Spy Runner

by Eugene Yelchin

  Now his ankle had begun to swell. He poked at the tender skin with his dirty fingers, then leaned toward the bonfire and spat into the flames. Not a drop of spit came out. His mouth was dry. He undid his jeans and, pulling out the top secret folder, flipped once again through its smudged, creased, and sweat-soaked pages. Just as before, its diagrams and its complicated words confused him. Why had he taken it? He became terribly angry with himself, but in a moment or two, he was sorry for himself instead. He felt completely alone. Nobody cared about him except for the Russian spies who wanted to hurt him. He was sick of secrets and he was sick of spies and he was sick of running. He wanted to be home with his mom. One of those fake G-men said that his mother asked them to keep an eye on him. But was it even true? Jake did not know. He did not know anymore how to tell truth from lies.

  He heard the soft tinkling of a bell, but soon the sound stopped. He listened. All was quiet. Just as he thought he had imagined it, the bell chimed again. He leaned away from the wall and, squinting through the blue-gray smoke drifting off the smoldering tire, saw a ghostly figure drawing toward him. A man in a loose white shirt and loose white breeches, pushing ahead of him a white ice cream cart. The man and his cart and his loose clothes were so sun-bleached, they looked transparent. The man was old and frail, and it was hard for him to wheel the cart over the rutted ground. Now and then he had to stop to rest, and when he did, the bell ceased tinkling.

  It took the old man a long time to come level with Jake. He paused and, wiping his old face with a threadbare bandanna, looked openly at Jake, studying him through his watery eyes without hurry and without judgment.

  “Helado de frío, hijo?” creaked his barely audible voice.

  Jake shook his head. “No dinero.”

  The old man nodded and tied the bandanna round his withered neck, then flipped open the lid on his cart and stuck his hand up to the elbow into the opening. Through the drifting smoke, Jake watched him grope inside the cart. At last, the man took out an ice cream bar, closed the lid, and shuffled over. Jake quickly swiped the folder off his lap, hiding it behind his back.

  “Vainilla,” the old man said, holding out the bar to Jake. “Cortesía de la casa.”

  Jake looked at the ice cream in the old man’s trembling fingers, nodded, and carefully took the bar. The old man peered for a moment at Jake’s swollen ankle and shuffled back to the cart and returned with a chunk of ice.

  “Hielo,” he said. “Bueno para el pie.”

  Jake felt tears scalding his eyes. He wanted to cry. Bawl his eyes out, as if he were a little kid again. He clenched his teeth and, lifting his chin up so that tears would not spill down his cheeks, he leaned forward and took the ice. He wanted to thank the old man for his kindness, but had he tried to speak, he would have broken into sobs. The old man did not seem to expect any thanks. He shuffled back to his cart, and the tiny bell began tinkling again until the man, his cart, and soon the tinkling of the bell faded away behind the hazy smoke-filled air.

  Jake held the melting chunk of ice against his ankle with the toes of his other foot and ate the vanilla bar greedily and quickly. The ice cream ran through his fingers and down his chin, and when a big chunk of it plopped onto the folder in his lap, Jake licked it off, smudging the TOP SECRET stamp into a curved reddish smear.

  By the time he finished the ice cream, the ice over his swollen ankle melted, and his foot felt pleasantly numb. He licked his fingers one by one, sucked clean the wooden stick, then leaned away from the wall and looked over the way the old man had gone, but he could neither see him nor hear the tinkling of his bell. If not for the ice cream stick in his hand, Jake would have thought that he had imagined that man. He studied the stick for a moment, then slipped it into the pocket of his jeans next to the tooth he had lost when he had fallen into the ditch. He was not sure why he was saving the stick. Maybe he wanted to keep it in case he was in trouble again and needed to think of someone being kind to him for a change.

  Jake pushed himself up to his feet, and the top secret folder fell from his lap onto the flattened cardboard box and slid, spinning toward the bonfire. He did not try to stop it when the folder bumped against the smoldering tire. In an instant, the blue covers caught the flames, and Jake stood, watching the pages curl and blacken until they turned to ash.

