The Third Circle
Chapter
34
Part VII
The Fawn
Chapter 34
Claire and John woke up at five o'clock in the morning, dressed casually, and had toast, coffee, and juice in the room. John counted out four thousand dollars in cash from the money in the hotel safe, and, by six thirty, they were driving north in a pale blue rented Cadillac.
They followed the Hudson for awhile, then cut inland, turning east at Yonkers. When they got to Mt. Vernon, they headed north again toward Connecticut. John stopped in the town of Greenwich, on the New York State line, and bought a shovel, and a few miles further north he took a side road. They picked a deserted spot, parked the Cadillac well off the road, and went behind some maple trees. They undressed, dug a hole, wrapped their things along with the cash they had brought in plastic, and transported to October 10th, 1975.
They stood naked, and a bit cold, in the middle of a sand trap on a golf course. A few feet away, a group of men were watching another man concentrating on his shot. Three or four of them shouted in alarm at the same time when they saw Claire and John, and the man missed his shot. "Jesus Christ," he said, staring at them.
Claire waved coyly while John adjusted the watch, and they went back to 1946.
"Whew," said Claire, giggling. "Too many people."
"I don't care much for golf, anyway," said John
They dug up their things, dressed again, got back in the car, and drove further north. They picked more hidden and rugged terrain, tried 1975 again, and this time successfully ended up in seclusion, except for two Guernsey cows grazing nearby, who were far more tolerant of their sudden appearance than the golfers had been.
It took ten minutes to uncover their things. It was chilly, and they dressed quickly. They walked back toward the road, and it was fifteen minutes before a farmer in a Chevy pickup stopped and gave them a lift back to the main road. He was heading north from there, and there were no large towns for quite a ways, so they thanked him and got out and hitched south. In a few minutes they got a ride back to Greenwich with a trucker hauling apples.
They got out in front of a Woolworth's, and went inside to get some Advil.
"Wow!" Claire exclaimed, looking through the bottles. "John! Here it is! Look!" She handed him a bottle of pills.
"'Iburin,'" John said, reading. "Well, I'll be damned. 'Manufactured by Neilson Pharmaceuticals, St. Louis, Missouri.'" He looked at Claire. "We did it! I don't believe it. That's us!"
"I know!" she said. "We should call Frederick Neilson and congratulate him."
"If he's still alive. It's been thirty years."
"So, how does that work? We haven't signed the papers yet."
"Hm. Well, I guess the wheels are in motion. It's going to happen. That's really interesting."
Claire bought the pills and some Tampax, and they had bacon and eggs and hash browns at the Woolworth counter.
"Perhaps," said Claire while they were eating, "there is a certain threshold. So much energy starts going in a certain direction, and, at some point, that's what happens. Like Walker Creek Enterprises. Maybe it's about momentum or something."
"Hm. That's a nice theory. I wonder if that's what happened with you back home with Marie. Maybe there was so much emotional momentum in your conversation with her, that a threshold was crossed and everything shifted to accommodate it."
"Exactly! There it is. It's not a linear thing. I mean, it is linear, in one way, but it's also ...."
"A mosaic?" John smiled, putting strawberry jam on his toast.
Claire laughed. "Yes, a mosaic. An energy mosaic."
"If you could catch examples of that on camera, it would make a nice book."
After breakfast, John took his birth certificate and, looking as elderly as he could without make-up, once again took the driver's license exam. They rented a Pontiac convertible from Avis using a cash deposit. They cut over and picked up U.S. Highway 1 and turned back north. It began warming up, and they took the top down just south of Providence, Rhode Island. They bypassed Boston, took Highway 93, crossed into New Hampshire, and got to the town of Manchester at three o'clock in the afternoon. They checked into a rustic old hotel called the Amoskeag Falls Inn, and then went across the street to the Amoskeag Dry Goods and bought some locally manufactured clothes and shoes and a couple of suit cases. Claire bought a hand bag. Heavy rain was in the forecast, so they bought rain gear.
"I have to take some pictures of this," Claire said.
"What will we do with them? We can't take them back."
"I'll send the film to Bekins back home and tell them to put them in storage and to bill the Walker Creek account."
John nodded. "Pretty clever," he smiled.
She had noticed a camera store up the street. While she went in to buy a Kodak and some film, John went into a drug store and found a hand vibrator. When they got to their room, they showered, and John massaged Claire's back. It was her back that always gave her so much discomfort during her period. They took a nap in their room, then put on some new clothes and went down to the hotel restaurant for dinner. Afterwards, they took a walk along the Merrimack River through a city park and checked out the Falls, which supplied power to the local textile mills.
"So, where are you now?" John asked as they walked back to the Inn. It was starting to sprinkle.
"What do you mean?"
"Where were you in October of 1975?"
