Spy Runner

by Eugene Yelchin

  46

  “Agent Bambach is out in the field at the moment,” a lady receptionist said, her eyes twinkling behind the large round spectacles. “Is it about a fight, dearie?”

  “What fight?” Jake said.

  “Your face? Your left cheek is…” She paused. “Who did this to you, dearie?”

  He touched the left side of his face where Bull had hit him in front of the abandoned storefront.

  “I need to talk to someone, ma’am. It’s urgent.”

  “Looks to me like a police department matter.” She smiled, and her eyes twinkled again behind the spectacles. “This here is the Federal Bureau of Investigation, dearie, not the police. Do you know the difference?”

  Jake snatched Agent Bambach’s card, which he had set before her. “Yes, ma’am. I know the difference.” He moved away from her desk and stood with his hands deep in his pockets and with his injured foot propped against the wall behind him. “I’ll wait.”

  “Might be a long time, though. They’re all awful busy today.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I know.”

  “Do you, now?”

  The lady’s round spectacles were fixed so persistently at him that Jake turned away, uneasy under her stare.

  Kathy Lubeck told him to stay in the trailer until someone came for him, but Jake, wary of who that someone might turn out to be, decided not to wait to find out. Besides, after what happened there, he did not feel like hanging around that horrid trailer a minute longer. A bus driver who gave him a lift downtown, after taking one long look at Jake’s face, did not even ask him for money. Bouncing in the back of the bus on the way to the FBI office, Jake had wondered what he would find. If the phone number was only for him to call, as Duane said, what about the address on the card? Did they put up a special office for him, too? Jake was ready to believe it by the looks of this place.

  In the movies and the comics, the FBI offices were always noisy, smoke-filled rooms with whirring ceiling fans, and clicking typewriters, and ringing telephones, and special agents roaming in between the desks with their jackets off for you to see the pistols in their shoulder holsters. This place was different.

  Following the address printed on the card, Jake had found a dreary waiting room with a dust-coated Stars and Stripes drooping from the stand in the corner and a picture of a fat-cheeked fellow hanging above the receptionist’s desk. The only thing missing to make it look like any other small-time office in their city was a piece of dusty taxidermy, a stuffed great horned owl, for example—those were always popular.

  “J. Edgar Hoover. Our director,” the receptionist said, catching Jake eyeing the photograph of the fat-cheeked fellow. “Are you familiar?” She swiveled in her chair and reverently gazed at the picture. “Never met him personally, but some of our men have. An inspiring individual, Mr. Hoover. He said this. I memorized it. ‘We can successfully defeat the Communist attempt to capture the United States by fighting it with truth and justice.’ Think about it, dearie. Fighting it with truth and justice.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jake said. “I heard it on the radio.”

  He stared at the picture for a moment, then thought of Shubin rocking in his dad’s old rocker and he surprised himself by saying, “Only you can’t trust everything you hear on the radio, ma’am. Some people think it’s all baloney.”

  “It’s what?” gasped the receptionist.

  “Some people say there are plenty of suckers in this country who get neither liberty nor justice just because they think differently than J. Edgar Hoover, or something like that, I don’t remember exactly, but it’s against the Constitution.”

  Speechless, the receptionist sat under the picture, blinking at Jake through her round spectacles.

  “What … what are you trying to…,” she finally stuttered. “Do you realize where you are, young man?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I realize.” Jake squinted at the fat-cheeked fellow in the picture. “I just heard someone say it, ma’am. I can’t verify it or nothing, but some people, some people in my class, for example, they decided I was different, that I was a Communist, which I am not, and they sure gave me plenty of trouble, ma’am. I can’t say what it’s like for real Communists, ma’am, but it sure felt lousy to me.”

  Listening to him talking, the receptionist’s face seemed to shrivel into a little crumpled ball, while her spectacles remained the same size, or even grew larger, Jake could not tell for certain, but somehow the spectacles looked so big on her face that she began to resemble a stuffed great horned owl, a piece of dusty taxidermy, perched behind a typewriter.

