The Third Circle
Chapter 40
Part
IX - The Place Where There is No Time
Chapter 41
Chapter 40
John hurried back to the hotel after his last trip to the bank, but Claire wasn't there. He looked around the suite. Her clothes were gone. There was no note.
His heart sank, and he felt as though he was awaking from a dream that began with hearing of Lennie's death. He looked at his watch. It was three o'clock. Where was she? Probably on her way to the airport to meet Gus. Where would she go? He couldn't believe she had not stayed with him. His recollection of their argument was vague. He felt tormented by Lennie's death. It had triggered something deep inside himself that he didn't understand. The memory of the last time he saw Lennie, standing in the street, waving, was frozen in his consciousness. He had to go and join Claire. He couldn't leave her. But he couldn't let loose of that vision of Lennie. He believed it was possible not only to go back and save him, but also to ... what? Get revenge? That's what Claire had said it was. Was that it?
The phone rang. It was Steenberg.
"Well, Banister, this is interesting."
"What do you mean?"
"I hit a brick wall. Nobody knows anything, And the thing is, I believe they are telling the truth."
"You're saying you agree with the police? It was a mugging?"
"Oh, it wasn't any mugging. There was a contract out on him. But it looks like it came from outside somewhere. And somewhere pretty high up. The word on the street is that the hit was done by somebody out of town, somebody not connected with any of the people he worked for. Chicago, maybe. I can't figure it. He was a nobody. I don't mean that the way it sounds. I mean he was a nobody in terms of what anybody knew about him. People on the inside of this liked the kid, in fact."
John was shocked. It didn't make sense. It was impressive how much Steenberg had found out in such a short time.
"I went over to the Bronx," Steenberg continued. "The mother is pretty hysterical. She doesn't know anything. The kid never made it home last night. She only vaguely knew about what he was involved in. I gotta tell you, though, she thinks you had something to do with it. Apparently you went over there yesterday and made some kind of offer that she didn't understand. I couldn't figure out what she was talking about, she was so hysterical. What is your interest in this exactly?"
Mrs. Schoeman thinks I was involved. A sick feeling rippled through John's stomach. "You want the truth?" John asked Steenberg.
"Yep," he replied.
"I'm ... my wife just left me over this, and I ..." he paused, his mind racing. He had to go back. "Look, Steenberg, if you are willing to work with me on this, why don't you meet me here at the hotel early tomorrow morning. I'll explain it all then."
Steenberg paused again. "Why not?" he said.
"Come up to my room. Six o'clock. It's Room 2005."
"Six o'clock? In the morning?"
"That's important. Will you do it?"
"Six o'clock it is," said Steenberg.
John hung up the phone and looked at his watch. Five past three. They were scheduled to meet Gus at four. If he got a cab right now, he could possibly still catch Claire. He thought of Mrs. Schoeman, and the deep, sad, brown eyes of the two little girls who had stood in the doorway. He walked out on the terrace and sat down. Claire would be safe with Gus. Where would she go? He had no idea. A profound grief fell upon his heart as he looked out over the city. All of the energy sweeping up from the streets felt adversarial to him now. He was filled with a feeling of overwhelming isolation. He began to cry, in deep, wrenching sobs. His sorrow over Lennie's death, his bitter pain that Claire hadn't stayed with him, and his sudden sense of loneliness cascaded into the only emotion he could endure, and he fell into a deep sepulcher of self pity. Stumbling, blinded by tears, he walked back into the room and fell on the bed. Beyond his gloom was dreamless sleep.
Gus Lineweaver was two hours late. The first bad rain storm of the season had come up out of the Great Lakes, and he had to pull south almost to Louisiana. He crossed the Appalachians at the Georgia border, fueled in Atlanta, and landed in New York just ahead of the front. Claire was sitting on a bench in front of the Westwind Pilot's lounge at the LaGuardia private aviation center. She watched him as he ambled toward her from the tie-down section, carrying a nap sack over his shoulder, his red hair blowing in the breeze. His expression changed from a broad smile to a frown as he approached her.
"Say, here," he said. "What's this? You're not that sad just because I'm late?"
She got up and went to him and put her arms around him and began sobbing.
"Oh, now, what is it here?" He hugged her. "Where's John?"
"He's gone, Gus. We ... we had a terrible fight. I want to go to a place north of Los Angeles. I think you can land in Santa Barbara. It's near there."
