Out of Time

by Michael Z. Lewin

  We went to my inner office.

  ‘What Paula said last night,’ he began quickly, ‘about finding her mother, that holds.’

  ‘All right. I’ll give it a try.’

  ‘I thought,’ he said, ‘that we could establish what course of action would be the best to follow.’

  ‘I promised you a report and reckoning to date and you might look that over first,’ I said. From the central drawer of my desk I passed him two sheets of paper.

  He took the document, but dismissed the idea of reading it. ‘Thank you, thank you. But can we get on?’

  ‘You realise, I’m sure, that the most efficient way to get the facts you want is from Mrs Murchison. And that your wife and yourself are both better placed than I am to go to her and say, look, we know now, so tell us about it.’

  ‘We saw her this morning,’ he said simply. He shook his head. ‘The nurses said she was all right, but we didn’t get two words of sense.’

  I said, ‘Then there are two or three ways I can try to trace Daisy Wines but there is no guarantee that I can get a lead on her, any more than it is certain she is still alive.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But you should consider something else.’

  He looked at me.

  ‘What I find might not be pleasant to know.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Let’s assume, as now seems likely, that Daisy Wines is your wife’s mother. Then she gave her child away. That needn’t be an irresponsible act, but it certainly might be. She might have been an irresponsible or disreputable person.’

  Belter studied my face and asked, perceptively, ‘Do you know something you haven’t told me?’

  ‘Only,’ I said, ‘that the house at the address on the birth certificate was being used as a brothel in the late 1950s. It’s in the report. I know of no direct connection back to the time Daisy Wines and Mrs Murchison lived there. But it opens the possibility, by association, that I might find out that Daisy Wines was a prostitute. Are you prepared for something like that?’

  ‘I am,’ Belter said darkly, ‘I want to know what is what. And you need spare no expense which will expedite this knowledge.’

  ‘I think those instructions are pretty clear,’ I said.

  I sat for a few moments after he left trying to remember if I’d ever heard the phrase ‘spare no expense’ used in real life before.

  I went to work. I drove into town and parked in the Arena lot. I crossed to the City-County Building, but instead of entering the Police Department wing, I went to the judicial side which also houses the city and county records offices. There I ‘arranged’ for one of the clerks to find the ownership history of the New York Street house for me, quickly. I spared no expense.

  From the records office I made the short trip to Birth Certificates in Ohio.

  My moustachioed friend had bags under his eyes. But he smiled at me and was content.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  What he could do was search for Daisy Wines’ birth certificate. It was possible she’d been born in Marion County. Maybe I was having a run of luck.

  Then I went to see Miller.

  ‘You still look awful,’ I said, ‘but I won’t tell you because it will probably only get you down.’

  ‘I appreciate that.’

  I thought about asking how his family was, but decided that too would be depressing.

  I said, ‘You invited me to come in if I had things that I wanted done.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  ‘I’m trying to trace a woman and all I know about her is her name and the date she had a child.’

  Miller scrutinised me.

  ‘I want you to have some things checked out. All right?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Whether she ever died, whether she has hospital records anywhere, whether the child was adopted legally, whether she has a criminal record.’

  ‘Child, huh?’ he said.

  I shrugged.

  ‘O.K. Give me the name and stuff. What have I got to lose?’

  I felt sorry for the man.

  On my way out I walked through the central foyer back to the judicial side of the building. I hoped my commissioned history of the New York Street address had been completed.

  And it had. Life was a smooth downhill roll.

  The building had had five owners since 1921. The title changed in 1938, 1940, 1945, and in 1972. The owners were Samuel H. Garrison, G. Bennett R. Edwards, Mrs G. Bennett R. Edwards, Michael P. Carson, and Edward C. Carson.

  My bet was that the ‘C’ stood for Charlie.

  The Daisy Wines search was certain to take longer so I got my van and headed west of north, to Biarritz House.

  I didn’t recognise the woman at the desk in the foyer and she didn’t notice me until I cleared my throat in front of her. I explained that I wanted a word with Mrs Howard about Ella Murchison.

  ‘Ella Murchison,’ the woman repeated, with her eyebrows raised.

  I smiled and asked, ‘Why do you say it like that?’

  ‘Every other person who comes in wants to see Ella. Has she come into money or something?’

  ‘Life has made you a cynic, ma’am,’ I said.

  ‘Not life. Buzz Gordon, my husband. Connie Howard is probably upstairs. Shall I call her for you?’

  ‘If you would, please.’

  The bustling Mrs Howard came down the building’s open curving staircase four minutes later. She nodded as she approached me.

  ‘You were here a day or two ago, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yesterday,’ I said.

  ‘Ella Murchison,’ she said.

  ‘That’s right.’ I gave her my name again.

  ‘What’s going on, Mr Samson?’ she asked. ‘You’re back here. Her daughter and son-in-law visited early this morning. The daughter’s housekeeper is in there now.’ She flipped her hands apart for a moment, a kind of manual question mark.

