The Spy

by Garbo Norman

  She left that one alone and the wire hummed over her silence.

  “What would you like me to do?” Burke asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said miserably. “But something!”

  “Well, I suppose I could give myself up.”

  “You said it, not me.”

  She started to cry again and Burke put some more coins into the box even though the operator had not requested any money. She wept for what seemed a long time, and Burke thought it best to simply let her get it out.

  “I’m sorry,” she said at last. “I guess you must think I’m Some bitch. I swear Hank would knock my head off he ever heard me. And he’d be right. Christ, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. No, I mean, yes I do. I’m just scared for him. I’m so scared for him I can’t sleep nights.” She fought for control. “But you don’t really know how I feel about that punchy bum, do you?”

  “I’ve guessed.”

  “No. You couldn’t possibly have guessed. I couldn’t have guessed myself. It’s something I never expected to be able to feel anymore. It’s absolutely crazy. But let me tell you something …”

  And she told him, leaving out, it seemed, nothing. Burke listened without interruption, putting in more coins when necessary, but pleased to let her share a range of emotions that surprised him. She had always seemed so cynical and tough. Still — when you felt, you felt, and none of them were that different. But what was he going to do about Hank? This was the real problem and this was what he was thinking about when he saw the car slow as it approached the curb. Four men in a sedan would have worried him at anytime, so he was out of the booth and running before it even came to a full stop. And this time it was just as well that he worried.

  My God, she’s been setting me up, he thought with cold surprise. She’s been holding me on the phone while they traced the call. Then he had other things to think about.

  Knowing he had to get off the street, he ran low, crouched over, keeping the line of parked cars along the curb between himself and the following car as a continuing shield. He was running west towards Tenth Avenue, the street a tunnel between two walls of tenements. The street was empty at this hour and he cursed himself for not having used a booth in a more crowded area, closer to Broadway. A lot of people around would have at least kept them from firing. This way he was a duck in a shooting gallery. As soon as one of them developed sense enough to get out of the car and onto the sidewalk behind him, he’d be finished. Then glancing back as he ran, he saw that one of them had — a big, bulky man with a submachine gun. Wonderful, he thought, and dashed up the stoop of a tenement just as the man opened fire.

  He felt the strangely painless shock of metal tearing into his left arm and knocking him into the vestibule. The second door was locked, but it was all glass and Burke kicked his foot through, opened it and ran up the hall stairway in front of him. Gasping, the nerves in his legs wriggling, he pushed himself up five flights to the roof. Reaching it, he found wide areaways between the buildings on either side. There was no place for him to go but down. He felt an old misery settling on him. Then he took out his revolver and attached the silencer he kept in an inside breastpocket of his jacket. Reluctantly, he stepped to one side of the stairhousing and waited.

  The man with the machine gun came through the door without even slowing, an eager, unwary hunter. Burke fired once and there was only the soft whoosh of the silencer and the thump as the man fell. Pocketing his revolver, Burke dragged the man away from in front of the door and out of sight. It was not easy. His left arm was numb and of little use and the man was heavy. Then he took the submachine gun and went back into the shadows to wait once more. He had avoided looking at the man’s face. He might have known him. If he had, he had no wish to find out Whoever he was, Burke thought, he had not been very smart to come barging through the door that way. A small enough error in another line of work, but big enough to kill you in this one. Maybe it was the machine gun’s fault. The damn .things were so powerful, made you feel so impregnable, you tended to get careless. He hefted the weapon in his good arm, not feeling the least bit impregnable. But he was grateful not to have to face three armed men with just a revolver.

  Where were they? He wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. He was a good clotter, but was still losing a fair amount of blood. If he passed out now, he’d be through. There was little doubt about that. He started to think about Pamela and what she had done, but quickly stopped himself. This was not the time. He had to focus on staying alive, nothing else.

  Then worried about whether he would be able to aim and fire the machine gun with only one good arm, he sat down with his back to a ventilator, drew up his legs and leaned the gun-barrel across his knees. It held steady. Good. But he would have to get them all with the first burst, he thought, because that was the only chance he was going to get. He had been concerned about the shots down in the street being reported to the police, but apparently no one had heard them. Or if they had heard, they’d chosen not to notice. What a town. You could fight a small war on the sidestreets, and the good citizens would go right on minding their own business. It was a city of almost religious noninvolvement. Don’t bother us, it said. We got our own troubles. And they had them, all right. But God help you if you ever needed someone.

  When they came at last, it was with far greater caution than their dead colleague. Burke saw the big fire door slowly swing open, its scratched metal glistening in the moonlight. A man eased his head out like a cautious turtle, looked around, then stepped onto the roof. “Walter?” he called softly.

  From the shadow of the ventilator where he sat, Burke saw him clearly, saw the tough, broken face over the barrel of the submachine gun resting across his knees. Well, he thought. It’s Reeves. It’s George Reeves himself.

  Like the first man, Reeves was also carrying a Thompson gun. He was crouched slightly, holding the automatic weapon in front of him. The gun’s muzzle pointed straight at the place where Burke sat.

  “Walter?” Reeves called again.

