The Fives Run North-South (29 page)

“Impossible. As you’ll see from the logs, we maintained a random schedule that…”

“No matter how random, it’s pretty easy if the
break
-
in
is five minutes after your last guy’s left, right?”

“Well, there’s no bulletproof…”

Paul ignored him and turned to Ben. “You okay?”

Ben shrugged. “They busted up Dad’s favorite room and took one of his favorite possessions. At least they didn’t take a shit on his desk.”

“Might want to check before you say that, the way things are going,” Paul said.

“Look,” Ben said. “I think I’ll stay the night here. I can get a ride back to the city from Walter. He’ll be here soon. I’ve hired him to help me close up shop here. This will be just the thing to get that started.”

“No, I’ll stay. Even if it means having to see
Walter
-
Paddy
again.”

“Amazing the sacrifices you’re willing to make for me.”

“I’m in it for the glory,” Paul said.

Ben called Walter, giving him directions to drive up first thing in the morning. Ben and Paul found some scotch in the kitchen and poured a couple glasses. They were both too tired to carry on much of a
conversation
—
and
Paul had to get up early to make his flight to
Atlanta
—
so
after sipping in relative silence, they went to bed. It took Ben a while to fall asleep, bugged a bit by the silence of his father’s house, more used to the street noise outside his own home. He was in his father’s bed. The bed Rob had died in. The pillows, probably unwashed since that night, had a smell of his aftershave. After a while, Ben found the whole
thing
—
from
the collection of experiences in the weeks since his father’s death to the strangeness of this
moment
—
too
much. He got up, pulled a blanket from the linen closet, and walked into the living room. He heard Paul snoring from the other end of the hallway. He threw off most of the pillows from the couch, chose the thinnest one, and settled in to try and sleep. Eventually, he did.

Bang.

He opened his eyes to pitch blackness.

Okay, where am I? What…?

Slowly, he remembered he was at his father’s, on the couch (that part came first, the couch having taken its toll on his back). He used his
head
-
clock
to guess around one in the morning. Maybe two o’clock.

His heart was racing; something had roused him. A loud noise. Or had it been a dream? He sat up. There was no moon tonight, so even though the windows weren’t covered, there wasn’t much light coming in from outside. He cocked his head to listen, to see if he could hear any other sounds. He thought he heard a light snoring coming from where Paul was. If there had been a noise, it hadn’t been enough to wake Paul…though he’d probably sleep through a nuclear explosion. Ben sat back, letting time pass. He didn’t feel sleepy, so he rubbed the back of his neck. This was an old house, probably expanding and contracting all the time. House pops. If there had even been a sound, it could very well have been a dream fragment. He thought of his father alone in this creaking house and the ideas it would give him for stories. Art versus life. A fair fight as far as his father was concerned.

After a few hours, Ben probably fell back to sleep. He wasn’t entirely sure when, and he didn’t feel refreshed when the sunlight started pouring through the windows. He must have slept at some point because when he got up and checked, Paul had left the guest room and had driven off to the airport.

After his second cup of coffee, Ben saw Walter’s car pull into the driveway. He had Walter drive him into town to pick up supplies. When they got back, they started the process of getting the house contents arranged. Ben had various rolls of masking tape, and marked the furnishings with the different colors coded for the destinations Ben desired for them.
Some
—
just
a
few
—
were
going to his home; stuff that he could use. Others were going to be donated to charity. Some would go to an estate auction. Finally, he selected stuff that he couldn’t bear part with but had no room to keep in his own house. That would be moved to a storage facility
and
—
if
he were
honest
—
would
probably stay there until after Ben himself died. One item in that batch was his father’s desk. No way could he let a stranger get that.

Ben moved slowly, partially because he was exhausted, but mostly because of the joylessness of the task.
Walter
—
to
his
credit
—
avoided
his natural inclination to chatter. Despite the sadness, being this involved in the home of his hero was strangely exciting. He did his best to mask it. After a long day, Walter drove Ben back to his house. It was fully dark when they arrived. Ben thanked him and watched as the young man drove away. Walter was to return to the Portsmouth house tomorrow and continue packing items. Ben had also told him to have the shattered patio door repaired.

“How?” Ben asked.

“Get a guy.”

“What kind of guy?”

“Fixer
-
upper
guy. They’re in the phone book.”

“Where do I find a phone book?”

“You’re smart. You’ll find a guy.”

Walter had nodded.

Ben walked up his front stairs and reached out for the door.

Which was ajar.

No way.

