by Ray Deeg
An awkward silence loomed, and the speaker erupted again. “I offer my sincere apologies for the confusion, Mr. Hartger. We are tasked with delivering the medal to the Tesla Museum, where it is legally bound.”
As the man spoke, Tom watched the monitor and observed the man’s hand. It was pushed back with the palm open, holding back the two men behind him like a barrier arm at a security gate. The other two men weren’t looking at the camera. They were surveying the area outside as if they were planning a smash-and-grab job.
Tom pushed the button. “I can appreciate a mix-up, Mr.…Durga, was it?”
“Yes, and I am holding an envelope with thirteen thousand dollars cash, which is yours, Mr. Hartger. I believe that’s twice what you paid.”
Tom thought for a moment as his finger hovered over the door buzzer. I’m sure there are other dusty old medals I can find. Tom was awake now, his mind turning. He recalled that Monty had mentioned an East Indian man, some kind of collector who had been looking at the medal the day before. C’mon, how many East Indians are looking for this medal? It’s got to be the same guy. So either he lied to Monty about being a collector, or he’s lying to me now about being an attorney. Either way, he’s a liar.
“Mr. Hartger, could we come up?” the speaker erupted again.
Tom wanted to confirm his suspicion with a little cross-examination. “Mr. Durga, wasn’t it you I saw at Monty’s two days ago—on Friday, right?” Silence. “That was you, wasn’t it?” Tom asked again. He had learned this technique from Conrad—pretend you know something you don’t, and only one of two things can happen: the other guy will either correct you or confirm your suspicion to avoid appearing like a liar. Tom watched the monitor. Esha turned his head, staring at his henchmen as if looking for answers. Even though the monitor was pixelated, Tom could see he’d been tripped up.
“It’s hard to understand you through this speaker. Might we come up and talk?”
After a few moments of silence, Esha gave in. “Yes, I was there.”
“Oh, that’s not good, Mr. Durga,” Tom said in a disappointed tone. “You see, I didn’t see you on Friday. I didn’t even visit Monty’s until yesterday. But thank you for clearing that up. Monty didn’t have any concerns about his legal right to sell the medal, and from what I gather, he’s been in that business for many years. But he did mention in passing that an East Indian collector matching your description had visited the previous day, and now we both know that you are in fact that collector and not an attorney. And I can appreciate your wanting the medal and coming up with a cover story, but the medal belongs to me.”
A long silence followed. “Mr. Hartger, there is more to this than you can possibly understand. Might I come up and explain what’s happening here?”
“No, you cannot. I don’t trust you, and I think this conversation has run its course. And even though you woke me up early in the morning only to lie to me, I’d like to be polite. Please leave now, or I’ll call the police.” Tom watched the pixilated men in his monitor.
“I’m staying at the Waldorf Astoria,” Esha replied, and a bell went off inside Tom’s mind. I just had a dream about the Waldorf Astoria. “Please contact me there if you’d like to understand—not just about the medal, but about your dreams, too.” Esha used his finger to create a spinning motion.
“I thought you said you had a flight to catch, Mr. Durga,” Tom replied.
“Not anymore,” Esha replied as he peered into the camera with unflinching brown eyes.
Tom watched the three men turn and exit the lobby. He could hear the buzzing in his ear again. What had just happened?
CHAPTER 18
TOM LIFTED THE medal out of its case. The profile of a man filled the face of the shiny gold coin. An inscription read, Awarded by the American Institute of Electrical Engineers for meritorious achievement in electricity to Nikola Tesla 1916. The back side had no inscription, but the image was beautiful—a naked man and woman, angel’s wings draped down behind them, standing at the gates of heaven. He felt the medal’s weight in his hand. If that shopkeeper didn’t have the right to sell this, I’m really going to lay into him. He reached into the bag and recovered the receipt and then pushed a few buttons on his phone. After a few rings, a man’s voice answered: “Monty’s Oddities.” The voice did not sound like the man who had sold him the medal.
“May I speak with Monty?”
