Andrew Klavan - The Identity Man

He said it brutally and got the effect he wanted. She was staggered, her lips parting, her pupils becoming pinpoints. For a moment, he thought she might actually swoon to the asphalt.

So Ramsey thought he had the whole picture now. A lonely widow with a man in the house, a man who would include the boy when they went to the fair. She had been falling in love with Conor, her feelings flowing powerfully, maybe only checked a little by the memory of her husband and by some mental wrangling a girl like her would do out of obligatory protectiveness toward her son. But hesitation or no, mental wrangling or no, she'd been falling for him. And now here was Ramsey telling her there was a dead detective, that Conor was on the run, being hunted by the police. Telling her, in effect, that Conor was just the sort of damaged criminal-type she had been avoiding all her life, just the sort of bad, needy boy she had fended off while waiting to meet the real man she married-the sort of man Ramsey seemed to be. He sensed all this in a second and sensed he had a moment of psychological power over her here, a moment when all her instincts would tell her to turn away from bad boy Conor, to turn toward the nice policeman who reminded her of her dead husband, and tell him everything.

"That's… Henry wouldn't do anything like that," she said.

"Really. You know him that well?"

"Well, I…"

"You know where he came from? What he was doing here?"

"He was a carpenter, working as a carpenter."

"Did he ever tell you why he came to this city in particular? Doesn't seem like a very nice place to come to. A lot of people are leaving, as I understand it."

"He said he came for the work. He said there's a lot of work here-because of all the rebuilding."

"Did he ever mention a man named Peter Patterson?"

"Peter… Uh… No. I don't think so."

"What about Jesse Skyles? The Reverend Jesse Skyles."

"I don't think so. I've heard of him. The story in the paper-about him and the girl. Henry and I talked about a lot of things. We may have talked about Skyles. I don't remember."

"You may have, though."

"I'm sorry. I just don't remember."

"But you talked about a lot of things."

"He would carve out in the backyard. I would go out there and talk to him sometimes. To keep him company."

"You and your son or just you?"

"No, and my son. And my father, too, sometimes."

Ramsey thought he had the whole picture. "But you can't remember what you talked about?"

"Not everything. It was just conversation. You know."

"Did he ever mention my name? Ramsey? Did he ever mention me?"

"No. Why are you asking me these things?"

"Mrs. Grey, do you have any idea where Conor is now?"

"No. No, I don't. I thought he would be at work."

"He's not at work. He's gone. A police detective has been murdered in his apartment, and Conor has disappeared. If you know where he is, it would be a good idea to tell me."

"I don't know. I already told you. I don't know. Henry wouldn't do anything like that, I'm sure."

Ramsey felt a strange flutter of doubt. Something was wrong here, very wrong, but he couldn't place it. For one thing, he couldn't tell whether the girl was lying or not. His instincts told him she wasn't, but he thought she had to be. Would Conor have kept all his purposes secret from her? As they became close, as they became intimate even, wouldn't he want to share with her the burden of his mission? It didn't make sense that he would ask questions and jabber freely on the street and suddenly become secretive with the girl he was romancing. Something here, anyway, didn't make sense. Ramsey felt he had a bright, clear picture in his mind of what had passed between this girl and Conor, but he couldn't quite put that picture together with the Conor he thought he'd come to know. It was as if, outside the bright clarity of his understanding, there was deep shadow-shadow that hid a hunkering disaster. Nemesis.

"Ms. Grey-Mrs. Grey-I feel you're keeping something from me."

"I'm not. I'm really not. Why would I?"

"Are you certain Conor never said anything to you? About why he came here? Why he came to this city?"

"For the work, that's all. He said he came for the work."

"All that time you talked to him, and your father talked to him, and your son, that's all he told you." He couldn't stop himself. He couldn't let go of it. Something didn't make sense.

"Look… Henry didn't murder anyone," she answered. "He wouldn't do that."

"That isn't what I'm asking you."

"I know, but…"

"He never mentioned Patterson? Or Skyles? Or me?"

"No. I don't think so. No. I'm almost sure."

"I find that difficult to believe," he said, looking hard into her eyes, his doubt mixed with anger now because she reminded him so much of his wife.

A bell rang in the big old cathedral-like building, a long, loud rattling bell. The laughter and shouting of the children came back to Ramsey as if it had been gone, as if the volume of it had dropped to nothing while he talked to Teresa Grey.

"I-I have to go," she said. "Recess is over. I have to go back to work. You're wrong about Henry."

But he could see she was uncertain as she turned away-uncertain enough, he thought, that she would have told him what she knew. Or was it all a performance? Was she hiding Conor? Protecting him? Was she that good a liar? She could have been. No one lies better than a good girl in love. And Conor would've said something to her. He must've. It didn't make sense.

Ramsey stood there another moment, aware of the woman's peculiar valence-the way she touched on his personal sorrows-and yet unable to distinguish it from that lingering suspicion of a shadow zone outside the zone of his understanding, that strange darkness sheltering nemesis and disaster.

He stood there and watched her walk back into the building, her skirt swishing as the children rushed past on either side of her, as they crowded before her through the schoolhouse door.

For the first time, he felt afraid of what he was about to do. "ALL RIGHT," said Shannon. "Tell me."

They were in the green Crown Victoria now. The bald guy was driving. The bald guy's name was Foster, it turned out. Foster glanced over at Shannon and laughed.

"Where'd you think you came from, dog? Your mama's tummy? You think the stork brought you? You think you were born again through water and the spirit? Or maybe someone told you one time that dirt-bag thieves get brand-new lives for free."

Shannon faced forward, expressionless, looking out the windshield at the miserable boulevard. Stores boarded up. Hollow-eyed whores. Predators slouched so deep they were shaped like question marks. All this on a bright spring Monday afternoon.

"I guess I wondered…" he said glumly.

"Yeah, I'll bet you did. I'll just bet you did. But you're all alike, you bottom feeders, every one of you. You think someone's gonna hand you the moon on a platter. You think someone should, like they owe it to you. Oh, I'm so poor. Oh, I'm so put upon. Where's my money? Like you earned it somehow by virtue of being a worthless piece of shit. Every time I wanna round up a fresh batch of dumb-ass bail jumpers, all I gotta do is tell them somebody's giving them something for nothing. Free tickets to the Super Bowl. Free house. A new car. Never did shit for nobody nohow, but out of the woodwork they come like it's only their due."

Shannon could've said it wasn't like that for him. He could've said he had been desperate, on the run, wanted for murders he hadn't committed and a break-in that he had. He could've said a lot of things, but he just said: "So this whole new identity thing was-what? Like, a setup?"

"Of course it was a setup! Why should anybody give you even the smell of his ass?" Foster shook his head and snorted. "I don't know whether to be amazed or amazed that I am still amazed."