Time Out of Mind (48 page)
Authors: John R. Maxim
Tags: #Horror, #General, #Psychological, #Suspense, #Memory, #Thrillers, #Fiction, #Time Travel
named Harry are good fellows. Sturdevant was saying
something to Gwen about wanting to look at some more microfilms but you and Jonathan go ahead. He'll walk to Maple Avenue. Corbin wondered whether he should say anything to Harry about the way Tilden picks and chooses
what he'll let him see. Better not. Sturdevant would only
start looking at him as though he was a laboratory slide
again, because he would have just taken one hell of a leap
from Sturdevant’ s benign concept of genetic memory into
a whole new ball game in which Tilden is real, a real person who thinks and makes decisions and even smacks ancestors
across the face when they make wisecracks about whore
house season tickets.
Get back to Margaret. She was working. Tilden had set her up in a place in the East Sixties, but she'd found a job.
Something to do with a newspaper. Women were starting
to make a stir as journalists. Nelly Bly. Around the world
in eighty days. But Margaret did want Tilden's child. And she couldn't stay at any newspaper or even in her rooms if she was unmarried and beginning to show. So, the Clare
mont Inn. As Charlotte and Harry. A long, peaceful autumn
of sitting on the Claremont's porch, watching the Hudson
River drift by, going to baseball games with picnic ham
pers, and taking the train up to Greenwich to see how the
carpenters and the electrical linesmen were progressing.
How am I doing, Tilden?
Batting about .500, right? Because that's when most of
those fights were happening, wasn't it. Someone was lean
ing on you. Carling, Gould, somebody. And there was a
new guy, I don't know his name but I can see him, Colonel something-or-other, sounds like Colonel Dan, and he had a newspaper, not Margaret's newspaper, and he was trying to
hit you for a payoff to keep your name and Margaret's out
of it, and you told him to buzz off, and then he tried to sell
you something else, something about Carling.
“
Dr. Sturdevant,” Corbin asked, with a firmness of
voice that surprised Gwen's uncle, “have you ever heard
of a newspaper publisher with a name like Colonel Dan?’'
“
From the late nineteenth century?”
“
Yes.”
“
Could you possibly mean Colonel Mann? He published
a scandal sheet called
Town Topics.
Full name was William
D'Alton Mann.”
“
Looked like Santa Claus?”
Now that you mention it”—Sturdevant nodded—“he
always carried sugar cubes for horses and rock candy for
children. But he was a notorious blackmailer. Why do you
ask?”
“
It's nothing.” Jonathan shook his head.
It's none of your business.
Eleven
...
it's a very certain
sign ... Those wedding bells are breaking up that old gang
of mine.”
Raymond Lesko turned on his shower hot and full, then
sat fully clothed on the edge of his toilet, facing out toward
his apartment door. His service revolver hung from his right
hand. With his left hand he held a washcloth in front of his
lips to lightly muffle the sound of his singing voice. He
turned the wrist of that hand to look.at his watch. Ten after
eight. No call from Dancer.
He had to assume that Dancer had decided against ne
gotiating. If that was correct, he'd have to further assume
that Dancer would be sending shooters. Or Beckwith se
curity people. Whatever. And if the shooters happened to be already waiting outside the door, and they heard the
shower going and his voice lifted in carefree song, that
would seem like a very good time to kick in the door and
start blasting away through the shower curtain. So, just in
case, Lesko had decided, he'd give about ten minutes of
sound effects for the benefit of anyone who might be hang
ing around out in the hall. You can't be too careful. If
nobody comes, at least the steam is getting rid of some of
the wrinkles in his suit so it shouldn't be a total loss.
tion, then waited another minute. Nothing. No sounds from
the hall. No slowly turning doorknob like in the movies.
It's safe enough, he guessed, to take a real shower. Just
make it quick. He jammed a chair under his front doorknob
and adjusted his bathroom door so that he could watch through the dressing mirror that hung on its outside.
Lesko was dried and dressed fifteen minutes later. He poured a second cup of coffee. Eight twenty-five. A little while now and he'd hear the Tomasi family upstairs heading out for the nine o'clock Mass at Saint Agnes down the
street, and the McCaffreys in 3C would be doing the same.
Lesko would fall in with them at least as far as the sidewalk. Lesko had made up his mind that if he happened to
see a strange male face anyplace in between, he would take
the guy out real fast and apologize for any mistakes after
ward.
Another fifteen minutes. What the hell, he thought, reaching for the phone. Let's see if I can ruin the little
bastard's breakfast. He dialed the Beckwith Regency and
asked to speak to Mr. Ballanchine.
“
May I tell him who's calling, sir?” Lesko remembered
the guy at the front desk who snapped to attention every
time a Beckwith walked through the lobby.
“
Sam Babcock. Field agent, Internal Revenue.”
“
One moment, sir.”
Lesko wondered, come to think of it, what kind of break
fast Dancer would eat. Ham and eggs? No. Dancer would
be a three-minute-egg type. Out of a porcelain egg cup.
