Chapter Five
One of the brightest gems
in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it.
—Mark Twain
661 East Broadway, South Boston, Massachusetts
The night air was still and very, very quiet. That is, it was quiet right up until the first peal of thunder, followed by a sudden downpour to make even Panama blush.
It is noteworthy, the Old Man thought, that the narrowest alley still provides no shelter from the rain in the absence of even the slightest breeze.
It was still summer, so none of the four were wearing coats. That meant they had to stop midway down the alley, halfway unpack the duffle bag, get out their winter coats, which were clearly too heavy for the weather, and then repack everything before continuing on. Even then, there were no hats for any of them. The chill rain was kept from their bodies directly, yes, but it gathered in rivulets, anyway, before running down chests and backs.
“Grandpa, I’m cold,” Cossima whispered.
“I know, shorty. It will be better once we’re inside. C’mon, brats. And no sniveling.”
Trying their best not to snivel, the kids followed the Old Man into the depths of the alley. In moments they came to the gate that led into the back of 661. He opened the door for them, then directed the girls to get under the shed with the trash cans.
“Okay, Patrick, you and I will open the locks. By that I mean, of course, that you will open them while I stand next to you for moral support.”
“Yes, Grandpa,” the boy answered, miserably.
There were two locks on the door, Patrick could see by the glow of the streetlamps reflecting off the clouds above. He decided to dispense with the harder one, the deadbolt, first.
“Grandpa,” the boy whispered, “Do we care if we break the lock?”
“Not really. I can always send them a little money to cover the cost of replacing it.
“All right. In that case, I’m going to use the snap gun. Might damage the lock, might not, but will probably be a lot faster.”
“Go for it, Grandson.”
First Patrick drew from his pocket and put in the torque wrench, which didn’t set torque but applied it. This went into the bottom of the keyhole. From another pocket he drew the snap gun, which he inserted into the lock fully.
A dozen pulls of the trigger, none of which exceeded the sound of the rain hitting rooftops, streets, and sidewalks all around, and the wrench turned the cylinder well to the right.
“That won’t reset itself,” the boy explained. “We can lock it behind us if I haven’t completely broken it.”
“Get the other one,” the Old Man said, impatiently.
Without a word, Patrick applied the same procedure to the bottom lock, a lockable door handle. It fell before his assault very quickly, but, as he said, “I’m pretty sure I broke that one.”
“Don’t sweat it; I’ll send money or, better, increase my tip next time I come here. Don’t go in yet.”
“Why not? It’s wet out here.”
“I’ve got a section of blanket and a poncho in the duffle bag. I’m going to get them out and put them down so we can shake off and not leave a highly suspicious mess.”
“Oh, okay, Grandpa. I didn’t thi—”
“Don’t sweat it; you haven’t had the schooling yet for this kind of thing. Yet.”
“C’mon, Old Man,” the boy said, “even if there was such a thing as breaking and entering school, you never went to it.”
“Army Ranger School, youngster, will teach you the most important aspects of any crime, security, planning, reconnaissance, and control.”
With that, the old man went around to the other side to bring the girls and the bag.
“Don’t even think about putting on any lights,” the Old Man said. “Just stand here until we dry off enough. Wipe your feet very thoroughly and then take your shoes off, tie the laces, and hang them around your necks. Quietly!”
It’s something of a lucky break or, at least, fortunate, that this building has no apartments overhead, hence nobody positioned to hear us.
“I’m ready, Grandpa,” said Cossima. She, after all, had the least surface of any of them to dry.
“Juliana?”
“I guess I am. I’m still scared.”
“That means you’re bright, so long as you don’t let it get control of you,” said her grandfather. “Patrick?
“I’m ready.”
“All right; follow me.”
In the darkened back spaces, the old man led them forward around a corner and into the waiting room.
“Girls, can you see the gate?” the Old Man asked.
“Clear as day,” said Juliana.
“It glows, Grandpa, but it casts no light on the room.”
“Okay, Juliana take point and lead us to it.”
