Edwin's Reflection: A Novel

by Ray Deeg

  The safe was dark green with a bright-silver handle and gold etching. “I’ll be dammed,” Rudy said out loud, his jaw hanging open.

  Their eyes were drawn to a symbol on the safe’s door. It was gold, etched in a classic art deco style, and required a moment of staring to decipher. “That’s his monogram,” Rudy said, brushing his fingers over the letters.

  “Alfred Lee Loomis,” Gwen whispered slowly.

  Below the monogram was an art deco–styled devil faceplate that covered the combination dial. It shone as if polished moments earlier. “Seems to be the theme around here.” Tom gestured to the safe like a model on The Price Is Right. “The honor is yours, sir,” he said to Rudy with a grin.

  Rudy looked dumbfounded. “OK, now, before I rotate the dial, let me try opening it on the chance it might be unlocked,” he said, clumsily thinking through the steps.

  “Good idea. Try the latch first,” Tom replied.

  Rudy, looking as though he might be dreaming, wrapped his fingers around the safe’s handle. Gwen instinctively took a picture with her phone, feeling the historic significance of their find. Rudy turned the latch to the right, but it didn’t budge. He tried pulling left, but still nothing.

  “Locked. Let’s try the combination.” Rudy pulled back the faceplate, revealing a mirrored combination dial that glimmered as if it had just come off the assembly room floor.

  “One thirty, twenty, seventy-nine, forty-nine,” Tom recited.

  Rudy’s fingers came to life, spinning the silver dial. When he finished he pulled the handle. Like a dream, the safe’s door came ajar with an echoing click. Rudy pulled the door open, and the trio gathered closer.

  “You really did it,” Gwen beamed.

  Rudy pushed his hand inside and felt around. His hand returned to the light holding a fork. Again he reached in and came out with a spoon. More silver flatware followed, and then more, and then a bottle of wine, a vase, a stack of index cards with phrases written in Magic Marker, and then a good-looking fountain pen. Finally, he retrieved a personal journal from the safe’s bottom shelf. After careful examination, it became obvious that the journal had belonged to Alfred Lee Loomis. Its pages were blown out, and it appeared to have fallen into water, but the entries were unharmed.

  “This safe has been shut for at least seventy, maybe eighty years,” Rudy said. “You know, I find another secret in this house every year,” he beamed, shaking his head in disbelief. “I’m having a hell of a good time this morning. I’m so glad you dropped by!”

  CHAPTER 23

  RUDY, GWEN, AND Tom returned to the den upstairs with their new treasure in hand, anxious to examine the contents in the light—each for his or her own reasons. Long-lost secrets had been discovered, and what awaited now was man’s response.

  “Can I get anyone a drink?” Rudy asked as he lifted the whiskey decanter.

  Tom declined and began reading entries from Loomis’s journal.

  Gwen flipped through the index cards. “What do you suppose these are for?” she asked, reading the phrases out loud.

  The stock market is unsustainable and will crash.

  Anyone smart is divesting their portfolio of equities.

  The Dow Jones average will drop to less than 200.

  “These flash cards are a little unusual, don’t you think?” Gwen asked.

  “Loomis was a finance guy. Perhaps he was teaching interns the fundamentals of the market,” Rudy replied.

  Tom flipped through the journal excitedly. “This is without a doubt the personal journal of Alfred Lee Loomis: artillery shells, muzzle velocity, chronometry, Tower House, the Skyring Project, sound waves, stock market crash, brain waves, the electroencephalograph…This is absolute gold.” As he flipped through the pages, a small sheet of paper fell into Tom’s lap. “Look here, there’s even a secret recipe for Delmonico’s baked Alaska.”

  “What’s Delmonico’s?” Gwen asked.

  “Delmonico’s was a restaurant, huge in its time,” Rudy replied. “Delmonico’s had many claims to fame, but being the oldest restaurant in the US is one. It was all the rage for high society up until the 1930s or so. Everyone who was anyone ate there: J. P. Morgan, Theodore Roosevelt, Nikola Tesla, Alfred Loomis, Mark Twain…I’m sure you’ve heard of the dishes they invented: lobster Newburg, eggs Benedict, baked Alaska. That was Delmonico’s.”

