In the Company of Killers Bryan Christy (good books to read for beginners .txt) 📖

the next morning that he understood why the previous owners had chosen to carpet so much of their home. Every room’s floor had been patched with raw plywood. Instead of something out of Antique Digest, his exposed floors reminded him of the shuffleboard and hopscotch patterns in the attic of Klay Funeral Home designed to keep Klay and his brother quiet during funerals.

As he continued through the house on his hands and knees, prying up carpet staples with a screwdriver, he realized that his approach to journalism—his approach to life—was a lot like his approach to this house: he tore things up without regard to what lay underneath. He got to the bottom of things by whatever means necessary and then he moved on. It was the ripping and pulling he was good at. Until now Klay had always used a notebook and pen. Eady was offering him a jackhammer.

•   •   •

A week later, sitting in Eady’s Watergate apartment, Klay asked, “How many do you have working for you already, Vance?”

Eady lit Klay’s cigar. “You’d be my first, Tom.”

“Bullshit.”

“Truth is, I haven’t ever needed to engage anyone formally before. As editor in chief I’ve been able to satisfy the Agency’s intelligence needs quite effectively, and quietly, sending reporters on assignments of interest without risk to anyone but myself.”

“My stories, too?”

“Some.” Eady thought a moment. “Angola. We needed to know how strong the president’s daughter was. She liked you.”

“So, what are you telling me? Nobody knows? Porfle doesn’t know?”

“I find the best way to keep a secret is not to tell anyone. But I don’t need to tell you that, do I?”

“Are you threatening me, Vance?”

“No, son. I’m trusting you. If you should turn this down, you’d know my secret, you’d know the Agency’s secret. I’m trusting that whatever your choice, you are a patriot.”

Klay shook his head. “Where I come from, what you’re talking about is a rat.”

“That’s a perspective you’ll have to reconcile.”

“So, why me? Why give me this golden opportunity?” Klay felt a sour taste grow in his mouth. He was probing like he hadn’t already made his decision, like he still had a line he would not cross.

A smile wriggled loose from the corners of Eady’s mouth. “Why you? Okay, Tom.” He set his cigar in an ashtray. “Let’s get down to brass tacks, shall we? Here’s why you make sense: You are a loner. You make acquaintances easily, but you can’t form lasting relationships. You’re emotionally damaged, owing to a tragic incident involving your mother that we needn’t recount, but some people—like you—know how to use the wounded parts of themselves to recognize wounds in others, and turn them to advantage. You drink too much, but you’re not a drunk. Your father, Jack, ended up a senior member of the Scalise Mob, even though he’s not Italian. He remains in prison, though he could certainly cut himself a deal. Nicky Scalise offered to bring you into the family. You didn’t accept, but you could have. The underworld is in your DNA. You break rules frequently, but you have a sense of justice. You have, I believe, the need to do some real good, atone, correct the past. We all make mistakes, but rarely do we have the opportunity to counter their weight so profoundly. Thanks to the work I’ve given you, you’re well traveled now, and reasonably well connected. You’re a superb writer, and that’s cover I need. You’re a good criminal investigator, instinctively. I can make you better. You handle”—he paused—“unexpected adversity.” Eady began relighting his cigar. “That do?”

Klay’s pulse pounded above his left ear. His heart raced. In his mind, he pictured the old newspaper articles describing his mother’s death. He’d read them a thousand times; now he saw Eady reading them, the old man studying the black-and-white photographs of his mother’s mangled car. All of the articles had ended more or less the same way: “Two sons, age seven and nine, were thrown clear.”

Klay locked eyes with Eady. “Don’t ever mention my mother again.”

Eady raised his snowy eyebrows. “We’re thorough,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Klay let the moment settle. “Then I should tell you there was an accident. In Indonesia,” he said, watching Eady’s eyes. “It will come up.”

If killing the boy in Jakarta was what Eady had meant by “unexpected adversity,” Klay couldn’t tell. The old man listened to Klay’s confession without judgment. “I want all of my Agency pay to go anonymously to the boy’s family.”

“I will see to it,” Eady said.

Klay put out his hand. No one on earth had better intelligence than the CIA. He would use what they gave him to rip and tear his way to the bottom of better stories.

“Nothing you wouldn’t otherwise do, Tom,” Eady said, gripping Klay’s hand. “That’s my commitment to you. You’ll be able to stand by every story. Every action.” He refilled Klay’s glass. “You have my word.”

Klay had a different notion. The CIA worked for him now.

•   •   •

Like a rottweiler at the Palm Beach Kennel Club,” Major Thomas said as Klay huffed to a stop his first day of training. The retired Marine checked his stopwatch. “If you ever gotta run for it, start early.”

Klay was panting, hands on knees, sweating his blue T-shirt purple in the crisp mountain air. “I don’t make a habit of running,” he managed to say.

Morning workouts were designed to help focus his mind rather than to get him into any kind of shape. To his boxing skills, Major Thomas added close quarters techniques, reciting “Surprise, speed, violence of action” over and over as they worked hand-to-hand, blade and no blade, Filipino-style. Thomas chiding him for wanting to hit a man’s skull with a closed fist when he could be just as effective using his palm, and still pick up a fork the next day. “Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast,” he coached. “Good.”

Klay would be an agent, Eady explained, but not an employee. An asset, “like the many brave men and women the Agency