  39

  The American Legion parade began at the Federal Building on the corner of Congress and Granada, moved east on Congress, turned north on Arizona, and doubled back via Pennington. The parade commenced at four P.M., but by two, all of the downtown parking lots had been packed with motorcars. The patriotic citizens had gathered early to stake a spot along the curb for a better view of the passing floats. They brought iceboxes and foldout chairs and umbrellas, adorned their headgear with miniature flags, and lined the curbs in colorful clusters of white, red, and blue.

  The deep hollow thuds of the bass drums and the shrill of trumpets reached Jake in the alley behind Toole Avenue. By the time he caught up with the parade, the marchers, sunbaked and worn out, were tramping down Pennington, following a twelve-foot-tall Statue of Liberty fastened to the flatbed truck at the head of the procession.

  Jake kept his eyes on the statue’s torch, with long red silky ribbons that stood for flames, floating above the hats and the umbrellas of the crowd. When he finally squeezed his way to the curb, the statue had passed and the Veterans of Foreign Wars were marching by in pairs, lugging canvas banners stenciled with FIGHT THE RED MENACE, and DOWN WITH GODLESS COMMUNISM, and EVERY COMMUNIST IS A MOSCOW SPY.

  Everyone cheered and clapped and shouted the slogans, reading them off the sagging banners. Behind the veterans clip-clopped the procession of cowboys that Jake had seen earlier on Fourth Avenue. The silvery-white cowboy was now heading the procession, and Jake felt a quick pang of guilt at the sight of a black smudge across the crown of the cowboy’s Stetson. It was a tire print left by the Buick chasing after Jake in the morning. The cowboy was making his pony trot circus-like, kicking up its front legs, bowing its neck, and swooshing its plaited tail. The crowd began to clap. Jake clapped, too, smacking the palms of his hands hard together. The cowboy looked up, smiling under his droopy white mustache and, recognizing Jake, whipped off his damaged Stetson and waved it at him. Jake waved back, smiling. Smiling for the first time since he could not remember when, since before Shubin had ruined his life. It felt good to smile again.

  A lady in a polka-dot blue dress standing beside Jake peeked at him from under her umbrella. “Looks like a friend of yours?”

  “Well,” Jake said, not wanting to lie, “I saw them all pass on the way here this morning, ma’am.”

  “A grand parade, ain’t it?” the polka-dot lady said. “Them foreigners better think twice before they fool with us.”

  “Which foreigners, ma’am?”

  She looked at him, surprised. “Communists, who else?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jake agreed. “They better think twice.”

  “I can just see you’re a real patriot, young man.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jake said. “Proud to be an American.”

  And having said that, he felt his heart swelling with a glorious feeling of pride. Jake was proud to be an American, and he was proud to rub shoulders with honest folks, not spies and foreigners and liars but other Americans, folks just like him. It felt good to clap and to cheer and to have a good time at this dazzling display of loyalty, freedom, and truth after all the terrible things that had happened to him.

  Then, in the wide clearing between the Valley National Bank’s float hauling the enormous Chains of Communism and the blue-and-gold marching band that followed in its wake, he saw Trudy Lamarre, the redhead from his class. With a glittering smile fixed on her face, she bounced ahead, twirling a baton. She tossed the baton into the air, and caught it without effort, and kicked her legs so high her tiny spangled skirt shimmered, as bright as the sun.

  Spellbound, Jake watched her approach. What had happened yesterday in the clas
sroom, the beating he had endured and the hatred with which Trudy, among others, had stared at him, seemed far away to him now and unimportant. It was one giant mistake, and to show her that all was forgotten, that he was not angry with her, he shouted as Trudy tossed her baton high in the air, “Good job, Lamarre! Way to go!”

  She saw Jake before the baton came down. Her eyes opened wide. She paused, staring at him in panic. The baton fell, just missing her head, and bounced off the pavement. Jake pushed through the line of people and limped to her help. He was right beside Trudy now, at the very heart of the parade. Everyone could see him and everyone cheered when he snatched the baton off the ground. Smiling, he waved the baton at the crowd, but when he tried to hand it back to Trudy, she would not take it.

  “Get away from me!”

