Reach For the Spy (30 page)

“Arnie, are you going
to let her talk to me like that?” Her voice was the irritating buzz
of a mosquito. I took another step forward, but Arnie didn’t budge.
I could still see her beyond his shoulder.

Crush her.

“Naomi,” Arnie said
quietly. “Ya better leave now. ‘Cause I don’t think I can hold her
if she comes for ya.”

“Fine.” She flounced
out and slammed the door.

Arnie took a slow step
back. “Aydan?”

“She hurt you. Nobody
hurts you because of me. Not ever again.” The voice that came from
my mouth wasn’t mine.

He reached slowly for
my fist and held it, stroking it gently. “She can’t hurt me,
darlin’. I don’t give a shit about her. Only the people ya care
about can hurt ya.”

The tremors started
then, rolling through my body in long waves. “I couldn’t save him,
Arnie. I was supposed to die, not him. I couldn’t save him.”

“Aydan...” He put his
arms around me and lowered me gently to sit on the couch. He sat
beside me, and I held him with all my strength, ignoring the pain
from my cuts and bruises.

“How did it happen?” he
whispered.

“He was shot. Doing his
duty. Shot in the back. By someone he trusted.” I couldn’t hold my
voice steady, and I didn’t try. “Arnie, I swear to God I tried to
kill the fucker. I would have killed him with my bare hands. But
they knocked me down and sat on me. I couldn’t move... I’m
sorry...”

Grief and fury choked
me.

“Shhh, darlin’.” He
stroked my hair and we sat in silence, just holding each other.

Finally, Arnie pulled
away. “I’ll hafta call his dad.”

I looked into his
haunted eyes. “You don’t have to tell him. He’ll know by now. The
chaplain was going to notify him.”

“I hafta call him
anyway. He’s... I’m John’s executor. An’ we’ll hafta make
arrangements for the funeral.”

He was just getting up
when the phone rang. He turned a stricken face from the call
display. “It’s him. Aydan, I dunno if I can do this.”

I didn’t know how to
help, so I took his hand and held it as he drew in a deep breath
and picked up the phone.

“Hello?” He sank into
his chair, his knuckles whitening on the receiver. “Yes, sir, I
just heard. Yeah. From somebody he worked with.”

There was a pause while
he listened.

“They wouldn’t tell
ya?”

Ice filled my veins. If
Stemp even breathed the word ‘traitor’, I would hunt him to the
ends of the earth. Arnie gazed at me with anguished eyes.

“He died a hero,” I
said firmly.

“Sir,” Arnie spoke
hoarsely into the phone. “I dunno what the official word is gonna
be. But his... partner... she says he died a hero. An’ if she says
it, ya know it’s true.”

“No, sir, I wouldn’t
expect anythin’ less.”

“Yes, sir.” He rummaged
for a pen and paper and scribbled furiously for a few seconds.

“Yes, sir, ‘course I’ll
be there.”

His shoulders slumped,
and he covered his face with a shaking hand. His voice was a rough
whisper when he spoke.

“Thanks... Dad.”

Arnie hung up the phone
and sat in silence for a few moments. When he spoke without looking
up, his voice was even. “Aydan, could ya go out an’ pick me up a
case a’ beer?”

His fridge was always
full of beer.

I made for the door
immediately. “I’ve got some errands to run. I’ll be at least an
hour.”

“Thanks, darlin’.”

I closed the door
softly behind me and made it out to my car before I broke down
completely.

It was close to eight
o’clock by the time I pressed the call button again. I’d picked up
the beer and driven aimlessly the rest of the time, in a state of
suspended pain. When Arnie opened the door, his cat, Hooker, made a
determined dash for freedom. I scooped him up and carried him
inside while Arnie took the beer.

“Hey, big guy,” I
murmured as I cuddled the furry armful. “Where were you
earlier?”

“I put him in the
bathroom,” Arnie explained. “Naomi said she was allergic.”

“Mm.” I still couldn’t
think about Naomi without wanting to destroy her for her
callousness. I massaged Hooker’s scruff and my eyes threatened to
fill with tears again when he squirmed up to squeeze his paws
around my neck, purring mightily.

Arnie turned away,
carrying the beer. “D’ya want one?” he called from the kitchen.

“I better not.” I
changed my mind. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

I gave Hooker one last
cuddle and put him down as Arnie handed me a cold one. He eyed me
searchingly before laying a gentle arm around my shoulders.