There was a moment of silence before the voice spoke again. “This is Chief Ian Heckie with the Village of New Hope Police Department. Can I ask who this is?”
A chill ran up Tom’s spine. “Hello, Mr. Heckie. This is Tom. I’m calling for Monty.”
“Tom Hartger?” the man’s voice said. Tom was taken aback. “You are the Tom Hartger whose American Express number ends in 98825?”
“OK, this is getting silly,” Tom said in his very best I’m-close-to-hanging-up-on-you voice.
“Mr. Hartger, Monty Palomar is dead. He was murdered yesterday at around the time you were here making a purchase.” Tom, shocked, was silent. “You were here in the store yesterday, right, Mr. Hartger?”
Although alarmed, Tom knew he’d done nothing wrong and had nothing to hide. “Well, Mr. Heckie, if what you say is true, that is very sad and disturbing news. However, I’m not the type of guy to allow an unknown, unsubstantiated voice on the telephone to rock my world—if you know what I mean.”
“I certainly do,” Heckie replied. “And that’s a very reasonable reaction. Could I ask that you look me up at the office and call me back? I was planning on calling you this morning, even driving out to visit, but if you’d prefer to come in, that’d be magic.”
“Assuming I believe you, do you suspect me of making a purchase using my American Express card and then killing the merchant?”
“Mr. Hartger, a man is dead, killed in his own store, and we know you were there around the time it happened. Do you expect us not to question you? The FBI is involved now, too, and they will likely be contacting you—”
“I should tell you, three men just came to my apartment here in Manhattan not ten minutes ago. One of them claimed he was an attorney representing the estate of a man named Everett Lemily. He tried to buy the medal from me. He offered me twice what I paid. I don’t know how, but they obviously know where I live. That’s why I was calling Monty—to tell him what just happened. Look, I’m positive you should be questioning these men.”
“Thank you. Was anyone else with you when you came into the store yesterday?” Heckie asked.
A flood of thoughts rushed into Tom’s mind. Is this man really with the police? Was there really a murder? Should I mention Gwen’s name? What if Durga has Gwen’s address and is already en route? There were too many unknowns, too many risks to continue the conversation without verification. “Mr. Heckie, I need to go now, but I assure you that I will investigate your allegations and verify your identity. Then either I or my attorney will be in contact.”
“Wait…” Heckie said realizing there wasn’t much else he could say.
Tom ended the call and quickly moved to the bathroom. He began rifling through his drawers. After a moment he found the thing he was seeking—a razor blade. He opened the medal’s case and retrieved the small notebook. Using slow, deliberate force, Tom slid the razor blade down the inside length, where the leather had sealed the notebook shut. After he made a few smaller cuts to the notebook’s corners, it finally opened to reveal dozens of pages filled with handwritten notes and drawings. The pages were perfectly preserved. God only knows how many decades since these pages have seen daylight. On the inside cover, he saw a sketch of a machine with a large, rectangular base and what looked like a miniature Ferris wheel attached. As Tom flipped through the notebook, he stopped to read an entry:
Wednesday, September 14, 1926. A considerable amount of time has elapsed, but I think I am finally able to understand these urges in my mind. Staying at the Waldorf Astoria over the last few days has elevated my dreams to new heights unfathomable
. Something marvelous is waiting, as many have always known. Swami Vivekananda once described the flower of life. As he told it, this flower is a recurring pattern that we all experience. Edwin’s own experiences confirm what Vivekananda had known and spoken of many times before his death. I can finally see this recurring pattern, this blessed cycle that appears when I sleep, and I am positive Alfred’s tower house laboratory is a divine place—well named and suited to peel back the layers that hinder us from reaching enlightenment. This project could alter the course of my life just as a single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant in bygone times may have altered his life’s course. It may have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of the globe. So intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes of Nature. In no other way can we get such an idea of the grandeur of Nature as when we consider that the forces are in a perfect balance: the energy of a single thought, therefore, may determine the motion of the universe.
