The Mysterious Disappearence of Leon (11 page)

“Maybe you wouldn’t, but you don’t spell your name backward.”

“Very c-c-clever,” Augie Kunkel said, but Tina could tell from his stutter that he was afraid of hurting her feelings.

“Too many syllables, right, Mr. Kunkel?” Tony said.

“But it does make sense,” Tina insisted.

“Not q-q-quite. You see, if Noel Carillon had pneumonia, the doctors would have kept him in the hospital after patching his elbow.”

“Greasy, jui
cy
, i
cy
, spi
cy
,” Tony said and showed his chart to Augie Kunkel.

“Mercy.”

“What’s wrong?” Tony asked.

“N-n-nothing at all. I was just giving you more words for list 1—2: mer
cy
, sau
cy
, ra
cy
, la
cy
.”

A week passed before Tony added his next word: “Sissy.”

Augie Kunkel offered “
Tse-tse
fly.”
²⁸

By this time the twins were barely speaking to each other, so Tony worked on the “C” list himself. “
Sea
m
, seat, cease,”
and one of his Spanish-speaking friends gave him the word for yes—“
Si
.”

“Excellent,” Augie Kunkel remarked. “
Seize, siege, Si
kh.”

“Wow!” Tony repeated the word “Sikh” three times. There was no doubt about it; Mr. Kunkel was surely the smartest man who ever lived, and Tony wanted to impress him. Not until he was well into the “C__” list (
ce
dar,
see
saw,
se
nior,
sea
shore,
sea
side) did Tony realize that he was faced with a dilemma.

“What if I come up with the right answer to the
glub-blubs?”
Tony thought, and shuddered.

The fonder he became of Augie Kunkel, the less he wanted to find Noel Carillon.

Tina’s Plan
²⁹

Tina believed in action, not list-making. She didn’t bother telling the syllable-counters about her new solution:

See
person
al
ad,
Io
wa (or
I
daho)
new
spaper.

Every step was planned. Tina realized it would do no good looking up a personal ad placed more than twenty years ago; but someone who knew Noel might still be reading the same paper. She would place her own ads and pay for them with baby-sitting money.

Tina spent an afternoon in the library copying down names, addresses, and advertising rates of newspapers beginning with “Iowa” and “Idaho.” Then she remembered there was something else she wanted to look up.

“Where are your medical books, please?”

The librarian recommended a biography of the doctors Mayo. It didn’t contain the information Tina wanted, but she became so engrossed in the book that she had to be reminded of the late hour.

“Young lady, where have you been?” It was Mr. Banks again. “Mrs. Carillon has been beside herself with worry. And the fish is getting cold.”

“Pork chops,” said Tony.

Tina washed her hands quickly and sat down to dinner. Mr. Banks was explaining why he was moving to New York City.

“This family takes up so much of my time these days that all I do is travel back and forth. By the way, Mrs. Carillon, what are your plans for the summer?”

Tony choked on a piece of meat, and Mrs. Carillon whacked him on the back.

“That’s what comes of gulping down food, young man,” Mr. Banks said after the fuss was over. “I was asking about your summer plans. Not some wild-goose chase, I hope, or some expensive seaside resort?”

“I haven’t given it much thought,” Mrs. Carillon replied. She couldn’t bring herself to think about leaving her seals.

Tony knew what they were going to do, but he wasn’t going to tell Mr. Banks that they would remain in the city because he had to repeat history in summer school. He quickly changed the subject.

“Mr. Banks, can you think of a word beginning with a ‘C’ sound?”

“C.P.A. That means certified public accountant.”

“What about a word ending in ‘al’?”

“Leg
al
,” answered Mr. Banks.

“How do you spell it?”

“Young man, what
do
they teach you in that school?”

“How about ‘I’?”

“You should say: ‘How about me?’ What do they teach... ?”

“What word can you think of with a ‘new’ sound in it?”

Mr. Banks, for once, didn’t mind being interrupted. He enjoyed showing off his quick wit. “Internal Revenue Service,” he answered. “That’s the income tax bureau.”

Tony shook his head over the excess of syllables, but Tina thought Mr. Banks proved his point well. If Noel’s message was about money, then surely he must be dead.

“Another pork chop, Tony?” Mrs. Carillon asked.