“It wasn’t forty steps combined from all of them before they were at the oval portal. At this point, the grandfather once again reached into the duffle bag and put on his plate cum tank carrier, taking the Sterling in his hands.
“I go first,” he said. “Cossima, put your arm into the gate.”
“It is, Grandpa. You should be able to go now.”
“Follow me at about two-second intervals; count ‘one one thousand, two one thousand,’ and follow, Juliana first, then Patrick, then Cossima. Here I go.”
With that, the Old Man lifted his left leg and thrust it into the wall. It passed with less resistance than one might get from stepping into the ocean. Getting the right one in was trickier; his toes caught on the end of the portal, causing him, on the far side, to fall face forward with an audible “oof.”
Fortunately, he knew—his body knew—how to roll into a firing position. This he did, though a stiff neck meant he had to hoist himself higher on his elbows. That hurt, too.
Juliana came through next, and almost fell on him. She didn’t fall though, but stepped gingerly to one side to allow Patrick to pass. He came through, looked around, said, “Wild!” and then stepped out of the way. Last in was Cossima, who resisted the urge to show off by doing a gymnastics routine on the way through.
“That’s everybody, Grandpa,” Juliana said.
“All right.” The Old Man looked down as, grunting painfully, he forced himself up and saw a largish number of small silver coins on the foggy floor. They weren’t in any particular pattern, purely random, it seemed, but they did form a kind of constellation.
The same glowing balls of something were still floating randomly overhead. He watched for a while, then noticed that the number of balls was not constant; two formed from nothing in the short time he watched. There were also a number of gates visible, some lit and glowing, others dark. “Cossima, show me the other gate you saw the arms and Slocum come from.”
“Over here, Grandpa,” the girl said, pointing, “this one.”
“This one” was darkened on the other side, which the old man took as a good sign.
“Stay back from it,” he said, then duck walked—Oh, Jesus this is for a younger man—over to it. He looked through and saw little while hearing nothing. There wasn’t even the sound of any traffic which led him to think, early morning, three to four AM. And the light, what little there was of it, was just a reflection from the streetlamp, bouncing off indistinct boxes and cellophane.
There was more light here, wherever “here” was. Looking down, he saw precisely the same constellation of silver coins on the floor. Instinct told him to ask, “Cossima, have you got that silver coin?”
“Yes, Grandpa.”
“Let me have it, please. Don’t worry; I’ll buy you a bigger one to make up for it.”
Wordlessly, she passed it over. He examined it again—Sam Strauss could probably identify it—then put the coin down on the constellation of coins. He then walked back to the gate they came in through. That gate’s coins now included one more, in the precise same relationship as the one he’d just placed.
“This is some weird crap,” he muttered.
The gate was considerably higher on the toy store side than on the massage salon side.
“I’ll go first,” the Old Man said, muttering, and tossing the duffle gently through the gate. “I only wish I were about forty years younger.”
He never saw it, but his grandchildren saw one of the glowing balls suddenly flash to life, begin to fly across the open space, and strike their grandfather squarely between the shoulder blades as he began to step through the gate.
Insensate, he fell forward to clatter heavily on the floor on the other side.
The kids barely restrained themselves from screaming. They formed a kind of miniature human traffic jam at the gate, each trying to get through to their grandfather. Cossima, being the smallest, was the least blocked one, hence the first to get through. Her brother and sister followed almost as quickly.
On the other side, their grandfather lay as if dead, on his stomach. Juliana checked for a pulse and found one but . . .
“There’s something wrong here.”
“He’s . . .”
“My God, he’s . . .”
The old man, awakening, started to choke. It took him a moment to realize that there was no room in his mouth for implants, minus the posts and his own teeth. Desperate, he clawed at his mouth until he managed to extract first the lowers, then the uppers.
“I’m what?” asked the grandfather, who then sucked air in at max capacity.
“Umm . . . Grandpa . . .” Juliana began.
“Your hair,” began Patrick, “. . . it’s . . . it’s.”
