A Matter of Time

by Glen Cook

  “She works at the Post. In Classifieds. I had this wild hunch last night, see, so I called her and asked her to do some checking.”

  He had turned a startling red. Cash began to suspect a name: Teri Middleton. John and Michael both had pursued her during their senior year, and, Cash suspected, had caught her. They had vied for her weekends while in college. She had gotten married somewhere along the way, about the time that Nancy and Carrie had come into the picture, and had dropped from sight. Cash thought he remembered Annie saying she had gotten a divorce after two and a half years and two kids. For a while there, the girl had been as much a part of the family as John.

  “Anyway, we had lunch and she gave me this.” He offered a pink, scented bit of stationery covered with numbers. “She’s going to check some more.”

  “I can’t make anything out of this. What is it?”

  “Dates and codes. These first numbers are the dates they ran classified ads for a certain party.”

  “Miss Groloch?”

  “I think so. They were put in by her accountants. And get this. When she showed me this, I asked her to check her subscription file. She got back to me a few minutes ago. Sure enough. They’ve got one to Rochester, New York, in the name of Fial Groloch, that’s been going out regular as long as they’ve been keeping track.”

  It was a breakthrough of sorts, proof that there was more than one Groloch, and pinned him or her to a specific address.

  “Kind of corny, don’t you think? And clumsy. And slow. But secure, I guess. Lucky you thought about it.”

  “Carrie’s fault, really. She was reading the paper and asked me what I thought some Personal meant. You know how cryptic some of them are. Anyway, I started thinking about spy stories where they sent messages that way. And Sherlock Holmes. He was always putting ads in. Then I remembered you said she took the paper. Decided to check it. But I never thought I’d find anything.”

  “Serendipity, that’s what you call it when you get something good when you don’t expect it. Still good thinking, though. You get any of the ads?”

  “Not yet. She’s going to check through their file copies. She has to do it on her own time. You won’t say anything, will you?”

  Cash tried for a bemused expression. “About what? I haven’t heard anything yet. I can’t tell what I don’t know.”

  Harald relaxed a little. “I won’t hear anything more at least till Monday....”

  “It’s another piece in the puzzle, but it probably won’t get us anywhere. All we found out is that Fial Groloch, or somebody using the name, is alive and well enough to subscribe. Doesn’t help us with our dead man.”

  “Maybe not, but it makes me wonder if we shouldn’t bring in the FBI, or somebody.”

  “What the hell for? Don’t we have problems enough?”

  “Norm, don’t it bug you that we’ve got a woman a hundred and thirty years old hiding out here? And she’s got a relative in Rochester who might be even older? Goddamned, they must be some kind of Draculas. And you keep worrying about the dead guy. I’m starting to think maybe he shouldn’t matter so much, that we should be worrying about the ones that’re still alive.”

  “John, there’s people in Russia that old. There’s even this old guy down in Florida that was in the army during the Civil War and can prove it. Anyway, we don’t have a shred of proof that these people are really that old. They don’t have to be the same Groiochs....”

  Harald looked at him. Cash looked back. “You’re ducking it,” said John. “I don’t believe it’s that simple. And I don’t think you do either. Only you’re scared of the can of worms....”

  “I’m scared? Anyway, what right do we have? We can push about the corpse, but the rest really isn’t any of our business.”

  “Yeah?”

  “All right. Look. I know a guy in New York. We did the FBI course together, years ago. I’ll call him Monday. Maybe he’ll dig something up. Give me that Rochester address. And I’ll try Immigration on the name Groloch. I don’t know if their records go back far enough, but it’s worth a try. The Feds never throw anything away.”

  Harald settled himself in a chair and put on his stubborn look. Maybe he was right, Cash thought. Maybe it was time to get some government agency involved. Somewhere in Washington, with its numberless bureaucrats, and bureaus, there was bound to be an outfit that investigated people like Miss Groloch.

  “You get anything more from your Mrs. Caldwell?”

  Harald shrugged. “Been trying to stay away. But she should have her stuff ready sometime next week. She called about it the other day. What about your saucer people?”

  Cash had almost forgotten. “Nothing. They made copies of everything we had, then disappeared. One guy said they wouldn’t bother me till they got something.”

  Harald’s expression grew more stubborn. “Norm, I’m getting some really bad vibes from this thing. If we can’t give it to the Feds, maybe we should let it go.”

  Where had his enthusiasm gone? Cash wondered. It was just minutes since he had been excited.

  “How? The way I see it, we’re riding a tiger. People have started to notice, to watch. Might be some difficult questions if we turned loose now.”

  John nodded, looked more glum, glanced at the clock. For an instant Cash saw another Hank Railsback foreshadowed in the younger man’s face.

  “You and Carrie having trouble?”

  He seemed startled. “Is the Pope a Catholic?” Then, “It shows, huh?” He remained silent so long that Cash decided he would go no further. But, finally, “Norm, you’ve been married a long time. Can you figure Annie?”

  “Whenever I start thinking I do she surprises me. Like this refugee business. I would’ve bet anything she wouldn’t have gone through with it.”

  “You know how Carrie gets when she’s pregnant?”

