Bill Granger - The November Man

They made it to the edge of the city in a stolen car, swiped from a church parking lot in Fredericksburg. For a moment, Margot had forgotten her fear because she had been fascinated by the technology of stealing a car without keys in it.

In Bethesda, Devereaux said, “Change cars again.”

“Are you insane? Are you just insane?”

“Margot, there are people after us. They are using helicopters. Just do what I say and don’t ask me any more questions.”

The car was a Rambler with the keys in it. It had patches of rust on the body and the tired look of a car that no one makes anymore. He pulled up the stolen Pontiac and got out. He helped Margot lift Hanley into the back of the Rambler.

The dude came out of the liquor store into the lot and watched them. He was in his twenties and looked scuffed at the toes. He had a worn leather jacket and he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

“Hey, buddy,” he said in an easy voice. “My car.”

“I was just taking it,” Devereaux said.

The kid grinned. “Why don’t you steal something worthwhile? This is a shitbox.”

Devereaux smiled. “I could buy it from you.”

“Then I’d be stealing from you.”

“Do you have scruples about that?”

“No. Do what you gotta do, you know? Been driving that old sucker all winter, though. Got me through. Have some affection for it.”

“Are both of you crazy?” Margot was in the car now.

“Tell you what,” Devereaux said. “I’ll give you a hundred for it and I’ll return it later. Just renting it.”

“Ain’t worth a hundred. Why don’t you go to Avis?”

“What do you say?”

“Sure. That’s what I say. Just give me a lift, will you? You going into the District? Drop me off down by the Huddle House over the line, will you?”

The Rambler coughed across the District line on Wisconsin Avenue shortly after two in the afternoon. The kid’s name was Dave Mason and he told Devereaux to watch for the cop who always waited behind the supermarket on the south side of the line for speeders who wanted to push over the twenty-five-mile-an-hour limit.

Devereaux eased it down and was passed by a BMW. A better prospect. The D.C. police car shot out into Wisconsin Avenue with Mars lights flashing. They passed the BMW pulled over to the side of the road two blocks later.

“You got some idea where you’re going?” Dave said. It was just a friendly voice. He smiled at Margot in the back seat.

“Some,” Devereaux said.

“Ain’t nothing to me, man. But I would like to get the car back.”

“You’ll get it back or I’ll have one built just like it.”

“Rust and all,” said Dave. He smiled. He popped a beer out of the sack. “You want a beer, lady?”

“No,” Margot Kieker said. None of this was real. It wasn’t happening.

“You drop me off up ahead,” said Dave. “I can hoof it.”

“You working, Dave?”

“Not much. Do a little house-painting. Things are slow. Everyone with a job to offer wants you to work for two dollars an hour and clean out the toilets in your spare time.”

“Gimme the address,” Devereaux said.

Dave wrote it down on the paper sack and tore off a piece of the sack. He gave it to Devereaux. He looked him right in the eye and Devereaux stared back at him. Dave smiled. “Damn. You’re gonna bring it back, ain’t you?”

“Bet on it,” Devereaux said.

The house was in Georgetown and it had occurred to Devereaux as they entered Hagerstown, an hour before.

The house was narrow and tall and elegant, with polished bricks and gleaming black iron. The roof was flat and ornamented with a copper façade. The Rambler seemed out of its class parked in front of the house. The Rambler would have to go. But first, there was the matter of Hanley. And the girl.

Margot had asked him after they dropped off Dave, “Why would he trust you?”

“He doesn’t.”

“He gave you the car.”

“I gave him a hundred dollars.”

“I don’t understand. He didn’t call the police or—”

“Why would he do that?”

“You were stealing his car.”

“No one would steal a car like this.”

“You would.”

“Margot.” Softer now. “You have too much belief in rules. There aren’t any rules.”

“Then it’s chaos. No rules means it’s chaos.”

Yes, Devereaux thought.

That exactly described it.

He opened the door of the car. His arms felt heavy. His back was knotted with lumps of tension. He would have to shake all his muscles awake again.

He went first, up the three stone steps. The street was empty but it could be full of people if the sun came out.

He knocked at the ornate brass plate. The door opened and it was an old woman.

“Dr. Quarles.”

“It’s Sunday,” said the old woman.

“Tell him it’s Mr. Devereaux.”

The old woman frowned and slammed the door. He waited. The afternoon was full of sweet smells and the fog. The wonderful fog that had covered their tracks all the way into Washington. Even the best agent needs luck; he had not expected the fog at all.

The door opened. Quarles stared at him. Quarles had large eyes and a red nose and his eyebrows exploded on a broad forehead. His hair was wild, long and combed in the absent manner of men who have better things to do than worry about how they look. He resembled an Old Testament prophet or John L. Lewis.

“What do you want?”

“I’ve brought you a patient.”

“Just as well. I don’t make house calls,” Dr. Quarles said. He opened the door wide and stared at the car. “My God, I didn’t know they still made those things.”

“They don’t.”

“Well, get it out of here. You’re driving down property values. Put it on M Street and let it roll down the hill and into the river.”

Devereaux nodded at the car and Margot Kieker opened the rear door.

“Well, she’s young enough. Knock her up?”

Then they saw the second man, emerging painfully, half-consciously, from the back seat.

“Goddamnit. He’s wearing a hospital gown,” Dr. Quarles said and he took a step down and then another and reached Hanley before Margot sank under the burden of the man.

Quarles was large and strong. He had the arms of a Welsh miner, which his father had been, and the manner of a Welsh preacher, which his father had opposed. Quarles had no time for foolish people or foolish notions. He was immensely successful. Seventeen years before, in Vietnam, he had been captured by a file of Viet Cong. Seventeen years before, he had been rescued—not for himself but for the sake of someone else captured that day. The second prisoner had been important for some reason of state. For some reason of state—neither Devereaux nor Quarles ever knew it—Devereaux had saved Dr. Quarles’ life. It was a matter of a debt that could never be repaid and both of them knew it. And both knew that Devereaux was ruthless enough to exploit it.

Quarles picked up Hanley the way a child will pick up a bird with a broken wing. He carried him into the house.

He put Hanley down in an examining room, on a table covered with a leatherlike surface. He grasped his wrist, held his fingers to his throat, did all the things doctors do quickly.

“He ought to be in a hospital.”

“That’s where he has been.”

“Why did you take him out?”

“Because they were killing him.”

“Who is he?”

“It doesn’t matter; you don’t need to know.”

“Need to know?” Quarles turned the face of the prophet on him. “Like that, is it, Mr. Devereaux? You’ll roast in hell someday.”

“But not right now.”

“You wicked man and your wicked ways. Still playing at the game? Why don’t you grow up and act your age and get into something important?”