"We can't be too hasty," he said, petting her hair. "That storm won't let us out of here until morning anyway."
"Oh," she said.
"Besides, I don't think that your John will be too quick to leave a fine woman like you. He loves you deep in his heart, I can tell that by the way he looks at you. Not that I'm much of an expert in such things, I guess."
Claire heaved a sob, then tried to compose herself. She looked at him, and managed a smile. "Well, thank you for your sentiments, Gus. Let's go inside and see if we can find some lodging nearby. Wait out this storm."
She got on the phone in the pilot's center and found two rooms ten minutes away at the Windsor Hotel. They had dinner in the hotel restaurant, although Claire didn't have much of an appetite. Gus was polite, and careful not to pry into the reasons for the separation. Claire wanted to tell him all about it, but didn't know how to without sharing the unbelievable parts. She considered whether or not Gus could handle the truth, whether in fact he might be able to go back with her and help John. What could he do? Bomb the mob's headquarters from an airplane? She ended up telling him that they had had a disagreement over money, and left it at that.
She didn't sleep well, tossing and turning. She awoke with a start at almost five o'clock in the morning in a deep depression. She had never felt so alone, so torn, so powerless. Memories of John washed over her, his smile, his wit, his amazing sensitivity, the way he looked at her when his love shined through. Why had he been so stubborn, so blind? Or was there something she couldn't see? Why couldn't she see it? Was she that lacking in compassion? He was only doing what he apparently felt in his heart was right. The pain was that it seemed as though he had found something besides them, besides their love that was worth risking everything for, worth dying for.
But you left him, remember? He didn't leave you. He only wanted you to come with him. Or did you forget that part?
She rolled out of bed and paced the room. What sense did it make for her to go back and get killed too?
Maybe you will get killed. Maybe you won't. Maybe it's your destiny to be with him, no matter what. Why do you have to understand it? Just surrender to it?
She knew that their destinies were linked. She had sensed that from the moment they had met. It wasn't just because they were married. The marriage was only a celebration of the fact that here was someone with whom she was going to travel out her days. That's what the vows were about. The commitment was to ones self, really -- through "the happy times, the difficult times, for all of the days that were before them." And, she smiled to herself, in this case, all the days that were behind them as well.
She had to go back and find John.
She turned on a light, sat down, and wrote Gus a note. She wrote that she was sorry for the inconvenience. She asked him to please stay for two or three days. If they didn't call him, he should leave without them. She enclosed several hundred dollars and put the cash with the note in an envelope.
She quickly dressed, slid the envelope under Gus's door, caught a cab, and headed back for Manhattan.
The
Place Where There is No Time
Chapter 41
John awoke near three o'clock on Friday morning. He had knots in his stomach and a splitting headache, and he felt puffed up and still fatigued. He tossed and turned, but realized that going back to sleep was hopeless. He showered, put on some fresh khaki pants and a long sleeved shirt, and went downstairs to take a walk and wait for Max. Maids were scrubbing the lobby, and the concierge was dozing in his chair. John went outside and wandered the streets for more than two hours in a light drizzle of rain. He stopped in an all-night diner and drank coffee. He tried to eat some toast, but he didn't have an appetite, and was afraid he would throw up if he ate anything. He tried to read a newspaper, but the words didn't make sense. All of the stories seemed contrived, made up. They were about a reality that was far, far from where he lived.
He wandered, and his wandering took him to places that he and Claire had been together over the past days, laughing, shopping, playful in their freedom, mesmerized in the images of the past. All feelings of nostalgia about those images were gone now. The mystique had disappeared. The past felt feebly mundane now, dark, and strangely fractured. He knew why it had felt dreamlike in the beginning. It was because he had been living it through his fantasies about it, not experiencing it directly. The fantasy was broken. Maybe his marriage as well. He wept again at the wrenching anguish in Claire having left him. He was sure she would have changed her mind and returned, but she had not. She had not called. Neither had Gus called, which had to mean that Claire had connected with him. Where did they go?
He returned to the hotel on the garage side, where he had last seen Lennie, waving and smiling in an almost angelic way. It brought him back to the awareness of why he had to try and save him.
