The Identity Man (25 page)

Shannon followed him across the threshold. Inside: a loft stripped bare. Chairs and card tables and a cot under the exposed heating pipes and fluorescent bulbs. There were three laptops, two playing various squares of video footage, one showing a series of oscillators. Shannon saw images of his apartment, Gutterson's outline traced in chalk on the floor.

Two men were here, both in shirtsleeves, both wearing guns, one weaselly, playing Patience at a table, one slick and handsome, lying on the cot, reading a magazine about pretty girls in their underwear.

Foster shut the door.

"You were watching me," Shannon said to him. It made him feel sick to see it.

"Listening, too," said Foster flatly.

"Don't worry," muttered the slick guy on the cot, turning a page. "We covered our eyes when you jerked off."

"I didn't cover
my
eyes," muttered the weasel dealing cards. "I dug it."

"We were watching out for you, boy," Foster said. "You were our guy in place. You were Henry Conor. We knew they'd come for you."

"You invented this guy..."

"A follower of Reverend Jesse Skyles, a friend of Peter Patterson, a man who knew what Patterson knew, a man on a mission."

Shannon looked at the videos of his empty apartment, the hallway outside the door, the street outside the brownstone. The whole place must've been rigged with cameras and microphones.

"Why me?" he asked.

"You showed up for it, darling. You answered the call and came to the mall. Guess you wanted it more than the others we tried. Or maybe you were just the first one stupid enough to check his cell phone. I don't know."

"No," said Shannon. "No, I mean..." He stared at the videos, fascinated, thinking about all that time he was being watched. "No, I mean, why me instead of one of you? If you needed a man in place, why didn't you use an agent, one of your own?"

"We're breached, baby face. Augie Lancaster's got more men in my agency than I have. That's why we're flying a little bit off the radar here. Way off the radar, the truth be told. What you're looking at right now is every agent I have that I can trust, minus a higher-up who's funneling the money."

The two men waved without looking up from what they were doing. Shannon stared at them dully.

"Anyway, I didn't need an agent. I didn't
want
an agent." Foster moved to one of the big arched windows. He stood to one side and looked out and down, checking the street below. "All I wanted was a body, an identity. A treasure at the end of the treasure hunt. Someone the trail led to, if you see what I mean."

Shannon did not see what he meant. "The trail..."

"The clues. We left clues for them to find. Computer traces. E-mails. Graffiti in empty houses. Remarks made to informants on the street. A photograph of a man sitting in a car. Signs that Peter Patterson hadn't been alone, that he shared his information with someone—and that now that someone had come to town, a man on a mission, looking for justice."

Shannon shook his head. More murk, more confusion.

Foster, glancing over at him from the window, laughed. Gestured at him for the benefit of his colleagues. "Look at this fool. Doesn't even know who Lancaster is." Then, explaining it to Shannon: "Lancaster runs this town. Runs this state. Could run this country if no one stops him. And his network goes so deep, we've never been able to get near him without getting derailed or blown or reassigned. Then—by the grace of God—literally by the grace of God—along came Peter Patterson. Low-level city bookkeeper, nobody even knew he was there. But he was well enough placed to see where the money was going, federal money, state money, programs, going where it always goes, into the pockets of the people who control it, in this case Lancaster and his gang. For years he lived with it—this Patterson, I mean. Sure, he lived in a bottle to kill his conscience, but it seemed to be working for him. Then, one day, he heard the Reverend Skyles preaching in some asshole of a church somewhere and he got the word and came to Mr. Jesus. Climbed out of the bottle. Found his conscience. Began to make overtures to us. Feeling us out. Working up his courage, you know. We were reeling him in slow by slow. We almost had him. But we're so damned breeched. They got to him first."

Finally—and it really did feel like clouds parting in his head—the light began to shine for Shannon. He began to understand. His lips parted as he gazed at Foster. "They killed him. Your informant—Patterson. Lancaster killed him."

