by Garbo Norman
“I don’t know. You’re just lucky, I guess.”
“Ha …”
“Just give me a little time to work things out, and I’ll get you out of this clean. Where’s your girl? Where’s Dolores staying? Has she moved in with you yet?”
“Yeah. This morning.”
“Good. Concentrate on her for awhile. My guess is that they’re not going to be bothering you for a while. By then, I should have you clear of them.”
“I … I appreciate it.”’
“I got you into this. The least I can do is get you out”
Chapter 14
The professor was absolutely, Burke decided, the worst driver he had ever seen. Suicidal was probably the only word that came close to describing his performance at the wheel of a car. It was a miracle he had survived to become an old man. Driving not too far behind, Burke had seen him sail serenely through stop signs and red lights, make turns from wrong lanes, cut off cars to the screeching of brakes, and, in general, leave a growing trail of near disasters across a small, undeserving section of the southwestern part of the state of Maryland. And he’ll be fine, thought Burke. I’m the one who’ll finally end up getting totalled.
Of course the old man had no idea that he was being followed, although this was the fourth day that Burke had him under surveillance. Only when the professor turned in for the night, which he rarely did before 2:00 A.M., did Burke allow himself to bed down in the Volkswagen van he had rented for that purpose. Among other things, the simple fact of the old man’s energy astounded him. On no more than three or four hours of sleep a night, he put in a workday that could have exhausted an Olympic athlete. Burke himself was bleary-eyed from trying to match his pace for just the past ninety-six hours.
There was another squeal of brakes ahead as Professor Kreuger, perhaps lost in a fresh analysis of some dimly remembered, eighteenth century political theory, ran his seventh stop sign. Burke winced and shook his head, but could not help smiling. That was some professor. One of the last of a special but sadly vanishing breed, with heart, intellect, and integrity, and enough human warmth to match the rest. Who was there to replace teachers like that when they were finally gone?
Burke saw him turn onto Route 95, going south towards Washington, and a moment later did the same himself. Watching the cars ahead, as well as those in his rearview mirror, he saw nothing suspicious. Just as he had also seen nothing suspicious for all of the past four days. Which, in itself, had begun to bother him. They should have had someone watching the old man by now. It was ten days since he had dangled that supposedly irresistible piece of bait in front of Millang, and something should have happened. Yet nothing had. Even if Millang was not involved with the Service in some way, he should have been able to contact someone who was… or else gotten back to the professor himself. But since Burke had received no messages at all from the old man during this period, he could only assume that neither of these events had taken place. And this was what he had found most disturbing.
“I don’t understand it,” he told Angela during one of his nocturnal visits. “I just can’t believe I could have figured this so wrong.”
They were sitting over a 4:00 A.M. pot of coffee in her kitchen, a tiny, windowless room that Burke enjoyed because it provided a warm (if false) illusion of continuing domesticity. This was his third visit, but the flood of feeling that had swamped him the first time had not diminished. They could have been two adolescents. It was that kind of springtime wonder.
“Maybe you’ll still hear from him,” she said.
“No. If I haven’t heard by now, I won’t hear. That’s how these things work. There’s a pattern you recognize after a while.”
“Somehow, they aren’t sold on the professor,” he said. “I can’t think of any other reason why they wouldn’t have reacted. Unless they just don’t believe Tony could have been careless enough to leave anything important lying around. Which happens to be true. This guy was a machine. He ate detail for breakfast. But even a machine can make a mistake. And why would they doubt his father?”
Angela’s finger traced a vein on the back of his hand, a loving explorer in the promised land. “Could they be afraid the professor was suspicious?”
“About what?”
“That Tony might not have really been a suicide?”
“It’s possible. But even so, they wouldn’t simply ignore it. They’d want to find out why he was suspicious and what he actually knew. One way or another, they’d have to contact him.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. But it’s got to be something. I can’t just sit and wait anymore.”
She lay her head against his hand. “Sometimes I feel so terribly guilty.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re in trouble and I’m happy.”
She raised her head to look at him and they stared at one another like two prospectors, partners, who have just come upon an extraordinary find. “I promise not to be indiscriminately happy,” she said. “Just at special moments. And in between, I’ll give equal time to worrying about all the trouble you’re in.”
“Please leave the worrying to me. I’m very good at it. I’d rather you were just happy.”
“Indiscriminately?”
He leaned over and kissed her, holding it long and hard, as if trying to learn everything about her with his lips. “Absolutely indiscriminately.”
“And you promise it won’t bother you?”
He nodded. “What about what’s-his-name? The guy with the moustache. Paul.”
“I told him it was over.”
“Didn’t you give him any reason?”
“I just said I’d met someone else I cared about.” She smiled “Someone who wasn’t married. So it wasn’t even a lie.”
“Any regrets?”
“Not really. I’m a basically monogamous type, darling. I always was. One love quite fills me up. There’s no room in me for any more than that”
“He might fire you now that you’ve stopped putting out.”