He walked into the lobby at five-thirty. Max Steenberg sat in one of the luxurious lounge chairs near the elevators, drinking coffee, smoking a cigarette, and reading the morning Times. He got up when he saw John. "You look terrible," he said.
"I had a rough night," said John. "Come on up."
Max brought his coffee and followed John up the elevator to his suite.
"Let's sit down and talk," said John when they were in the room. He led Max to a couch and chairs. Max sat on the couch, and John sat across a coffee table from him. "Thanks for coming so early. I want to feel some willingness on your part that you're going to go all the way through this with me."
"I'll do what I can," Max said comfortably. "But, I got to tell you that I need you to be straightforward with me. I want to know what I'm getting into. It doesn't make sense to me that an obviously intelligent and cultured guy like you, staying in the best suite at the Waldorf, is mixed up with some nobody Jewish kid from the Bronx who wasn't doing nothing but running numbers. You know what I'm saying?"
"I'll explain it all," said John. "But if I try to explain the most important part, which is the part I need to explain if we're going to be able to do anything about Lennie, you aren't going to believe me."
"Try me," said Steenberg. He lit a cigarette.
John studied him. He shook his head, got up, and walked over to a large wardrobe closet and opened the door. "I want you to come over here and look at this."
Max got up and crossed the room to the closet.
"See these?" asked John. He ran his hand over the half dozen shirts, two sports coats, and suit that hung there.
"Yeah," said Max. "Nice."
"Okay, come back over here." John went over to the couch and sat down. "Sit," he said, patting the cushion beside him. "You see this?" He took the time watch off his wrist and adjusted the dials.
"Yeah. Strange looking watch," said Max.
"It is a strange watch," said John. "There's only one other one like it in the whole world, and my wife has that one. I told you she left me yesterday."
"Yeah, you did," said Max.
John ran his fingers over the face of the watch. "They were given to us by a man who came out of nowhere, many years from now."
"Oh, yeah?"
I don't know how it works," said John, turning the watch over and examining it. "Surprised the hell out of me, I can tell you that!"
"So, what? - does it tell the time in some different kind of way?"
"You might say that. You're not going to believe this, Max, but this watch will take you and me, sitting right here this very minute, back to Monday morning."
Max grinned, shook his head, and stared at John. "Well, you're a crazy bastard, aren't you?" He ground out his cigarette in the ash tray on the coffee table.
John took Max's arm and pressed the lever.
Max Steenberg scrambled naked to the floor, banging his hip on the coffee table in front of the couch. "What the fuck!" he shouted.
"Relax," said John, leaning forward and examining the watch. "See? You can move back and forth with this thing."
"What did you do with my goddamned clothes, you fucking huckleberry?"
"The clothes don't travel with us. They're right where we left them on Friday morning. They'll be lying on the couch when we get back. It happens that you can't move anything around with this thing."
Max got to his feet, glaring at John. John went to the closet and tossed him a hotel bathrobe, and put one on himself. "Look," he said.
He opened the closet doors and ran his hands over Claire's clothes that hung beside his. "My wife's clothes. Right where they were Monday morning."
Max stared at them.
John picked up a phone on the table. "Come here, Max," he said.
Max put on the robe and moved toward John.
"Room service," he said. "Banister. 2005. A pot of coffee and this morning's Times. Make sure it's this morning's, all right? And a pack of Lucky Strikes. Thanks. Listen, what is the date today?" He quickly held the phone up to Max's ear. Max's eyes widened. John hung up. "I know this is hard to handle, Steenberg. It was for me, too." He walked over and sat down on the couch. "Its Monday morning. Last Monday morning. September 23rd. My wife and I are up the road heading for New Hampshire. You're off doing whatever it was you did last Monday morning. But now, you're here, too. When we go back, we'll go back to the same moment we left, sitting on this couch on Friday morning, September 27th. We'll pick up right where we left off. But in the meantime, we're here."
"You're full of bullshit," said Steenberg. "These are cheap parlor tricks. I want to know what the fuck you did with my clothes."
"I didn't do anything with them. They just stayed behind. You would have, too, if I hadn't grabbed your arm. I would have just disappeared."
"All right, asshole. Why don't we just 'go back' and see?"
"You want to do that?" He adjusted the watch, stood up, and walked over to Steenberg. The man stepped back, staring at John. John grabbed his wrist and hit the lever.
"Jesus Christ!" Steenberg bellowed his way out of Monday into Friday.
