I Am the Cheese (19 page)

“Yeah,” Adam said. He could see it—but somehow he couldn’t get excited about it. First of all, he wasn’t
crazy about getting into people’s cars. That sounded like trouble if you were caught. Second, he didn’t know how much impact a radio and windshield wipers would have on the people in the car. He looked at Amy, the excitement in her eyes, and he didn’t want to disappoint her. But he was disappointing himself, really. He thought, Am I outgrowing the Numbers? Has so much happened in my own life that I’m leaving them behind?

“What’s the matter, Ace?” Amy asked, troubled suddenly.

For one desperate moment, he wanted to confess everything to her, but he knew that it was impossible.

“Nothing,” he said.

And Amy, who had become accustomed to his moods, didn’t press the matter further. After a while, she said, “Let’s go.” And they stole like movie Indians into the lot, attacking the cars, twisting the dials—until sudden shouts broke his concentration as he searched for the wiper button that seemed to be completely hidden in an old Buick convertible.

He looked up and saw a man running out of the church toward the lot. He wore an old corduroy jacket; he certainly wasn’t a member of the wedding party. Probably the church janitor.

Adam froze, stunned, thinking, I can’t risk exposure. Amy’s voice reached him from nearby: “Run, Ace, run. They saw us.” Adam grappled with the door handle, turned it. He heard the sound of running feet and took a quick glance backward. The man was weaving in and out of the cars, like a drunken basketball player, yelling at Amy to stop, to halt, to come back here this minute …

Amy was a blur as she ran across the lot toward a clump of trees. No one would ever catch Amy. Adam also realized that the man had not seen him at all. After the man had passed by, Adam made his way as casually as possible to the front of the lot and started walking down the street, remembering Amy’s advice: “Act nonchalant, always act as though you belong wherever you are.” He thought of the way she had scooted through the lot but had warned him first. That Amy. How he loved her.

They met, by prearrangement (Amy delighted in all these strategies), at Baker’s Drugstore; that was their assembly spot, both before and after all the Numbers.

“Sorry, Ace,” she said. She’d arrived ahead of him and was already sipping an ice-cream soda. Chocolate with vanilla ice cream, as usual. “How many cars did you do?” she asked. “I only did about five before the guy spotted me. He yelled, ‘Stop thief,’ just like in the movies. It was kind of funny in a way …”

And then for some reason they got the giggles and laughed a lot, annoying Henry Sanett, the clerk who was about sixty and couldn’t stand anybody under forty, and Adam drank two vanilla milkshakes and they talked about other Numbers, the A&P, and it was nice there in the store, on a sunny windswept day, Amy across from him in the booth, flushed, lovely. The thought crossed his mind, She’s my girl, isn’t she? My girl.

Later they parted, Adam to go home for lunch, although his stomach bulged with the milk shakes, and Amy to meet her father at the newspaper. “Call me,” she said over her shoulder as she walked away.

Adam walked home, kicking at sidewalk debris, thinking of Amy—car radios and windshield wipers, for cripes sake—and arrived to find that the nightmare had already started. Without him.

His mother was at the door, her face the color of fog, her eyes like shattered marbles.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Grey called,” his mother said. “An emergency.”

And he did know. He knew the knowledge was there waiting to come forward, welling up inside him, waiting for him to express it, verbalize it, and in that way make it real. But at the same time, he hesitated. A part of himself resisted.

He knew that but he also knew that Brint, or whoever he was, was sitting across from him, waiting, like a predator, an enemy—he was certain of that now—but he knew also that he had to reveal everything to him, that he could not do it alone.

All he could hope for was that he could find the knowledge about himself without betraying—betraying who?

He could tell that his mother was upset, the way her hands trembled slightly as she drew him into the living room. And yet he was impressed by the calmness of her voice, the crispness of her words. She was upset, all right, but in control.

“Everything’s going to be all right,” she said, her voice firm, as if she were commanding it to be firm. Adam thought of all the times parents assured their children that everything was fine when everything wasn’t fine but they had to play the role for the sake of the children.

“Where’s Dad?” Adam asked.

“Down at the office, taking care of a few details. We have to go away for a few days, Adam.”

“Where are we going? And why? What’s it all about?” he asked, hearing his voice rising, wishing he could be in control the way his mother was.

She took his hands and drew him into the living room. “This has happened once in a while, Adam. It’s like a fire drill at school. Or maybe a bomb scare. Anyway, Grey called an hour or so ago. He thinks that our identities may be known. He isn’t sure, chances are he’s mistaken, but he insists that precautions be taken.”

“But how does he know?”

She blew air out of her mouth, impatiently. “This is the ridiculous part of it all, Adam. Remember I told you about the Never Knows and how you always had to play it safe? Well, Grey has his Never Knows, too. He said one of his men overheard a conversation on a wiretap in which Monument was mentioned—”

“A wiretap?” But this is absurd, Adam thought, this has nothing to do with me and Amy Hertz and the Numbers and school and my father and mother.