“Don’t be vulgar. That’s not why I was hired. I happen to be very good at my job.”
“Sure, but I’ll bet you’re better in bed.”
She made a face. “Sexist pig. That part of you sure hasn’t changed.”
“I can still try.”
“Don’t you dare. Not when I have three dry years to catch up on,” she said, and happily led him out of the tiny kitchen and back into the bedroom.
Burke smiled as he drove, keeping the professor’s weaving, green Chevrolet in clear sight, but remembering the woman who had once been his wife. The totally absorbing business of his survival had made a miser out of him, had made him save most of his thoughts for just trying to stay alive. But with nothing to do now but drive, he indulged himself, and thought of Angela and those last moments in bed. It had been a peak, passionate experience, a sensual flood that had swept away all the lonely years, all thought and memory of dying, all fear of what still lay ahead. It had all disappeared there in that warm, scented bed, in that dark room with the barred windows. He had not realized bow much he had missed simply the joy of her flesh, the feel of a body he had once known as intimately as his own. They clung fiercely to one another, kissing with such force that their lips became bruised and puffy. She was wild, unable to get enough of him, surprising even herself.
“My God, I’m liable to really kill you this time,” she gasped.
“Please. Kill… kill.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
He was too busy to answer.
“I’m turning into a crazy nympho”
“Terrific. Keep turning.”
“It’s embarrassing. I feel so wanton. When will I finally have enough of you?”
““The minute we get married again.”
She laughed. “That’s nasty.”
“No. More good love affairs are ruined by marriage than by anything else.”
“And that’s cynical.”
“Not for us,” she said. “It was never that way for us.”
He did not comment “Was it?”
“Was what, what?”
“Was it ever that way for us?”
“Hey, come on,” he said. “You interested in talk or some real action?”
“Both.”
“A man can’t do both.”
“You can.”
And, incredibly, he could.
Afterward, she smiled. “See? I told you.”
Drowsily submerged in love, he licked her throat like a happy cat.
“There’s definitely something to be said,” she whispered, “for all resurrections.”
,. But the real trick, he thought now in his rented van, was being able to stay resurrected. It would be too bad if it didn’t last, for Angela as well as himself. Losing him twice would be doubly hard for her. He knew about such loss. He had been introduced early to the concept of resurrection, to both its hopes and disappointments. His father had gone down on the Arizona at Pearl Harbor, and although his body still lay trapped somewhere underwater, for years Burke had waited for the miracle of its rising. It had been a secret wait. He had shared it with no one, not even his mother. The whole idea had been too crazy, too blasphemous, even for a kid. To believe his father could actually pull off something that only Jesus Himself had so far managed to do was surely too much. Still, the man had been his father, and from the day his mother had first taken him to visit the memorial at Pearl Harbor when he was seven, and he had stood staring at that great, rusted hulk, jutting from the waters of the harbor, he had carried the private fantasy inside him. In it, his father had always appeared in his beautiful white, summer dress uniform, his face solemn, his eyes weighted with the responsibility of his brand new lieutenant’s stripes, just as it was in the photograph that had stood for years on the piano at home. Otherwise, the rising was pretty much like the paintings Burke had seen of Christ’s own, with his father’s body rising mistily from the water like a great kite, one hand raised in greeting as he drifted toward him. As Burke grew older, and his mother converted both of them to Christian Science, he adapted to a less realistic version of his father’s resurrection, with the spirit as more the source and constituent of his father’s life substance. But when his mother, not too long after, tried and failed to talk herself out of a terminal cancer, even this vision faded and his father was finally twice dead. And because he was older, the second dying hurt more than the first.
I must be very careful not to do this to Angela, he thought As though any such result would be solely his to control.
The professor’s Chevrolet turned off Route 9; at Silver Spring, and Burke followed. There was less traffic here and he allowed the distance between them to lengthen another hundred yards. Checking the rearview mirror, he saw a tan station wagon coming up behind him and slowed until it had passed and turned off to the right. Professor Kreuger was driving more slowly now, as though uncertain of where he was going. Reaching a busy intersection, he stopped half way across as horns blared from three sides. Then he turned off to the left and drove into a large shopping plaza.
It was late afternoon, a busy shopping time, but the parking area was huge and had many empty spaces. The old man stopped in a section with few cars in it and Burked parked about seventyfive yards behind him. Another wasted day, he thought, wishing he could at least close his eyes for a while and grab a little sleep. Surveillance had always been the least favorite part of his work. It was tiresome, dull, and usually futile. Most of those who had something to hide, or who were professionals, could somehow manage to break the best of surveillances. The others rarely had anything going on that was worth discovering. In this instance, he was following the professor not because he expected to come upon any big discovery, but because he simply had no other alternatives.
