Time Out of Mind

by John R. Maxim

  “Bastard,” he spat, suddenly turning his head toward the street they'd just come down.

  “‘What is it?’' Now Gwen turned. She saw nothing. Only one superintendent shoveling a sidewalk and a woman stopping to pry a piece of rock salt from the paw of a Pekingese she was walking and, off to her right, a few departing guests huddling in the doorway of the Barbizon. “Jonathan, who's back there?”

  He rubbed his eyes. “No one, I guess.”

  “Then why did you say that?”

  ”I don't know.” His body seemed to sag again. And now it was Gwen Leamas who felt a sudden chill.

  “Let's get you indoors, Jonathan. Let's get down to the Plaza.”

  “There was somebody back there, Gwen.”

  ”I know,” she told him.

  Lesko, sure that he'd not been seen but troubled by Corbin's apparent awareness that he was being followed, now held back until he could fall in behind the black homburg. The old man reappeared, Lesko wasn't sure from where, but from the snow on the front of his coat Lesko realized he must have thrown himself behind some trash cans when Corbin turned. The old man staggered on, his eyes hollow and fixed straight ahead. He paid no attention to Lesko, if he remembered that the ex-cop was there at all. Lesko waited until he passed and fell in behind him, but on the opposite side of the rapidly darkening street.

  Farther along, he saw Gwen Leamas tug at Corbin's arm, pointing, he thought, toward the side entrance to the Plaza Hotel. But Corbin shook his head and walked on, past a small movie theater that showed arty foreign films and on almost to Fifth Avenue. At the display windows on the Fifty-eight Street side of Bergdorf Goodman, Corbin stopped. Lesko watched as he touched the windows and the walls, as if to be sure that they were solid and real. The woman took his arm, more firmly this time. She guided him into the street and through traffic he did not appear to notice. He was gesturing as he walked, waving his umbrella first back toward Bergdorf’ s, then ahead toward the open expanse of Grand Army Plaza in the manner of a man recounting some event that had happened there. Lesko saw them stop, almost beyond his line of sight, and saw Corbin point the umbrella at a place on the sidewalk where there was nothing at all. He seemed to be pinning something, or stabbing something with its tip. The Leamas woman tugged again, and they were gone from view.

  Lesko held back, waiting for the old man to follow. But the old man hesitated. He would lean in the direction Corbin had taken and then jerk himself back. It was the first time Lesko could recall seeing any human being actually wringing his hands in indecision. What's the problem? Lesko wondered. Had the old guy reached his limit or was it something else? Was it the Plaza Hotel? Betcha! Corbin and the dame must be going into the Plaza and he doesn't know whether to follow because a guy like him would’ be recognized in a place like that, wouldn't he. Someone might spot him and wonder why he looked all unwound and scared shitless. Someone might say his name out loud within earshot of the Corbin guy. That's it, right? Well, make up your mind, old man. I'd just as soon see a little more of what Corbin's doing around here, but that's up to you. Where you go, I go.

  Lesko watched with satisfaction as the man in black straightened, brushed the snow from his coat, tucked in his scarf, and at last centered the black homburg. Lesko knew he'd decided.

  “Way to go, Pop,” he muttered. Lesko followed as he rounded the corner and mounted the broad front steps of the Plaza Hotel.

  Harry Sturdevant, who was not actually Gwen's uncle but who had known her since the day of her christening, had arrived twenty minutes early. The Palm Court of the Plaza Hotel, he realized, was not an entirely ideal place for a confidential chat with a man who might be nearing an emotional collapse. But at least by arriving early he could minimize interruptions by other patrons who might know him and wish to say hello. He'd already shaken hands with several of the hotel staff, the chairman of the Coca-Cola Company, a senior partner at Smith-Barney, and a man who'd been brakeman on the Canadian bobsled team at Lake Placid.

  Uncle Harry was a large man with intelligent blue eyes and a generous mouth that had been molded through use into a look of perpetual good humor. He stood three inches over six feet and carried fifty pounds more than his playing weight at Harvard, where he'd lettered in eight sports two generations earlier. What his personal physician chose to call excess lard, Sturdevant preferred to think of as appropriate substance. In any case he carried it well, with due recognition to a superb but maddeningly slow tailor he'd found during the war years on Sackville Street in London.

  Sturdevant rose at Gwen's approach through a maze of tables and offered his arms for a hug whose warmth caused several nearby ladies to stop in mid-sip. Corbin waited, in a stiffness that was part politeness and part discomfort, until her uncle disengaged, then offered his hand.

  “Always good to see you, Jonathan.” Sturdevant gestured to two empty chairs. “You're both probably half frozen. Sit down and let's get something hot into you. Or have a drink unless you insist on being traditional.” He was careful to avoid looking too deeply or clinically into Corbin's eyes, but then, Sturdevant knew that he had always done just that each of the four or five times he'd met Jonathan. There had always been something about him. Something he couldn't place.

  “Coffee would be fine, thanks.” Corbin, distinctly nervous, would also have preferred a Scotch. But he feared that his hold on the present was tenuous at best and he was not about to risk slipping backward again in full view of the Plaza's high tea crowd. As it was, he was troubled by the notion that he should not be sitting there except in black tie.