"Hm. Let me think. I guess I was starting my last year at UCLA It's sort of a blur. I was hanging on by my teeth, actually. I was doing so many drugs. Reality was changing. I had originally planned to go on for my Masters in Fine Arts, but I guess it was along about this time that I began to make up reasons for not doing that. Reasons like, 'I already knew it all,' and so on. I felt like I was ready to take on the world. Actually, it was the opposite. I was ready to withdraw from the world, follow the drugs on into oblivion. My best friend then was Shereen ... Shereen Casslebaum."
"I remember you telling me about her."
"She was studying to be in casting. She always said that casting was where the big jobs were for women in the movie industry. Anyway, we did a lot of drugs together. I don't know what became of her. I dropped out of UCLA the following April. April Fools Day, as a matter of fact." She laughed sardonically.
"So, suppose we got a plane to L.A. and you looked yourself up right now. What advice would you have for yourself?"
"Hm. Seriously. Everything I had to go through -- the path I was on -- eventually brought me to you, to Marie, to now. I wouldn't change a thing. My advice to myself would be, 'You're right on schedule. You just go on and go for it.' Like in our wedding vows. I'm grateful for everything that has brought me to you, and there was probably no other path that would have led here."
He put his arm around her and pulled her close.
They got back to the Inn and took a rickety old elevator to their room on the third floor. The room had a little fireplace and a box of wood, and John built a fire and they lay down on the bed and watched the flames. They could hear rain on the roof.
"So, where are you right now?" she asked.
"Three months divorced from Carolyn. Teaching science and math and "Intro. to Electrical Engineering" at the junior college in Culver City. A Lit. course on the side. Drinking huge amounts of Jack Daniel's. Going for the same oblivion you were, I guess. It's always amazing to me that we didn't run into each other back then. I spent lots of time in the UCLA library. Hung out in lots of those bars near campus."
"It's probably a good thing we didn't meet," she said.
It was a conversation they had had before. There had been other times and places in their lives when they might have met, in the mid 1980s, for example, during a two year period when they had lived only twelve blocks from one another in Venice, California. Marie had been born by then, and Claire would take her for walks that passed right in front of John's beach apartment. And, there was another short period of time when they were both living in San Diego.
"I'm glad we didn't meet then, too," he said. "We probably would have blown each other out. The mid-seventies was such a dark time for me. It's so great to be back here now ... with a clean slate!"
"Mmm," she snuggled against him. "Read to me. I want to hear what happens to Francesca."
John got the copy of Incredible Tales of Escape from the nightstand and read, "Flight from Tampico. Second Installment, by Ethel Anna Howe."
The Casa la Victoria, north of Tampico on the east coast of Mexico, slipped quietly away behind Francesca, and with it Raphael and his army. She left the throttle of the Brown Pelican at a slow idle so as not to make noise, and she left the running lights off, cruising by moonlight. The dark Gulf waters lapped softly at the hull. The night was sultry and still. Her heart was pounding with the exhilaration of freedom. She felt she had been a captive for so long.
She acknowledged that she had created a fantasy world in Raphael's mansion. She had imagined a family of children growing up there in those lifeless rooms. She had created a labyrinth of fantasies which she viewed not as fantasies but as memories. "What's the difference anyway?" she had often asked herself.
But it was not of those fantasies that she had been a captive, not from those fantasies that she was escaping tonight. Her escape was from Raphael's oppression, the oppression that dripped down over every fabric of her life, flowing over her being, drowning her.
He would, of course, leave no stone unturned in recapturing her when he discovered she was missing. He would unleash all of his terrible forces to follow and find her.
She accelerated, and the launch gathered speed slowly. When she was certain that she was far enough away from the boat house so that the engine could not be heard, she opened full the throttle. The Brown Pelican pitched and then plunged smoothly ahead through the quiet sea. Before long, the horizon dropped from sight in the moonlight behind her. She turned on the running lights, which cast an eerie beacon on the surface of the dark waters. The damp and sultry gulf air played with the skirts of her robe and gown, filling them as the boat cut smoothly through the calm waters.
Where was she going? She had not given that part any thought. Away was where she was going. Far away. There were three auxiliary fuel tanks, and Raphael always kept them full. That meant she probably had a range of nearly 350 nautical miles before she would need fuel. What was within 350 miles? She opened the compartment in the mahogany panel beside the wheel and found charts. She opened them up and studied them. She became startled. It was further than 350 miles to anywhere. At least 370 to Celestun, the nearest port at Yucatan. Nearly three times that to Cuba. North was Galveston, but that was more than 500 miles. If she went anywhere down the coast -- Tuxpan or Vera Cruz -- Raphael would find her. That is where he would expect her to go. He would expect her to return to Mexico City, where he had found her ten years before. So, she must go in another direction.
