The Faithful Spy

Wells leafed through a textbook sitting on a coffee table—Introduction to Nursing I. “You didn’t say you’re studying nursing.”

“Sit. You’re making me nervous poking around.”

Wells sat. “You want a drink?” she said.

“No thanks.” She clicked on the radio. A syrupy ballad filled the apartment. “Hey, Terminator. This is Ruben Studdard.”

“Where do you go to school?”

She put two glasses of water on the table and sat beside him. “You got ten minutes. You want to quiz me or kiss me?” He kissed her, put his hands on her face while hers traced his body. He tasted the smoke in her mouth and felt a faint guilt that she wasn’t Exley. But mainly a desire so fierce that it seemed the room had shrunk around them until she was all he could see or feel. He pushed her back on the couch and slid his hands under her shirt—

Rap-Rap-RAP! Three sharp knocks at the door. She pulled away from him.

“Who’s that?”

“Shit,” she said.

RAP! RAP! The knocks came louder.

“I know you’re in there. Slut,” a slurred voice said from outside. “Open the door.”

“My ex-boyfriend,” she said.

“What’s his name, Heinrich?”

“Not funny. We broke up in July. He didn’t take it well.” RAP! RAP! “He’s come by a couple of times. It’s just — nobody’s ever been over before.”

Wells could feel his erection fade, his desire curdling into anger. “Fuck him,” he said. “I’ll get rid of him.”

“I can handle it.”

“Open the door!”

She walked to the door. Wells followed, positioning himself behind the door where the guy couldn’t see him. She shook her head and pointed toward the bedroom, but he put his finger to his lips and didn’t move. She opened the door a notch. “Craig.”

“Nicole—”

“Go home. Please.”

“You can’t cheat on me.” He sounded pathetic to Wells, a whiny little man.

“Craig, we broke up two months ago.”

“I know you got a guy in there.” The door was shoved open a notch.

“I don’t.”

“I saw you from the parking lot.”

Nicole stumbled backward as Craig pushed her.

Wells didn’t try to control the fury rising in his chest. He had seen enough. Enough of men treating women like chattel. Enough foolish machismo for a lifetime. He pulled open the door and turned toward Craig. The guy wasn’t so little after all, maybe 210, his face flushed, waves of whiskey rolling off him.

“I knew it.” Somehow Craig managed to look triumphant as he said this, as if Wells’s presence justified his own.

“Go home,” Wells said softly, knowing Craig wouldn’t. “I don’t fight drunks.”

“Fuck off.” Craig swung, a looping roundhouse that Wells easily dodged.

“Please don’t make me hit you,” Wells said. “Go home.” The guy swung again. Again Wells slipped the punch. A red fog clouded his eyes. He could almost smell Craig’s blood. Too much loneliness. Too much desire, unrequited.

“I asked you nicely,” Wells said, pleading for himself as much as Craig.

“Nicely.” Craig’s lips curled into a sneer. “You go out with faggots now, Nicole?” Craig swung again, another drunk wild punch.

Wells caught Craig’s arm and counterpunched, hitting him in the stomach, a vicious right that bent Craig in half. Then a quick left jab to the face. Then another right to the stomach, Craig’s hands dropping as he wheezed for breath.

“Jesse—” Nicole said. “Let me call the cops.”

Wells hit Craig again, an uppercut this time, stepping forward and getting all his weight behind the punch. Craig’s mouth snapped shut and he fell backward onto the second-floor walkway. Wells followed him outside and waited. Sure enough, Craig grabbed the railing of the walkway and tried to stand. Wells kicked him in the ribs. Craig rolled onto his side and moaned, clutching his ribs, spitting blood and teeth, as Wells considered where to hit him next.

Nicole jumped Wells from behind, screaming. “Stop it stop it you crazy psycho stop it!”

“Nicole—”

“You’re gonna kill him!” She let go of Wells and knelt over Craig.

Wells stepped back. Nicole looked up at him. “You psycho. Leave us alone.” She pointed down the stairs. “Go. Don’t ever come back to the Nail. I’ll call the cops.”

He raised his hands and backed slowly down the stairs.

* * *

WELLS DIDN’T SEE another car as he drove home down the Buford Highway. He felt as empty as the road unspooling under his tires. He couldn’t understand what he’d just done. First off, he would be in serious trouble if Nicole or Craig called the cops. He should never have taken her to the pool place. Some of the guys at that place knew him from the parking lot. Fuck. So much for being the gray man.

They weren’t going to call the cops. Craig wouldn’t want to admit how badly he’d gotten his butt kicked. Nicole would want them both to disappear. The cops weren’t the real problem. He was the real problem. It wasn’t the violence that had freaked Nicole out. Not just the violence, anyway. She had surely seen fights at the Nail. But his coldness, his efficiency, had terrified her. These people, these civilians, they didn’t understand. And he would be wasting his time if he tried to explain. He had to remember this wasn’t a war. This was America.

HE PULLED OVER and reached for his cellphone, a prepaid model he had bought in Tennessee. He would ditch it and buy a new one tomorrow.

“Hello?” Exley’s sleepy voice said.

“Jennifer?”

“Who is this?” Recognition filled her voice. “John?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my God. Where are you?”

“I need to see you.”

“We can do that.”

“We? Who’s we?”

“I meant — just you and me. That’s all.”

“Forget it.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“I’m not in trouble. But tell me something. How will I know if I’ve gone too far?”

“You’ll know, John.” Her voice had a confidence he hadn’t expected. “I trust you.”

“Because I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

“Do what?”

He was silent.

“Why don’t you come in so we can talk about it?”

“You’ll never let me out again.”

“John—”

He hung up.