Time Out of Mind

by John R. Maxim

  On the next day, Monday, Gwen was asked if she could fly to London right away as part of a group going there to negotiate the rights to several Thames Television properties. She could scarcely refuse. The business sessions and the obligatory entertaining would last well into the following weekend. After that, although she did not want to be away from Jonathan, she would have at least several days in which to visit a few favorite relatives and carouse a bit with some old chums from school. Corbin rode with her to the airport and walked with her to the gate. His voice broke a bit when he said goodbye. He said he must be getting a cold. I love you, too, she answered.

  Corbin had told himself that this was a great chance to catch up on his reading. Maybe play some racquetball. Maybe see a couple of those blood-and-guts movies that Gwen never wants to sit through. He'd halfway convinced himself that he would enjoy the period of privacy. A nice break. But he was back at her apartment for less than an hour when he realized for the second time in a year how hollow a place can be when the person who means everything to you isn't there anymore. He wished she hadn't gone. He wished they'd never left the Homestead.

  By Friday Corbin couldn't bear the thought of a whole weekend alone in her apartment. When he left the Burlington Building at the day's end he found himself falling into the stream of men and women who were walking in the direction of Grand Central. Why not, he thought. There was no use going back to the Homestead. It wouldn't be the same, but what would be the harm in seeing a little more of Greenwich. He could take a late train back. Or, if he chose, he could stay over. Whatever felt good.

  Corbin stayed over. And it did feel good. He didn't know why exactly, but it was better than feeling lonely, so he was not about to look for reasons. It was certainly a pretty town, full of attractive people who kept themselves looking fit. Nice homes. Nice yards. Women in tennis dresses. The leaves all red and gold like Japanese jewelry. After a morning of walking and breathing the crisp clean air he decided on lunch at a large hotel he seemed to remember down along the shore of Long Island Sound. It wasn't there. He must have been thinking of someplace else. But no matter. There were plenty of nice places to stop. On his way to the nearest of them he passed the storefront office of a real estate firm. In the window he saw about a dozen snapshots of homes that were offered for sale. Corbin stopped and looked. Two of the houses looked rather like the Homestead. Victorians. But on a smaller scale. Corbin turned away and had his lunch. That afternoon he returned to the city.

  Sunday passed, then three workdays. On Wednesday evening, he once again took the train to Greenwich. He knew that the trip didn't make much sense, spending a solitary two or three hours there and then catching a late train back. But it couldn't hurt. And he liked it there. He went again on Thursday night. Gwen called from London on Friday to ask how he was getting on. Fine, he said. Hurry back. One more week, she told him. Love you. On Friday evening he packed a bag for the weekend.

  The real estate agent, a fortyish woman named Marge, was friendly and helpful, but she didn't really have the feeling that she had a live one in Jonathan Corbin. He wanted to look at Victorians and she'd shown him six. The last two were closer to a Federal style and Corbin didn't even want to look inside. They weren't right. What is? she asked. I'm not sure. But you'll know it when you see it? I think so. Right.

  Just above the Post Road, not far from Greenwich Avenue, a heavily overgrown piece of property caught Corbin's eye. On it stood a house that he could barely see because it was largely hidden by two old and neglected willows. He asked Marge to turn around.

  “That one?”

  ‘‘I think so.”

  She pulled into the gravel driveway, past a For Sale sign that had fallen over.

  “Isn't this one listed with you?” he asked.

  “It's listed with everyone. Has been for almost two years. I have to tell you it's not in real good shape. The property will eventually go to someone who just wants the land.”

  “They'll tear down the house?”

  “Wouldn't you?”

  “Let's look inside.”

  Even before Marge opened the lockbox on the door, Corbin knew what the inside would be like. A small room on the right, a stairway straight ahead, a kitchen all the way back. There would be a rose-colored runner on the stairs, held down with brass rods. The kitchen would smell like vegetable soup. Upstairs, he didn't know. He could only imagine what the bedrooms would be like.

