The Spy

by Garbo Norman

  He looked at his watch. They had been together in that car for fifteen minutes. Which was much too long. According to the instructions he had given the professor, this first meeting was to have established just two things: some proof of the Service contact’s authenticity, and arrangements for a second meeting at which the alleged top-coded document would be handed over. Five minutes, or less, should have been all the time required Conditioned to having such things go off on a tight schedule. Burke began to fret. When an estimate was this far off, something had to be wrong. He had great confidence in the professor, but age was always a factor and he could have lapses. Simp!; driving behind him was an ordeal. Then he felt guilty over so harsh a judgment, and thought… You should be as sharp as that old man. So just relax.

  But he decided to allow only five more minutes. If nothing happened then, if the contact did not leave the car, he would drive past and find out what was going on.

  Restlessly, he glanced over at the middle-aged lovers in the Seville, saw them embracing and wished he had Angela with him. At least the waiting would be more palatable. Not a bad idea for the Service. They should introduce the use of sexually mixed pain for the long, dull surveillances. Efficiency through sexual titillation. He saw the woman’s head suddenly drop out of sight so that her companion seemed to be sitting alone behind the wheel. Oh. lovely, Burke thought, and felt himself wanting Angela more than ever. Beautiful. And under any and all conditions. God bless the human animal, he thought in silent benediction, and its sublimely opportunistic sexuality-Or was it just one of the unadvertised options that came with fourteen-thousand-dollar Cadillacs?

  Then the professor’s car door opened, the man got out, and Burke instinctively reached for his binoculars. He decided he would take a chance on using them.

  They did him no good. The man was walking away from him and it was impossible to see his face. Burke put down the glasses and started the van’s motor. When he saw the professor’s Chevrolet move towards the parking lot exit, he drove slowly after the man who, instead of getting into a car of his own, headed directly for the line of stores in the mall Hurriedly, Burked parked in another spot and got out to follow.

  The mall was one of the new, enclosed types and Burke saw his man go through the nearest entrance and disappear in a swirl of shoppers. Running to catch up, he found him again about fifty yards ahead. At this point he was not even bothering to check his own rear. If the man had any back-up operating, they would have had him spotted by now anyway and he would deal with that if and when it occurred. The only thing he was interested in right now was not losing the man. Which was all wrong, of course, but here he was.

  Once more, he felt his earlier sensation of familiarity. It wriggled in his gut like a nest of worms. It worked on him as he bucked through the crowds. The man’s coat was loose and shapeless, his collar turned up, his hat pulled low over his eyes, and he might have been anyone.

  Then the man turned to go into a department store and Burke caught his first glimpse of his face in profile, saw, from perhaps a distance of thirty yards, fragments of nose, cheek, and chin, saw just a single deep-set eye. In that instant the best pieces of a lifetime drained out of him. Only the worst remained. He should have known it before. He should have recognized that walk instantly from seventyfive yards away in the parking lot. Because there had surely never been anyone else on the planet who walked precisely the same way, no one with as quick, impatient, and purposeful a stride as Tony Kreuger.

  By the time Burke reached the store itself, the man was gone..

  Tony, you sonofabitch, he thought.

  He sought the soothing darkness of a nearby bar and put down most of a double bourbon in a single gulp. This one was a beauty, he thought, and ordered himself another drink to fuel further speculation. Paradox. The more liquor-soaked his brain, the more decisively it seemed to function today. But he would happily have given up a lot of bourbon to have sat, unseen, in the back seat of the professor’s Chevrolet for those fifteen or twenty minutes this afternoon. What a discussion that must have been. How had Tony gone about explaining things to the professor? How had he tried to justify the unique cruelty of making a father attend a beloved son’s funeral? And what reason had he given for wanting a lifelong friend dead? Surely some sort of explanation must have been offered. Or maybe not. Maybe no answers or explanations were handed out that afternoon in the green Chevrolet. Maybe it was enough for Tony to just fall back on that great, catch-all Kreuger Commandment, which merely declared in letters of stone: It had to be done.

