Once we were back in our hotel room, I took him by the hand, pulled the flyer out of my pocket where I’d put it during our walk back, and sat at the edge of the bed beside him. “Let me just say: I don’t know what this is yet,” I told him while looking down at the flyer in my hand. “I do know it’s important, though. It has something to do with why we’re here and it scares me. A lot.” My hand holding the glossy page began to shake but I don’t think Mike noticed because, when I looked up, he was looking at me with that look of undisguised love that I’d come to cherish. I began to feel calmer immediately.
“I believe you,” he told me softly. “I didn’t get any impression at all from that theater but you clearly did. I mean, you practically took us right to it, even though you had no way of knowing where that particular theater was.” He paused for a second, then asked, “Should we go tell your folks about what happened?”
“Later,” I replied. “Let’s just keep this between us for now, okay? I’m tired.” Then, I added, looking into his eyes, “Lie down for a minute with me?” We kicked off our shoes and crawled up to the head of the large bed. He wrapped his arms around me as I nestled back against his chest. I held his arms as he held me from behind. Even though my thoughts were running overlapping races in my head, I managed to close my eyes and drift off for several minutes in the safety of his arms.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I was dreaming of a room very like the one Mike and I were sharing, only without any furniture and with a very strong smell of paint, when someone began pounding on our door. Mike was on his feet before me, opening the door to Jamie, who was leaning on our door jamb.
“Are you boys ready to go see the grumpy old man and see if he feels like being super rude to us again?” she asked as she stepped into our room. “Not very exciting in here,” she observed as I sat on the bed rubbing my eyes curious about the smell of paint that was still in my nose. I looked around for my shoes as she went on, “Your mother sent me down to fetch you both. We're meeting in their room in five minutes.” And then she was gone leaving me to stumble around, tie my shoes, and hurriedly finger comb some water into my hair in a mostly failed attempt to make it behave. We arrived at my parents room on time.
After getting a wholly unnecessary briefing by my dad about what to ask Carl and how much to share with him, I brought out the flyer to show them.
“I just want to pass this around to everyone and see if anyone gets anything from it. I’ll tell you why afterwards, okay? Mom, you first.” I unfolded the flyer and placed it in her hands. She held it, looked it over, and even sniffed it to my amusement, but then she shrugged, shook her head, and gave it back to me. Dad, Jamie, and Mike all gave it a try but got nothing. Then Mike and I told them about our experience in Times Square, how I’d seemingly been drawn to that theater but couldn’t say why.
“That’s two theaters that have come up in our investigation!” Jamie observed. “First, there was the one in Pennsylvania—near where Mary Louise Keller worked—and now this one here. Wait! There have actually been three theaters involved in this whole mess if you count the kidnapping of you two from the theater lobby after “The Crucible”.” I’m guessing that it’s statistically improbable to have three theaters randomly involved in kidnappings. I think this means something, and I think we should explore it. Not that I have to be right, but I think I am.” Nodding, I noticed that Mom and Dad had grasped each other’s hand when Jamie mentioned the kidnapping.
She continued, “We should recheck all of the material we have on those other suspected murders to see if there are any references to theaters. Did they work in the theater? Perform in local theater? Go to shows before their disappearances? We do have the folder with us, don’t we?” she turned to Mike.
“I packed it!” Mom said. “It’s in my suitcase.” She reached over to her bag and brought the file out with a flourish. “It was just sitting on the kitchen counter back home and no one else seemed to think it was important. So, there you are! You’re welcome,” she smiled. She was such a mom. I swear, she just couldn’t help it sometimes.
“Well, that’s a lot of material,” Dad pointed out, “And right now we need to get downstairs and meet Carl—if he shows up,” he added skeptically.
◆◆◆
Clearly, the lobby had been renovated recently, but somehow it still smelled old—if that makes any sense? Then, suddenly—weirdly—the smell was gone, replaced by the scent of freshly sawed wood. I looked around and realized everything I was seeing was under construction—brand spanking new! I wasn’t quite sure what I was remembering but I knew it was somehow related to the fresh paint smell from earlier. More importantly, it wasn’t Ansel’s memory. It seemed older somehow. Then, while I was still trying to figure it out, the vision was gone. The musty odor was back and I was left with nothing but a slight case of nausea.
