Andrew Klavan - The Identity Man

Shannon sat on a bench at a bus stop across the street. His eyes moved over the crowd in the park. It was a bad setup for him. Lots of cops patrolling the park paths, keeping their wary eyes on the building entranceways and the wrought-iron gate in the spiked fence at the park's perimeter. The cops made Shannon nervous, but he acted casual, his arm draped over the bench back, his legs crossed at the knee. These cops weren't searching for him, he told himself. This was the last place they'd look for him, the last wide-open place they'd think he'd come. These guys were after terrorists and whatnot, he thought. They were watching out for the random nutjob who couldn't feed his family and came after the government with a gun, because there was no one else left who had a job or a dime.

So he stayed on the bench while long minutes passed. Other people gathered at the bus stop and buses came, obscuring his view. When the buses hissed and rumbled away, the other people were gone and there he still was. Trying to look casual. Glancing nervously at whatever cop was passing near. But mostly-the whole time-he kept watch on the one tower of gleaming steel across from the park's near corner; he kept watch on the restaurant on the tower's bottom floor: the World Cafe.

That had been the name on the receipt in the bald guy's car. Shannon had seen it when he'd peeked through the scarred Crown Victoria's window. It was the only clue he had to where the bald guy was-and the bald guy was his only clue to why the cop had come after him to cut off his ear, to why he was in the same old fUgitive cock-up again when he was supposed to be new mang.

At first, he had thought the clue was kind of tenuous. The World Cafe might be a chain. There might be a dozen of them in the city. He was all prepared to go tromping from one cafe to another, describing the bald guy to the waiters, hoping for a hit. But it turned out better than that. There was only one World Cafe, and when he saw where it was, he had hopes the bald guy would show up here sooner or later. This was not the kind of place you traveled to. It was a place for regulars, for people who worked in the Government Center, probably mostly for people who worked in the steel tower, which had letters above the door: Federal Building.

Shannon staked the place out for an hour and a half, so he had a lot of time to think about those letters. Was the bald guy a fed? What were the feds after him for? Why would the feds send a city cop to cut his ear off and kill him? Who the hell did they think he was? Or if they knew who he was, what the hell did they want from him?

No answers. He couldn't come up with a one. So he waited and worried about it and kept an eye on the cops and kept an eye on the Federal Building and the World Cafe until finally-sure enough-up showed the bald guy.

He came out of the federal building, walking quickly. Same guy, definitely. Same junkie-thin slime-dog in yet another cheap suit, and with his chromey dome glinting in the noonday sun. He didn't go into the World Cafe. He headed off along the sidewalk instead, parallel to the park. Within moments, he had nearly lost himself in the flow of pedestrians, his bald head appearing and disappearing in the gathering lunchtime crowd.

Shannon unfolded himself quickly from the bus stop bench. Dodging traffic, he crossed the street and went after the guy. He took an angry satisfaction in it. All this time, the bald guy had been following him, now the tables were turned. And it wasn't like at the fair either. He had a plan now. He was going to get the bald guy alone, catch him off guard, corner him, ask him what the hell-fed or not, get the truth out of him. Just thinking about it, just being on the move, brought his anxiety down from the boil and made him feel better. The bald guy had come to represent the whole situation to him, the way it always came back to the same thing, being hunted, being on the run, identity like stain.

He reached the sidewalk that ran beside the park's iron fence, directly across from where the bald guy was. Both sidewalks were crowded and getting more crowded every minute as people poured out of their offices for lunch. It was easy for Shannon to blend with the crowd, hold back, and watch from a safe distance as the bald guy hurried along across the street and ahead of him. Shannon had every reason to feel sure the bald guy didn't know he was there. He did feel sure.

Only it turned out he was wrong.

The bald guy reached the corner about a half block in the lead, with Shannon across the street and behind him, watching him over the heads of the pedestrians. The bald guy stopped and waited for the light to change, so Shannon pulled up in the middle of the block, pretending to admire the golden dome through the fence. When the light did change, the bald guy crossed the street and then turned the corner. Shannon had to cross in the middle of the block to go after him, running to beat the traffic. The bald guy continued on down the side street, disappearing from view. Shannon fought through the moving crowds. He reached the corner while the light was still good. He crossed and followed.

He found himself now on a narrower street. There were office buildings all of dark glass to his right. Beside him to his left, taking up the whole block, there was a large parking structure, three stories of featureless concrete. Here, suddenly, away from the Government Center, there were a lot fewer people on the sidewalk. Between Shannon and the bald guy now, there were only a bum and a businesswoman walking along. But the bald guy still kept moving with his quick, determined stride, and it still seemed to Shannon that he was unaware of being trailed.

Then, without warning, the bald guy glanced back over his shoulder as if he sensed Shannon behind him. Shannon froze, startled. In that frozen instant, the bald guy darted sideways and vanished into the parking structure.

Shannon cursed. What now? Had he seen him? Had he somehow known he was there? All at once, he went from having the drop on the bald guy to not knowing what was what, who had the upper hand. It gave him a hot, flashing sensation of frustration and anger. This was the way things kept going for him. Well, not this time. The bald guy wasn't getting away.

Shannon didn't hesitate. He started running, shoving the bum out of his way, getting an acrid whiff of him as he went past. He ran full tilt down the sunlit sidewalk. Reached the entrance to the lot, an archway in the white wall. He charged through the door into the shadows under a concrete stairwell.

He peered out across a still, dark cavern of parked cars, his eyes flicking to the movements of pedestrians here and there. No bald guy. Then, with a sort of instinct, he glanced up-just in time to see black shoes hurrying up the switch-backing stairs above him. He started up the stairs. Already the bald guy was out of sight, though Shannon still heard his footsteps. He followed the sound to the second-story landing and there heard a heavy door opening above him. He charged up toward the third story, the last story. As he reached the landing, he saw its big metal door swing closed. It shut with an echoing metallic clack.

Shannon was about to charge through-he was charging through, one hand turning the doorknob, the other pushing at the solid gray metal of the door. But as the door opened, some inner sense, some unspoken logic, told him he was being lured into a trap. He kept pushing the door with his left hand, but his right went behind him, to the gun in his belt under his windbreaker. He was drawing it out even as he pushed into the garage.

And it was a trap, sure enough. The bald guy was hiding in a little alcove off the garage roof. As Shannon came clear of the door, the bald guy came out from behind it and jammed a gun against Shannon's temple.

"Fuck with me," he said.