Waiting for him to leave his car for whatever shopping he had come to do, Burke was struck again (as he had been outside his kitchen window weeks before) by the terrible solitariness of the old man’s daily existence — the reading, eating, and sleeping alone, the absence of anyone close, anyone to share with, to touch, to confide in. Of course he had his work, his students, but when he closed his door at night who was there to make him feel loved, to soothe his human fears, to tell him he was not alone and old and closer to death than he wanted to believe? Who was there to remember him as he had been when he was young? Because Burke himself felt more fortunate, because he suddenly had Angela again, he ached all the more for the old man. Ah, hey, professor, he wanted to say, I know how it is. Up until a few days ago, I was even more alone than you. And though I’m thirty years younger, I may be even closer to death. Besides, none of us are really that different. We’re all in this place together, and the final going always has to be done alone.
Burke stared across seventyfive yards of concrete at the back of the green Chevrolet, but the old man still did not come out. When a few more minutes had passed, he began to worry. Had something happened to him? Maybe a sudden fainting spell or even a heart attack? He seemed healthy enough, but at that age anything could happen, and usually without warning. Then he realized Kreuger could also just be sitting there and thinking, or going over some notes, or jotting down an idea, or simply reading one of the many books he was always carrying about with him. During his four days of watching the old man, Burke had become an expert on his more visible eccentricities. So there might very well be nothing wrong with his sitting alone in a parking lot for a while.
A moment later Burke saw a man walking towards the green Chevrolet. He had not noticed where he came from, whether from another car or from the shopping mall itself, and only spotted him when he was about thirty feet from the Chevrolet. He was of average height and wore a dark hat and a light coat with the collar turned up against the wind. For an instant, watching from his van, Burke sensed something familiar about him. He had no idea what it was. Perhaps it was his slender build, or the slight forward tilt of his head, or his walk, a quick purposeful stride that vaguely reminded Burke of other times, other places, and maybe even of people long gone. He had sensed the same thing many times before. It was part of his tradecraft automatically to collect bits and pieces like that and store them away for possible future use. Most of them were worthless. But every once in a while, at some utterly unpredictable moment, one of them could save your life.
When the man was within ten feet of the professor’s Chevrolet, and clearly headed for it, Burke picked up a pair of high-powered binoculars from the seat beside him. But before he could sight and focus, the man had opened the car door and disappeared inside.
It seemed he had something.
But what? Whoever the man was, he had taken pains to meet the professor alone and on neutral ground. Which meant he was almost certain to be someone Millang had contacted. Parking lot meetings in cars were hardly a normal part of the old man’s daily routine. But if Millang had arranged the meeting, if this finally was the contact they had been waiting for all this time, why hadn’t the professor notified him as planned? During the past four days of his surveillance, Burke had regularly checked with the answering service number he had given the professor, but had received no messages. Of course, he had not called in for the last few hours. Also, this meeting might have come about too quickly for the old man to set their elaborate call-back arrangements in motion. Which was all beside the point, anyway. The only thing that mattered was that someone was here.
Burke focused his binoculars on the rear window of the Chevrolet, but the angle was bad and he could see nothing. Carefully backing out of his parking space, he circled the mall and chose what he hoped would be a better viewing position at a safe distance. But the visibility was equally bad from here, with the slope of the rear window reflecting the light in such a way as to make the glass opaque. Burke considered moving again, then decided against it. He had been foolish to move the van even the first time. It was not unlikely that they would have someone watching
the contact’s back in a situation like this, and a van cruising from one place to another in the same parking lot would arouse suspicion. He was getting careless. Any rookie would have known better. You could be careful, careful, careful, then blow it all in a moment of thoughtless enthusiasm.
He put down the binoculars in disgust. That, too, was stupidity. Did he think he was off in the woods, somewhere? Imagine being seen using high-powered glasses in a suburban shopping mall. Feeling coldly on edge, he checked every car within his field of vision but saw nothing to be disturbed about. The only occupied car was a black Cadillac Seville in which a couple sat talking, and he had spotted them earlier. Occasionally, they kissed and hung onto one another. They were not young. Probably married, thought Burke, only not to one another; he felt a tinge of sympathy. But whether the feeling was for them, for two aging lovers having to steal a few crumbs of affection in a parking lot, or for their imagined spouses, he was not certain.
So once more he found himself waiting, although this time in reasonable comfort, and with the excitement of positive results immediately ahead. This could be an important breakthrough. He had not, after all, been wrong about Millang. The simple fact of a contact was no real proof, of course. Millang might have merely passed on the baited information to someone he knew in the Service, and still be no part of it himself. But Burke did not really believe that and, confirmed or not, felt the satisfaction of having his judgment vindicated. That this might prove a significant step towards his survival was not even part of his satisfaction at the moment. He was too hooked into the glow of a professional pride he had just about forgotten. He was still pretty damned good at this stuff, he thought, and could almost envision Tony as he would have once looked at a beautiful debriefing like this, with that great, secret face seeming to say nothing, but the pleasure still busting out of both eyes. Terrific, terrific, his eyes would have said, but just remember who taught you, baby.
Okay, Burke thought. The debt is hereby acknowledged and proper credit given. Retroactively.
