The RagTime Traveler

by Larry Karp

  The boy frowned. “Well, okay. The only other idea I’ve got is something called psychometry.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It comes out of psychic research—you know, mind reading, clairvoyance, seeing things at a distance, all that stuff. There are a lot of books about it, and I’ve talked to some people at science fiction conventions. There’s this theory that a person with the right psychic abilities can sense the history of an object by handling it. Maybe you’re just going one step further, visiting the object’s past. You were studying that piece of music on the card, putting yourself into Joplin’s head while he was writing it. And, hey! If Joplin wrote it at the Maple Leaf Club, he was only, what, a quarter-mile away from here?”

  Alan made a go ’way motion with his hand. “Tom, that sounds like poppycock.”

  “Do you have a better explanation?”

  “All right, Tom. Enough. Let’s cool it for now. I’m really exhausted—too tired to try to think. Give me an hour or two horizontal; then we’ll get some food and try to make sense out of all this.”

  Tom grinned. “While you’re sleeping, I’m going to go over the music. I would anyway, but if I could go visit 1899…” His voice trailed off for a moment. “That would be awesome! And it would prove you’re not hallucinating, right?” He didn’t wait for Alan to answer. “If I’m not here when you wake up, you’ll know where—or when—I am.”

  “Hmm.” Alan lifted his knees, stretched a kink out of his lower back. “I said that piano string looked old. Wonder what might happen if I really study it…but not right now.” He closed his eyes. “See you in a couple of hours.”

  The boy smiled. “Maybe.”

  Chapter Six

  Tom waited until his grandfather started snoring before he pulled the envelope of music out of his pack. He set the invitational card on the desk in front of him, then stared at it in puzzlement. Alan said he was imagining listening to Joplin working on this, but how the heck did he figure which scratch-outs and erasures went together? He shrugged. Maybe it’ll be enough to go with the final version.

  He set his fingers on the edge of the table, fingering it like a keyboard, and played through the strain a few times. Once he was sure he had it down, he closed his eyes and pictured a slim, black man sitting at an upright piano, his fingers moving in synchronization with Tom’s. At first it was tricky to keep the image in mind without losing the music, but after a couple of false starts, Tom thought he had it right. 1899, here I come! He cracked one eye open and snuck a peek.

  Still in the hotel room.

  He tried again. Still nothing. If I’m supposed to be feeling something from the card, I must be doing it wrong, ’cause I don’t feel anything except silly. He tipped his chair back onto two legs while he thought. Maybe I don’t have a good enough idea of what Joplin looked like. Or—didn’t Alan say some of Joplin’s students and Otis Saunders were there? Do I have to imagine them too?

  A few minutes with his iPhone turned up pictures of all four men. Tom studied them, closed his eyes again, and pictured the men gathered around a piano. He imagined Saunders saying something, and the others laughing. Just another day, work’s over, time for some fun. Tom started to play the card music again, and realized it had slipped out of his head while he was looking at photos on his phone.

  “Crap!” he said, then looked at Alan, who was still snoring. “He made it sound so easy,” Tom muttered as he returned his attention to the card. He ran through the music a few more times, fixing it in his memory, and glanced back at the photos on his phone. Then he played the edge of the table again, letting his fingers remember the notes while he built up his mental image of the Maple Leaf Club. Slowly, his eyes closed, and the music in his head grew louder and louder.

  ***

  Tom jerked awake, the theme still running through his mind in dissonant counterpoint to Alan’s snores. Still right where I started. Either there’s something I’m missing, or Alan’s slipped a gear. I’ve got to be careful with him. If Gramma thinks he’s losing it, she’ll make us come right home. Leaving without finding out what happened to the music and who did in Mickey, that would kill Alan. I have to stay cheerful, take as much of the work as I can, and keep my mouth shut when we call home this evening. Tom rubbed sleep out of his eyes. And I’ll keep trying to time-travel. 1899! That would be so epic!

