The Search for Joseph Tully

by William H Hallahan

  She looked down. “I can often see my husband’s ship from here.” “A seaman?”

  “A captain, Mr. Willow, a captain.”

  “Oh.”

  “He is away,” she said. “On a long voyage.”

  “Oh.”

  “I think you’ll find everything you need, including linens. There are several delicatessens and food stores just up Montague Street.”

  “Banks?”

  “Oh yes. Banks and other stores.”

  “A stationer?”

  “Yes.”

  “I need to open an American checking account. I have several bank documents here that need processing.” He tapped his breast pocket. “If you’ll allow me a few hours to set things up, I can pay you the balance of the first four weeks as agreed.”

  ‘That will be quite all right, Mr. Willow.” Mrs. Gundisun looked quite pleased, and she stood just a little too close to him as she smiled.

  By midafternoon, flaws of snow blew through the air, and under a freshened breeze the temperature drifted slowly lower. Willow walked into the teeth of the breeze that, rising off the open harbor, rolled up Montague Street. He lumbered along with several bags of food and a large roll of construction paper.

  Inside the warm hallway, he sensed again the pleasant and quiet atmosphere of the building. Mrs. Gundisun was nowhere about and he mounted the stairs to the beat of the pendulum clock.

  The wind was driving across the harbor and whined at his windows. The water’s face was covered with whitecaps. A spray of sudden snow spun past the window. Willow had a front-row seat to a major storm. He dropped the packages onto the couch, pulled off his overcoat, and walked over to the wall next to the window. He estimated the height of the wall to be eight feet.

  He walked back to his packages and prized out a box of push pins. Then he carried a chair and the large roll of construction paper across the room. He placed the chair between the two windows. He stepped up on the chair and unrolled the construction paper. With both hands he reached up and pinned it to the wall just under the seam of the ceiling. The unrolled paper dangled nearly to the floor. It was forty-eight inches wide.

  Willow stepped down and studied the paper for a moment. Satisfied, he went back to his packages. From a small bag he removed a felt pen. He stepped back up on the chair and uncapped the pen. Reaching his left hand up, he positioned it at a point equidistant from the two edges. Just below the top edge of the paper he printed:

  JOSEPH TULLY

  He stepped down and looked at it.

  “God help me,” he said. “Let the game begin.”

  8

  His hiking boots sank easily into the sand as he descended the wind-rippled side of the high dune.

  At the bottom of the dune, he turned and looked back up the sloping wall of sand, a series of craters marking his steps. Waves of transparent heat skimmed up the sides.

  He sat down on the flinty floor of the desert and removed his hiking boots and socks, then flogged the woolen sock on a rock. Sand sprayed his sweat-wet face and neck. He banged his boots together. Finally, with great care, he rubbed all the grains of sand from his feet and toes and from the channels of skin at the edges of his toenails. Satisfied at last, he pulled the woolen socks on, slipped his socked feet into the boots, and laced them with attention, neither too tightly nor too loosely.

  He stood up. The sun had westered. There were about two hours of daylight left, the best two hours of hiking in the desert’s day. He hefted his forty-pound backpack, swung it easily up on his back and adjusted the shoulder straps and frame belt. He wiped his face, neck and head, mopping off the sweat and the sand grains. He took a large mouthful of water, delicious and cool, hearing his throat quop, feeling the water flood his gut.

  He felt enormous. Complete, exhilarated, thoroughly animal and prime. He adjusted his broad-brimmed hat, hefted his bamboo walking pole, and set off at a steady gait across the scabrous floor of the desert, paralleling a long high finger of sand dunes. Once he was past that range of sand dunes, the walking was good again. The rhythmic movement of his body made the sweat run and the animal spirits rise. In the enormous silence of the desert, he heard his boots’ shuffle and the faint rubbing sound of his pack. The binoculars, hanging from the tubular frame of the pack, went tap tap, tap tap. At longer intervals came the sound of his walking pole tapping on the flinty soil. Walking with such exhilaration became hypnotic.

  At dusk in a sparse field of ocotillo clumps, he stopped to check his compass. Shimmering waves of heat rose around his bare legs, yet the coolness of the impending evening was already touching his wet face. He listened to the absolute silence of the desert. It was being dyed in a spreading stain of darkness. In a moment, myriads of stars would be flung across the night sky.

