The Tourist Read online

  2

  Among the possessions returned to him upon his release was his iPod. One of the guards had used it occasionally during the past two months, so it was fully charged. On the bus, Milo tried with no success to rouse himself with his French mix. He went through a few seconds each of all those pretty girls who made the sixties look like they might have been fun, ending with "Poupee de cire, poupee de son." He couldn't even manage to listen to all of that one. He didn't cry-that was past now-but these optimistic melodies had no bearing on his life, such as it was, anymore. He scrolled through the artist list and tried something he hadn't listened to in a long time: the Velvet Underground.

  That, then, seemed to reflect his world.

  He didn't go to the Dolan apartment yet. Instead, he got out at Port Authority and took the subway up to Columbus Circle. He picked up some Davidoffs and wandered directionless through Central Park. He found a bench among other benches and families and children, tourists scattered among them, and smoked. He checked his watch, judging the time, and made sure to put the cigarette butt in a trashcan. Paranoia, perhaps, but he didn't want to be picked up for littering.

  He'd noticed his shadow on the bus. A young man, twenties, with a mustache, a thin neck, and a phone from which he sent a number of text messages. He'd followed Milo off the bus and down into the subway, at some point chatting on his phone to give an update to his masters. He didn't recognize the man, but he supposed that in the last month the Department of Tourism would have been gutted and restocked with plenty of fresh faces. The existence of his shadow didn't really bother him, because the Company just wanted to make sure he was put to bed. They wanted no more trouble from Milo Weaver.

  In his head, Lou Reed sang about shiny boots of leather.

  Now, as he walked east along the southern edge of the park, the shadow was a half block behind him. A good agent, he thought. Don't crowd your subject. Milo left the park and, after two blocks, descended into the Fifty-seventh Street station, where he took the F train downtown.

  He had time, so he didn't mind that the F was local the whole way, stopping continually on its way to Brooklyn. People wandered on and off, though his shadow, perched by the rear of his car, stayed where he was. The only movement he made was to take a newly freed seat, though he made sure to sit in it when Milo wasn't looking.

  Milo finally stood as the doors slid open at the Seventh Avenue stop, and, when he glanced back, he was surprised to see his shadow was already gone. Had he gotten out earlier? Milo stepped onto the platform and felt a bump against his side as someone rushed to get into the train. He looked up as the train doors were sliding shut again. His shadow stared back at him through the scratched plastic windows. In fact, the man was smiling at him, patting his jacket pocket. The train started to move.

  Confused, Milo patted his own pockets and felt something new. He withdrew a small black Nokia he'd never seen before.

  He took the stairs and approached along Sixth Avenue, hurrying across Garfield. He was lucky-no one called out to him. Finally, he reached the Berkeley Carroll School.

  It was nearly time, the streets backed up with cars in a two-block circumference around the school. He ignored the other parents grouped on the sidewalk, chatting about jobs and maids and grades, and found an inconspicuous spot beside a weary, sunstroked elm.

  As the school's release bell rang and a visible flutter of movement went through the crowd, the phone rang.

  He checked the display and, as expected, it said private number. "Hello?"

  "You all right?" his father said in Russian.

  Milo didn't feel up to it. He spoke his side of the conversation in English. "I'm still breathing." Across the street, children with adorable backpacks spilled out into the crowd of parents.

  "It shouldn't have taken so long," said Primakov. "But I had no control over that."

  "Of course you didn't."

  "Did they say anything about a job?"

  "Not yet."

  "They will," his father assured him. "You understand, don't you, that you'll be demoted back to Tourism. It's the only thing they can do. You're cleared of murder, but no company likes to have their failures pointed out to them."

  Milo was on the balls of his feet, staring. Among the children he'd picked out Stephanie. Her bob had grown out, so that no physical evidence of her Independence Day performance remained. She really was beautiful, so much more than his prison-stunted memory had allowed. He fought the urge to cross the street and scoop her tip.

  " Milo?"

  "I know all this," he said, irritated. "And I know to accept the offer. Are you satisfied?"

  Stephanie paused, pivoting to look around, then brightened us she saw someone she knew. She ran toward… Patrick, climbing out of his Suzuki.

  "Listen," Primakov said into his ear. " Milo, are you listening? I didn't want it to turn out like this. But it's the only way. You can see that, right? Grainger was small, Fitzhugh was small, too. The problem isn't a couple of rogue men; it's institutional."

  Patrick had picked her up and kissed her and was walking her back to the Suzuki. Milo spoke in a flat voice: "So what you want is for me to bring down the entire CIA."

  "Don't be ridiculous, Milo. That would never happen, and I don't even want it. All I want is a little international cooperation. That's all any of us want. And since you don't want to just take a job with the United Nations…"

  "I'm not going to be your employee, Yevgeny. Just a source. And you'll only get what I decide should be known."

  "Fair enough. And if there's anything I can do to help you. I can talk to Tina. She could be brought into the circle. She's smart; she'd understand."

  "I don't want her to understand."

  "What? What are you talking about?"

  "Her life's too unbalanced as it is. I don't want to curse her with knowing that much."

  "Don't underestimate her," his father ordered, but Milo wasn't listening anymore. He'd had a whole week of the old man's words in Albuquerque, his scheming and deal-making. What was he left with now?

  The Suzuki was part of the parade of cars carrying children home, and he noticed a gift-wrapped box in the back, for his daughter's birthday.

  " Milo? You there?"

  But Milo only heard the Bigger Voice, the one that spoke in his mother's strange intonation. Endlessly in that cell on the nineteenth floor, it had told him that everything he was doing was wrong, but he hadn't listened. Now: There goes the last of your hope.

  He heard Einner: I’ll bet the Book has something to say about hope.

  And he: It tells you to not get hooked on it.

  Then it was six years ago to the day, and he was bleeding all over the sun-baked Venetian cobblestones. A pregnant woman screamed, while inside her the child beat and scratched to come out. He'd thought it was the end, but he'd been wrong. All of it-all the things that mattered, they were just beginning.

  A strand of Tourist philosophy came to him, and for once he talked back to that disappointed voice that lived inside him: We don't need hope, Mother, because there is no end.

  "What was that?" asked Yevgeny.

  The Suzuki turned the corner. They were gone.

  Olen Steinhauer

  ***

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  Document creation date: 28.05.2010

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