  But he was right about the first floor.

  “Do you know who lived here before?” he asked the agent.

  ‘ Two or three families that I can remember since I was a kid. The last was an old man named Mullins. As you can see, he wasn't able to keep it up. He moved to a senior citizens' home and then he passed on. An estate lawyer's handling the sale.”

  “Outside”—Corbin pointed—“was there ever a trellis over the driveway with wisteria vines on it?”

  “There was until it fell down, yes. You know this house?’'

  “No.” Corbin looked away. “Houses like this always seem to have them.”

  ”Uh ... listen. Mr. Corbin—”

  “Jonathan.”

  “Jonathan. You're not really interested in this place are you?”

  ”I guess I am. Yes.”

  “You said you were single?”

  “I'm sort of engaged.”

  ”I hope it's more than sort of. This really isn't the kind of neighborhood a single man would be happy in. All couples, most with teenage kids or older. You might find it hard to make friends.”

  “Marge, you don't sound real hot to make a commission.”

  “I'd love the commission. I need a new car. But I'd want to make it on a house you'd like living in. You can get a good price on this place but it would cost you at least another thirty thousand to fix it up. Maybe twenty if you're a heck of a handyman. Are you?”

  “Not especially.”

  “You want to sleep on it?”

  ”I suppose I should.”

  “I'll show you some other places tomorrow. There's a real nice one over in Riverside.”

  “Fine.”

  But at nine the next morning, Corbin handed her a check for the binder on the Mullins house.

  “Tell me about Connecticut,” Gwen had asked. “It began there, didn't it?” It did and it didn't. ”I think you've really gone crackers this time,” she told him. The day she returned from London he drove her to Greenwich in the secondhand Datsun he’d bought as a station car.

  “You don't like it?” Corbin was disappointed. “But it's sort of like the Homestead. Or it will be when it's fixed up. You'll have a place to go weekends.”

  “You might have discussed this with me, Jonathan.”

  “Well, it's an investment. And it's not as if I'm going to be out here all the time. A couple of weekends a month. And I'll keep the place in New York.” Corbin, in truth, had given no thought at all to the future. The apartment he'd leased had slipped his mind entirely, so mesmerized was he by this peeling, sagging pile of dry rot, which to him was a thing of joy and beauty.

  He spent few nights in the city. Few nights with Gwen. Most days he would catch the earliest train he could manage and be at the Mullins house before seven. He would work there, scraping and plastering, often neglecting to eat, until midnight. Sometimes, when it was still light enough in the evening, he would take long walks through the neighboring streets. Now and then he would see another old house and stand for a long time staring at it. He did not know why.

  The thought that he was behaving compulsively, or at all irrationally, never entered Corbin's mind. Nor could he understand why Gwen seemed upset with him. He did notice that she was increasingly unavailable on the occasional free nights he found time to spend with her, but he felt sure that she'd come around once she saw the finished product. Just wait until he had the house papered and furnished properly. Then every weekend would be just as happy as that one at the Homestead. As happy as he was.

  Since that first time she saw
his house, Gwen Leamas remembered, she had seldom seen him happy again. Thanksgiving was one exception. He was beaming like a schoolboy when she arrived to spend that holiday weekend with him in Greenwich. He was so proud of what he'd done with the house and of the Thanksgiving dinner he'd planned from a Victorian cookbook that she managed to choke down his oyster stuffing and his mashed turnips with no visible sign of distress. The dining room furnishings, which he'd found at an auction, were also authentic Victorian. So was the reproduction wallpaper. The other rooms were as yet largely, unfurnished. But wait until Christmas, he said. By Christmas everything will be perfect.