“It’s not gray anymore,” Cossima finished. “And there’s a lot more of it.”
The grandfather rolled over onto his back and, despite the extra thirty pounds holding him back, sat right up without any problem.
“No, wait,” he said. “That’s supposed to hurt. It always hurts. Usually a lot. What the . . .”
The three grandchildren, meanwhile, peered very closely at their grandfather. Not only was the gray gone, and the hair more plentiful, but his face was unlined, his nose straight, where he’d broken it several times previously, his skin was tight and he looked, oh, a lot thinner and yet still more muscley.
None of the kids screamed, though they all wanted to. “Grandpa, what did you say before you went through the gate?”
He had to think back. “I was dreading the climb down, and wishing I was . . . oh, hell, how old am I now?”
“Mid-twenties,” said Juliana. “Maybe twenty-eight at the most, twenty-four at the least.”
“It grants wishes,” Cossima said, wonderingly. “You ask for something and it gives it to you. Not just small toys but any material things. Or changes.”
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Patrick reminded. “Grandpa, are you all right?”
“I seem to be . . . let me . . .”
The grandfather stood up, then bent again to put the false teeth into a pocket. His coat and jacket hung around him like a woman’s muumuu. That was bad enough, but then he felt his trousers and underwear beginning to slip and . . .
“Oh, hell.” Holding the Sterling in one hand, he found he had to hold up his trousers with the other. “This is so not according to plan. Okay, let’s get the Sterling and Juliana’s .380 packed up. Quickly now. Then we’re getting the hell out of here.”
What the hell do you do when your waist plummets from thirty-eight inches to twenty-seven or twenty-eight and your belt doesn’t have any hole for that size. Why didn’t I use the ratchet belt? I could have used one from the Army and nobody would have thought twice about it. Crap.
Maybe I can actually tie this thing.
Ten minutes later, with the bag repacked and on the Old Man’s back, the belt tied, after a fashion, and the grandfather thoroughly embarrassed to be seen in public in what now looked like scarecrow clothing, the four walked out and emerged onto East Broadway from the narrow alley on what turned out to be the Victory Market, a butcher shop, just east of what was now, again, for the first time in decades, Slocum’s Toyland.
“Now where do we find a taxi or . . . Aha, a pay phone!”
Cossima asked, “Grandpa, what’s a pay phone?”
“You’ll see.”
“What are you going to do there, when you find one?”
“Turn into Superman? No, I’ll just call us a taxi to . . . I know where; we’re going to a place where service actually matters.”
110 I Street, South Boston, Massachusetts
The dog, a smallish boxer with cropped tail and ears, one of the ears being floppy, awoke with a start. She normally slept where she could keep guard over both the front and rear entrances to the row house, which is to say at the head of the stairs to the bottom floor.
Baby? the dog thought. She was experiencing something she never had before, the presence of two copies of her baby, the eight-year-old boy, asleep upstairs, and another one, in the direction of what she thought of as warm season sunrise big street stinky cars. How this could be she didn’t know, being, after all, just a dog. But it was a fact, nonetheless.
Unsure of matters, she padded the fewer than a dozen steps toward the front door, then ascended the steps to the third floor at a gallop. She nosed open the door to the right of the top of those steps and walked in as quietly as possible, lest she awaken her baby. She tugged a little on the covers to make sure that it was her baby sleeping there.
Satisfied that it was, the dog, Suzy, walked back down to the main floor, then sat by the steps, puzzling over how there could be two of her one baby.
I will cross street in the morning to big rock house of Great Being and ask, Suzy thought. Maybe answer, maybe not.
Parker House, Tremont and School Streets, Boston, Massachusetts
The air was warm, but, as Eisen well knew, this didn’t prove anything in Boston. The place could go from bitter cold and fiercely windy to almost balmy, even in December, after a rain. And the sidewalks were, in fact, wet, while the typical water and small bits of trash flowed in the gutter.
