by Zack Mason
The foreman, Rory O’Toole, was hot-tempered and mean. You could see it just by looking into his squinty eyes. That he was a drinker was evidenced by his bulbous red nose and blotchy, vein-filled cheeks. He’d immediately jumped at the opportunity for cheaper labor and hired Mark, firing one of the other men to make room for him.
Mark hadn’t wanted to get anybody fired, but he needed to stay close to Walker so he could learn his habits and be in a position to save the boy later.
He learned over the next few days that Herbie and his friends were more than familiar with hard work. They arrived at the plant every morning around 6 AM and worked until well into the evening, and it wasn't uncommon for O'Toole to ask one of them to work on through the night shift too.
Much of the time, Mark succeeded in positioning himself near the boy during their shifts. Anywhere that Herbie went, Mark was sure to go. He became his clandestine shadow, unseen and unnoticed, yet never more than twenty feet away, listening to conversations, identifying potential threats.
Mark learned a good bit about the boy. He was alone in Chicago, trying to earn enough money to keep room and board at a nearby shelter.
His parents had heard work was to be had out in California, and in these hard times, any chance of hope, even a mere rumor, was enough to make a family jump. They had begun a migration of the whole clan from Philadelphia out west, but the expenses of the trip proved to be too much of a burden. Every mouth to feed was one mouth too many, and Herbie was old enough to make it on his own. At least, they had desperately wanted to be believe he was. So, they’d left him to fend for himself in Chicago.
The Depression ripened young men and women into adults long before their time, and that early maturation often led to early rotting as well, though in Herbie's case, the morals his parents had impressed into him seemed to be enduring.
They'd promised to write, but he'd never gotten a letter, not that he didn't keep checking the local post office. No phone calls either. Chicago was a big city, Herbie reasoned. Some day he'd save up enough money to follow them out to California. Then, they'd be together again.
Young Walker had been working at this factory for several months now, and by all accounts, he was a great employee. He excelled at whatever he did, and made an effort to go beyond the call of duty, even though he was never rewarded for his efforts. Instead, he lived under the constant threat of losing his job to someone who would work for less. Still, the boy plugged on, working toward some unknown goal he kept private inside his head.
***
Today was the 16th and the lunch whistle had just blown. Tonight was the night Herbie would be attacked and killed. Mark had already pieced together parts of an overall plan to intervene, but he still had to work out the details.
For now, all the men were pouring out of the factory, so Mark began following Walker and a few others out to the waterfront where they would snarf down their cold sandwiches before the whistle shrieked again, signaling the end of the very short break.
“Hey, Scab!”
Mark glanced up and, much to his dismay, saw the insult had been directed his way. Its author was a large, rough-looking, bearded man who looked more like a lumberjack than a waterfront worker.
“Yeah, I’m talkin’ to ya!” The man strode briskly toward Mark, closing the gap between them quickly.
“You’re the reb who stole my job, ain’t ya?”
This nut was the man Mark had displaced when he’d gotten a job at the factory a few days ago. Why couldn’t it have been somebody without a temper?
Mark nodded politely, sincerely wishing to mollify him. “I’m sure you’ll find a better job, sir.” A fight would draw unneeded attention.
“Maybe in the next life!”
The man was clearly enraged. It was going to be tough to defuse him.
There was no time for diplomacy. The man took a swing. Mark deftly stepped aside. His military training ensured this fight would not be a fair one. The brute came at him again. Mark swiveled and artfully redirected the man’s momentum, causing him to fall flat on his face. Chuckles murmured through the crowd that had gathered to watch.
Suddenly, stars swam in Mark’s vision as he felt a jarring blow to the back of his neck. He fell to one knee. A skinnier man stood behind him, wielding a two by four and grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Probably one of the brute’s friends.
Instinct took over now. The situation had just become dangerous. Mark’s leg shot out, pounding the skinny attacker in the kneecap, hard. The man yelled painfully and dropped to one knee himself. Next, Mark threw a double punch, one to the stomach, which knocked the wind out of the man, and a second to the throat. He made sure not to hit him hard enough to collapse his larynx, but the man would be out of commission for a while.
The burlier man who’d started the fight had recovered and charged at full speed. Mark tried to dodge again, but the goon’s long arm reeled him back in, and then they were dancing.
The man put a lot of power behind his blows, but Mark knew how to angle his body to deflect most of the force naturally. Meanwhile, Mark’s strikes were much more measured and strategic. He had to hand it the guy though. He was certainly determined. It took 15 to 20 cycles of this violent dance before the man was disabled enough that he couldn’t continue the fight.
He collapsed onto the street in a fetal position, moaning.
“Aggieeeee! Oh Aggie, I’m soooorry!” He rolled back and forth, from side to side, weeping, his agony on display for all to see.
“His name’s Angus Todd,” came a voice from behind. The speaker was another worker from the factory. “Aggie’s his wife. This job was the first time he’d been able to put real food on his family’s table in months.”
Lord, did everything have to be painful?