  ‘They think that Mrs Murchison might be able to remember a woman they would like to trace, a long-lost member of the family they only heard about recently. I suppose people are coming in shifts because of her reputation for intermittent lucidity and they would like someone with her if she does become more communicative again.’

  Mrs Howard was not happy. ‘I know I said that she has these incoherent times . . . But it’s not like a faucet, on for a while and then off. She’s liable to worry about these poisons any time, but for the most part I find you can talk to her perfectly well. Compared to the general standard of our residents, she is very aware.’

  ‘Yesterday I found that she wouldn’t stick to the subject. At least not my subject.’

  ‘Maybe that was because she doesn’t know you very well.’

  ‘Before yesterday, not at all.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s just not used to people coming through at quite such a rate.’

  To underline the point, Tamae Mitsuki passed from Mrs Murchison’s corridor into the foyer.

  She saw me as I saw her and did not seem surprised. I excused myself, but Mrs Howard followed me as I approached the housekeeper.

  I said, ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hello, Mr Samson.’

  ‘How is Mrs Murchison today?’

  ‘She seems real low. I’m afraid that I couldn’t get through to her at all.’

  I nodded understandingly.

  Mrs Howard shook her head as if not understanding.

  We must have made quite a double act.

  Connie Howard said, ‘She took her breakfast without any fuss and we talked about the weather.’

  ‘That’s what she talked to me about,’ Mrs Mitsuki said. ‘The weather. Poor lady.’

  ‘Have you known her long?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, yes. Years and years. I came to Indianapolis after the war with my son, and Mrs Murchison rented us a room and later gave me a job. Despite the prejudice against the Japanese in those days. We were very grateful.’

  ‘Where did you come here from
?’

  ‘California. My husband died in internment. I wanted to get away.’

  ‘How did you pick Indianapolis?’

  ‘I can hardly remember,’ she said with a small smile. ‘I had heard the name and I liked its sound. I thought that someplace that remembered its Indian origins might be an easier place for my son and me to fit in.’

  ‘I wish I could believe that your expectations were fulfilled,’ I said.

  ‘It’s worked out O.K.,’ she said philosophically.

  ‘Is your son still in the city?’

  ‘Oh yes. He runs a restaurant.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘It’s called The Rising Sun. On Northwestern Avenue a few miles north of I-465.’

  ‘I’ll have to try it one day.’

  She smiled delicately. ‘I have to go now,’ she said.

  ‘Nice to see you again.’

  She left.

  I turned to Mrs Howard, who was still by my side. ‘I’m sorry to have kept you from what you were doing.’

  ‘You’re not,’ she said, looking after Mrs Mitsuki. ‘I would have gone if I wanted to.’

  ‘I didn’t really come to see Mrs Murchison,’ I said. ‘I came to get an idea from someone who knows her well as to whether we’re likely to get the information we want from her.’

  ‘I know Ella better than anybody else,’ Connie Howard said. ‘I’m surprised she hasn’t helped you already, unless, perhaps, this “information” is something she wouldn’t want to think about.’

  ‘There might be some unpleasantness associated with it,’ I said.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Mrs Howard, we would be grateful for any help.’ I gave her my card. ‘I’m employed by Mr Douglas Belter.’

  ‘Yes?’ she said.

  ‘Mr Belter hopes to trace this relative, a woman named Daisy Wines. He would gladly offer some money either to you or a charity you might nominate if it is possible for you to expedite matters.’

  Sternly, Mrs Howard said, ‘You may tell Mr Belter that I am not available for hire to hound old women.’

  ‘I hope that is not what I was suggesting, Mrs Howard.’

  ‘It certainly sounded like it to me, Mr Samson.’

  And when I thought about it, it sounded like it to me too.

  I felt about five centimetres high.

  I licked my wounds in a telephone booth, getting and then trying the number of Edward C. Carson.

  The woman who answered said, ‘He ain’t here, mister. And I don’t know when he’s coming back.’

  ‘Is there somewhere I might have a chance of catching him?’

  ‘Catching him?’

  ‘To talk to,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said again. ‘He could be anywhere during the day. Charlie really gets around, you know? But at nights he’ll be at the club, of course.’

  ‘Club?’

  ‘Sure. Aren’t you another singer or something?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh. I thought you was.’

  ‘Which club would that be?’

  ‘Rovers Lounge. You know it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘On English Avenue, near Christian Park.’

  ‘I’ll find it. And he’s there every night?’

  ‘Yeah. Don’t like nobody else counting his money, Charlie.’

  Then I made my other call. To Normal Bates.

  He answered almost immediately.

  ‘This is Albert Samson, Mr Bates.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘The redoubtable detective. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I would like to stop by.’

  He paused. In my mind he was noting that I hadn’t said why I wanted to see him.

  ‘When do you want to come?’ he asked.

  ‘How about now?’

  ‘All right. I look forward to hearing what you have to say.’ He hung up.

  I was about twenty minutes from Tarkington Tower. I was also hungry. I considered stopping at a fast foodery on the way. But in the end I didn’t. I feel I’m a little bit sharper when the tank is low.