I glanced around and was surprised to see Carl already there waiting for us. Pacing back and forth in the lobby, now without the red jacket he wore in the restaurant, Carl was wearing black trousers and a short-sleeved dress shirt, which exposed his thin, sinewy arms. “Carl!” I called out to him when we were still some distance away. He turned toward us and a small, tentative smile came to his face.
“It’s Philip, right?” he asked as I approached him.
“That’s right. Carl, we’re so glad you made it. I was afraid you wouldn’t—” I stopped myself before I could say too much. Then, the others gathered around us.
“I said I’d show,” he replied. Then, more quietly, he added, “Even if I didn’t really want to.”
“What’s that?” Dad asked, unable to hear over the noise of the lobby. I’d heard him, though, so I went on talking.
“We have some really, um, delicate things to discuss with you if we could. Would you mind coming up to one of our rooms? I really don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be overheard,” I explained.
“Sure. In for a penny, in for a pound.” Carl answered. “Lead the way.”
As our group entered the elevator, the others were chatting and I got Carl’s attention. I asked him, “Do you mind if we do the Look again—like we did in the restaurant? I had my Awakening not too long ago and I feel like there’s so much I don’t know about that time.” The elevator began to move, along with his head, which was tilting predictably to one side, and all of a sudden I was there—
—am here, at Coney Island, a few days before we—Ansel and Ingmar—move to Washington D.C. The sun reflecting off the ocean is bright. The sky is clear and blue. The boardwalk is hot under our rubber-soled shoes. There’s that amazing smell of an amusement park: cotton candy, hot dogs, and Coppertone, all mixed with a slight hint of vomit because it’s Coney Island, after all. The three of us are having a great time. Well, at least Ansel and Ingmar are. I detect a sort of sadness to Carl. When Ingmar isn’t looking at him and me, Carl gives Ansel a wistful puppy dog look. Ansel seems oblivious to it...
This memory was not a fragment. It came as a complete recollection, as were many others involving Carl. Many were in the restaurant, but just as many were of the two of us walking down Manhattan sidewalks, talking about our lives and pointing out the cute guys, who were everywhere. Many were still in uniform and Carl was very openly flirting with them, but most of them didn’t seem to notice. They just smiled that small town kid in a big city smile and kept on moving.
I saw all this before the elevator even got to our floor.
“I’m sorry if I seemed rude back at the restaurant earlier,” Carl said to us as we walked to Mom and Dad’s room. We’d all just headed there by default. He went on, “I think I was just taken by surprise given what these two young men shared with me. I just assumed that Ansel and Ingmar were still living in D.C.— probably old and rich by now. I had no idea that—” he stopped himself. Then he asked, “What happened to them?”
“That’s part of what we want to talk to you about,” Mike replied as Dad opened the hotel room door. “Ingmar died in 1960 when he w
as only 41,” he told Carl. “Ansel died in 1962 at 38.” Mike held the door while we all entered the room. As he shut it, he added, “We think they were both murdered.”
We all took turns telling the entire story to Carl. When one person forgot a detail, someone else jumped in and took over. We finished with the last part of the tale so far: me being drawn to the theater and taking the flyer for A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine.
“You live right here in the middle of everything,” Jamie said after we’d finished our tale. “You must know something about all of this, right? Have you heard any of these stories before?”
“Honestly? No,” Carl replied. “I mean, I’ve heard stories of some boogeyman who grabs Knowers out of their beds and eats them or something—” he stopped, laughing nervously. “I guess I always assumed they were just stories to make children—or adults, too, for that matter—behave. I’ve never known anyone personally who disappeared.”
“Are you sure?” Mom asked him. “Sometimes, those stories you hear might be based on real events, yes?”
