Eighteen

by Jan Burke

  A ransom note, postmarked from Pittsburgh, arrived three torturous days later. The letter, filled with misspellings, was eventually deciphered to be a demand for twenty thousand dollars, details of payment to be forthcoming. Papa declared himself ready to pay.

  By now, newspapers were publishing stories of “Little Charlie Masters,” whose brother had abandoned him to kidnappers. This was, of course, not at all what the papers intended to convey, but it was how every story appeared to Andrew.

  During this time Andrew slept and ate little, cried easily and was prone to nightmares of the worst sort. He could not help but notice that his parents no longer looked him in the eye, that the servants whispered. Had not Grandpapa arrived to protect him from his persecutors, and threatened to remove their one remaining son from their home, the Masters might not have gone on as a family through the ordeal that awaited them.

  The instructions never came. The explanation for the failure of the kidnappers to continue on their course was not uncovered until an enterprising Pinkerton’s man compared descriptions of Jack and Phil with two robbers gunned down by police in Pittsburgh on the day the letter had been received. As he lay dying, one of the men-Jack, it seems-had said, “Never find Charlie now.”

  Questioning of the men’s few known associates yielded nothing. The detectives advised the Masters to assume their son was dead.

  Never one to give up, Papa announced to the newspapers that he was offering forty thousand dollars-an astronomical sum, twice the amount demanded by the kidnappers-to anyone who returned his son Charlie to him. Other than renewed publicity and attention, nothing came of it.

  Over the years following Charlie’s kidnapping, Andrew learned to calmly accept his altered position in the family. His parents could not punish the kidnappers, so they punished the person they had come to view as an accomplice. They used the weapon of choice for persons of their breeding and social stature-civility. Andrew was accorded this, but little more. Charlie, by contrast, took on in memory saintly attributes he never had in life, became the perfect son denied to them. His room was enshrined, his toys left waiting for his return.

  On Andrew’s eleventh birthday, the one-hundred-fourth pretender (by Andrew’s careful accounting) arrived at the Masters home. He was easily dismissed as yet another boy put forward by some schemer as “Little Charlie”. There were always stories to go with these pretenders-of how the missing boy’s “adoptive” parents had taken pity on some feverish waif who had then forgotten all of his previous life until just this moment-but Andrew could not bear to listen to another one. He asked Old Davey to saddle his favorite mare, then rode toward the town where Charlie had disappeared.

  This time he did not venture into the town itself, where he had become a familiar and pitied sight, but turned off into the abandoned oil field. He rode slowly, and at times dismounted to take a closer look at some object. At last his search was, at least in one sense, rewarded. He spent another hour or two at the site, then rode home. That he was filthy and had ruined his clothes either escaped his parents’ notice, or was (more likely) not thought to be worthy of their comment.

  This he did not mind.

  Now, as he stood beneath the oak on his twenty-first birthday, he put the quarter back in his pocket and removed a second object. It was a crudely whittled soldier, weather-beaten and oil-stained, found near an abandoned well.

  The well was a disposal well, used to hold oil-contaminated water and sludge pumped from other wells. It was about sixteen inches in diameter; too narrow for an adult, perhaps too narrow even for a schoolboy, but not too narrow for the body of a small child. He had known that it would be useless to look down it for Charlie’s remains; the well would be too deep.

  Andrew had never been able to picture Phil and Jack planning to endure a child’s company while waiting for ransom; if they had left Charlie with someone else while they robbed houses, that person would have long ago claimed his father’s reward money. No genuine claimant had stepped forward.

  Fourteen years had passed since Charlie disappeared, and the pretenders were growing fewer, but before the end of his father’s life, Andrew’s count of them would reach two hundred eighty-six. On this day, he did not yet know that number, but he did know what had happened to his brother. On this day, he simply rested in that knowledge, and took his revenge in his silence.

  “Thank you for the birthday present, Charlie,” he said, tucking away the second-and only other one-he had received since the day he turned seven.

  Anthony Award Nominee

  A Man of My Stature

  You are no doubt surprised to receive word from me, my dear Augustus, but although I have been poorly served by my obedience to impulse, in this case I think it best to give in to my compulsion to communicate with you now. If I have already tried you beyond all patience and forbearance, you cannot be blamed, but I hope that your curiosity-upon receiving a letter from a man you believe to be dead-will be strong enough to lead you to continue.

  I have written a letter to Emma, denying, of course, that I had anything at all to do with the death of Louis Fontesque, and telling her that she must not believe what will soon be said of her husband. I will leave that brief note to her here, to be found tomorrow in these rooms I have taken at the Linworth Hotel. But tonight, after darkness falls, I will venture from this establishment one last time; I will make the short journey to the letter box on the corner, not trusting the desk clerk to mail this to you. He is an honest enough lad, I’m sure, but after all, he now believes me to be Fontesque, and when the hunt for Fontesque’s killer inevitably leads law enforcement officers here, the young man’s memory may prove too sharp by half. I would not bring trouble to your door Augustus.