"There they are," said John, pointing to the couch. He readjusted the watch, grabbed Max again, and took them back to Monday.
"See?"
said John. "There's your robe on the floor where you left it."
Steenberg stood trembling. He glanced at the bathrobe, and then back at John. John walked to the closet and pulled some clothes on. "Relax," he said. "The coffee and Monday's paper will be here in a minute. The room service is great here. I've been moving a lot of money around, Steenberg, jumping back and forth like this. Reading the paper on sporting events and numbers, then going back and betting. That's how I met Lennie. I've been cool about it. Lose a little, win a little more. I want you to forget your twenty-five dollars a day. I'll give you fifty thousand dollars to walk through this thing with me. Now, the reason we came back here, Lennie didn't make his regular rounds on Monday. That's today. When I saw him the next day, Tuesday, he said he missed Monday because he had to do something. He didn't say what it was. I think that whatever it was he did on Monday led to his getting hit Wednesday night."
"You a fucking time traveler? Fucking H. G. Wells fucking time traveler? Is that what you're saying to me?"
"You too, now, Max," John smiled. "It's a trip, ain't it?"
"What was that blackness you dragged me through?"
"I don't know. I guess it's the place between times. The place where there is no time. Speaking of time, your stubborn-assed skepticism is wasting a lot of it. I'm going to go out and find you something to wear. You can stand there naked, or you can put the robe on and have coffee and read Monday's paper. Then we get a cab and go to Nugent's Laundry and Dry Cleaning on West 22nd and wait for Lennie to show up for work. We follow him, and find out what he did today. Then, maybe, we'll have a lead. If we don't, we'll follow him until we get one. Somewhere between right now and Wednesday night, there's a lead to what happened. I'm hiring you to help me find out because you're a detective. You are a detective, aren't you?"
Steenberg looked at him evenly and nodded.
"What size suit do you wear?"
"48 long."
"Pants?"
"Forty-two thirty-six."
"Shoes?"
"Thirteen D."
There was a rap on the door. "Room service," said a voice.
John let the waiter in, and Max grabbed his robe from the floor and put it on. The waiter put the coffee on the table. John signed the check and tossed the paper to Max. He stood staring at the date on the front page. "Help yourself to coffee. I'll be right back," John said, and left with the waiter.
John went to the front desk and asked for a spare room key. He asked for his briefcase from the safe, and took out a packet of hundred dollar bills and several twenties, and the gun Claire had taken from the L.A. mobsters. Then he walked over to the concierge's desk.
"Get your car all right last night, Mr. Banister?" the man asked.
"I did. Thank you very much." He took a pad of paper on the desk and wrote as he talked. "Listen, I know stores aren't open yet. I need a pair of men's pants, forty-two thirty-six, skivvies, a belt, a pair of men's shoes, thirteen D, an extra large man's shirt, and a sports coat of some kind, 48 long. I need them in my room within fifteen minutes." He handed the concierge four hundred dollars.
"What colors would you like?" said the man, smiling.
"Whatever," John said with a wry smile. He went back upstairs. Steenberg was standing on the terrace staring out at the city. He turned when John came in. John put the pistol on the coffee table and got some socks out of his drawer. "Put these on," he said, tossing them on the couch. "The rest of your clothes will be here in a minute. We gotta move fast. It's almost seven o'clock already."
The clothes came in ten minutes. The concierge, beaming, delivered them personally. There were nice gray dress slacks, matching sports coat, a white shirt, and black oxfords and matching belt. John gave him another hundred dollars.
Max dressed in silence while John gulped coffee and tried to rearrange things the way they had been before. Max picked up the pistol and checked it. It was a snub nose 38. caliber revolver, with four live cartridges in the cylinder. John told him they could stop for more shells at the first opportunity. Max nodded, then shook his head, and dropped the pistol in the pocket of the sports coat.
As they left the suite, John set the room service tray outside down the hall. The doorman got them a cab, and they rode to Nugent's Laundry.
Claire ran into rainy Friday morning rush hour traffic, and didn't get to the hotel until just past seven-thirty. She stopped at the desk for another room key, because she had left hers when she moved out the night before. She hoped John hadn't checked out. He hadn't. She got a key and hurried to the room.