“I’m sure they are—sometimes.” He paused to think, then said, “Wait, there was this one guy. He used to come to the restaurant on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Those were the days he would work not just one but two shows. He’d come down to Paddy’s and eat between the matinee and evening show. He was a Knower but I didn’t catch on for the longest time that he was. This was a couple of years ago—so not that long ago. He actually reminded me of Ansel,” Carl said specifically to me. “Always excited about something and couldn’t sit still for long before he was up out of his chair to do something else. He worked as a costumer. No, wait. He was a dresser. He used to correct me when I called him a costumer. He was a dresser, dressing old folks in that old folks' play that was so popular then.” We all gave him blank looks.
“You don’t know the play? I can’t remember the title. Anyway, he didn’t come to mind earlier because I only found out about him being a Knower the last time I saw him. He’d given me his order, as usual, and when I brought him his chowder, he asked me if I knew him. I thought he was just playing around—making some dumb joke—and I said that I thought he looked familiar or something stupid like that. I’d moved on and was talking about the weather or something when he stopped me and said again, ‘Do you know me?’ Well, then, I gave him the Look and I didn’t recognise him—except for his being a Knower and for him being pretty obviously afraid.” Carl shook his head as the memories fell into place. He exclaimed, “I remember it all, now. I got busy after that and never did find out why he’d revealed himself to me or what he was afraid of.”
“And you never saw him again?” Jamie asked. She seemed honestly upset for this young man whom she’d never met.
“I didn’t know that at the time, of course,” Carl answered her. “I didn’t even notice that he wasn’t there the next Wednesday. A few days after that, this woman brings in some flyers and asks if she can put one up in the restaurant. I told her we don’t do that—post bills, you know?—but she could put one on the light pole out front. Everyone else does. Anyway, she hands me one of the sheets and darned if it ain’t my favorite customer, Andy, the costumer. Sorry, I mean: dresser.” Carl seemed to think his little joke was funny. Nobody else did, so he continued, “He’d been missing for about a week at that point according to the flyer. I thought he’d probably moved back home like a lot of people do when they give up their New York dream. Or, he could’ve run away with someone—young people do that too. I don’t know that I ever really thought much about what happened to Andy after that. He never did come back to Paddy’s…” He paused and looked around at all of us. Then, he asked, “Do you think he was killed for being a Knower?”
“It’s possible,” Dad replied.
“Make that probable,” Jamie corrected my imprecise dad.
“Can you remember the name of the show with the old people you mentioned earlier?” I asked him. At this point I was a little obsessed with any connection with the theater, I was also learning to trust my hunches more and more.
“I don’t really pay attention to that Broadway stuff, ya know?” he answered. “It’s all been downhill since My Fair Lady as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know. Something about an old couple playing cards—poker or something? The stars of the show are actually married in real life. Gin Rummy something?” his face screwed up in concentration. Then, his expression lit up. “No! It was The Gin Game! That’s the name of the play!” Carl declared, clearly pleased with himself. “The Gin Game. I got it, huh? Not bad for an old guy.”
“Has anyone heard of this show?” Dad turned to Mike and me. “What do we know about it? And can we figure out if Andy was ever found?”
“I’ve maybe heard the name of that show before,” Mike responded. “But that’s all I know. I suppose we could go to the library and do some research, though.”
We tried to make a plan for the following day and Carl said he would help us, but we all wanted to start someplace different: Mom and Dad wanted to go to Greenpoint and start looking right away for Kominsky, which seemed like it could be pretty dangerous as well as premature to me. I wanted to find the connection between our different theater clues. Mike and Jamie were with me in wanting to do more research before heading into Kominsky’s home territory.
By the end of our meeting, we decided we could get more accomplished if we split up. The older folks would go to Greenpoint and scope out the address we had for Kominsky. Mike and Jamie and I would go to the public library to research The Gin Game, Andy’s disappearance, what was happening at the Bucks County Playhouse in 1972, and any connections there might be with A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine. As our group was splitting up for the evening, Carl asked me if I would walk him out.