There were tiny islands due east. Cayo Arenas and Calle Nuevo. A bit south of those were others -- the Triangulos Oeste and Arcas. All these were barely within her present reach. But she would need luck to strike them, because her navigational skills were meager, just things she picked up from Raphael's conversations with Jonas, the ghastly and foul man who captained Raphael's boats. What lay upon those islands? Were they inhabited? By whom? Would there at least be fuel there?
She grew frightened. She was alone, with no one to help her. But she could not go back. She was free now, and she would embrace her freedom and everything that it held within it.
"I love you so much," Claire interrupted.
John lay the magazine aside and turned and kissed her.
"We aren't going to get lost back here, are we?"
"Lost at sea, with no fuel?" John smiled.
"I'm serious. I ... I'm suddenly frightened. Where are we, exactly?"
"Manchester, New Hampshire, October 10, 1975."
"But why did we come here? What are we escaping from?"
"I don't think we're escaping from anything, Claire. I mean, we came here today I guess to 'escape' your period, so we could get some Advil -- some 'Iburin.'"
"I mean why did we come back here at all? I'm afraid." She snuggled into his shoulder. "I want to go home."
"Are you serious?"
She began weeping. He took her in his arms and held her. "Do you still love me?" she whimpered.
"Of course I do, Darling. More than anything!"
It was true. He had never loved anyone as freely and completely as he loved this woman in his arms. In every other relationship with women, he had been on guard emotionally, holding himself back, fearful of losing himself somehow if he let go. But with Claire it had been different from the very beginning. He had come to realize that the thing he used to suspect in himself, a fear of intimacy with women in general, had simply been the result of not having found the right woman. With Claire there was no fear, no need to hold back. Her love was so spacious and kind, so honoring of him just as he was. There wasn't the needfulness in her that he had sensed in other women. He thanked Claire's father for that, a man he had never met, a man who had loved her well for who she was, nurtured her and honored her so that the need for that fundamental substance was not a need she had brought to their relationship.
That was why these times were disconcerting for him, when she would suddenly be overtaken with fear and anxiety and doubt. It was not unusual for her to become this emotionally vulnerable and frail during her periods. The fear and anxiety were nameless and free-floating. But the doubt was often directed at him, at his love, at their relationship, and this was disturbing for him. "Hormones," he would tell himself, but sometimes he sensed that there was some hidden part of her, some traumatized part, some insecure part that was like a ghost, haunting her. When the ghost came, there were no words he could utter that would assure her.
She
had stopped weeping. "I'm sorry," she said. "Go ahead and
read some more."
Francesca cut the throttle back to conserve fuel, daunted by the great distances that stretched out ahead of her. She was growing sleepy. There was a bunk below, but she resolved not to stop yet. She would remain at the wheel, at the throttle, until a new day dawned in front of her. She wanted all the distance she could have between her and Raphael before she would rest her body.
And yet she began to yield to exhaustion, the exhaustion and tension of years with Raphael. The steady drone of the big engine lulled her. The fabric cushions of the bench where she sat were soft and inviting. The air was warm and languid. She dozed, forced herself back to consciousness, and then dozed again. Soon, she was fast asleep.
John paused and looked over at Claire to see if she, too, was fast asleep. Her eyes were closed, but when he stopped reading she opened them and smiled at him. "Are you bored?" he asked.
"God, no. It's a very unnerving story, though. I guess it's because you're not sure what she's running away from, exactly."
"Hm. That's the same question you just asked about us."
"That's pretty strange." He kissed her forehead.
"Want me to read for awhile?" she asked.
"Sure, if you want." He handed her the magazine and curled up next to her and closed his eyes. He loved listening to her voice:
She dreamt she was in a hammock, swinging and swaying, smoothly at first, and then lurching at peculiar angles, tilting and tumbling. Her hair was wet. Then she was awake, falling from the cushioned seat to the deck, careening and sliding clear to the rail. Bullets of rain drenched her, plummeting against her face and arms. Wind whipped her hair. She rolled on to her back. The moon was gone. It was pitch dark beyond the running lights. She struggled to her feet, clinging to the rail. The Brown Pelican was cutting radically starboard, climbing fifteen foot swells, its engine groaning against the ascent, and then it plunged down into a trough of swirling blackness. The boat pitched hard, and spun her across the quarter-deck to the opposite side where she fell again, banging her head on the starboard rail. She struggled to her knees and made her way across the slippery planks to the wheel. Holding on to it, she pulled herself up, leaning against the bench, and attempted to navigate the massive swells. Out at the edge of the glimmer of the running lights, the light was reflected back upon a torrent of rain, blown horizontal by the howling tempest of wind. Then the sheet of rain was replaced by a rising wall of black water, accompanied by a fierce pitch. She turned hard into the swell. The boat pitched again as it crested, seeming to fall away beneath her as it descended into the next watery trench.