  He tucked the card back into the envelope and pulled out one of the sheets of music paper. It began and ended mid-strain. Tom riffled the stack, hoping to find the preceding and following pages, but came up empty. It looked familiar, though. Tom played it through in his head, then laughed at himself. Of course it looks familiar.

  “Still here, I see,” Alan’s voice interrupted the boy’s train of thought.

  Tom looked theatrically around the room and widened his eyes in a parody of shock. “I guess I am, at that.” He shrugged, not ready to discuss the implications. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  “Nah. I had my couple of hours, plenty.” Alan heaved himself up and leaned back against the headboard. “What’s that you’ve got?”

  Tom held up the sheet he’d been studying. “The middle of something. Unless I’ve forgotten half of what you’ve taught me, this is from a cakewalk—that rhythm is unmistakable—and we’ve got parts of two themes here. We don’t have the rest of the piece, which is a crying shame, because the second theme looks a lot like the one on the invitational card.”

  Alan held his hand out, and studied the page for a moment. “Looks like it to me too—good job. Hope we can find the rest of the piece.”

  Tom grinned at the praise. “If we’re lucky, it’ll turn up in Mickey’s duffel bag.”

  Alan grunted. “You sound confident we’ll find it.”

  “Huh? You sure were when you were talking to the cops.”

  “If I hadn’t, that Detective Parks would have walked all over me. I’m sure Parks is an okay guy as far as police go, but he still doesn’t really want us underfoot.” Alan shrugged and swung his legs out of bed. “Be polite, be respectful, but do what you need to. That’s a good rule with police.”

  “If you say so.” Tom stood up and stretched. “So what do we do next?”

  “We find ourselves something to eat.”

  “Alan!”

  “You’ve had nothing to eat since dinner last night and it’s half-past lunchtime. That’s not a natural state for a teenaged boy.”

  “I’m not sure I could eat anything. Not after seeing Mickey…” Tom’s voice trailed off.

  “Dinner tonight will be late if Detective Parks nabs us for statements. Bet you change your mind about eating when a burger looks you in the eye.” He winked. “Besides, I ought to be eating too. At my last chemo treatment, my weight was down a few pounds, and the oncologist threatened me with Ensure if I didn’t get it back up.” Alan screwed his face into an expression of disgust. “Ugh! A fate worse than death, so to speak. Let’s go over to that sports bar down at Fifth…Fitter’s, right? Yeah. If we sit inside, nobody’s going to hear us talking. And it’s not likely the police would look for us there; if they can’t find us, they can’t tell us not to do whatever we decide to do next.”

  Tom gave him a dubious look, then slipped the music into his pack.

  ***

  By the time they settled into a booth at Fitter’s, Tom’s stomach growls were loud enough to convince him to risk a chicken wrap and onion rings. Alan looked the menu over and decided to stick with a plain burger and fries.

  “Chemo tastebuds, Alan?”

  “Nah. Just playing it safe. ’Sides, I like a good burger now and then. The more protein I can take in, the better, and the fat in the burger and the fries—calories!”

  Alan looked around the room. Satisfied that no one was within earshot, he leaned forward. “The way I see it, that note from Mickey is our only real clue to where he stashed the duffel bag. Let
me have another look at it.”

  He unfolded the paper and studied Mickey’s scrawl. “Seems to me he was worried about someone coming after the duffel bag,” Alan said, thinking out loud. “But why didn’t he just say something last night?” Alan tapped the page against the table. “Look how sloppy his notation is. His handwriting’s always been a mess, but his musical notation is usually clean. If he got this sloppy, he must have been in one big hurry, and maybe more than a little drunk. Something scared him last night after we left. Hmm.”

  “You think the music on this note is important? I figured it was already on the piece of paper Mickey happened to grab.”

  “Maybe you’re right, but I doubt it.” Alan flipped the page around and dropped it on the table. “Recognize the piece? I taught you this one a lot of years ago.”

  Tom grinned and nodded. “Took me a couple of seconds yesterday, but yeah. It’s the intro to ‘Swipesy Cakewalk’.”