  But would that really be enough for the professor? Surely a man like the professor would require a lot more reason than that to betray him. And if he did want more reason, what would Tony tell him? What new fiction would he create? Unless no lies were needed. Unless Tony had knowledge of certain lethal truths that he, Burke knew nothing about. Which brought him full circle to the big question: Why now? What had happened recently that he did not know about, that suddenly made it so vital for him to be eliminated?

  Then having finally had enough of questions he could not answer, he paid his check and left the bar.

  It had grown dark outside and it took him a moment to orient himself. Crossing the parking lot, he walked a trifle unsteadily as the air hit him. It was a clear night with a great many stars and Burke paused in the middle of the lot to stare up through the darkness. Once, a long time ago, he and Tony had walked together on a similar winter night. Burke remembered it.

  They had just come off an assignment that had turned out better than either of them had expected and they were both feeling good, and life was full of promise, and food and drink were waiting for them in a warm sweet-smelling restaurant. “Lord, we’re lucky,” Tony had said softly … only that, nothing more, although for him that was a great deal. And Burke, for an instant, almost thought the words had come from his own mouth because he had had the exact same feeling.

  Where had that feeling gone now? And what had happened to the life so full of promise?

  Finding the rented van, he started what he knew was going to be a long, lonely drive back to New York.

  Chapter 15

  Burke sat in his car, hands in his coat pockets, fingering clusters of dimes and quarters — dimes in one pocket, quarters in another. He was parked under the defunct West Side Highway at Fifty-third Street, about fifty yards from the long line of Hudson River piers. The latest of the Queens was in, her lights glowing through the dark, each bulb throwing its own halo. A sea-going Christmas tree, he thought, crammed full of good things. How nice if he and Angela could be aboard when she sailed in the morning. For a moment he enjoyed a happy vision of the two of them walking up the gangplank together, saw them finding their cabin, watched them closing and locking the door as the engines took hold. Maybe, just maybe, they would consider coming out for occasional meals. Ships had always intrigued him. Any kind. From fishing trawlers and tugs, to luxury liners and battle wagons. He sometimes wondered whether it was because his father lay buried in Pearl Harbor. A fact that had just the opposite effect on his mother, who absolutely refused to set foot on anything afloat. When he was nine, he told his mother lie wanted to be a sailor when he grew up. The fury of her reaction kept him from ever mentioning the subject again.

  He glanced at his watch. It was 10:49, exactly eleven minutes from calling time. The phone booth he planned to use stood across the street under a corner light. The gas station behind it was dark, closed for the night at 10:30. Earlier Burke had checked out the phone itself to be certain it was in working order. Lately half the street phones in New York seemed to be broken. There was apparently something about the telephone company that inspired more than the normal public inclination to vandalism, thievery, and scatological attack. Many booths had taken on the look and stink of toilets. And what moral judgment, what significant philosophical statement did that offer upon the blessings of urban communication?

  Silly, random thoughts. Burke was trying hard to distract himself from what
lay ahead. He was not looking forward to this call. None of the calls he had to make these days were good, but this was sure to be one of the worst. He had wondered how long it was going to take before the professor left the message requiring him to call back. He had thought about it, dreaded it and finally talked to Angela about it. “The worst of it is,” he said, during one of his nighttime visits, “that I really care about that old man. Damn it, who needed this? Wasn’t I rolling around in enough crap without having to fall into this too?”

  She said nothing. What he needed mostly, was the chance to talk out his anger and frustration, and she was the only one he could talk to. Just two nights before he had told her about discovering Tony alive. Though shocked herself, she had helped him absorb the hurt, commiserating, holding him, finally trying to soak and rub the worst of it away in a hot tub. In the steaming water she had worked gently on his arms, legs, body, as if each belonged to the child they’d never had. And whatever the water failed to bless, she took care of later with love.

