Time Out of Mind (38 page)
Authors: John R. Maxim
Tags: #Horror, #General, #Psychological, #Suspense, #Memory, #Thrillers, #Fiction, #Time Travel
Garvey complied. Lesko shifted the .38 to his left hand and with his right he reached over and rolled up the win
dow, pulling hard on the crank until Ed Garvey squealed
in pain. Coletti stirred, moaned, and jerked into a low level
of consciousness. Lesko relaxed him with another elbow to
the temple. He then picked up the crowbar once more and
tapped Ed Garvey with it.
“
Do you know who I am, Ed?”
“
No.”
Lesko tapped harder. “For true?”
”
I swear. What's to lie about that?”
“
How about Mr. Dancer? You know a fellow named Dancer?’'
“
No.”
“
That's another fib, Ed.”
”
I swear. No. Give me a name I know and I'll tell you.”
Okay, Lesko thought. Maybe he's just Dancer to me.
“He's a little guy, Ed. Wears black suits. He looks and
talks like a wind-up toy and he never sweats or gets dirty.
He's also a honcho with the Beckwiths.”
“
That's Ballanchine. Lawrence Ballanchine.”
Ballanchine? Lesko squinted. Ballanchine. Dancer. There
was a guy who ran the New York Ballet. Forever. He's
dead now. George Balanchine? Yeah. Probably no relation.
Lawrence Ballanchine, the sly little rascal, takes Dancer as
his code name, probably thinking that was very intellectual. Ballanchine-Dancer. Oh, I get it. You devil, you got a sense
of humor after all, don't you.
“
Who sent you here, Ed? Him or someone else?”
“
Head of Security. Tom Burke.”
“
Burke reports to who?”
“
Ballanchine.”
“
And Ballanchine reports to who?”
“
The old man, I guess. Beckwith. Maybe the family.
There's a lot of Beckwiths.”
“
This guy, Tom Burke. How old do you think he was
back in 1944?”
“
Huh?”
“
Okay, how old is he now?”
”
I dunno. Maybe fifty.”
“
You can tell Ballanchine I asked that. Tell him I was
wondering whether Burke might be old enough to have
been hanging around dark apartments or driving on dark streets in Chicago back in 1944. You know what I'm talk
ing about, don't you, Ed.”
“
Chicago, 1944? What am I supposed to know about
that? I never been there. I wasn't even born then.”
“
That was just a little trick question, Ed. I believe you.”
“
Listen, my hands are killing me.”
I'm going to fix that.” Lesko slipped the two small
automatics into his overcoat pocket. He took Ed Garvey's
driver's license out of the wallet and tossed the wallet into
the front seat. He held the license for Garvey to see. “So
I know where to find you,” he told him. Next, Lesko holstered his .38 and, picking up the crowbar, slid toward the rear right door and stepped out. Slamming the door behind
him, he turned and peered through the slit between Gar
vey's swelling hands, now scarcely two inches deep.
Here's a message for Ballanchine,” Lesko told him. “
Tell him he deals with me. Tell him he leaves Corbin and
the dame alone until I give a green light. Tell him I get
very upset when sneaky bastards like you and him try to hurt us decent people. Tell him when that happens, I get
even. Show him your hands and he'll believe you.”
Garvey did not appear to understand that last part. But
the first glimmer reached him as he saw the big man with
the teeth step back away from the car and rear one shoulder
back in the manner of a man chopping wood with an ax.
Garvey's eyes went wide as the crowbar whistled down
against the back of one hand and he felt a spear of pain
that felt like it splintered his entire arm to the shoulder.
Garvey’s already injured collarbone split and separated and
its jagged ends tried to burrow through his body. The s
cream rising up in his throat turned into a choke as the
crowbar came down upon the second hand, this time send
ing a spray of blood through the narrow slit into his face.
He made an odd hooting sound as he threw his body back
from the window, tearing loose the safety glass whose lam
inated shards cruelly shredded his wrists and palms.
Lesko was halfway to Lexington Avenue, casually walk
ing, before he heard the first scream Dancer's killer could manage. Near the top of the subway stairs, Lesko found a
sewer and dropped the glistening crowbar through the grat
ing. The two pistols followed. Then he walked down the
stairs and waited for the first subway to Queens Boulevard.
Ten
“
How did you sleep, Jonathan?” Harry Sturdevant
looked up from the breakfast table overlooking the small
garden area at the rear of his house. Cora Starling, who also smiled a greeting, had poured his coffee when she
heard him on the stairs and set it down at his place near a glass of fresh orange juice and a basket of warm croissants.
“
Very well, sir,” Corbin answered, although it seemed
he'd spent the entire night going from one fragmented
dream to another. ''Gwen's just putting on her face. Good
morning, Mrs. Starling.”