“Come an’ sit down,
darlin’. Before ya fall down.” He guided me to the couch and eyed
my trembling hands. “When did ya eat last?”

“I don’t know. Around
four or five, I guess. I don’t want anything.” I took a deep
swallow of beer.

“Ya sure? I got some
leftover pizza in the fridge.”

“No. Thanks.”

“Okay.” He sank into
his chair and drank off half his bottle in a long swallow. When he
leaned his head back and closed his eyes, the lines of pain in his
face wrenched my heart.

I poured another
generous dose of beer down my throat. I knew it wouldn’t help, and
I didn’t care.

Arnie’s eyes opened
again, and he came to sit beside me on the couch. He took my hand,
turning it over to inspect the three-day-old scabs and the fresh
cuts and scrapes. He traced the bruises up my arm, barely touching
me.

“Can ya tell me what
really happened?” He searched my face. “Somebody beat the hell
outta ya, looks like a few days ago. An’ then there’s fresh stuff
here. Aydan, tell me who did this to ya. Lemme help ya.”

I sighed and leaned my
head on his shoulder, taking comfort from his closeness. “The guys
who beat me up a few days ago are in jail.”

“Guys?” His hand
tightened on mine. “How many guys?”

“Two.”

“An’ how many today?”
His voice was very quiet.

“Three.”

“Tell me who they
are.”

“I can’t. I don’t know
who they were. And it wasn’t their fault. They weren’t trying to
hurt me, just hold me.”

“Three guys to hold ya?
Brave guys,” he spat.

I raised a tired
shoulder. “That’s what it took. There were actually five. I sent
two to the hospital. I was completely out of control. But it didn’t
matter. I was too late anyway.” I hid my face in his shoulder.

“Aydan, I can see how
much punishment ya took. I know ya woulda saved him if ya
could.”

“Yeah.” I choked up
again and tipped up my beer for another long drink to hide it. Down
almost three quarters of the bottle in just a few minutes. I should
slow down.

Arnie set aside his
empty bottle. “Ya want another?”

“No, not yet.”

When he returned with
his fresh beer, he put his arm around me again, and we sat in
silence for a while. I swallowed the last of my beer. “Was that a
funeral date you were writing down earlier?”

“Yeah. It’ll be in
Winnipeg, on Saturday at one o’clock. I’ll see what I can get for
flights, but I’ll prob’ly go out Saturday mornin’, come back Sunday
or Monday.”

“I’ll see if I can do
that, too. Will it work for us to share a rental car?”

“Yeah, if we can get
the same flights.” He thought for a moment. “I’ll be stayin’ with
Kane’s Dad. Ya could prob’ly stay there, too.”

“No, I wouldn’t want to
intrude. I’ll get a hotel.” I looked up at his strained face. “John
never mentioned his mother. Is she...?”

“Dead. Sixteen years
ago. Aneurysm.” He opened his mouth as if to say more, but shook
his head and drank off a couple of inches of beer instead.

“How’s his Dad holding
up?”

Arnie tipped up the
bottle again and lowered the level of his beer to the halfway
point. “He’s tough. He’s a tough ol’ man.” He gulped another long
swallow. “But he’s hurtin’.” He took another slug. His second beer
was almost gone.

“I can’t imagine what
it must be like to lose both your children,” I said. “I don’t even
want to think about what he’s going through.”

Arnie pulled back to
look at me. “Ya knew about Dan?”

“Yes, I saw his picture
at Kane’s and asked about him.”

“Oh. Ya were at Kane’s
place?” His shrewd eyes searched my face. “Were you two...?”

“No.” I pushed down the
regret. “I was over at his place to look at some documents when we
were doing that mission at Harchman’s.”

He eyed me seriously
for a few moments. “Well, darlin’, he trusted ya, then. He never
took anybody to his place.”

“I know.” I swallowed
hard and tried to take another gulp of beer before realizing my
bottle was empty.

Arnie went to the
kitchen and returned with two more beers. We each took a long drink
and sat in silence again.

When I glanced over a
few minutes later, Arnie’s third beer was almost gone, and I
started to get concerned. I’d never seen him pound them back like
this before.

I gestured to his
almost-empty bottle. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” He leaned his
head back. “Just thinkin’.” He absently drained the bottle. “Ya
know, darlin’, I got two blood brothers, but Kane’s... John was my
real brother.”