“I’m obviously too young to be your grandfather now,” Eisen said, after tipping the taxi driver and sending him on his way. “You’re going to have to call me by—and you cannot imagine how much I detest the idea—Sean? No, that’s too close. Shortened version of middle name, call me, ‘Fitz, Uncle Fitz.’ That means that, unless I can find some other way, I’m going to have to hunt the graveyards for a boy who died around the right time, who has the right name or, at least, middle initial. No help for it since I got whacked over the head with the ladle from the fountain of youth. But for now, speak as little as possible.”
He stopped for a moment to conjure both a story and a name from thin air. Once he had that, he said, “Now follow me on in. Remember, be quiet. And don’t gawk.”
The lobby was, indeed, opulent and then some, from the custom rugs on the floor, to the regency sofa in the center, to the massive, two tier, crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling, to the clerks’ desk, itself, to the ornate gilded panels behind it.
And yet, and yet . . . there are serious signs of decay in out of the way corners, a stained rug here, a broken light socket that hasn’t been replaced, there. It’s nothing that can’t be fixed, but I see much that does need fixing.
Walking to the lobby desk, the newly self-christened “Fitz” told the clerk, in his best quasi-Brahmin, “Suffice to say that what appears before you here and now is the result of the intersection of incompetent BOAC baggage handlers, a clumsy stewardess, a formerly full bottle of scotch, and the kindness of an overweight stranger. I have hopes to see my baggage again, someday, and even my travel clothing, perhaps before the sun runs out of hydrogen. In the interim, I need a room, no, a suite, I suppose, for one adult, myself, my two nieces, and a nephew.”
All of the things he said were true, but not recently so.
“Sir,” said the clerk, “the best I can do is a two-bedroom suite, with a convertible sofa. Would that do?”
“The boy can take the sofa, so, yes, it will do very well, thank you.”
“Very good, sir. Note, there is a second sofa—well, more of a love seat—but it is not convertible. Now if you will just fill out this card . . .”
Eisen looked over the card and saw almost nothing he couldn’t, with a clear conscience, fudge.
“Since I am here,” he told the clerk, “and since my home number is unlisted, and since, finally, I live alone, the number won’t do you much good. And, moreover, I like my privacy.”
The real reason for his reluctance to put down a number was that Eisen didn’t have the tiniest recollection of the format for long distance numbers in 1965. There’s always something you forget. He did write down the name, S.F. Maguire, on the theory that, this being Boston, finding a prematurely deceased Maguire boy shouldn’t be all that hard.
“That’s all right, sir,” the clerk replied. “The management occasionally likes to call to enquire as to our guests’ satisfaction with the hotel. That usually doesn’t happen until after you leave. But if you prefer not, that is entirely acceptable.
“If I may enquire, sir, how long can we expect to enjoy the pleasure of your company here?”
“Two to three weeks, though just possibly longer,” Eisen replied. “Shall I pay it now?”
The clerk filled out a couple of lines on the card, which allowed Eisen for the first time to catch a firm day and date, Sunday, November 28, 1965.
I think this is the first moment I really, deep down, believed this was happening. Hmmm . . . Thanksgiving would have been . . . no, was, three days ago. And tomorrow, all the stores will be open.
“If it’s quite convenient, sir. Three weeks would be . . . let me see . . . five hundred and ninety-five dollars, and thirty-five cents, including the commonwealth’s old age tax.”
While, at an intellectual level, Eisen was quite aware of the effects of fully ripe inflation in his own time, at an emotional level, he was somewhat shocked. Sounds so cheap though, of course, it really isn’t, not when average salaries in the United States are about that a month or even a bit less than that.
Eisen passed the card back, then took six one-hundred-dollar bills from his wallet, laying them on the counter. The clerk gave the card a very cursory once over, before placing in into an unseen card holder. The money went into a silently opened cash drawer.
“Here are your keys, sir, one for you and one for the young miss. Shall I call the bellhop?”
