I nodded. “I know, it feels like it’s ours. But you have to remember some things. I was ready to hand the key back to the old guy who sold us the car. There was a question about whether it was really ours. And the letter from Aunt Harriette makes it clear we have a choice between a little profit now and something even better later on.”
“But how do we know that’s true?” asked Ray. “She could be lying to us, trying to trick us.”
I reminded them, “These seven people are in need. We can help them…if we do the right thing.”
Joey grunted. “If they’re in such need, how come she didn’t give them the money directly instead of playing this kind of mind game with us?”
“Good question,” I admitted. “I think it’s some kind of a test. I want to see where it leads us. She’s warned us twice now about being greedy. By grabbing this money, we could be missing out on something even better.”
They all sat playing with the wads of cash in their hands, and then, one by one, stuffed the bills back into the little brown envelopes.
Audrey and I drove to the house in Monroeville the next Saturday. Lucy Allard was a short woman about sixty years of age. She had brightly colored orange/blond hair and bright intelligent eyes to match. She smiled at us through the glass of her storm door.
“Can I help you?” She had a French accent, just like old Herbert.
“We are friends of Harriette Marchand McCartney, and we have a gift for you.”
She eyed us suspiciously for a while, then said, “Harriette is dead. Is this some sort of trick?”
“No, no, I assure you,” I said hastily, “we’re not trying to trick you. She left some money for you before she died and asked us to deliver it. And also I need to ask, ‘What is your number?’”
At that she reacted oddly, jumping backward and reflexively covering her hands. She started to close the front door, but I pulled out the letter and held it up to the storm door window. “Is this Harriette’s signature and handwriting?” I asked.
She examined it for a moment, and then called something back into the house. She was soon joined by a large, rather fearsome looking man. We just stared at each other for a moment, and then she opened the door. Once inside, I tried to explain the strange events of the past weeks. Lucy told us that she and Harriette had known each other in Paris during the war, but wouldn’t say what kind of activity they were involved in. I guessed that they were part of the Resistance, but nothing was mentioned about that.
I held out the kraft envelope, which she opened. When she pulled out the stack of bills, her husband gasped. “What is this?” she asked in confusion.
“Something Harriette wanted you to have.”
She looked at the money and then at us. “And why are you doing this? What do you stand to gain?”
“Nothing,” I told her. “Nothing, except we are supposed to ask, ‘What is your number?’” She had the same odd reflexive reaction, hiding her hands in her lap.
After a moment she relaxed slightly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s a habit from many years. Why do you want my number?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed with a shrug. “It’s what Harriette told us to do after we distribute all the envelopes.”
She looked at us as though she still didn’t trust us. “How many others are there?” I told her there were six. She nodded finally and said, “Ah, yes. She is paying her bills.” She continued to nod as if she were conducting some kind of inner dialog.
“We should be going,” I said. “All we need is the number.”
Lucy stood and walked over to me. Holding out her left hand, she spread her thumb and first finger, revealing the web of skin between them. There, on the inside, was a tiny tattoo of the number seven.
On the way home, we realized how exhausting the visit had been – tense and suspicious. Very odd. We agreed that we wouldn’t have made very good spies. As a result, we took our time making the other six calls. It was two months later that we visited the last person. His name was Jacques Charron and he lived in a rather run down section of Wilkinsburg. He was elderly but he greeted us warmly when we mentioned Harriette’s name.
“How is my dear old friend?” he asked in the same subtle French accent as the rest of the seven.
He held the door open for us and, as we sat in his cramped living room, I asked, “Didn’t you hear that she died several years ago?”
“Ah,” he responded. “Poor soul. Perhaps I did hear. I don’t remember things so good anymore.”
We handed him the envelope with the usual explanation, and he peered inside without emotion. “Ah,” he said, nodding, “she said she would. Good old friend.”
“She asked us to ask you, ‘What is your number?’” I said.
He didn’t change his expression, but he made the same motion with his hands, as if covering them up. “What number would that be?” he asked warily.
I was accustomed to this response by now. “The one by your thumb on your left hand,” I said.
“Ah, that one,” he said quietly. “You know about that number.”
“Yes,” I told him. “We’ve talked to the other six people in your group and they all gave us their numbers.”
He nodded. “Ah, yes, the six others. They are all well?”
“Yes,” I assured him, “all quite well. You French folks live long and healthy lives.”
He continued nodding, but added, “It was not always so.”
As we started to leave, I asked if I could see his left hand. Inside the wedge of skin between thumb and forefinger was the tattoo, the number eight.
At home, we sat down in the evening with the whole family. “Well,” I said, “we’ve distributed all the money and gotten all seven numbers. What do we do now?”
Annabelle piped up. “When we were in the bank, I said to you we’re rich. Now we’re poor again. What was the point of all that?”
I ignored her and said, “Let’s put the numbers together.” I pulled out our notes and had everyone write them down in the proper order, as Harriette had instructed us, from the first to the seventh visit.
After we arranged them properly, I asked, “Now what are we supposed to do?”
