Time Out of Mind (15 page)
Authors: John R. Maxim
Tags: #Horror, #General, #Psychological, #Suspense, #Memory, #Thrillers, #Fiction, #Time Travel
“
Nothing of the sort. He's a doctor.”
“
Your uncle's field is sports medicine. His specialty is
the effect of the mind on athletic performance. That makes
him a shrink as far as I'm concerned. How much did you
tell him?”
Hardly a thing, Jonathan.” She pulled him forward.
“Now stop talking. We're halfway to the subway and
you're behaving too damn normally. Conjure something.”
a quiet residential street on a Saturday morning. No traffic moving. In fact, no recognizable cars at all. Only an oc
casional mound of snow that buried clusters of garbage
cans and those vehicles which had failed to find indoor
parking before the storm. Blocking much of the sidewalk
were a few large stone stoops he hadn't noticed before.
Nothing else. A face in the window of a saloon on the far corner across Lexington Avenue. Under a sign that read O'Neill's in gilded script. Corbin ducked as several ribbons
of snow blew off some overhead wires and fell toward him.
When he looked up, the face and the window were gone,
obscured by a sudden wind-whipped flurry.
Watch out.” Gwen tugged at his sleeve. She steered
him past a thin-trunked young elm he did not appear to see
and onward to the icy edge of the subway stairs.
A glorious morning, he thought happily. A bit of shop
ping, a brisk walk after breakfast, then perhaps by afternoon
the flag would be up on the Fifth Avenue cars, indicating
that the ice in the park was cleared for skating. Yes. An
excellent idea. He could pick up a bird-and-bottle hamper
at Delmonico's, and after a few turns around the lake they'd
share it by a bonfire while the sun went down. And if we're
seen together, so be it. Any arched eyebrows we encounter
will be more the result of envy than of censure.
Step carefully, dear,” Corbin said as he offered his arm to Margaret.
He picked up a pack of oatmeal cookies, pocketed them,
and paid for them with a dollar bill. Not waiting for change, he pulled down his hat and hurried through the door toward
the subway entrance on his side of Lexington Avenue.
A flash of motion caught the corner of his eye as his
head dropped below street level. Lesko paused on the sub
way stairs, allowing the motion to register. A car door.
Gray or silver. Swung partly open and then arrested. A
single foot reaching out and halting there. Hesitating. As if
the hand on the door knew that it had moved too soon.
from the street. He waited, listening. A heavy car door
slammed shut. He moved on toward the turnstile, a token
already in his hand. He reached them as Gwen Leamas and
a blinking Jonathan Corbin had just passed through and
were beginning their descent to the track level. Now Lesko
heard footsteps behind him, but he did not turn. He smiled
as he reached for the token slot.
“
Dancer, you tidy little devil,” he murmured to himself.
“Have you decided that this old buck needs a leash? Well,
if you have, Twinkletoes, you're going to find out that
leashes have two ends.”
You were with her again, weren't you?” Gwen and Cor
bin remained standing near the door of the almost empty
car.
“
No,” he lied. “My mind just wandered. A slip of the
tongue.”
Damn it, Jonathan! I asked you not to deny it. The last
person to call me ‘dear’ was an aunt in her dotage.”
“
Okay.” He dropped his eyes.
“
Well, what did you see?”
northwest corner of Seventy-seventh and Lexington?”
”
A bar? No. It's a place to buy newspapers and maga
zines.”
“
Named O'Neill's?”
“
No, a Greek runs it. Actually, it's a Te-Amo cigar
store.”
It was a bar when I saw it. The name was in script with
tiny little dots that might have been light bulbs or reflectors running through each letter. The window had a gold filigree
border around it. Just inside the window there was a brass rail running at about chest height and it had red cabaret
curtains hanging from it. There was a man in the window
watching us.”
“
Do you know who?”
Too far away. But I didn't have any sense that I should
know him or even that he was a ghost. He's probably just
a guy who happened to look at us because we were the
only people moving on the street.”
No we weren't, Jonathan. I saw at least a half-dozen
people, including the postman we passed.”
Corbin's expression went blank.
“
You didn't see him,” she established. “Do you recall
me stopping you from walking into that tree?”
”
I remember you said, ‘Watch out,’ but I thought it was
because more snow was falling off the wires.” Corbin
raised a hand in surrender. ”I know. There weren't any
wires, either.”
“
What about Margaret? Did she say anything?”
“
No.” He didn't think so. Not just then. ”I was thinking
about taking her ice-skating in Central Park. She might
have been nervous about that for my sake. Being seen with
me, I mean.”