Then, somehow above the sound of the raging squall, she heard a voice. It was the voice she usually heard in her head, but it sounded now as though it came from somewhere else, outside of her, up toward the prow of the boat. "Francesca. I am without life now, and alone, but you shall follow me and we shall be one."
"Who is that!" she screamed into the pitiless wind.
There was a faint glow through the torrential rain ahead. It looked like a beacon. There was a form there, as if someone standing in the mist on the very sea ahead of her!
"Shit," said Claire. She stopped reading.
"Mmm," John murmured.
"The fire is going out. I don't think I like this story any more."
"I'll bet it's the vieja." He got up and walked across the room to stir the fire and add logs.
"The vieja?"
"The vieja is going to save her. Lead her to land."
"The old woman, locked away in the closet? That was so weird. Who is she?"
"It's her. The part of herself that she has kept locked away. The woman she is waiting to become or something. It's a feminist story. Way ahead of its time. Kind of thin, but actually not bad for a 1946 pulp fiction magazine."
Claire perused the magazine on her lap. "Hey. Speaking of weird, check this out."
"What?"
"The cover of the magazine. Remember last month they had a picture of Francesca, I guess it was, on the boat in the storm?"
"Yeah."
"Well, it was an illustration for the feature story in that issue, right?"
"Right."
"The caption said, 'Flight from Tampico.' Well, look."
John put the screen back on the fireplace and returned to bed. He looked at the magazine cover. At the center of the drawing was the face of a woman, contorted in terror, racing through the rain in a forest away from something. "No Exit," the caption read. "So?" he said.
"So, there isn't any 'No Exit.'"
"What do you mean?"
"There is no story with that title in the magazine."
"There must be." He thumbed through to the table of contents.
"So, what's this fucking picture about?"
She was right. Where the feature story had been in the last issue, right after the advertisements, was the second installment of "Flight from Tampico."
"Let me see that cover again," Claire said. "What is she running away from?"
"I don't know," said John, studying the illustration. "Yeah, look." He pointed. A ways down a trail behind the woman, in deep shadows, was a figure, barely distinguishable. "Someone is standing there."
Claire squinted at the nearly obscure figure down the trail. "Oh, Jesus," she whispered.
"What?" John could barely make out that it was a person standing there, much less see anything recognizable.
"Look at the eyes."
John noticed that the eyes were the most prominent feature of the shadowy figure.
"It's him." Claire breathed.
"God, you're right."
"And ... this woman. It ... it looks like me!"
"No." John stared at the face. But it was true. It was an amateurish caricature of Claire's face. He somehow hadn't noticed it before. He whistled softly.
She turned the cover, looking for the editorial statement. It was in a box at the bottom of the first page, and said only that Incredible Tales of Escape, was copyrighted in 1946 by Shadow Publications, St. Louis, Missouri. She turned back to "Flight from Tampico" and stared at it blankly. "What the fuck is this?" Her voice was low and angry. "This asshole is really pushing my buttons."
"Ethel Anna Howe," said John. "Hey. Check it out." He got a pen from the side table and started crossing out letters in the author's name. "It's an anagram."
"An anagram? For what?"
He wrote down the rearranged letters: "Helena Wheaton."
"Goddamnit," she snarled, throwing the magazine across the room. "That's really fucking manipulative."
John, for reasons beyond himself, began laughing.
"This is not funny, John!"
He couldn't stop.
"What the fuck are you laughing at? I said, this is not funny!"
"I'm sorry," he chortled. "I can't help it. I don't know why I'm laughing. I'm sorry." He sat with a silly, repressed grin and stared at the fire. "Well, you do have to admit, it's pretty clever."
"It's pretty sick is what it is!"
John shook himself and looked at her. "Well, Sweetheart, the interesting thing, and probably the important thing, is, what's the story about? What is he trying to tell us?"
"Not us. Me! The cover is me! I have 'no exit.' How's that for a 'secret message?' How does that make you feel? No fucking exit!"
"Claire, Sweetie, calm down. Exit from what?"
"From him! It means I'm never going to get back home. It means I'm going to die here. That's what it means." She covered her face with her hands and began to sob.
"Darling," he said softly, reaching for her.
Still in tears, she bolted from the bed, ran to the bathroom, and slammed the door behind her.
He stared after her for a few moments, helpless. He had been here before, helpless in her moments of piercing vulnerability. He retrieved the magazine from where she had thrown it and scanned the rest of the story. He had been right. Francesca saw an image of the vieja off the bow of the launch. She followed it, arrived safely at some island, and was taken in by a kind family. She heard on the radio that the Mexican army had invaded the Casa la Victoria and put Raphael and his cohorts in prison for white slavery. She, presumably, lived happily ever after.
He tossed the magazine aside and lay back and stared at the ceiling, listening to the rain. He was asleep when Claire, a half hour later, came out of the bathroom and crawled in bed beside him.
