The Identity Man (31 page)

Shannon saw a door coming at him, but by now he barely knew what was happening. The door opened in the center of a nauseating whirl. A gritty wind bearing the first dead heat of summer washed over Shannon's face. The next thing he knew he was outside, out in the middle of the sky, in the middle of the hot wind. Ramsey dropped him roughly to the floor.

Shannon lay there bleeding, trying to lift his head, trying to look around and get a glimpse of things through his haze of pain and concussion. He saw the naked sky through iron beams, walls in shreds like torn fabric, charred like burned paper. The dark towers of the skyline were visible through the gaps. Great, billowing clouds raced behind the towers on the hot, gritty wind.

Shannon understood where he was. He was on one of the top floors, one of the ruined floors, of One City Center. It was like being in a room that had exploded. The walls were smashed clear through, the beams visible, the windows shattered, the remnants burned. All that was left was the charred wreckage of the place on an open platform in the sky.

He knew what they were going to do to him, too. They were going to throw him off the building. He would fall so far, hit the pavement so hard, his body would be crushed to cinders, and no one would be able to tell what had happened to him. They would get their medical people to say it was an accident or suicide. That would be that.

The fear of dying in that particular fashion made him even weaker, even sicker, but there was nothing he could do, he was too beaten and dazed now to fight back. He tried to think of something that would make it easier for him. He thought of Teresa. He thought he still had the way he felt about her. It was like the gold ring in the boy's hand after his dream in the story—he still had it. He thought she would be safe now. If he could just keep his mouth shut till they killed him, she would be safe, and Michael and the old man—they would be safe, too. So he could die feeling how he felt about her and knowing he had kept his mouth shut and kept her safe and that was something. Otherwise, yeah, it had been a crap life all around. Maybe there was a better life when this one was over. Maybe God would forgive him for some of the bad things he'd done because, in the end, he had helped Teresa, then he would have a better life. But even if there was no God and no better life, Teresa would be safe. Maybe she would even think about him sometimes. So there was that, too. And basically Ramsey could go fuck himself.

The gritty wind blew over him with a roar. The shredded walls shook and fluttered loudly. Shannon lay on the floor and fought against his sickness and the fear of falling.

The weaselly federal agent and Foster and the slick agent stood together at the window and stared down at the restaurant. Foster rubbed his fingers with his thumb, his face blank.

"What do you think?" said the weaselly agent finally. "They're in there a long time."

Foster wasn't sure what he thought. He stood there silently.

Then he saw a flash at the window. The venetian blinds had opened.

"He's gone," Foster said. "Damn it. They took him out. Let's go."

Ramsey worked Shannon over on the floor of the shattered room at the top of the ruined tower. He kicked him in the gut and in the spine. He stomped on his hand, breaking his fingers with a snapping sound. He lifted him up by the jacket and punched him. The blockheaded cop in the white waiter's outfit looked on absently, holding the gun vaguely in Shannon's direction. The hot wind blew through the torn walls and the walls shuddered with a loud noise.

At first, the blows hurt Shannon, each one a fresh pain. He tried to cover himself and when he couldn't cover himself, he tried to crawl away. When he couldn't crawl away, he just lay there on the floor and went through it. After a while, it was all pain, a sort of throbbing, indivisible suffering mixed with the mess of blood and vomit on him and the sad understanding that they would kill him when they were through. He tried to think about Teresa, but after a while he couldn't think about anything except how bad it was. He just wanted it to stop, even if they did kill him.

"Now," said Ramsey, breathless with the work. He knelt down next to Shannon's head. He knelt on one knee and draped his arm over the other. He looked at Shannon mildly. Shannon flinched at his every move, afraid of more blows. "You're going to tell me who you are and how much you really know and who runs you," Ramsey said.

Cowering, his hands over his head, Shannon tried to answer him, but it just came out a sobbing groan.

Ramsey reached down. He pulled Shannon's hands away from his face and slapped him in the nose lightly with his knuckles. With his nose broken and his cuts raw all over, the blow sent a fresh explosion of hurt through Shannon's head.

