Time Out of Mind

by John R. Maxim

  Gwen was listening to his words, but her mind was replaying a montage of all the times they'd been together, especially in bed, making love, when she was sure that Jonathan was somewhere else.

  “Margaret's been there all along, hasn't she?” she asked.

  “Probably on and off, but yes.”

  “Why couldn't he have told me?”

  “According to you, she never even had a name before yesterday. What could he have said that you'd have understood?”

  “Going on three years now”—Gwen chewed her lip— “he's been .. . he's been with me but he's been making love to Margaret. How am 1 supposed to live with that?”

  “You're not, because it's nonsense.”

  “It's not nonsense. It happened last night.”

  “And it was only last night, you tell me, that he began to know anything about her. Most normal people have fantasy sex partners from time to time, yourself, Gwen dear, probably included. But this is nothing like that. Margaret has been around since Jonathan was a boy. To the boy, she was probably an idealized mother or older sister. To the man, she became a dream lover. But don't assume he revels in private sexual romps with this creature. Jonathan hates these intrusions, I promise you. They trouble him very deeply. I expect he's especially troubled by his ambivalence toward her.”

  Gwen nodded distantly. “He said that. He said he wanted to make love to her but that it seemed terribly wrong.”

  “Idealized mother to idealized lover. That's conflict enough for—” He stopped when Gwen put her hand on his.

  “How do we...How does he get rid of her?” she asked.

  “You were right the first time.”

  “Can we?”

  “Finding out who she was should help.”

  “You say that as if you believe she was real.”

  “Don't you?”

  “After today I do. Especially after today.”

  Corbin, having washed and rewashed his hands, and having thoroughly browsed all the shop windows lining the south wall of the Plaza lobby, paced self-consciously along the plant-lined border of the Palm Court, unsure whether to return to the table or to await a signaled invitation.

  He knew that they were talking about Margaret. Twice now, no mistake, he'd seen the name form on Gwen's lips. He could also see that she was listening much more than she was talking, which meant she'd already told her uncle almost everything this morning on the phone. Corbin didn't mind. He minded that Gwen seemed to have been crying a minute ago, but as for Harry Sturdevant's knowing, well, at least he doesn’t look like he’s telling her to get away from this nut case as fast as her long English legs will carry her.

  Sturdevant’ s eyebrows arched steadily higher as he scanned the four pages of scribbled notes Gwen had placed in front of him.

  “All this happened today?” he asked.

  “Most of it in the past two hours.”

  “And all triggered by the sight of the Osborne Apartments. You say that on two occasions Jonathan was fully taken over by this other personality.”

  “More than twice,” Gwen told him. “It happened for a minute or so just after we left my building.” She pointed to the place in her notes.

  ”I see. Trees, overhead wires, and a saloon called O'Neill's, none of which exist.”

  “Then there was that business about the Waldorf-Astoria, and downing this huge breakfast after trying to order some dishes that I'm not even sure he likes.”

  “Finnan haddie and kippered herring,” Sturdevant noted.

  “Then all those names that kept popping into his head.”

  Sturdevant traced a finger over all the underscored proper names. “Tony Pastor's, Tammany Hall, a pugilist named John Flood, Ansel Carling, Jay Gould, the Hoffman House—”

  “Which is where he had that brawl.”

  ''A woman, his wife, with a name that sounds like Emma, a man named Johnson who electrifies houses, the Spanish Flats, for heaven's sake, another frozen corpse named George, an illegitimate child, two of them, and a man named Tilden? Jonathan thinks his ghost's name is Tilden?”

  “You look like that rings a bell.”

  “Almost all of it does, but Tilden.” Sturdevant chewed on the name, a faraway look passing over his eyes. He shook it off. “It'll come to me.”

  Gwen reached to turn a page. “We've also narrowed down the time when all this must have happened. It had to be between—”

  Sturdevant held up a hand.