***
The bellhop, Eddie, by name, didn’t bother with a cart, but carried the single, surprisingly heavy, bag to the human-operated elevator and the room. He carried the duffel as if one well used to this kind of military luggage.
Eisen couldn’t help himself. “Army or Marine Corps?” he asked.
“Sergeant, sir, Army, Third Infantry Division,” the bellhop answered, without a pause.
“I wouldn’t give a bean . . .” Eisen began, to be met by the bellhop with, “to be a fancy pants Marine. This is your floor, sir.” The bellhop then led the party past the open elevator doors and to their room.
The suite fully matched the quality of the lobby, both in its good side and its bad. It did so without going, as the lobby did, all the way to the very border of gilded tackiness. In the suite’s parlor, wood and leather abounded. There was a desk, a central table already graced with cut flowers, two chairs plus an office chair, and a fireplace which appeared to be functional. Over the mantle was a painting. Two carved busts rested upon it. Other paintings and other sculptures graced other walls, tables, and shelves. Besides the main overhead light there were also reading lamps behind the chairs and a desk lamp upon the desk.
The suite also stank of tobacco smoke, something that disgusted the kids. They were too smart to mention their disgust though.
The bellhop didn’t waste time on describing the visual, possibly so that he could avoid the obvious areas of deferred maintenance without outright lying about them. Instead, he showed the features, the only one of which that interested Eisen was, “And here’s a lockable closet, sir. It has an extra pin or three. Your key and the young lady’s will open it, but the service staff’s will not.”
And there’s a load off my mind, how to hide some of our out-of-time impedimenta and armaments from prying eyes. Not to mention the money, until I can expand and then deposit it.
“This place reeks,” said Cossima, making as if to put a finger down her throat to throw up.
“Get used to it,” Eisen advised. “Damned near everyone smoked back then . . . back now . . . whatever. There are few or no non-smoking rooms, non-smoking sections in restaurants, all that. Indeed, in college, fifteen years from now I smoked in class and nobody said a word.”
“Even so,” said Juliana, “this place really smells bad.”
“Yep,” agreed Patrick.
“Trust me,” their grandfather insisted, “you will get used to it.”
“Could I speak to the concierge, please?” Eisen asked, in his quite credible Brahmin accent. “Ah, yes. I need someone to contact a local store to have them send someone to measure me for clothing. All of mine is somewhere . . . no, no, not Brooks; I’ve never forgiven them for selling shoddy uniforms for the troops during the civil war. Filene’s or Kennedy’s? Yes, I agree with you; Kennedy’s is the superior choice if one is in a hurry or looking for men’s clothing. While I’m waiting, I’d like to order breakfast for four. Yes, certainly; transfer me to room service.”
The kids were in normal clothing, normal for 1965, while Eisen, himself, wore a bathrobe from the hotel.
They were in the middle of a sumptuous breakfast, though one that left out some of the more exotic Parker House breakfast fare. No broiled honeycomb tripe ($1.50), for example, was present. Neither were there any broiled lambs’ kidneys with bacon ($1.65). Broiled mackerel ($.90), too, could wait for lunch. But there were omelets ($.70 to $.80, each, for a total of $3.00), bacon ($1.10 times two), sausage ($1.32 times two), English muffins ($.96, total) with copious marmalade ($.32) and butter (gratis), corned beef hash ($2.20 for two orders), cinnamon toast ($1.04 for four), four glasses of orange juice ($1.32, total), and two pots of—it being, after all, 1965 Boston—tea ($.90).
In all, the entire feast came to fourteen dollars and fifty-eight cents, exclusive of taxes and tip to the room service staff.
They were just finishing up the last of the tea when there came a knock on the door.
“Hmmm,” said Eisen, “I don’t recall them actually ever coming to take away the mess until you call or leave it on the floor outside.”
Wearing that hotel-provided bathrobe, he went to answer the door and found, not room service, nor even maid service, but, “Mr. Maguire? I’m Larry Southard, Kennedy’s. You wished to be fitted for some clothing?”
