31
Jake peered in astonishment at the major’s Cadillac, then, suddenly alarmed, he spun around, half expecting to see Shubin standing at the corner, snapping pictures. He was not there now, but he was there once, that much Jake knew for certain.
He slipped around the Cadillac toward the restaurant’s window and leaned into the glass, shielding his eyes from the sun. Red leather booths, ceiling fans, waiters in starched white jackets. In the last booth against the wall occupied by a group of air force officers, Major Armbruster was making them howl with laughter by swooshing a bread roll in the air as if it were a fighter aircraft performing a risky maneuver. Two waiters, shouldering loaded trays, sailed out the swinging door in the back and approached the table. The officers turned, cheered, and began moving water glasses around, making room for the plates.
Jake had not eaten since yesterday and, watching the officers gobble fried eggs and tacos, he felt the hole from the missing tooth in his mouth quickly fill with saliva. He swallowed hard, turned away from the window, and bellied up to the Cadillac, pressing his nose against the passenger-side glass. The thing was beautiful inside: white leather, spotless, roomier than his mother’s parlor. Squeaking a sweaty slug trail across the glass, Jake slid his nose down until he could make out the speedometer behind the steering wheel. He whistled respectfully at what the gauge was promising.
A sharp crack came from around the corner and then another, closer. Jake looked up and saw, distorted through the Cadillac’s windshield, a brown pickup truck grinding to a stop across the street. The muffler fired, spewing a burst of smoke. The engine cut. The driver’s window slid down. A thick, meaty arm sagged over the ledge. Glowing in the blazing sun, that naked white arm made Jake think of some exotic jungle snake, and he felt a sudden cramp in his throat, imagining being strangled in its slimy coils. He shifted his gaze away from the arm up into the shadowy cabin where at that very moment, the driver’s head rotated slowly in his direction. Jake ducked down. How could he not recognize the truck? It was that gold-toothed fellow, Bull.
Jake waited for a moment, then cautiously peeked out above the rim of the door. Bull was looking at the Cadillac, holding something up to his face with both hands. Two even dabs of light flared briefly side by side. Binoculars! Jake plunged behind the door again.
Bull was a spy, another spy in the Russian spy ring along with Shubin, Kathy Lubeck, and those invisible creeps in the Buick. Their target was Major Armbruster, exactly what Duane had predicted. Jake glanced over toward the restaurant. He had to warn the major that he was under surveillance by the Russians, but the distance between the Cadillac and the restaurant’s front door lay in Bull’s plain sight. If Jake tried to make a dash for it, Bull would see him, binoculars or not. With his sneaky two-way radio, he would let the others know, and then the major and Jake would both be in trouble.
Jake squatted behind the Cadillac, sorting out his meager options. To alert Major Armbruster was Jake’s duty as a patriotic American, but there was some other thought that began to stir in his mind. The thought was this. The major had come to Mr. Vargas’s classroom to share his method for fighting the threat of Communism. If Jake could help the major now, he, too, would be fighting that threat. Then Jake could return to the classroom to share his method of fighting, so that no one would ever call him a Commie again.
The Cadillac was parked by the entrance to the restaurant at the northeastern corner of Herbert Avenue and Twelfth Street. Bull’s truck was parked across the street on Herbert. If there was another entrance to the restaurant along Twelfth Street, say a kitchen entry, Jake could try to sneak in without Bull spotting him. Jake turned around to scan the length of the buildings, looking for the passageway that might lead to the kitchen door, but there was none. He looked away, kept still an instant thinking of what he just saw, then turned and looked again. He was not mistaken.
Shubin was heading his way.
32
The sun, directly above the Cadillac by then, beat down mercilessly. To stay out of Shubin’s sight Jake clung to the rear door, scorching his skin against the overheated metal. The creases behind his knees and elbows were filled with sweat. His shirt was soaked. Panting like a thirsty dog, Jake watched Shubin coming closer. He did not know what to do.