  “You got it. Mickey’s known that tune for decades. He wouldn’t have bothered writing it down unless he was trying to send me a message. But what?”

  “That someone was trying to swipe the music?”

  Alan shook his head. “The note does that just fine. No, there’s got to be more to it than that.” He muttered “Swipesy, swipesy, swipesy…”

  Tom spotted the waiter approaching with their food and stuffed Mickey’s note back into his pocket.

  Alan nodded thanks for the food, and picked up a fry, absently tapping it on the edge of his plate in time with his mutters.

  Tom took a cautious bite of his sandwich. When his stomach didn’t rebel, he followed the first bite with two more and an onion ring. “What we need,” he said, mumbling through his meal, “is a native guide. Somebody who might know if there was some local significance to Swipesy.”

  Alan froze, then pointed his fry at Tom. “Of course!” he said, then looked at the fry and popped it into his mouth. “You remember the story about how Swipesy got its name?”

  Tom had to wrack his brain over that one. His fingers always learned music much more easily than his brain learned the accompanying stories Alan told. “Uh…Joplin’s publisher, John Stark, suggested it, right?” At his grandfather’s nod, he went on. “Mr. Stark said the kid in the cover picture looked like he had just swiped something from the cookie jar. So?”

  “So the ‘kid’ was a newsboy.”

  That clicked immediately. Tom’s eyes widened. “Jackson? You think Mickey was worried Jackson was after the music? Maybe he was afraid Jackson was gonna kill him?”

  Alan choked on a bite of burger and had to take a quick sip from his water glass. “I didn’t even think of that! I figured that somehow, Jackson was protecting the music. That puts a whole ’nother slant on it.”

  The two were silent for a couple of minutes, eating and thinking, until Tom pushed his empty plate aside and snagged a handful of fries from Alan’s.

  Alan mock-glared at him and tugged his plate closer. “Stealing a hungry man’s fries. For shame! See if I ever trust—” He held up an index finger. “Hang on. Mickey said he thought of the boy as almost a son, was teaching him ragtime piano. He must have trusted the kid. And probably every lesson included half a dozen stories about Joplin and his music. Jackson’s probably heard the story about Swipesy a million times. Mickey never would have used it as a clue if he suspected the boy.”

  Tom shook his head. “That’s a lot to hang on one little thing Mickey said.”

  “Getting cynical, are you? Well, how about this: Jackson had free passage to that house. He’d have known where to find the duffel bag, and could have just walked in and swiped it any time.”

  “Assuming Mickey showed it to him.” Tom shook his head. “No, never mind. We both know Mickey wouldn’t have been able to resist showing off his big score to his student. Okay, so Mickey wanted us to talk to Jackson. How about you let me take care of that?”

  Alan half rose. “By yourself? I don’t think so. I’m not going to sit around doing nothing while you go chasing after trouble!”

  Tom made a couple of “sit down” patting motions. “Not ‘nothing,’ Alan. I’m suggesting a whatchamacallit…division of labor. Look, no matter what stories Mickey’s told Jackson, he doesn’t really know us. He’s not going to trust some old guy he’s just met. But someone more like his own age? Someone who can talk to him like just us guys? He might go for that.”

  “Humph.” Alan settled back in his seat. “Maybe. But where’s the division? So far all I’m hearing is what you’re going to do.”

  “Somebody needs to distract the cops. Feed ’em a line of bull so they don’t look too close at what I’m doing. And who could do that better than you?” Tom gave his grandfather his best deadpan look. “You said ‘polite and respectful’ earlier, but I didn’t hear anything about truthful. Who could be better at spinning a tall tale than somebody who studied the art with Mr. S. Brunson Campbell, The Original Ragtime Kid hisself?”

  That got a snicker out of Alan. “Sounds like you could spin a pretty good yarn yourself. Why’s it so important for you to go chasing off after Jackson? Let’s both go talk to the police. Feed them a line and then ignore them.”