“Sure,” I said, after checking in with Dad, who didn’t seem to have any objections. “What’s up?” I asked Carl.
After we’d closed the door and were walking down the hallway, he said, “I just wanted to apologize for the way I’ve been acting around you. It’s nothing personal. It just came as such a shock when you showed up in the restaurant—” He hesitated, searching for the right words. “This is hard to say, especially to a kid like you. It’s just that, I was sort of in love with Ansel—way back when. Once Ingmar showed up, I realized that those two had some kind of special bond that made the way I felt about Ansel pretty much beside the point if you know what I mean?” Carl and I walked slowly down the hall. “Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I’ve cared for Ansel all these years. I never saw him again but that didn’t stop me from loving him, just a little, for all this time.”
“Thanks, Carl,” I said softly. I could see this had been a difficult confession. “I sorta figured as much from the memories I saw.”
“You know, you’re a lot like him. Ansel, I mean. The man I knew was older, of course, and had just come back from the war and that changes people. But, underneath all that, he was a really decent, sweet kid. It’s what I liked most about him, and I see it in you.”
By now, we were standing in front of the elevator and I didn’t know what to say. Instead, Carl surprised me. He told me, “You and Mike are special, you know that, don’t you? What you guys have is really rare. Take care of it. Take care of each other.”
Just then, the elevator doors opened and Carl said, “If the man who murdered Ansel is here in New York, I’ll help you find him. It’s the least I could do for Ansel.”
“Thank you, Carl,” I replied.
“I’ll see you in the morning, I guess.”
“Good night,” I answered as the doors closed. I intended to take his advice.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When the Knowers are fully mature, they can perfectly recall any moment of any lifetime, going back in some cases over a thousand years. It is this vast knowledge of actions and consequences that is used to predict the future. As a mathematician uses their formulas and statistics, so the Knowers use their deep understanding of the past to predict l
ikely outcomes of current and future events. While some Knowers receive this information in fully formed visions, others acquire it through feelings and intuition—emotional premonitions of what is to come. Some Knowers experience both. Southampton Free Press 1975 (Excerpt)
The following morning, Carl arrived at my parent’s hotel room with a bag full of warm bagels, cream cheese, and cups of coffee for everyone. He said that if we were going to think like New Yorkers, we had to eat like New Yorkers. Of course I was hungry and the bagels were delicious. He got the coffee “light and sweet” for us “kids” with extra milk and sugar. That morning Carl seemed different—“lighter and sweeter” himself, younger even.
After we finished our bagels and coffee, Mike, Jamie, and I headed over to the local library. It wasn’t the famous one with the lions out front but it was right across the street from there. We had stopped for a moment to admire the famous lions guarding the entrance to the imposing New York Public Library, when I realised one of my flashbacks was coming on. I had the slight dizzy sensation and stomach flipping I’d come to recognize as part of the experience. I braced myself for the disorienting double vision, and then nothing happened. Nothing I was looking at changed. The lions and the building didn’t look any different. Just as I turned around to ask Mike if this was normal, it hit me. The library hadn’t changed in 60 years but everything across the street from it had been radically transformed. And it was cold, so I shoved my hands in my pockets—
New York is cold, so he shoves his hands in his pockets. His old overcoat is not enough to keep out the wind, and the burns that had healed still sting when the cold air reaches them. Vincent stands on the street corner in front of the library. This is after his brother died. Their house had burned to the ground, with Virgil and everything they owned in it, and Vincent had been given a train ticket and told not to return. His left hand is mostly useless due to extreme scarring from the burns, so he can’t find work—just odd jobs. He misses life in a small town. He misses his home and he misses his brother who had always been there but isn’t any longer. He’s earning a little money running errands for the matron of the small “comfort station” located next to the library. He uses his pennies to buy coffee and bread at the one cent coffee stand. He sleeps at the huge, municipal lodging house on cold nights and on park benches when the weather is nice. Vincent knows that if he doesn’t escape this life soon, he’ll probably die.
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