John wasn't there. His clothes, and those of someone else, were on the divan. She had the feeling she had just missed him. Where would he have gone? Well, it didn't matter. She knew where to connect with him. She had been reconstructing last Tuesday morning in her mind. By eight o'clock, they had been in the hotel dining room downstairs having breakfast before going to meet Lennie. She sat down and waited until the clock by the bed read eight o'clock, then took out her time watch and transported back to Tuesday.
She dressed from her clothes in the closet. She suddenly wasn't tracking very well. She felt a slight headache coming on. She went down to the desk to get another room key, looking nervously toward the dining room. She asked for the briefcase from the safe. There were only a few hundred dollars left. The gun was gone. She took some currency, put it in her pocket, asked that the briefcase be returned to the safe, and walked outside. She crossed the street to the corner where she had seen John that morning and waited.
John and Max got to Nugent's at fifteen minutes before eight on Monday morning. They sat in the taxi across the street. At a little past eight, Lennie came around their cab from behind and jaywalked across the street.
"There he is," John whispered.
Steenberg nodded. They watched as Lennie disappeared into the laundry. He reappeared less than five minutes later with Marty, the man who had paid off John's numbers bet. The two of them talked for a moment, and Marty handed Lennie a piece of paper and hailed a cab. Lennie got in the taxi and rode away.
"We can come back and shake him down later," Max said, pointing at Marty, who was standing across the street watching the cab drive away. "Let's follow the kid."
"Follow that cab," John told the driver.
The cab headed north to 110th Street and stopped in front of a big brick house facing Morningside Park. A heavy set man came out to meet Lennie, carrying a brown leather satchel. They both got in a tan Plymouth that was parked across the street, the older man behind the wheel. John and Max followed them in their cab up Highway 9 to Yonkers, where, less than an hour earlier, Claire and John had turned right toward Mt. Vernon in their rented Cadillac. The Plymouth continued north on Highway 9, and Max told their driver to keep well back so they wouldn't be seen as they left the city on the four lane highway. After they had driven an hour, the Plymouth stopped at a filling station. John and Max passed, pulled off the road a quarter mile ahead, and waited, pulling out behind the Plymouth again a few minutes later.
They rode for another half hour in silence.
"So, what's your real name?" Max asked John, keeping his voice low. He lit a cigarette.
"Redmond. John Redmond."
"And you're from nineteen fucking ninety-five, is that it?"
John nodded. Max shook his head and looked out the window. "I swear to God," he muttered. Then he looked at John. "So, this fella you told me about. Give you the watch. How did you meet him?"
"He just came out of nowhere. In our living room. On a Saturday morning. We had just bought an old clock in an antique store."
"He comes out of a fucking clock?"
"Not out of the clock. I mean, sort of, but basically, he was just suddenly there. Standing in the living room."
"What did he look like?"
"Just a guy. An older guy. Wore an old gray suit of some kind. Just a regular type of guy. Real casual, sort of."
"And told you what? To come back here?"
"No, he said we could have any wish we wanted. Anything. 'The sky's the limit,' he said."
"Lemme see that thing again." He took John's wrist and studied the watch.
"Careful," said John.
"Don't worry," said Max. "So, how come you wished for this shit?"
"I didn't wish for this shit. My wife and I talked it over. We wanted to see what things were like in ... you know, 'the good old days.'"
Max made a sardonic grumbling sound.
"We figured we could come back and make a lot of money because we would know how things come out."
"So, how do things come out. Wait a minute. Maybe you shouldn't tell me."
"Well, I can tell you, it seemed like things were a lot worse. In 1995, I mean. Looking back, it seemed like things were really different back here. I guess maybe not a lot has changed. Different people doing the same stuff. Machines change. Technology. All of that."
"Just tell me one thing."
"What's that?"
"Does a Jew get to be president?"
"Nope," said John. "One Catholic. No Jews."
"Figures," said Max. "More wars?"
John nodded. "They quit calling them that. But, yeah. Weapons change. Things get meaner."
"I don't want to hear about it."
They passed through the town of Poughkeepsie, and a few minutes later the Plymouth turned off Highway 9 at Hyde Park. John and Max followed it at a safe distance to a quiet street of elegant homes on the Hudson River. The Plymouth disappeared between hedges down a private driveway.
"Wait here," said Max. "I'll check it out."
