Spy Runner

by Eugene Yelchin

  Crossing Ochoa Street, Jake came upon McGhee’s soda shop. It had the best ice cream in the city, but he tried not to think of it. The important thing was that McGhee’s had a phone booth in the back of the shop. Past the marble counter and past the soda fountain, it was a narrow, ill-lit cubicle with numbers scribbled on the paneled walls and a wobbly door that folded twice to open and to close.

  Leaning casually against the wall beside McGhee’s window, he eyed the customers inside. The newly polished glass reflected a patch of sky, a dentist’s sign across the street, and Jake himself. The soda shop was crowded. Hiding from the heat, folks who had come to the city to watch the parade swarmed the marble counter. Jake scanned the crowd and, trying to ignore the nasty feeling this whole business gave him, carefully chose his victim.

  A thin, blue-hatted lady of indefinite age perched atop a stool nearest the window sucking on a straw from a bottle of pop. Jake fixed his eyes on the lady, encouraging her in his mind to hurry up and finish the pop. It was unbearable loitering by the soda shop in the brutal sun with lots of important things to accomplish while she was sipping her icy pop in no hurry whatsoever. But his plan required patience, the hardest thing for Jake. He had to wait for the lady to finish her pop and lay her nickel on the counter, and then, and only then, he was to make his move. A worry that he might be caught stealing money did not cross his mind. The blue-hatted lady’s nickel he was planning to take was not just any old nickel but a matter of national security.

  At last, the lady pushed the bottle aside and dabbed at her lips with a napkin. Jake entered the shop. He entered leisurely, as if he had no worry in the world, softly whistling some silly tune that came to him out of nowhere. Strolling along, he glimpsed his reflection in the tilted mirror above the counter and halted, horrified by what he saw. His phony way of entering the soda shop was a perfect imitation of Shubin’s arrogant walk.

  The blue-hatted lady dug a nickel out of her purse, placed it on the marble top, slipped off her stool, and smiled at Jake. “Hot out there?”

  Jake looked away from his reflection in the mirror. “What?”

  “I said, hot out there?” the lady repeated. “Think they’re still aiming to have the parade in such a heat?”

  Jake’s eyes darted to the nickel gleaming on the marble top, then to the soda clerk drawing a glass of pop from the soda fountain, then to the back of the blue-hatted lady pushing through the door on her way out. In one smooth and rapid motion, Jake swiped the nickel, cut through the crowd, and before the clerk turned back to set the glass of foaming pop before the customer, Jake was inside the phone booth, folding the door closed and dropping the nickel into the coin slot and shouting into the receiver, “Operator?”

  “What number?” a woman’s voice answered.

  “Number? Oh yeah. Hold on.” Jake dug inside his pocket and yanked out the two matching cards the G-men had given him. The one on top was Agent Bader’s.

  “Number, please,” the woman repeated impatiently.

  Jake read the number off the card, two letters followed by five numerals.

  “Connecting,” the woman said.

  While the receiver hissed and crackled, Jake was turning over in his head the best way to put it all to Bader, but before he could decide, the hiss and the crackle cut abruptly and in the hollow silence that followed, a man’s voice whispered, “Jake McCauley?”

  Jake stood, pressing the handset to his ear, his mouth oval-shaped. How did they know it was him calling?

  “Jake McCauley?” the voice insisted. “Did they lose you? Are you alone?”

  Jake stood, speechless, holding the handset.

  “Jake McCauley? Do you hear me? Stay where you are. We are coming to get you.”

  Jake slammed the handset into the cradle so hard, the phone box shuddered, a bell rang, and the lady’s nickel popped back out and jingled into a shallow aluminum bowl.

  “Hey, brother!” the soda clerk hollered when Jake raced out of the phone booth.

  “Who? Me?”

  Several customers bellied up to the counter turned around to look at Jake.

  “What did I do?” he mumbled, glancing toward the door.

  “Not you, brother, not you, but listen up, folks!” the clerk hollered, looking around at the customers with a grin on his shiny face. “Did you all see the old gal who sat over there? In a blue hat? Respectable-like?” He leaned back and burst out in a fit of merry laughter. “Skipped the joint without paying! How do you like that? Drank the Coke, but didn’t leave her nickel! Where does she think she’s at, folks? Communist Russia?”

