Nature of the Game (49 page)

Beth.

He lifted his kitchen wall phone, heard the dial tone as his eyes filled with the comfort of
home
, the familiar safety of—

His baseball, the one he'd grand-slam-home-runned into the bleachers at the Army game his senior year at the Academy, the one his teammates had autographed and that he kept on a pedestal next to a row of books on the top shelf in the living room.

It had been moved to the other end of the book row.

Beep beep beep beep beep
—Wes hung up the phone.

Stared at it.
His
phone.
His
home.

The gray car hadn't moved.

Beth's
. He was in her apartment in seconds, leaning against her closed door, panting for air.

Easy
. Easy.

His holstered gun waited on a table by the door, his briefcase was on the floor. A phone sat on the kitchen counter. Information gave him the number of the Freer Gallery.

“I'm sorry, sir,” said the Freer switchboard woman, “no one by that name works here.”

“What?”

“No one by that name is on our staff list.”

“You must be … Beth Doyle—
D
as in
Delta
.”

“I know, sir. She's not at the Freer. Have you tried the Smithsonian museums?”

“She's an archivist. With the Oriental Arts Foundation.”

“No foundation like that is affiliated with the Freer.”

“But you do have an archivist.”

“I'll check with him.”

She'll laugh her husky laugh
, thought Wes, joke about bureaucracy and how tired I sound.

“Sir?” said the switchboard operator. “The archivist says Beth Doyle doesn't work for him.”

Wes slammed down the phone.

The walls were close in this apartment she'd sublet from a government lawyer catapulted to a sudden emergency
somewhere out of town
. Beth moved in …

After Denton created this mission.

Wes blinked; looked with eyes and not his heart.

The apartment smelled of stale cigarette smoke. Her drafting table filled the living room—but she wasn't enrolled in architecture school yet, her classes in engineering were night school, adult ed with no prerequisite background checks. The walls were hung with the lawyer's art—that was his poster of the whale's tail sliding back into the waves. The lawyer's suits still hung in the bedroom closet, pushed aside for her skirts and slacks.

Wes roamed the apartment. There were no pictures of her, none of her family or friends, ex-lovers or ex-roommates. No souvenirs of Thailand or Nepal—he knew she'd been there, she couldn't have faked all she'd told him. No remembrances of Germany, and what had she done there? Worked for discos? She said she'd swum in Berlin's public pool, fat people all around in the cool blue chlorine. Who had she worked for? For who else?

None of the mail on the desk in the living room was addressed to her. Even that month's phone bill bore the lawyer's name: no need to change, as long as the checks kept coming. Wes ripped open the envelope.

The bill covered her early days here: no long-distance phone calls to a foundation or Mother or sisters or brothers or Dad at his office, no trace that she had anyone to call.

Two shelves held her books—physics and engineering textbooks, a half dozen paperback novels, an art book on Japanese architecture, poetry books by Emily Dickinson and Carolyn Forche. He flipped the pages in every volume: nothing fell out and he left the books where he dropped them.

Notebooks: sketches, drawings, rough plans—but not too many, none too old.

An address book, she had an address book—that she always carried with her.

He opened the closet: two suitcases and a shoulder bag had her name tags—no addresses. He threw them into the living room, pulled her coats off hangars and searched their pockets, threw them on the couch: spare change, matches, pocket litter.

In Recon, Wes always made sure his patrols carried nothing that would betray them.

Kitchen drawers full of knives, desk drawers with only the lawyer's papers, sparse supplies in the refrigerator. Back to the bedroom, her landlord's clothes in three drawers, tossing out her underwear—no bras, just panties, soft and pink and white. Socks, a couple pair of panty hose, two silk scarves. Where was her jewelry? Sweaters on the closet's top shelf: he mashed each one, tossed them onto the bed. Nothing hidden in the toes of her shoes. He threw them aside. The bed table: books, an ashtray, coffee congealed in a cup. Nothing under the bed, under the mattress. The bathroom: few cosmetics, a brush, comb. Aspirin in the medicine cabinet, a bottle of Valium prescribed by a New York doctor and birth control pills.