Southard looked to be about fifty, with light blue eyes, and hair gone completely gray. He had a trimmed beard, good teeth, and ears nearly flat against his skull. He was not small, by any means, at six-foot-two, and maybe two hundred and twenty-five or thirty pounds.
Not small, but not gone to fat, either, thought Eisen.
“Oh, very much, yes. I am, as they say, a victim of fate, sartorially speaking.”
“No, problem, sir,” said Southard, placing a loose-leaf binder on the table and reaching into a pocket for a tape measure. “We’ll fix you right up. May I suggest something?”
“Please.”
“Well, first, how much of a wardrobe and what kind, generally speaking, are you looking for?”
“Hmmm . . . let me think. I’ll need two suits, I imagine, three- or four-piece. My preferences run to tweeds, herringbone and Harris, and colors . . . mmm . . . grays, blues, browns, along with dress shirts, ties, pocket squares, cuff links if the shirts call for them. Then I’ll need day-to-day clothing, shirts, trousers, underwear, socks, and by all means a couple of good belts. I’m partial to chinos, jeans, and flannels. Oh, and a good men’s overcoat, plus gloves, peccary if available. And a decent shorter cold weather jacket. I suppose, a couple of sports coats, four or five pair of casual trousers. And a raincoat.” Eisen just barely remembered to add, “And, I think, a good hat or two; I’m thinking a Fedora or a Trilby or a Homburg.”
God, but I loathe hats.
“Oh, and I suppose I’ll need a wristwatch.”
“I think we can handle all of that by the end of the day, sir. But for the watch you might want to try Joseph Gann’s or, better, Shreve, Crump, and Low.”
“No,” Eisen answered, “I don’t need something Swiss. Just a good, decent wristwatch. Does Kennedy’s have a selection?”
“Yes, sir; I’ll bring half a dozen you can pick from. For the clothing, what I’d suggest is that I take your measurements, then run back to the store—it’s not but a five- or six-minute walk—sort out a selection I think might do, wheel the lot back here, and let you decide which suits. Then I rush everything to and through our alterations department, and return here with your clothing, in about two and a half hours from when I leave. Maybe three and a half if there’s a serious backlog at alterations, but there wasn’t when I left.”
“Let’s get to it, then.”
***
While waiting for Larry Southard to return, Eisen contemplated the problem of getting an identification card suitable to get a driver’s license, or the license itself, and rent or buy, preferably rent, a car.
It would have been a good deal easier if I’d not been, so to speak, Youthanized. We had a dead candidate who could have become me or, rather, whom I could have become. Moreover, finding those records was easier back where we came from, because of the internet. Here? Finding what I need here? Wandering graveyards until I find a dead kid’s grave?
I don’t like the idea of any of that. So what can I do? What do I know? Where can forgers be found?
I’d be willing to bet the bulk of them can be found in prison somewhere. No help th—or is there? Yes, yes, yes! Forgers may go to prison, but they get out again. How often do they change jobs? Do they ever really lose their old skills? I’d bet not much and never, respectively.
So there are forgers out there, somewhere, and probably not far away. But how do I find them . . . let me think . . .
I went to law school. I know how to Shepardize and do the casebook hunt. So I find a law library and look for cases involving forgery. Then I find the cases and the disposition, see when the forgers were due to be released, and track a likely one down.
But will they trust me? Well, my quasi-Brahmin accent is just that, quasi. I can do Southie or just Boston, Superior perfectly well. And credentials . . . money, money is my best credential.
Now, which law library? BU? BC? Harvard? Harvard is likely to be difficult and it wouldn’t do me the slightest good to tell those Johnny-come-latelies that their school was founded to give the first graduating class from my high school a place to continue their studies. BC, I think. I can go up the street to Park Street Station and take the Commonwealth Ave Line to Saint Thomas More Hall. Old home week; the Boston College stop should let me off right there.
Note to self, while at BC check the Martindale-Hubble for a good lawyer.
