From Time to Time (7 page)

"Including you?

"Why not? But the Project restored this whole town to the way it was in the twenties. He sat watching Rube mak'~ a show of looking around at the dilapidated town, and smiled. "Oh, it doesn't look like it now, I know. Kind of a mystery here, Major. but one thing at a time. Take my word for it, they restored this place, made it a Gateway'-as Dr. D called them. Makes it easier to slip from the simulation into the real thing. I did it. Made the transition to the real Winfield of the twenties. Damn few can do it, Major. You couldn't. Tried, but couldn't do it. But a few of us could, and I was one, and Major . . . it took me where I'd wanted to be all my life. You should see this little town in the twenties. Beautiful, so beautiful. Quiet dirt roads, trees, trees everywhere. And a drugstore that-

"Spare me the nostalgia.

"I hate that word. You know who uses it mostly? Time patriots. Same people who live in the best country in the world. Must be the best because that's where they live. And they live in the best of times; has to be best because it's their lifetime. You even suggest there just might have been better times than here and now, and it's nostalgia, nostalgia.' Don't even know what the word means. Means overly sentimental, for crysakes.

"Give em hell, John.

"What I'll give you is the present-look at this street. But you should see it-oh Lord, you should see it in the twenties. Saturday night, say; in the summertime. Main Street here jammed; townspeople, farmers in from the country. They knew each other, stopped to talk. Someone else would come along and join in, and there'd be a little group on the walk. Not like the damn shopping malls. Go to a shopping mall a hundred times, and it's always mostly' strangers you never saw before, and never see again. In the twenties this miserable dead little square was beautiful; trees, grass, shrubbery, paths, green benches, and people. Some of the farmers came in buggies or wagons. Hitching posts along the curbs, not parking meters. There were cars, sure. Mostly Model Ts. But I had a job, mechanic at Pierce-Arrow.

"Surprised you could stand the cars, John. All those nasty exhaust fumes.

"Maybe so. Maybe twenty, thirty years earlier Winfield is even better. Be happy to go see. Major, I have got to get back, got to.

"Why the hell did you leave?

"The stuff that killed the cat, if you can believe it. I came back to the present, just for a day or so, I thought, to see what was happening at the project. You took the Project over, you know. Once it succeeded. You and Esterhazy. Forced Danziger out. Too cautious for you: he worried about altering events in the past because you couldn't tell, he said, how the change might affect the present. Dangerous. But you and Esterhazy were rubbing your hands! Couldn't wait to try it, and find out what would happen. But what I came back to, Major, was this. It's no Gateway anymore. I can't get back from this!

"John, it's sure interesting, all this stuff. And you tell it so well! But I've been to your Project. Yesterday. And Beekev's Moving and Storage warehouse is a moving and storage warehouse. And always has been. You can see that with one look!

"That's true. In a way.

"And it took fifty years for this stinking town to get like this; it's never been restored!

"Also true. In a way.

Pretty good way!

McNaughton nodded several times, then said, "Major, four, five weeks ago I took the bus to Montpelier. State capital. Walked to the state library, and they' got out a back file of the Win field Messenger for me. They've got it all, 18~1 to 19~0; paper couldn't quite last out the full century. I got the volume for 1920 through 1926, and stole something from it, cut it out of the paper. And I keep it with me all the time. Because it's all I've got left now. From his inside coat pocket he brought out a trimmed-down manila folder, and handed it to Rube.

Rube opened it. Taped to the inside lay a three-column-wide section of newspaper. A portion of the masthead across the top read, essenger, and just below that, between two rules, the date, June 1, 1923. Below this, the caption over a photograph, which Rube read aloud, Crowd Throngs Parade Route.' "He bent over the photograph, examining it: several ranks and files of marching young men, rifles on shoulders, all wearing shallow metal helmets and high-necked uniform blouses. Preceding them, two more uniformed men carrying the American flag and a banner. Rube read aloud the banner's inscription, " American Legion Post--' "

"Not the parade, the spectators.

He saw it immediately-: along the curb between the thick trunks of old trees stood a lineup of men, women, children, dogs. Among them a tall man wearing a flat, black-ribbonecl straw hat. And under its stiff brim, smiling at the camera-sharp, clear, unmistakable-the face of the man beside him.

Who nodded, reaching for his folder. "Yep. Me. Right here in Winfield. On this very street. Watching the Memorial Day parade in the spring of 1923. There's no Project now, Major; it doesn't exist. But there was. It did.