A long brown hair lay in the white sink.

But nothing to prove who she was, nothing to prove who she wasn't. Didn't matter if she'd given him a key.

The bathroom was bright: white walls, the sink and the shower stall, the chrome drainpipes. The mirror on the medicine cabinet showed him his face, bruised and pale and haunted.

The toilet lid was closed. Wes collapsed on it.

And cried. Silently at first, a tear trickling down his cheek, then a gasp and he couldn't stop, shaking, hugging himself, trembling against the wall.

Ten, fifteen minutes. He caught his breath. Felt his cheeks dry, felt the tile pressed against the side of his head. Tasted the salt and the phlegm on his lips, the tang of lemon-scented bathroom air.

Heard the
click
of the front-door lock.

He was in the living room, watching her back into the apartment, a grocery sack in each hand, turning, seeing him …

“Wes!” She smiled. “When did you …”

Then Beth saw her coats heaped on the couch, the books on the floor, her sketches scattered across the drawing table. The grocery bags slid to her feet. She wore a belt bag for a purse. A briefcase hung from one shoulder; it fell beside the grocery bags. She wore corduroy slacks and a sweater, a long black coat. Her brown hair was brushed, her widow's peak prominent, and she wore no makeup on her wide gray eyes, no lipstick.

“What …” She shook her head. “What happened?”

“Who are you?” whispered Wes.

“What?” She frowned at him. Stepped closer.

His gun was on the table just behind her.

“Who are you?” he said, louder, keeping her eyes on him.

“I don't …” She drifted closer to him, her gaze flitting from side to side, seeing the chaos of her home but still not seeing the gun. She blinked. “Did … Did you do this?”

“Why did you come here?” he said.

“I live here.” She shook her head. “Wes, what's wrong?”

“You tell me.”

They were close. She reached out to touch him. Stopped.

“You aren't here,” he told her. “There's nothing
real
of you here: no pictures, no letters, no
life
. It's all props. Usable. Functional. Believable.”

“You went through my things!” she whispered. She shuddered. Her hand fell to her side, and she shrank back.

Like a Marine officer, he said, “Who do you work for?”

“You know! I—”

“I called the Freer. They've never heard of you.”

“What?”

“They never heard of your ‘foundation' either.”

“I was there today! I'm getting groceries during lunch!”

Wes shook his head.

“Jeannie,” she said, “the switchboard lady—she's a ditz! An officious ditz! You don't ask her exactly right, she doesn't tell you! She's a slot machine, a crazy—”

“The archivist said you didn't work for him.”

“I don't! I'm on a fellowship and I've barely met—Did you talk to him?” When Wes didn't answer, her face lit up. “You didn't! If you would have—”

“You're good, aren't you?”

“
Good?
” She shook her head. “I love you!”

“Was that your idea? Or were you just supposed to fuck me?”

Beth covered her mouth; her eyes glistened and he heard her gag.

“You went through my stuff when I was asleep,” he said.

“I … You
asshole!
I went through
your
stuff!? What were you … What are you looking for? Is this … sick, kinky, crazy … What did you expect? What do you want?”

“Who's paying you? How much? Civil service? Contract? Off the books? Or did you get jammed up in Thailand or Germany or New Jersey and they bailed you out and you're working it off?”

“Jesus!” She backed away from this bruised stranger. The fire in his deep-set black eyes flushed her face. “You … I thought … And I was worried about whether you'd
run
, whether you'd find somebody else or fuck somebody else or I'd drive you crazy …”

She shook her head. “Is that it? You're crazy? Some sick Marine
fuck
who gets his kicks, control …”

“
Damn you!
” she yelled, and ran at him, slapping him, hitting his chest, his face, his arms, as he grabbed her shoulders and pushed her away and she staggered back toward the door.

“Going to beat me?” she said. “Rape me? Wasn't it good enough when I wanted you?”