  Burke laughed harshly. “Talk about irony. I mean the professor was desperate to help, was actually grateful for the chance. It was a personal vendetta for him. He’d not only be saving me, but be taking vengeance on the villains who’d murdered his son. Now his son turns out to be alive, and I end up the bloody villain “

  “You don’t know that, Richard.”

  “Don’t know what?”

  “That he regards you as the villain.”

  “How else can he regard me? Tony is his son! And if Tony wants me dead — whatever his reasons — then he’ll want me dead to.” He stared broodingly at the slight cleft in her chin, then leaned across the narrow kitchen table and kissed it. Her hand slipped to the back of his head, held him for a moment, released him. “Aah,” he sighed. “What the hell. At least he has his Tony back.”

  Her eyes offered love. “You know something? You’re a very nice man.”

  “I’m not a very nice man. I’m a very angry, confused, and frightened man. But occasionally I have you. Which is something 1 never expected to have again. And once in a while, thinking about that, or looking at that special place on your chin, it helps me be a bit nicer than I am.”

  “My strange-faced love,” she smiled.

  “I’m that, all right.” But then he was lost in it again. “I don’t even know where I am now. I thought if I could trace this to its source, I’d at least have a chance to do something positive. Now I come up with Tony, of all people, and haven’t any idea at all what that means. Other than that my once good friend believes the country would somehow best be served by my removal from it.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  He thought about it. “Take off my clothes.”

  “And then?”

  “Make love to you.”

  “And after that?”

  “After that, I’ll probably lie in bed beside you, wondering when the professor is going to leave his message. Then I’ll try to figure out how that sweet, gentle old man plans to set me up so his resurrected son can blow my brains out”

  “Aren’t you going to sleep at all?”

  “I can’t afford to waste the time.”

  But he did sleep. And so soundly that she had to waken him when it was time to go. Startled, he jumped, naked from the bed. “What time is it?”

  “Five o’clock. I almost didn’t wake you. I was tempted to just let you sleep.”

  Shivering, he struggled into his clothes. “Great. Then I’d have had to stay all day and into tomorrow night.”

  “So? Would that be the end of the world? You could rest You need it. Look how you look.”

  “Okay, Ma.”

  “Never mind. How long do you think yon can keep running around like this?”

  Working into his pants, he did not answer.

  “Don’t you think you could take twenty-four hours in a row of me?”

  “What twenty-four hours? You’ll be leaving for work soon.”

  “I’ll take the day off.”

  He stopped dressing. “Could you do that?”

  “I’ll be sick.”

  “You’re never sick. You haven’t been sick in twenty years.”

  “I’ll be sick tomorrow.”

  He looked at her and things were going on inside him. Then he slowly began dressing again.

  “You’ve got a whole new face, but nothing else is new, is it?”

  “I guess not,” he said.

  Afterwards, away from her and alone, he felt the residue of disgust. He was hopeless. He’d never learn. On the edge of eternity itself, he’d still deny himself longed-for pleasures. And for what? It certainly was not the old puritan work ethic. He had no work. He had only the business of staying alive. Which was getting to be a full time job, but would still not have suffered appreciably if he had indulged himself for twenty-four hours.

  In his car under the elevated highway, he glanced at his watch once more. Six minutes to go. He measured everything in minutes these days — they crawled, hardly moved at all. Only the years seemed to fly. Looking back, he was unable to separate one from the other. He had been so young. When had he gotten middle-aged? What had happened in between, and why didn’t he feel any different? If you were middle-aged, shouldn’t you feel middle-aged? Still, when he looked in the mirror, his face was young, falsely so, but young. The miracle of modern surgery. Every man a Peter Pan. At the age of ninety, body and brain a shambles, he’d be able to die an apparent juvenile. Except that he was far more likely to die at forty-five. He thought about that for a moment. So? And what if they did keep him from reaching his next birthday? What was the big loss? Had he ever really savored the process of living that much? Sometimes he suspected he moved from one day to the next more out of a sense of habit than of genuine desire. Or if not habit, then perhaps out of a stubborn sense of duty. Oh, he was stubborn, all right. If everyone was supposed to live as long as humanly possible, then by God, that was what he would do. And how foolish, really. He had no firm contracts. If the struggle simply to keep moving from one minute, one hour, one day to the next finally became more trouble than it was worth, where did it say that he had to keep pushing it.