  Bates sported yellow braces this time, and he shook my hand firmly at the door. He waved me in and allowed me to lead us to his sitting room. He sat in his chair but the straight chair from the computer had been moved into place for me.

  He faced me with his gleaming eyes. ‘I suspect you have learned something,’ he said.

  I nodded. ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Let’s have it.’

  ‘I’ve learned that Lance Whisstock is a police sergeant on undercover assignment,’ I said. ‘As you well know.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bates said without surprise. ‘A rising star over there. If he has the luck not to get killed, he’ll have an illustrious career.’

  ‘Captain Foley must be very proud of his grandson,’ I said.

  Bates’ eyes twinkled. ‘Good, Mr Samson. Good.’

  I began to speak, but Bates raised a hand to stop me. ‘I know, I know. You are not amused that I hire you to find out things I already know.’

  ‘I don’t take it for a joke, Mr Bates. But I don’t understand what you’re up to.’

  ‘How else am I to get an idea of whether you are any good?’ Instead of waiting for an answer, however, he swivelled his chair to face his panoramic window.

  I waited.

  ‘It’s a fascinating place, Indianapolis,’ he said finally.

  Not everybody’s view, but I said nothing.

  ‘In its way a sampler of the history of the whole country over the last hundred and fifty years. Growth. Migrants making their fortunes. Here, in meat packing, breweries, banking, bakeries. It was an important place before the war, you know.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Broadway shows came before they went to New York. Top music people. You ever heard of Paderewski?’

  He was a Polish pianist and politician. ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Long hair. Threw it around a lot at the piano.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘I want you to do another job for me,’ he said. He turned his chair to me again.

  ‘What this time? To see if I can find out which president cut down a cherry tree and couldn’t tell a lie?’

  His eyes fixed mine and he wasn’t smiling. ‘This job is real, serious and large. It will mean regular work for you over an extended period of time and I will give you a substantial retainer. It involves nothing illegal or dangerous. It starts immediately. You’ve got to be interested.’

  He was right. I had to be interested.

  ‘How soon is immediately?’ I asked.

  ‘Tomorrow. Or even today.’

  ‘I am committed to another case at the moment.’

  ‘A case as important or lucrative as what I am offering you?’

  ‘No. But I have agreed to take it,’ I said.

  ‘I see.’ Bates said. ‘Something interesting?’

  ‘A family wishes to locate a woman but can give me no information more current than 1936.’

  ‘How do you go about a problem like that?’

  ‘I try to find someone who knew her. I check for anything that might have been recorded somewhere.’

  ‘It sounds a formidable task.’

  ‘People leave their mark. I just hope this woman’s was adequately indelible.’

  ‘It does not sound like something you will be able to wrap up quickly,’ he said.

  ‘Probably not,’ I agreed.

  ‘And you can’t get out of it?’

  ‘That’s not how I go about things, Mr Bates. But tell me more about what you want me to do. It is possible that I could get started, or get someone else to get started, and then pick it up full-time when this case is completed.’

  ‘The first part involves your talking to people in Boston. There is no way you can go about it other than wholeheartedly.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry,’ I said.

  And the more I thought about it, the sorrier I was. Full employment is the same kind of dreamland for a
private detective as it is for a country.

  ‘I am an old man, Mr Samson. And being old is not simple. There are advantages. For one, an old man does not have to sacrifice the present for rewards in later life. For another you know who your real friends are. But the disadvantages are terrible. They lie in the decline of your power, both over your own mind and body, and over events which affect you and your friends. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  ‘Not fully.’

  For a few seconds he was silent again. ‘You are still young, although perhaps you don’t appreciate it because you are older than you have ever been. But, my God, what I could do if I were your age!’

  I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘So, even if I offer you a guaranteed term of employment lasting for, say, six months, or a year, you would not be willing to work for me exclusively beginning immediately.’

  ‘Give me a little time. I’ll see what kind of accommodation I can make.’

  ‘Time I am short of,’ he said with a sigh. We waited again, while he thought. ‘Suppose you let me know as soon as you can, and I’ll decide then whether it is too late or not.’

  ‘All right,’ I said.

  Our meeting was at an end. Bates turned his chair and his attention back to the city which spread out below him. I rose and left and walked down the eleven flights of stairs trying to guess what kind of year-long job couldn’t wait a few days to be commenced.

  Chapter Eight

  I remembered I was hungry as I left Tarkington Towers. But instead of diving into the nearest pizza parlour for a sandwich, I called my woman to invite her out for lunch.

  If I could wait three-quarters of an hour, she could make it.

  I took my mind off food by visiting the Birth Certificates office.

  I was greeted as a friend.

  ‘I don’t know how old you figure this lady might have been, but I’ve been back through 1900 so far and there’s no entry for a Daisy Wines.’

  I thought about it. It would make her older than thirty-five when she had her child.

  ‘Can you go back farther?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘1890?’

  He smiled broadly. Windfalls probably always made him grin.

  ‘I’ll call you later this afternoon,’ I said.