Donald Hamilton: The Shadowers

Olivia nudged me, and I looked where she was looking, and there was Lt. (jg) Braithwaite among the others near the reviewing stand, in uniform, holding his salute smartly as the flag passed. He looked happy and untroubled. He was back where he belonged.

The cadets marched by, looking sternly ahead, and the band followed, belting out "The Stars and Stripes Forever." It was all very corny and obsolete, of course. There had been a time when they would march right up to the guns like that, with the drums going, but we don't fight that way any more. Perhaps it's just as well. Maybe we're better off just leaving the drums out of it.

The Navy musicians were right on top of us now, giving Sousa everything they had. I knew Olivia wanted to stick her fingers in her ears, but I was remembering standing on the island of an aircraft carrier bathed in a different kind of sound, watching the jets being catapulted into the wind.

I remembered that I'd been feeling rather superior to the kid pilots and their noisy toys that day last fall; but now I came to the conclusion that I hadn't had a very sound basis for that feeling. They might not be much good at doing what I did, but then, there were times when I wasn't very good at it myself. And I'd play hell trying to do what they might have to do some day, Braithwaite included. It was a humbling thought.

"Let's blow," I said, and ten minutes later we were entering the house with the picture window, in the development with the French-curve streets. It wasn't entirely a good feeling, coming into the familiar room after the better part of a year. "Well," I said, "show me where to make with the pen and paper, Doc. Where's this stuff you want signed?"

"There isn't any stuff," she said. "That is, the lawyers have something, I think, but it isn't here."

I turned to look at her. There wasn't anything to say, so I didn't say it. I waited.

"I had to get you down here," she said.

"So you could lure me to the laboratory and show me off as your husband?"

"Yes," she said. "That was one thing. Don't say anything, Paul. There's something I want you to see before you say anything. This way." She walked quickly across the living room and down the hail past the door of the big bedroom I remembered. She opened a door on the other side of the hall. "In there," she said, stepping back to let me by.

I moved past her and stopped. It was a small room. The wallpaper had bunnies on it. There was a crib, and in the crib was a baby, an unmistakable human child. It was sound asleep, wearing blue knitted booties. As a onetime daddy, I knew that blue booties meant a boy.

I turned to look at Olivia. Her face was expressionless. She put a finger to her lips. I went back into the living room, leaving her to close the door. When I heard her coming, I was standing by the picture window, thinking that I would never understand why people built picture windows just so they could look across a street at other people's picture windows; but that was kind of beside the point.

"Now do you understand?" she said, beside me. "I told you it wasn't my secret. It was his. He had to have a name. Well, he has one. It's the name of a man who doesn't really exist, but that doesn't matter. It's legal, and that's what counts. Nobody can take it away from him."

I turned to look at her. She looked slender and attractive in her nicely fitting sweater-and-skirt outfit. I remembered the loose, clumsy clothes she'd worn. All the pieces fitted into the puzzle perfectly.

"I was going to be very clever," she said quietly. "I'd agreed to marry an unknown government man-very reluctantly, of course. And I planned to arrange it so that you… so that the government man, after the wedding, would never protest that the child wasn't his. He might guess, but he'd never know. But of course you do know whose it is."

"Now that you say it."

"When I learned I was pregnant, I went to Harold and, well, you know what happened that day. I probably didn't make much sense to you where Harold was concerned. I despised him and still… and still, I'd loved him once, and I was carrying his child." She drew a long breath. "Well, he's dead. He'd never have married me, anyway. The most he would have condescended to do was operate. You know what I mean. I'm not really the maternal type, but I didn't want that."

I looked at her. "Just what do you want, Olivia?" I asked.

She faced me steadily. "His name is Paul Corcoran, Junior. I suppose he'll grow up being called Junior. Anyway, he has a name. There was a little pause. I'd like him to have a father, too," she said. "Not much of a father, necessarily. Just a man who comes around now and then, a man who's off on business most of the time, but seems to be a pretty nice guy when he does turn up."

"I'm not a pretty nice guy," I said.

She smiled. "I know that, and you know it, but he doesn't have to."

I said, "You're working hard for this kid."

She hesitated. "It isn't entirely for the kid, Paul or Matt or whatever your real name is. I… it's been a very lonely winter."

There was another little pause. "Sure," I said. "But you're a good-looking woman. You can find somebody who can make it a full-time job."

"I'd hate him," she said. "I'd hate him, going to his stupid insurance business or law office with his stupid briefcase every day of the year. I'd despise him. I'd be brighter than he, and I'd have to hide it."

"You're brighter than I am," I said.

"Technically speaking, maybe, but it doesn't matter," she said. "With us, it doesn't matter. Don't make me throw myself at your head, Paul. We're the same kind of people, in a funny sort of way. We could make it work. It's as much marriage as either of us needs, but we both need that much. You, too."

I said, "You're a cold, calculating wench, Doc."

She shook her head minutely. "No," she said softly. "No, I may be calculating but I'm not… not cold. You know that, unless you've forgotten."

I said, "I haven't forgotten."

We stood by the big window, facing each other wearily, almost like enemies. Then I had her in my arms, slim and hard and responsive; and then I was looking over her shoulder at something lying on the little table behind her.

"What is it?" Olivia whispered after a moment. "What is it, darling? What's the matter?"

I let her go and walked past her. I picked up the knife and remembered who had given it to me. I remembered how Gail had died, and why. I remembered kneeling by Toni's body, knowing that I was responsible for her death, too, because anybody with whom a man in my line of work associates is bound to attract danger sooner or later.

Olivia was watching me. Her face was pale. "I put it out so I wouldn't forget," she said. "I thought you'd want it back. The knife, I mean. Paul, what's the matter?"

I didn't know how to say it without sounding like a pompous jackass or a self-pitying martyr to duty, or something. I didn't know how to tell her that she was a swell girl and I liked her proposition fine but she'd better find herself a man who wasn't a human lightning rod, if not for her own sake then for the baby's. I was glad when the telephone began to ring noisily. Somehow I knew it was for me. With that kind of timing it could only be Mac. It was.

"Eric? I was hoping to catch you before you left," he said. "Have you finished your business with the lady? Can you get over to New Orleans fast? You know the number to call when you get there."

I looked at Olivia. "Yes, sir," I said into the phone. "I'm finished here. I'll be there before midnight."

I stuck the knife in my pocket, picked up my hat, and left. The first three steps toward the door were the hardest. After that it got easier, a little.