“Yes. The Department has to keep a check on certain people. And Monument was mentioned in a conversation.
A date was also mentioned. Tomorrow. Now, it could be nothing. In fact, the Monument that was being referred to might not even be us, this city. Probably it’s a real monument. But Grey thought that no chances should be taken. He suggested that we leave for a few days, take a trip, a vacation. Meanwhile, his men will be in town, watching the house, checking out any suspicious developments.”

“You said this kind of thing has happened before?” Adam asked.

“Yes. Twice, actually. The first time was one of those strange coincidences. The town observed its two hundredth anniversary a few years ago—it was one of the first towns to be settled in this area. We had parades and a lot of activities, just like the country’s bicentennial. Television crews came from all over—Boston, Worcester, even New York—to film the events. One television network planned a special program on how a small town celebrates a bicentennial—they sent TV people here for a week or two, to conduct interviews and film people and places. Grey thought it might be wise if we went away for those two weeks—the government paid for a vacation in Maine. Two weeks of coast and beaches. But somehow it was hard to enjoy it all—knowing why we were there.”

“I think I remember that trip,” Adam said. “I remember that I was kind of disappointed. I was going to march in the big parade with the Boy Scouts and suddenly we were heading toward Maine and you and Dad kept saying what a great time we were going to have but it sounded as if you were apologizing.”

His mother nodded. “All the guilts your father and I have piled up, Adam,” his mother said, the sadness in her voice again.

“What was the other time?”

“A scare like this. A witness before a congressional committee in Washington said that he had secret knowledge of a former newspaperman who had given earlier evidence. He said the newspaperman had vanished under mysterious circumstances but was now an agent in the Northeast. This was all very vague, of course, but Grey felt that we should not take any chances. Again, we went on another vacation. This time to California. San Francisco. For a week. And it rained every day and you had a cold and a fever. You were only seven years old. Then it turned out that the witness had not been referring to your father at all but to another newspaperman who had turned out to be an agent for the CIA.”

The doorbell rang. The tension again; his mother suddenly stiff like in a movie freeze-frame. The key turned in the door and his father stepped into the hallway.

“Good, Adam,” he said. “You’re home.” He looked at Adam’s mother. “You’ve told him?”

For the first time, Adam noticed crevices of age on his father’s face, small chasms of hidden depths.

His father advanced briskly into the living room. “Look,” he said, “I think we can use a weekend away from Monument. Probably drive north—it’s beautiful this time of year up there. We’ll find a nice motel and maybe an old inn and have ourselves an old-fashioned New England dinner.” He clapped his
hands a couple of times as if in anticipation of the trip ahead, as if it were really a pleasure trip. “I think we can all use a change of scene—I know I can. And, Adam, we can call the school from on the road Monday and tell them you’re taking the day off. That’ll give us the rest of today, Sunday, and Monday. And, who knows, maybe we’ll take Tuesday, too.”

His father’s voice was buoyant, eager—and Adam suddenly realized, with a chill, the truth: his father was playing the game, not trusting the walls, acting as if no phone call had been received from Mr. Grey. His face was still haggard and his eyes wary and haunted and the bright enthusiastic voice was a sharp contrast.

“Well, shall we pack?” he said, turning to Adam’s mother.

She smiled, wanly. “I’ve already packed. I always keep the suitcases ready.”

His father walked over to Adam and put his arm around his shoulder. “It’s going to be all right, Adam,” he whispered. Actually whispered—here in their own living room. What have they turned us into? Adam thought. What has Mr. Grey done to my father and mother to make this kind of thing possible? For the first time, the horror of their predicament became real to Adam.

“Let’s go,” his father said, his hand clutching Adam’s shoulder, a deep sadness in his eyes.

“Okay, Dad,” Adam said.

His mother had already gone upstairs for the suitcases.

TAPE CHANGE:

END OZK014

The motel is on the outskirts of Belton Falls and I pedal toward the place. It’s dark now and I know it is dangerous being on the road without lights or reflectors and wearing a khaki jacket but I am in a hurry and don’t want to walk. Every bone in my body seethes with pain and weariness and my lungs burn and my hands and feet are freezing, but I go on pedaling. The cars sweep by, the headlights blinding me sometimes, and once in a while a horn blows at me and the sound wails in the darkness, but I keep going. It’s only a half mile or so out of the town across from a gasoline station, that’s where the motel is. And now I remember its name: Rest-A-While Motel, and it has cabins and my mother said, “Isn’t this romantic?” and we stayed there. Most of the cabins were for two people but they moved a cot in for me so that we could be together all night long. And I lay there in the cot and felt safe and secure, listening to my father snore and hearing my mother breathe, the way her breath fluttered a bit as if a butterfly danced on her lips.