  “What?” Jake said, smiling, and he kept smiling until with a deafening blast, a sea of blue and gold swept over him, pounding drum skins, crashing cymbals, and blaring shiny brass. Jake spun around, looking for Trudy to return the baton to her, but she had vanished, and instead it was Eddie Cortes, one of the boys who beat up on Jake yesterday, who bore right down on him behind an enormous tuba.

  “Hey, Eddie!” Jake cried over the din. “Over here! Over here! Jake McCauley!”

  Eddie’s eyes flickered over him, his cheeks puffed and collapsed, and he looped around Jake without skipping a beat. Figuring that Eddie must have not heard him in such racket, Jake reached out to grab at his elbow. Eddie swerved wildly, bumping his tuba into the rest of the brass section. Instantly, there was confusion in the ranks.

  “Get out of the way, Commie!” some trombone girl Jake had never seen before hollered at him, and a boy from his class, Ricky Morton, strapped to the bass drum, pointed his mallet at Jake and shouted over the noise, “There’s a Communist, people! Right there!”

  Bewildered, Jake glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see some crazy Communist who had wandered into the midst of this parade by mistake, but all he saw were the backs of the blue-and-gold jackets marching away.

  Ricky was pointing at him.

  It went fast after that. Some kids hollered, “Commie!” and some, “Go back to Moscow!” and some whacked him with their instruments on purpose. The band roared like a mighty river, pulling him along, and he could neither break away from it nor stop moving, as if he were a toy sailboat drawn by a powerful current.

  Clutching Trudy’s baton, Jake tried to march in time with the others by skipping a step and adjusting his stride, but he was limping badly, and while everyone around him stomped the pavement as one living thing, he was hopelessly out of step. He pushed his way to the curb, but a trombone slide bashed him from behind and he dropped the baton and went down. The concrete throbbed from the stomping feet, the air vibrated with crash and clamor, and after the last of the marching musicians stumbled over his crumpled body, Jake sat up, hurt and confused. His ears were ringing. On either side of the street, people were shouting from the curbs and pointing at something behind him. He could not understand what they wanted, and he turned around to where everyone was looking. An enormous float rolled down on him.

  It was a giant model of the B-29 Superfortress built of planks and stretched canvas painted glossy silver, a million times bigger than the model hanging from the ceiling in his room. From wingtip to wingtip the float spanned the width of the entire street, and in the deep shadow below the cockpit, he glimpsed the grille of the army truck, its colossal tires turning slowly but surely in his direction.

  When Duane told him about this float being built at the air force base, he said that it was humongous, and he was right. It was humongous. And there he was, too, his former best friend, Duane Armbruster, in a real pilot’s helmet and a pair of goggles, clutching the handrail atop the Superfortress float. Behind him in crisp air force blue, his father, Major Armbruster, beamed his beautiful smile and waved majestically at the crowd.

  Jake sat on the pavement, overwhelmed by the sight of the float, while its cross-like shadow crept steadily toward him. The people in the crowd were screaming at Jake to get out of the way until he understood what was wanted of him. He rose to his feet and hobbled toward the curb, but halfway there, he turned around to look again at Duane and the major. They soared high up above him, a proud boy and his proud father, etched darkly against the blinding sun like a magnificent statue raised to honor the American fathers and sons.

  As they passed, Jake felt something rapidly coming at him from the right. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the edge of the Superfortress’s wing closing in on him like the blade of a monstrous knife. He watched it, enthralled, until the edge was inches away from his face. An instant before it whacked into his forehead, someone’s hands snatched him from under the swooshing wing.

  “What’s wrong with you, kid?” Shubin rasped angrily. “Are you nuts?”

  Jake was neither surprised that Shubin was there nor grateful to Shubin for saving him. He felt numb, and while Shubin lugged him to the curb, Jake slumped over his arm like a rag doll. Before they could reach the sidewalk, something blocked their path, and Jake stared in a daze at a shiny black boot pressed against the shiny flank of a horse.

  “Don’t you know not to cross a street closed to foot traffic?” the mounted policeman’s voice rang from above.

  “Apologies, Officer,” Shubin answered, holding Jake tightly at his side. “The boy got confused.”