Shubin had promised to tell Jake about his father tonight, but Shubin was an enemy of the United States, a Russian spy, a Communist, and clearly a liar. How could Jake trust him? Besides, the arrogant way in which Shubin was walking, strutting along as if he owned the streets, irritated Jake so much earlier that he became careless and made a mistake. This time, Shubin’s arrogant walk made Jake cautious.
He had no way to escape in either direction without being seen by either Shubin or Bull, let alone warn the major that he was under surveillance and not by one spy but by two. He thought of slipping under the Cadillac, but it was parked so near the curb that even as skinny as Jake was, he could have never squeezed beneath its shiny trim. Jake glanced around one more time. There was no way out. Meanwhile, Shubin was rapidly approaching, and Jake could already imagine Shubin making fun of him when he would discover Jake hiding again. Desperate to get away from Shubin’s mocking grin and from his sarcastic, grating voice, Jake reached up to the Cadillac’s rear door handle. With a soft click the door came open. Jake ducked inside and shut the door behind him.
The Cadillac was oven-hot. The smell of brand-new leather near melting point burned Jake’s nostrils. Folding himself into a neat little bundle, he cowered on the rubber-matted floor below the door. It was ridiculous, Jake knew, but his heart was hammering so hard, he was afraid that Shubin might hear it while passing the vehicle. Besides, if he decided to take a look at the speedometer the way Jake did, he would see him inside for certain.
Jake waited.
Then suddenly, the front passenger door swung open. Someone got into the car. The door thumped closed. Jake held his breath. Beside him, the back of the seat sagged under the person’s weight. Jake leaned away a little. The leather creaked, as if the person was shifting in the seat. Something was lifted and opened. There was a rustle of paper. Pages of a book or a magazine were turned methodically, without hurry. After each page turn came a metallic—
Click.
Click.
Click.
A camera, Jake guessed at once. From where he was hiding behind the seat, Jake could not see the person taking pictures, but when the whistling came, that same silly tune that Shubin had been whistling all day, Jake knew who was taking pictures with his Minox.
Every sound in the well-sealed Cadillac’s interior seemed extraordinarily loud. Shubin’s whistling, the rustle of the pages, the Minox’s clicks, the creaking of the leather, and Jake’s wildly beating heart all merged together into a crashing clamor pressing painfully upon his ears. Drenched in sweat and holding his breath as if he were underwater, Jake began adding up the clicks but soon lost count. He was afraid of suffocating. He needed air. He did not know how much longer he could stay without breathing or without moving, when suddenly the clicking and the whistling stopped. He heard Shubin shifting in the seat, as if he was putting something away. The door opened, and the street noises flooded the interior, cars passing, footfalls, someone laughing. Shubin climbed out, the door thumped shut, and dead silence fell again.
Jake exhaled and, gulping the scorching air, peeked over the bench out of the rear window. Shubin was strolling away the way he had strolled in, carefree, as if nothing unusual had happened. While watching Shubin, he remembered Bull with his binoculars and plunged to the floor. Had Bull seen him? He lifted himself off the floor and cautiously peered above the bottom rim of the window. The truck was gone.
He clambered over to the front bench and looked under the seats and above the dashboard. There was nothing in sight, no papers. What was he taking pictures of? Jake yanked the glove compartment open and stuck his hand inside. His fingers thumped against a solid object. He felt a crosshatched grip. His index finger slid around a met
al curve. A handgun!
Jake was not surprised that Major Armbruster carried the handgun in his vehicle. After all, he was the head of security at the air force base; he had to be armed. At home, Jake had a Red Ryder BB carbine with a plastic stock, good at shooting empty Coke bottles in the desert, but he had never held a real gun before. Jake could not tell what kind of gun it was, but it felt warm and heavy in his hand, heavier than his Red Ryder carbine. Jake studied the gun for a minute. He did not know how to check it, but the gun must have been loaded. Careful to keep his finger off the trigger, Jake glanced around for a target, raised the gun, squeezed one eye shut, placed the restaurant’s door inside the gun sights, and—phfff!—blew air through his folded lips in a perfect imitation of a gunshot.