Tesla’s words were haunting, and far too close to Tom’s own state of mind. The Waldorf Astoria—his dream, where the Indian man said he was staying. Tom’s attention turned again to the drawing of the strange machine and its circular part like a water wheel. The strange thing was drawn looming over a stick figure sketched beside it to denote scale. Was this the same machine I saw at Monty’s? Tom thought again about the mysterious black-and-white photograph he had discovered in the medal’s case. The words Split Rock, Tuxedo Park had been inscribed on the photo.
Tom’s fingers scrambled across his laptop keyboard, searching for news of Monty’s death. And there it was, just as the voice on the telephone had said. Local shopkeeper murdered. Longtime resident and New Hope icon Monty Palomar found stabbed to death yesterday afternoon. Death, its stillness and unrelenting finality, was something Tom had always struggled to understand. The idea that a person, or even a beloved pet, could be here and then just…not…was never acceptable.
The silence in his mind was broken by the patter of his fingers as he typed in keywords: tower house, Tuxedo Park, Alfred. Tom scrolled through results, finding references, pictures, and articles. The images on screen reflected in his eyes like a gold nugget on the eye of a fevered miner.
Tom picked up the phone and tapped the screen. Answer, Gwen, answer! “Gwen, good morning. Sorry to call so early, but some very bizarre things are happening.” Tom hastily told her about the three Indians and their lies, trying to buy back the medal. He told Gwen about his call with Police Chief Heckie and the terrible news of Monty’s death. As he spoke, he gazed from his window past the tulip tree toward the Hudson River. Enlightenment: to be completely aware of and filled with the universe; for the universe to be filled with me. Tesla’s words, what a coincidence. Something marvelous is waiting, just as you’ve always known.
“Can you get dressed and leave your apartment right now?” Tom asked urgently. “Those men might know about you; they could be on their way. I’m sorry, Gwen, but would you please get to a public place quickly?”
“OK, sure. Um, there’s a coffee shop across the street, the Last Groundup, on Twentieth and Fifth,” she replied.
“Get there now, and I’ll pick you up in ten minutes,” Tom insisted. Gwen agreed. Tom packed up his laptop, threw on a jacket, and ran out the door.
As he pulled up to the Last Groundup, Gwen had already spotted him. She came out holding two coffees. “Thank God you called when you did,” Gwen said as she stepped into the car. “Just as I came to the end of my street, those men—it must have been them—showed up at my building. They were knocking on the front door and looking in the windows.”
“This is surreal,” Tom said in disbelief.
“I read about Monty’s murder on my phone,” Gwen said as she stared at Tom. “That poor man. Why?”
Tom shook his head. “This is about the medal, or Tesla’s notebook—or both,” he offered as they drove down Fifth Avenue. “I opened Tesla’s notebook and found dozens of handwritten notes and drawings, including an illustration for a machine. It does something amazing, Gwen. And it all points back to Tuxedo Park and that man Monty told us about yesterday—Alfred Lee Loomis. Let me ask you: have you ever seen Tuxedo Park?”
“No.”
“Well, I hear it’s lovely this time of year. And besides, I need to better understand that little voice inside my head—the one you seem to know so well.”
Gwen held her phone to her mouth and spoke. “Tom Hartger, day two. I’ve become a character in Tom’s mind. As the story unfolds, he’s roped me into another road trip. The subject seems lost in a world of his own making, a world where he is the center and where people and events around him conveniently bow and bend for his sole amusement.”
Tom laughed and punched a new destination into the NAV. Tuxedo Park, New York.
CHAPTER 19
RANDALL STORMED INTO his office, slamming the door behind him. He’d come from the residence of a highly annoyed federal judge. No judge enjoys waking up to FBI agents asking for a signature on a warrant, and Sunday requests were seen as particularly egregious. Randall figured that if things went his way, he’d never have to knock on the man’s door again. Slowly, invisibly, I will reclaim what is mine. Randall’s chest, shoulders, and arms felt larger now, more vital. His chest expanded and contracted with his breath. He sat at his desk, hands firing onto the computer keyboard and causing popping sounds with each blow. He’d spent the day before in New Hope, answering questions and filling out fictitious reports while Tom Hartger and Esha Durga made distance with his legacy.
