Time Out of Mind (55 page)
Authors: John R. Maxim
Tags: #Horror, #General, #Psychological, #Suspense, #Memory, #Thrillers, #Fiction, #Time Travel
“
You're certain that she's safe?”
Goss and Chandler have been sittin' outside her house
in a meat wagon all day. They seen her at the window a
few times. Nat's arranged for two Pinkertons to take over
the watch till the danger's past.”
“
It won't be past. Not while Carling's alive.”
Don't do it yourself, Tilden. Leave it to me. This city's
full o' men who'll do the job for just what they find in
Carling's pockets. You don't have the stuff for it.”
“
You can say that?” Tilden arched. “You just saw me
about to tear out a man's eyes.”
“
You wouldn't have done that either.”
“
You cannot know that.”
“You're handy enough with your fists. And you're a hard
man to keep down. But this just ain't your game. And as
for O'Gorman, don't go tellin' yourself you were a match
for him just because you put him down. Without Nat Good
win at your back and me and my mates ready to tear the
place apart, you would have been in a sack by now.”
“
Thank you for such confidence.” Tilden tried to pull
away.
Right now, lad, you got hate in you sure enough,” John
Flood told him. “But you got no schemin'. You got no
sneak. Everything in your life you do head-on and face to face. That's well and good in the prize ring, but even there
you got a referee and cornermen. Outside the prize ring,
it's goin' to get you hurt one day, Tilden. Truly it will.”
Up ahead, past a snowcapped juniper hedge, Corbin caught
his first glimpse of the house on Maple Avenue since last Fri
day morning. Just a moment before, he almost thought that the sidewalk he was on was outside a row of Sixth Avenue
dives, but now all that was washing away in the clean whiteness of the Greenwich landscape. Faces and names
were fading as well, some quicker than others. Nat Goodwin. Corbin knew that Goodwin was an actor, that he had
reddish hair, and that his friendship once meant a great deal to Tilden Beckwith, but he could remember little else. The
lumpy Irish face of big John Flood was more clear in his
mind, and the face of Ansel Carling the most vivid of all.
He saw Carling's face as he left it that night at the Hoffman
House bar. Badly battered. Even more so than…than
whom? There was another man in another bar. Another
fight. It was leaving him.
.
He tried to think what happened with Carling later on. Carling had tried to get even, tried to hurt Tilden and Mar
garet. Corbin was sure of that much. So Tilden almost
surely would have gone looking for Carling again. But
when Corbin tried to envision that second encounter he saw
nothing at all. Maybe, Corbin thought, he never found him.
Try that. Try just looking. He'd go over to the Navarro and
hammer at the door of Carling's apartment. Or he'd wait
for him in the shadows outside. At that thought, Corbin
could feel a small surge of annoyance coming from deep
within himself, an emotion he knew was not entirely his own. No. Right. That wouldn't have been Tilden's style.
What, then, would Tilden have done? Try to look at it sort
of sideways, sort of from the corner of your eye the way you have to look at certain dim stars in order to see them
at all. Corbin tried it. It did not do to look to his left because Gwen was there, walking at his side and slightly ahead. Try
the right. Yes. There. It looks like a man over there. Corbin
had to blink several times and settle his focus to keep the
image from washing away like a piece of corneal lint.
he was in an office someplace very high up above the street.
See? Let it happen and it seems to come. The trick, like
Gwen has been saying for two days, is not to deny it.
Maybe Sturdevant is right, too. Maybe there isn't all that
much difference between daydreaming and ancestral memory. Now, fill in the background. It is an office. There are
old-fashioned oak desks all around, two of which are in
glass enclosures. There are paintings on the wall. They all
have telegraph poles in them. Western Union. This is the old Western Union Building down on Madison Square.
That's more than a guess, isn't.it, Tilden? Especially con
sidering that I've never been to Madison Square and the
only thing I know about it is that's where the Flatiron
Building is, except the Flatiron wasn't even built at the time
this fat guy in the black suit is pointing toward the door
behind you and saying get out before he has you thrown
out.
Hacker.
Albert Hacker.
And there's Tilden stepping over this low oak railing and
walking toward Hacker, whose expression is changing very
quickly, and now Tilden has him by his shirt and is forcing
him back toward an open window. The fat man has his
hands up in a pathetic attempt at defense, but Tilden easily
spins him around and bends him so that his head and shoul
ders are sticking out the window five or six floors above
the street and Hacker is screaming something about New
Jersey.
·
‘
That will do, Mr. Beckwith.”
A small, sad-faced man is in the room. A black beard, long and narrow.
”
I want Ansel Carling.” Tilden turned his head while
holding the terrified fat man in place. “Where is he?”