  Then the door to the right of the receptionist’s desk came open and another lady backed out, her hands occupied by a tall stack of files. She shoved the door with her hip, and when it did not shut, she gave it a good kick with the heel of her shoe. The door slammed, and the woman turned around. It was Jake’s mother, Mrs. McCauley.

  47

  “File these, Lucy,” Jake’s mother said to the receptionist. “I cross-referenced every one with the master list, but he didn’t come up. He must be here under a different name.”

  She leaned in to set the stack of files on the desk and saw Jake watching her. The files missed the desk and cascaded to the floor.

  “Oh gosh, Mrs. McCauley,” cried the receptionist. “Let me take care of that.”

  She shot up from her chair, scurried around the desk, and, passing Mrs. McCauley, whispered loud enough for Jake to hear, “The boy there? A young Communist.”

  While the receptionist collected the files off the floor, Mrs. McCauley and Jake stared at each other in silence. The receptionist rose, set the files on the desk, and said, glancing back and forth between the two, “You all know each other?”

  “You need to use the powder room, Lucy,” said Mrs. McCauley.

  “Do I, now?” replied the receptionist, surprised.

  “Yes, Lucy, you do. I’ll take care of the files.”

  The receptionist hesitated, nodded slowly to Mrs. McCauley, and, flinging a dirty look at Jake, minced out of the room.

  Mrs. McCauley quickly came over to Jake and with the tips of her fingers touched his right temple. He winced and jerked his head away. She gasped, a sob caught in her throat. “My God, who did this to you?”

  “You work here?”

  “This is awful … I told them … I’m taking you to the doctor right away.”

  “You work here, Mother?”

  He had never called her Mother before, and she looked at him, frightened.

  “You said you were working for the guy named Hoover.”

  She did not answer. Oh. Hoover. Right. Jake glanced at the picture of the fat-cheeked fellow on the wall. J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI director.

  All at once, he felt weak. He needed to sit down. He saw a metal folding chair by the wall and made a move for it but stumbled and nearly fell. His mother caught him and, keeping him upright, hooked the chair with her right foot, dragged it away from the wall, and carefully lowered him into the seat.

  “I was going to tell you, honey, as soon as this mess settled. I was going to tell you when—”

  “How long?”

  “How long what, honey? How long have I been with the Bureau?” She could not meet his eye. “Well. A few years. Yes. A few years.”

  “How long, Mom!”

  She began to cry. “I don’t know, honey. Since the war. Since your father left for Europe. I took his place here.”

  “What are you talking about? He didn’t work here. Dad was in the air force.”

  “Ah, yes. In the air force, too, honey. Yes. It’s a little complicated.”

  She kneeled beside his chair and tried to hold his hands as she had always done to soothe him, but this time, he yanked his hands away.

  “Why is it complicated, Mom? You have to tell me now.”

  “He was both, honey.”

  “Both what?”

  “Air force. FBI. Both. You see. The thing is.”

  Her body began to lea
n sideways, and all at once, she sat on the floor beside the chair, one leg folded under the other, looking away from Jake and talking very quickly and crying.

  “The thing is. I can’t tell you. I’m not allowed. But now that he’s back, that your father is back—”

  “I know he’s back, Mom,” Jake said. “But where is he?”

  Again she did not answer but, crying and looking away, went on in the same flat, colorless voice. “What we have here, you see, honey, we have operational security. Need to know it’s called. That’s the rule. Need to know. You didn’t need to know, so we couldn’t tell you. You see? We had two agents assigned—you met them, Bambach and Bader—they were supposed to watch over you, honey. I wanted to do it myself, but they wouldn’t let me. Do you understand? Bambach and Bader were to keep you safe.”

  “To keep me safe?”

  “Yes, honey.”

  “You lied to me to keep me safe?”