The cab driver parked along the street just up from the driveway, and Max climbed out of the back seat and walked back toward the driveway, stepping into the hedge. John waited for a couple of minutes, and then grew anxious and got out of the cab to follow Max. He got to the driveway and peered around the corner. The driveway was circular, and the Plymouth was parked in front of a white, brick, Georgian style mansion. John could see the driver still in the car. A moment later, Lennie came out of the front door and climbed in the passenger side. John heard something behind him and turned around quickly. It was Max.
"Did you see anything?" John asked.
"Lennie took the satchel in the house. Looked like a butler let him in. He was in there five minutes or so. That's all. Just a delivery of some kind."
The Plymouth continued around the circular driveway, and John and Max stepped into the hedge to hide as it pulled out on the street. Then they trotted back to the cab, and picked up the Plymouth's tail again back on Highway 9 heading south.
"So, what do you make of that?" John asked.
"Some kind of drop. I'll get on the phone when we get back and find out who lives in that house."
"Why would they kill him for just making a delivery? Maybe they're going somewhere else now."
"Maybe so," said Max thoughtfully.
But they only returned to the house at Morningside Park. The man parked the Plymouth, and Lennie caught a city bus back to Nugent's Laundry. Max and John followed. Lennie was inside the laundry for less than five minutes, and then came out and disappeared into the subway. John paid the cab driver, and they ran to follow Lennie. They got on an uptown train two cars behind him. They moved to the car behind Lennie's, and John stayed there while Max went into Lennie's car. They got off in the Bronx, and followed Lennie four blocks to his house and watched him disappear inside.
"Well, there it is," said Max. "His 'Monday errand.'"
"So something else is going to happen. The reason for the contract going out."
"I'll hang around. Meet you back at the hotel."
"We can't go back there," said John. "I'll run into myself and my wife, eventually."
"Then how in the hell are we going to get back to Friday? Back to my clothes?"
"Claire and I didn't stay in the room the whole week. We'll just pick a time when we weren't there. Don't worry about it."
"This is a crazy deal, I'll tell you that. So, why don't you get a room somewhere else? The Palace is on 50th and Madison."
"I'll see if I can get us in there. If I can't get a room, then I'll meet you in the bar there at around ten o'clock tonight."
"I'll call you there. I'm going to hang around here and see if he leaves tonight. There's a bar over there." He pointed. "The Western Cocktail Lounge. See it? I'll hang out there till they close. Tell me this. Does Lennie know you as Banister?"
"Yeah."
"You better use Redmond when you check into the Palace. Be on the safe side.
"Okay."
"You got any cash?"
"Oh, sorry," said John. "Here." He handed him a roll of twenties. "Hey, Max?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
Max nodded, and John walked back toward the subway. He looked for a cab along the way, but couldn't find one, and ended up taking the train back to Manhattan.
He got double rooms at the New York Palace Hotel. There was a clock on the bedside table. It was half past three in the afternoon. He and Claire were, at that moment, at Carlisle and Hodges Property Management Company in the Empire State Building. He considered going back to the room at the Waldorf and picking up some clothes, but decided against it. He took a shower. He wondered if he, the other him, would miss the cash he had taken out of the briefcase. Then he realized that if he had noticed, he would remember, and he didn't.
He lay on the bed. He and Claire were heading back to the room by now to take a nap. His heart ached. He missed her so much. He wanted to go there, crawl into bed beside her. He reeled at the thought of what her reaction would be, what his reaction would be. His mind blurred as he tried to sort out where he was, who he was. How many of him could there be? he wondered. What if I just kept coming back, again and again. There could be five, ten of me going on at once!
The phone rang. It was Max. "I found a phone booth down the street here," he said. "I can see the kid's apartment from here. I called the newspaper office in Hyde Park. Made up a story. A Congressman lives in that house where they made the drop. Name is Willard Morrisey. I checked around. He's been taking payoffs from the mob for a long time."
"What about the house on Morningside Park. Did you check that?"
"Numbers banker. Name of Fred Lazarini. He owns Nugent's laundry, and a bunch of other small operations as well. Pawn shops, couple of meat markets. All numbers fronts."
"So, what are we looking at?"
"I have no idea. Looks like Morrisey needs some cash. Calls Lazarini. The kid and one of Lazarini's chumps make the delivery. They pick Lennie because they trust him. They always send two guys when there's a lot of money involved. Keep one another honest."