  Burke smiled bleakly out at the phone booth and let himself toy with the idea. All he’d really have to do would be to speak to the professor, allow himself to be conned into another meeting, and then let Tony pump a bullet into the back of his head. Tony was competent. He had never been a bungler. If he did this, he would do it right. And wasn’t it always classier, more fitting, to be kissed off by a friend?

  Very funny. He really ought to arrange a reunion of his whole hospital gang so he could share his jokes with them. They could do with a few laughs these days.

  But just the thought of his four fellow plastics smothered all trace of his poor gallows humor. There was nothing funny about what he had gotten them into. And every day that passed seemed to make it worse. During the past thirty-six hours he had either seen or spoken to all of them, and nothing promising had come from any of it. Having arranged a trial run for David, he had watched him walk up Fifth Avenue at high noon and picked out at least four people tailing him. So breaking him loose, as he had promised, was obviously not going to be easy. Lilly, more involved with Frank Harkevy by the hour, still thought she was going to be a big help, but had to be heading straight for disaster. Yet what could he do to stop her? As for Pamela and Hank, the latest news from them was that Pam had been fired from her fifteen-year career job with a major corporation solely because of Service pressure, and had no chance of being hired anywhere else. The only plus factor for these two was that they at least had each other and were less alone than before. Could he perhaps take a small piece of credit for that?

  Sitting there, guilt rode him like a horned beast. They deserved better. Yet what could he have done differently? Surely he hadn’t wished any part of this on them. If blame was to be placed, it had to start with the simple bad luck that had thrown them into the hospital with him.

&n
bsp; At 10:58 he left his car, walked across to the telephone booth, and dialed the public phone in Maryland where he knew Professor Kreuger would be waiting. He heard the old man answer. Then the operator asked for the long distance toll charges and Burke deposited some of his hand-warmed dimes and quarters. When the gongs finally stopped sounding, the old man said, “This is Henry Condon,” which was the code name Burke had assigned him.

  “Arthur Radin calling.”

  There was a fairly long pause and Burke could hear the old man’s breathing, rushed and labored, over the miles of wire. Yet he was not unsympathetic. Son or no son, Burke knew how the old man felt about him. This was not going to be easy for either of them.

  “Richard, how are you?” The voice was strained, raspy, as if suddenly compelled to demonstrate its age.

  “Hanging in there, professor. How about yourself?”

  “Truthfully, I’ve had a troublesome few days. Very troublesome.” There was silence. “Richard, I have something shocking to tell you.”

  “Yes?”

  “Tony … my son … he’s not dead.”

  Burke’s mouth opened. Nothing came out.

  “He’s alive, Richard. The reports of his suicide, of his death were all carefully manufactured lies. His funeral was all a performance. The whole thing was a fraud. It was done only for your benefit. He’s the one who is actually heading the search for you. I still find it hard to believe, but it’s the truth. Tony is alive.”

  Surprise! Burke stared blankly out of the phone booth. Life was crammed full of all sorts of cute little twists, but what was this one all about? Why was the old man blowing the whole thing by telling him? Where was the expected con job? Where was the trap? Caught totally unprepared, Burke said nothing.

  “Richard? Are you there? Are you all right?”

  “I’m all right.”

  “I know how you must feel. I know how it hit me when I found out. I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or be angry. Finally, I managed to do all three. But of course it’s different with you. He’s not your son.”