Time Out of Mind

by John R. Maxim

  “Fifty grand a year, every year,” he answered at once.

  “An ambitious proposal.”

  “Not really.” He shook his head. “It's not even blackmail. What I want is a lifetime contract as a security consultant with Beckwith Enterprises. That's a hell of a lot less than you pay either Burke or Dancer here, and they're both mutts.”

  “And you'll want it in cash, I presume.”

  “Nope. On the payroll. All legal.”

  “And your contribution to the firm's security will be what, exactly?”

  ”I discourage Corbin but I don't kill him.” Lesko took a step closer to the desk. “The main thing is, you don't either. Anything happens to him, I go to the cops and the papers. Anything happens to me, my notes and a deposition go to the cops, the papers, and to Harry Sturdevant. Beyond this Corbin thing, which you leave strictly to me, I'll do as much or as little for my keep as you want. Within reason, of course.”

  An unsettling smile pulled at the dried-out comers of Ella Beckwith's mouth. “And this deposition you mention, sir,” she asked innocently, ' ‘do I assume that it is in safe hands, as they say in the mystery films, with instructions that it go to the authorities should anything happen to you?”

  “You got the picture, lady.”

  “Since you assure me that this is not blackmail, Mr. Lesko”—the smile brightened—“it must be a question of competitive bidding. What is it exactly that you have to sell this Mr. Corbin? Since you can prove nothing of a criminal nature against any of us, you must have it in mind to help him draw up some sort of family tree.”

  A buzz sounded on her telephone. Ella Beckwith ignored it.

  “Do you propose, sir, to endear yourself to Jonathan Corbin by establishing that his sainted great-grandmother was a former prostitute? And if that does not sour him on the worth of your services, imagine when he learns that his very upright great-grandfather was in fact a murderer. He was, you know. He murdered the woman whose name I bear.”

  “Lady ...” Lesko shook his head wearily. The buzzer sounded twice more. She glanced at it and then at Dancer, who crossed to take the call. Ella rose to her feet and, propped up on her cane, leaned into Lesko's face. The smile now had a wildness to it.

  “Oh, bear with me, Mr. Lesko. I have saved the best for last. Do you believe in ghosts, sir?”

  Lesko closed his eyes. “You're going to tell me your brother does. I've already seen that, lady.'' He looked past her at Dancer. Whatever he was hearing on the other end was making him blink.

  “My brother, that wreck of a man whom you saw following Corbin through the streets of New York yesterday, has believed for twenty years that he is being stalked by the ghost of his namesake. He had never seen him, mind you. He had only the word of a dying man that the ghost of Tilden Beckwith had become flesh. That he was not only alive, but alive in his full, youthful, saloon-brawling and homicidal vigor.” She bit off and spat these last words.

  “Miss Beckwith!” Dancer cupped a hand over the phone. Lesko saw that his face was flushed. His head kept pivoting between Ella's back and the window looking down on the driveway. She flicked a hand, waving him off.

  Lesko could see at once where this was heading. Someone had run into Jonathan Corbin twenty years before. Someone who knew what Tilden looked like when he wasn't a whole lot older than Corbin must have been at the time. But she said the guy was dying when he told the story. Saloon-brawling and homicidal?

  “Dying from what?” he asked. “Corbin did a number on him?”

  “Corbin beat him to death. Jonathan Corbin murdered a man named George Bigelow and another man named Howard Flack. Flack died at once, Bigelow a day later.” Her voice was rising into a snarl. She was beginning to spray spittle. “He stomped them, clubbed them, broke their knees and elbows—”

  “Ella!” Dancer snapped. “We have a problem.”

  Go solve it, Lesko wished in his mind. This is getting too interesting to stop. He could see from Dancer's expression, however, that the problem at hand was even more urgent than getting his boss to stop shooting off her mouth. Ella began backing in his direction.