***
Fog rolled in from the bay, forming a mystical atmosphere along the wharf like a scene from an old mystery movie set in London. Herbie and one of his friends walked a ways ahead of Mark, idly chatting and cracking jokes along the way, oblivious to their surroundings. Mark knew that somewhere just ahead, death awaited one of them.
A single arc lamp made a poor attempt to light the wharf with its weak white light. A dark alley opened into the lit street about twenty feet in front of the boys. Its mouth was pitch black. If someone were going to lie in wait, that would be the ideal spot.
Mark's experiences in past efforts to change historical events had taught him a thing or two about potential problems that could arise, so he’d planned accordingly. There would be no mistakes this time. Unless that unseen force froze him in place again.
That alleyway had to be the source of the attack. As the boys were about to pass in front of it, two men, no more than common thugs, rushed them from the darkness. The leader drew ahead of his partner. A ready jackknife in his hand glimmered wickedly under the light like a silvery snake darting back and forth, searching for its next victim. The other thug held a heavy baseball bat menacingly.
Mark did not recognize either of them from the factory. They were probably just common thieves. No inside job, no on-site jealousy, just a plain old mugging, and Walker was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Mark could see how it was going to go down. The knife-bearing thug would arrive first, and stab Herbie, probably fatally.
Herbie’s young friend had seen the thieves out of the corner of his eye and was already instinctively turning to run away, which is probably what saved him.
Mark broke into a hard sprint. He needed to get into the right position, which depended on the exact positions of the other players.
The first thug didn’t give a warning. He just thrust his knife into Herbie’s abdomen. The boy let out a surprised cry, a startled and weak call for help.
Don't worry, Herbie. Help is on the way.
Mark noted the exact moment of the stabbing on his shifter, but he didn’t slow down. He needed to get as close to the scene as possible. He was running silently and the thugs hadn’t noticed him yet;
they were too focused on the other boy who was getting away.
Mark halted immediately to the left of Herbie’s fallen form. Startled by his sudden presence, the lead thug jerked around and slung his knife Mark’s way.
The blade arched toward Mark’s abdomen, but he pushed the red button and shifted out of the scene a second before being seriously wounded.
Same street, but now it was empty. He was 8 hours in the future, and there was a blood stain on the pavement where Herbie had fallen.
Mark had carefully taken note of the exact positions of both Walker and his attacker, and he knew the exact time the knife had struck. Mark moved forward a couple of steps and shifted back to several seconds before Herbie would be stabbed.
Instantly, he was in the middle of the murder again. Herbie’s face was fixated on his approaching attacker. Mark reached out, wrapped his hand tightly around the thug’s wrist, and yanked hard, deflecting the blow. The hoodlum’s mouth dropped open in shock.
Mark snapped the wrist upward sharply, and the crack of bone confirmed he'd broken it. The thief hollered in pain and his knife clattered harmlessly to the ground. Mark scooped it up and shifted out of the scene again.
He calmly walked around the now once again empty pavement to a spot immediately behind where the attacker would be standing hours earlier. The blood stain marking the concrete where Herbie fell was gone now. That made him smile. Mark shifted back into the fight exactly one second after he had left.
The thug was now in front of Mark, grasping his wrist in pain. Mark plunged the knife into his back between his shoulder blades, felling the hoodlum for good. Then, he shifted right back out again.
Mark had become all too familiar with killing while in the Marines. He’d long ago reasoned out his code of ethics regarding it. Murder would always be murder, but all killing was not murder. A soldier must learn to kill the enemy wherever he finds them without hesitating or second-guessing.
This was clearly a case of defending the innocent. True, he could have saved Herbie by simply disabling the thug, but what about the next victim? A man who would so callously take the life of someone over a few dollars would just do so again another day if given another chance. No, the thug could no longer be trusted with life. In fact, it would be irresponsible of Mark to let him live.
He was feeling a little nauseous now, so he took a breather. He’d shifted too many times in a row. He waited until the shops along the waterfront opened up. He ate breakfast at a nice sidewalk café and then strolled around town until he found a sporting goods store, where he bought a baseball bat.
Feeling rested, Mark returned to the scene of the crime. Before leaving, he’d marked with chalk the approximate spot where the second attacker would be standing. Now, he placed himself in a spot he guessed would be behind the guy. Then, Mark shifted back in.
He’d been a little off in his guess, but not enough to matter. The second attacker stood in front of him, motionless, catatonic after having witnessed his partner decimated by a phantom who appeared and disappeared in the blink of an eye. Only two seconds had passed here.
Calmly, Mark strode up behind the man and swung his bat silently through the air.
Crack!
The thug went down in a heap. Mark would be surprised if his skull were not fractured.
He turned to the boy who looked upon Mark with a mixture of horror and disbelief, which melded into relief when he realized Mark had saved him, but then to fear again wondering if Mark might mean to harm him also. The boy had seen the phantom popping in and out of his reality too.
Mark didn’t feel the need to say anything. Herbie was safe. That was all that mattered. His young friend had seen what happened and was returning to come to Herbie’s aid.