  “Coffee for me, too.” Gwen squeezed Corbin’s hand reassuringly. “And some scones if they have them.”

  “They do indeed.” Harry Sturdevant nodded to the waiter who'd been standing near enough to hear, also touching the rim of his own half-empty glass.

  “Now”—he leaned closer to Corbin—“would some small talk help you to relax or would you like to get right into the business at hand?”

  ”I don't know how much small talk I have in me. Could I ask how much you know?”

  “As in, Do I suspect you're off your rocker?”

  ”I suppose.”

  “Uncle Harry...”

  Sturdevant put his hand on Gwen's but kept his eyes on Corbin. “I've known you, although not well, for more than two years now, Jonathan. Gwen has boasted about you to me many more times than that. She is quite a sensible young lady. I both love and respect her. I am confident that she is not one who would long remain attracted to an unstable young man. I myself have seen or heard nothing remotely troubling about you before this morning.”

  ”I haven't been all that stable lately.”

  “Which brings up a point Gwen made on the telephone. Whatever difficulties you're having now, is it correct that they did not exist prior to your arrival in New York?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Pretty much or entirely?”

  “There were some things that troubled me before coming here. They never seemed all that significant before.”

  “But they do now.”

  “Yes, I think so.” Corbin leaned slowly back in his chair. His arms crept up and folded across his chest. His attention turned to a violinist at the inner end of the Palm Court.

  Sturdevant raised one eyebrow at Gwen Leamas, who responded with a small uncertain shrug.

  “Your body language,” Sturdevant told Corbin, “suggests a considerable reluctance to say what is on your mind. I find myself wanting to ask if you'd rather have Gwen tell me, but I gather that this will be news for her as well.”

  Corbin’s eyes were still on the musician, who was on the third chorus of “If Ever I Would Leave You.”

  ”I once asked the violinist,” he began slowly, ”I think it was here, if he'd play something from Gilbert and Sullivan. From Iolanthe, to be exact. The violinist went and huddled with the maître d'hôtel. The maître d' came over and told me very politely that Gilbert and Sullivan was quite unsuitable in this ambience. Operet
ta music, as opposed to real music, was also quite unsuitable for the fine Amati violin the musician owned. However, if I had a favorite by Strauss, or Brahms, or Vivaldi or Corelli, he'd be more than pleased to oblige. I remember the conversation very clearly. I was annoyed. I thought he was an ass.”

  “Go on.” Sturdevant was watching him intently.

  “The conversation never happened. I'm not a particular fan of Gilbert and Sullivan. I don't think I've ever seen or heard Iolanthe. I don't know who Corelli is or what he wrote.”

  “But you remember the event vividly.”

  “That's just one example.”

  “Is it ever,” Gwen added. “All afternoon he's been—” Sturdevant held up a hand.

  “Were you never curious enough to look up Corelli or listen to Iolanthe to see if either evoked a special meaning for you?” .

  “You don't understand.” Corbin leaned forward again. ”I just remembered it. Just now, when I looked past those potted plants and saw the violinist. I see things, ordinary things, and some memory I could not have had comes flooding back.”

  “How long has this been going on, Jonathan?”

  “Almost as long as I can remember.”

  “Often?”

  “Just occasionally. They'd come in spurts maybe once or twice a year. But now it's happening often. Very often.”

  “You said it's troubled you in the past. Did you seek help?”

  “In college, yes.”

  “What was your specific complaint at that time?’’ ;

  ”I had a feeling I was someone else. Not all the time. Sometimes.”

  “To whom did you go for this counseling?”

  ”A psychology professor at Notre Dame.”

  '”What did he suggest, if anything?’'

  “He thought I might be having some trouble adjusting to college and filling my father's shoes. My father was a considerable campus hero during the early forties. They sort of enshrined him after he was killed in the war. The professor also thought I might be having some identity problems because my mother married again and her new husband got me to take his name for a while.”

  “If you'll forgive me,” Sturdevant observed, “that seems like rather a simplistic set of answers coming from a trained psychologist.”

  “It wasn't his fault. I didn't give him much of a shot. You see, he asked me if I thought these memories and feelings I'd have were real. I said no. I lied.”

  “May I ask why?”

  ”I can read a psychology textbook too, Dr. Sturdevant. Believing it would make me psychotic. Not believing it just made me confused. Confused looks better on my record.”

  “Jonathan”—the older man idly stirred the ice cubes in his drink—”I appreciate your candor. But that was hardly what you'd call facing up to a problem.”

  “With due respect, you still don't get it. The memories were real. I know that now more than ever. Who was going to help me with a problem like that? As I've already asked Gwen, how many years and thousands of dollars, how many blind alleys would I have to go down, before someone even began to believe me?”

  “If I were to call a friend of mine—”

  “Absolutely not,” Corbin interrupted. “This is as far as it goes.”

  “Then why are you even telling me?”