“
Out of harm's way, Mr. Beckwith. As you and a score
of pedestrians have just heard, he is in New Jersey.”
“
At Taylor's Hotel, I suppose.”
Taylor's Hotel. Corbin knew of it. In Jersey City, right
on the river. Less a hotel than a fortress these past twenty
years. Guarded by twelve armed men and two six-pounders
against occasional mobs of vengeance-minded investors
who'd been skinned by this little man with the face of a disappointed poet.
“
That would seem a prudent address,” Jay Gould an
swered, “all things considered.”
carrying a repeating rifle across his chest. They stood on
either side of the man who owned the Western Union Company and several railroads, including most of the New York
elevateds, and who had ruined Cyrus Field with the help
of Ella Beckwith. Tilden released his hold on Albert
Hacker.
You cannot protect him forever, Mr. Gould,” Tilden
said quietly. “Short of having your bravos there put a bullet
in my head or try for
both
my eyes this time, I will get my
hands around Carling's neck sooner or later.”
erence to your eyes?’'
”
I think you do.” Tilden took a step forward. “And I'll
tell you what I told your man O'Gorman. If any harm comes to a certain woman merely to get at me ...”
to his brow as if to relieve the confusion that was evident
on his face. “Mr. Hacker,” he called softly, ”a word with
you, please.”
direction. He now broke into what would have been a run but for the furniture in his path. Tilden could do little else but watch, arms folded, as the two men conferred in whis
pers. Although nothing at all, as usual, could be read upon
the melancholy countenance of Jay Gould, Albert Hacker was at once clearly explaining himself, denying an active role in these events, and proclaiming himself innocent of
their consequence. Tilden saw one of the guards roll his
eyes at the other. “Please wait in my office,” he heard Jay
Gould say. And when Hacker hesitated, still furiously shaking his head with his fingers pointed to his breast, Gould
glanced at the nearest guard, who then put a firm hand upon
the fat man's shoulder. Albert Hacker left at once by the door Gould had entered.
“
Will you accept my oath, sir”—Jay Gould looked
across at Tilden—-“that I had no knowledge whatsoever of
intended violence?”
“
Of course.” Tilden nodded. “Why would you break a
man's body when you can break his heart as you did with
Cyrus Field.”
A simple reply in the affirmative would have been suf
ficient, sir.”
“
If it's true, then give me Carling.”
“
And you think that ends it.”
“
Mr. Hacker informs me that you have a friend who has also been in peril of Mr. Carling's vengeance. Surely you
would like to see that peril ended. Surely you would also
wish our relationship to be restored to one in which there is some profit.”
Tilden was stunned. Here was a man so singularly directed
toward the getting of money that he could not imagine why
the threat of plucking out Margaret Barrie's eye should be
unduly brooded upon. Here was a man who at worst au
thored and at least condoned the seduction of Ella for the
purpose of getting the records of Cyrus Field's stock trans
actions, and he seems to be saying what's past is past and let
us not let it stand in our way if there is another dollar to be turned. Tilden could only shake his head in wonder.
“
The policeman,” he said finally, “Inspector Williams.
You did send him to me, did you not?”
”
I suggested certain avenues of investigation to him.”
“
To what end, sir?” Tilden's jaw tightened.
To determine, sir, whether a man in my employ might possibly be caught up in a public scandal. That is the long
and the short of it.”
“
And to convey your feelings of friendship toward me.”
Gould almost smiled. ”I did ask him, if the occasion
arose, to communicate my sympathy. And to make it clear,
as I hope he did, that no other suspicions concerning your
wife's unhappy end would be pursued unless—”
“
Unless what, sir?”
“
Let us regard that matter, too, as closed.”
“
Unless what, sir?” Tilden stepped toward him. One
guard's thumb touched the hammer of his Winchester.
I spoke of redirecting Mr. Carling's energies. It is pos
sible that your energies of late, sir, nearly all of them, have
been misdirected as well. I do not expect that you would take my advice where your private affairs are concerned,
but I have some hope of persuading you that your continued
efforts on Mr. Field's behalf are inappropriate.”
“
My God!”
instance, sir.” He clipped off the words. “Do me the good
ness to hear me out. In my office. With no ears but ours.”
“
My God, are you not finished with that good man yet?
What else can you do to him?”
“
That good man betrayed me. Or tried to.”
“
Betrayal!” Tilden sputtered. He was moved to dispute
Gould's choice of that word, but he knew it would be of
no use. “‘In any case, the man is beaten. Whatever his designs or mine might be toward the restoration of a decent
station for himself and his family, I am willing to assure
you that they involve no threat to you whatsoever.”