Ray scribbled for a moment, then said, “They total 36. Maybe that means something.”
“It means you can’t add,” said Joey, with a laugh. “They really add up to 39.” Ray made a face and punched his brother on the arm.
“Maybe it’s the combination of the lock on a safe or a locker somewhere,” said Anna.
“But where?” everyone chimed in.
We thought for awhile. “Bank account number?” “Lottery ticket number!?” We were getting nowhere. We broke up and decided to talk more about it at dinner. At some point Joey, noticing that the first three numbers were 793, got out the phonebook, then hollered for me.
“Hey, Dad, there’s a 793 phone exchange in Pittsburgh. Maybe it’s a phone number.”
“Good idea,” I said, grabbing the phone. I dialed in the seven numbers after the area code, and waited almost breathlessly. It rang! Three rings, four rings, and then a man’s voice almost shouted, “Hello?”
“Hello,” I said. “Who’s this?”
He didn’t answer my question. “How did you get this number?” he asked urgently.
“Harriette Marchand McCartney gave it to me.”
A long silence. Then he said with a chuckle, “I’ve been waiting two years for this phone to ring. I almost had a heart attack just now!” I had no idea what he was talking about, but he said, “I think you had better come see me. The sooner, the better.”
He was a lawyer with an office in Cranberry Township, north of Pittsburgh. He gave me his address, and the next day Audrey and I sat down with him.
“How did you get involved in this whole business?” he asked. “You’re not French, and you’re not Herbert, Jr.”
I explained, “I found the first key in the back of an old car I bought from the elder Herbert. I tried to find the
owner of the key but everyone’s dead. So I concluded it was ours. Am I right, or does it belong to Harriette’s estate?”
“No, you’re right. The estate goes to the person who presents me with the second key, providing that the terms of the agreement have been carried out. I presume you’ve distributed the seven envelopes or you wouldn’t have found the phone number and been able to contact me.”
“Right,” I said. “We handed out the $35,000 just like Harriette instructed us to, although my kids thought I was insane to give it all away.”
He chuckled. “You’re far from insane. You would have been if you’d kept that money, because that would have been the end of it. She didn’t intend for it to end this way, with someone other than her nephew being the beneficiary; the money was for him. He turned twenty-five two years ago, and I’ve been waiting for him to use that key ever since. But I have the discretion to disburse the funds, and since you’ve done what she asked you to do, I am considering you her honorary nephew. So…I have something for you.” He handed me a sheet of paper covered with legalese. It made no sense except for a figure that was prominent in the middle, the number $560,000.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“That, sir, is what that second key is worth. Do you have the key?”
I fumbled for it and, for a moment, couldn’t find it. I panicked, then felt it in my pocket. “I don’t understand,” I said. “Why all this money?”
“You, sir, are a very lucky man,” he responded. “Harriette was very fond of Herbert, Jr. She had no children and he was her only nephew. She married a steel millionaire and was worth a lot of money, but she had no family to spend it on except her nephew. However, he was a total wastrel and she was disgusted with him. She never gave up on him, though, and thought that this might be a way to make him grow up. But they all died and you stumbled into a fortune.”
“How do you suppose the key got in that old car, stuck under the floorboards?”
“Maybe Herbert, Sr. hid it there; he was holding it for his son’s 25th birthday. Or maybe it just fell out of his pocket. Or maybe your guardian angel slipped it in when you weren’t looking. I have no idea. And I wouldn’t try too hard to find out. Just…take the money and run.”
I couldn’t contain my curiosity. “Why all this cloak and dagger stuff? Why didn’t she just leave the money for him in the safety deposit box?”
He smiled at some private joke. “Well, let’s just say that Harriette was a rather…unusual person. She had been involved in some sort of special activities during the war, and she was a very secretive and suspicious sort of personality. She was used to codes and mystery, and I guess she couldn’t break the habit. And for her it was a kind of game, the sort of amusement that rich people can afford. Of course, she also wanted to make sure that the money didn’t fall into the wrong hands.”
“Well, it did, didn’t it?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think she would have been upset by your discovery. She would have admired your ability to crack the code, so to speak. Because,” he added, “she thought that if Herbert, Jr. couldn’t figure it out, he didn’t deserve the money anyway.”
“And all of the other people, how did they happen to be here, too?”
“She brought all of them over here ten years ago when she found out they were poor and alone, and she set them up with homes and employment. She felt responsible for them because of their work together during the war.”
“What would have happened,” I asked him, “if we had kept the $35,000 and not distributed it?”
“Well,” he said, “you would have been a lot poorer than you are right now.”
“I mean, what about the seven people who needed the money she specified for them? They wouldn’t have gotten anything?”
“Oh, quite the contrary,” he laughed. “They would have split the 560 grand. Since Herbert, Jr. is dead, I was waiting to distribute the money to them. But I had to wait until the way was clear to bring his body home for identification. Another week or so and the money would have been gone! So, good timing on your part!” Then he added with a laugh, “That’s why your phone call was such a shock. It was a dedicated line for Herbert, Jr. I thought I was getting a call from a ghost!”
