Algis Budrys - Who?

“Edith?”

“If you want to court me.”

The man was deathly quiet for a moment. Then he heaved to his feet with a twang of the chair springs.

“Edith — look at me. Think of the men that’ll follow you and me until I die. And I am going to die. Not soon, but you’d be alone again just when people depend on each other most. I can’t work. I couldn’t even ask you to go anywhere with me. I can’t do that, Edith. That’s not what I came here for.”

“Isn’t it what you thought of when you were lying in the hospital? Didn’t you think of all these things against it, and still hope?”

“Edith — ”

“Nothing could ever have come of it, the first time. And I loved Sam when I met him, and was happy to be his wife. But it’s a different time, now, and I’ve been remembering, too.”

In the car, Finchley muttered softly and with savage intensity. “Don’t mess it up, man. Don’t foul up. Do it right. Take your chance.” Then he realized Rogers was looking at him and went abruptly quiet.

In the apartment, all the man’s tension exploded out of his throat. “I can’t do it!”

“You can if I want you to,” the woman said gently.

The man sighed for one last time, and Rogers could see him in his mind’s eye — the straight, set shoulders loosening a little, the fingers uncurling; the man standing there and opening the clenched fist of himself. Martino or not, traitor or spy, the man had won — or found — a haven.

A door opened inside the apartment. A child’s voice said sleepily, “Mommy — I woke up. I heard a man talking. Mommy — what’s that?”

The woman caught her breath. “This is Luke, Susan,” she said quickly. “He’s an old friend of mine, and he just came back to town. I was going to tell you about him in the morning.” She crossed the room and her voice was lower, as if she were holding the child and speaking softly. But she was still talking very rapidly. “Lucas is a very nice man, honey. He’s been in an accident — a very bad accident — and the doctor had to do that to cure him. But it’s not anything important.”

“He’s just standing there, Mommy. He’s looking at me!”

The man made a sound in his throat.

“Don’t be afraid of me, Susan — I won’t hurt you. Really, I won’t.” The floor thudded to his weight as he moved clumsily toward the child. “See? I’m really a very funny man. Look at me blink my eyes. See all the colors they turn? Aren’t they funny?” He was breathing loudly. It was a continuous, unearthly noise in the microphone. “Now, you’re not afraid of me, are you?”

“Yes! Yes, I am. Get away from me! Mommy, Mommy, don’t let him!”

“But he’s a nice man, Susan. He wants to be your friend.”

“I can do other tricks, Susan. See? See my hand spin? Isn’t that a funny trick? See me close my eyes?” The man’s voice was urgent, now, and trembling under the nervous joviality.

“I don’t like you! I don’t like you! If you’re a nice man, why don’t you smile?”

They heard the man step back.

The woman said clumsily, “He’s smiling inside, honey,” but the man was saying “I’d — I’d better go, Edith. I’ll only upset her more if I stay.”

“Please — Luke — ”

“I’ll come back some other time. I’ll call you.” He fumbled at the door latches.

“Luke — oh, here’s your coat — Luke, I’ll talk to her. I’ll explain. She just woke up — she may have been having a nightmare…” Her voice trailed away.

“Yes.” He opened the door, and the FBI technician barely remembered to pull down his gain control.

“You will come back?”

“Of course, Edith.” He hesitated. “I’ll be in touch with you.”

“Luke — ”

The man was on the stairs, coming down quickly. The crash of his footsteps was loud, then fading as he passed the microphone blindly. Rogers signaled frantically from the car, and the two waiting ANG men began walking briskly in opposite directions away from the building. The man came out, tugging his hat onto his head. As he walked, his footsteps quickened. He turned up his coat collar. He was almost running. He passed one of the ANG men, and the other cut quickly around a corner, circling the block to fall in with his partner.

The man disappeared into the night, with the surveillance team trying to keep up behind him.

The microphone was still listening.

“Mommy — Mommy, who’s Lucas?”

The woman’s voice was very low. “It doesn’t matter, honey. Not any more.”

“All right,” Rogers said harshly, “let’s get going before he gets away from us.” He braced himself as the technician thumbed the starter and lurched the car forward.

Rogers was busy on his own radio, dispatching cover teams to cross the man’s path and pick up the surveillance before he could outwalk the team behind him. Finchley had nothing to say as the car moved up the street. His face, as they passed under a light, was haggard.

The car rolled past the nearest ANG man. He looked upset, trying to walk fast enough to keep the hurrying man in sight and still not walk so fast as to attract attention. He threw a quick glance toward the car. His mouth was set, and his nostrils were flared.

Their headlights touched the bulky figure of their man. He was taking short, quick steps, his shoulders hunched and his hands in his pockets. He kept his face down.

“Where’s he going now?” Rogers said unnecessarily. He didn’t need Finchley to tell him.

“I don’t think he knows,” Finchley said.

In the darkness, the man was walking uptown on MacDougal Street. The lights of the coffee shops above Bleecker lay waiting for him. He saw them and turned abruptly toward an alley.

A girl had come down the steps of her house beside him, and he brushed by her. He stopped, suddenly, and turned. He raised his head, his mouth falling open. He was frozen in a pantomime of surprise. He said something. The car lights splashed against his face.

The girl screamed. Her throat opened and she clapped her hands to her eyes. The hideous sound she made was trapped in the narrow street.

The man began to run. He swerved into an alley, and even in the car, the sound of his feet was like someone pounding on a hollow box. The girl stood quiet now, bent forward, holding herself as though she were embarrassed.

“Get after him!” Rogers, in turn, was startled by the note his voice had struck. He dug his hands into the back of the front seat as the driver yanked the car into the alley.

The man was running well ahead of them. Their headlights shone on the back of his neck, and the glare of resected light winked in the rippling shadows thrown by the flapping skirt of his trailing coat. He was running clumsily, like an exhausted man, and yet he was moving at fantastic speed.

“My God!” Finchley said. “Look at him!”

“No human being can run like that,” Rogers said. “He doesn’t have to drive his lungs. He won’t feel oxygen starvation as much. He’ll push himself as fast as his heart can stand.”

“Or faster.”

The man threw himself against a wall, breaking his momentum. He thrust himself away, down a cross street, headed back downtown.

“Come on!” Rogers barked at the driver. “Goose this hack.”

They screamed around the corner. The man was still far ahead, running without looking back. The street was lined with loading platforms at the backs of warehouses. There were no house lights, and street lamps only at the corners. A row of traffic lights stretched down toward Canal Street, changing from green to red in a pre-set rhythm that rippled along the length of the street in waves. The man careered down among them like something flapping, driven by a giant wind.