And, at some point soon, I am going to need a car. A dealership would be a major pain, lack of identification-wise. So a private sale? And for that I need . . .
He reached for the phone. “Yes, concierge? Do we have a copy still hanging around of yesterday’s Globe, especially the classifieds sections?”
***
Better than his word, Larry Southard returned in about two hours with ten suits, a dozen shirts, half a dozen sports coats, and adequate amounts of everything else “Mr. Maguire” had ordered. Fitting, checking, and marking for alterations followed, quickly and efficiently. Then, leaving the items that didn’t need alterations in the slightest, Mr. Southard took off, legging it, for Kennedy’s in-house tailor shop.
“All right, brats,” said their new “uncle,” Fitz, now clothed completely, if somewhat casually; “I need to go hit a few places. Juliana, you’re in charge.”
You know, it occurs to me that someone, say, my apparent age now, coming back here, to this time and place, would be totally lost. They wouldn’t know where to look for anything, how to do anything, or how to bend and, when needed, break rules. This is a cheering thought.
It occurs to me, too, that without the preparation we put into this, I’d be screwed. If we’d just charged right in, I’d still have wished to be younger, still been zapped by whatever makes the changes, and then we’d be here with no choice but to head back.
Green Line, Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts
He’d left the .45 and the Sig behind in the suite, just in case, and taken Cossima’s assigned .32 Beretta as a pocket pistol. It was a crap caliber, of course, ordinarily, but using those new-fangled Underwood copper jobs, machined for maximum wound cavity and faster because lighter than lead, it would just about do. The suit from Kennedy’s, one of two, fit surprising well, for off the rack. But, then, Kennedy’s, after all.
So strange to be riding this thing fifteen years before the last time I rode it, which was, subjectively, about forty-two years ago. Not much has changed in those—one way to look at it—fifty-seven years. The cars are different; a few of the stores lining this section of Commonwealth Ave are, as well. But on the whole, the place is the same as the last time I saw it, fifteen years from now.
He didn’t need a guidebook to recognize Saint Thomas More Hall, the Boston College Law School. The thing was a modernist visual and architectural atrocity, of light-colored bricks, generally square and with much glass. It in no way fit the rest of Boston College’s quite traditional neo-gothic campus.
It didn’t have any bearing on why I didn’t go to law school there, even though I was accepted. It was more that I didn’t want a law degree from the same place that granted one to that orange-faced buffoon, that same windsurfing gigolo who threw other people’s medals from Vietnam over the White House fence. But it’s still a remarkably ugly building and one I hope they tear down . . . or perhaps have already torn down, in the future.
Now, should I introduce myself at the desk or just saunter on it. Fortes fortuna adiuvat; walk right on in, boldly.
Copley Square Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts
He was familiar with a law library, but less so with the reference desk at Copley Square. Indeed, Eisen had never used the general reference desk, though he had used—or would, in a future year use—the equivalent one in the rare books department.
At the desk was a very presentable young woman, hair in a pixie cut, simple top over what was likely a mid-length skirt. Her only jewelry was a single strand of pearls. She had a warm and very pleasant smile, and an intelligent look. The eyes were blue, but shading over to gray.
“Miss?”
“Willard, sir. Jane Willard.”
He hadn’t really asked that but he was, as usual, in automatic flirtation mode, so perhaps that was what she’d responded to.
“I’m looking for the White Pages for the city, older ones. I probably also need to look for some past years for the Yellow Pages.”
The smile grew broader and, just possibly, deeper. The woman’s nose flared slightly, as if she were taking in and analyzing Eisen’s Caswell-Massey Jockey Club aftershave.
“Just follow me, sir.”
She stood to reveal herself as about five-eight, slender, and rather small breasted. Her posterior was . . . not hard to follow.
You know, this girl may be a better and more automatic flirt than I am. At least she didn’t ask me to “walk this way”; I just couldn’t have stopped laughing over that one; Aerosmith and all.
Parker House, Boston, Massachusetts
That was, well, no, not fun, but interesting, certainly. Nice young lady, too, at Copley Square.