"I didn't understand you, boy. Speak up," said Ramsey.

Shannon swallowed blood and tried again, louder. "You killed Patterson."

"Is that right? Who told you to say that?"

"I saw."

"You're lying. I want to know who runs you."

Shannon wearily mumbled his answer.

"What did you say?"

"Said ... go ... to hell. And fuck yourself on the way down."

Ramsey laughed at that. He glanced at the blockhead standing guard. "He's a tough guy."

"He is," said the blockhead reflexively. He wasn't really listening and didn't really care.

Ramsey looked down at Shannon's blood-soaked face. Shannon's eyes blinked whitely at him out of the blood. "Are you a fed? Or are the feds just running you?"

"Killed ... Patterson..."

"You're going to tell me everything, Conor," he said. "Really. Why make it so hard?"

Shannon gave a weak laugh. "Already hard."

"It's going to get a lot harder, son, believe me."

Shannon tried to curse him out but could only cough up blood.

"You don't want to die, do you?" said Ramsey.

Shannon coughed some more. "Not afraid," he said.

Which wasn't strictly true. He was full of fear, but he knew he could get through it. It had been a crap life and now Teresa would be safe. Fuck Ramsey.

Ramsey rabbit-punched him in the testicles. Shannon doubled over, gagging and sobbing.

"I want to know who sent you," Ramsey said quietly.

Shannon could not feel the hot wind on him anymore, but he could hear the walls rocking and shuddering. He could see patches of blue and clouds flying past towers as his head lolled over. He prayed to God to let it end already, to let him die, even if there was no better life.

Foster sent his two agents into the restaurant and good luck to them, but he went another way. He pushed through the revolving doors into the lobby of One City Center. He strode to the reception desk, flashing his federal ID. There was a male security guard there and a female receptionist.

"How many ways are there out of the restaurant?" Foster barked at them.

"There's a door into the lobby and one into the service hall," the receptionist said. She was a short, busty woman with an air of competence.

"There a way out of the service hall?"

"A back door to the Dumpsters and the elevator. You need a key for the elevator." The woman slapped a Homak key down on the black marble reception desk.

"This way," said the security guard. "I'll show you."

Foster followed him across the lobby. He already had an idea about where they'd taken Shannon.

Ramsey didn't have to slug or kick Shannon anymore. He could just probe his torn and broken places. Shannon screamed and sobbed at the pain. After a while, Ramsey knelt over him and studied him, expressionless. He was startled at how much he hated this man, how much he wanted to break him and kill him. The sadistic feelings disgusted him, as if they were some squirmy thing he wanted to hold at a distance from himself. Every time the man screamed, Ramsey felt some satisfaction in it and that disgusted him, too. He wanted to end this—and he would have ended it if it weren't for his pride, his fierce desire to break the man's resistance, to have that victory over him before he threw him off the building.

"Damn it, I'm going to find out the answers anyway, whether you tell me or not," he said quietly. "Tell me what you know and who else knows and who sent you, and we can be done."

Shannon tried to say
fuck you
but couldn't get the words out.

Ramsey grabbed Shannon's broken fingers and made Shannon scream again.

"You said you saw me," Ramsey said.

"Saw you kill Patterson," Shannon managed to answer.

"You're lying. You've got nothing. That's why they sent you, isn't it?"

"I saw you."

Ramsey made him scream again, squeezing his fingers.

"You're lying, aren't you? They sent you because they've got nothing."

"You killed Patterson," Shannon managed to mumble.

Ramsey's anger rose in a red tide. He could feel that he was about to lose control of this. Maybe he already
had
lost control and just didn't know it yet. He was furious and disgusted and he knew he had to finish it, but he couldn't finish it. So maybe he had lost control.
What difference did any of it make?
he reasoned with himself. He could trace the warrant, find out which feds had slipped out of the net. They would make the proper phone calls, take care of them, get rid of them. Whoever ran this operation would end up checking parking meters on the moon...