They arose and left early in the morning without breakfast and without conversation. There was a heavy drizzle of rain, pelting the cloth roof of the convertible. They continued north on 93, riding for miles without speaking. "The ultimate intimacy is shared silence," John reassured himself as he drove. He was in fact grateful for a companion who did not need to fill all the space with words, but it was a false reassurance, and he knew it. Claire's fear lay beneath their silence, which was filled not with intimacy but with some deep apprehension. In his own awakening fear, he felt that something had shifted between them. There was a growing, uncomfortable knot in his breast.
"I love you," he would say to her.
"I love you, too," she would say back, a flatness in her voice.
And then more silence.
"Francesca made it through," he would say.
More silence.
They ascended the White Mountains. The sugar maple, white birch, and American beech were ablaze, a kaleidoscope of color. Just before noon, beyond a covered wooden bridge above the Swift River, near Conway, they stopped at a roadside restaurant called The Maple Farm for apple pancakes and "homegrown" maple syrup. Claire bought maple sugar candies and ate them in the car.
A few miles up the road, they reached the little town of Jackson. In a hardwood grove, on the Ellis River, they got a cabin with a fireplace and kitchen. It was still raining. As soon as they were in the room, Claire lay down and fell asleep. John went out for a groceries, and she was still sleeping when he got back. He brought the groceries in the kitchen door in back so as not to disturb her, put them away, and quietly made a fire. Then he lay on the bed beside her and looked through a Time magazine he had picked up. He started reading a story about the aftermath of the capture of Patty Hearst, and then dozed off.
When he awoke, Claire was gone. He looked around for a note. They always left notes for each another. It wasn't a rule, just something they had always done. But there was no note. He walked to the window and looked down through the rain at the little ravine where the Ellis River flowed just behind their cabin amid an explosion of spectacular fall colors. Probably she had just stepped out to take a few pictures. But in the rain? He turned. The Kodak she had bought lay on the dresser beside her hand bag and other things. He felt a chill. He walked to the door and opened it and stood looking at the empty spot where he had parked the Pontiac. A sick fear spread through him. He turned and walked back inside. He felt that something had fallen out from under them, some critical piece of the foundation of their relationship together. And she had fled. His heart couldn't entertain such a fearful thought. He drove it away.
The car. He had parked it in the spot in front when they arrived, but when he came back with the groceries, he parked it in back, by the kitchen door. What a stupid thing to forget, he thought. He literally ran through the kitchen to the door and opened it. The car was there.
Relief swept through him, but it was momentary. His next thought was that maybe the staring man had come and had his way with her. Now she had disappeared forever.
He grabbed a rain slicker and pulled it on and hurried outside, fighting the blinding panic that was rising inside of him. There was a trail along the river. He paused, looking both directions, and then started walking upstream.
The rain pelted him. He pulled the slicker further down over his ears, peering out through the drizzle into the trees that bordered the river. This was it. The picture on the magazine cover. "No exit." He imagined Claire's screaming face, running blindly through the rain with the man in quiet, methodical pursuit, eyes were filled with indifference. Time was on the staring man's side. He was in no hurry. This was the end. Claire was right. Her fears were grounded not in insecurity but in reality. It wasn't paranoia. It was happening.
Why was he doing this? Why did he want her? The whole trip was some nightmare, orchestrated by ... who? By God? By Satan? John had never believed in Satan. But Claire had. She had grown up with visions of Satan. Her mother preached to her about hellfire and damnation. John's own beliefs were quaking, falling out from under him. Beneath them was darkness. He had thought God a trickster. Maybe instead God was uncontaminated evil. Maybe all of what appeared good in life was a horrible deceit.
The river turned. The rain was increasing. It was growing darker. A portion of the trail was washed away, and John slipped and fell on the wet grass of the river bank. He got to his feet, fighting back tears, searching ahead through the maze of dark trees. His panic was turning to hopelessness. He wasn't going to find Claire. It was too late. Whatever the staring man had planned had already happened. His tears mixed with the rain on his cheeks.
And then, as he rounded another bend, he saw her!
She was sitting on a large, flat rock, a blue rain slicker pulled up over her head. She was tossing stones into the river. Her back was to him. He stood watching her, his tears flowing freely, his heart pounding, thankfulness flooding over him.
She sensed his presence and turned.
"Claire," he whispered, moving toward her.
She smiled, and then she saw his tears.
"You didn't leave me a note," he said gently, sitting beside her on the rock.
"Oh, Sweetheart, I'm sorry," she said putting her arms around him.
He hugged her tight for a long moment, weeping some more, and then reached down and gathered some stones. "Do you need some help filling up this river?" he asked, tossing a stone into the water.