  He turned his head. A noise. He listened. Heard it again. He turned and looked back to the undulating terrain he’d crossed, sinking in darkness. In one of the long dips in the desert floor, hidden from his view, the noise sounded again.

  Whoosh!

  When Richardson awoke, he was out of his bed and holding the door jamb to his bedroom.

  And there, in the middle of the living room, precisely—that was where the sound had come from. He hadn’t dreamed it.

  Whoosh!

  Chapter The Second

  1

  It was well after nine when Griselda Vandermeer rang Richardson’s bell. She was carrying a boxed deck of tarot cards. Richardson opened the door. He smiled at her. “Welcome, Griselda. Come in.”

  “Thank you.” She stepped past him into his living room, her eyes quickly conning the decorations. He led her toward a group of people by the window. “Have you met the Abemathys and the Carsons?”

  “No. Not really.” Richardson watched her eyes as they glanced from painting to painting, sketch to sketch. She looked down at the rug and at the Scandinavian furniture. Then she shied another glance at Richardson.

  “Abernathy is professor of history at Brevoort College,” said Richardson, pausing. Griselda studied his eyes, nodding to them as he spoke.

  “And Carson is an industrial psychologist with his own consulting business.”

  “The parallels,” Professor Abernathy was saying, “are frightening. America has lost its way just as Rome did. In the latter

  days of the Roman Empire, rational people who should have known better consulted soothsayers—” He paused and looked patiently at Griselda and at Richardson.

  “This is Gordon Abernathy,” said Richardson to Griselda. “And Ruth Abernathy, Carol Carson and Christopher Carson. This is Griselda Vandermeer. She’s a soothsayer.”

  They chuckled and nodded at her. Richardson smiled as he watched the eyes of the two women. They studied Griselda’s hair, her knotted pearls, her lapelled jacket, her pants, rings and petite black shoes. Christopher Carson’s eyes were frank: he looked at the swelling expanse of soft pink skin that lay under the knotted pearls, then at her face.

  “What’s the matter with soothsayers?” Griselda asked Gordon Abernathy, smiling.

  “Don’t show him your tarot deck, Griselda,” said Peter Richardson. “Gordon foams at the mouth.”

  “What’s wrong with soothsayers?” echoed Professor Abernathy. “Why—everything. When an emperor takes advice from a soothsayer, you’ve got an empire in deep trouble. And that’s what happened in Rome. And that’s what’s happening here. Rome lost its way. Everyone consulted fortunetellers. Auguries were made from the flights of birds. Prognostications from the entrails of animals. Charlatans, frauds, diviners, haruspices abounded. Rumors of graves bursting open and spirits stalking the land were on everyone’s lips.”

  “Why?” asked Griselda patiently.

  “Why? Because Rome lost its self-confidence. It stopped believing that it could solve its problems. In fact, it lost the will to solve its problems. And the future was no longer a vista of promise. Instead, the future became a forbidding land of gathering shadows. Rome was bankrupt spiritually. And so are we. Overwhe
lmed. Frightened. No longer able to cope with our problems, consulting horoscopes in the daily newspaper. America is a dead duck. The most dangerous aspect of it all,” Professor Abernathy added, “is this the-heck-with-you-I’ve-got-mine attitude in our country. It spells doom.”

  “In both cases, American and Roman,” said Christopher Carson in his rich voice, still conning Griselda Vandemeer’s figure, “a major breakdown in morality preceded disaster.”

  2

  Richardson walked toward the small bar. He was weary of the tyranny of his fear. Whoosh, endlessly reverberating. Like the clock in the croc endlessly pursuing the captain in Peter Pan. Whoosh.

  He saw Goulart by the window talking to Clabber. Clabber gripped his arm, said something intensely. Goulart frowned and leaned his head closer. Clabber said it again, intensely again. He drew his head back, studied Goulart’s eyes. Goulart jabbed himself on the chest with a forefinger several times and frowned. Clabber shook his head and walked over to Mrs. Withers and Mrs. Ouist.