  It snowed several times before Christmas. An inch fell during the last week of November. Then another inch a few days later. Then two more substantial snowfalls and a few scattered flurries. And Jonathan began to change. At first Gwen made no connection between his behavior and the snow. She simply knew that he seemed to be calling in sick an awful lot. It took her a while to realize that on those occasions when Jonathan came down with the flu, or had a toothache, or couldn't get his Datsun started, it was always snowing. And his too-frequent absenteeism was beginning to wear thin with some of the network staff. When she tried to discuss it with him, Corbin brushed it off. Just a string of rotten luck, he said. Coincidence. Nothing to it.

  By now he was spending nearly all his free time at the Greenwich house and paying little attention to Gwen, which Gwen increasingly resented. When he called to confirm their Christmas plans, Gwen at first declined to come, but his disappointment seemed so sincere and so innocent that she changed her mind. At the very least it would give her a chance to have a good talk with him. Christmas, as it turned out, was pleasant and even loving. She had to admit that the house was quite nicely done up and that his authentic Victorian Christmas dinner was delicious. The oysters, this time, were left on the half shell where they belonged. But as for the talk she wanted, Jonathan remained evasive as ever.

  January was particularly snowy that year. Jonathan missed more days, some of them important. Whenever the skies appeared to threaten, Jonathan would either arrive very late in the morning or make a headlong rush to Grand Central for an early train home. It was Sandy Bauer who first came to Gwen's office and told her how worried she was about Jonathan. ”I don't understand it,” she said. ”I mean, the man is standing in there right now looking scared to death. Of snow!”

  He was on his way to the elevators by the time Gwen caught up with him. Jonathan foolishly tried to duck her and then tried to bluff. There was a meeting across town, he told her. He was late, he had to run. Like hell, she answered. Talk to me, Jonathan. What in God's name is happening to you?”

  “Nothing. I'm okay. Just a little temperature.”

  “Bullfeathers! Where are you going?”

  “Just across town. Listen, I'll call you.”

  “I'm going with you.”

  “No.”

  “Then I'll follow you, damn it.”

  She did. Not bothering to get her coat she matched him step for step, and all the way to Park Avenue she could see the growing terror on his face. She saw him dodging obstacles that weren't there and flinching at things she couldn't see.

  “What is it, Jonathan?” She grabbed the belt of his trench coat.

  “Let me go. Please.”

  “I'll scream bloody murder if you pull away from me. Jonathan, are you on drugs? Are you hallucinating?”

  “Gwen. Please.” His eyes were wild, darting. Suddenly he reached for her and pulled her toward him as though guiding her out of the path of someone walking by. There was no one near, but Jonathan's eyes focused and followed as if there were.

  “What do you see, Jonathan? What's frightening you so badly?” She wrapped her shivering arms around his neck and pulled his face into her wet hair and kissed his cheek. He hugged her back, tentatively at first and then fiercely. He held her for several long minutes, and she held him until his breathing became normal.

  And then he said, very gently, ”I must leave you now, dearest.”

  “What?” His tone. So strange. She tilted her head to better see his face.

  “Wednesday,” he whispered. ”I shall visit you on Wednesday.”

  “Jonathan ...” She stepped back from him. ·

  “Be well, dearest.” He brought her hand to his lips. Then he bowed slightly at the waist and tipped a hat he wasn't wearing. A stunned Gwen Leamas watched as he walked unhurriedly down Park Avenue, as if he had not a care in the world.

  The man called Dancer cast his eyes around the Oyster Bar. Dour-faced commuters had quickly filled the remaining tables and were already two deep at the bar. It was clear from their manner that at least some northbound trains had already been canceled.

  The thought of terminating this interview with Raymond Lesko crossed his mind but Dancer rejected it. Their conversation had taken too disquieting a turn. But aside from Lesko's acute perceptions regarding the unhappy history of the Corbin family, and his recalcitrance regarding the notebook, there was still much more to be learned from him. And more to be learned about him.