  “And now we have their secret recipe for Baked Alaska,” Gwen quipped.

  Tom laughed. “Don’t make fun,” he replied. “That recipe isn’t the only secret in here. I see notes on sound waves and spectrometry, and here’s an entry for the cavity magnetron—that’s a component used in a high-frequency radar device Loomis was credited with developing.”

  “You’re in the technology business, I take it,” Rudy said.

  “I am,” Tom replied.

  Rudy nodded.

  “Wow,” Tom nearly shouted. “The first entry was made in 1926. Listen to this!” Tom began reading out loud.

  January 24, 1926—We made a dreadful mistake last night at the clubhouse by accepting an invitation from Amory and Isadora Carhart to join them for dinner. The conversation was weak and flimsy, filled with vile social gossip. Apparently they are planning to construct what sounds like a hideous ballroom addition to their house. Who in their right mind adds a ballroom to their house? They said something about their daughter’s debut. When I suggested they could have far more space at far less cost holding the event at the clubhouse, they wailed like jackals, as if my idea were preposterous and beneath them. Ellen and I won’t be sitting with them again for a good long while—if ever. The stars were glorious tonight, reflecting off the lake as if there were no top or bottom. My fifty-thousand-dollar offer for the Spencer Trask House was accepted, and it’s now mine for a song. I will convert the house into a state-of-the-art science laboratory.

  “Spencer Trask House,” Rudy said. “That’s the joint Loomis converted into his lab. The place is enormous.”

  “Want another one?” Tom asked.

  “Please,” Rudy replied.

  Tom again lowered his face into the journal.

  February 3, 1926—Bonbright is flourishing, and Landon has been a highly effective partner and a true blessing. Morgan’s bank could very well become a stark ally in this competitive business. I have concerns that several utilities we agreed to underwrite may not have been vetted properly or thoroughly and that their inherent risks may not have not been adequately disclosed. Edwin telephoned yesterday, and we spoke for nearly an hour. His research on the cosmos and nebulae is simply fascinating. To see a star in the heavens and realize it could be another world is altogether humbling. To know its light began its journey millions or tens of millions of years ago gives me the sensation of being in a tiny boat on a vast black sea. He speculates that many of the stars we can see no longer exist but that it could be millions of years before their light stops shining. How little we understand about this place.

  “Another?” Tom asked, getting immediate nods of approval.

  February 10, 1926—I am contracting to have the main rooms of the Spencer Trask House gutted and have received the architect’s designs to transform the entire structure into a laboratory. I will build a world-class machine shop that will provide us the ability to fabricate anything we can imagine right here in the Park. The spectrograph is being delivered to the Trask House from East Hampton. It will be installed in the basement. Nikola has ideas that originate from a mystic swami called Vivekananda, whom he was close friends with some years ago. Tesla shared a drawing with me. It was a strange machine that he believes will function to uncover some deeper layer of energy. Tesla has asked me to build the machine and agrees to split any revenues generated by its application. I need to be careful with Tesla. He is seen by most as a mystic himself, and many in the scientific community feel his theories are unstable. He is well regarded for his work with Westinghouse, but many investors have seen less fruitful results. Having lost $150,000 on the Wardenclyffe tower
project, Morgan knows firsthand that Tesla’s ideas are far from sturdy. I will keep my association with Tesla quiet and limit any investment.

  “That journal could be worth a bundle,” Rudy said. “I’m going to have it appraised.”

  Tom and Gwen glanced at each other but stayed silent. “Here’s another one,” Tom said, realizing this might be his only chance to find answers about the machine.

