Time Out of Mind (7 page)
Authors: John R. Maxim
Tags: #Horror, #General, #Psychological, #Suspense, #Memory, #Thrillers, #Fiction, #Time Travel
“
You hire a detective, you hire his instincts,” Lesko
replied offhandedly. “But no, I haven't been tailing you.”
He didn't add that if he ever did, this turkey would never know it.
You understand that any such attempt would be in serious violation of our working arrangement? That it would
be grounds for immediate and uncompensated dismissal?”
“
I've answered your question, Mr. Dancer.” At least all
I'm going to, Lesko thought. The simple truth about know
ing you were behind me is that you sponge on enough Aramis to have every fairy within fifty yards sniffing at
your ass.
Dancer grunted, indicating acceptance of Lesko's reply
at some level, and began fingering a device inside his at
tache case that made soft clicking sounds. Lesko knew what
it was. He was being scanned for recording devices and
very likely being recorded himself. He used the time to
study the man who sat across from him. It was, Lesko
knew, a basically unrewarding exercise, since barely a hair
on Dancer's head changed from one meeting to the next.
He wore a dark blue, expensively tailored three-piece suit. Dancer must have had six more just like it, plus perhaps a
ledger-lined blue pinstripe for his wilder moments. His
shirts were invariably white and well starched, probably
from either Brooks Brothers or Sulka. His ties were always a solid maroon, except for one lapse when he wore a recognizable club tie. He wore untasseled loafers by Bally of
Switzerland on feet that were exceptionally small, even for
a man of Dancer's unexceptional height. His body was squash-court lean, maybe tennis-court lean, thought Ray
mond Lesko, noting the callus on the inside of Dancer's
right thumb. On the wrist above it, Dancer wore a gold
Patek Philippe watch with a black face, blank, no numerals,
which seemed an admirable fit to his personality. His hair
was freshly trimmed, probably twice a week by one of
those barbers who make office calls. Lesko guessed his age at thirty-eight, although he could possibly have been ten
years older.
“
Are you drinking anything?” Lesko asked, although he
perfectly well knew the answer.
”
A Perrier, please. Two slices of lime.”
ress. The little twerp even drinks designer water.
Your report, if you please.” Dancer moved his case to
one side of the table, having propped the lid from inside
so that it remained open a half inch. Lesko pretended not
to notice. He opened his notebook to a paper-clipped page
well short of his most recent entry.
”
I have a pretty good fix on the subject's history. How
deep do you want to hear it?”
“
All of it,” Dancer told him. “Assume I know noth
ing.”
The subject's full name is Jonathan T Corbin. He was
born—”
“
What does the
T
stand for?”
“
Nothing. Just an initial on his birth certificate. No pe
riod after it, as in Harry S Truman. If it ever stood for
anything, nobody who's alive seems to know what it was.
Anyway, Jonathan T Corbin was born in Evanston, Illinois, on the twenty-fifth of December, 1944. A Christmas baby.”
“
You're certain?” Dancer stiffened slightly.
“
About which part?”
“
Never mind. Please continue.”
“
Parents,” Lesko read, turning his notebook up toward
an overhead light, “were the former Agnes Ann Haywood of Wilmette, Illinois, and Captain Whitney Corbin. The father never saw him. He was an Army Air Corps pilot, re
ported missing in action in Europe on November sixth,
1944. Later confirmed killed.”
“
Positive identification?”
“
Enough for the army. There were civilian eyewitnesses
to a crash and burn just outside of Antwerp. The local Re
sistance ended up with his dog tags and turned them over
to American Intelligence a month or so later.” But a funny
question, Lesko mused. Why should Dancer care about be
ing sure the Corbin guy's father bought the farm?
“
Do you have a marriage date for the parents?”
And there's another one, he thought. But as a matter of
fact, he did. “The parents were married by a Cook County Justice of the Peace on June thirtieth, 1944. The baby was
already three months in the oven. The captain had been
home between tours in March of the same year, which is
obviously when Jonathan T Corbin was conceived. I don't know how the father pulled it off in time of war, maybe
because he won a few medals, but he wrangled a compas
sionate leave and the army sent him home long enough to
get married and also to do a short war bond tour around
Evanston and some other Chicago suburbs so it shouldn't
be a total loss. After about ten days they shipped him back to his fighter escort base in Bury St. Edmunds. That's in
England. East Anglia.”
Thank you so much, Mr. Lesko.” Dancer pursed
his
lips in an expression meant to assure the ex-cop that he had a passing knowledge of English geography. “Kindly con
tinue.”
“
That's it for the father. He won one more medal for
shooting up a troop train and another one for getting killed.
The University of Notre Dame, where he went, put up a
plaque in their trophy case with some of his medals and a baseball MVP he won there in the early forties. As for the
mother, Agnes Haywood Corbin stayed home with her own
parents, had the baby, and after about two years she got
married again to a lawyer named George Satterthwaite. Satterthwaite bought a house in Winnetka and the two of them
raised the kid.”
