Andrew Klavan - The Identity Man

Shannon felt sick inside. Who was this guy? A cop? He had to be. What else? Deep down, Shannon had known all along that something like this would happen, that someone would find him. But why did it have to be now, so soon? Why couldn't it be in a few months or a year or a couple of years when he'd had a chance to live out his new life, when he'd had a chance to be with Teresa?

The sickness turned to anger in him. He let go of Teresa's hand and said, "I'll be right back, okay?"

"What's wrong?" she said.

"Nothing. I'll be right back."

He left her and plunged into the crowd, going after this guy, this bastard, meaning to run him to ground.

The next minute everything was racing past him and everything was racing inside him, too. The glittering lights of the turning carousel and the muscular rise and fall of the Ferris wheel and the strangely deadpan faces of parents and their children raced past on both sides of him, and his chaotic angry thoughts raced inside him, disconnected. He didn't know exactly what he was planning to do. But something. He wasn't going to just stand around and let this bastard follow him and torment him from a distance. If the guy was a cop, well, let him show his hand. Or if he wasn't a cop. Maybe he was something else, like a blackmailer or something-or an agent of Benny Torrance, out for revenge. Whatever. Never mind. If he had some proof of who Shannon was, let him bring it out. If he wanted to make a play, let him make it. Christ, couldn't Shannon have ten seconds to hold his girl's hand at the fair like anybody would? Was that too goddamn much to ask from the universe?

He reached the wheel-of-fortune booth, where the guy had been. He was breathless, tense and sweating, the wheel's colored lights flashing in his eyes and the barker calling to place your bets, take your chances. Jostled by some dick-swinging trucker who was swaggering past, Shannon turned unsteadily, scanning the people moving along the line of game booths toward an octopus ride-eight seats spinning round and round and up and down on the end of mechanical arms.

He saw-he thought he saw-the back of that bald head in the crowd by the octopus. He went after it, turning his body and using his hands to work his way past the people jammed up in front of him.

He reached the octopus, the seats going up and down above him, the calliope music playing loudly in his ears. But the bald guy was already gone, lost in the crowd…

No, wait, there he was. At the carnival's exit. Walking fast into the parking lot, walking toward that car of his, that same pale green Crown Victoria with the scrape on the side. Shannon saw its red taillights blink once as the guy pressed the button on his key to unlock it. No chance to catch up to him now, no chance to stop him.

Shannon stood helplessly, jostled by the crowd. He watched helplessly as the guy pulled the car door open and lowered himself inside.

A moment later, the Ford was pulling away.

When Shannon got back to the carousel, the boy, Michael, was leaning against his mother's jeans and sobbing. He was clutching her leg with one hand and clutching his stuffed frog to his runny nose with the other.

"He thought you left," Teresa told Shannon. She didn't sound angry or anything, but she gave him a look of deep meaning, and Shannon understood that this was some kind of big deal because of the kid's father being dead and all. He felt bad about it. He had to force his thoughts back from his run across the carnival, back from that bastard making his getaway in the Ford. He had to force his attention back to the boy-who really did look pretty pitiful clutching his buck-fifty stuffed frog like that.

Shannon knelt in front of him, put his hand on the kid's shoulder. "Hey, hey, hey," he said. "I'm not going anywhere."

But the minute he said it, he felt something dark open inside him. Because it was a lie, wasn't it? He was a fraud-a fugitive fraud with a murder rap hanging over his head. And with this bald guy after him, this new life of his was sure to fall apart at some point. And then he would be going somewhere, maybe forever.

The little boy snuffled against his mother's leg, looking at him through his tears, waiting to be told that everything was okay. That's when it hit Shannon full force: if his new life did fall apart-or, all right, when it fell apart-it wouldn't just fall apart for him now but for this boy, too, maybe for Teresa, too, if she gave a damn, but for this boy more than anyone.

Kneeling there with his hand on the poor kid's shoulder, Shannon lifted his eyes. He saw Teresa looking down at him, and he understood that she was thinking pretty much the same thing.

By the time he took them home to the old rectory, it was late, dark. Teresa sent the boy inside to his grandfather and stood alone with Shannon at the front door.

"Thank you, Henry. That was a nice day," she said.

He could see clearly enough what she was going to say next, and he was desperate to stop her. So he stepped close and took her face in one hand and kissed her. It was no good. It was all wrong, because of the desperation and because he was just doing it to shut her up. Still, she let him do it, and for a few moments he had the drunken sense of what it might've been like, the feel of her mouth giving way and her hair tangling in his fingers and the sweetness of the thing starting up between them, not just the kiss, but the whole thing.

She must've felt some of it, too, because, at first, her hand lifted as if she wanted to take hold of him. But she didn't. It was all wrong, and she didn't touch him. After a while, her hand sank down again. Shannon broke the kiss off and stepped away.

"Oh… Listen, Henry…" she began-because he hadn't stopped her from saying what she was going to say, he'd just delayed it.

"I know, I know," he said. "Look…"

"No, I just have to be sure, you know? It's different when you have a kid. I can't pretend I'm just some girl again and he isn't there."

"No, no, you're his mother, I understand that."

"I can't have people come and then leave. Guys, I mean. I can't just start up with them and let him care about them and then have them leave. I can't let him go through something like that again."

What about us? He wanted to argue with her. What about you and me-wanting this, wanting each other? Don't we get anything? But he was embarrassed to sound selfish in front of her. "Look," he said, "about what happened at the carnival…" But he floundered, because what could he say that wouldn't be a lie?

She smiled her screwy, comical smile and silenced him by putting her hand on his arm, shaking her head. "Oh, you know, do me a favor, Henry… I mean, it's not just Michael. I'm not that steady myself. So do me a favor and don't tell me unless I need to know. It's just-if you're leaving, you know, say so. And if you're not, say so. And if you're not sure, then just say that and I'll wait till you know. I will. I mean it. But I can't just start up and have you leave and let him go through that again. I don't think I can go through it again, either. So do me a favor, okay? Just…"

He wanted to say something, to answer her, but he couldn't think of a single thing worth saying, not one thing that wouldn't be a lie and make matters worse in the end. So he just had to stand there and take it, stand there knowing that this was good-bye between them, that he was going to lose her. It was a crushing weight of sadness inside him-he wouldn't have believed how bad it felt. As good as it felt to hold her hand at the carousel, that's how bad this felt now. Man, he could've killed that bald-headed bastard for showing up like that. It had ruined everything. Who the hell was he? Why the hell couldn't he just leave him alone?

"Okay," he said thickly. It was all he could say.

Her hand dropped from his arm. She nodded, still smiling but her eyes damp. He stood there another moment. He wanted to tell her how he felt about her, how crazy he was about her and that he loved her-really loved her-but so what? What good was that to either of them? In a way, that would be the worst thing he could say, the worst of all.