  Tom shook his head and tapped his jeans pocket. “We lucked out this morning: the cops only searched my pack, when I was standing there with Mickey’s note and the wire in my pocket. I don’t think I should talk to the cops about a murder while I’m carrying around stolen evidence. If they find that stuff, we’re going to wind up in the slammer.”

  Tom went on before Alan could do more than nod reluctantly. “I can’t think of any place safe to hide the stuff. Can you?”

  Alan shook his head slowly. “Damn it, no.”

  “Okay, then. So I’ll hang on to it and stay out of sight. And that’ll be a lot easier if you keep them distracted.”

  Alan sighed. “All right. You win this round. Go talk to Jackson, I’ll talk to Detective Parks. But be careful! Even if we’re right about Jackson, that just means the killer is out there somewhere. We’ve got to talk to your grandmother this evening, and I do not want to have to explain how you got hurt—or worse.”

  “I’ll be real careful, Alan, I promise! I’ll stay in public, won’t get him mad or anything. If he gets weird, I’ll run like hell. Okay?”

  Alan sighed again and shook his head. “Better watch it, Thomas, or you’re going to make me proud of you.” He took a deep breath. “Give me your backpack. Most likely, the lieutenant will want to see the music, so I’d better have it to hand.”

  Tom stood and dropped his pack on the bench next to Alan. He gave his grandfather a quick peck on the cheek. “Baffle ’em with bullshit, okay? Meet you back at the hotel so we can figure out what we’re gonna tell Gramma.”

  Alan looked around for the waiter, then changed his mind. Too busy talking to eat. Still have half my burger, and I’m not going on Ensure. No way. It won’t hurt the police to wait a little longer to hear from me. He took a bite and stared off into space while he chewed. Tom figures I’ve lost my mind over this time-travel business, but I don’t think so. I may be forgetful, but I feel almost as sharp as ever. I don’t know if I can get back to 1899, but if I can, I might find something or do something to prove it’s real.

  He popped open the buckle on Tom’s backpack and dug out the invitation, setting it on the table a safe distance away from the plates. He took another bite of burger as he recreated his image of the Maple Leaf Club with Joplin at the piano, surrounded by his students and friends, then hesitated.

  If I could talk to him alone…That would be much better. Maybe a different time. Midafternoon, maybe, sneaking a few quiet moments before he heads off to work.

  Alan erased everyone but Joplin from his mental picture and added the sun angling in through the windows, a few stray reflections off the unlit chandeliers. It didn’t feel quite right. After a moment of thought, the ol
d man imagined Joplin rising from the piano and stepping behind the bar, then bending over to look for something underneath it. That felt better. He let the strain on the card begin to play in his head, then added himself to the picture. As easy as that. He swallowed his food and said, “Mr. Joplin? My apologies for disturbing you—”

  Joplin jerked upright, a pile of papers in one hand. “Oh! Mr. Chandler. You do have a way of appearing unexpectedly.”

  “It does seem that way, doesn’t it? But it’s just happenstance.”

  Joplin nodded and waved a hand at one of the tables. “If you say so, Sir. Please, have a seat.” He bent behind the bar again.

  Alan heard a “clunk-rattle-click” before Joplin straightened, tucking something into his pocket. He realized the sounds had been Joplin putting the papers into some sort of safe or locked box under the bar.

  “I’ve been looking for you the past few days,” Joplin said as he settled into the chair across from Alan. “Naturally, it wasn’t until I stopped looking that you turned up.”

  “Days?” The word slipped out before Alan could stop it and he tried to cover for himself. “I hadn’t thought it had been that long.”

  The musician gave him a dubious look, but let the statement pass. “Perhaps your arrival is fortunate. I’ve been vexing my free moments with a new composition for several weeks and have little to show for my efforts. A change of mental scenery—devoting some time to another problem—might help.”

  “Mozart’s muse eludes you, I take it,” Alan said with a grin.

  “The one that allowed his music to flow from his mind to his pen as fast as he could write? Alas, it has. If there ever existed such a creature, and I have my doubts that it did, I fear it perished with Mozart.”