  “Gwen, dear,” he asked slowly, “do you think there could be any chance at all that Jonathan researched all this? That it's all an elaborate piece of acting?”

  “What could he possibly have to gain?”

  ”I don't know. For some reason the thought of a very considerable gain passed through my mind. Although I can't think why he'd bother to try to fool me. And I can't imagine that he could fool you.”

  “Jonathan couldn't fool anybody,” Gwen answered. “There's no artifice to him at all. Playing bridge with him as your partner is maddening because his face gives away his hand all the time. I've also never known him to tell a deliberate lie.”

  “And yet…”

  “What?”

  “Doesn't it strike you as odd that so much has happened, so much has been revealed to him, and to you, in less than a single day's time? The answer to that question might be all the various stimuli to which you exposed him. But considering that you've told me what an emotional wreck he's been these past months and especially yesterday afternoon, don't you find it striking that he's taking all these revelations and even possessions with such equanimity?”

  “He's doped to the gills.”

  ”I beg your pardon.”

  ”I put two of those magic trancs you gave me into his coffee this morning.”

  “Correction.” Sturdevant frowned. “If you're referring to the propranolol capsules, I did not give them to you. I prescribed them for you with full knowledge of your medical history. Further, propranolol is not a tranquilizer. It is a medication used in treating cardiac conditions which has also been found useful in relieving the discomforts of stage fright without affecting performance. I prescribed them for you to help you overcome your nervousness during that series of presentations in London last fall, not to dispense willy-nilly to your friends.”

  “If you don't stop scowling, I'm going to climb onto your lap.”

  “Listen, you nasty child—”

  ”0h, Uncle Harry”—Gwen reached for his hand— “they did help him. If only you'd seen the difference between Jonathan yesterday and Jonathan today. I don't think he'd have lasted half an hour without them. And look at all we've learned.”

  “At considerable risk to his health.”

  ”I did dilute them in coffee,” she offered innocently.

  “That, Gwen dear, is the single least intelligent thingI've ever heard you say. How many capsules do you have

  left?” ·

  “You gave me six. I only used one myself, two for Jonathan; that leaves three.”

  ”I would like all three returned in the morning.”

  ”I love you, Uncle Harry.”

  “Yes, but did you hear me?”

  “Three capsules in the morning. Scout's honor.”

  “Then I love you too, but perhaps not as much as that young man fidgeting over there behind the pastry cart.”

  “I’ll call him back.”

  “No, dear. Go get him. While you're gone I'll look over these notes of yours.”

  Raymond Lesko cursed himself as he bulled his way back toward the exit leading to Fifty-eighth Street. Sixty seconds, he thought bitterly. Sixty seconds he'd let his attention get sloppy and the old guy was gone.

  It was almost dark outside. Black Homburg, he knew, would be much tougher to spot and even harder to tail. As he reached the sidewalk, Lesko had about made up his mind to forget about looking for him and get as quickly as he could up to that silver car, probably a Mercedes, the old man left up on Lexington Avenue that morning. Worse cam
e to worst, at least he'd have the license number. Then, in a couple of hours, one way or another, Lesko would know who he was.

  But the ex-cop spotted his man almost immediately. He was less than a hundred yards away, hunched over, and moving in the direction of Bergdorf's and Fifth Avenue. Thank God for the homburg, Lesko thought, whose outline showed clearly in the twilight glow of the street lamps. Staggering or not, the old man was moving fast, for him anyway. Lesko had a sense that retrieving the Mercedes was not the biggest thing on his mind. The guy ignored a couple of taxis he could have grabbed and anyway, from the tilt of his shoulders, Lesko had an idea he was heading south. The old man made his way across Fifth Avenue and continued down Fifty-eighth Street to Madison where, sure enough, he turned south for several more blocks. Approaching Fifty-third Street, he crossed Madison Avenue without even looking up, like a man on automatic pilot or guided by a homing instinct. There was another hotel on the far corner. The Beckwith Regency. Lesko saw the old man's pace quicken further as he neared the gleaming green enamel and brass of its front entrance. The doorman snapped to attention on seeing him approach and threw a salute, which the old man did not acknowledge. Lesko, ignored by the same doorman, followed him through the revolving doors.