  “What’s there to be confused about? Can’t you see it’s a parade?”

  The horse stretched its neck, sniffling at Jake’s hair, and the policeman pulled on the reins to keep it from crowding Jake. “I thought it was you,” the policeman said, grinning. “Ever find that Mexican joint on Herbert, son? El Matador? Remember you were asking?”

  Jake felt Shubin’s eyes on him and kept silent.

  “Thank you, Officer.” Shubin patted the horse’s foamy neck. “I’ll take it from here.”

  “You ought to keep an eye on this kid,” the policeman said. “You two are related?”

  “Yes, sir,” Shubin lied.

  “Well, then,” the policeman said, snapping his bubble gum. “Why don’t you buy your kid a soda pop? Looks like he could use one.”

  40

  Around the corner from Pennington was Ruby’s, a clean, bright diner with white-tiled walls, a long marble counter, and rows of ceiling fans whose chrome-plated blades had always made Jake think of B-29 propellers. On the way to Ruby’s, Shubin firmly held him by the arm, as if afraid that Jake might try to run away, but when they entered the blinding brightness of the diner, he let him go. A waitress loaded with plates whisked past them.

  “How you making it, sweetheart?” called Shubin after her.

  “Overworked! Underpaid!” she shouted back. “I ain’t complaining.”

  She brought the plates down in one swoop onto the table inside the nearest booth: “Careful, gents, the plates are hot!” then turned around to Shubin. “You look familiar. Do I know you?”

  “Doubt it, sweetheart,” Shubin said. “I’m new in town.”

  “Don’t pull my leg, mister. I’ve seen you before. I never forget a face, ask anyone around here.” She studied Shubin for a moment. “You always had them goggles on?”

  “Yes, darling,” Shubin said. “Nearsighted, farsighted, you name it. Blind as a bat.” He nudged Jake toward two vacant stools at the end of the counter. “Go sit down and stay put.”

  Jake left Shubin flinging wisecracks at the waitress, limped to the end of the counter, and sagged onto one of those tall and shiny stools that were fixed to the floor and spun around. The last time Jake came here was with Duane, and they had spun and spun, laughing their heads off, until both felt dizzy. That was only last week, but it seemed like it happened ages ago. Jake thought of Duane high up on that float with his heroic dad waving at the cheering crowds while he was kicked around and called a Commie in front of the whole town, but he did not feel bitter or sorry for himself. He felt nothing.

  “So what was that al
l about?” Shubin said, setting a Coke before Jake and straddling the stool beside him. “Throwing yourself under a float?”

  Jake did not look at him, watching instead the slivers of melting ice sliding down the grooves of the Coke bottle. He licked his dry, cracked lips—he was terribly thirsty—but he did not touch the bottle.

  “Drink it, drink it,” Shubin said. “What’s the matter with you? Not thirsty?”

  Without looking at Shubin, Jake said, “Where’s my dad?”

  Shubin’s stool rotated away. “You must be hungry. When did you eat last?”

  “Where’s my dad? You said you knew him well.”

  “Sure, sure,” Shubin said, and shouted toward the front of the counter. “Who do I have to see around here to get some food?”

  “Menus on the counter, boys,” the waitress shouted back from behind the cash register.

  Shubin yanked the menu out of the wire stand and slapped it down on the marble top. “Let’s take a look.” His bony finger moved up and down the menu. “What are you having? Eggs and bacon? Fries? Sausage? Burger? What?”

  “You said you’d tell me about my dad, and now you don’t want to,” Jake said quietly. “I thought you wouldn’t.” He waited for a moment, unsure if he should say it, but he said it anyway. “I know all about you. It’s not like I don’t know.”

  “Know what?” Shubin said, studying the menu.

  “You’re stealing our secrets for the Russians. I saw you.”

  Shubin set the menu down, slowly rotated his stool toward Jake, and cocked his head to one side, studying him. Jake glanced up at him quickly. He could not see Shubin’s eyes behind the flickering reflections of the ceiling fan in his cracked spectacles, but he could feel Shubin’s rising anger. Jake looked around for the quick way out in case Shubin tried to jump him, but once again Shubin surprised him. He burst out laughing.