Underground Airlines(94)

“They’ve got him,” she said, her voice coming like from under water. “They’ve got Lionel.”

I turned back to Cook, caught him poking his tongue through his gum, stretching it into a thin pink membrane. “Why?” I said. “Why?”

“Settle down, boy,” said Morris, shifting his pistol from Martha to me. “You settle down.”

Martha stood, hands clenched at her sides, and Morris brought the gun back to her. “You, too.”

“Please,” I said to Martha. Trying to calm her down. Calm myself, too. Whatever was going on, I didn’t think these guys were kidding. “Please. Sit.”

This now, for Martha, on top of everything. What she had learned only hours ago, about Samson, and now this. Martha sat on the edge of the bed and tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling, and the moonlight coming unevenly through the blinds washed the side of her face and made her look old and sad.

“I was bringing it to you,” I said to Cook. There was a fresh dark feeling blooming in my stomach, filling me up like internal bleeding, and I heard that darkness come into my voice. “I was going to bring it to you all.”

“Sure you were,” he said. “Sure.” And then, new subject—oh, just by the way: “You know, I don’t think you ever told me what your man’s name is. Your agent, I mean. In the marshals.”

Oh, Martha, I thought. Oh, Martha. This on top of everything.

“Bridge,” I said quietly. “Louis Bridge.”

“Oh. Huh.” Cook snapped his gum. “I was thinking, wouldn’t it be funny if I had the same guy?”

There it was. An answer. A lot of answers, actually, all arriving together, all at once.

“Actually, my man’s a lady,” Cook added. “Deputy United States Marshal Shawna Lawler. I never met her, but she sounds sexy as hell on the phone. If you’re into white women.”

He flicked his eyes toward Martha.

“I don’t…” she said. “I don’t…” She stood up again, and Morris said, “Sit,” and she said, “What does he mean?”

“Me and your boyfriend here, Jim, or Victor, or—what’d you call him? Brother. I like that. Me and Brother, we’re just the same. Same little secret.” He stood up solemnly from that wobbly motel table, pointed a finger at me, slow, and intoned: “Nigger stealer. Soul catcher. Government man.” He lowered the finger, sat back down. “Just like me.”

I waited for Martha to say something else, anything else, but she didn’t. She might have said, I don’t believe you; she might have said, It can’t be true; but from that corner of the room there was nothing.

I didn’t look at her again. I couldn’t look at her anymore.

Cook was done smiling, at least. All the winking and smirking, all the wiseass man-of-the-world business had fallen away in an instant. Without that smile, he looked like a different human being. He sat rigid in the chair, and his face became tired, closed, with sadness behind his eyes, like the shadowy water just visible under the surface of the sea.

I wondered what I looked like now, when at last I wasn’t trying—not pretending anything. I wondered what I was looking like in that small room, alone with Cook’s revelation, with the truth of what I was at last filtering out into the world.

“Please believe me, man. I’m not happy about this,” said Cook, his voice low. “About none of this. But you’re my chance. Okay? You’re my chance.”

He stood up again at the table, leaned forward while he talked. While he explained—while he tried to explain. “All I’m supposed to do is get Barton’s secrets. That’s the job: get the man’s secrets, and they set me free. That’s my deal. Two years I been at it, and two years he’s been keeping me low on the pole. Errand boy, muscleman, bullshit. Two years.” He put up his hand and spread apart two fingers.

He turned abruptly to Martha. “Then here comes your friend.” I did not look at her. I couldn’t. “Sad little mush-mouth Jim Dirkson. Talking about this wife in the mines. Here’s my chance. I push you on the priest, let’s do this one, let me quarterback it. Tutor me, Padre, you know? Here’s my chance to learn some secrets, get into the inside. Agent Lawler keeps saying, get what we need and you’re done. You’re free.”

Every time he said that word, free, I felt sick. Lord, what they had done to this man. What they had done to me. The monsters they had made us into, prowling along, sniffing for chances.

“But then you”—he pointed one finger at me, wagged it—“you go and turn out to be what you are. Turn out to be like me. And I was like, whoa, whoa. Wait. This is even better.”

Morris belched, long and loud. Settled in the armchair, coasting through this dull guard duty with the bored confidence of a white man lording it over a black and a woman. I stared at Cook, remembering his excitement that morning on the banks of the White River. Kevin lying dead, Maris furious, Barton grieving, Cook seizing the moment. I was having my realization in that moment, and he was having his.

“I explained to Barton that he should send you to go and get this thing. I told him how we could tap your chip, how I had me a solid connect in the marshals. Then I called up Agent Lawler.”

Me on the phone with Bridge, sending him to BWI airport, and Cook—or whatever this man’s name was—on the phone with Lawler. Phones ringing off the hook in Gaithersburg.