  It struck Lesko at once that the entire lobby staff also seemed to be at attention, each person following the old man's progress with smiles at the ready in case they should happen to catch his eye. Whoever the hell he was, thought Lesko, there won't be any shortage of people to ask. The man in the black homburg pressed on, still not looking up, and did not stop until a pair of elevator doors were closed behind him by an erect and smartly uniformed operator.

  Lesko relaxed. Not a bad day's work, he decided. What did he know so far? He knew that the Corbin guy was hung up on something that had to have happened long before he was born. Probably even before the black homburg was born, judging by the books Corbin bought. Whatever it was, Lesko knew where it happened, or at least where Corbin and the English dame thought it happened. Both Corbin and the old guy were almost equally spooked by the Osborne and by a whole two-block stretch of Fifty-eighth Street. The money Dancer was paying him, including the fifteen-grand killing money, started out almost for sure in that old man's pocket, although given those two calls Dancer made, the old man wasn't the only horse in this race. And speaking of new entries, now we have the Olympics guy, Sturdevant, who has a few bucks of his own and probably a lot of clout and who was very likely recognized by Black Homburg. Finally, any time he wanted to, Lesko knew he could ask the name of the scared, skinny old man with the fat checkbook who walked through here like he owned the place. A good day.

  Also a hungry day. He hadn't eaten, he realized, since munching a package of oatmeal cookies from that Te-Amo cigar store this morning. You'd think thirty years as a detective would teach you to carry a peanut butter sandwich on a surveillance. And maybe a pair of dry socks. And maybe a goddamned tube of Ben-Gay. This is not a body that's built for long hikes. Lesko picked out a lobby chair where he could rest a while and make some notes, and leaf through New York Then and Now, the picture book he'd picked up at Barnes & Noble's, for what it was worth, and then reward himself with a nice expensive dinner on the fag, Dancer. He sat back, unwrapped his first cigar of the day, a mild but reeking panatela, and soon felt the tightness draining from his shoulder muscles as he gazed contemplatively into a haze of exhaled smoke.

  As the small cloud thinned and dissipated, he idly noticed a row of gilt-framed portraits on the far wall across the lobby. Founder pictures, he knew. Boardroom pictures. There were collections just like this one in half the city's banks, corporate headquarters, and any other old-line businesses that had a real person's name on the door. They always looked the same. The portrait on the left, the first in the series, would usually be a guy with a beard, white hair, and a stiff collar. And a glare. They always glared. It was like they knew they were going to get hung up in the next president's office or in the boardroom and they wanted that look to be a permanent no to any stupid decision. Next in line would be the guy's son, who would be pushing sixty before the guy who started the place finally keeled over and made room. This second guy would look a little smug, as in, Now that we got rid of that old fart at last we're going to do some modernizing and growing around here.

  The third picture usually wouldn't even be a relative. Either the second guy always fucked everything up or else his kids turned out to be drunks or jerks who'd be out on the street if their old man didn't send them money to stay the hell away. The third-picture guy—they were always all guys—would have a Depression-era look about him. Like Herbert Hoover. A high collar and clean shaven. That guy would try to look kind and a little sad so you’d know was really sorry about having to fire half the employees and put the rest on half salary. He would have told them how he cut his own salary, too, and you couldn't convince him that taking home half of a hundred grand a year and a whole bunch of perks was not the same as taking home half of thirty bucks a week to feed four kids.