Mark shifted forward to his own time. Mission accomplished.
10:00 AM, June 8th, 2012, Atlanta, GA
Hardy Phillips was already waiting in Mark’s office when he got there. Phillips was lounging in his leather-backed swivel chair with his feet propped up on Mark’s desk, a lit cigar in one hand. That peculiar smell, which belonged so distinctively to burning cigar tobacco, permeated the office. Wisps of blue smoke floated in disappearing swirls. The man certainly looked pleased with himself.
Another newspaper article lay on the desktop, awaiting Mark’s perusal. It was dated fifteen years ago.
“Congratulations,” Hardy said enthusiastically.
Walker Donates Building
Last Thursday evening, at a banquet commemorating the event, Herbert Walker Jr., donated a large industrial facility in downtown Chicago to the local Boys & Girls Club for use as a new gymnasium and athletic center for inner city children.
Walker also plans to donate materials and the use of his construction company’s services in order to remodel the building. Total expected cost to the Boys & Girls Club will be just one dollar. The property has an estimated value of $15 million, and remodeling costs are expected to run close to five million.
Construction is expected to begin later this month.
“Philanthropist Herbert Walker has once again surpassed all expectations of generosity,” commented Mayor Richard M. Daley in a speech at the banquet.
Previous contributions by Walker to the Chicago community are innumerable, among them being a large fund established to combat illiteracy which has helped over 10,000 young adults to date, and a revolutionary job training program, Job Corps, which has provided countless opportunities for the training of poorer individuals who find themselves unemployed. Walker has also been known to sponsor small business loans for high-risk individuals trying to pull themselves out of poverty.
Hopes are the gymnasium will be ready to open by next March at the latest.
“This is the same Herbert Walker I saved back in 1934?”
Hardy nodded.
Mark dwelt on that for a moment.
“It looks like he did a lot of good with his life.”
“Yep.”
“How did you know he would turn out this way?”
Hardy grinned, shrugging uncommittedly.
“You knew he was going to do all these good deeds, right? I mean, that's why you picked him. But....until I saved him, all you could know is that he died in 1934, so, how could you possibly know what he would or wouldn’t do in a hypothetical future?”
Again, a silent shrug accompanied by a smirk.
“Has anyone ever told you how irritating your shrugs are?”
They were beyond irritating actually.
“As a matter of fact, they have.” His grin now extended from ear to ear.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged.
Mark couldn’t help but laugh. It felt good to have helped that boy, and even better to know that he had turned out so well and had gone on to help so many. Plus, Mark was getting used to Phillips stonewalling him on answers. It could be frustrating, but he was learning that there was no way on earth he could pull information out of Hardy Phillips unless Hardy Phillips was ready to give it.
“So, what’s next?”
“What do you mean, ‘What’s next’?”
“I mean....what’s the next assignment? You do have something else for me to do, don’t you?”
“A little anxious, aren’t we?”
Mark’s eyes narrowed, “If you’ve got something to say, spit it out, but don’t play games.”
“Sorry, sorry. Yes, I’ve got another mission if you’re up for it, and it seems like you are. I must warn you, though, this one may be a little more mundane.”
“That’s okay.”
“No, I mean it. This will be different. This mission is to go to Boston, shift back to 1926, and locate the residence of Mr. Randolph Vinson. On the evening of September 19th, sometime between 5:00 PM and 7:00 PM, you are to steal his cravat from his bedroom.”
“That’s all? Sounds odd.”
“Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it, don’t worry.” Mark leaned forward in his
chair. “By the way, who exactly am I working for? I think I should know.”
“Do you really want me to shrug again?”
“The only reason for time is so that
everything doesn't happen at once.”
~ Albert Einstein
September 19th, 1926, Boston, MA
The Vinson estate was more like a castle from the Middle Ages than a home. Upon seeing the stony mansion four nights ago when Mark had first shifted into 1926, he’d had to double-check the setting on his watch, thinking he’d mistakenly shifted back seven hundred years instead of ninety.
Unlike a castle of old, however, this fortress was lit up by electric lights both from within and without. It was ready for a party.
Model T’s had been arriving intermittently for the past twenty minutes. The guests all appeared to be high society, dressed in the finest attire of the day. Styled women hung onto the arms of their men as they strolled inside. Their short hair and straight lined dresses were right out of a movie set in the roaring twenties. Many of the women sported cigarettes, held in those old-fashioned, long, slim cigarette holders.
Mark dropped a bag of refuse outside the service entrance, careful not to dirty the white sleeves of his waiter’s uniform, and turned to go back inside. It was almost time.
Four days ago, Mark had applied for a job as an assistant to the caterer who would be servicing the party and had gotten it.
Locating the residence had been a fairly simple matter. Randolph Vinson had been a wealthy man and socially very active, so he’d left lots of records. Land deeds had showed this address as belonging to him. Although the home had been destroyed along with the street in the 1960's for a new housing development, older city plans had pointed Mark to the right place.