Joseph Kanon - The Prodigal Spy

“Nick,” his father said, turning, dismayed.

“Where are you going?”

“I have to go away, Nick,” he said, bending down to face him. “Im sorry.”

“I got rid of the shirt,” Nick said.

“You did?” he said, not understanding.

“Fifteen and a half, thirty-three. Like the lady said. I got rid of it. They’ll never find it. You don’t have to go.”

“Nicku,” his father said, holding him by the shoulders. Nick watched his father’s eyes fill with tears. “My God. I never meant any of this to happen to you. Not you. Do you believe me?”

“You don’t have to go.”

“I can’t explain. Not now. I wouldn’t know how.” His father got on one knee, his face level with Nick’s. “I’ll never leave you. Not really.” He paused. “Would you do something for me? Make sure your mother’s all right?”

Nick nodded, but what he heard was that his father was really going. Nothing would stop him now.

“Don’t go,” Nick said quietly.

“Could I have a hug? Would you do that?”

Nick put his arms around his father’s neck, smelling the smoke and aftershave.

“No, a real one,” his father said, clutching him, drawing him tighter and tighter, until Nick felt that he was suspended, without air, holding on for dear life. They stayed that way until Nick felt his father’s arms drop. When he finally let go, he looked at Nick and said, “Okay,” like the handshake of a deal.

He got up and went to the door.

“You need your rubbers,” Nick said, pointing to the shiny formal shoes.

His father gave him a weak half-smile. “It’s all right. It doesn’t matter.” Then he opened the door and started down the stairs, leaving Nick to close it behind him.

Nick watched through the pane of the mud room door. His father didn’t go to the garage but headed across the courtyard to the alley. His shoes made holes in the snow, and even after he was out of sight, pausing only once at the corner to look back, Nick stared at the footprints, waiting for them to fill with new snow until finally every trace was gone.

Upstairs his mother was still crying, slumped over on the bed in her pretty dress like a stuffed doll. When she saw Nick, she opened her arms wordlessly and held him.

“Where did he go?” Nick said, but his mother didn’t answer, just sat rocking him back and forth, the way she did when he was hurt. Finally she wiped her eyes, reached back to undo the clasp of the garnet necklace, and let it fall slowly into her hand. She sat looking at it for a moment, then closed her hand over the bright red stone and got up to put it away with the rest of her things.

The phone rang early the next morning, but Nick knew it wasn’t his father because his mother said, “No, I’m sorry, he’s not here,” and immediately hung up. When, a little later, it rang again, she didn’t answer but let it go on and on, shaking the quiet house until Nick thought the entire street must have heard. Then it stopped and she picked up the receiver, put it under her pillow, and went down to make coffee.

Nick found her in the kitchen, holding a steaming mug and smoking, staring at nothing. He took out some cereal and poured milk.

“What if he calls?” he said.

“He won’t.”

Afterward she built a fire and they sat in their bathrobes looking at it, curled up on the couch, pretending to be snowbound. Her face was drawn and tired, and after a while the rhythm of the clock and the crackling of the fire made her drowsy, and he saw her eyes droop, released finally into sleep. When he covered her with an afghan, she smiled without waking up. Nick lay with her on the couch and drifted too, worn out by the night.

The key in the lock startled them. Nora didn’t come on Sundays, and for one wild moment Nick thought it might be his father. But it was Nora, on a draft of cold air, a glimpse of the reporters outside behind her.

“Your phone’s out of order,” she said, stamping her snowy boots on the hall carpet.

“I took it off the hook,” Nick’s mother said, half asleep, sitting up.

“Where’s Mr Kotlar?”

“He’s out,” Nick’s mother said simply.

“Well, he’s picked a fine time.”

“I just wanted some peace, that’s all,” his mother said, still on the earlier thought. “Don’t they ever give up?”

“Mother of God, haven’t you heard?” Nora said, surprised.

“What?”

“She’s killed herself, that’s what. That Rosemary Cochrane. Jumped.” She held out the newspaper. Nick’s mother didn’t move. “Here, see for yourself,” Nora said, putting the paper down and taking off her coat. “It’s a wicked end. Even for her. Well, the burden on that conscience. Still, I won’t speak ill of the dead.”

“No,” his mother said absently, reading the paper, her face white.

“I thought I’d better come. There’ll be no peace today, for sure. The vultures. You’d better put the phone back or they’ll be breaking down the door. Where’s Mr Kotlar gone, out so early?”

But Nick’s mother didn’t answer. “Oh God,” she said, dropping the paper, and walked out of the room.

“Well,” Nora said, “now what?” She looked at Nick, still lying under his end of the afghan. Then, puzzled, she followed his mother down the hall.

Nick stared at the photograph framed by blurred type. She was lying face up on the roof of a car, peaceful, her legs crossed at the ankles as if she were taking a nap. Her shoes were gone and one nylon was visibly twisted, but her dress, high on her thighs, seemed otherwise in place. Only the strand of pearls, flung backward by the fall, looked wrong, tight at the neck, dangling upside down in the dark hair spread out beneath her head. She didn’t look hurt. There was no blood, no torn clothing, no grotesque bulging eyes. Instead the violence lay around her in the twisted metal of the car roof, crumpled on impact, enfolding her now like a hammock. When you looked at it you could imagine the crash, the loud crunch of bones as the body hit, bending the metal until it finally stopped falling and came to rest. The new shape of the roof, its warped shine caught in the photographer’s flash, was the most disturbing thing about the picture. In some crazy way, it looked as if she had killed the car.

Nick’s first thought was that his father could come back now. The hearing would be over. But that must be a sin, even thinking it. She was dead. He couldn’t stop looking at the picture, the closed eyes, the flung pearls. Was she dead before she hit the car, her neck twisted by the fall? She was dressed to go out. Had she looked at herself in the mirror before she opened the window? Then the rush of cold air. But why would anyone do that, the one unforgivable sin? What if she changed her mind after it was too late, not even the split second to repent? Damned forever. And then, his body suddenly warm with panic, another thought: Was it somehow his father’s fault? Was she ashamed of lying? Or was it some kind of new attack? They’d blame him for this too. Nick felt a line of sweat at the top of his forehead. The hearing, their troubles, wouldn’t end-they would get worse. A dead body didn’t go away. It would start all over again-new questions, new suspicions. Her jump from the world would only drag them down deeper.

Now it was important to know. His eyes scanned the surrounding blocks of type, trying to reconstruct what had happened. A room on the sixteenth floor of the Mayflower Hotel. She had checked in that afternoon under a different name. Why go to a hotel? Her apartment was a few blocks away, off Dupont Circle. But a three-story house-too low. So she had planned it. And the newspaper speculated that in the Mayflower she’d found more than just height. All of Washington was in the ballroom below, for the United Charities ball. If she wanted a dramatic final appearance, she’d picked the right stage. Nick imagined her at the window, the cabs and hired black Packards pulling up under the awning, watching all the people who’d tormented her. Welles had been there, everybody. Nick stopped for a moment. His father was supposed to have been there too. Was that it? A final strike against him, in front of everybody? Larry had said she liked the spotlight. There would even be photographers on the street, to record the evening and its unexpected climax. She was dressed to go out.