The restaurant’s door flew open, and a headwaiter stood to one side, holding the door for the air force officers on their way out. Still aiming the gun, Jake froze, watching the officers file out one by one, blinking into the sun and squaring blue hats over their flattops. Jake ducked down, tossed the handgun back into the glove compartment, slammed the lid shut, and cautiously peeked out at the restaurant’s entrance. In the doorway, Major Armbruster was whispering something into the headwaiter’s ear. Laughing, the waiter threw back his slick, shiny head, and the major, also laughing, slapped him on the shoulder.
Minutes ago Jake had wanted to warn Major Armbruster about the Russian spies, but seeing him now, he suddenly was not so sure. He had not found any proof of what Shubin was taking pictures of, so the major might not even believe him and get angry that Jake snuck inside his Cadillac without permission. No, it would be better to tell him later, taking the time to explain in detail what had happened in the car while he was having breakfast. This was a national security matter, not something Jake should be doing in a hurry in front of other people.
Crouching below the steering wheel to stay out of sight, Jake clicked the driver’s door open and slipped out of the car. On the way out, he was amazed to see what had been in plain sight the whole time he had let himself be distracted by the handgun. A slim leather briefcase with the major’s initials embossed in gold below the handle sat in the driver’s seat. The briefcase had been shut in such a hurry that the edge of a blue cardboard folder got caught below the lid. Squatting on the pavement outside of the car, Jake stared in astonishment at a bright red stamp clearly visible on the folder’s right upper corner—TOP SECRET.
“Hasta mañana, amigos!” Jake heard the headwaiter calling from the doorway.
“Hasta mañana!” Major Armbruster’s voice bellowed back. “Mismo tiempo!”
The officers were approaching the Cadillac. Their voices and their laughter were getting nearer. Having no time to decide what to do next, Jake snatched the folder out of the briefcase, slammed the door, and took off at a run.
33
Inside the blue cardboard three-ring folder: charts and diagrams and drawings of an aircraft, probably a bomber. Swept-back wings Jake had never seen before and six slick engines tucked under the wings in pods that made him think of race cars. All the pages in the folder, and there were many, were stamped TOP SECRET in the upper right corner, even pages with no pictures but blocks of impenetrable words like nacelles, airfoil, subsonic.
Squatting in the shade against the wall in the alley off Fourth Avenue, Jake leafed through the folder from the first page to the last, and then back again from the last page to the first, frowning at the pictures and words and struggling to understand their meaning. He snapped the folder shut and read the cover: THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND, and above it in red ink, TOP SECRET.
He knew he should not have taken it. What was he supposed to do with this thing clearly beyond his understanding? But what if he would show it to someone? To the G-men, say, to Bambach and to Bader? They told him to stop playing detective. They said he was not cut out for the job. Well, maybe they were not cut out for the job. He had managed to catch the spy in the act. Not only was he in the car when Shubin was snapping pictures of the folder, he had the folder. That should be enough for Bambach and Bader to put the cuffs on Shubin. But if Jake handed over the folder to them, would that not get Duane’s dad in trouble with the FBI? The G-men might wonder why he had left his Cadillac unlocked. Of course, no one locked cars in the city, but how many were driving around with top secret folders in their vehicles? Besides, even though Shubin was clearly a liar, why would he lie to Jake that he knew his father? That made no sense at all. Jake should have interrogated him then and there, but he had lost his nerve, and now, if Shubin was arrested, the G-men would not let Jake ask him anything at all.
His head began to hurt from too much thinking, and when he heard the horses’ hooves clunking along Fourth Avenue, he hopped up to his feet, eager for distraction. Not that he cared to gawk at the mounted policemen patrolling the streets before the parade the way little kids do, but he was glad to give his head a break from trying to figure this spy thing out.
He skipped out of the alley and—what a surprise!—instead of the policemen, a procession of cowboys, about a dozen in all, trotted by single file. Shielding his eyes from the sun with the top secret folder, Jake admired the beautiful horses, clomping a pretty Western tune out of the softened asphalt. The silver-plated saddle horns, spurs, and belt buckles dazzled, and the American flags, with their glossy staffs propped inside the silver stirrups, billowed and rippled in the sun. The cowboy bringing up the rear, silvery-white from his hat to his spurs, spotted Jake marveling at his pony with the braided mane and tail. Flashing his teeth below the droopy mustache, he called out, “Coming to the parade, son?”