  I think it best to give you some explanation of events. There are too many who, out of envy, would be pleased to see a man of my stature in the community fall as far as I have-and in my absence, I fear Emma will become the target of their ridicule. I will have more to say on that score in a moment.

  But first, old friend-I hope I may yet count you my friend-let me offer a sincere apology to one who once refused a very different opportunity. Because of your refusal, you alone among my friends are safe from the repercussions of my downfall. You alone never supported my notion of creating a new formula for synthetic silk, you alone thought me bound for failure.

  I was baffled by your reticence, having been so certain you would be eager to invest in Hardwick Chemical and Supply’s latest venture. I knew your objections were not of a technical nature, for although you have great business acumen, you are no chemist. Of course I made no acknowledgment of your professional abilities to our friends, but I was rather quick to point out (in my subtle way) your lack of scientific expertise. I took pains not to be the one who belittled you before them; still I planted seeds of doubt here and there, and made the most of any other man’s critical remark. For your wisdom, for your foresight-I punished you.

  I might now excuse myself by saying that my company had done well for its investors in the past, or that I desperately needed not only their cash but their faith, or that I was myself wounded by your criticism of my dreams. But even before the formula failed, I saw that I had wronged you, Gussie, and was never more burdened by regret than when I realized that I had done so.

  In those early days I was heedless, and imperiled not only my own fortune, but those of my family and friends. But as I sit here in a small hotel in an unfamiliar city, possessed of little more than a stranger’s traveling case and my own thoughts, I do not miss my standing in the community, or my wealth, or much of anything, save Emma and my friendship with you. And so it is to you Gussie, that I entrust my final confidence.

  What happened to me? I seized an opportunity, Augustus, and no serpent ever turned and bit a man more sharply.

  My world began to fall apart a few days ago, when my shop foreman-have you met Higgins, Gussie? A good man, Higgins. Trusted me. Just as all one hundred of my employees trusted me.

  Hi
ggins came into my office that morning and told me that one batch of material had been sent through a partially completed section of the silk manufacturing line, to test the machinery. Rolling the brim of his cap in his hands, he muttered his concerns; there seemed to be some sort problem with the process. “Maybe I just ain’t seein’ it as it oughta be, Mr. Hardwick,” he said, “but a’fore we go any further, you’d best take a look.”

  I was not yet uneasy. Why should I have been? As I followed him out of the office, I could not help but feel a sense of pride. We walked through the older portion of the factory, where most of the workers were busy with our usual line of products. Men smiled and nodded, or called out greetings as I passed. Higgins was talking to me about the problem, which still had not seemed significant. We reached the new section, the place where several large crates of equipment stood unopened. Higgins was going on, blaming the suppliers, of course, certain the trouble was with the raw ingredients and not the product itself.

  I listened to him with half an ear as I studied the machinery and the failed batch and-I saw it then, Gussie, though how I kept my face from betraying the horror I was feeling, I’ll never know. The process-my process, useless. A small flaw I could not detect in the laboratory, now magnified on the floor of the factory-after so many thousands of dollars had been spent on the equipment.

  Higgins was looking to me for an answer, as were a dozen or so of the men working near that section of the line. Looking at me, some with anxious hope, others with unwavering faith in my abilities. I kept my features schooled in what I prayed would pass for concentration on the problem.

  “Well, Higgins,” I said, “this will simply require a minor adjustment in the formulation. I expected that some little changes might be needed-no cause for alarm. You and your men have done a fine job here, it’s nothing to do with you. Go on with installing the equipment, and I’ll work on a new formula.”

  I heard audible sighs of relief. I told Higgins that I had some business outside the office that morning, and left the building.

  I walked aimlessly for several hours, thinking the darkest thoughts imaginable. The humiliation, the financial ruin-if it had only been me, and not so many others who would suffer, I might have borne it. And there was Emma to think of.

  I am sure that if you place yourself in my shoes, you will understand how terrible it was to contemplate any suffering on Emma’s part. If I am not mistaken, you have a special fondness for her, Augustus. I am not suggesting that you have ever behaved in any other than an exemplary fashion, my friend. On the contrary, you have been all that is polite and respectful. But I know your affections for her will let you see what others may not, and hope that you not blame me for contemplating the fact that I was worth more to Emma dead than alive.

  This was not an original thought-any man with life insurance policies as large as mine will consider such a fact even in better times. The investors had insisted upon this very reasonable precaution, and no one ever questioned my buying additional coverage to protect Emma should I meet with some accident and predecease her. I knew that even if I died by my own hand, the investors would be paid. But while the investors would receive a payment under nearly any circumstances, Emma would be denied the death benefit were I to commit suicide.

  Perhaps, I thought, I could disappear at sea, in a boating accident. But would there be some lengthy delay in paying the benefit to Emma if my body were missing?

  I had walked some distance by now, and I grew thirsty. Looking for some place to find refreshment, I began to take note of my surroundings. I was in a part of town not wholly familiar to me, a commercial district of some sort. I saw a fellow in neat attire step into a nearby bar. I took out my pocket watch, the one my grandfather gave to me, and saw that it was now just past noon.

