by Dan Walsh
“It’s that much fun?” she said.
“Yeah.” The thing was, we both wanted this car, she way more than me, but that was before I’d gotten to drive it. “I love you, can’t wait till tomorrow . . . Mrs. Kuhlmann.”
“What?”
“You’ll see.”
We hung up. I reached down and gathered the manuscript together, carefully. First thing in the morning, I planned to make a hard copy and bring that down to Jenn. I’d put the original in a safe deposit box at the bank. Then I had another idea. I could buy a recorder, dictate it, and hire someone to make a digital transcript from that. When the time was right, I could email copies to the rest of the family. I wanted to talk to Jenn first, but I thought whatever we wound up doing with this thing, it should be a family-wide decision.
Back in the office, I opened the wooden box and laid the manuscript inside. A temporary home. I had no plans of bringing the box to Florida. But I was starving. So my plans before turning in tonight were simple: get something to eat, buy a nice big envelope for the manuscript, and pack.
Before stepping into the kitchen, I turned off the office light. Barely a few steps away and I felt this nagging sense that there was something undone back there, something to do with the manuscript. I walked back, flicked the light on, and stood by the desk.
I looked down at the desk, at the typewriter. There was my grandfather’s journal. Still nothing. I opened the wooden box, and it clicked.
Special Agent Victor Hammond.
Since this story was true, then Hammond must be a real person. So was his partner Nate. What if one or both of them were still alive? They’d be in their late eighties, maybe early nineties, but it was possible. What if my grandfather used their real names? He’d used his—he’d written “Ben and Claire” on the back of that picture.
Starving or not, I had to check this out. I grabbed my laptop and hurried to the couch. Didn’t really know where to begin, but if Victor Hammond was somewhere on the earth, I planned to find him.
18
It was almost midnight. This late-night stuff was starting to get to me. I had just taken a week’s worth of clean underwear and put it in the bathroom trash can instead of my suitcase. But I was happy—ecstatic might be a better word.
Something amazing had just happened. The kind of thing that fit perfectly with everything else that had transpired in my grandfather’s tale. Left me thinking of that old familiar phrase . . . “the plot thickens.”
Thirty minutes ago, after three hours of searching the internet, I received an email from a retired FBI agent who knew Victor Hammond and thought he might still be alive. “He was five years ago anyway,” he’d said. “Golfed with him in Florida when we were down there at Disney World. Moving slow these days, but still kickin’, I think.” He didn’t remember where Hammond lived. Said Hammond had driven over to golf with him “from somewhere on the east coast.” I took that to mean the east coast of Florida.
I sent him a follow-up email, trying to verify that, but in the meantime I started looking online through the white pages for a “Victor Hammond” in the major beach cities, starting at the northern end of the state. No Victor Hammonds in Jacksonville. None in Saint Augustine. Then I came to Daytona Beach.
No way, I’d thought.
Typed it in. Yes way.
There it was: Victor Hammond, 93 years old, Daytona Beach, Florida.
I wasn’t surprised to find that Hammond had retired to Florida. Having lived in the Orlando area, I knew all about the lure of the Sunshine State to retirees. But it was intriguing to see he’d picked Daytona Beach, of all places, to live out his final days. Not to mention that it saved me the trouble of flying off to who-knows-where to meet him, since I’d already planned to go to Daytona myself.
Initially, I had planned on calling him in the morning. Most elderly people I knew didn’t stay up this late on purpose. Then I had the thought to leave him a voice mail. If he was asleep, it wouldn’t matter, he’d just hear the message in the morning. Then I had another thought. Don’t call him from my cell phone, call him from Gramps’s house phone. Maybe he had caller ID, and in that case, he’d see my grandfather’s name when he looked at it. For all I knew, the last time the two men spoke might have been that night in Savannah back in 1943, but what if it wasn’t? I felt it was worth a try.
