by Michael Crow
“You one jive nigger, Luther,” he growls. Dog has a master’s in criminology, he’s more articulate than I’ll ever be, but after fifteen years on the streets popping gangbangers, it’s hard for him to shed his camouflage. “You be believin’ your shit, I let you push mine, faggot.”
“Kiss my ass, shorty. Your butt ain’t that cute since you been sittin’ on it so long.”
Dog smiles. “So you know I been there, man. Wake up every morning, nothin’ but a blank facing you. Dead hours. Lots of ’em. Damned soon, you be goin’ to bed every night hopin’ you won’t wake up.”
“Guess there ain’t no stallin’, man.”
“Maintain. You hearing me, Luther? You just gotta maintain. Do your time, like in the joint. Nigger like me can do it, you a bigger pussy than I ever thought, you got any problems at all maintainin’. Know what I’m saying?”
I feel ashamed when we punch fists.
Feel the same a little later, Annie and me alone in the kitchen, her eyes probing mine. It’s all there, clear in her gaze: I’m weak and whipped, loaded with self-pity. And for what? Because I’ll be missing the action, the big rush of busts and raids? She sees. She’s that good. She works hard at being my friend, does an amazingly graceful job of deflecting my deep romantic interest in her, which she can’t or won’t return. But I’m losing her respect on this one.
The very last thing in the world I want to happen. I say some things to Annie I hope will stop that. I go home half-believing myself, but less sure Annie believes a word.
No sign of Westley, no word from him since that day at Flannery’s. He gives me nearly a week after the party to bounce off the walls of my suburban condo, nearly a week of thinking today will be the morning I throw my duffel into the TT and drive. But never doing it, just sinking deeper into inertia. Nearly a week to reach some volatile combination of frustration, boredom, ennui, and restless, unfocused anger. Then one afternoon he’s waiting for me in a government-issue Ford some shade of dark when I leave the condo to go to the nearest mall, objective being to restock my freezer with meals I can microwave and rent a bunch of videos. Leans over when he spots me, opens the passenger door, says, “Let’s go for a drive.”
It’s certifiable. It violates every instinct, and all resolve to maintain, as Dog advised, but I get in. He drives. The opening he’s got sounds too easy: no sniping in a war zone, no covert terminations, no wet work at all. Not even clandestine. Just openly shepherding a valuable package around some sensitive parts of North Asia for a little while. I’ve never been a baby-sitter before. He knows that.
“Why me?” I ask. “You gotta have guys who specialize in that line.”
“None available that I trust. You may have noticed on CNN that we’re fairly busy these days, fairly stretched. Afghanistan, up in Kurdish Iraq, even Baghdad. And numerous other places CNN doesn’t know about,” he says in that flat, lifeless voice. If a polygraph expert asked him if he was Napoleon—or Angelina Jolie, for that matter—he’d answer yes and the polygraph would read he was telling the truth.
“None of our old Asia hands will do; they might be recognized. I need a fresh face, one that comes with your combat and escape-and-evade skills. Someone with no known connection to us, someone who’s been out of the game long enough to go unnoticed. There are some few around who fit within those parameters, but none I feel certain won’t simply empty all their magazines and make a huge mess if any little thing goes wrong. Not that I’m expecting an incident. I’m expecting smooth and seamless. No jolts. A casual stroll in and out again. But I like to allow for contingencies.”
“You forget—I am the kind who likes emptying magazines.”
“You were once, yes. You were younger, you’d fallen into bad company. But I think that would be your last resort in a situation now. I think you’d choose a quieter exit, in a situation.”
“And exactly what sort of situation are you not expecting? What sort of situation that I’ll think, instead of shoot, my way out of?”
“The simplest sort. Someone might try—it’s highly unlikely, but fools abound—somebody might try a snatch. There will be people with you to deal with any fools. Competent people. If they go to work, all you’d have to do is disappear. With the package.”
“This package? Place, time, possible threats?”
“No details until we’ve come to terms. Then you’ll be fully prepped,” Westley says.