  “Oh yes,” Abigail Withers was saying to Mrs. Quist. “This building has had a tremendous history. Filled with ghosts.”

  “Ghosts!” exclaimed Anna Quist.

  “Oh, I don’t mean ghosts. I mean—” Airs. Withers gazed doubtfully at Albert Clabber.

  “Memories,” put in Clabber.

  “Well. Yes. Memories, if you will.” Mrs. Withers noted how Clabber’s thin neck protruded from his ill-fitting turtleneck jersey. “Dead actors, writers, poets, statesmen, foreign dignitaries of all sorts. Simon Brevoort was descended from one of New York’s first families—Dutch, you know. He helped put together some of the first traction companies in the city.”

  “Traction?” asked Mrs. Quist.

  “Trolley lines and, later, elevated trains. Oh yes, he inherited a good deal of money and made even more with his own finances. When he built this building, this section of Brooklyn was out in the green countryside. But he soon turned it into a center of the arts. It was originally built with eighteen bedrooms.”

  “Eighteen! Good heavens.”

  “Yes. It was a wonder in its day. Mrs. Brevoort grew wild-flowers in the steam-heated greenhouse on the roof all winter and sent them to her friends. It’s a national tragedy to tear it down. It took five years to build. It has materials and statuary and walls and beams and carved doors from all over the world. Dreadful. Perfectly dreadful.”

  Mrs. Quist clucked her tongue. Her pale eyes looked out from a gaunt white face. “I read about the court decision in the paper. And I gather that’s the end of it.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Withers. “That thing out there will do its work.” She solemnly and Mrs. Quist gauntly and Albert Clabber smolderingly turned and looked out at the silhouette of the wrecker’s boom in the dark night. Beyond it were the lights of the bridge to Manhattan and, beyond, the island itself.

  “The prognosis for it was never ieally good,” said Mrs. Quist. “I foretold five years ago that it would be tom down.”

  3

  Ruth Abernathy touched the cameo pin at her throat. “Right down on the street,” she said.

  Carol Carson's mouth was slightly parted in wonder. “What did it say about him?”

  “The article was very short. It just said that police had arrested a young man suspected of being a dope pusher. They arrested him right as he got out of his car. They found quantities of LSD. Apparently he was going to make a delivery to some house on this street.”

  “Oh, I can’t believe that,” said Carol Carson.

  “Oh, it’s true!” insisted Abby Withers. “This neighborhood has declined terribly in the last few years.”

  “He’s a graduate student from Columbia,” said Ruth Abernathy.

  “Who?” asked Mrs. Withers.

  ‘The pusher. You know what he was majoring in?” Ruth Abernathy looked at Mrs. Carson and Mrs. Withers. “Philosophy and ethics. Ethics.”

  “Wouldn’t it be fantastic,” mused Mrs. Withers, “if someone in this room were his customer?” The three women looked curiously about the room.

  “Oh,” said Ruth Abernathy, “I don’t think so. Nobody here is the dope type.”

  “You never know,” said Mrs. Withers. “I was just reading in the Daily News the other day about a model husband who was caught feeding microscopic amounts of LSD to his wife.”

  “Oh my heavens,” said Ruth Abernathy. “What did it do to her?”

  “Oh, she had hallucinations. She began hiding from people. Hearing things. Mortally terrified. She had all the symptoms of a psychosis. He was trying to get control of her money by locking her away in a mental institution.”

  “When was this?” asked Carol Carson.

  “Just the other day in the Daily News.”

  “Oh. How terrible. What happened?”

  “Well, when the wife learned what he was doing to her, she went insane and they locked her away.”

  Ozzie Goulart strolled past Richardson carrying several drinks. “We give weird parties, buddy.”

  “Yeah. Weird. Fortunetellers and white witches and unfrocked priests and history professors and psychologists and illiterate Portuguese artists and handsome, charming, urbane, nutty editors. All we have to do is keep pouring out the booze and we’ll have a swell coeducational fist fight on our hands.” Goulart paused. “If it starts, I get to square off with that Griselda. She can beat me up anytime and I won’t raise a finger. I turned the heat up. Maybe we can get her to take her jacket off.” He frowned at Richardson. “You ain’t smiling.”