  Jake stood up quickly and, glancing at the picture of fat-cheeked J. Edgar Hoover, saw that the FBI director was staring straight at him with the same X-ray eyes that Bambach and Bader were staring at him with at school. Jake paused for an instant, bewildered. He could have sworn that Hoover was not even looking in his direction before.

  He turned away from the picture and said to his mother, “Guess what, Mom. Lying didn’t keep me safe. It made it worse.”

  “Don’t go, honey,” she cried, reaching out to him. “We have to see the doctor!”

  But Jake was already at the door, yanking it open to reveal the receptionist bent by the keyhole, eavesdropping.

  48

  He was not a block away from the FBI’s office when a shadow of a motorcar slid up beside him. He kept walking without looking over, knowing what he would see if he did, and the shadow of the vehicle and the quiet hum of its engine kept up with him until he reached Arizona Avenue.

  That Major Armbruster would be looking for him Jake had no doubt, since he had foolishly given away top secrets in front of everybody at the end of the parade. The major knew where to find him, too, after Jake handed him the G-man’s card. Still, it troubled Jake that the major had to look for him. Jake was the one who should have come to him first. Not only did he owe Major Armbruster an apology, but he needed to explain Shubin’s spying better to him, not in a rush and not in front of the others. The trouble was that after the shocking truth Jake just learned about his parents, he was hardly in the mood for more explaining. And that was why he kept limping alongside the slow-moving Cadillac without looking at it, just to buy time to calm his nerves.

  On the corner of Broadway and Arizona, Jake was about to cross the street when the Cadillac took a sharp right and stopped in his path. Jake halted, watching his reflection in the passenger-side window disappear as the glass slid down and reappear again, doubled and smaller, in the major’s mirrored Ray-Bans.

  “Get in the car, son,” said Major Armbruster.

  “I’m sorry about your top secret folder, sir,” Jake said without moving. “I’m sorry I burned it.”

  “I know you are, son. Get in. We ought to have a talk.”

  “About what, sir?”

  “About what?” the major said. “If you’re aiming for a laugh, McCauley, you won’t be hearing it from me, son, ’cause it ain’t funny.”

  “You did laugh before, sir,” Jake objected.

  “There were witnesses,” the major agreed. “I had to cover for you.”

  “For me, sir?”

  “For you, too, McCauley. Let’s face it, son, you got us both in a mess of trouble. Care to sort it out?”

  The major sat very still in the darkened interior, watching him through his Ray-Bans. Jake thought of Duane with his bulging, unseeing eyes frozen in terror before his father. Jake glanced over his shoulder. The street was empty.

  “What’s the problem, McCauley?” the major said. “Scared to go for a ride with me?”

  Jake shifted from foot to foot, glanced around again, then looked back at the major. “Why should I be scared, sir?”

  He stepped up to the Cadillac, opened the door, and got in beside the major, and while he was still closing the door behind him, the major spun the steering wheel and gunned the engine, swinging the vehicle away from the curb.

  The AC was going at full blast. The Cadillac, oven-hot when Jake had been hiding from Shubin in it, was chilled like an icebox. Jake shivered and wrapped his arms around himself to keep warm.

  “You got into a fight, son?” the major said, glancing at him.

  Jake leaned forward and flipped the sun visor and looked at his face in the clip-on mirror. The left side of his face was swollen as if a bee had stung him, and just below the temple, a nasty bump was glowing purple. Jake flipped the sun visor back.

  “Yes, sir. Sort of.”

  The major nodded in approval. “Thumbs-up, son. Fighting builds character. Junior never fights. He gets beaten. Why is that, McCauley?”

  Jake shrugged.

  “He got his nose busted yesterday. His mother near had a nosebleed herself when she saw him. Was it you?”

  “What, sir?”

  “Busted his nose?”

  “No, sir.”

  The Cadillac turned off Twenty-Second Street and crossed the railroad tracks burnished by the glow of the setting sun. When the tires clambered over the tracks, Jake’s heart leapt in fright because the gravel spraying the bottom of the vehicle sounded like Agent Bambach’s tommy gun spraying bullets.