She laughed. "I'm sorry ... I was just ... standing in the kitchen, looking out the window, and I saw a deer along the river. A beautiful doe. It seemed so strange. What was she doing out in the rain? I thought of the fawn who lives in the grassy place where I go sometimes. I had the thought that maybe the grassy place is real. That it's not just a fantasy place I can go inside of myself. It's a place where I can ... where I could live ... all the time. I'm not talking about escaping or anything. It's that maybe it's not just a place to go when I'm afraid. Maybe instead it's a way of being in the world. I had to follow the doe. That moment, in the kitchen, it was the most important thing in the world. I thought she might lead me there somehow. To the fawn."
He kissed her cheek. "Did it?"
"There she is. Over there." She pointed.
The doe stood on the other side of the river watching them.
"Wow," said John.
"She
crossed the river just up ahead there. I didn't see a way across, but
it
doesn't matter."
"Was there a fawn?"
"No, it's probably the wrong time of year for little fawns."
"We could transport to the spring," John said.
She laughed her beautiful, rich, deep laugh. That laugh was the most heavenly music John had ever heard. It was as though it was the music his soul had been listening for all of his life.
"Honey, I'm so sorry I worried you," she said. "I guess I was just a little lost there for a minute. I wasn't thinking."
"Oh, Baby, I love you so much," he said, embracing her.
Two weeks later, on Sunday morning, October 26, 1975, they left Jackson, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and returned to Greenwich, Connecticut, on the New York State line. It had been the best vacation of their lives. The rain had ended, and they had taken long leisurely hikes in the mountains, read books out loud to each other, cooked scrumptious meals in the cozy kitchen of their little cabin, and made love for hours on end. Claire made exuberant sketches of the woods as they might appear in a child's book about gnomes, and John worked out the details for a more flexible and comfortable primary intravenous catheter line for people who had to have semi-permanent i.v.'s installed in their arms. It was a problem he had been working on for a long time.
On the morning that they left the cabin, Claire saw her fawn. He came to the back porch, and she fed him fresh lettuce and cucumber. He actually let her touch his warm nose.
On the drive back south it had gotten too cold to have the top down of the Pontiac. They got a motel in Greenwich, and Claire called information and got the Bekins address back home. She packed and mailed the film and camera and the sketches she had made, along with John's specs for the i.v. catheter line, and they returned the car to Avis.
They called a taxi in the morning. Claire asked if there was a homeless shelter in town. The driver took them to a Salvation Army. Claire prepaid the driver fifty dollars and took the $2,200 they had left inside and gave it to the Sergeant on duty. Then the cabby drove them to the secluded area north of town where they had transported. They found the spot, and Claire set her time watch for the Monday morning they had left in 1946.
They dug up their things and dressed. The Cadillac was still parked beside the road where they had left it. They had breakfast in Greenwich at the same Woolworth's. The food was better than in 1975. They read the Boston Globe over breakfast. The thirty-year-old John Fitzgerald Kennedy had decided to run for Congress in November.
Lennie
Chapter 36
"What an incredible vacation!" said Claire as they drove back toward the City. "I feel so refreshed."
"I do too," said John. "It was like time stopped."
"It did," she laughed. "Plus, we still have all the money we spent."
"You know something, you were right, too, Sweetheart, about the 'playing God' stuff. I hadn't realized how into this gambling thing I had gotten. The movement of all this money around is pretty overpowering. I've never done this before."
"Well, you do it very well, Darling," she kissed him.
"I'll be relieved when this last part is done."
John dropped Claire at the hotel, got some more cash from the safe, and, before he returned the Cadillac, he made his gambling rounds. He was too late for Lennie, but Harrison said that Lennie hadn't come that morning anyway, that they had sent a replacement.
John made his other rounds and placed his baseball bets. Today was also the night of the two prizefights. He spread out thirty-five thousand dollars among the seven bookmakers on the fight that was to be a third round knockout, and got average odds of nine to five. He had lost a total of seventy-five thousand among the seven bookmakers so far, not counting his numbers losses with Lennie. He would lose another thirty thousand today, but recoup over sixty thousand on the prizefight. The bookies would think it natural that he would feel himself to be on a roll because of the big fight wins, which would put him in a good position to bet extremely heavily the next day. He planned to lose on that day also, and return in desperation on Wednesday with a total of a hundred thousand dollars spread among the seven bookmakers, plus bet his usual two thousand with Lennie, this time on the winning number. That day, he would bet winners all the way across, with a few token losers sprinkled in, and, by his calculations, turn the hundred thousand into well over two million. He didn't anticipate any problem collecting, because he would be expected back the following day for a big fall.
The only problem was that he would need an excuse for leaving on Thursday without betting any of his winnings. He had thought of telling them that it was his dead mother's birthday, and that he never gambled on her birthday. He thought something like that would be respected, since he was portraying himself as a bit strange and obsessive anyway.
He went over the plan again with Claire when he got back to the hotel. She didn't like the Thursday part. "What makes you think these guys are going to just pay out at that level?" she asked. "Like you said, it may wipe some of them out. They're not going to let you do that."