“I didn’t realize you
had brothers. I guess I never asked. Sorry.”

“Yeah. Two brothers an’
a sister. I ain’t seen Don and Jim in... Christ, ten, fifteen
years. More, prob’ly.” He sighed. “Kathy, the last time I saw her
was thirty years ago. Shit, thirty years ago this year. I dunno if
she’s still alive. Prob’ly not, but I keep lookin’...”

He raised his empty
bottle and squinted at it. I handed him mine, and he took another
deep swallow.

“What happened thirty
years ago?” I prompted gently.

“Nothin’.” He shrugged.
“That was just the last time I saw her. I’d joined up with the
army, an’ I told her I’d got a mailbox for her so I could send her
money. She was hooked on drugs, livin’ on the street. Guess she was
prob’ly in the sex trade. Dunno how else she coulda paid for her
shit. Hell, I was only eighteen. What’d I know?”

He slid lower on the
couch. “But my cheques never got cashed. Next time I got out on
leave, I went lookin’ for her, but she was gone.”

He sat up a little
straighter and looked me in the eyes. “Kathy was a good person. She
tried to take care a’ me when we were kids.”

He slouched down on the
couch again and drank some more beer, staring off into the
past.

“But it was John an’
his folks that saved me,” he finished quietly.

He drained the bottle
and headed for the kitchen again. “Ya want another?”

“No, thanks.”

He brought back two
bottles anyway, and handed me one before sprawling back onto the
couch beside me.

Arnie drank off a
couple of inches as if they were water, and I decided it might be
smart to keep him talking just to slow him down.

“How did John and his
parents save you?” I asked.

He turned and examined
me, his eyes searching mine. I’d felt that expression on my own
face often enough. He was trying to decide if he could trust me
enough to tell me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I
didn’t mean to pry. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s
okay.”

He blew out a breath
and leaned his head back on the couch, closing his eyes. After a
moment, he spoke without opening them. “Yeah. Ya know what,
darlin’, yeah. Tonight, I wanna talk about it. ‘Cause somebody else
should know what they did for me.”

He took another long
swallow of beer.

“My fam’ly was fucked
up from the start,” he began. “The ol’ man was shitfaced mosta the
time. Mean sonuvabitch. Beat the hell outta my mom, beat the hell
outta us kids. When I was about five, he was whalin’ on me, an’ Mom
tried to stop him. An’ he killed her. Beat her to death right there
on the spot.”

I clutched his hand,
barely able to comprehend the horror. “Arnie, I’m so sorry.”

“Cops came, but they
were too late,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “We ended up
in a foster home. Jim was the oldest, he was thirteen then. Mean
sonuvabitch just like the ol’ man. He’s pretty much in jail for
good now, far as I know. He ain’t on my Christmas card list.”

The beer bottle sloshed
again. “Don, he got married, beat his wife an’ kids. I kept tryin’
to get ‘em both to get help. Last time I went, Don’d been drinkin’
again, an’ he got mad.”

He absently rubbed the
jagged scar on his forearm. “Sometimes, ya gotta know when to give
up. Ain’t seen him in years.” He tipped the last of the beer down
his throat and reached to take mine out of my hand.

“Kathy, now.” His eyes
softened. “She was nine when Mom died. She was always tryin’ to
take care a’ me. Lookin’ out for her baby brother. All she wanted
was for somebody to love her. She started goin’ with this asshole
when she was thirteen. He got her hooked on drugs. She never had a
chance. Poor kid. Never had a chance.”

He stared across the
room. I sat in silence, overwhelmed by his pain, letting him take
his time.

He came back to his
story with a sigh. “An’ then there was me. They put me into grade
one the next fall, an’ that’s where I met John. We were buddies
right from the start. His mom used to invite all the kids over.
Guess she felt sorry for me, an’ I ended up spendin’ mosta my time
over there.”

He shrugged. “They gave
me a bedroom at their place, ‘cause I was there all the time
anyway. Treated me like I was one a’ their own kids. Got me into
hockey with John an’ Dan. Helped me with my homework. Got me music
lessons, for chrissake.”

He leaned his head back
on the couch and stared at the ceiling with a twisted smile. “John
and me, we were always pushin’ each other. I was more into partyin’
than studyin’, but I got good marks ‘cause I hadta beat John. He’d
bug the shit outta me when he beat me on a test.”