“
Because you were a man of some ... substance, and
she was a known prostitute.”
even if he'd said it first. She was never a prostitute in the
strictest sense. She was very much a lady. Good stuff in
her. Educated. She could play the piano and sing. Gwen
couldn't do either. And she read Henry James's novels, and
Mark Twain's stories, and now she's reading Daudet's
Sappho
in the original French. She could do elaborate needlepoint faster than the eye could follow her hands, and she
could make the most wonderful arrangements with flowers
she dried herself. So many fine qualities. One mistake
doesn't change all that. No, it was just that it was so soon,
in the eyes of some, after ... “My wife,” he whispered.
“
What wife? Margaret was your wife?”
“
No.” He made his hands into fists as if to hold on to
it before it left him. “The woman in the snow. The one
who just died. I think she was my wife. And before you
ask, no, I didn't kill her so I could be with Margaret. One
thing had nothing to do with the other.”
Gwen was silent for a long moment. “My God,” she
said finally, a bemused smile on her face, “it really happens
to you, doesn't it? This is utterly fascinating.”
“
I'm glad you're having a nice time.”
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the first building they saw on
emerging from the subway, confused Corbin almost at
once. He knew the Waldorf, he'd been in it; he and Gwen
had danced in the Peacock Lounge when he first came to
the city. Yet now it seemed entirely wrong. Its shape, the
details of its architecture, even its location were not what
they should have been. He could not explain why or describe an alternative. Gwen did not press him.
He saw nothing else that especially troubled him during
the rest of their stroll toward Fifth Avenue. No phantom
people or horses. No fading or materializing buildings.
Only a snowbound and depopulated city digging out from more than a foot of snow. He could hear the grinding hum
of plows all around him, and of dump trucks carting tons
of snow to the edge of the Hudson River. He heard the
hiss of air brakes on the few struggling buses and the sound
of snow shovels rasping over cement sidewalks. All these
sounds, modern sounds, gave Corbin comfort and a certain clarity of place. Even so, he continued to see buildings that
seemed vaguely out of position, as if the city had been rearranged by some giant's hand. On these and others, Cor
bin, who knew almost nothing about architectural design,
sensed sadly that certain stylistic adornments had been
stripped away. Heavy rooftop cornices, balustrades, finials
that ought to have been there were gone, leaving an ungraceful boxy appearance to what remained. The more
modern buildings, most of them, were an abomination to
Corbin. Too much glass. No sense of substance. Even the
streetlights, which Corbin had never particularly noticed be
fore, now seemed a graceless triumph of function over
form. Ahead of him, however, he saw the tapering spires of Saint Patrick's Cathedral and he felt, as he explained it to Gwen, something like an urge to applaud.
Do you know why?” she asked. “Is it because Saint
Patrick's hasn't changed?”
“
Maybe. I don't think so.”
“
Try, Jonathan,” she urged him. “Try to think why
you'd want to clap for a church. Is it an especially.religious
feeling?”
No,” he said distantly. ”I just like the spires. I like the
way they did the spires.”
“
Would you like to go inside?”
said. “Here's Saks. Let's get some breakfast.” He had no
idea why the question annoyed him. But the spires, newly
freed from their scaffolding at last, were indeed quite hand
some. Roman church or no.
pointed out, was neither English nor a muffin, while Corbin
fortified himself with two orders of corned beef hash and
eggs. He'd asked first for finnan haddie and then for kip
pered herring, neither of which was on the menu. Gwen
tried to recall whether she'd seen him order either dish in
the entire time she'd known him.
at the Totes counter to buy Corbin a pair of high latex
pullovers for his damp shoes, plus a pocket rain hat with a houndstooth design, and an inexpensive folding umbrella.
Next, Corbin moved to the haberdashery displays where, at
Gwen's insistence, he chose two new shirts, both hand
somely striped, and a change of socks and underwear.
”
I can pay for these,” he told her. “Why don't I just
write them a check?’'
“‘
Because I like dressing you. And them who buys ‘em,
picks ‘em. You're still too young and dashing for some of
the dreadfully stuffy clothing you wear.”
When he went to change, she selected three colorful
pocket handkerchiefs that would add a bit of spark to his
boring business suits. What about an ascot, she wondered.
No, he'd never wear it. In this country ascots seem to be
the exclusive property of aging Hollywood types who want
to hide their wattles. Her eye fell on a tubular umbrella
stand, which held not umbrellas but a selection of canes
and walking sticks. With no particular purpose in mind, she
ran her fingers through the assortment, searching for one that was black. With a silver knob. Nothing there. Only
trendy stuff such as knobbed shillelaghs made of blackthorn
and assorted oak shafts with handles made of brass duck
heads. Too bad. Not that he'd start carrying one even if she
found it, but Jonathan did say he always seemed to be walking with a black silver-headed cane during those excursions
of his. “Aha!” she said aloud. Gwen quickly returned the
small folding umbrella and selected a black, tightly furled
English model. No silver knob. No knob at all. Just a
curved handle. But it did look like a black walking stick.
Who knows? It just might possibly help speed things along.