“Yes, sir,” Jake called back. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
The cowboy nodded, tipped his Stetson, and spurred his pony to catch up with the others. The American flag behind him snapped and fell away, clearing Jake’s view of the opposite side of the street. The black Buick, nearly invisible in the shadow of the Federal Savings building, sat growling at the curb.
Jake glanced at the top secret folder he was holding in plain sight and quickly snatched it behind his back. Across the street, the driver gunned the engine. The wheels spun away from the curb. When the reflection of the cowboy’s flag rippled across the Buick’s windows, Jake was in a dead run already. Deliberately, he took off in the opposite direction from where the vehicle’s grille was facing. He heard the Buick screech a U-turn and kept running, quickly overtaking the cowboy procession. The horses, the riders, and the flags streaked to his left as he ran.
“Where’s the fire, amigo?” one of the cowboys called after him.
The squeal of the tires drowned out the cowboys’ laughter. Jake glanced over his shoulder at the Buick coming out of the U-turn, skidding, screeching, blasting its horn, barely missing the pretty pony in the rear of the procession. The pony snorted, lurched, and reared. The cowboy’s white Stetson flew off his head, jumping and bouncing across the street. The Buick crushed it under its tires. Surging wildly and bumping flanks, the horses stomped over the sidewalk, rolling their panic-stricken eyes. Jake darted through the confusion of the reeling horses and the tangled flags, made a right on Broadway and right again on Herbert. At Twelfth Street, he ducked into the alley. A moment later, the Buick shot right by the alley’s entrance.
Panting, Jake clutched the top secret folder in his teeth, unbuttoned his jeans and yanked his shirt out, stuck the folder next to his boxers, and stuffed the shirt back in and buttoned up his jeans. He squatted a couple of times and hopped up and down, testing whether the folder would stay put. It did fine.
Moving down the narrow alley, Jake came across an empty Coke bottle and began kicking it as he walked, glancing over his shoulder in between the kicks. He knew he had a little time to catch his breath before the Buick would double back to look for him. The bottle rolled and spun along the rough and rutted surface, and Jake decided that if he could kick the bottle to the end of the alley without breaking it, the Buick would never find him.
He
picked up speed and kicked the bottle forward. It spun, flashed in the sun, and knocked against the wall, shattering to pieces. The Buick roared in from the far end of the alley and bore head-on toward Jake. Startled that the vehicle had not come from behind as he had expected, he halted, gaping at the Buick gunning straight at him. Halfway down the alley, someone began opening the back door of a shop.
“Watch out!” Jake screamed.
A slight man under a hat folded out of a newspaper glanced at him from the doorway. “Qué?”
The Buick sped by, ripping the door clean off its hinges. The man leapt back inside. The door sailed up, spinning in the air. By the time it came down, splintering to pieces against the rear bumper of the Buick, Jake was running out of the alley.
A bus rattled by, blocking his way. He took a sharp right. The Buick came after him, slamming into the side of the bus. Jake heard a dull thud, metal crumpling, glass shattering against the pavement, but he kept running without looking back.
34
One thing Jake had never done was take other people’s stuff without their permission. He had never stolen a thing in his life. Taking the major’s top secret folder from the Cadillac made him feel uneasy, but was it stealing? It was collecting evidence of Mr. Shubin’s subversive activities in the United States, the way the G-men had put it. The trouble was what to do with that evidence now.
What helped him decide, and he was ashamed to admit to his weakness, was this: he was becoming a little desperate managing this spy thing on his own. The last high-speed chase against that Buick, how it bore toward him through the alley, how it took that door clean off its hinges, and how it crashed into the bus had much to do with his decision. He had the G-men’s cards stuck in the pocket of his jeans, he knew the number to call, but a telephone call cost a nickel, a nickel Jake did not have. As awful as it was, he had no choice but to try his hand at stealing.
Spy Runner Page 11