I don’t remember the exact message I left. But to my surprise, five minutes later, Victor Hammond called me back.
His voice was frail and weak, but I understood him clearly. “I’ve been expecting your call, Michael, ever since your grandfather’s passing. I regret I’m too old to travel. I wanted very much to pay my respects in person at his funeral. He was one of the finest men I’ve ever known, and a good friend.”
“Mr. Hammond, I can’t believe it’s you.”
We agreed on a time to meet, the day after tomorrow, mid-afternoon, at his condo on the ocean in Daytona Beach Shores. I put my clean underwear in my suitcase, where they belonged. I was exhausted but wondered how I would ever be able to sleep.
19
Florida was living up to its reputation. It was a gorgeous October day, mid-seventies, surprisingly light humidity, a nice breeze coming in off the ocean, the sun high overhead and blocked only on occasion by a smattering of clouds.
The normally boring drive down yesterday didn’t seem half so bad when traveling in a sporty little car with an outrageous sound system. I was thankful for cruise control or I would have undoubtedly averaged a hundred miles an hour. When I’d arrived in Orlando, I picked Jenn up from her last day of work, took her out to a lovely restaurant in Winter Park, then moved over to the passenger side to let her drive us both an hour east to Daytona Beach.
I had booked us in a five-star beachfront hotel that actually overlooked the historic Bandshell. It was too dark to see it when we checked in last night, and I had more important things on my mind. The room was fabulous, the hotel itself much fancier than where we’d spent our honeymoon. Jenn and I got to make up some valuable lost time. We had the kind of time that was . . . well . . . that was nobody else’s business.
The next morning, after sleeping in and eating a late breakfast in our room, I’d left her out on the balcony reading my grandfather’s manuscript.
I discovered that Victor Hammond’s condo was only ten minutes south of where we were staying, but since we’d agreed to meet in the afternoon, I spent the time in between checking out the various places I’d read about in my grandfather’s book. Starting with the Bandshell.
It was exactly as he’d described it, except the rows of wooden bench seats were gone. But I was very likely standing in the exact spot where Gramps and Nan had danced together for the first time. I walked along the “broadwalk” beside the Bandshell where they’d walked, and stopped along the railing to gaze out at the ocean. When I turned, there was the tall clock tower, next to the Bandshell, where they’d met that night, the time when Gramps first saw Nan reach out for his hand.
Not far from there I saw a Ferris wheel but, as it turned out, not the same one they’d gotten stuck on that night. I’d asked a gray-haired woman selling hot dogs in a stand nearby. She turned out to be a wealth of information. This Ferris wheel had been built a few years ago. The one Gramps and Nan had ridden on had been taken down in 1989. But still, standing nearby I could easily see them sitting up there in the gondola, aware of the romantic vibes pulsating between them. Gramps going crazy trying to behave. Nan pretending her feelings didn’t exist.
Remarkably, almost the entire downtown area of Daytona Beach had been preserved. Woolworth’s was gone. McCrory’s too. But the original buildings were still there.
The beautiful riverfront park across the street had not fared so well. The grounds were still there, with nothing built on top of it. Even the walkways, little bridges, and ponds were there. But almost all the palm trees had been removed and all the gardens. I’d walked through it, tried to find the place where Gramps and Nan had first kissed, where they’d h
ad that fateful conversation the day Jurgen’s body had been discovered. The day Ben thought his world had just ended and he’d lost Claire forever. I stood there, surveying the area, trying to take it in. It was satisfying getting to see all these places, knowing they really did exist. That my amazing grandparents with their crazy-amazing love story had stood right here and had done all those things so many years ago. When they were crazy in love.
Like Jenn and me.
I took one last breath of the fresh sea air and worked up the nerve to get in my Mini Cooper, drive back across the river to Daytona Beach Shores, and hear everything retired Special Agent Victor Hammond had to say.