"They will if they think I'm going to be back the next day to give it all back to them, and more besides. By Thursday, they'll have me made as a loser who is incredibly wealthy and who just got lucky. They won't have any interest in killing the golden goose. Why would they?"
"I'd still be worried. Can't you get a body guard or something to go with you?"
"You can go with me," he smiled. "We still have the gun you took away from those L.A. gangsters."
"John, I'm serious."
"I know. I'm sorry. I'm just not worried about it, that's all. I know how these guys think. Guys like me are their bread and butter. Plus, I'm using different names in each place. That way they can't peg me through whatever network they have, and I'm sure they have one."
"Well, I see your point. I'm still worried, though. So, we leave on Thursday?"
"I think we should be checked out and ready to go the moment we collect. Make one quick stop at the bank, and a stock broker, and then out of here."
"How do we leave?"
"How about if we have Gus come and pick us up? That way, there won't be any record of our leaving."
"That's a good idea. Do you think he'll do it?"
"Sure he will. I have no idea what his range is in that Beech. He'll probably have to make fuel stops."
"Where will we go?"
"Well, a short stop in Amarillo is probably unavoidable, just to take care of changes in the contract. Bryce doesn't know yet about the cigar store or the transistors. Then, we can go anywhere you want."
"That vacation idea we talked about sounded really nice at the time, but we just got back from one of the most restful ones I've every had. I'm sort of anxious to go to Bodie. That was my first thought in coming back here when we decided on our wish, remember?"
"Bodie it is. Shall I call Gus and see if he's free?"
"Sure. I've got his number in my purse, I think."
"By the way, did you reach Sarnoff?"
"I
did. He has an office in the financial district not far from the store.
I made
an appointment for tomorrow at three o'clock. I also asked if he could
recommend a retail property management company, and he gave me the name
of one. I called, and we can go by there this afternoon, if you want."
"All right! Get those cigars and magazines moving again! You've been busy. Thanks for doing all that."
"You're welcome, Sweetie. Here's Gus's numbers. Both the airport office and home."
John placed the call, tried both numbers, and got no answer at either one. Claire smiled after he hung up. "Why don't we invent the answering machine? We wouldn't have to do anything else if we did that. We'd make billions."
"So much to do, so little time. Hey, why did I say that?"
"Habit, I guess," she laughed. "That's your favorite saying. You haven't said it once the whole trip."
John returned the Cadillac, and they took a cab to the Carlisle and Hodges Property Management Company, a busy suite of offices in the Empire State Building. The firm was very professional and thorough, and said that they were sure they could have the cigar store open again within a week at the most. John told them that the deed would be turned over to Walker Creek Enterprises, probably within a few days, and he gave them Danny's name and the new corporate address and phone number, as well as Bryce Robinson's number. Carlisle and Hodges would take 15% of the rental. Claire and John turned over the keys, and were done with the agreement within an hour.
They had a late lunch back at the hotel. Then they went up to the room and took a nap. When they woke up, they tried Gus Lineweaver again, and got him at home.
"Can you get us out of here?" John asked.
"I can get you out of anywhere, and to anywhere," said Gus. "Name the time."
"Thursday afternoon?"
"Uh oh. I got a ... forget it. I'll cancel them. Drunken deer hunters. I hate 'em. New York City, eh? I've never flown in there, but I'll find out how they deal with us private guys and let you know. Gimme your number."
John gave him the hotel and room number, and said he could leave a message.
"Hey," said Gus, "this little aviation company has got a new twin Beech sitting out here. If you wanna go fast like a sparrow, I can see if I can rent it from them. Cost you a little more. Up to you."
"Get it if you can," said John.
"We'll do it. I'll let you know what's going on. What time you want to leave?"
"Let's say four o'clock," said John.
"I'll be there."
After John hung up they got dressed up and took a cab to Broadway and saw State of the Union, with Ralph Bellany as a presidential candidate.
"You would be a good president," Claire told John while they were having a late dinner after the play.
"You'd be a better one," said John.
"We could do it together. We probably could, too!"
"Wasn't it Margaret Mead who said 'I take politics much to seriously to run for president?'"
Claire laughed. "I don't think we want to stick around that long, anyway."
"I agree," John smiled. "Anyway, I think we're changing enough history for one lifetime."
"I wonder if anyone else has ever done this? Gotten a Genie and come back in time?"
"Maybe lots of people, and that's why the world is so screwed up."
Claire laughed. "Maybe nobody, and that's why the world is so screwed up."
Claire went downstairs with John the next morning, Tuesday, to meet Lennie. They waited for him outside the barber shop, and his face lit up when he saw John.
"Missed you yesterday," said John. "We took a little drive up the coast."
"I wasn't here either," smiled Lennie. "Had to do somethin'."