“
As a Satterthwaite?”
Funny you should ask,” Raymond Lesko answered,
this time saying it out loud. “The records were a little con
fusing at first. What happened was that Satterthwaite
adopted the kid and then filed for a legal name change.
Judges won't usually let a stepfather do that, but Satterth
waite knew his way around the courts and he found one
who would. It turned out to be a waste of time because the kid changed it back to Corbin, Jonathan T, just before he started high school. The second petition for a name change
said he wanted to keep his blood identity and, besides, Jonathan Satterthwaite was too much of a mouthful. Try saying
it fast after you've had too many Perriers.”
of his fingers. In his eyes, and in the nervous tapping of
his knuckles, Lesko saw a curious mixture of excitement and annoyance. It was the body-language equivalent of a
slap to the side of one's head when he learns something he should have known all along. As in, So that's where the
goddamned kid was. Lost in a bunch of legal papers and
some lawyer's ego trip. Lesko had the clear impression that
he'd just earned his fee.
Anyway,” he continued, “the kid finished high school
and then followed his real father to Notre Dame. Father's
footsteps all the way. Good grades, played most of the same
sports. Made co captain of the baseball team. He wasn't the star his old man was, but Corbin's thing was really boxing. Real good record as an intercollegiate light-heavy. He was
going out for the 1968 Olympic trials until mononucleosis
knocked him on his ass. Otherwise, never knocked out,
never off his feet. He still puts on the gloves over at the
New York AC. This guy's no pansy even if his head's not
always on straight.”
Dancer's eyebrows ticked upward. “You found a history
of that?”
“
Of what?”
“
Irrational behavior. Compulsiveness. Paranoia.”
Lesko studied the smaller man. “Who said anything
about that?”
“
Have you or have you not?”
Lesko hadn't. Not really. Not in Corbin's past, anyway. Well, maybe one little thing. ”I talked to one of his teach
ers who remembers him getting counseling for what they call an identity crisis these days, but the problem doesn't
seem to have been serious. The teacher wouldn't have even mentioned it except I told him I was doing a government
security check.”
“
Go on.”
“
That's mostly it.” But what the hell, thought Lesko,
let's see what happens if I let out a little more line. “Except
I'm
not surprised if the kid had problems. As far back as I
can trace it, the guy's family had a real cloud over it.”
Something happened on Dancer's face. A subtle change.
It struck the ex-cop that Dancer was suddenly far more interested in what Lesko knew than in the facts themselves.
“
What are you saying?” Dancer asked finally.
is an only child. A son. His father, Whitney Corbin, also
an only son, dies violently before Corbin is born.”
Wars have a way of producing violent deaths, Mr. Lesko.”
“
His grandfather,” continued Lesko, ignoring the inter
ruption, “was again an only child. A son. The grandfather,
also named Jonathan T Corbin, gets killed by a Chicago
hit-and-run driver in March of 1944. Same year as the fa
ther. He also gets run down at the height of wartime gas
rationing when there's only a handful of private cars driv
ing around in all of Chicago. The grandfather, by the way,
was another ball player. Except this guy made it to the
majors. He pitched for the White Sox during the 1907 and 1908 seasons,
a
spitballer. But then they outlawed the spitball after
the 1908 season and he eventually retired. Too bad. This
guy actually played on the same team as Tinker to Evers
to Chance. You know. The double-play combination. There
was even a poem about them.”
“
You were driving toward some point, Mr. Lesko.”
Sorry. Just want you to know that when I dig, I dig
deep.”
“
Noted.”
Next there's the great-grandfather, Hiram Forsythe
Corbin, who died in a railroad accident in 1888, also without living siblings and also before the birth of his son, Jon
athan T Corbin the first. If that's not coincidence enough,
the first Jonathan T was also a Christmas baby, born December twenty-fifth, 1888.” Lesko looked for the stiffening
he'd seen at the last mention of Christmas babies and he
saw it. Lesko knew that he was on to something and that
whatever it was was already in his notebook. But in pieces.
He stared hard at the page he was on.
“
You know what's interesting?” he said. “These Cor
bins are big on holding on to family names. For example,
the late Captain Whitney Corbin’s first name was his grand
mother's maiden name. But nobody seemed to care about
naming anyone after old Hiram Forsythe.”
“
Mr. Lesko”—Dancer reached across the table and touched his fingertips to the notebook—“I'm sure this is
all very fascinating. My immediate interest, however, is in
the living.”
If it's living Corbins you're interested in, Mr. Dancer,
you're following a one-horse race. The only Corbin on rec
ord to make it past sixty was old Hiram's widow, who lived
to be ..,” Raymond Lesko wet a finger and began peeling
to an earlier page. Again Dancer reached his hand to the
notebook.