We discuss. We discuss.
Nothing’s any clearer, any more specific a half hour later when Westley drops me back at my place. Except that I’ve accepted his offer. I spend a long night considering this decision. It’s humbling, humiliating. Every reason I come up with seems, under close examination, as stupid and immature as all the bad choices I’ve made since the first and worst, during Desert Storm. I even seriously entertain the notion that this will be my very last action, and then I’ll walk away from it all, including being a cop. But walk to where? What skills do I have? Could I make a living selling cars, or real estate? Could I find contentment—or even resigned acceptance—in any sort of quietly normal existence? I’m starting to feel hopelessly trapped when I hit the one answer that may be true. Then it turns intolerable. I am simply scared shitless that I’m facing six empty months, six months that might well be a preview of what I’ve got to look forward to for the rest of my life, if I quit the game.
Next day I call a few people, make a quick good-bye. Longer one with Annie, at her house that evening.
“You’re really heading where you claim you are, Luther?” she says, giving me the grin she must have a patent on, because I’ve never seen one on any other woman that made me want her so much. “Swear you’re not going off elsewhere, into something truly stupid?”
“Absolutely. All I want is some peace and quiet. Maybe I’ll have some fun. If I can get past missing you.”
She laughs. “You’re so full of it sometimes.”
“Am I?”
“Yeah. We’ve been seeing each other every day for years and it never got in the way of all the fun you managed with a half-dozen pretty young things, most of whose names I can’t remember.”
“Substitutes, Annie.”
“I think maybe you’ve convinced yourself at some level you want something you wouldn’t really like that much if you got it. Self-delusion, Luther. We’re good as we are.”
“You go right on thinking I’m deluded, if you like. Just let me go on being sure I’m not.”
“Haven’t I always done that? Or, more accurately, haven’t I always failed in my efforts to disabuse you of your whacked notions?” Annie laughs. “But we’ll keep dealing with that when you get back. Right now, I just want some more reassurance that you really are just going beach-bumming and will be back.”
“No problem. Hey, I won’t even be carrying. Don’t want to wind up in some south-of-the-border jail I won’t be able to bribe my way out of, on a stupid weapons charge.”
“Go carefully.” Annie kisses me on both cheeks. “You’ll have your cell?”
“Won’t work in the Yucatán. I’ll be calling you, though.”
The grin vanishes. Her eyes narrow.
“You’re lying, Luther.” She stares at me for a long minute, then says, “If I thought there was even a slight hope it’d make a difference, I’d ask you not to go.”
When I’m out on the porch, she searches my eyes for a moment, then turns and quietly closes her door.
I don’t sleep that night. Next morning I drive the TT to an address in Washington. I go in, disappear into another world. One of Westley’s young men goes out, takes my car, and makes it vanish, too.
four
WESTLEY AND HIS SPOOK HOUSE. FOUR STORIES, DARK stone, absolutely identical to every other house lining the block just off Dupont Circle, like a platoon of Marines in dress-blue parade formation. Even has six buzzers beside the front door, names and apartment numbers beside each, since all the other rowhouses have long ago been chopped into apartments, home to young GS
mid-grades, lobbyists, Hill assistants, law-firm associates doing their years-long boot camp of eighty-hour weeks, dreaming of making partner. Clever touch, the buzzers. They’ll account for all the people coming and going.
I’ve just put my duffel down on the foyer floor when Westley appears. First thing he says is “Lose the hair.” I haven’t cut it in maybe two years, it’s well past my shoulders. He scans my baggy cargoes, the long-sleeve waffle knit with a Billabong T worn over it. Second thing he says isn’t to me. “Get him some decent clothes, too,” he tells a young woman I haven’t even noticed, who’s leaning against a sideboard on the other end of the foyer. Third’s a question: “Your Russian up to speed?” When I admit it’s rusty as hell, he says he’ll have a tutor from Langley come over to work me out for a couple of hours every afternoon. Then he goes back into the room from which he emerged.