  February 17, 1926—The contracts for the Trask House are secured, and the work has begun. Edwin continues describing a strange event. As he tells us, he aimed his Mount Wilson telescope at a small cluster of stars at such distance that he theorizes no one could have observed them before. After peering into the eyepiece, Edwin saw a bright light, which he says did not enter through his eye but through his mind, as if he were receiving a signal. In that brief moment, Edwin became transfixed, almost frozen and disoriented. As he tells it, there was no up or down. His vision became round—or did he say curved? He claims his vision was all encompassing, as if seeing through the vantage of a sphere outward toward everything. After a few moments, the light faded, and only distant stars could be seen in the eyepiece. Edwin searched for hours trying to relocate the light but found only the vast blackness of outer space. When I listen to Edwin and Tesla speak to each other, I become nervous, the two feed off each other, becoming feverish and frantic. They sound like schoolchildren. Tesla claims the opening Edwin saw was a window to himself, to others, and perhaps to some almighty power—a grand reflection of everything in our universe. Based on that single experience, Edwin suspects that all matter could originate from a single force, and that everything we see, touch, and hear is an elaborate grand stage—a puppet show, he states, that is fleeting compared to that which waits on the other side. Tesla and Neils are of the opinion that Edwin’s search in the stars is useful but that we can dig deeper right here inside a lab; there is little in outer space that cannot be studied right here on Earth. Most of my colleagues want to zoom in closer, not see farther. Tesla, however—a mystic at heart—claims that Edwin’s experience is exactly what his swami described years earlier. And in the two years I’ve known Edwin, I’ve never known him to become so frantic. Nikola and Edwin have come up with a name for our project: the machine will be called Skyring.

  Tom looked at Gwen. He saw his own thought reflected in her eyes: We’ve stumbled on to something.

  “Bebe,” Rudy called out suddenly to no one that could be seen. “Bebe, we have guests for lunch.”

  A lovely woman entered the room and smiled. The four talked over lunch while Rudy polished his new silverware. It was a perfect afternoon. As the sun went from white to orange and the excitement of new friends and secret discoveries wound down, Tom knew that their unplanned visit was coming to a close. “I have to thank you again for today; it’s been nothing short of incredible,” he said.

  “Me too,” Rudy replied. “You two are now my favorite trespassers.”

  Tom looked around as if searching for words. “Now that I know you, I feel compelled to tell you something. It may come across as strange, even disturbing.”

  “I love disturbing,” Rudy replied.

  “Well, the owner of the antique shop, the one where I bought the medal. He was…”

  Rudy shrugged. “Yes?”

  “Well, apparently the shopkeeper was murdered yesterday just after I purchased Tesla’s Edison Medal,” Tom admitted.

  Rudy moved his eyes to Gwen, who nodded in confirmation.

  “There’s something else. Three men, East Indians, came to my apartment this morning. They are looking for the medal I purchased and very likely for what I found inside. You should have seen these guys—they just had to get their hands on the thing. I wanted to tell you because I believe they’d do anything to have it. I don’t know if they would come here, but I wanted to be honest with you since the trail leads here.”

  Gwen nodded again, and her words broke the silence. “Now we know what they may be after: this Project Skyring.”

  Rudy kept his eyes down while he polished his new flatware, appearing unconcerned. He hummed to the music playing in the background while he thought on their words. “You know, I once knew a Swede,” Rudy said, breaking the silence. “His name was Lage, and he used to come around here to drink my booze. He told me something I never will forget. He said fear is like yesterday’s newspaper: you crumple it up and throw it the trash. Never be scared of anything or anyone, and keep a close eye on yourself. I appreciate the heads-up.” Rudy continued his polishing.

  Tom felt clearer, focused. He’d been thinking about Gwen’s real-time framework; he’d been observing the squatter. “The Loomis journal belongs to you,” Tom said. “But I’d like to borrow it for a few days while we piece some things together. You have my solemn word on returning it.”

  Rudy began laughing. “The journal belongs to the house more than me. I haven’t had this much fun in years, and considering I didn’t even know about the safe until you came along, I’ll let you borrow it. In this life, all we have are our connections with others, and I can tell you’re a man of your word.”

  As Rudy walked the two to the car, Tom saw him look around the yard suspiciously. Tom wondered if Rudy was scanning his well-manicured landscape out of fear, wondering if he’d spot a tall Indian man lurking in the bushes.

  Gwen and Tom got into the car. As they looked back, they saw Rudy zip his mouth shut with his finger. “Don’t tell anyone you know me,” he said with a sly grin.

  “Thank you, Rudy,” Gwen replied through a smile.