"Had him killed. Just as dead as ever he could be. Right in the middle of the storm and the riots, too, so whatever evidence there was was lost in the rain and confusion. There was no way to make the case. Oh, we knew who did it, all right. Only one man Lancaster could trust with a job like that. But we'd never have broken him. In fact, with our agency so corrupted, we could barely move without giving ourselves away. So we had nothing. Again. And in a single leap, Augie was free—free and going national to boot. A hero because his city was so corrupt it collapsed in a rainstorm. That's the government for you: it fails upward. It has three new remedies to fix everything it just destroyed."

Foster had moved away from the window now, moved back toward Shannon, talking. Shannon, a much bigger man, stared down at the frenetic, seedy little figure.

"So you made them think there was someone else, another guy with the same information Patterson had. A guy you just made up."

"Henry Conor. Another Skyles disciple. A private detective from down the road. A man on a mission. We needed someone we could trust, someone no one knew, someone who couldn't give himself away, because even he didn't know he was the guy..."

Everything happened at once then. Shannon understood—and erupted, furious. He grabbed Foster, both hands on the front of his jacket. The weasel jumped up, his chair falling backward, a handful of spades and clubs and hearts and diamonds flying, red and black everywhere, as he drew his gun. Likewise the slickster on the cot: riffling pages of cleavages, bras, and panties went airborne as he leapt up and charged into the melee.

"You knew they'd come to kill me!" Shannon managed to say before the weasel stuck the gun barrel in his eye and the slickster wrapped an arm around his throat and pulled him off, with Foster shoving him away for good measure. "That's all I was there for—i ust to die! You missed the first murder, so you wanted to make sure you witnessed the second!"

Foster had fallen backward, angrily smoothing his threadbare jacket, his chintzy tie. The other agents held Shannon fast, one with his chokehold, the other with his gun. Foster gestured them away.

"All right," he said.

They let Shannon go, sneering as they backed off. The slickster fetched his magazine. The weasel holstered his gun. He righted his chair and began to gather the playing cards.

Shannon and Foster stood glaring at one another.

"We didn't
want
them to kill you," Foster said.

"You just didn't give a shit if they did."

"Why should we? You're a lowlife. You don't mean anything to us. You don't mean anything to anyone, Shannon. If you died, so what? Who cares? But we figured they wouldn't kill you right away. We figured they'd do exactly what they did do: try to find out what you had, where the info was, who else had it, who else knew. Maybe if you hadn't chased me off at the fair that night, I'd've been nearby when they made their move, could've gotten there to help you. As it was, we had to watch from here—and by the time I reached you, it was over."

Shannon gave a bitter laugh. "Bad break for you, me killing
him,
huh?"

"That it was. That it surely was. If he'd killed you, we'd've had him. Busted him, turned him, traded our way up the ladder right to Augie himself. We'd have had them all. As things stand, with Gutterson dead instead, the whole operation's blown, a great big waste of time and taxpayer money. When they murder you now—and they will—it'll just be SOP for a cop-killer—shot trying to escape—we get nothing out of it. So congratulations, Shannon. We fucked you? You fucked us right back."

For another moment, Shannon glowered at the little man. Then, disgusted with him, disgusted with himself and with all of it, he turned away, shaking his head at the dusty floor. He had one more burst of anger in him: "Didn't occur to you bastards that if you gave me a new life, I might live it, huh? I mean, when you contacted me, I had nothing, I had nothing to lose, but now..."

Foster shrugged. "Poor baby. Like I said, Shannon, you don't mean a thing to us, not a thing. Just a scumbag thief living off other people's money. Sort of like the government, come to think of it, only they're not looking at three strikes and hard time. But then, what can I tell you? Life's unfair."

Still studying the dust, Shannon hooked his thumbs in his belt. He nodded. He couldn't argue with the man there. Life was unfair all right, and hard time was what he was looking at for sure.

The other agents had now settled back into their places. The slickster was on his cot again, paging from one cleavage to another. The weasel had finished gathering his playing cards, had settled back into his chair, had racked up the deck with a few quick bangs of it against the tabletop, and was dealing himself a new hand.

"What now?" Shannon said. "You gonna turn me in? Send me to prison?"