Still ... still ... this man here. He couldn't quite rid himself of the feeling that this man
was,
in fact, the nemesis that had pursued him all this time, that was still pursuing him. He wanted vengeance on him for forcing him to go to Super-Pred, forcing him to degrade the very meaning of his biography—his rise out of the ghetto, his service to his country, his service on the force—by begging favors from that fifteen-year-old nightmare version of himself, by letting that nightmare version of himself become his agent in the world. This man had done that to him, forced him to it. He would not be beaten by him now. He would not be defied.

He stood up over the trembling Shannon. He drew his Beretta. He pointed it down at Shannon's knee.

"Look at me, boy," he said.

Shannon looked up at him, blinking through the blood.

"You're making this uglier than it has to be," Ramsey said.

Shannon blinked up at him, open-mouthed. Even in the haze of pain, he realized what Ramsey was going to do. "Aw, don't," he begged.

"Are you going to talk to me or not?"

"Please..."

"Are you or not?"

Shannon sobbed in expectation of the agony. "Fuck you," he said. "Fuck you."

"God damn you!" Ramsey said.

His finger was tightening on the trigger when Foster charged through the door.

It was all like a slow-motion dream to Shannon. He was staring up at Ramsey and he saw the gun and he understood what was about to happen and he couldn't do anything but pray and pray for God to let him die and then there was a bang and he thought he'd been shot but he wasn't and he saw movement and there was Foster in some vague, unfocused distance charging across the background of blue sky and tower tops, shouting words Shannon couldn't hear through the wind noise, holding his gun out before him in his two hands.

Then Ramsey was turning, his gun still pointed down at Shannon, and the blockheaded cop in the white waiter's uniform was whipping around toward Foster and lifting his gun. Shannon heard the first shot, not loud, a distant snap almost drowned by the hoarse roar of the wind and the walls rocking and shuddering. He saw the smoke and fire explode from the barrel of Foster's nine. Then the blockheaded cop was flying backward and crumpling to the floor next to Shannon's feet.

Then there was another shot, a blast echoing through the wind. Shannon didn't know where it'd come from. But then he saw the blood and flesh explode on Foster's shoulder and the agent's face contorted with pain and his body twisted and his gun flew from his hand as he went falling toward the sky.

Shannon blinked upward through swollen eyes and saw that it was Ramsey who'd fired, his gun trained on the spot where Foster had been, smoke curling from the barrel of it.

Foster now lay at the edge of the floor, inches from a break in the charred wall, an open space into emptiness, a forty-story fall. The agent was wounded, writhing like a hurt animal, trying to crawl away from the edge to recover the gun that had fallen out of his reach.

All in that vague, unfocused slow-motion—all beneath the hoarse, shuddering roar of the hot, gritty wind—Shannon saw Ramsey glance down at him from far above to make sure that he wasn't moving, that he was helpless there. And then Ramsey walked away, walked across the room to finish Foster off.

And a thought came to Shannon that was almost like a voice in his ear—that clear—the fi rst clear thought he'd had since Ramsey had started working him over:
The gun! The blockheaded cop's gun!

Shannon looked up at Ramsey's back as Ramsey walked into the unfocused distance to kill Foster where he lay, and then he, Shannon, looked over at where the blockheaded cop lay on his back on the floor at his feet. And, sure enough, there was the weapon, the nine the cop had been holding—there it was on the floor not far away, so that Shannon realized that if he could only move, if he only had the strength to move, he might get the gun. He might get the gun.

Shannon understood that this was what he had to do, an un-looked-for chance he had to take. He did not feel he had the strength to move or that his body could stand the pain of moving, but he knew he had to. He did not think or pray. He was all prayer and all pain—unbelievable sickness and pain—as he began to curl his body toward the gun, moving his flesh as if it were a mountain of stone under which he was buried, moving it around by what seemed like inches at a time, over a time that seemed like hours. He still saw Ramsey in his peripheral vision, the gray back of him moving away toward Foster. And then Ramsey was gone, and Shannon thought there must be no more time left and that it didn't matter anyway because the pain was just too much, he could not move another inch, but he kept moving—another inch and another—because he understood this was what he had to do, an unlooked-for chance.