"Fine. Then why don't I remember it? You do, you say.

"Something happened, Major. Something happened back in the past that altered the present.

"Like what?

"I don't know. Anything. When it happened, I was back in the past where it didn't touch me. I took my memories with me, and brought them back. But they didn't match the present anymore. I came back, but not to the restored Winfield. I came back to this untouched garbage dump. And went crazy. Got myself to New York, and ran the last block to the Project. And found Beekey's Moving and Storage, nothing else. And worst of all -he leaned toward Rube, lowering his voice- worst of all, Danziger didn't exist. Wasn't in the phone book. And at the library I looked through their old phone book file back to 1939. No E. E. Danziger. Ever. No record of his birth at City Hall. And no one ever heard of him at Harvard. He didn't exist!

"He did it . . ." Rube w'as slowly standing, his face turning red. "Oh, that son of a bitch. He did it!

"Who?

"Why . . . Marley? Morley! Simon Morley! We sent him back, didn't we? Into the nineteenth century on a . . . mission. And he did this!

"Did what?

"Why . . . I don't know. He stood looking helplessly at McNaughton. "Something. Did something, back in the past, so that

Danziger was never born. No Project now. And never was.

He sat down, and the two men stared at the deserted street ahead. Then Rube said, "John, what keeps you here in this nothing place?

"Mv job. Part-time mechanic. At subscale pay. And the cheapest room this side of Calcutta.

"You ever do any fighting? Boxing, I mean?

"Sonic. In the Army.

"Heavyweight?

"Mostly. I pared down to light-heavy once, but I was young and could do it. Won easy. A supply sergeant, and soft. We showed the same on the scales but I outweighed him in the bones.

"Pretty good, were you?

"Not bad. Won more than I lost, but I lost some too. Knocked out twice, and I quit. Wanted to keep what brains I got.

"You ever kill anybody?

"Never actually did. I was going to once but the situation changed. I would have done it, though. I had it all thought out.

"This in the Army?

"Yeah. But he got promoted, and transferred. Lucky for him. And me too, no doubt.

"Is there anything you wouldn't do, John, to get back? To the other Winfield?

"Nothing. There is nothing I wouldn't do.

"Do you know how Simon Morley got back to the nineteenth century?

"He was tutored. Learned all about it, got the feel of it. Then used the Dakota as his Gateway.

"The Dakota?

"A New York apartment building. It was there in the nineteenth century, and it's there today. The Project furnished an apartment in the Dakota, got him the right wardrobe, made it a Gateway-

"Could you do it? Get back there where Morley is?

"Sure. He grinned. "If you can do the thing, you can do it, Major. That your car up the street, the Toyota? Rube nodded. "Looks a little snug for me.

"They fit the Japanese, John.

"I'll manage. He stood up, inches taller than Rube. "Run me over to my place. Give me five minutes to pack my stuff. Three, if I hurry. And I'll hurry. Believe me, I'll hurry.

CHAPTER 5

ALTHOUGH THIS WAS WINTER and well after dark, the air wetly cold, a man sat on a Central Park bench near Fifth Avenue, watching the path to his left. The light from a streetlamp just touched him, a dark motionless lump. The turned-up collar of his overcoat covered his chin, his cap pulled low over his forehead. Hands pushed into the overcoat pockets, he watched the path, and when he saw the man he was waiting for walking quickly toward him- Right on time, he said to himself-he lowered his face,and sat staring down at the path apparently in thought.

The man walked by; he was wearing an ankle-length dark overcoat and a brown fur cap, and when he'd walked on a dozen steps, the seated man stood up-tall now-and followed Simon Morley.

I walked out onto Fifth Avenue, a light delivery wagon rattled slowly by, the horse tired, his neck slumped, a kerosene lantern swaying under the rear axle. On the walk a woman in a feathered black hat, a fur cape over her shoulders, walked by, holding her long dark skirt an inch above the wet paving stones.