He pushed the door gently and it creaked as it swung into the darkened house. He stuck his head inside, looking and listening.

“Hey!” he said, with as much masculinity as possible.

Nothing.

Reaching around, he turned on the foyer light switch. Everything looked normal. He looked around and saw his table lamp. He pulled the cord out of the wall and grabbed the thin lamp, holding it up like a bat. Cautiously, he walked into his house, switching on the light to the kitchen. Again, everything looked normal. Stopping for a few more seconds, he listened for any sound. Of any kind. He put the lamp down in the kitchen and grabbed a knife.

If no one is here, I’m thinking I’m embarrassing myself
,
he thought
.

He made his way into the den and checked his office desk. Again, all the same.

Except…

He turned back to his desk and his heart stopped.

On the far corner lay his father’s (and maybe once Charles Dickens’s)
Victorian
-
era
pocket watch.

31

I
t was about ten o’clock that morning when her phone rang. She was getting ready to leave the house and run some errands.

“Hello?”

“Cary?”

“This is she.”

“Hey, this is Christopher Dover. Did I call at a good time?”

“Of course,” Cary said. “How are you today?”

“Well, thanks. Listen, I’ve been thinking about our visit…” he trailed off.

“Sure,” she urged.

“I need to tell you something, and I have to trust that you’ll be discreet with the source of this information. I’ll deny it should it ever come back to me.”

“Of course, Christopher. I think I understand.”

“He told me not to tell anyone; and specifically not you.”

Cary felt her hands start to shake. She sat down so her legs wouldn’t follow.

“But I’m worried about him,” Dover continued. “Despite his
instructions
—
no
, it’s probably
because
of his instructions that I’m reaching out to you. He’d called in an address; he needed his tax information but instructed us to keep your house in Massachusetts as his official place of residence.”

“Where is he, Christopher?”

“Florida. I have the address.”

“Hey, Dad.”

“How you doing, Ben?”

“Not so great.”

“Oh? What’s the matter?”

“You left me a bit of a mess, you know.”

“These things are rarely convenient.”

“I’m not wired for this. You know me…I sleep in. I let the worries work themselves out. Hell, you know it’s always gotten under Paul’s skin because for me—most of the time—they do. But not right now. Now everything’s making me dizzy, sick to my stomach. I don’t know the right steps to take.”

“I hear you’ve met a lady?”

“Oh, you have? Well, I guess you could say we’ve met. Odd how it happened.”

“And you feel something for her.”

“Maybe. But…”

“But what?”

“There’s something strange going on. Part of it’s her…”

“Sounds exciting.”

“I miss you, Dad.”

“Time for the next chapter, Ben. You’re writing this one without me.”

Ben got out of the shower and threw on sweatpants and a
T
-
shirt
. His head was still heavy from a
dream
-
filled
night. He walked into the kitchen and switched on the coffee maker. He noticed his phone on the counter and saw that he’d just missed a call from Cary, but decided to wait until he’d had a cup of coffee before returning it. He’d also have to call a repairman for his front door. Whoever had broken in had done so by cramming some sort of tool into the door latch, butchering it up. He’d held the door shut overnight by simply leaning a dining room chair into the handle.

After his coffee brewed, he took it to his desk and sat down. The antique watch was still there. He grabbed it and put it on the side of his desk. Seconds later it occurred to him that perhaps he shouldn’t have touched it, like maybe he’d screwed up the fingerprints. Though no one would be smart enough to break into two houses in the same day, and simultaneously stupid enough to leave prints on the only evidence. Right?

Last night, he’d called the police. They’d come, eventually, and had examined his broken door and taken good notes. But he’d not shown them the watch. He had no idea why, and in hindsight thought that perhaps it was a critical piece of the puzzle and would have gotten their attention connecting two
breaking
-
and
-
entering
situations. But at the time, he had a strong urge to hold onto a part of what he’d lost over the last few weeks. Whoever had done this, whoever had violated his father’s home…Ben just shook his head and stuffed his anger down. Another thing to tackle. Soon.

He turned on his laptop. The folder for
Dented
was centered on his desktop. He thought about his promise to Paul, about the need to start cranking on the chapters. He had the next chapter outlined in his head and was certain it followed the course his father had set amid the notes crammed into the black notebook.

All you have to do is start typing.