20
I parked in the visitor’s section and easily found the security phone next to the front door. Hammond’s condominium was nice but not nearly as tall as those standing on either side, nor as elaborately landscaped. He buzzed me through. I stumbled over the black floor mat just inside the door, grateful no one saw.
The elevator didn’t respond the first time I pushed the button, so I stabbed it a few more times. That doesn’t help. Just calm down. I was hearing Jenn’s voice in my head.
Hammond’s unit was 6A, a straight ocean view. But it turned out to be at the far end of the hallway as I got off the elevator.
The door opened before I rang the bell. Someone who looked nothing like the Victor Hammond I’d created in my mind stood smiling in the foyer. I’d allowed for age. Apparently not enough.
“Come in. You must be Michael. You look just like your picture.”
Picture?
“I am, and you must be Mr. Hammond?”
He closed the door behind me. “That’s me, but call me Vic,” he said as he stepped around me and led the way. We walked into a modest-sized living area with an amazing ocean view. On one side was a full-length sliding glass door that opened to a balcony, on the other a large picture window.
I stood in front of the glass door. “I don’t imagine you ever get tired of this, Vic.”
“No, I don’t. God puts a new painting on display every day out there. Have a seat, have a seat. Care for something to drink? Got diet soda, beer, bottled water. Could make some coffee, if you’d like.”
“Bottled water would be great.”
“Well, I’ll get it. It’s so nice out, thought we might sit on the balcony.”
“I would love that.”
He walked into the kitchen, slightly bent at the waist. Maybe five-feet-eight-inches tall. Looked like he used to be close to six feet. Totally bald, thick glasses. But he had a great smile. One wall was covered with family pictures in a variety of sizes and frames. I walked closer. He appeared to have three children, two daughters and a son. A number of grandchildren, maybe great-grandchildren. One row, scanning right to left, was like watching Vic and his wife marching backward in time. I could see the essence of the man in the kitchen getting younger and younger. The oldest photograph actually resembled the man I had pictured while reading Gramps’s book.
“Here you go.”
“Thanks. You live alone, Vic?” We walked toward the sliding glass door.
He sighed. “Yeah. Me and your grandfather had that in common. Angie passed away three years ago. Supposed to be the men that go first, right?”
“I guess so.”
“My daughter lives in town, on the mainland. She checks on me once or twice a week. Makes me wear this thing around my neck.” He held it up. “Supposed to fetch the cavalry if I kick the bucket.”
Just then I noticed three dark bookshelves along a living room wall. My eyes fixed on the top two rows in the center. I couldn’t be certain, but it looked like he had every single book my grandfather had written. All hardbacks. “Are those . . . first editions?”
He stopped and looked up. “Ah, I should have guessed you’d spot those. My proud collection. Yes, every single one a first edition. And . . . all signed by your grandfather himself. Pull one out, have a look.”
I did and opened its cover. My eyes almost bugged out. I recognized my grandfather’s writing from all the books he’d signed for me. But in Vic’s book, he’d written, “To my dear friend, Vic. A very special agent.” Then his signature.
Gramps had a distinctive signature, pretty fancy. But you could still decipher his name if you knew what you were looking for. The thing here was, he spelled his last name with a “K” not a “W.” Then I realized. “Is that . . . ?”
“Kuhlmann?” Vic finished. “Very good, Michael. Yes, it is. Your grandfather’s little code. Just for me. I told him before he died, ‘You know, you really screwed this up for me. How am I going to sell these as an autographed collection if some stupid Kraut wrote his name in all of ’em.’”
We both laughed.
“So you guys stayed in touch all those years?”
“A little. Hardly at all in the beginning. There was a very real danger of your grandfather getting caught, not just during the war. Really throughout the entire Cold War era.”
“Really,” I said. “That was going to be one of my main questions.”
“How come he kept his identity hidden all these years?”
I nodded. “I can see why in the beginning. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot the last few days. Why keep this thing going so long after the war was over? Even from your family?”