  Burke could feel his heart banging against his chest. He looked at the wedge of the front sight in the slot of the rear sight, the top of the wedge cutting the center of Reeve’s chest. A second man came through the door and quickly knelt to the right of Reeves. Then the third came out and dove flat out, off to the left.

  “Where the hell’s Walter?” hissed the last man.

  No one answered.

  Burke sat waiting for a clean, sure shot. He had to be able to get them all with a single burst. If just one made it back downstairs or behind the stairhousing, he was in trouble. George Reeves. Imagine that. Last seen ten years ago on a mountain in Peru, and now waiting to cut him in half with a Tommy gun on a New York roof. The always surprising exigencies of the Service. Dimly, he remembered something about a mentally retarded daughter whom Reeves was always worried about, and wondered how she was. How could she be? Well, George, he thought. It was never easy, but was a little less hard when they were faceless. He supposed George felt the same way about him. Unless he believed all the lies about his selling out, which he probably did. Why shouldn’t he? Still, they had worked together, gone through things. Sentimental crap. George would believe what they told him to believe.

  Out of caution, Burke kept his finger pressed forward against the trigger guard to keep it away from the trigger itself. This thing could go off much too easily. If he was going to get just one chance, he wanted it to be the best one possible. He had an urge to touch his bad arm to see if the bleeding had stopped, but was afraid to let go of the gun. Feeling himself getting bleary-eyed, he blinked to clear his sight. Come on, he thought. You can’t wait there all night. Let’s get on with the damn thing.

  “Okay, let’s spread out and cover the roof,” said Reeves. “He’s got to be up here someplace.”

  “But where the hell’s Walter?” asked the second man, obviously not too anxious to go probing the dark places.

  “Probably dead,” said Reeves and
moved forward and to the right. Let’s go.”

  The other two rose and moved also, and for a moment they were almost in a straight line. Gently, Burke squeezed the trigger, shifting the barrel slightly to the right as he felt the quick lurching of the gun against his shoulder. It was just a single short burst that sounded little different from the backfiring of a motorcycle. The three men fell. They had not gotten off a shot. Reeves went down on his back, the other two forward on their faces.

  Burke slowly pushed himself up. He walked over and looked at the three men where they lay. None of them moved. He forced himself to look at Reeves’ face. Somehow, he felt it to be necessary. In the moonlight the tough face appeared as tough as ever. Burke felt no special sensation at his survival. The odds had been four to one against it, but it just meant four more dead. My brother, my enemy, he thought, and wondered how many lives his own was finally worth. Given some kind of mortal scale, how was he supposed to make that particular judgment?Instinctively, he wiped all fingerprints from the stock and barrel of the submachine gun and placed it beside the man who had carried it. Then he took a final look around and left the roof. He went down the stairs quietly, holding to the bannister with his good hand and still grateful and amazed that no door had opened, no cry been raised. Stepping over the broken glass in the vestibule, he glanced cautiously out into the street. The agents’ sedan was double-parked a short distance away. A patrol car was parked right behind it, with a cop at the wheel, and Burke started to duck back. Then he saw the cop’s partner, standing and writing what was evidently a parking ticket. When the cop finished, he tied the summons onto the sedan’s windshield wiper, got into the patrol car and rode off.

  Beautiful, thought Burke. Four bodies up on the roof, and New York’s finest were diligently keeping the streets of the world’s greatest city safe from double-parkers.

  He found a cab on Ninth Avenue, got out half a block from Angela’s apartment, and was in her bedroom at 1:35 A.M. He woke her gently. “It’s only me,” he whispered.

  In the dark her arms went around him. “What do you mean, only you. What’s this sudden humility?” She kissed him. “Mmmm,” she purred. “This is even better than what I was dreaming.”

  On his knees beside the bed he clung to her for a moment The bent position had made him.dizzy.

  “What are you waiting for?” she said. “Why have you still got your clothes on?”

  He stood up and switched on a lamp. “Don’t be frightened. I’m fine. But you’re going to have to help me a little.”

  She stared at him. Then she saw his left coat sleeve and her face went white. “Oh, my God.”

  “Easy,” he said. “I told you I’m all right.”

  She sat up in bed, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply-several times. When she opened her eyes, she had better control. “Okay … okay. What do you want me to do?”

  “First, you’d better help me get my clothes off. I want to See what this thing looks like.”

  His coat and jacket came off with little trouble, but his shirtsleeve was stuck to the wound. They went into the bathroom and he sat on the edge of the tub. “I’m really a great little blotter. I clot quick as all hell. Doctors are always crazy about my clotting.” He saw that her face was still white and strained. “You’re not going to faint on me, are you?”

  She shook Tier head.

  “You’re sure?” he said anxiously.

  “I’m sure, damn it. Just tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

  Following his instructions, she cut away his shirtsleeve, then soaked the remaining piece of fabric with warm water until it came unstuck. But when the wound was exposed, she had to turn away. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I guess I’m not much good at this.”

  “You’re good at more important things. And how often do I get shot, anyway?” He was busy studying the damage to the upper part of his arm. “It missed the bone. It went right through. Right in and out. I’m lucky.”