Minutes passed. Thoughts, memories, and worries
swirled through his mind (along with the chorus
from
—
of
all damned
songs
—
”Can’
t Take My Eyes Off of You”). He couldn’t focus on any single thought; they were like
attention
-
starved
kids all jumping up with hands raised. He looked down at his
now
-
empty
coffee cup and decided to return to the kitchen for a refill. While there, he looked down at his cell phone. Picking it up, he moved back to the office and put it on his desk. Near the old watch. He lifted both hands to his head and scratched his scalp, looking once more at his computer screen. He clicked on the
Dented
folder and opened a fresh page.

Well, that’s progress!

The blinking cursor seemed to intensify as he stared at it, increasing the tightness he felt in his stomach. He looked over at the pile of
Esquire
magazines. The chapters his father had already written. In the upcoming chapter (the one waiting for him on the other side of that shitty, blinking cursor), Adam’s son Peter was going to disappear. It was going to turn out to be unrelated to the main plotline with Randall Grosse, but would cause significant pain to Suze and Adam.

Why did you give them a son?
Ben asked his father’s ghost.
If you based it on Cary and Fred Spencer, why the son?

He was certain the answer was buried in the black book because all he’d gathered so far was that Peter disappears and that it’s a
diversion
—
a
red herring that nearly prevents Adam from resolving the mystery of Randall Grosse. Still, in Peter’s mind, it could have been left out of the plot. Adam and Suze could have been
childless
—
like
Cary and
Fred
—
and
the story still would have worked. Yet Ben knew his father never included waste or extraneous characters in his story. There had to be something missing. Certainly the scenes where Adam showed true compassion and nostalgic longing for the boy his son once was helped build and shape the main character…but there were other ways…

Ben sat back in his chair, his mouth dropped.

The hospital scene. Adam sitting by his sleeping son.

“I couldn’t remember the last time I held my son’s hand…”

And Ben remembered something. Something he’d not thought about in a long, long time. He’d been what, seventeen? A senior in high school. Meningitis. A scary situation, he now knew. But as he liked to say whenever someone brought it up: “Wasn’t too bad for me. I slept through most of it.” He’d been hospitalized for nearly a week, and he remembered now…

His father sitting by his bed. Just like Adam by Peter.

“My father never put stuff about his own life into his books,”
Ben had said to Cary. In fact, he’d said it to a lot of people. As he leaned back in his chair, he couldn’t escape the vision of his father, sitting as Adam had, wondering. Perhaps reaching out to hold his son’s hand again. Was it really possible that Rob Keaton felt somehow compelled to insert a short, autobiographical moment into his final book? Ben leaned his head back and felt the beginnings of a sting in his eyes.

His phone rang. He sat upright.
Real world calling
,
he thought. Still early in the morning, likely still affected slightly by the shadows of last night’s dreams. Vulnerable to useless sentimentality. Reaching for the phone, he shook free of the hospital room visions. He’d look again at the black notebook tonight to try and pull from it some plot point he must have missed that better explained why Peter was in that novel.

“Hello?” he said.

“Ben!” Cary. She sounded stressed.

“What is it?”

“I think I found Fred. Can I come over? I’ll bring some lunch.”

Ben looked at the blinking cursor. It seemed to be laughing at him. “Of course,” he said. He hung up the phone.
Lunch?
He looked at his watch and was surprised by how little morning was left. He made his way to the shower to get ready for Cary’s arrival.

Moments before Cary was due to arrive, Ben’s phone rang. It was Walter.

“I found a guy,” he said, in a voice more animated than usual for the boy.

“Oh?”

“He’s here now, fixing the door.”

“Does he seem competent?”

“He’s kinda grubby. And has a runny nose. But he didn’t seem intimidated.”

“Guess that works. Listen, I’ve been thinking. Why don’t you come down here this evening? Take a look in the black notebook.”

“Really?”

“I’m thinking maybe a fresh set of eyes can help dig out a few things I might be missing.”

“What time?”

“This evening.”

“What time this evening? That’s a bit of an unspecific term.”

“How about six
thirty
-
eight
.”

“I can do that.”

“See you then.”

Cary was still shaken when she showed up. She had takeout burgers. They put the food on the counter to grow cold, as Ben got a couple bottles of water and they went out to his back deck. It was a mild day and under other circumstances would have been pleasant to sit back and bask in the sunshine.

“I don’t know whether to feel relieved, angry, or sad,” she said. “Part of me was convinced he was dead because despite it all, I wouldn’t ever think he’d want to disappear from me completely.”

“I’m sure he had a reason,” Ben said.

“Oh, Fred has reasons for everything. Could he be hiding from this Randall
Grosse
—
or
whoever he
is
—
person
? Does he even exist?”