“Let’s go outside and I’ll tell you.”
He wrestled with the sliding glass door. I grabbed the part above his head and got it moving freely. In the middle section, the balcony was wide enough for a round white table and four padded chairs. He sat down, but I stopped to enjoy the view a moment. To the south was the stone jetty near the inlet. Somewhere around there is where the stock cars used to race in the thirties. At the northern end I could actually see the Main Street Pier sticking out in the ocean. In one of the hotels just beyond that, my Jenn was sitting on a balcony too, reading the manuscript.
“I imagine it would be hard for you to grasp, Michael. The way things were back then. 9/11 really changed the game quite a bit. Before that it was the Communists and before that, the Nazis. My partner Nate and I did something for your grandfather that would not only have gotten us fired, it would’ve sent us to prison, maybe for life. That was the atmosphere back then.”
I sat down, opened my bottled water. “Vic, before we go on, I just have to say thank you for what you did for my grandfather all those years ago, back in Savannah.”
“You don’t need to thank me, Michael. Your grandfather’s already done that more times than I can count.”
“Maybe he did, but I want to myself. I’ve been thinking about this. I wouldn’t be here, none of my family would be here if it weren’t for you and Nate, what you did all those years ago.”
“Well, looking at what your grandfather did with his life, it was one of the best off-the-record calls I ever made. Way I figured, it really wasn’t all that illegal. Not technically. Didn’t have a witness protection program back then. I figured, that’s really all Nate and I had done.”
“I get that, Vic. But still . . . thank you.”
“You are most welcome.”
“Can I ask you something . . . was there really any danger of him getting arrested? I know there was in the beginning. But ten, twenty years later?”
“There’s no statute of limitations on espionage, Michael. Even now. Technically, your grandfather could have been arrested right up until the day he died.” He sat back. “Now I don’t think that would have happened, not for the last ten, fifteen years. Government’s got a lot bigger fish to fry. I suppose by then and, really, for all those decades, he was Gerard Warner, not Ben Coleman or Gerhard Kuhlmann anymore. The life he’d carved out for himself and his family was who he was, who they were. No sense in upsetting all that, opening up Pandora’s box.”
I took a swig of water. “I guess I can understand that.”
“You remember that book he wrote, A Rose by Any Other Name?”
I nodded.
“It was like our little joke
, that book. When I read it, I saw all kinds of clues in there about your grandfather. We talked about it the next time I saw him. Remember that line when the main character—I forget what his name is now—said ‘A name? A name means nothing. A man is who he is on the inside. That’s all that matters.’ Laughed out loud when I read that.”
I decided right then, I’d be reading that book again. “How often did you keep in touch?”
“Just every now and then. Like I said, not at all for years in the beginning. First contact was when his first novel came out. At first, I thought who the heck sent me this? Then something of a coded letter followed, and I began to connect the dots. At one point, after he’d become a bestseller, he’d gotten permission to spend some time with an FBI agent for research and mentioned he’d read about some of my cases.”
“And they assigned you to help him?”
Vic got a big smile on his face. “After that, it was much easier for him and me to interact.”
“Did he do something like that with Nan’s parents? The Richards family?” I really hoped so. But Vic’s expression instantly changed.
“That’s the sad part of the story. First sad part was Jack, Mary’s brother. He died in the war, in ’44, I believe. He’d been married, but they didn’t have any children. Your grandparents had this newspaper code they did with Mary’s parents. Did that all through the forties and fifties. Worked pretty well, he told me. Then they found out her parents died in a car accident out west, 1961, I believe. After that, it was just the two of them.”
This information instantly saddened me. I’d begun to hope there might be another whole side of the family yet to discover. “Vic, you said last night you were expecting my call. How did you know I—”
“Your grandfather came to see me, about a month before he died. I could see he wasn’t well. He told me all about the book he’d written, telling about their story. The scheme he had in mind to get you to find it.”