“Well? You ready?” the girl asks me, smiling. She’s about my height, slim, with a clean-featured face, straight dark brows above amber eyes, but hair a golden brown. Like toast. Very tidy, at ease in her standard-issue officewear.
“What? I don’t quite fit in, fashion-wise?”
“Something like that,” she says. “You look like every other plainclothes drug cop I’ve ever seen. Never seen one on this block, though. You guys get your clothes from some specialized catalog or something?”
“Oh yeah. It’s called Narcstyle, very limited mailing list. Cool street looks, plus professional discounts and stuff.”
“Thought so. My name’s Allison, by the way, and I’ll be your style guide and personal buyer today.”
“Cool, Allison. I’m really ready for a total makeover. Been feeling so five-minutes-ago lately.”
Her laugh is perfectly natural. The Company teaches them things like that. No detail too small. “You must have been a star in acting class at the Farm, Allison,” I say.
She doesn’t even blink. “So let’s do it, Luther,” she says, swinging open the front door and leading me down the steps and a few houses east, where she keys a British green Mini-Cooper with a white top, the vehicle that’s elbowing the Volkswagen Bug as car of choice for her demographic cohort. The engine has an appealing alto hum as she pulls out, shifts into second, swings surely onto the Circle and off three-quarters of the way around.
So Westley’s given her my real name. Means Allison here’s a senior and trusted member of his team, despite her youth. Probably also means she’s a field agent, her name isn’t Allison, and she’s got the full set of spook skills. So I’m watching her, not where we’re going, and she catches it.
“Do you always think so loudly? Or are you feeling we’ve only just met and there’s an instant chemistry so you don’t need to be quiet? Maybe even wondering how much time I’ll be spending at the house while you’re there?” She tosses me a quick smile, then refocuses on threading through the traffic web. “The answer is we’ll be together a lot. It’s not a crowded house. But you have a lot of work to do. A killer workload. Let’s do hair first.”
Fucking Westley. I’d love to get a look at the psych profile he has on me. I just know I’m going to be doing most of my prep work with a bunch of Allisons.
She finds a parking spot only a Mini could squeeze into. We walk half a block to Wisconsin Avenue. I haven’t spent much time in D.C., but I know we’re in Georgetown. She leads me into a hair place called Cutz. Allison tells the cutter what to do. “Short, but not too. A little tousled, sort of a Brad Pitt thing. But brushable down to corporate?”
“No problem,” says the girl with the scissors, fingering my ponytail. I feel kind of like a show dog about to be groomed for exhibition. “Great hair. Thick. Good body. The split ends’ll all wind up on the floor. A no-gel cut, though, right?”
“Exactly,” Allison says.
I’m looking in the mirror, seeing a familiar face, the one I’ve lived behind all my life. “You’re, like, really unusual, man,” says the cutter, who has a black Maori tattoo on her neck, an opal stud in one nostril, and two blood-red streaks in her blond hair. “Cool bones.”
“I’m Patagonian,” I say. I hear Allison stifle a chuckle when the cutter says, “Wow! Never seen one of those before. Where is Patagonia? South Seas, like Tahiti or something?”
“About as south as it gets,” I say. Why should I tell her I’m what came out of a union between an Afro-American Marine and a Viet girl with a touch of French blood? I don’t look much like either my father or my mother, anyway. My skin’s light copper, I’ve got a large Gallic-type nose, and my hair is as straight as if it’s been ironed. High, sharp cheekbones, moderately full lips. My eyes have a slight Asian cant, but they’re gray-green, not black. When I was in Special Forces, the grunts called me their Comanche; what would they know about Native Americans? So I went with that, passed myself off as a full-blood. They dug it.
“Do all Patagonians look like you?” the cutter asks between snips. “I mean, the cool bones and great skin and eyes and all?”
“Oh yeah,” I say. “I’m average, totally.”
Half an hour later we walk out, Allison saying, “Great look. Suits you, Luther, though no Brad Pitt. He’s about your age now, imagine that. God, the crush I had on him when I was in high school and Legends of the Fall came out. He was so beautiful.”