  “Boy, are you lucky.”

  He smiled. “It’s all comparative. Do you have any kind of antiseptic and bandages?”

  She found some peroxide, gauze, and surgical tape. Then steeling herself, she was able to do what had to be done. Afterward she helped him out of the rest of his clothes and put him to bed with a large brandy. He lay there, sipping his drink, luxuriating. “You know something? I think I could learn to like getting shot.”

  “Does it hurt very much?”

  “Only when I laugh.”

  “You’re not funny.” She had put on a robe and sat stiffly on the bed beside him. The color was back in her cheeks, but her eyes were moist and she kept chewing her lip. “Another few inches and you’d be doing your laughing all the way to the morgue.”

  “Yes, but I’m not.”

  “What happened? Who shot you?”

  “What’s the difference? It’s over and done.”

  She glared at him. “Don’t you dare start shutting me out again. If you don’t tell me what happened this minute, you can take your fucking bullet hole out of my goddamned bed and get Straight to hell out of here.”

  “You talk pretty dirty. You’re not that young.”

  “Richard!”

  “Okay. If you come lie next to me and promise not to cry, I’D tell you.”

  “No promises,” she said and lay down beside him on his good side. “If I want to cry, I’ll damn well cry.”

  He told her, his voice low and even and losing itself quickly in the hidden bedroom, among the mingled odors of peroxide, brandy, and Arpege. It was for his own needs as much as hers. He had stopped being a solitary animal. He did not intend to be one ever again.

  “Oh, God,” she murmured when he had gotten it all out “Four of them.”

  “I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want it that way. There wasn’t anything else I could do about them.”

  “To hell with them,” she said fiercely. “Do you think I give a damn about them? I’m glad they’re dead. They deserve to be dead. All I meant was that there were four of them trying to assassinate you with their miserable machine guns, and somehow you’re alive here in my bed, while they’re dead up on that roof. I just thank God for the miracle.”

  Under the covers he touched what he considered to be the equal miracle of her flesh. “You think God is on our side?”

  “Who else’s? We’ve got right, haven’t we?”

  He loved the “we.” He had come to adore that particular pronoun. “I hope so. At least, I like to think so.”

  “And right is might, isn’t it?” - “Absolutely.”

  “Then thou art twice armed,” she intoned.

  “Damn right.”

  “And thou shalt surely smite them good with the jawbone of an ass.”

  “If it’s all the same to you,” he said, “if it doesn’t damage your lovely Biblical allusions, I’d be much happier smiting them with a standard .38 caliber service revolver.”

  But she was already off into her next resentment. “And that bitch,” she swore softly. “How could she have thrown you to the lions like that? How could she have done anything so rotten?”

  “I guess she was just frightened. I don’t know. Pam’s a good woman. People react to fear in different ways.”

  “That wasn’t just different. It was murderous, inexcusable.”

  He sipped his brandy and said nothing.

  His silence bothered her. “For God’s sake, Richard. The woman as good as pointed a gun at your head and pulled the trigger. If it was up to her, you’d be dead this minute. And look at you. You’re so calm and tolerant about the whole thing, I could spit!”

  “Would it make you feel any better if I jumped up and down and swore?”

  “Damned right.”

  “I’m too tired right now.”

  “I don’t understand you. When did you suddenly turn into a Mary Poppins?”

  He smiled faintly, “Fantastic. I’ve just shot four men to death and the lady calls me a Mary Poppins.”

  “
You know what I mean.”

  Burke stared deep into his glass, as if searching for something important at the bottom. “That woman hardly knew me, Angela. All we’d ever shared were a few days together at the hospital, and the hope of a new and better shot at things. Yet because of me — because she tried to help me these past weeks — she’s had her career ruined, become partly responsible for the death of a government agent, and found herself and a man she cares about facing a murder indictment. Would you say that’s a fair list of sacrifices to have made for someone you barely knew?”

  Angela did not answer.

  “I’d say so. I’d say that’s way above and beyond. So if the whole thing finally got too much for her, if she finally had to bend and give them what they wanted — me — I’m afraid I can’t really hate her for it.”

  She moved closer to him under the covers. “I’ve been thinking. I’ve been thinking you’re actually a lot nicer than I am.”

  “Not really.”

  “Yes, really.” She leaned over and sipped some of his brandy. “I’m very glad they didn’t kill you tonight. You know that?”

  “Yes. Me too.”

  He waited for the question which, through repetition, had become the question for them and part of a necessary ritual.

  It came. “What’s going to happen to us, darling?”

  “We’ll be okay,” he answered on cue, deciding he enjoyed the pronoun “us” equally as much as “we.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How?”

  “I’m not exactly sure,” he said. Which may not have been very reassuring, but was still a lot better then the “I don’t know” it had been just a week or so earlier. The change depended, for a possibly greater certainty, on Tom Ludlow’s anticipated return from Paris. But because the whole thing might also prove to be a total dud, Burke had told Angela nothing about it. Still, in the absence of any other hope, it had begun to look brighter each day.