  ”A nicer class of people, you say,” she hooted. “If we have killed, sir, as you claim we have, it has been to defend what is ours. To survive. To see justice done. But how do your nice people kill, Mr. Lesko? They will murder a beautiful young mother out of injured pride and leave her poor body to freeze on a dark New York street. They will sadistically and systematically crush the bones of two men—not young men, by the way, men approaching their sixties—and leave them for dead in a hotel garage—What is it?” She spun on Dancer, who was trying to seize her arm.

  “Talk to Burke.” He thrust the phone into her hand and practically forced it to her ear.

  “Yes!” she shouted into the mouthpiece.

  Lesko watched her eyes grow wide, then narrow. “And you allowed this?” she asked. “You let him go?” She peered out her window as Dancer had done. Lesko noticed for the first time that it was snowing. Heavily. A half inch must have fallen just since he'd arrived. He could barely see his car where he'd left it, but a fresh set of tire tracks was clearly visible on the upper driveway. They came from behind the house at its far end and headed weavingly down toward Round Hill Road.

  “That fool!” Ella hissed through her teeth. Uh-oh, Lesko thought. Her spooked-out brother must be thinking for himself again. “Get in here at once,” she barked into the phone and then slammed it down. Ella did a double take at Lesko almost as if she'd forgotten he was there. “You may wait in the kitchen, Mr. Lesko, while I consider your offer. Mr. Ballanchine will show you the way.”

  Lesko wondered if he was hearing right. ”Uh, listen, lady—”

  “That will be all, sir.” Then, another funny little eye message to Dancer.

  “Yeah, well, I got some questions.” As he said this, Lesko held up the Beretta in the flat palm of his right hand and pointed to it as if asking, Does anybody here remember that I got this thing? ' ‘Like, who was Bigelow and was he, by any chance, the guy who knocked off Tilden and the Corbins for you back in 1944?”

  Lesko heard a sound at the door he'd entered. Dancer heard it as well and suddenly remembered the chair that blocked it. Dancer moved toward it, but Lesko stepped forward and grabbed the collar of his suit coat, holding the smaller man fast between himself and the door. “Easy does it, Twinkletoes,” he said quietly. “How about an answer before we let old Tom come in.”

  He almost knew it already. George Bigelow then was probably what Tom Burke was now. Bigelow would have done the killing. The guy Flack probably helped him do it. But twenty years later he runs into Corbin? And Corbin wastes him? Corbin was just a college kid then.

  “Miss Beckwith?” The voice came from the hall outside. The door had hit the heavy chair. “Are you all right?”

  No answer.

  Lesko snapped a look at Ella, who was just out of his line of sight over his right shoulder. She was just standing there. Behind her desk. Standing with her hands folded over the knob of her cane and staring at him with that snake look they all had.

  “She's fine, Tom,” he answered for her. “We're just finishing up a little talk.” Lesko twisted Dancer's collar to get his attention. “Just so I can sleep tonight,” he said into Dancer's ear, “did these guys find Corbin or was it the other way around?”

  ”I don't know,” Dancer choked. “It's true. No one knows what happened.”

  “So Corbin found them, right? Because no one knew there was a Corbin left until you hired me to verify it another twenty years later.”

  Dancer could only shake his head. Lesko was sure that he knew more than he'd admit to, but maybe not a whole lot more. Twenty years. Twenty years they've been looking over their shoulders because a dying man, Bigelow, says that the guy who done him was the same guy hanging in the lobby of the Beckwith Regency. If he's dying, it figures he's a little out of it, right? But still, even if you believe that a college kid could have dismantled two grown men
who had to be pros', would a pro like Bigelow have said it was Tilden who did it? He might have said it was some kid who maybe looked like him. Wouldn't he? But then, how do we explain that Corbin knew Bigelow? If it was him.

  “It was him.'' The words came labored through crushed and crusted lips.

  Huntington Beckwith leaned closer over the dying man's bed. Both legs were suspended in traction. Both arms were splinted upon raised wooden boards. Ella and her brother stood together on the bed's far side. “It was who, George? Who did this to you?”

