The Identity Man (34 page)

"I just get out?" said Shannon.

"Unless you want to live in car."

A dozen questions went through Shannon's mind. Where would he go? Where would he work? Where would he start? But he didn't say anything. He would figure out the answers himself. They were no one's business but his. He would find his way.

"Well..." he said. He offered the identity man his hand. He didn't know what else to do. The foreigner smiled contemptuously and shook it. Shannon took the handle of the overnight bag and got out of the car.

He found himself standing on a road that passed through a small field. Wheat was growing high on either side of him. Up ahead, he saw a little house, and beyond that he saw another house and then houses spreading away into the distance until there was a city glinting silver in the afternoon sun.

He shut the door of the limousine. He set the bag down on the road at his feet. He stood beside it. He looked back over his shoulder at the fields and then off toward the silver city. He figured he would start walking toward the city and see what was what.

While he stood thinking about it, the limousine backed up on the road and maneuvered through a Y turn and turned around. It came to a stop beside him. The identity man lowered his window and looked out, considering him.

"You are interesting case," he said again.

Shannon smiled.

The next moment, he saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned to it—it had come from the nearest house. It was a small green house with a gray roof. It was right at the edge of the field of wheat. The door of the house was opening. As Shannon stood watching it, Teresa stepped out onto the front step.

Shannon drew a slow breath. He had known it was going to happen as if he had seen it in a dream, and yet when it did happen, it was too big, his heart could barely hold it. He had never had a good break in his life and now it seemed like there was one good break after another and, even if they weren't much in the way of the whole world and all the powers working in it, they were a lot for him and he was moved and grateful.

Teresa held the door open and looked out of the house, this way and that. She was looking for him, Shannon realized. She was waiting for him. Then she saw him, and her face brightened with a smile. She lifted her hand to wave. His heart could barely hold it.

"Shannon," said the identity man.

Shannon forced himself to turn away from Teresa and look at him. Looking out the window of the car, the foreigner glanced back to where Teresa was standing in the doorway and then glanced back at Shannon with the gleam of old humor in his eyes.

"Carve good, yes?" he said.

Then he laughed and the window went up and the limousine rolled away.

Shannon didn't watch it go. Teresa was waving eagerly to him from where she stood in the doorway at the end of the field of grain.

He picked up his bag and started walking toward her up the long road.

Andrew Klavan is the author of such classic suspense novels as
True Crime,
filmed by Clint Eastwood;
Don't Say a Word,
starring Michael Douglas; and
Empire of Lies.
He is a contributing editor to
City Journal
and his essays and commentary have appeared in the
Wall Street Journal,
the
New York Times,
the
Los Angeles Times,
the
Washington Post,
and elsewhere. He also wrote the screenplay for
A Shock to the System,
starring Michael Caine. He's been nominated for the Edgar Award five times and has won it twice.