  Cash didn’t know the woman as well as Annie did or his daughter-in-law, but recalled that during each of three pregnancies she had made life hell for those around her. And the nearer full term, the worse. The last time it had carried over postpartum, and had come close to taking the marriage to court.

  On the surface it seemed she hated John for causing her condition. For the final four months of that last pregnancy they had slept in separate bedrooms. Cash had once overheard Carrie telling Annie she would castrate John if it happened again.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, she’s started yakking about wanting another kid.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Is right. Norm, I had a vasectomy after the last one. I never told her. I don’t know what she’ll do if she finds out.”

  “How’d you manage that?”

  “I lied. Told them I was divorced. They never checked.”

  Cash pursed his lips and exhaled thoughtfully, slowly shook his head. “I don’t know what to say. Sounds like you’re between a rock and a hard place. If it was Annie and she got the way Carrie does, I’d just keep my mouth shut and make like I was trying. Way she was before, she’d probably change her mind as soon as it was too late.”

  “I know she would. And I know I couldn’t go through that crap again. That’s why I got the operation. But she might get to be hell on wheels anyway.”

  “Uhm.” And there’s Teri, too, Cash thought. He wondered how much she had had to do with the operation. He didn’t ask.

  “You know, Norm, lately I’ve been asking myself a lot what the hell am I doing here. Why I bother. You think it matters? You know what I keep thinking? I could just jump on my cycle and head for the coast. Let her have everything. You can live on the beaches around L. A....”

  “‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,’ “Cash quoted. “‘What doth a man profit?

  “What the hell?”

  “Ecclesiastes. The Bible. You aren’t the first. Everybody feels that way sometimes. Especially if you step back and look at your life and you see it going by and you’re not really doing anything with it. The things you wanted to do before you had to spend all y
our time coping with babies and bills. I know I do. Mostly I just hang in there and hope something will come up to make it worth the pain.”

  “‘The majority of men lead lives of quiet desperation.’ “

  “Something like that.”

  Cash was not sure he had made any impression. John could be hard to reach. But, at least, he had matured enough not to sneer at the voice of experience. Cash smiled, remembering John and Michael and their self-certainty, what seemed just a few months ago, when they had been in high school. As one local wit had been heard to observe, there is a substitute for experience: Being sixteen.

  “Maybe. Maybe. But sometimes I just get so depressed....”

  “If it’s that bad, maybe you’d better see the departmental psychologist.”

  Harald didn’t become defensive. Cash considered that a good sign.

  “I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe I will. But I don’t think it’s that bad. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Then maybe you should put in for vacation. I know for a fact that you haven’t taken one since you came to the District.”

  “That’s an idea too. And when was the last time you took off, Norm?”

  Cash shrugged. “A long time ago. A week when my mother died.” Michael and John had been eight, Matthew newly born. Cash started getting antsy if he were off more than a weekend. “Don’t go copying me, John. There’re better models.”

  He had a sudden, frightening intuition, and hoped he was wrong.

  John was an only child. His father was a minister. His mother had divorced the man when John was nine. That had been a hard period for both John and Michael, neither of whom had understood. Since, till his marriage, John had lived with his mother, who had never remarried.

  Within a year of the divorce, Harald had begun calling Cash “Dad.” At the time, Annie and Norm had thought it both cute and pathetic. The behavior had faded when Cash had refused to reinforce it with a positive response.

  Could that still be in John’s mind, down deep where he didn’t recognize it?

  Harald always had been nearly as close as Michael, but Christ, Cash thought, this was a responsibility he didn’t want. I never did that good by Michael or Matthew. How dared John put that load on him?

  It was terrifying.

  But flattering.

  “You’re not that bad, Norm.”

  “Crap.”

  “Except maybe you’re too private. Know what I wish there was? A machine where you could go right inside somebody’s head and figure out what they really think and feel.”

  “I’ll tell you what I really think about that. It sucks, that’s what. If some guy ever invents one, and you don’t blow his brains out before he can tell anybody, bend over and kiss your ass good-bye. The Gestapo would be lining us up to find out if we’re reliable or not.”

  “Yeah. Probably.”

  “You better believe.”

  “I never thought about it. I just thought, like, you could get to know people who mean something to you, because everybody hides from everybody, a little bit. Like, I could understand why Carrie gets the way she does. But, yeah, we could use it too. Round up all the bad guys and ship them out before they hurt any body.”

  “We’re Gestapo enough, John. And I don’t think we could resist the temptations. Get thee behind me.” How did we get on to this? he wondered.

  “Probably be no more reliable than a lie detector, anyway.”

  “Yeah. Even if you could get Carrie to be honest right now, I bet you couldn’t get her to explain herself. She probably doesn’t know either. Hormones.”

  “Bull. She’s just trying to get to me.”

  “Bull to you too. Bet the way you’re feeling right now has to do with hormones too.”

  “Yeah? Maybe.”

  “I’ll tell you what I think. You and Carrie should probably get away from each other for a couple weeks. I mean, every time I see you together and one of you says black, the other one hits the roof screaming white. I don’t say you’re planning it, but both of you are picking fights. Whatever you do, John, don’t end up like Hank.”