“
Mr. Corbin.” She nodded. He saw her eyes flick over
to Sturdevant, which told him they'd probably been talking
about him. He didn't mind. Corbin wished he could place
her though. He thought she might have been in one of his
dreams. Maybe not. Maybe someone a lot like her whose name he kept wanting to say was Lucy. Lots of dreams.
Margaret was in most of them. And a woman he didn't
know at all, named Georgia. No. Georgiana. Then there was
a fight dream; there's always at least one, except this time
Corbin didn't think he was involved in it. A man, a big
guy, had hands that were terribly smashed and torn and
there was broken glass. He was screaming. It was awful.
But Corbin didn't seem to feel particularly sorry for him.
“
Some of these croissants have chocolate centers, Jon
athan.” Harry Sturdevant passed the basket. “I'd have an
other except Cora is watching me.”
Cora sniffed and said nothing, although she did crane her
neck to count the remaining pastries. Then, hearing a creak
on the stairs, Cora picked up the coffeepot and poured at
Gwen Leamas's table setting.
‘‘
Don't anyone look at me.” She entered the breakfast
room palms forward. “Not until I can get my own stuff
and paint it on.”
clean and healthy, and it was one of the enduring mysteries
of his life why women always thought they looked like
hags in the morning but thought an unshaven man looked
cute and rumply.
As a matter of fact, sure, there was one dream about Gwen and Margaret at the same time, maybe finally meeting each other and Margaret saying how happy she was for him that
he had found such a lovely woman and how she hoped
they would squeeze every moment of joy out of the time
they had and try never to be apart. A nice dream. A real
nice one. And if it happened the way he sort of remembered
it now, that was the first time ever that he saw Margaret
while he was Jonathan Corbin and not Tilden Beckwith.
There was another nice little dream in which he was teach
ing Margaret how to ride a bicycle and she was laughing because he wasn't a whole lot better at it than she was. He
was Tilden there. Nice to know Tilden had some good
times.
When you've finished your coffee”—Harry Sturdevant took a final sip—“my car is garaged just down the street.
Gwen, I gather you'll want to change at your flat before we drive up to Greenwich?”
“
Take me ten minutes.”
holding an assortment of tablets and capsules. “These are all vitamins. The way you people eat it's a wonder you're
alive. I also fixed up some fruit and some granola bars in
a cake box. Remember you got them when Dr. Sturdevant here starts sniffin' for an anchovy pizza around noontime.”
The phone rang on the kitchen wall. Cora crossed to the
receiver.
'' Sturdevant residence. ”
She listened.
“
May I say who's calling, please?”
Cora frowned.
“
Will you tell me who this is, please?”
She listened again, glancing across the room at Harry
Sturdevant.
“
No, we're not interested just now. Thank you kindly.” She replaced the phone. “Just some folks lookin' to clean
our carpets,” she said. “Dr. Sturdevant, you got some
checks to sign in your office before you go.”
Sturdevant joined her there while Gwen Leamas was pulling on her boots.
“
What was that about, Cora?”
“
Second time this morning someone called to ask if Mr.
Corbin was here. Two different people. First time, he was in the shower and I asked the man to leave a message but
he said it's not important and he hung up. That time just
now I tried to make that man give a name before I'd say Mr. Corbin was here but he hung up too.”
“
You said it was a carpet cleaning service not to alarm
Mr. Corbin?”
She nodded.
“
Cora, I'm not sure there's a need for alarm,” he told
her, “but can you avoid going out today or opening the
door to anyone you don't know?”
”
I just might have someone in to visit with me.”
“
That would be fine. I'll be calling in several times.”
Sturdevant waited in the double-parked car outside 145
East Seventy-seventh Street while Gwen, Corbin with her, ran up to pack an overnight bag. Corbin might have waited
with Sturdevant, but he felt a vague uneasiness about letting her enter the empty flat alone. And then a crunch of broken
glass underfoot as he stepped from the car called back the
now-distant dream of the man with the torn and shattered
hands. It had no meaning to him but it troubled him dis
tantly. Once inside her door he paced the living room
as
she spent her allotted ten minutes, a promise in which he
had no trust whatever, selecting cosmetics from her bath
room and applying certain of them to her cheeks and eyes.
As he paced, his own eye kept falling on a single chair that
sat just inside her entrance hall and which seemed to him
out of place by several inches. At last he straightened it.
While he'd been pacing, Corbin had also found himself
identifying and avoiding two spots on the floor, which
squeaked when stepped upon. A remote anger stirred within him as he did this and his hands tightened into fists. Corbin
looked at them, shook his head, then made them relax, disinclined to dwell on what was just one more of the many
peculiar thoughts and emotions that whispered within him
these days. Besides, soon he would be in Greenwich. No
such thoughts ever annoyed him there. Nothing annoyed
him there. ·