  Jake looked around at the wildly laughing faces, slammed the lady’s nickel onto the marble top, and hurried out of the shop.

  35

  In the comics, the Communists watched Spy Runner’s every move with secret TV cameras hidden in the most unusual places. The phone call in the soda shop left Jake so bewildered that he was beginning to believe the Communists were watching him with those cameras. He even thought that the G-men who gave him their cards were not G-men at all, but Russian spies in disguise. That was how they knew that Jake had cut up Shubin’s suitcase and that was why the fellow who had answered the phone knew it was Jake calling.

  He kept glancing all around for any sign of hidden cameras, and when, without realizing where he was headed, he found himself on the corner of Stone and McCormick, he stared in surprise at PHOTO & REPAIRS written in gold flaking letters on the dusty glass door. Jake leaned into the glass, shielding his eyes from the reflection of the street. The murky space was empty. The lights were off, and the brown drape was tightly drawn, concealing the entrance to the workshop.

  Jake had no doubt that Shubin was inside. He even knew what he was doing in the darkroom now. Jake imagined Shubin under the dim red light, stooping over a thick and heavy liquid rippling in the cracked enamel tray. Below the surface of the liquid, Shubin’s tobacco-stained fingers held a sheet of paper on which a picture began to appear, faint at first, pale, then deep and rich and dark. It was a picture of a bomber with six slick engines tucked below the swept-back wings, a picture that Shubin’s Minox stole from the pages of the top secret folder, the very same folder concealed below Jake’s sweat-soaked shirt.

  While Jake was peering through the glass, he saw the brown curtain move aside, and someone entered the murky space behind the counter. Jake wheeled around, looking for a place to hide. He ducked behind the lamppost on the corner, and when a faint sound of the doorbell reached his ears, he saw a large potbelly thrusting out of the Photo & Repairs doorway. The gold-toothed Bull emerged through the door, but the blaring horn of a passing motorcar alarmed him and Bull stepped back in quickly. The two of them stayed that way for a moment, not twenty feet apart yet invisible to each other, Jake behind the post, Bull inside the doorway.

  At last, Bull ventured out on the sidewalk, looking in all directions and mopping the rolls in the back of his neck with a hankie. Jake did not have to be Spy Runner to figure what was inside a large manila envelope tucked under Bull’s other arm. Shubin had just handed Bull the pictures of the top secret folder.

  Bull stuffed the hankie into his pocket and charged down the street. The moment his back was turned, Jake stepped out from behind the lamppost, watching Bull’s burly shape cut through the crowd. The manila envelope swung under his arm.

  What terrible trouble Major Armbruster had gotten himself into by leaving his Cadillac unlocked. Not just himself but every American. The moment Bull smuggled Shubin’s pictures to Moscow, the Russians, using stolen American know-how, would build their own aircrafts with swept-back wings and six slick engines. They would load those bombers with A-bombs and fly them over here. Duck and cover all you want, Mr. Vargas. If Bull gets away with that envelope, everyone in America is as good as dead.

  36

  Bull stomped south on Stone Avenue and made a left on Cushing, moving in and out of the shafts of sunlight, slanting in between the buildings. Each time Bull stepped out of the sunlight,
Jake could not see him in the shadows. Worried that he might lose Bull, Jake tailed him closely until the corner of Sixth Avenue, where Bull stopped so abruptly, Jake nearly bumped into him. Thick folds in Bull’s neck rolled above his sweat-stained collar, and like a giant ball, his massive head rotated in Jake’s direction.

  “What you want?”

  “Who? Me?” Jake said, nervously glancing at the manila envelope under Bull’s arm.

  Bull noticed Jake’s glance, frowned, moved the envelope under his other arm, blocking it from Jake with his bulky shape, and stepped off the sidewalk to cross the street. The moment he turned, Jake rushed at him from behind and snatched the envelope from under his arm. Then all at once, a sharp pain shot through Jake’s chest. Somehow he was not standing anymore but lying on the sidewalk, and Bull was looming over him, and the envelope was under his arm again.

