter at House Supply makes him more likely to be our man.”

  “At least we know he was alive and well at 2 pm, when he left for work.”

  Ava glanced at Laker’s golfing jacket. It was a warm evening, no reason for him to be wearing it. Unless it was to cover the Beretta M9 in its shoulder holster. She decided not to ask.

  * * *

  The lumber department was located in a far corner of the enormous store. Noisy when the power-saw was cutting boards to measure, it was quiet now. They walked down empty aisles between stacks of cordwood, shelved sheets of plywood tall as a man. There was the dry, pleasant smell of sawdust.

  “Secluded enough for you?” Walker asked, as he gestured for Armitage to go past him into a side aisle.

  “Yes.”

  Walker didn’t follow. He waited until Armitage was a few steps away. His hand came out of the apron. There was a gun in it, a .22 target pistol. Armitage turned and saw it. He went as still as a deer, when you come upon it in the woods, coiling all its muscles for a leap. Walker raised the pistol until it was pointed at Armitage’s head. He saw the man relax. Arms hanging at his sides, both feet flat on the floor. It wasn’t the first time he’d had a gun pointed at him, Walker instinctively knew, and he didn’t think he was out of options.

  “You can put that away,” he said calmly. “I’m only a businessman with a proposition for you.”

  “Oh, I know who you are. What you did, anyway. I watch the news. I know about Orton and Lester.”

  He expected a reaction, but the tanned, handsome face remained expressionless.

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” Armitage said. “Perhaps you could tell me about them?”

  “No. Tell me about yourself. Who the hell are you?”

  “Armitage is my real name. I’m from Geneva.”

  “New York?”

  “Switzerland.”

  “And what do you do, Armitage?”

  “As I said, I’m a businessman. I buy and sell.”

  “What kind of merchandise.”

  “I’m the man you want to go to, before you go to war.”

  “Arms dealer,” said Walker. He was still pointing the gun at him, the blade sight lined up on his nose.

  “Yes. And between us, we can put on the international market the most valuable property ever to be offered.”

  “For sale to the highest bidder?”

  “I believe those are the terms you’ve had in mind? For quite a long time.”

  “So you got that out of Orton or Lester?”

  “I know everything about . . .” He hesitated, then the smile reappeared. “About Bobby Soxer. Except for one bit of numeric code, which you can provide me with.”

  “You’re moving too fast, pal. I’m still thinking about ordering you to assume the position while I call the cops and tell them I have a murderer to turn over to them.”

  “You must enjoy working at House Supply.”

  Walker didn’t have a reply to that. He found that the blade sight was wavering. He put up his left hand to brace his gun hand.

  “I wish you’d put that away,” said Armitage. “We’re going to be partners. Let’s go have that dinner and talk it all over. We don’t want to miss our reservation, which was hard to get. You know Lola Bistro?”

  “Heard of it.” Never dreamed of being able to afford it, he thought. Armitage raised his arm and checked his watch, a big Rolex. The glint off the gold distracted Walker. Too late he said, “Keep your hands at your sides.”

  Instead Armitage folded his arms. “Harry, I don’t think you’re going to shoot me.”

  The barrel was wavering. Walker took aim again. Said, “Dick Lester walked out of a bar with you and hasn’t been seen again. I’m pretty sure he won’t be.”

  “I’m well aware that I’m not dealing with Dick Lester now. Come on, Harry, forget Lester and Orton. They were losers. Obsessed with their fathers. Stuck in the past. You’re the one who’s always known the right thing to do with Bobby Soxer. And I’m the one to help you. Let’s get going.”

  Walker lowered the pistol. He said, “You first.”

  Armitage smiled and walked by him. They headed toward the entrance. Over his shoulder Armitage said, “Remember to put the gun away, Harry. We don’t want to alarm the customers. Only don’t put it back in that ridiculous orange apron. You’re about to take that off. For good.”

  Walker flicked the pistol on safe and slipped it into his trouser pocket.

  * * *

  The automatic doors slid open and Ava, hobbling in her surgical boot, followed Laker into the bright, deliciously cool interior of the store.

  “Welcome to House Supply,” said a man who could not be Walker. In fact, he didn’t look like the usual senior-citizen greeter at all. He was a young man with a short haircut and tiny round glasses. He had a necktie, a shirt pocket lined with pens, and a cell phone holstered to his belt. His name badge said, “Berkholder.”