  “‘Old Mr. Beckwith. He 's alive. ”

  “No.” Ella's father shook his head. “No, George. He is not alive. Think hard who really hurt you so that we may find him. ”

  “He is alive.” The man named Bigelow choked. “He's alive and he's young and strong again.''

  Huntington looked up at his daughter, his expression a mixture of frustration and annoyance. “‘He is hallucinating. It's the drugs they gave him for the pain.”

  “It was him,'' Bigelow shouted, but the effort brought a surge of agony that almost made him faint.

  “No, George. He's dead and gone. They are all dead and gone.''

  Ella stepped closer. “‘Could one have been missed, Father?” she asked in a whisper. “Could the one who was a flyer have left a son?”

  The dying man turned his face to Ella. “He came out of a bookstore. Flack and I were passing on the street. I didn't get a real good look at first because the snow was in my face. He was just a kid who looked familiar. He barely looked at Flack and me. Then when we passed him, I remembered who he looked like. I turned around, even though he was walking the other way. But he wasn't, you know? It was like he knew us too. He stopped on the sidewalk after we passed him, and when I turned around he's just standing there, real straight, and he's looking at us. And his eyes were different. They were like a wolf looks. I says to Flack we ought to find out who this kid is for sure, but Flack says let's just get out of here because he's starting to feel funny just like me because the kid was all of a sudden different. He wasn't the same.''

  Ella heard a whimper behind her. Her brother, Tilden, had crowded back against the wall. She shook her head in disgust. “What then, Mr. Bigelow?” she asked. “You followed him, did you not?”

  “He followed us,” George Bigelow rasped. “We went to the garage under the Drake where Flack's car was and we hid behind this post and we waited for him. Then he comes walking in like he doesn't care if we know he's coming or not. Then he just stands there, real straight like before, listening. I figure enough is enough so I step out from the post but I tell Flack to stay where he is. This kid walks right up to me and he's squinting and then nodding like now he 's sure he knows me and now I see his nose is bent just like the old man's was. I say, ‘Who are you?’ He just smiles and he says, ‘Hello, George.' And I get scared and I yell for Flack and Flack comes around and grabs this kid around the neck from behind. But he's still got this smile and there's a look on his face that says, Oh, Jeez,I'm really gonna love this. So I throw a punch because I'm going to wipe off that smile, see? And I split open his eyebrow. It was an accident, exactly where I hit him, I mean, but now he's got this cut exactly where the old man had it and now he looks even more like the old man than he did before and this smile is still there. Next thing, real fast, he kicks Flack in the shin with his heel and he spins and gives Flack three hard shots and they knock him on his ass between some parked cars. Flack gets up holding his mouth and I think he's running away but he runs to his car and he gets this billy he keeps under the seat. Then this kid comes at me except now it's him. It's Tilden. And he brings up his fists like the old-time fighters. I get a few shots in but he's too fast. He's too strong. I went down and he comes down right on top of me. Then I see Flack with his billy and I know Flack nailed him. And I say, ‘Good, get him off me,' and Flack pulls him up by the hair and starts ramming the billy into his kidneys. But he doesn't feel it. I look at those eyes and I know he doesn't feel it.”

  Huntington Beckwith shot a withering stare at Ella's brother, who had the look of a frightened child. Bigelow sucked in a deep, whistling breath and Huntington could hear the bubbling of mucus and blood that would fill his lungs and kill him during the coming night.

  ”I hit him.” Tears formed in Bigelow's eyes. “Flack hit him. It didn't do no good.''

  Huntington Beckwith shook his head. ”I don't understand, George.''

  “The eyes. They never changed. It was like he couldn't feel nothing. It's like we were hitting someone else.”

  At the far wall, Tilden Beckwith II had turned his face away and was sobbing, one hand over his mouth.

  “Ella,” her father whispered sharply, nodding in his direction.

  Ella turned and slapped her brother's face. “Not another sound, Tillie,'' she warned him.

