Tool of the Trade by Joe Haldeman Read Free Book Online

No harm in approximating the truth. “He started to mug me and then turned his weapon on himself.”
    “Yeah. And I’m Mary Tyler Moore.”
    “It’s true. The pistol should be somewhere near him on the ground.”
    His partner turned off the siren and returned, smelling of gastric juices. “Let’s get an ID.”
    “Yeah. Who are you?”
    “Miranda,” his partner said tightly.
    “That’s right. You have the right to remain silent—”
    “No, that’s okay,” I said, assuming the watch would work without the siren’s interference. “Trust me. Put your weapons down.” They did, and I lowered my hands. “Did either of you gentlemen mention me on the radio?”
    They looked at each other. “No,” the driver said, “we didn’t know you was here until the headlights picked you up.”
    “All right. Then just forget you ever saw me.” They nodded seriously. “Oh. There’s a disabled bicycle locked to a parking meter a couple of blocks away. You will not connect that in any way with this incident.”They both nodded again. I walked away, ducking down a side street just in time to avoid being seen by the Rescue Squad ambulance.
    That night I had complicated dreams, but then woke feeling purged. Two weeks later I did it again. Valerie was out of town, so I went down to the Combat Zone and made myself conspicuous well after midnight. “Trolling for trouble” was the phrase that occurred to me. I killed a pimp and a mugger in ways that appeared to be suicide and accident.
    It became a sort of ongoing hobby. I stopped counting after the thirteenth, for luck.
    I went back to the office after talking to the spy Jacob and spent most of the afternoon attempting to refine a computer model that was supposed to relate various demographic and personality factors to seven distinct patterns of language-acquisition resistance. It was a waste of several hours; my mind kept wandering. I was really just putting off going home. Valerie doesn’t go to school on Tuesdays, and I neither wanted to rush home and confess that I happened to be a spy for the Evil Empire nor sit around the house and stew about it. So I went home at the usual hour and we followed the usual routine: a drink and a chat before I prepared dinner (simple
carbonara
and salad), then eat and retire, Valerie to her drawing board and me to the “library,” an extra bedroom full of books and journals. I poured a glass of brandy and lit a cigar, I suppose as an unconscious signal.
    Valerie tapped on the door, opened it, and leaned on the jamb. “All right,” she said, “what’s bugging you?”
    It’s interesting how a man can be articulate and even eloquent in front of a classroom and yet be reducedto tongue-tied confusion when confronted by the woman he lives with and loves. “Uh,” I said and completed the thought with a spastic gesture.
    “The last time you smoked during the week was when they threatened to make you department head. The time before that was your little undergraduate. You’ve also been as sociable as a grumpy reptile. So what is it this time?”
    “Not an undergraduate.”
    “Moving up in the world?”
    “Not sex at all. Nor office politics.” I sighed and patted the seat next to me. “It
is
politics, though. Sit down. It’s a long story.”
    She listened without comment for a good half hour, while I told her the truth about Leningrad and Rivertown and Iowa and my subsequent twenty-year career as a semispy. I did not mention the wristwatch hypnotic device or the freelance social work to which I applied it. I told her about Jacob.
    “This is all true?” she said finally.
    “Yes. I’m sorry.” To that she laughed nervously and took a sip of my brandy. Then she stood up and went over to look out the window.
    “I just don’t know what to say. I understand? Is that what I’m supposed to say?”
    “I’m—”
    “Please don’t say you’re sorry again.” She turned and sat back against the window ledge. “Look. I’ve known