Foster waved him off. "Nah. I don't want to have to explain this mess to anyone. Better for all of us you just disappear. Do your thing, man. Into the wind with you, there's a good lad. Unlikely you'll get out of town alive anyway. And if you do, well, after today, Henry Conor's gone. Your license, your papers—they'll all vanish from the computers. They'll all be about as useful to you as a teenager's drinking ID. We'll be setting your fingerprint and DNA records straight, too, so the first time you're busted, you'll go down for good. The arc of the moral universe is long, boy, but it bends toward you getting screwed."

Something occurred to Shannon now. He turned his face from the floor, raised an eyebrow at Foster. "You keep calling me a thief."

"You are a thief."

"But not a killer. You don't pin the Hernandez killings on me?"

"Ha! Listen, you add together the IQ of everyone who works for the United States government, you'd get enough intelligence to make one retard with his hat on sideways—but we're not
that
stupid. Benny Torrance looking for payback ain't even
my
idea of a good lead. We never would've used you if we thought you were a mad dog."

"But on the TV they keep saying it, telling people I'm a suspect. I've heard them."

"They'll keep saying it, too. We're not the police. You're a suspect till they bring you in and beat the truth out of you."

"So meanwhile, that's it. I just walk out of here."

"Like I said. Unless..."

"Yeah? What?"

"Well, this is gonna unravel fast. Our target is smart—a cop—Ramsey, his name is—he's smart and he'll unravel this jig-time once he starts looking for you, digging into your life. He'll go everywhere you've gone, talk to everyone you've met, and sooner or later, he'll figure out there's nothing there and it'll dawn on him he's been played. On the other hand, if we act fast, if we let him find you—let
him
find
you
—maybe he'll come after you. He's out of allies, so he might well do it himself. Then we'd have him."

"You mean come after me like Gutterson did?"

"Right. Find out what you know, work you over, maybe give himself away."

"Or he might just pop a cap in me."

"Or that. Probably that."

"And if he doesn't—and if you get him—what's in it for me?"

"Uh ... shit."

"Nothing?"

"Not a thing."

"You still gonna make Conor disappear, put my records back, and all that?"

"Got to. Like I said, we're flying way off the radar here. After today, you're Shannon again, whatever happens."

"You won't even offer me—you know..."

"Immunity? Son, I'm gonna be lucky if I don't end up in jail my own damn self. There's some small chance, if everything goes just right, we might be able to work something out for you higher up the line. But no guarantees, and as things stand, I wouldn't pin your hopes on it. A bullet to the head's a lot more likely."

"So if I help you, either I get killed or I get busted for life."

"Pretty much."

"I guess I'm missing something. I want to do that because ... why?"

Foster's whole hairless head seemed to quirk upward as he broke into a self-mocking grin. "Civic duty? Stop the bad guys? Save your mother country from political disaster?"

Thumbs hooked in his belt, head hung, Shannon stood looking at the man a moment.

"Have a nice day," he said then—and walked out.

He made his way back to the abandoned house, his hideaway. He tossed his gun in his tool bag and zipped the bag up and grabbed the handles and lifted it, ready to go, ready to leave town, hit the wind. But he didn't go. He set the bag down again and stood there, staring at it.

He didn't know what it was, what stopped him, but he couldn't move from the spot, even though the tension and urgency of his danger twisted his gut inside him. Then, after a few moments of standing there, staring, he did know. It was Teresa. He couldn't leave because of her.

Slowly, he sat down on the floor. His gut went on twisting, the tension terrible. He knew he had to go, had to run, had to get out of this city any way he could or the police would kill him. So he loved Teresa—so what? It wasn't as if she was going to run away with him. Hell, if she did, it would only ruin her life. And he didn't have to worry anymore that she would think he was a killer after he was gone either. Now that he knew the truth, he could write her a letter and explain it all. Why should he stay because of her?

But the answer was already in his mind, beneath the tension, beneath his conscious thoughts. Foster's words were there:

Our target is smart—a cop—Ramsey, his name is—he's smart and he'll unravel this jig-time once he starts looking for you, digging into your life.
He'll go everywhere you've gone, talk to everyone you've met, and sooner or later, he'll figure out there's nothing there and it'll dawn on him he's been played.