With the trip to the public library, at Copley Square, to check the White Pages for earlier years, now, as he returned to base, Eisen had the names, phone numbers, and addresses of various forgers going back to 1875. He didn’t expect that last one to be alive, let alone still in business, but he may have left a talented son or daughter behind him, and may have left the house to the same. Failing that, the son or daughter might just know who was still in the business and free.
But he really didn’t expect any of those to be needed. He had his contact and, in fact, had met him recently, for certain objective values of recently.
Whitey Bulger. Funny how one’s own life keeps intersecting with the same people, over and over.
He didn’t stop at the lobby to check messages. He did stop to see if the bill from Kennedy’s had come, which it had. He asked the desk to contact Kennedy’s to send Mr. Southard back to collect.
“Of course, sir, be happy to.”
He stopped to pet the hotel’s cat, currently lying on the counter, and kept on staff most likely to help control the rats that, if not as great a problem as in New York, were still problem enough, especially downtown and the Back Bay and especially any place food was sold or served. It was a beautiful creature, a calico, very fit and healthy looking, with a small, teardrop-shaped bangle hanging from her collar.
The cat purred as Eisen stroked it, then looked at him directly and with something like intelligence in its eyes. It was female, of course, calicos were only rarely anything but. As such, it purred while being stroked and studying the presumptuous human.
When Eisen left off his proper worship of the representative of the feline god, the calico lifted her head, glanced around, and followed him to the elevator.
Noticing, he pressed the button for his floor and, glancing down, asked in his best Meow, “Looking for some free chow you don’t have to hunt down, kitty? Well, come on, the kids will love you and there’s likely some leftovers you can have.
“Besides, since you are a ‘money cat,’ and I am in search of money, treating you well may be of some assistance.”
“Oh, wow!” said the kids, or some version thereof, when the door opened and the cat, accompanied by their grandfather, strode in. “Can we keep her?”
“I’m pretty sure she belongs to the hotel, but I don’t see why you can’t feed her and make a fuss over her for now. Besides, who knows; she may be lucky.”
Not that I intend to rely on luck, of course.
As the Old Man showered, the kids chatted in the suite’s living room. The conversation was mostly centered on the calico, with which critter all the kids had fallen in love.
Stroking the cat, who lay across her lap, Cossima observed, “She’s really such a nice cat.”
Juliana agreed, saying, “She’s very well-mannered and intelligent. She sat with me for three whole hours watching, if you could believe it, a weird show on TV called Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and then The FBI. After that was a lawyer show called Perry Mason. She seemed a lot more interested in The FBI and Perry Mason than in the submarine. I can’t say she understood any of it; but she seemed really interested in those two.”
Patrick shook his head. He agreed about the cat; it was the television he was least impressed with. “I want my cell phone back,” the boy said. “I want the internet. I want YouTube again. I want Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook. This place sucks!”
“Yeah,” Juliana agreed. “I miss my cell, too. But, you know, when we go back, we’ll go back to almost the same instant we left, based on how long you were gone on your first exploration. So we really won’t be missing out on anything.”
Patrick swung his head from side to side. “Maybe true,” he conceded, “but we’re not getting our calls and messages here and now.”
“Don’t sweat it,” said Cossima, looking up from the cat. “Tomorrow Grandpa—whom I just cannot think of as ‘Uncle Fitz’; can either of you?—is taking us shopping for new clothes. I’m looking forward to it, because the ones we have look old and used.”
“You’re a girl,” Patrick countered. “Of course all you care about is clothes. I want my phone back.”
“We’re also supposed to see something called ‘The Enchanted Village of Saint Nicholas.’ ” said Cossima. “I wonder if Santa Claus minds them using his name for a village he doesn’t have anything to do with.”
“I still want my phone back.”
“Does that mean you want to go back to our own time, little brother?” asked Juliana.
“Well . . . no, not yet. But I still miss my phone and the internet.”
“We all do. But let’s make the most of things right now.”