  “Yeah. I notice you ain’t smiling either.”

  Goulart tossed his head slightly. “Good day, bad day.”

  “Let’s match notes sometime.”

  Whoosh.

  4

  “I tell you that man tampers with things beyond his ken,” crooned Mrs. Withers, clasping her hands under her chin. She gazed from Clabber’s face to Mrs. Quist’s. “And those buildings resent being tom down, I’m sure. Like killing sacrificial lambs. You see where the sign is—Waite’s Groceries’? Well, for sev-

  eral weeks now, I’ve been seeing lights in the windows of that building. And so have many other people. The police have been there—oh, so many times, but they never find anyone there. Yet the lights always return.”

  “Ohhhh?” Mrs. Quist’s pale moist eyes looked significantly at Albert Clabber, then squinted prudently at Mrs. Withers. “Lights, you say. Have you ever walked over there to examine the premises?”

  “Me? No, thank you!” Abby Withers shook her hands at the ceiling.

  “It would be most interesting, I would think.” Mrs. Quist studied the grocer’s sign, then looked at Clabber’s nodding face for endorsement. “Lights are a very interesting phenomenon. I recall a famous story of lights in an abandoned stone house in the Fort Hamilton section. A building that was built long before the Revolution. A witch-killing. But I must tell you a few things you can do about those lights of yours over there.”

  5

  Richardson refilled the ice bucket and watched Clabber. He crossed the room, gripped Goulart’s arm and led him away from Mrs. Withers. They stood again by the window. Clabber spoke emphatically and shook a finger at Goulart. Goulart shook his head, pointed at himself and spoke several short words. He returned to Mrs. Withers.

  Carol Carson arrested Richardson with a smile. “This is the first time I’ve gotten a view of the wrecking from this side of the building. I can't believe it. It’s like a bombed-out city. Brevoort House looks ridiculous without all the other buildings around it. Christopher says it looks like a plucked chicken.” She gave a short laugh.

  Richardson smiled. “I guess it does.”

  “Abby Withers says there are ghosts here.”

  Richardson shrugged and smiled. “You’ve lived here for three years, Carol. Have you seen any?”

  “No.” She watched her husband stroll up to the bar and stand next to Griselda Vandermeer.

  “I heard what you said' said Albert Clabber, “about spiritually ba
nkrupt countries."

  “Oh?" said Professor Abernathy.

  “However, I think you should understand that when people turn to spiritualism, they’re admitting that their formal religion is a flop. Empty' ritual. The spirit world always seems most active when nations are in crisis, not because people have become superstitious but because the spirit world is tiring to help with messages.”

  Professor Abernathy’s mouth opened. Slowly he shook his open mouth. “You mean—are you telling me—do I understand you to mean that you believe people can talk to the spirit world?"

  “Why, of course, Professor. Of course.”

  Professor Abernathy’s eyes went from Clabber’s face to Mrs. Quist's pale eyes and wan face. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Of course,” said Clabber fiercely. “That’s the trouble. You’re so deeply imbued with that scientific methodism that you can’t believe anything beyond the scope of science’s very puny measuring tools."

  Professor Abernathy pursed his lips. He studied Clabber’s black hair and sallow face and the deep black smoldering eyes. “You mean you really believe that a haruspex can read the future in the intestines of a freshly killed animal? You must be soft in the head, Clabber.”

  “There’s none so blind as those who will not see.”

  “Well, I will not see the future in a bunch of bloody guts, Clabber, and neither will you. A terrible waste of good meat.” “Have you ever examined the spirit world, Professor Abernathy?” asked Mrs. Quist.

  “Examined it? How do you mean, Mrs. Quist?”

  “Well, some of your colleagues, especially in psychology, have been nibbling on the fringes of the subject with their studies in ESP, mental telepathy, random chance and mind over matter —and the more deeply they explore, the more questions they unearth that current scientific knowledge cannot explain.”

  Christopher Carson loomed over Professor Abernathy's shoulder blowing cigar smoke. “Come on,” said Carson. “That’s not spiritualism. That’s a study of the power of the human mind. There is not one single shred of scientific data to indicate that there’s a spirit world.”