The Identity Man by Andrew Klavan Read Free Book Online Page A

him—just standing there, looking down at him. He woke up with a start, sweating.
    It was better in the evenings. When the groundskeepers went home, he would carefully emerge from the mausoleum. Hector would let him into the groundskeepers' building, a one-story house with offices and storerooms and a kitchen. Shannon gave Hector money and Hector brought him food and a newspaper. Then, once dark fell, he could go outside and get some air among the graves—as long as he kept an eye out for the security guards who came through on patrol all night long.
    Staying at the cemetery, he had time to take stock of his situation. The more he thought about it, the worse it seemed. Benny had screwed him but good. Setting him up for the Hernandez killings—well, it paid Shannon back in full for the kneecap, that's for sure. It was an excellent vengeance. It really got to him, got on his nerves, got into his imagination, especially in that first rush of panic and anxiety after he heard about it in the bar. He had no alibi for the killings. They had gone down two months ago in the small hours. He'd probably been in bed at the time. He couldn't even remember. He could imagine himself getting convicted for the crime. He could picture himself on death row. The strap-down. The needle. The images ate at him.
    Later, when he'd had a chance to calm down a little, Shannon told himself the rap would never stick. The police weren't stupid. They had fingerprints and DNA and all that stuff. They weren't going to pump him full of poison on the say-so of a little psycho like Benny. Were they?
    But that was the thing: it didn't matter. That was the beauty of it, speaking from Benny's point of view, that was the excellence of his revenge. It didn't matter if the rap stuck or not. By setting him up for the Hernandez killings, what Benny had done was make sure that the cops would hunt him down. They'd put it all on him: feds, choppers, dogs, the TV news. There was already a quarter-of-a-million-dollar reward on his head. So they'd bust him for sure eventually, and even if they cleared him for the Hernandez job—he'd skip the needle; great—but he was a three-time loser. He'd still go down for life.
    So nice work, Benny.

    But then, on the third night he was at the cemetery, something happened, something flat-out bizarre. This is really where the whole story about Shannon gets started.
    It was evening but still light. The grounds crew had gone home and Hector had let Shannon into the building. He had brought him some food. A chicken wrap and a Coke and some potato chips and another sandwich for later.
    Shannon was famished after sleeping and pacing in the mausoleum all day. He plunked down at the table in the kitchen and tore into the wrap. While he ate, he read the newspaper Hector had brought him. That was when he saw the news about the price on his head, the quarter of a million reward. Just as he saw it, he felt Hector's eyes on him. He looked up. Sure enough, Hector was standing just behind him, gazing at him. His expression was full of sorrow and greed, like a poor but honest man gazing at the loaf of bread he was about to steal.
    "What're you looking at, you squirrelly wetback?" Shannon asked him.
    Hector looked away quickly. "Nothing, man, nothing."
    "You saw about this reward, didn't you? Gonna sell me out, Hector? Gonna get you your quarter of a mil in blood money? Huh?"
    "No, no, my friend, of course not, never."
    Yeah, he was. Shannon could tell. Maybe tonight. Or maybe he'd wrestle with his conscience tonight, but then he'd do it tomorrow for sure. He'd go home and talk to Carmen and she'd point to their forty-seven kids or however many it was and say, "A quarter of a million dollars, Hector," and then you could butter Shannon's ass because it was basically toast.
    So Shannon knew his time was running out. When the sun was going down, he went outside. He went to the edge of the cliff and sat on the grass under a palm tree. His hands whittled a