Andrew Klavan: The Identity Man

He had the radio turned down low to dim the distraction of it. The soft cries for help seemed like the voices of ghosts in the storm, distant and mournful and lost.

The brothers.

Well, they aren't the only ones to take whatever they can get their hands on, Ramsey told himself. When it comes to that, all men are brothers.

He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. He knew it was time. He knew he ought to go and get this over with.

But he lingered, watching.

The things of the spirit, the things of the flesh.

That was Peter Patterson, meanwhile, his restless mind returning to the Reverend Skyles as he stood under the skyscraper's overhang, all shrugged up in his wet overcoat; as the wind-whipped water sluiced down and spattered the shins of his trousers where he stood; as he waited anxiously for the feds to come.

He shivered. He bounced on his toes. He thought: Where are they already?

He thought: How could he do it? His restless mind returning to Skyles, returning to himself and the things he'd done in his life, the journey that had brought him here, the booze, the women. Because he knew how Skyles could do it. He knew exactly how he could do it, and do it again. You weren't even sorry afterward. Not really. You were ashamed, for sure. When you were sober, when you were satisfied and bare-assed, looking for your shorts, looking for some way to dull the contrast between what you knew full well you ought to be and what in fact you were, you were plenty ashamed then. You hated the consequences, the women screaming at you in their hurt and betrayal, the three sons by two mothers that you never saw, the one boy in jail. But how could you say you were sorry for what you remembered with a dreamy smile? How could you say you regretted what you'd do again in a city minute? Oh yes, you would. If the opportunity arose-and you arose-back you'd be in the Country of King Penis, loyal subject of His Majesty, flying to do his bidding at his least command…

Where the hell were they?

He turned his head to the right and the left, searching the rain for his contact. No one. He lifted his gaze to the intersecting street.

That was when he saw the red-white glow above the building tops.

His breath caught. Fire. He knew what it was right away. With the city empty and the high water coming, looters must have swarmed the shops uptown, and now they'd torched the place and had it burning. The glow pulsed into the sky's deep blackness. The slashing rain glimmered silver against it.

And suddenly, for no reason he could put into words, Peter Patterson knew that everything was wrong. This meeting made no sense. This place made no sense. Why here? Why tonight? Why the sudden phone call after all the patient, reassuring overtures back and forth? Why the strange voice, the mysterious instructions…?

He hardly asked himself these questions. He was simply gripped by the urgent conviction that he had to get the hell out of here. Now.

Lieutenant Ramsey was startled to see Patterson break from his shelter. The bookkeeper moved quickly, nearly jogging, with his hands still in his overcoat pockets and his head lowered as if to butt his way through the wind and rain back to his car. Every few steps, he would look over his shoulder and then tumble on even faster as if he'd seen demons chasing him.

Ramsey cursed. In the first moment of surprise, he grabbed the door handle, ready to go after the guy. But then he thought better of it. He had been in situations like this before, plenty of times. Blown meets, blown stakeouts. Things changed, you had to change your plan. You botched things up if you failed to adapt. He decided to follow Patterson and see what was what. He would find the moment. He would bide his time.

One hand left the door and the other went to the keys in the ignition. At the same time, he caught a glimpse of his own eyes in the rearview mirror. He quickly looked away.

Lieutenant Brick Ramsey had-had always had, since his childhood-an appearance of dignity, of restraint, self-control, and moral authority. His mother had instilled these qualities in him. One hand on her hip, the other waggling a finger in his face or sometimes a Bible. Don't you be like them. The brothers, she meant. The street-corner gangsters who held up the walls of his neighborhood with their slouching backs. You gonna do right. You gonna make something of yourself. You gonna be somebody. It don't profit you nothing to gain the whole world if you lose your soul. Hammering at him with that finger, with that Bible, like a sculptor hammering at marble until she made the shape of him, the dignified set of his broad shoulders, the dignified stillness of his oval face with its pencil moustache over a serious mouth, with its intelligent, watchful, soulful brown eyes. Four years in the marines had added to the pride of his carriage. And five years patrolling the streets had reminded him daily of the degraded neighborhood life he had risen above. But it was his mother's work he saw when he looked in the mirror-and he quickly looked away.

The pounding of the rain on the roof intensified, drowning out the dim calls for assistance from the radio. A fresh sheet of water washed down over the windshield. When it passed, Ramsey saw Patterson reach the line of cars in the parking zone down the street. He saw Patterson reach his own car, a battered blue Chrysler New Yorker, had to be fifteen years old at least. The car's top light went on as Patterson opened the door and lowered himself into the driver's seat. Then he pulled the door shut after him and the car went dark. A moment later, Lieutenant Ramsey saw the New Yorker's headlights, blurry through the water on the windshield. The car pulled out and took off down the street, illuminating the silver streaks of the rain before it.

Ramsey waited a few seconds and then followed in the unmarked Charger, holding back a block, sunk in the darkness, counting on the storm to obscure him.

Up ahead, the New Yorker turned the corner. The Charger reached the intersection a few seconds afterward. It was only then, only when he turned to look down the street, that Ramsey understood what had spooked Patterson.

The throbbing red-white glow gave sudden depth to the strangely flat skyline. The City of Hope. The City of Equality. The City of Justice. It was burning.

The brothers, Ramsey thought, with another gout of disgust and self-disgust.

He brought the Charger around the corner and kept after his man.

Peter Patterson felt strangely safe once he was inside his car. His sudden surge of fear subsided. He felt as if no one could touch him there.

He drove north through the empty city. He drove slowly, careful of the storm. The pavement was slick where it was level and there were troughs and hollows where deep puddles gathered, where the water thundered against the undercarriage and gripped the tires of the old car as they passed through.

As he got away from downtown, the streets grew even darker around him. It took him a while to notice it: the electricity here was out. He looked past the laboring wipers. He saw rain-swept boulevards empty as alleyways, storefronts boarded against the tempest. He was glad to be inside and warm with the heater on. The unreasoning urgency in him-the anxious conviction that he had just been in some kind of danger-was already beginning to recede. Maybe he'd just spooked himself. Maybe he'd just let his nerves get the better of him.

He turned on the radio. Hoping for some news, some voices for company. Nothing came out but static. He pressed the scan button and listened as the tuner automatically ran the band. Still nothing but that hiss, end to end, that hiss with broken fragments of words in it like men sending messages from the belly of a snake.

Look at this. Look at this.

The hollowed brownstones. The vacant businesses. The broken windows like phantoms' eyes. He was in the north now, at the edge of the neighborhoods. He was thinking: The wages of sin.