I laughed along with him, but something was bothering me. “So, we’re denying them that money?”
“Oh, no,” he said with a shake of his head. “She had a lot more money than you’re getting. They’ll be well taken care of.”
“What was the story about the eight of them, anyway? Were they in the French Resistance together?”
“What resistance?” he asked innocently. “Which eight people are you referring to? I have no idea what you’re talking about. We never had this conversation and you, sir, were never in this office. And now that the key has been returned to me, I can finally take this damned telephone off my desk. One call on it in the five years since her death, and it’s cost a fortune in monthly fees. Now, let’s do some paperwork.”
At home that evening, I explained what was to become of our windfall. I planned to set up four accounts for the children with $100,000 in each one, available to them when they turned eighteen. As for the other $160,000, I was going to get us out of debt, give $25,000 to Habitat for Humanity, take Audrey on a second honeymoon, and bank the rest for our retirement.
And, oh yes, later on I took the 1942 Chevrolet Aerosedan to the best antique car restoration company I could find and spent $15,000 on a total rebuild, which helped me to win Best in Class at the 1983 car show in Hershey, PA. Today it’s better than new and worth $25,000. It took a while, but that thirteen-year-old boy’s automotive dream finally came true.
Ain’t she purty?
IV
Merlen
It’s 2008, I’m fifty-six years old, and I’m still in love with a girl I first saw when I was fourteen. There’s no fool like an old fool.
My parents owned a rental cottage right on the beach in Cape May, New Jersey, and we spent a week there every August. We made that annual pilgrimage from the time I was born through my junior year in high school. My two older brothers were always willing to go, because they could spend the week together chasing chicks, while I was stuck with my parents. So, by the time I was fourteen, I hated the place. I begged them not to make me go. There was nothing to do but lie on the beach and get sunburned. I was too young to join my brothers in chasing girls but, in my case, that would have been a waste of time anyway.
To be honest, if you’d have looked up the word “geek” in the dictionary, my photo would have been alongside the definition. I was 6’ tall and weighed 115 pounds. I had no chest and my upper arms were the size of chopsticks. I had tight curly hair that looked like a sponge sitting on top of my head, and I wore thick glasses that made me look cross-eyed. And I got good grades in school. That was the worst demerit. I was smart, but the guys in school didn’t like smart. They liked macho and I didn’t qualify. So I was on the outside of everything, including getting any kind of attention from the girls. They just looked at me and laughed.
Jenny and I dated, more out of desperation than any real affection. We were both at the bottom of our respective D-lists, so we were perfect for each other. She had pimples, a big nose, wore glasses, and was so shy she couldn’t look you in the eye. Well, she could look me in the eye because we were used to each other. She lived around the corner from me and we had known each other since kindergarten. As we got older, we were sort of thrown together all the time because there was no one else, and because we were two souls sharing the same excruciating experience in school. We understood each other, we were familiar, comfortable, the kind of company that misery loves. Dating her proved to the rest of the world what a loser I was, but it worked both ways. She must have been humiliated that I was the only guy she could catch.
It was 1966. I had finished my freshman year in high school and was going to turn fifteen in a month. As my mother started the annual process of packing up the family for another week at
the shore, I started my campaign to be released from this annual imprisonment. My brothers, both of whom were in college, were free to roam the beaches on their own, whereas I was still tied to my parents’ coattails like some little kid. I was sick of doing jigsaw puzzles, playing cards and making the mandatory morning and afternoon visits to the ocean. My parents didn’t swim, my brothers were nowhere to be seen, so I had no one to swim with and I was too old to build sandcastles. I begged for weeks to be allowed to stay home with my one guy friend and, amazingly, I finally extorted a promise from my mother. If next year I still didn’t want to go, she would see what arrangements could be made. It wasn’t much, but it was at least a ray of hope.
We arrived at our cottage late on a Saturday afternoon. I had been sandwiched between my brothers in the backseat of the car, enduring hours of kidding and having to listen to their delicious plans for the week, which I wouldn’t be able to share. I was almost glad when we arrived so I could get away from them. I was assigned the top of one of the bunk beds while they took both bottoms. I didn’t mind, because I practically had the room to myself since they were gone most of the time. We unloaded, ate, and went to the beach in the evening, setting up chairs in which to sit and look at the waves. I had seen the waves. Many times.
The next morning I tried a new tack. I asked my mother if I could go up the beach some little distance from where they always planted their chairs. When she said a reflexive no, I started my usual whining – my brothers were gone all day, I was almost fifteen, it was time to cut me a little slack, etc. She glanced at Father, looked at me thoughtfully and – miracle – said OK. “But I want you within sight!”
A baby step toward independence, toward making this week a little more tolerable. I was ecstatic. I grabbed my towel and trotted north on the packed sand, knowing exactly where I wanted to go. That stretch of the beach terminated in a little cove surrounded by an outcropping of rocks that ran down to join the remains of an old breakwater. The formation created a private little beach which was usually uninhabited. I would be visible from where my parents were sitting, but far enough away to feel some sense of independence.
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