  The interview would continue, Dancer decided, although he wished he could think of a more discreet place. The Yale Club and the New York Yacht Club were nearby and would offer privacy but were otherwise out of the question. Bringing Lesko to either one would be tantamount to handing him a business card. Nor would any other public place be suitable. In the more fashionable of them, Dancer would run the risk of being recognized and addressed by his real name. Any place not as fashionable would surely be just as crowded as Grand Central. Better to remain here, he supposed, and rely on the increasing levels of noise and drunkenness to dull the attention of any casual listener.

  ”I consider my request a reasonable one, Mr. Lesko. May I know why you are being difficult about a few scribbled pages which you can surely replicate from memory?”

  ”A matter of principle.”

  “Indeed, Mr. Lesko.” Dancer almost allowed himself a smile.

  “The principle is called covering my butt. If you're a lawyer, which I suspect you are because you're such a pain in the ass, you know the difference in evidentiary value between original notes and reconstructions. You also know that no reporter or policeman would ever surrender his notes.”

  “Defrocked policeman.”

  “Retired, Twinkletoes., Lesko corrected him. “Full pension.”

  Dancer sat back, folding his arms, debating whether to point out to this thug that his retirement was no more than two hops ahead of the Internal Affairs Division, a departmental trial, and possible indictment for drug trafficking and murder. But making Lesko defensive on the subject could be counterproductive. And his past transgressions might well have value in the immediate future.

  “Your report.” He leaned forward. “Please continue, Mr. Lesko.”

  Lesko met Dancer's eyes for a long moment, considering whether to pick up where Dancer had seemed so anxious to stop him. The subject at hand was old Hiram Corbin's widow, mother of the first Jonathan T Corbin, who was reputed to have been a very impressive old dame. Lived to be about eighty. Which might not have been all that remarkable, even for a Corbin, except.that Hiram's widow didn't come to all that peaceful an end either. Lesko thumbed a few pages back, leaving Dancer to chew his lip a while longer.

  He didn't really need his notes by this time. Lesko remembered. A coincidence, which had barely made an impression some two weeks earlier at the Hall of Records in Evanston, Illinois, now came back to him. Mrs. Hiram Forsythe Corbin, nee Charlotte Whitney of Baltimore, had also died in March of 1944. Another accident, it says here. Asphyxiation. Died in her sleep when the flame of her gas heater somehow blew out. No autopsy. Wartime shortage of personnel at the coroner's office. No police investigation worth the name, either. Strange. Strange because the physical evidence could have been consistent with deliberate suffocation. On the other hand, it could have been consistent with a legitimate accident or even a suicide. Still, there should have been an investigat
ion. Particularly in view of the dates. There it was. March 19, 1944. That's just two days before March 21, 1944, when her fifty-five-year-old son had the life crushed out of him by a speeding car on Chicago's North Side. Here's old Charlotte Corbin, a woman of some standing in Chicago, whose sudden death was practically within a heartbeat of the sudden death of her son, Jonathan T Corbin the first. You'd think someone would have cared enough to wonder.

  What about her grandson, Captain Whitney Corbin? Didn't he care enough to wonder? Wait a minute. March of 1944. That's when he was conceiving a son of his own. Our own Jonathan T Corbin the second. Captain Whitney Corbin must have come home for a double funeral, following which he found consolation in the bed of young Agnes Haywood. Then he went back to England. The dates all fit. Corbin, the present Corbin, is a Christmas baby. That means conception was around March 25 or 26. So Whitney was home for at least a week. Let's just suppose that somebody really was knocking off all the Corbins. How'd they miss Whitney? There were two funerals and that meant a lot of friends around. Too many. And old Charlotte's death probably had some press coverage. Maybe they couldn't get at him, maybe they didn't want to risk going for a triple, or maybe when they looked for Whitney he was shacked up someplace with Agnes. Then when he comes home in June to marry pregnant Agnes, he's got half the Air Corps with him because of this war bond thing. They can't touch him. Maybe they sit and wait for the war to end unless Hitler does them a favor in the meantime.