"So, I don't see why they would hit Lennie. He just did his job."
"Yep. Unless he seen something up there in that house that he wasn't supposed to see."
"What if we shake down the guy who rode up there with him?"
"I got a guy does stakeouts for me sometimes. I can call him and have him take over here. My feeling is that the kid is in for the night. I got to tell you, though, I'm at a crossroads here. We walk into Lazarini, or his chump, the walls come down around us. You can zap out of here. Me, I gotta live here."
"You're getting cold feet. That's what I meant about coming all the way in this with me. I wasn't just talking about coming back to Monday, you know."
"I know. I'm just saying, who the hell knows what we're up against, you know?" He paused. "Why don't we just go in and pull the kid and his family out? Get 'em out of town?"
That was Claire's suggestion, thought John. Move them to Amarillo. Or St. Louis. Or anywhere. Tonight, even. Right now. Why not? That was the only logical thing to do. His mind raced ahead. That would change tomorrow. Tuesday morning, when Claire met Lennie, when Claire saw him, John, across the street. That wouldn't happen, because Lennie would be gone.
"Hold on," said Max. Something's happening."
"What?" asked John.
"I don't know. There's been a car parked across the street. Big black Chrysler. Three guys inside. Italians. One of them just got out and walked into the apartment house. I'll call you back."
"Why didn't you tell me somebody was watching him?" John asked, but Max had hung up.
John paced the room. He became obsessed with the implications of getting Lennie and his family out of there tonight, hiding them out somewhere. He remembered vividly what had happened Tuesday morning. How could he change that? Would he be creating some third, weird reality in which Claire never met Lennie? In which he won the number on Wednesday with the gawky kid who was Lennie's replacement? In which he and Claire never separated? If that was what happened, why couldn't he remember it? Because it didn't happen. Because it's too late. Because something else is going on. The momentum. It's the energy mosaic.
He walked over to the window and looked out on Madison Avenue. Fate and destiny, he thought. He remembered a German poem, something about fate being like the wind, and destiny being like a river. Maybe Max Steenberg is over there in the Bronx getting killed right now. I came back to save Lennie, and instead get somebody else killed. Maybe I am like Rasputin -- some Dark Servant of Destiny. Maybe I could go back to Sunday. Get Lennie and his family to Amarillo. Get Max to Amarillo. Get the whole fucking world to Amarillo! Safe and sound, all tucked in on the panhandle. It will be a headline in the New York Times: "John Redmond saves the world in 1946 -- MOVES EVERYONE TO AMARILLO, TEXAS".
The phone rang.
"Max!" John said, picking it up.
"Yeah, the guy just checked the mailbox. Came back to the car. They're just sitting there now. So, I guess we got two stakeouts here."
"Well, at least something is happening. We got a lead."
"Yep. Nope. There they go. Just pulled away. I don't see no cabs. Shit. Tell you what. Lemme call this guy who does stakeouts for me. I'll let him take over here. I got the plates on that Chrysler. I'll get them checked out, and then go over to the Morningside house and poke around."
"I'll go with you."
"That's dangerous."
"I know. This is all dangerous. I'll get you your fifty thousand before we go in if it will make you feel better."
Max didn't answer.
"I'll meet you at Morningside," said John. "Five-thirty."
"Okay," said Max, grudgingly.
"Get some more bullets for that gun," said John.
"See you there." Max hung up.
John looked at the clock again. It was nearly four o'clock. The bank was closed. He would have to get the fifty thousand out of the safe back at the Waldorf.
Along the way, he passed a sporting goods store. He went in and bought a Smith and Wesson .44 caliber pistol and a box of cartridges. He also bought a small canvas satchel. At the hotel, he transferred fifty thousand dollars from the briefcase to the satchel and asked that it be held in the safe for Max Steenberg, who would be in later to pick it up.
He got a taxi in front of the hotel and went to Morningside Park and sat on a bench across from the brick house to wait for Max. The tan Plymouth was parked halfway up the block in the same spot where it had been left when the driver returned with Lennie. John felt the weight of the pistol in his coat pocket. This is my destiny, he thought. My river. This is why I came.
Just before six, a taxi pulled up and Max got out. He walked over and sat beside John on the bench, and they looked across the street at the house.
"You get your stakeout guy?" John asked.