  Jake reached out and grabbed the envelope. Bull snarled a confusing word, “Doorak!” and yanked the envelope away. Jake yanked it back. “Otdai, doorak!” Bull pulled it harder. They tugged the envelope back and forth until the flap burst open and glossy snapshots fanned out to the pavement. Bull flung Jake a murderous look, came down to his knees, and, muttering to himself in Russian, began collecting the snapshots.

  Jake sat up, gazing at the pictures in bewilderment. No charts and diagrams and drawings of the bomber, but men in overalls on ladders, and mounted policemen, and flags strung between the lampposts. These were not the pages of the top secret folder at all but the pictures Shubin had snapped while they were walking up Congress toward his workshop.

  Confused about what he should be doing now, Jake rolled over to his knees and picked up one picture on which he saw himself glaring at the camera. Bull slapped the picture out of his hand.

  “Ouch!” Jake cried, rubbing his hand. “What’s the big idea?”

  “Go away!” Bull growled, the rolls in his neck turning purple.

  “What’s your problem, mister?” Jake finally exploded. “You should go away, not me, okay? What if I came to Russia and stared into your window at night, huh? Would you like that?”

  Bull turned to check if any pedestrians were in earshot, then scowled at Jake. “What Russia?”

  “Well, you know,” Jake said. “The Commieland. Aren’t you a Commie?”

  Bull’s left hand did something to Jake again. Sharp pain shooting through Jake’s chest made him black out, and when he opened his eyes, he was ten feet away from Bull, flat on his back, wedged between the trash can and the lamppost. Bull stood, wheezing, shoving the snapshots inside the torn envelope. The snapshots would not fit, and a few of them fluttered to the pavement. Bull glanced at Jake with hatred. Squatting on his thick haunches, he began collecting the snapshots but halted suddenly, frowning in the direction of Jake’s belly. Confused, Jake followed his gaze. In the fall, his shirt had bunched up to his chest, revealing the top secret folder tucked inside his jeans.

  37

  Jake tried to scoot away from Bull, but he stomped his foot behind Jake’s back to halt his escape and, looming over him like a mountain, reached for the folder: “Give it!”

  “Just a moment, sir.” A gray-haired man, likely a Valley National Bank employee by the looks of his neat suit, stepped in between Jake and Bull. “What did you hit the boy for?”

  “I saw it, too!” A woman kneeled beside Jake, the same blue-hatted lady from whom he had stolen a nickel at the soda shop. “Poor child!” she chirped, patting his forehead with a hankie.

  “Is that your father, boy?” a deep voice said over Jake, and a pair of strong hands slid under his arms and lifted him up to his feet.

  A small crowd began to gather.

  “Give it!” Bull roared, lunging at Jake, but the pedestrians, squeezing in between the two of them and all talking at once, slowed Bull down. Jake spun away, looped around someone standing next to him, and sprinted through the busy intersection. A slick sedan zoomed by, blaring its horn.

  At Stone Street, Jake darted behind the corner building and, leaning against the wall, tucked his loose shirt into his jeans to cover the folder. The left side of his chest where Bull had hit him twice hurt, and he leaned forward with his hands propped on his knees, waiting for the pain to subside.

  Shouting and screaming came from the other side of the street. Jake edged toward the corner and cautiously peeked out. The lady from the soda shop, her blue hat hanging off one ear, sat on the pavement, screaming. Beside her, the bank employee lay motionless with his head hanging facedown off the curb. The sidewalk was strewn with hats. Growling and grunting, the gold-toothed Russian was in the thick of a half-dozen hatless men, holding on to him in one mad, lurching, grappling, shuffling swirl.

  “Danny! Danny!” someone was shouting. “Fetch the sheriff!”

  Jake ran again, crossing Sixth and Fifth Avenues and dodging in and out of traffic. Either from too much running or from Bull hurting him, he felt a stitch in his side and had to slow his pace, then switch to walking. At the intersection of Jackson and Stone, he halted altogether and stood, panting, with his hands to his side. If only his roadster had not been stolen, this spy thing would not be so hard. When Shubin and Bull and Kathy Lubeck and those creeps in the Buick were all safely in prison, Jake would report the theft of the roadster to the police. He could not tell why, but he was convinced that his father’s old bike would be found.