  “We’re looking for Harry Walker,” Laker said.

  The smooth young face sprouted clefts and wrinkles of annoyance. “You just missed the old bastard. And he won’t be coming back.”

  “What happened?” Laker asked.

  The wrinkles shifted, as anxiety replaced annoyance. “Sorry, sir. I’m not supposed to use that kind of language in front of a customer. It’s just that I’m kind of pissed off—sorry, didn’t mean to say that, either.”

  “It’s okay, we won’t complain to management. Just tell us what happened.”

  “I came down here and Walker wasn’t at his post. So I went looking for him. Met him coming up the aisle. He took off his apron and gave it to me—no, threw it at me. Said something I won’t repeat. Then he and the other guy walked out the door and got in a red Ferrari.”

  “Other guy?”

  “Blond guy, in sunglasses and a suit. Don’t know who he was.”

  “And this was how long ago?”

  “Five, ten minutes. No more.”

  “Thanks.”

  Pivoting on his heel, Laker set off at a trot. Ava limped after him. Outside the sun had set but it was still light. The neon signs of the stores were just beginning to show their brightness. They returned to the Camaro. Laker backed out of the space, shifted and stamped the accelerator. With engine roaring they took off, weaving among slowly moving cars toward the exit. Reaching the main road he swung the wheel into a tire-squealing left turn.

  “Shouldn’t you turn right?” Ava said. “That’s the way to the interstate. More likely they went that way.”

  “We just came that way. They would’ve had to pass us.”

  “But we weren’t looking for them.”

  “I’d have noticed a red Ferrari.”

  Laker switched his headlights on high beams, ignoring the annoyed flashes from oncoming drivers. Development tailed off on the far side of the mall, with only a few gas stations and fast-food franchises separated by stretches of woods. Laker slowed as he passed each one, looking for the Ferrari.

  They came to a Jimmy Dean’s, sign dark, windows boarded up, no cars in the lot. Laker hit the brakes, swung into the entrance. Now she saw what he’d seen, and gasped. A man was lying in the drive-through lane. He was motionless. A smear of blood on the asphalt behind him indicated he’d crawled from the back of the building, trying to get to the road. He hadn’t made it.

  “Stay here.”


  Laker was out of the car, leaving the door open. In a crouch he moved quickly past the man. The Beretta was in his hand. He looked around the side of the building. Then he straightened up and holstered the gun, nodding to Ava that it was safe to get out of the car. She hobbled to the man’s side and went awkwardly down on one knee. He was a bald, skinny old guy: Walker. She called to Laker, “He’s alive.”

  The man’s breathing was loud and uneven. Laker knelt beside her and they turned him over. His skin was dusky, his lips blue. He opened his eyes, attempted to speak but couldn’t. On the right side, his shirt was soaked with blood from a bullet wound.

  “We have to stop the bleeding,” Ava said.

  “The bleeding’s not as bad as it looks. He’s not hemorrhaging. He’s asphyxiating.”

  “But Laker, he’s breathing.”

  Walker’s mouth was wide open and his whole torso was quaking with the effort to take in breath.

  “His lungs aren’t working. Air’s building up in the chest cavity and the lungs are collapsing. Have you got a pen?”

  “A what?”

  “A pen.”

  She reached in a pocket and handed him a Bic. Laker tore open Walker’s shirt, exposing the quaking flesh over his ribs and the small hole made by the bullet. Holding the pen in his fingertips, Laker took aim and deftly plunged it into the hole. Walker grunted.

  Ava pulled out her cell phone and began to touch keys.

  “Don’t dial 911,” Laker said.

  She looked at him, puzzled.

  “He’s going to an Outfit safe house, not to the police.”

  “But he needs a doctor.”

  “He’ll get one. For the moment he’s out of danger.”

  She could hardly believe it, but the next couple of minutes proved Laker right. Walker’s breathing became steadily less labored. Some color returned to his face. He swallowed and gasped, “Water.”

  Ava went to the car and bent to retrieve a bottle of Dasani from under her seat. When she returned, Laker had Walker propped against the wall of the building. The Bic jutting from between his ribs made her cringe. He took the bottle in his left hand and drank, taking several long swallows before he began to cough. When he gave the bottle back, the water was tinged pink. He looked at her, then at Laker.