"Yep. He'll hang there in his car. Spend the night."
"What about the Chrysler?"
"Bogus plates. Nothing. I should have followed them."
"How?"
"That's just it."
"What now?" John asked.
"Well, that's quite a thing to walk into," Max said, gesturing across the street, "given the assumptions we have here. Let's say that Lennie saw something up at Hyde Park. The question is, does he know he saw something? If he does, did he tell this chump?" He pointed down the street at the Plymouth. "If he saw something, would Lazarini know what it was? If the answer is 'no' to those questions, there ain't nothing in that house for us to barge in and find out." Max lit a Lucky Strike. "On the other hand, if the answer is 'yes' to any of those questions, that means that the knowledge is already out about why Lennie got hit. If it is, how come I couldn't get a line on it Friday? My local connections are good."
"So maybe we should be in Hyde Park instead, shaking down the Congressman."
"Maybe so," said Max.
"Tell me about your 'connections.' Or is that a trade secret?"
"Won't be no trade secrets for me at the end of this," he said, "assuming I'm still alive. I'll have to borrow that watch of yours and take my fifty grand and hide out in the fucking sixth century or some goddamn place. Maybe I'll go down to Mexico City. I was there once, a few years back. That fifty grand will last a long time down there."
"It's in the safe at the Waldorf with your name on it. You can pick it up any time."
Max shook his head. "What a crazy goddamned thing this is," he sighed. He ground his cigarette out with the toe of his shoe and lit another one.
"You got a family?" John asked.
"Got a sister over in Jersey City. See her once a year. Nobody else."
"Never married?"
There was a long silence while Max stared at the end of his cigarette. "Yeah," he said. "I was married once. Had two kids."
"Where are they?"
"I was a cop. Over in Brooklyn. Lieutenant, in fact," he chuckled. He looked at John. "What the hell? It don't matter anyway. I was working homicide. Couple of rum runners got machine gunned right down the street from the goddamned precinct. I saw it happen. Knew who did it. On my way to sign the charges at the DA's office, five stooges ran my car off the road. Tried to buy me off. Everybody was on the take back then. I sometimes thought I was the only honest cop in Brooklyn. I told them to go fuck themselves. There it was."
John stiffened. "Your ... family?"
"It was a nice little house we had on Flatbush. They put a fire bomb in the garage. Set it off right after my son got home from school."
"Jesus Christ, Max. I'm sorry."
"It was a long time ago. I quit the force right after that. Went to Chicago for awhile. Stayed with my father until he died. Came back here in thirty-eight. Don't know why I told you all that. Been ten years since I told anybody that story. Sounds funny, saying it. Like it happened to somebody else."
"They ever get the guys who did it?"
"Shit. Nobody never got nobody in those days. May just as well have firebombed the fucking Police Station. Saved the taxpayers some money, at least. You Puritan fucking gentiles and your fucking prohibition tossed everything in a cocked hat. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. That was a dumb thing to say. You weren't even around. I'm sorry."
"It's okay." John squeezed Max's forearm. "I'm sorry for all you suffered, Max. That's a lot of pain."
Max looked at him with an odd, quizzical expression, and then stood up. "Well," he said, stomping out his cigarette, "let's see what we've got here." He walked across the street toward the brick house.
John, startled, got up to follow him. "Max. Wait."
Max stopped and turned.
"I changed my mind," said John. "Let's go get Lennie."
It took a few minutes to find a cab that would take them to the Bronx. On the way, Max said, "look, Banister. Redmond. I think this is a good idea. But, I gotta tell you. The guys in the Chrysler. The casers I saw in front of the kids place."
"Yeah"
"Serious people. I can tell. Seen 'em like that before." He turned in the seat. "You're on your way to remove their target. That ain't gonna make them go away, you follow me? Whatever the reason is that somebody wants this kid dead, the fact that he just got removed, disappeared, is going to make them want him dead even more. You got to get the fuck out of here, way out of here, and you got to do it fast. There's serious resources involved here behind this thing. They're gonna be all over his route, and the trail is gonna lead to you eventually."
"I'm impressed. I follow you. I'm out of here. I got the advantage. I can back out." He tapped his watch.
"Well, do it without a trace."
"I've got a private pilot meeting me."
"That's
good." He turned and looked out his window. "Let's just hope
your wife is well clear of this."