I turned south, down narrow, quiet residential Fifth Avenue (the tall man, twenty yards behind him, turned too), glancing into yellow-lighted windows as I walked, catching glimpses: of a bald bearded man reading a newspaper, the light from a fireplace I couldn't see reflected redly on the windowpane; of a white-a proned, white-capped maid passing through a room; of a month-old Christmas tree, a woman touching a lighted taper to its candles for the pleasure of the five-year-old boy beside her. north on Broadway from Madison Square, I walked along the IRialto, the theatrical section of New York when Broadway was Broadway. The street was jammed with newly washed and polished carriages. The sidewalks were alive with people, at least halfof them in evening dress, the night filled with the sound of them, and the feel of excitement and imminent pleasure hung in the air.

Following only a few steps behind now, the tall man looked at the passing faces, and glanced into carriages, sometimes stooping momentarily to do so, smiling with the pleasure of being here.

I hurried past the lighted theaters, restaurants, and great hotels, until I reached the Gilsey House between Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth. There, at the lobby cigar counter, I bought a cigar, a long thin cheroot, and tucked it carefully into the breast pocket of my inner coat. Outside- Outside on the crowded evening sidewalk the tall man sauntered now, taking his time, toward the Gilsey House . . . until Simon Morley walked out again and down the steps, tucking his cigar into an inside coat pocket, and went on. The tall man walked faster until he'd nearly caught up. Then, hanging only a step or two behind, he kept pace, one or two pedestrians between them.

Waiting for an opportunity to present itself, he saw it presently, twenty-odd yards ahead. A short brass-railed flight of stone stairs led up from the sidewalk to the first-floor double doors; Wellman & Co., Insurance Brokers, said the gold-leaf letters on the dark windows. Directly beside those stairs another, steeper flight led down to a below-street-level barbershop: its striped pole stood at the curb.

In the moment, in the half-step before Simon Morley reached that second staircase, the tall man just behind stepped up beside him, walked the half-step with him, then slammed the full weight of his big body sideways into Morley, thrusting his hip hard into him for good measure. He literally lifted the smaller man from his feet, shooting him into the staircase, and Morley dropped to strike the sharp stone edges of the stairs, tumbling hard down the flight until his body slammed into the locked door of the barbershop.

The tall man walked on, not hurrying, and at Thirtieth Street turned the corner. Several men looked at him, and he looked back, meeting their eyes, and no one stopped him.

For half a minute Simon Morley lay almost unmoving, his mind not truly functioning. Then the pain came into his shinbones, his right shoulder and right hip, and the palms of his hands, and he moaned. He got himself up slowly, afraid of discovering a bone had broken. Then he stood, both hands bracing against the wall beside him, his head low between them. Now he pushed himself upright, and in the weak light from the street above, looked down at the scraped-bloody, dirt-smeared palms of his hands, then at the torn trouser legs and the bleeding skin showing through. He turned and, using the black metal handrail, made himself climb the stairs to the sidewalk. On the walk again, he moved on in not quite a run but a frantic hobble.

I saw the theater ahead, saw' its sign, Wallack's, and the posters beside its entrance reading, The Money Spinners. I saw Apple Mary herselh the old lady who sold apples before the theaters, and tried to sprint, desperate to move faster, squeezing, sidling, bumping past baffled angry pedestrians-because Apple Mary stood facing the tall young man in evening dress. She was speaking to him, and-did I really see it? I thought so!-I saw the wink of gold from a coin dropping from his hand to hers, a dozen yards and two or three people between us. He turned, someone just ahead pausing to hold the lobby door open for him, and skipped inside.

I walked now, only a dozen yards, walked past Apple Mary calling, "Apples, apples! Get your apples, get Apple Mary's best! shoving one at me. But I shook my head, and stood staring in at the busy lobby, and across the tiled floor saw the group I knew would be there: the bearded father, a ruby stud in his stiff white shirt front; the smiling gowned mother, and their daughters, the younger in a marvelous gown of unadorned spring-green velvet. When she smiled, as she did now at the tall young man who had given the gold coin to Apple Mary, she looked lovely. I had to hear, had to, and walked in to stand close, hiding my bloody hands at niv sides.

"Mv dear, may I present my young friend, her father was saying, "Mr. Otto Danziger, and I watched the tall young man bow, knowing that what had happened had happened, and that I was too late. Now they'd met, these two v oung people. I hadn't quite been able to prevent it. And now, in time, they would marry, and have a son. And I knew that far ahead, in the twentieth century I'd left, that son was a man long since grown, Dr. F. 11 Danziger-the Project he'd begun in the old Beekey warehouse still functioning under the control of Major Ruben Prien and Colonel Esterhazy, and whatever it was they represented.