“What’s for dessert?”

“Camembert cheese.”

“Another pork chop, please.”

Mrs. Carillon looked at her watch. “Good heavens, I’ve almost missed the racing results.”

“Racing results?” shouted the horrified Mr. Banks. “Have you taken up gambling on top of everything else?”

Mrs. Carillon, transistor radio to her ear, didn’t hear the question. Tina allayed Mr. Banks’ fear.

“She doesn’t gamble. She just loves the horse Christmas Bells and Seymour. . .”

“He won! He won!” Mrs. Carillon turned off the radio, all smiles. “Mark my word, Christmas Bells is a shoo-in to win the Triple Crown.”

Summer in New York

Christmas Bells won the Triple Crown.

The sea lions in Central Park grew so fat their keeper had to eliminate regular feedings.

Tina became the busiest baby-sitter in the building. Although too absorbed in her books to keep a close eye on the accident-prone children, she disinfected their wounds and applied gauze and tape bandages with a near professional skill.

Most of all, Tina enjoyed sitting with the Stein baby. The infant slept throughout the evening, and Dr. Stein never locked his bookcases. Tina had difficulty with the technical language in the medical books, but she was fascinated by the gory pictures and case histories. She even collected some words for Tony’s chart:
ce
cum and
se
cretion,
³⁰
hospit
al
³⁰
and spin
al
,
i
odine
³⁰
and
i
sotope,
³⁰
neu
trophil
³⁰
and
nu
cleus.
³⁰

By the end of August Tina had earned enough money to place an ad in every Iowa and Idaho newspaper on her list.

WANTED: INFORMATION ON WHEREABOUTS OF NOEL CARILLON. WIFE DESPERATE. REWARD!! WRITE TINA CARILLON 802 PARK AVE. N.Y. N.Y.

Tina had no reward money. She would leave that up to Mr. Banks, when the time came.

Tina worried about Mr. Banks and his frequent visits. He was their dinner guest two to three times a week, and he always had papers to be signed. Maybe he was cheating Mrs. Carillon out of her share of the soup business. Maybe he was planning to marry her for her money. On the other hand, Mr. Banks was so stingy that maybe he just wanted a free meal.

“How can you stand him?” Tina would ask every time Mr. Banks created a scene.

Mrs. Carillon’s answer was always the same. “He really is a very nice man. He just frets over us so much that it upsets him.”

Tony preferred the company of Mr. Kunkel, and he knew that Mrs. Carillon did, too. She smiled a lot when he was around. Tuesdays and Saturdays were Augie Kunkel nights; and Tony was always prepared with a few more words for his chart.

“List 3-4: ov
al
, snowb
all
, sand
al
, scand
al
.”

“Cymb
al
,” said Augie Kunkel.

“List 4:
call, hall
, squ
all
,” said Tony. “List 5: mine, n
i
ne, w
i
ne.”

“I thought of ‘hall’ twenty years ago,” Mrs. Carillon said. “But ‘wine’ is a good word. Noel was so genteel.”

Tony added word after word, following Mr. Kunkel’s rules to the letter, except rule 3. He didn’t want the message to make sense. Whenever Augie Kunkel suggested they cut the lists apart and match them up, Tony insisted that he hadn’t quite finished. The closest he came to putting words together in a logical order was “The
sea
is sa
l
t.”

Tina was the rule 3 believer in the family. She told no one about her newspaper ads, but she did need help in carrying out another idea.

“I know it has too many syllables, but it does make sense,” she argued. “The reason Noel left Palm Beach was that he had to get back to work. He worked on a ship that was sailing the next day. The only place Mrs. Carillon would be able to locate him was through his job registration:

Noel
Carillon,
Sea
man’s Hiring H
all
,
New
York.”

Augie Kunkel said that Tina’s reasoning was so good he wouldn’t count syllables. In fact he would go to the National Maritime Union Hiring Hall, himself.

Tony thought it was a terrible idea. “Some seaman. His boat capsizes five minutes after it hits water.”

Tony was right; it was a terrible idea. Not only was no Noel Carillon registered with the union, but several seamen took a violent dislike to snooping. The cry of “Fink!” spread through the hiring hall, and Augie Kunkel was lucky to escape with no more than a bloody nose and a sprained ankle, thanks to the football helmet.