  “Because Gwen asked me to try to track this thing down, with her, and she thought you might be able to help us find out whether the things I seem to remember could actually have happened. May I ask, by the way, how much she's told you?”

  “That some very vivid ancestral memories seem to have surfaced in you, that you're understandably frightened by them, that they've contributed to some bizarre behavior on your part, and that a nineteenth-century strumpet named Margaret seems to have been her rival for your affections right along.”

  ”I did not say that.” Gwen reddened.

  “Which part?” Sturdevant asked. “The last?”

  “The personal part.” She glanced at Corbin. ”I don't want Jonathan to think I told you anything personal.” Certainly not that they were screwing on her living room rug and Jonathan thought she was Margaret.

  “It's okay.” Corbin touched her hand.

  “It's not okay. Some things are private and should remain so.” She looked at her uncle as if for confirmation of the reasonableness of her position.

  “Are you looking for me to agree with you?” Sturdevant asked her.

  ”I expect you to, yes. I do have a personal life and my affections have nothing to do with the problem at hand.”

  “I'm afraid they do, sweetheart. Margaret is why we broke up last year. I just didn't understand it then. I do now and I don't mind talking about it.”

  “Well I do mind, damn it. Not in front of family.”

  Sturdevant reached a hand to her shoulder to keep her from rising in her chair. “Jonathan,” he asked, “is there a telephone call you'd like to make? Or perhaps you want to freshen up.”

  “Shit!” Lesko muttered. Corbin was on his feet and moving in the direction of the lobby washrooms. Black Homburg, the jerk, had picked a spot in between to watch from. Asshole! Bad enough you stand there looking like you're going to slide down the wall any minute. But when you're watching someone in a restaurant you don't watch from where he has to step over you when he feels like going to the John. It's a rule.

  Lesko, standing near the fountain exit, rolled his eyes as Black Homburg raised a bony hand to the side of his face and tried to make himself small behind a pillar. Lesko held his breath as Corbin approached and then, incredibly, passed him by. The ex-cop let out a sigh. Thank God for protecting drunks and fools. Or for whatever is so heavy on the Corbin guy's mind that he hardly knows where he is. Which reminds me ...

  He sidled over to the stand of a bell captain who had smiled and waved at the big man with Corbin when he spotted him at the table.

  “Excuse me.”

  “Sir?”

  “You know how it is when you see a face and you can’t place it?

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There's a big guy there, white hair. I think I seen him in the papers. You waved at him before.”

  “You're a cop, right?”

  Lesko sighed again. “What is it? I give off a scent?” But he only pretended to be surprised. Cops and priests. No matter how they dress, no matter where they are, somebody always knows.

  The bell captain shrugged. “After I ruled out ballet dancer and brain surgeon I kind of settled on cop. Is there a beef here?’'

  “Nothin’ much. Anyway, it's not him. I just wondered.” Lesko looked away and took a step backward to show that his interest had passed.

  “Maybe you seen him in the papers,” the bell captain offered. “He's into a lot of sports stuff. The Olympics. That's Dr. Sturdevant.”

  “Oh yeah.'' Lesko actually did remember. “Henry, Harry, something like that, right?”

  “Harry.” The bell captain looked toward Sturdevant’s table and chuckled. “He was in here with Howard Cosell a couple weeks ago. People kept going over to the table to say hello and it was always to Dr. Sturdevant. You could see Cosell getting all pissed off.”

  “Yeah.” Lesko smiled. “Speaking of sports, what did the Knicks do this afternoon?”

  “Five-point favorites over the Celtics, they go down by twenty-two. You want to make a bust, go put the cuffs on Larry Bird. Shoot him, you get a medal.”

  “God damn it.” Lesko's face turned mean.

  “What's the matter? You bet the rent money?”

  “God damn it.” Lesko stepped farther toward the Palm Court. Black Homburg was gone.

  Harry Sturdevant spread some orange preserves over a scone and handed it to Gwen Leamas. “Now,” he said, “why are you behaving this way?”

  ”I told you. Some things are personal.”

  “A man you obviously hold in high regard comes here at your request to risk being thought a raving lunatic by a comparative stranger, and you tell me the conversation's getting too personal where
you're concerned?”

  “Women do take it personally, Uncle Harry, when they ask a man to marry them, are turned down, and then that rejection becomes a matter for public discussion. God knows we've discussed it enough privately.”

  “And you thought he was going to wash the same linen in front of me.”

  “He was.”

  “The devil he was. The man's apparently had a fixation all his life that he did not understand. It has influenced his life far more than he knows. It doubtless would have affected his choice of a marriage partner or even whether to marry at all. When you pressed him on the subject, he probably stalled as long as he could to avoid backing off entirely. Whatever reasons he might have given you had nothing to do with the real ones.”

  “Some of the reasons hurt,” Gwen said quietly.

  “He's already acknowledged they were stupid. Would you like me to tell you what some of them were?’'

  “Not really. No.”

  “That's fine, because they were irrelevant and, what's more, you knew it. You probably suggested counseling. He declined for the same reasons he won't see a psychiatrist now, which have considerable merit by the way.”