  As I entered the bar, I was pleased to note that the customers were not by any means loutish. Clean and decently dressed, they were neither as wealthy as those of our own set, nor common laborers. It was not a rowdy group; most were quietly talking to one another as they finished simple lunches of sandwiches and beer.

  As I moved closer to the bar, one of the patrons standing at it turned to me and said, “Stopping in one last time before your journey, Fontesque?” He soon realized his mistake and quickly said, “Pardon me, sir. I mistook you for another.”

  “Well, I’ll be-” the man next to him said, looking over his shoulder. “You can’t be blamed, Bill.”

  “Don’t put the gentleman to the blush, you two,” the bartender said, perhaps wary of losing my custom. “What’ll it be, sir?”

  “Now Garvey, admit he looks a bit like Fontesque,” the second persisted.

  “You’ve something of his build and coloring, sir,” Garvey said, “but you’re by no means his twin.” Then nodding at the second man, he added, “I’m sure Jim here meant no offense.”

  “None taken,” I said, feeling a desire to camouflage myself among these men. I would, for a few moments, pretend to be one of them, step out of the odious role of being Jenkin Hardwick of Hardwick Chemical and Supply. None of these men would look to me for advice or guidance, none of them had the least dependence upon me.

  “Good of you sir,” Garvey was saying. “What’s your pleasure then, sir?”

  “Same as my eagle-eyed friends, here,” I answered, smiling.

  The one called Bill smiled back and said, “On me, Garvey.”

  I extended a hand and said, “Harry Jenson,” as naturally as if that were the name my mother gave me.

  Bill Nicolas and Jim Irving introduced themselves in turn, and we chatted amiably. Bill was an accountant, Jim, a purchasing agent for a manufacturing concern. I easily convinced them I was just returning from Seattle -which I had visited often enough to describe-and vaguely referred to an exporting business there. My appetite returned as I banished Jenkin Hardwick and became Harry Jenson, and Garvey brought me a beef sandwich. I had a nervous moment when Jim, admiring my suit, said that the job must pay well. I took refuge in smiling silence, and Bill, the more circumspect of the two, colored and quickly changed the subject.

  My new friends left not long after, wishing Harry Jenson the best of luck, but saying they must get back to their offices. I nearly said that I must do the same, but caught myself in time. The place had emptied out, the lunch rush over, and I was swallowing the last of my beer when I looked up to see the very man I had been mistaken for enter the establishment.

  It was an odd moment to be sure, Gussie. Garvey had told the truth when he said Fontesque was not my twin. Fontesque’s eyebrows were a little heavier, his mouth a little larger. But he and I were of the same height, of the same build, and our other features were not all together different. His nose was as straight as mine, his eyes as blue, his hair was the same dark brown-only cut a little shorter.

  He was as shocked as I, or perhaps more so, because I had the benefit of a warning. Upon seeing me, he nearly dropped the drummer’s case he was carrying. An idea which had begun to take seed in my mind caused me to linger; I wanted the opportunity to study Mr. Fontesque.

  Garvey smoothed the way, saying, “Louis Fontesque, as I live and breathe! I was hoping you’d come in before Mr. Jenson left!”

  Fontesque brusquely rejected the bartender’s theory of our likely (if perhaps distant) relation to one another. He said he had no time for foolishness, giving the bartender some disgust of him. Garvey served his surly customer in a similar fashion, then was all politeness to me, filling my glass with his compliments before he withdrew to clear the tables at the back of the room.

  Attempting conversation with my near look-alike, I remarked that I would not be surprised to learn that we were distant cousins, or some such. This was met by Mr. Fontesque with a shrug and a return to the contemplation of his suds. I was not daunted. Augustus, I ask you-how many would not see this fellow’s entering that establishment at that moment as an opportunity unlikely to present itself again?

  He was wholly uncommunicative until, seeing that he
carried a drummer’s case, I expanded on the tale I had told his fellows, and said I was the buyer for Hardwick Chemical and Supply, just back from a trip to Seattle. His attitude underwent an immediate change. He told me that he sold hardware especially designed for the mechanical needs of factories like Hardwick’s-pulleys, cleats, slings, shims and such. I encouraged this line of talk. After some moments, he blushed to confess that he had once called at my company but was turned away.

  “Why, I regret that I was not on hand to speak to you then!” I said in tones of outrage. “If you remember the name of the fellow who refused you, I’ll see him reprimanded. Only a fool could fail to see the value of your merchandise to our company.” At this Fontesque puffed up. While he agreed with me (at length) that the fellow who had turned him away was a fool, I schooled my features into an expression of grave consideration.

  Recalling that when Bill had mistakenly greeted me as Fontesque, he had also mentioned something about a journey, I took a gamble. “Allow me to make it up to you, Mr. Fontesque,” I said, in the tone of one hitting upon a grand idea. “You shall see Mr. Hardwick himself! Will you come by our offices in two days time?”

  Fontesque looked so immediately dejected, I nearly laughed. “No, sir. I regret I won’t. I’m leaving for San Francisco on the morning train.”