"Lennie, I want you to meet my wife, Claire. Claire, this is the great Lennie."
"Hi," said Lennie, blushing at John's introduction.
"I told Lennie," John said to Claire, "that you were the best wife in the universe, and so I thought he might like to see what you looked like."
"The best wife in the universe," Lennie said, and covered a laugh with his hand.
"John has told me that you're a really special kid," said Claire, flashing her smile. "I can tell just by looking at you that he was right."
"He's my best customer," Lennie said.
"Want to go sit on the bench?" asked John.
"Sure," Lennie said.
They were walking around the corner toward the garage when Claire suddenly froze. She grabbed John's arm in a fierce grip, and John looked at her, alarmed. "Oh, my God!" she whispered, pointing to the corner across the street.
"What is it?" asked John. All the color had gone from her face. He looked in the direction she was pointing. The corner was crowded with pedestrians, but he didn't see anything unusual. "Claire?"
"What's wrong?" asked Lennie.
"I ... nothing, Lennie," Claire said. "I just thought I saw someone I recognized."
"'Him?'" John whispered.
"No," she said. "I'll tell you later."
They sat on the bench, and John made his usual bet. "I'm going to hit it tomorrow," he told Lennie.
"Sure you will, Mister Banister," Lennie smiled.
They chatted for a couple of minutes. Claire had become very subdued, which made John distracted, and which seemed to make Lennie nervous. He shuffled off saying that it was nice to meet her, and that he'd see John in the morning "to pick up the winning number."
"What on earth did you see?" John asked as soon as Lennie was gone.
"I saw you," said Claire.
"What?"
"You. You were across the street watching us."
"No. You mean someone who looked like me."
"I swear to God, John, you were across the street watching us! I had eye contact. The moment you saw that I recognized you, you disappeared around the corner. It looked like you were with someone. Some man."
"How ... how can that be? It doesn't make any sense."
"I know, but I saw you. Oh, John, I'm scared. There was ... something terrible. I could see it in your face." She hugged him, then drew away. "I thought you said you were using fake names. Lennie called you 'Mr. Banister.'"
"Well, I am. But ... Lennie's an exception. We just, I don't know, opened up to each other. Don't you like him?"
"Oh, of course I do. I mean, he's a great kid, like you said. But ... I'm just very frightened, that's all. Something terrible is going to happen. That's what I feel."
"Well, I'm not sure there's a lot we can do about it."
"We can leave here. Now. Forget the betting. Don't we have enough capital already anyway?"
"A lot of it is tied up in this betting thing. We're leaving the day after tomorrow. It's all set up. I feel like we should go through with it." He stood up.
She stood, too, and put her arms around him. "I'm just really scared. I want you to be careful, okay?"
"I will, Darling. Everything will be fine."
John left to make his rounds, and they met again at one o'clock for lunch in Greenwich Village at the cafe where John had seen the authors and spent his interesting evening while Claire was in California.
"So, how are we going to get to Bodie?" Claire asked absently while they were eating.
"I don't know, Honey."
"The clothing store deal worked pretty good."
"Just so we don't go in the winter. Remember those pictures of the mule trains bringing fire wood?"
"We can go in late September."
"Sweetheart?"
"What?"
"I want to offer Lennie the opportunity to get out of the numbers racket. I want to give him some money to get him and his family set up in Amarillo. He's a smart kid, and Danny or Bryce can find him something part time to do while he finishes school."
"Well, I'm sure he's going to end up in trouble if he stays here," Claire said.
"He'll end up dead or in prison. We can set up a scholarship fund for him with Bryce. Have Danny make a place for him in the company when he finishes school, if he wants it."
"That's nice, Sweetheart," she smiled. "You're such a wonderful, thoughtful person. You know that?" She reached across the table and squeezed his hand.
After lunch they walked down to Edgar Sarnoff's office for their three o'clock appointment. He reviewed the documents that Bryce had prepared and told them it was a sound contract, given their objectives. They drafted a "Last Will and Testament," leaving all of their holdings to Claire and John Redmond. In the case of their own death or disappearance, their holdings would be transferred to a trust and would continue to accrue as dictated by the contract, until Monday, the 12th of August, 1995, at which time they would be transferred, along with the property in storage at Bekins, to the Redmonds or their heirs. If Sarnoff thought it an unusual covenant, he didn't say so. While they waited, he had his secretary type it up, along with the two short amendments concerning Rudy and the transistors, and the Cigar Store property. They signed and notarized the documents there, with Sarnoff witnessing, and he said he would be glad to post them to Bryce. John wrote him a check for eighty dollars.
They took a cab back to the Waldorf and checked at the desk for phone calls. There was a brief message from Gus saying that there was a private aviation center at LaGuardia, that he would meet them there at the pilot's lounge, and that the twin was available.
They went to bed early, but both of them slept restlessly.