The sample writing paper with Tom and Gwen’s signatures was crinkled; he smoothed it out and placed it on his desk. His eyes scanned search results until he spotted what he was seeking. A photo of Tom Hartger appeared on screen. Randall stared for a moment, studying the man’s face. The photo appeared on the “Management” page of the Empyrean Ventures website. “There you are, Mr. Tom Hartger,” Randall said out loud. “You did your weekend antiquing in the wrong place, my friend.” Randall scrolled down, reading through Tom’s bio. “Yes, yes—very impressive. Your grandfather founded the company. A rich kid with a silver spoon up your ass. Passionate about technology and protecting the intellectual property rights of innovators. A charismatic and gifted leader—can’t forget that for the ole boilerplate—and graduated from Columbia University. So, a patent troll. Probably a Republican too. Very impressive, Mr. Hartger.” Randall clicked his mouse, and the printer rumbled.
He scrolled through another web page until a photo of Gwen appeared. Gwen Pierce, MD. “And there you are, a passionate and dedicated practitioner, author of numerous articles in scientific publications and peer-reviewed journals, yada, yada, yada, graduated magna cum laude at—aha: Columbia University. Classmates, it would seem. Maybe a college romance.”
Randall printed the image and then turned his attention to a manila folder. Warrant for search and seizure. He organized the documents and then grabbed the photos off the printer and slid them inside with the others he’d collected. He walked down several corridors and then stopped at a conference room and tossed the folder on the table. Sitting around the table was a group of large, burly men wearing vests and tactical gear prominently marked with yellow letters: FBI. “Gentleman, this was authorized by Judge Booker not forty-five minutes ago.”
As the men walked out of the office and boarded a dark-blue van, Agent Jolanda Kulish grabbed Evans’s arm, pulling him off to the side. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What do you mean, Jojo?”
“I just read your warrant and affidavit in Sentinel. You haven’t made contact with these two individuals, and that’s not how we do things. We don’t storm into people’s houses, Randall. And this thing in New Hope yesterday…you’re a liar.”
“Jojo, stand down. Give me a little leeway here. I wouldn’t be doing this unless I was positive.”
“Positive? About what? You know damn well there’s no investigation into any All Tripura Tiger Force. I
looked it up. This isn’t anything we would investigate. You lied to that police chief, you’re hiding evidence, and you won’t tell me what’s going on. You have a personal agenda here. This is way past a little leeway.”
Randall raised his hands. “You’re right. I have not told you what’s going on, so you don’t have all the information. That’s why I’m asking you to give me a little leeway—God knows you owe me.”
Kulish acknowledged his comment with a nod and then gestured toward the van. Randall got in, and the security gate rolled open. Their eyes met again before he slid the door closed. The van pulled out of the parking lot, and Kulish watched it disappear in the distance. She thought about something her mother had always told her: In chaos, there is fertility.
CHAPTER 20
“THIS IS SO awful, Tom.” Gwen finished the article about Monty’s murder and returned her phone to her purse. She rested her head against the window glass and watched trees pass by. A Cole Porter song played softly in the car, and autumn leaves streaked past in shades of orange and yellow. Gwen recalled the sycamore tree in the backyard of her childhood home. Her family had been the first to move into the newly completed development, where nearly all the trees had been cleared to make way for streets and houses. As it happened, Gwen’s tree was rooted squarely in the middle of the backyard and was spared the chainsaw and backhoe. Its massive trunk sprouted four main branches, and she remembered them stretching toward the sky. She recalled running her hands over the mottled, exfoliating bark, which broke loose in reddish-brown hunks like a three-dimensional puzzle; her mother had arranged the larger pieces as a centerpiece on their table. Every fall, countless leaves covered the backyard in earthy tones, and her father raked them into piles.