  The major turned onto Alvernon Way, just as something surged from the air force base runway, a couple of miles south. In an instant, the thing grew into a massive bomber that whipped so low over them, Jake ducked instinctively, expecting it to rip the roof right off the Cadillac. The major laughed.

  “A beauty, ain’t she? B-47 Stratojet.”

  The aircraft passed over them in total silence, and when it flashed again behind the major’s window, Jake glimpsed six slick engines tucked under its swept-back wings. Gaining altitude, the bomber vanished as instantly as it had appeared, and only then the high pitch of its engines shrieked in pursuit. Jake cautiously touched his throat. So that was the Stratojet. The bomber from the top secret folder the Russians wanted so much that Jake had nearly died for it.

  “The fastest bomber ever built,” the major said. “Did you know that, McCauley?”

  Jake thought of the film cartridge with twin chambers hidden inside the heel of Bull’s smelly shoe and said without looking at the major, “Yes, sir. Until the Russians build one just like it.”

  Since he had climbed into the car, Jake had not looked at the major, keeping his eyes fixed on the road ahead, but he could feel the Ray-Bans linger on his face, and it made him feel uneasy.

  “Ever seen the boneyard, McCauley?”

  “The what, sir?”

  “The boneyard, son. The end of the line. That’s where our aircrafts rest in peace. Didn’t Junior tell you? I took him there once. It’s an instructive sight, McCauley, the boneyard.”

  Jake thought about it. “Yes, sir. I believe Duane did tell me he saw the B-29s rusting away in the desert.”

  “Don’t say that,” the major snapped. “Not rusting away. Dead aircrafts are like people, son. They need to be buried. No, strike that, the aircrafts are better than people. Better than those morons who are supposed to protect them, that’s for damn sure. Let us take a little side tour, son. You’ll enjoy it.”

  And with sudden violence, he spun the steering wheel so sharply to the left that Jake was launched out of his seat, banging his shoulder hard against the door.

  49

  They were heading southeast toward the desert. The major was silent. Jake, who had never been so far away from the city, looked over his shoulder at the mountains lit by the setting sun, turned back, and said, still not looking at the major, “I always wanted to ask you something, sir. May I?”

  “Go ahead, son. What’s on your mind?”

  “Did you know my dad, sir? Before the war, I mean.”


  “I knew that was coming.” He turned his Ray-Bans on Jake for a moment. “Took you a long time to ask. Can I be frank with you, McCauley?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your old man and I were the best of friends, McCauley. Of all the people and, mind you, I’m well known in the air force, your old man was the only one who knew how to appreciate Major Armbruster. Surprising, isn’t it?”

  “I guess so. I mean, yes, sir.”

  “Our friendship goes way back. When our boys were sent to Europe to kick Hitler’s butt, I requested to be sent also. The real opportunities, McCauley, were there, not at home. Guess what those morons said?”

  “What did they say, sir?”

  “We need you at the AFB, Armbruster, and that was that, no excuses.” He waved his hand dismissively. “The morons know, McCauley, how to keep a worthy man from feeling good about himself, but do they know how to keep their top secrets secret? You follow me, son?”

  “I’m trying to, sir.”

  “One person who had a true appreciation for my abilities was your old man, McCauley, my best bud by then. So I said to him once over a cold beer, I said to him, and I am paraphrasing, McCauley—it was years back, see? I said, when the dark forces threaten our freedom, the least I can do is to partake in the historical struggle.”

  The major glanced at Jake to check his reaction. Jake was not sure how to react, so he said, “You said that to my dad?”

  “You bet I did, McCauley. Your old man had a friend then in the Russian air force, and I had a hunch he’d know how to appreciate my service. The Russians were our allies in the war, McCauley. Did you know that? I’m talking nineteen forty-three. Everyone loved the Russians then.”

  Jake was staring straight ahead at the oily black slab of the highway coming fast at them in the twilight, but out of the corner of his eye, he watched the major carefully, straining to understand every word he said.