  Then would come the picture of the first one to wear a modern suit. The portrait would have a light background and brighter colors like they started using in the early forties. He'd be the first one who got painted smiling, partly because it was the war and everyone was working, and because that was when all the big executives tried to get photographed with their sleeves rolled up and their ads kept explaining how buying their products would help kill lots of Japs. But at least he was smiling. Not like the one over there. Exceptions prove the rule. The last guy over on the wall looks like he had a sharp stick up his ass—Lesko lurched to his feet.

  It was him. The old guy. Maybe twenty-five years younger but it was him. Lesko moved closer, his eye on the small brass plate on the lower crosspiece of the frame.

  Tilden Beckwith II, it read. Chairman of the Board, Beckwith Enterprises. Lesko whistled softly. Big bucks. Very big bucks. This hotel was only a piece of what the guy must have had. A weaselly-looking sucker. Sneaky eyes. The kind people have when they've just bullshitted you and they're looking to see if you're buying it. The kind of eyes that say, I wonder if these people know I think they're garbage. Exactly the kind of guy who would hire a little turd like Dancer. Lesko flipped open his notebook and moved one portrait to his left.

  The next picture, he knew at a glance, was Tilden's father. The same gaunt bone structure. The same air of arrogance. But not sneaky or stupid arrogance like Lesko had seen on the man in black. This one looked like a snake. And there was something odd about the likeness. Lesko didn't know what it was, exactly, but something was not quite right. He looked at the nameplate. Huntington B Beckwith.

  Hummph! Another initial with a missing period. Chairman of Beckwith Incorporated. The Enterprises must have come later. This picture had dates, 1944-1962, it said, referring to his time in office. And beneath those, another set of dates referring to his life span, 1888-1965. Hey! Wait a minute.

  Lesko felt a low hum building in his brain and a tickling at the back of his neck. Missing initials. And who else was born in 1888? Jonathan T Corbin the first, that's who. Lesko moved almost reluctantly, disbelievingly, to the next portrait of the series.

  “Jesus,” he whispered.

  Lesko shut his eyes tightly and took a step back from the wall before he opened them again. Once more he looked into the face of this new Beckwith. Tilden Beckwith I. No middle name. No initial. Born in 1860. Died in 1944. Maybe forty-five years old when the portrait was painted. A little gray at the temples. But still trim. Athletic. A busted nose tilting a quarter inch off center and a familiar scar breaking the line of one eyebrow. Raymond Lesko was staring into the face of Jonathan Corbin.

  “Friends again?” Sturdevant looked up. Corbin and Gwen had been touching and whispering over by a potted tree for a full ten minutes.

  “We had a good talk,” she replied, taking the chair Corbin held for her.

  Harry Sturdevant tapped Gwen's notebook. “This is quite extraordinary. Shall I attempt t
o summarize?”

  “Do you mind”—Corbin lifted a hand—“if I ask first whether you believe it?’'

  “Would you, sir, be reassured if I told you that this sort of thing has happened before?’'

  “In your experience?”

  “No, but there's literature on it. I've done some research today, and I plan to do a good deal more tomorrow. May I proceed?”

  “Dr. Sturdevant”—Corbin waggled the still upraised hand—“if there's literature it has a title. Or at least a subject heading.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Could I ask what it is?”

  “You're concerned, I gather, that the subject heading might be schizophrenia.”

  “Something like that.”

  “It isn't. Do you mind if we come back to your question after a bit?”

  “I'd really like to know the subject heading.”

  ”I mentioned it in passing earlier. It's genetic memory. Also known as ancestral memory.”

  ''A man named Tilden something or something Tilden lived at the Osborne Apartments sometime between 1885 and 1892.” Harry Sturdevant, his head tilted back, read from Gwen's notes and his own marginal jottings through a tiny pair of reading glasses. “This Tilden had an infant son and a wife whose name sounds like Emma or Anna. One night, during a blizzard which blew in from the south, she fled the Osborne, taking a course that led her one block north and two blocks east. Tilden gave chase. At the end of the short block north, he found a frozen corpse whose name was George but whose death seems to be little more than a background detail.” He glanced up at Corbin.