Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen : A Novel (9781101565766) Read Free

man only lived once, besides which, Billy had liked the salesman, appreciated his moxie and just how important the sale was to him. As he thought back to that day in the showroom, he smiled to himself. Jokes, unlike numbers, he could no longer remember. Too often he found himself lost or stumbling halfway through one. There had been a time when he’d been ready with punch lines—he, too, had been a hell of a salesman, after all—but those vivid days when he had gathered in rather than begun to dissipate his fortune felt long ago and irretrievable.
    It was four days before Christmas, a time, if ever there was one, to put the stresses of life on hold. Waiting by the curb for his car to arrive, he could still hear the tinned Christmas carols of the shopping center’s sound system. Considering the abnormally balmy weather this year, they sounded out of season, but the great spruce and the store windows were decorated and the Salvation Army soldiers—one man, one woman—were watching over their kettle, taking turns ringing their handbell. After withdrawing a five-dollar bill to give to the attendant, Billy Claussen noted that there were only twenties left in his old crocodile wallet—not counting, of course, the crisp hundred he habitually secreted there. He had already closed the billfold and begun to slide it back into his left hip pocket when he thought better. The speakers were issuing a bland choral rendition of “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” of which, having been a choirboy at his first school, he knew all the verses by heart.
    Â 
    Where charity stands watching
    Â Â Â Â And faith holds wide the door,
    The dark night wakes, the glory breaks,
    Â Â Â Â And Christmas comes once more.
    What the hell, he thought. Whoever had taken it with him? Even nearby there were people on hard times. He removed a crisp twenty, creased it smartly in the middle and, with a smile that begged no recognition, deposited it in the Salvation Army kettle. At precisely which moment his precious Bentley arrived.
    As he pulled away from the Oak Room and onto Ward Parkway the afternoon was escaping. He and Wendy had had a good lunch, two margaritas each, blackened salmon for him, sesame-grilled chicken for her. It was part of their routine when she was in town from New York: dinner somewhere very quiet, a night of lovemaking (and ferreting out each other’s motives) in her hotel near the Plaza, then lunch out in the open for the world to see. Why not? They had met through business after all. Wendy had been his occasional mistress for not quite two years, since his vice president for strategic planning had hired the consulting firm she worked for to do a comprehensive review of Claussen Construction’s operations. That review was long over. The contract for it had expired a few weeks before she’d first propositioned him. Now when she came to Kansas City, it was, nominally, to serve other clients.
    Wendy was his son’s age, but if that didn’t bother her, it didn’t bother him. She wasn’t a kid. She had an M.B.A. from Wharton. He had been married three times, had left his first wife and been left by the two who’d followed her. Emotions perplexed him. He had walked out on the only woman he’d ever felt he couldn’t live without, not because she’d changed but because he had. They had married at twenty-one, when he was already in a hurry and she was beginning to be satisfied. Their sex had been inexperienced but joyful. She had not known, wouldn’t have thought to acquire, Wendy’s tricks, nor had he required them in those days.
    He guided the car into the traffic and accelerated as he waved good-bye. He didn’t know when he would next see Wendy. He had no plans to go to New York before spring, but things came up suddenly or, if the urge struck, could be manufactured. Never mind all that now! He wanted to play with his car. A firm called Mansory,