  Jake took a deep breath and looked around, deciding which way to go. Not fifty feet away, Bull was stomping up the sidewalk in his direction. Caught by surprise, Jake froze, watching Bull approach. His hat was gone, his jacket torn at one shoulder, and his crumpled shirt hung open over his white bouncing belly. In a moment, he was within a leap from Jake. For all his enormous bulk, the gold-toothed fellow was remarkably fast.

  Jake wheeled around and shot into the traffic, ignoring the blaring horns. Halfway across the street, he glimpsed a motorcar coming at him from the left. He sped up, expecting the vehicle to let him through. Instead, the motorcar swerved into his path, cut him off, and ground to a halt. At full run, Jake smacked against its fender. From the impact, the folder blasted off from under the belt of his jeans. With its blue covers jutting out like a fighter jet’s wings, the folder soared high in the air, hung motionless there for an instant, then dived into a corkscrew maneuver and crashed into the pavement.

  Jake pushed away from the fender and, looking around wildly, took in several things at once: Bull’s gold-toothed scowl behind the flicker of the traffic, the top secret folder on the ground with its pages slowly turning, and the motorcar that stopped him, so badly damaged it took Jake a moment to recognize the same black Buick that had been chasing him all day. The dull noise of the crumpling metal and the shattering glass rang through his mind.

  Oh, yeah. The creeps had run into the bus.

  Behind the windshield veiled in a spiderweb of cracks, Jake glimpsed two shapes scooting away from each other. The doors flew open. The driver’s door slipped off its hinges and clanged to the ground.

  Two matching suits stepped out. Two matching flattops. Two matching pairs of X-ray eyes. Agent Bader and Agent Bambach, grinning, talking over each other, moving toward Jake along the sides of the crumpled hood.

  “Quit running, McCauley—”

  “Look what you’ve done to the—”

  “Government property—”

  “Taxpayers’ money—”

  “Your mother said—”

  “To keep an eye on you—”

  “Will come out of her salary—”

  “The repairs—”

  “Will not be cheap—”

  “So you know.”

  Startled, Jake watched the agents closing in on him, saying things he could not understand. His eyes shot toward the sidewalk, but Bull was no longer there. When he looked back at the G-men, they were towering over him.

  “Looks like you dropped something, McCauley,” said Agent Bader.

  “Could be important,” said Agent Bambach.

  �
��Let’s take a look at it,” said Agent Bader, squatting beside the buckled bumper under which the open folder turned its top secret pages in the gust of wind raised by the passing cars.

  If not for the phone call he had made in the soda shop, Jake would be relieved to see them. He badly needed help, but these twin thugs seemed dangerous and frightening to him. Jake needed time to think this over, but the nasty smirk on Bambach’s face and Bader’s hand reaching for the folder sent him into action. Jake darted forward, snatched the folder from under Bader’s fingers, and, ignoring the agents shouting for him to stop, the motorcars flying in both directions, and the pain from the stitch in his side, he tore across the street.

  38

  Exhausted, Jake slumped in the shade beneath a rusted tin wall of an abandoned warehouse. To his left, a large truck tire lay smoldering below the abandoned bonfire’s dwindling flames. Through the smoke-filled air, gray specks of ash twirled down upon Jake’s sweaty high-tops and his sweaty socks drying on the flattened cardboard box beside him.

  For close to an hour after he had escaped Bambach and Bader, he had pounded the sunbaked alleys desolate in the dead glare of the high noon sun. He had passed machine shops, warehouses, garages; once leapt over a pile of oil-stained rugs set afire; and gulped the arid air that stung his eyes and made his throat itchy. The sheets of corrugated tin had extended for a long time to his left, and when they had stopped abruptly, a guard dog had charged him from behind a chain-link fence. Jake had lurched aside, catching his foot in a hard clay rut. The dog, flinging long strands of saliva from its snapping jaws, had hurled itself into the bulging chain links long after Jake limped away.