With one of those little tools that slices off the top of the
shell. And either orange juice or prune juice, probably
prune juice, and probably laced with Metamucil.
“
He doesn't seem to be answering, Mr. Babcock.”
“
Mr. Ballanchine wouldn't be ducking Uncle Sam,
would he?”
“
Oh, I'm sure not, sir. Hold on and I'll inquire.”
Lesko waited.
The voice came back on. “Mr. Babcock, it seems Mr.
Ballanchine and Mr. Beckwith have gone up to Connecticut
for the day. They left just before I came on at eight. Did Mr. Ballanchine have an appointment with you, sir?”
“
He was trying to reach me last night. We keep missing
each other. Give me a number and I'll try him up there.”
The desk man hesitated.
And in case I still miss him, I want to leave him a message.”
“
Go ahead, sir.”
Tell him Uncle Sam hopes he won't have to rap his
knuckles. He'll know what it means.”
Perhaps you'd better tell him that yourself, sir. I imag
ine you can reach him at the Beckwith residence on Round
Hill Road in Greenwich. It's in the book.”
ber. He also knew that he was trying to involve himself as little as possible. Fine. “Which Beckwith lives in Green
wich, by the way?”
I believe that would be Tilden Beckwith’s sister, sir.
Miss Ella Beckwith.”
Lesko wished him a nice day.
The old guy's sister! Lesko wondered whether she was
as big a turkey as he was. He suspected not. Not if it was
her Dancer was talking to when he made that second call Friday night from Grand Central. The one to Connecticut.
But for now, he decided, let's see if we know where the
rest of the players are.
He flipped open his notebook and dialed the number of
Gwen Leamas's apartment. No answer. He expected that.
Next he punched information and asked for a Harry or Har
old Sturdevant. How about H. E. Sturdevant at 12 East
Sixty-ninth? That's him. Lesko tried the number.
Sturdevant residence.” A woman's voice, the house
keeper.
“
Yeah, I'm looking for Jonathan Corbin.”
“
May I say who's calling, please?”
Lesko nodded. Corbin was there. He started to hang up
without answering.
Will you tell me who this is, please?” The woman's
voice was strong, almost angry, more so than a rude silence
should have made her. Lesko brought the phone back to
his ear. He was tempted to ask Sturdevant’s housekeeper
what had her in such a testy mood so early in the morning. Was it possible, for example, that this was not today's first
phone call from someone who asked for Corbin and then hung up. Not that she'd tell him, the way she sounded.
Lesko broke the connection.
said yes, he could borrow the car, which is open except
you have to kick the door, and the spare key is in the back
seat ashtray under a gum wrapper, which reminds me,
please don't smoke those cheap cigars because the smell
was there for a month last time. Lesko promised. Upstairs,
Mr. Tomasi yelled, “Let's go. I'm not waiting all day,” as
he did every Sunday. Lesko threw on his coat and eased
the chair from under his doorknob. Gun in hand, he waited
until the Tomasi family had almost reached his landing, then poked his head into the hall.
door.
taking them slowly as they had since Mrs. McCaffrey hurt
her hip. Lesko started down. He realized it was not alto
gether neighborly to use other churchgoing tenants as
shields, but he was betting the Beckwith security people
were not psychos like the Bolivians and would not make any bigger mess than they had to.
Lesko reached the sidewalk without incident and fol
lowed the McCaffreys as far as Mr. Makowski’s Chevrolet.
Mrs. Tomasi, following close behind, scowled at Lesko as
he swept the snow from the windshield and opened the car
door. She'd allowed herself to hope that he was actually going to Mass. Once inside, Lesko's gun was back in his
hand as he fished for the hidden key, that being a good
time for anyone so inclined to make a move. But there was
nothing, not even the sound of another engine starting. As
much surprised as relieved, Lesko rocked the car free of
the curb and crunched out toward Queens Boulevard, then
climbed on the expressway entrance leading to the Queens-
Midtown Tunnel. The sparse Sunday morning traffic had
him in the city in just over ten minutes. It took less than another ten to reach East Sixty-ninth Street.
Sturdevant`s
address, number 12, would be on the south side, about half
way between Madison and Fifth. Lesko decided he'd better
circle the block. It was hardly necessary.
He spotted the other car so easily that at first Lesko won
dered if he was wrong. It was a blue BMW, parked in an
ideal position for watching Sturdevant's front door a hundred feet farther down and across the street. But the driver was doing almost nothing else right. He was sitting low in
his seat, too obviously low, his window was open all the
way, and he'd left his engine running to keep warm. Lesko
had seen the exhaust as soon as he turned off Madison.
Worse, Lesko saw as he passed, the BMW was parked at
a curb cut between two No Parking signs. Someone wants
to take a car out, he has to move. Or a passing cop tells
him to move. If he'd just double-parked he might have been
more visible, but the same passing cop would have assumed
he was waiting to pick someone up and not bothered him.
And double-parked, the guy also would have been harder to block in.