A coolness flowed through Wes, a pain, doubt, and he reached for her. “Beth …”

She backed away. Closer to the door.

“What's my crime?” she said. “That pictures lie and I want to remember the truth in my heart, not what some camera traps? That trinkets get lost or stolen by a Baghdad window crawler or burn up and then it's worse than never having them? That my mom and sisters have been too busy to write me? What about my dad, huh? He's never written. Oh, that's a real sin! Let's beat the shit out of Beth. What did I do, scare you? Is that it? Love equals risk equals fear equals destroy?”

“I don't want to destroy you!” said Wes. “You …”

“Me?” She shook her head. “No, you: who
are
you?”

“What happened …,” he started to say as her eyes darted from side to side, seeking safety, seeking certainty.

Saw the gun.

Wes knew that she saw the gun, but he was rooted to the spot.

Slowly, she took a step. Reached out—plenty of time, Wes had plenty of time, but his feet were locked to the earth, his legs couldn't move, his arms too heavy as she
reached out
and picked up the gun.

Slid it from its holster.

“Is this it?” she whispered. “Is this what you do?”

She looked at him, her eyes wide. She held the gun toward him—held it awkwardly. The bore pointed into the kitchen. She took a step toward Wes.

“Is this for me?” she whispered.

Nothing;
he tried and he could say
nothing
.

She was close. Close enough for him to grab the gun. He couldn't move. He couldn't speak. Couldn't take his eyes off her.

“Is this what it's all about?” she said. “This is for me? From you?”

The gun turned in her hand.

“Like this?” she said, and she held it by the barrel, its bore staring back at her. “Is this how it's supposed to be?

“Here?” she said, and slowly brought the barrel of the gun up until the bore where the bullets came out kissed the forehead below her widow's peak.

“This way?” she asked. “Is this what you meant when you said you loved me?

“Here?” She held the gun bore in front of her lips, so close her breath fogged the black metal Wes had polished.

“Here?” She pressed the gun bore to her heart, then lowered her arm, the steel trailing down her chest, her stomach.

“Here?” She pushed the gun bore against her vulva.

When she moved again, he thought eternity had passed. She pressed the gun into his grip.

“Then do it,” she whispered, tears running down her cheeks. She turned and slowly walked to the door.

Stopped. Without looking back, she said, “You were right. This isn't my life.”

Then she was gone, the door clicking behind her.

When he could move, he went back to his apartment.

The gray car was still parked out front.

He'd left his suitcase in his car. There'd be tickets on it by now: too long in the loading zone. He changed into jeans, sneakers. Packed clothes and toiletries into a duffel bag that he could carry in the same hand as the briefcase of money and documents. The holstered gun was clipped on his belt, covered by a black windbreaker. He took a last look around this apartment.

Someone else lived there.

Wes went to the roof.

He stayed low, out of sight of the street. His stash of duplicate documents looked secure. The surveillance team would figure out he'd left this way. Perhaps some
they
would find his stash. Maybe Greco's people. Friendlies. Maybe. He crawled and climbed over the block of town-house roofs, dropped to an alley garage, then lowered himself to the pavement. And walked away.

There was nowhere left to go but forward.

Private investigator Jack Berns wore a silk bathrobe over his undershirt and jockey shorts when he opened his front door to Wes's repeated knocks.

“I ain't home,” said Berns, swinging the door shut.

Wes slammed his shoulder into Berns's door and sent the private eye stumbing backward into his house.

“Sure you are,” said Wes. “You been up all night, too?”

“You are fucking
gone
, Marine!” yelled Berns, pulling his robe closed. “You're history!”

Wes grabbed a fistful of bathrobe, pulled him close.

“I'm your history,” he hissed at the smaller man.

“What the hell do you want?”

“You work for me—remember?”

“Are you an idiot? Don't you know?”

“Tell me,” said Wes, keeping his grip on the bathrobe.

“There's a burn notice out on you,” said the private eye. “All your spook friends, they'll get it today!”

“But you know now,” said Wes. “How's that?”