I’m thinking I look a lot more like a not-so-young assistant to a Democratic House member from Massachusetts than any actor this kid had the adolescent hots for. But not real uncomfortable about it.
Can’t say the same about the suits. We drive a long way out Wisconsin to a very upscale mall in a very upscale, very close-in Montgomery County suburb. Saks Fifth Avenue has a branch there, and Allison takes me to the aspiring-to-be-CEO menswear section so directly I’m thinking she must shop here a couple times a month. I stand there like a tailor’s dummy while she and the salesman pull half a dozen Oxxfords or Hickey-Freemans or whatever youngish executives in conservative corporations wear off the racks. The salesman only slips the jackets on me. They all seem a size too large. She settles on four: deepest navy, two grays so charcoal they’re almost black, one dark blue with the faintest pinstripe. “Oh, never mind that. We have a little man who does it just right,” Allison tells the salesman when he wants to call out the tailor for alterations. “Just put them in garment bags, please.”
Then it’s shirts: a dozen white oxford button-downs; ties: three muted paisleys, three rep striped regimentals, all silk; socks: a dozen black merino over-the-calves; shoes: one pair of wing tips, one pair of cap-toes, one pair of dress loafers, all black and all Church’s.
It’s a one-stop for everything else: the store’s Polo boutique. That’s where I finally say “You’ve got to be kidding,” and Allison says, “Negative. You know what it’s about.” A pair of khakis, a pair of jeans, a couple of polos, two cashmere V-necks. “Boxers or jockeys?” is the only question Allison asks, and scoops up a dozen when I answer jockeys. She carries a couple of the shopping bags but I’m listing under my load when we leave the store. It takes maybe ten minutes to find a way to stow everything in the Mini’s tiny trunk and rear seat area.
“Hey, that was fun, wasn’t it? Come on, admit it, Luther,” she says brightly as we’re cruising back to the spook house.
“Terrific. Loved every minute.” I’m bored, tired, already fed up.
“You were billed as a professional. Misinformation, or are you just really, really rusty? Too much time on the shelf?” Her voice isn’t bright now. I know she’s going to report every detail of our little expedition to Westley, with a concentration on my behavior and attitude. And Westley, this early, could easily cancel my contract without the mess of canceling my ticket, too. It’s all role-play, and time for me to switch mine if I want to stay on this job.
“Hey, Allison, you might want to consider lightening up. I’m just giving you a little of what you expected. Small-time narc, not too clever, attitude problem, way below Agency officer standard. Only asset he’s got is close-combat skills. And why the hell do w
e have to use low-life contractors like this Luther guy, anyway? That’s what you’ve been thinking. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
She glances at me once, then once again. “Everything’s a test.”
“I know. They really drum that one into you at the Farm. Takes years to get over it.”
She keeps her focus on the traffic ahead, but I see a hint of a smile playing about her mouth.
Then I know this: Allison’s going to be my main handler during mission prep.
Could be worse.
My room’s on the third floor of the spook house. It’s nice enough: comfortable double bed, easy chair, a desk with a neat NEC laptop, and a full bathroom with tub, shower, hotel towels. Someone’s unpacked my duffel, hung up my clothes in the armoire, placed my weapons—still in their holsters—on the night table beside the bed. But all the mags for the SIG and the Walther have been emptied, my cell’s nowhere, there’s no phone. And there’s no lock on the door.
For a moment my heart rate goes up a few beats. It’s involuntary, a reaction to a feeling of vulnerability. I chill. I don’t need pistols here, I wouldn’t want to call anyone even if I could, and what’s it matter if Allison or anyone else can barge in on me anytime they want? Worst case is somebody catches me jerking off, which would embarrass them more than it would me. Fuck it. I take a long shower, towel off, dress in the clothes I started the day in, and lie down on the bed.
I must drift off, because I’m seeing Annie, hearing her say I’m hemorrhaging and she’s going to clamp the artery, hearing her say, “Luther? Luther?” and suddenly I’m bolt upright and there’s Allison framed in the doorway calling my name.