  As they pulled away from the gracious gabled mansion, Gwen glanced back at the expression on their new friend’s face. It glowed orange in the afternoon sun. He lifted his hand and held it up. Her feeling of impending doom had been greatly diminished. She felt a sense of calm and closure, although she wasn’t sure why. Instinctively, she pushed her hand into Tom’s.

  When his two new friends pulled out of his driveway, Rudy went back inside. He moved quickly to a wall-mounted phone in the kitchen and dialed some numbers. He held the receiver to his cheek and spoke. “They just left. Yes, it happened exactly as you said it would. Yes I did, and they asked to hold on to it—just like you said they would. When will you wire the money, and what’s this thing about a man being murdered?”

  CHAPTER 24

  THE DARK, UNMARKED van pulled back into the bureau’s gated parking lot. It stopped, and Randall stepped out dressed in tactical gear. He looked tired and disappointed. Four other agents, also in tactical gear, stepped out too. “You’re really getting the extremists off the street, Evans,” Agent Deleon said. “A CEO and a psychiatrist; call John Walsh, guys—the crime wave is going national.” The other agents laughed.

  Randall only stared. Deleon was not a tall man, but he was built like a bulldog, pure muscle. Randall thought Deleon might be attractive to women in a blue-collar sort of way. He wondered how the hell he had passed the bureau’s aptitude tests; clearly, the man was a Neanderthal.

  “Whose house are we going to bust into next?” Deleon asked sarcastically. “Bill de Blasio’s?”

  The four men in SWAT gear burst into hysterics. Randall envisioned Deleon mowing his Jackson Heights backyard, drinking a Bud. He felt inhibited by Deleon. In fact, he despised the man. If the world were correctly organized, Randall thought, Deleon would be hurling trash into the back of some verminous garbage truck, collecting filth and scum under his fingernails and breathing in all the foulness of the city’s putrid refuse. Randall stared into Deleon’s eyes. Death diminishes me, but yours would nourish me, lift my spirits to new heights. I’d show up to your funeral wearing a half shirt and drinking a bottle of Dom.

  Without another word, Randall headed back upstairs to his office, stripping off his black jacket and vest and securing the assault rifle in the armory. As he reached his office, his breath became labored, his skin clammy. He closed his office door and noticed something irritating inside his clothes. He scratched at it, tore at it, but quickly real
ized that the itch was under his very skin. He flailed his arms, moving his body like a modern dancer. He wiggled around for another moment and then went still, accepting that he would not be able to escape. As his grandfather had told him as a boy, he was trapped in there.

  He paced around his office and then placed his forehead back in its usual spot against the window. He stared down into Federal Plaza, calm and quiet on a Sunday afternoon. He moved to his desk and began clicking the mouse. A woman’s voice came forth, calming him, and his breathing slowed. He unlocked his desk drawer and retrieved the harmonic coil from the bag inside. He held it to the light, admiring its alien glimmer. He allowed his fingers to take inventory, making sure it was real. He examined the metal, the craftsmanship; he could feel that a powerful force had passed through the material. It radiated outward, moving from the metal to the tips of his fingers and into the depths of his mind.

  Nothing we see, touch, or hear here is real. These senses only create electronic copies of what’s outside our bodies. I want to truly feel, to truly touch, to truly see.

  He suspected he was close to knowing something few would ever know, to unlocking a pathway into the space in between. He sensed that the object was something of great consequence. He unfolded the schematic drawing, his fingers still tingling. The design of designs. Unless he got his hands on the other three oscillators, the incredible thing he had would be nothing more than an exotic paperweight. I need the other coils. I need all the parts. Anyone who interferes needs to be arrested, locked up, their possessions seized.

  Randall opened a form on his computer and began to type, speaking the words out loud. “Three men murdered an innocent shopkeeper. No, that doesn’t feel important. How about this: Three Muslim extremists, with known ties with the All Tripura Tiger Force, executed a shopkeeper—a Christian shopkeeper—in New Hope, Pennsylvania.” The sound of Randall’s keystrokes seemed choreographed with the music. “In an effort to take possession of an illicit—no, dangerous—wait, hazardous device. That’s it. Two additional suspects, Tom Hartger and Gwen Pierce, are wanted for questioning in connection with the shopkeeper’s murder.”