  “‘He told you,'' Tilden wailed.

  She slapped him again.

  “He said we would have to answer to him. He said there's no hole deep enough—”

  The third slap, backhanded, drew blood from his mouth. Tilden squealed at the taste of it and, shoulders bunched, he slid down the hospital wall. He made no further sound.

  “‘Mr. Beckwith,'' George Bigelow whispered.

  “Yes, George.”

  “How did he know?”

  ”I don't think he could have known, George. There's some mistake here. We'll sort it out, I promise.''

  “He did know. He knew everything.”

  “'I don 't understand, George.'' Huntington 's eyes narrowed.

  “‘He took Howie Flack's billy. He went for our knees first so we couldn 't get away. He smashes my knee. He says ‘Margaret.' He smashes the other knee, he says ‘Jonathan. ' Maybe twenty times before I pass out, he says ‘Margaret’ and ‘Jonathan.' When I can 't even feel the billy anymore, I hear ‘Margaret’ and ‘Jonathan.' Ask Flack. Flack will tell you.''

  Huntington said nothing. .

  Bigelow tried to raise his head. “Howie? Howie's not dead, is he?”

  “We're going to see to his family very handsomely, George. And you yourself are going to be in quite comfortable circumstances once you get well. I'll take care of everything here, of course. A few months,” he lied, “you're going to be better than new.''

  “‘Sure.'' Bigelow closed his eyes.

  “‘The police will want to question you,'' Ella said softly.

  “‘Don 't worry.''

  “Of course not, George.” Her father patted his arm.

  “'I want a priest.''

  “‘You don 't need one, George. Truly.''

  “‘Look. I want a priest. A priest can't tell no one what I say ”

  “Of course, George. Of course.”

  In the hallway outside, out of her brother's hearing, Huntington Beckwith asked Ella to stay with George Bigelow until the end. It came that night, hastened by the drain in his chest that had unaccountably become pinched. A priest came at sunset. Ella managed to persuade him that a general confession before last rites would be sufficient, given Mr. Bigelow's weakened state. The,priest, one Father Desmond O' Conner, unknowingly prolonged his own life by accepting Ella's suggestion.

  Ella returned to Greenwich, where she spent the next year peering into every young male face she encountered.

  Her visits beyond her front gate, which she'd quickly had installed, became increasingly infrequent, then rare, then

  not at all. Her brother, Tilden II, took up residence on his yacht, rarely setting foot ashore until his father's death in

  1965. Tilden, by this time, lived in an almost constant haze of alcohol and barbiturates. His wife, Elvira, moved with

  the children to the Palm Beach house, where she discovered that vodka and orange juice was a balm to her loneliness. On

  Huntington Beckwith's death, Ella sold Tilden’ s yacht from under him, effectively forcing him to accept the titular lead

  ership of Beckwith Enterprises in the office of chairman. With the job came a very large and
well-guarded suite on

  the penthouse floor of the Beckwith Regency Hotel. In the more than twenty years since George Bigelow had drowned

  in his own fluids, Ella and Tilden’s predawn thoughts were haunted gradually less by the vision of the ghost who

  mouthed the words Margaret and Jonathan with each advancing step. The part of Ella's brain into which that image

  was etched had almost healed over. Then came the day when she looked down across her sloping lawn to Round

  Hill Road and saw the long-dead face of Tilden Beckwith staring up at her. .

  A slamming thump sounded on Lesko's left. That would be Tom Burke, trying to kick in the other door for a shot at his blind side. He yanked Dancer's squirming body toward the sound and heard a rustle of fabric behind him as Ella Beckwith scurried out of the line of fire.

  There goes fifty grand a year, was his first thought. The foot against the bolted door had instantly multiplied his doubts about any good-faith bargaining with old Ella. The question now was how to get out of here. But then, there was also a question of professional pride.

  “Hey, lady,” he said over his shoulder. He beckoned hcloser with the Beretta, which he waggled over the mussed-up top of Dancer's head.