  “Hey, come on. It ain’t me....”

  “Crap. You think you try. You say you do. So does Carrie. But you don’t, not really.”

  “Hey, this’s getting a little heavy....”

  “You’re both lying to yourselves. What you’re really doing is setting each other up to take the blame. Like this guy on the radio was saying the other day, you’re not fighting fair. That’s why I say get away from each other for a while. Let the scabs heal, think about the real issues. Maybe write them down and trade lists without talking about them.”

  “You know how jealous she is....”

  “Right.” Cash now wanted to end the discussion, so made no comment at all about Teri. He had said too much already. He was no Dear Abby. Lifting the lids on the trash cans of others’ lives made him too damned uncomfortable. His concern for John had taken him past discomfort to outright embarrassment this time. “What about the case?”

  “Why don’t we, for Christ’s sake, just shitcan the damned thing?”

  “Not a viable option. And you know it.”

  “You threw Bible stuff at me. How about this? ‘Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.’ That used to be one of my dad’s favorites, whenever a spanking was coming on.”

  “Okay. I already know you don’t like it. Some of them I don’t like either. But we don’t get refusal rights. We have to go by the rules. You have to go after this one just the same as one you did like. I mean, you came up with some good angles already. We get a few more, we might start getting a picture, something that’ll give us a handle on it.”

  “Yeah. We could get lucky.” Harald responded with all the enthusiasm of a man asked to fly off a cliff by flapping his arms. “But what you want to bet we don’t?”

  XVI

  On the X Axis;

  1866-1914

  The Austrian treasure lay exactly where Fial had predicted it to be. He took a small silver coin from the hoard.

  “Fian, I’ll flip you for who goes back to that last town.”

  “What for?” Fiala asked.

  “We need pens, ink, and paper. To list the coins. Dates, values, mint marks, wear, like that. It’ll be years before we can replace any of them. Memory won’t do. And it’ll have to be right, else it might change something.”

  “What about economic changes? Won’t putting that money in circulation make changes? You didn’t think about that, did you?”

  Neither man had. Fian responded, “We have to take the chance. We need the capital. I can’t see how a few thousand florins would effect history much anyway.”

  Fiala pursed her lips. They were compromising their resolve already. They would be able to rationalize their deviations any time convenience demanded it.

  It was pretty much what she had expected. Anyone who attained any standing in the State machinery learned the trick early.

  Fian lost the toss.

  “Well, take a fistful,” Fiala said. “I’m starved. And I could use some decent clothes. This thing must’ve been made out of a potato sack.”

  “She has a point, Fial. We’ll end up in prison if we go flashing a fortune looking like this.” He took a handful of small silver, studied the coins.

  “Don’t spend it all in one place. The more you scatter it, the less attention it’ll draw.”

  “I know. Can you remember these till I get back? To check me?”

  “I’ll have to, won’t I?”

  “What’s your size, Fiala?”

  “Think about that, Fian,” said Fial. “This is eighteen sixty-six. You don’t buy things off the rack here. You make your own. Unless you can afford a tailor. Just say yea by so. That’ll be good enough till we get out of the country and find a tailor.”

  “I suppose you’re right again. I’m beginning to think you burying your nose in books all the time wasn’t such a waste of time after all.”

  Thus, by degrees, they up
graded their apparel and story as they stole westward across Europe.

  Neither Fian nor Fiala could get over how little real control governments maintained over their citizens. Contemporary social organization, from their viewpoint, was only slightly more structured than anarchy.

  And the amazing thing was that the political movements of the time, even those antecedent to their own, all seemed to espouse more democracy and anarchy.

  “That Bakunin is a madman,” Fian said of one of the State’s minor saints. “He wants to destroy everything. Something must have been lost in the translation.”

  Fial just chuckled. “Maybe it is a good thing we decided not to look any of them up. But hang on, brother. It’ll get worse.”

  • • •

  It was in Paris that they encountered and charmed the Americans. The people were even more naive and generous than their fool descendants.

  The Atlantic storms were terrible during a December crossing. Their ship was a day late making New York.

  “Damn, I wish they’d hurry,” Fian growled from his place at the promenade rail. “I’m supposed to meet Handy today.”

  “Use the English, father,” Fiala admonished remotely. She was captivated by the huge, rude new land rearing behind the piers, so different from the New York she had seen in her own time.

  “Too slow, the strange tongue,” said Fial. He still fought mal de mere. A nineteenth century steamer was a far cry from a twenty-first century SST.

  Fiala regressed to German herself. “Look at them. Swarming like rats.” Hundreds of men crowded the piers. Less than half appeared to be stevedores, or otherwise employed.

  “Unemployment problem,” Fial observed. “The country hasn’t successfully changed over to a peacetime economy yet. Plus immigrants. Looks like we’ll be able to go ashore in a few minutes.”

  Fiala rushed to be first.

  Minutes later, “Top o’ the morning to you, young miss.”

  Fiala turned.

  The redhead, about twenty-five, cut her out of the mob with consummate skill, and established some proprietary right immediately acknowledged by his competitors.

  “And won’t you be needing someone to manage the plunder?”