When the Past Came Calling

by Larry S. Kaplan

  “I just wanted to see what it would be like,” he explained some time later when I asked him why he’d never auditioned for anything else. “I liked it, but frankly, David, I like being backstage better. You know, I still hang out there sometimes—backstage, I mean—in our secret hideaway at Lincoln Hall.”

  After showing me the scenery, Benny led me to the door at the back of the stage. He was reaching in his pocket for the key when I noticed a large blue handkerchief on the floor,

  “Is that yours?” I asked.

  “No. It’s one of the props for the show. Oliver ties it up at the corners and makes a knapsack out of it, puts a crust of bread inside, and then ties it to the end of a stick that he carries over his shoulder.”

  “Yeah, I remember that scene.”

  “You do? Well, take it, then. As a keepsake. That’s an extra one. I saw a few others stacked on the shelves where they keep most of the props.”

  “Why would I want it as a keepsake?”

  “To remind you of me and my days as a thespian,” Benny said with conviction.

  “OK,” I responded, anxious to make him happy. “Then I will,” I said, stuffing the handkerchief in my pocket.

  Key in hand, Benny opened the door. “Voilà!” he said as he extended his right arm into the little room. “Home, sweet home.”

  I looked inside and saw a sleeping bag and lots of books strewn about the cramped space.

  Holding up the key he’d just used to open the door, he said, “I don’t think anybody ever made another key for this room after I found it. Look, it’s virtually untouched—the same as when we first found it—except for the stuff I brought.”

  “Benny, you’re kidding. You’re actually living here?”

  “Well, it’s very temporary.”

  “But why, Benny?”

  “I know you think I must be crazy, David, but I’m not. Obsessive and compulsive, maybe. Nuts, no. There are people out to get me—really!”

  “You may believe that, Benny, but…”

  “It’s more than just a belief.”

  “And why is that? Is it because of the Kennedy assassination?”

  “The John Kennedy assassination, yes. There’s not much of a mystery about who killed Bobby.”

  “Well look, I’m not here to convince you otherwise. There’s something else I need to talk to you about. But just tell me this: Why would they be out to get you, of all people?”

  “Because I’ve figured it out, David, that’s why. And they know it.”

  “But Benny, look at this rationally. I know you’re not nuts. I can tell that in an instant. So hear me out. There has been a massive government investigation into the assassination. They concluded unanimously that Lee Harvey Oswald was the single assassin—one man acting alone. It’s true that there are probably thousands of amateur sleuths who disagree. But that just shows how safe it is in this country to voice your dissent. Even if the Warren Commission did get it wrong according to you and them, nobody’s bothering all of the other conspiracy theorists. Why would they only target you?”

  “David, you must not be listening. I just told you why. I’m the only one who’s figured out the truth—and I know I’m right. In fact, I’m so right, that’s why they killed your debate partner, Michael Eisenberg.”

  “What are you talking about, Benny?”

  “The day before Michael died, I spoke to him on the phone. I told him what I’d discovered about the Kennedy assassination. The next day he’s dead. Someone was listening in, David. They didn’t like it that a US Attorney had been made aware of who they are. So you think I’m crazy to be looking over my shoulder? Too bad Michael wasn’t so crazy. But I should have warned him. I just didn’t know they were desperate enough to kill him.”

  “Benny, listen to me. Michael’s death had nothing to do with what you told him about the Kennedy assassination. It was because of what you told him about your former neighbor, Philip Montgomery. That’s why he’s dead.”

  Benny laughed the laugh I remembered from our childhood together. It was high-pitched and infused with youthful abandon. “And you think I’m crazy, David,” he chided me after he’d calmed down. “I think you’re the one who needs a shrink if you believe that. Montgomery? I could barely remember anything about him to tell Michael. Michael said a scientist had been kidnapped and they suspected Montgomery; but what I had to offer wouldn’t get a cockroach killed.”

  “But whatever you told him may have been enough. Your mother told me about the time Montgomery crashed his model airplane into the trees in your backyard. Did you tell Michael about that?”

  “I did mention that since it was just about the only thing about the guy that I remembered. It was pretty comical: this big-time priest or guru crashing his little airplane into our trees. My dad got it down with a pruning hook.”

  “But did your folks tell you about how the incident led to further contact between Montgomery and your dad?”

  “Yeah. I remember my dad was pretty impressed with him.”

  “But Benny, you always told me you never saw any of the Montgomerys. Not even to take out the garbage. You never told me he and your dad became chummy.”

  “Well, I didn’t tell you because I knew it might have you wondering about his daughter and asking me questions. I thought it’d be better for you if I told you we never saw them at all. But come on, David, what’s the big deal about a model airplane?”

  “It could be the answer to everything. What if your dad was being set up? Isn’t it kind of strange that your family would be given a house right across the street from a guy who has resurrected a peace religion that had been dead for seven hundred years? Oh, and—by the way—he dabbles in remote control technology to boot? And your dad just happens to be our military’s go-to guy for the remote control technology that will keep hydrogen bombs from falling out of the sky?

  “Don’t you see that model plane crashing into the trees was probably staged? It permitted Montgomery to connect with your dad over the technology your dad was working on. Montgomery and whoever else he was working with were probably close to figuring it out for themselves. They were maybe a piece or two away and needed your father to fill in the gaps. So when your dad helped Montgomery fine-tune his remote control device, he was giving him the necessary intelligence for Montgomery to cause a hydrogen bomb to fall from the sky.”

  “Sorry, David, but now who sounds like a paranoid schizophrenic?”

  “Really? That doesn’t make sense to you?”

  “No. For one thing, if Montgomery was all about peace, why do something that might have killed millions of people and started a nuclear war?”

  “Because he chose a flight over Greenland to do it—where no one would get hurt. And look at the result. It stopped our hydrogen bomb transport program cold. At the time many peaceniks in the government who knew about the program were horrified that our government was flying around with hydrogen bombs. An accident over a populated region would have been devastating. So you see, Montgomery got his wish. He got the program stopped. But in a crazy, reckless way. And at your father’s expense.”

  Benny mulled over my theory about Montgomery and his father, but evidently the reference to his father made him angry. “What else do you have?” he spat out.

  “What else? Isn’t that enough? Look, I met with this FBI agent. She’d been working on the Montgomery case with Michael. She told me that the missing scientist was working on a project that could be disastrous in the wrong hands—namely, Montgomery’s hands.”

  “Not my problem.”

  “Not your problem? What happened to your sense of justice, your patriotism?”

  “It started to die on November 22, 1963, and was finished off when my father died.”

  “This FBI agent wants to meet with you.”

  “I can promise you that’s not going to happen.”

  “What if I told you that on a ten-point scale, she’s a twenty-five?”

  “Ah, well, that might mak
e it tempting—but no.”

  “Can’t you even see it as a way of getting justice for your father?”

  “Justice for my father? Look who’s playing the ‘justice for my father’ card. Where was your concern about any of us, David, when you acted like such a dick to me after he died?”

  “I didn’t know it was a suicide then. I didn’t know until your mom just told me. And look, I’m sorry about the way I acted, I really am.”

  This apology from me prompted a sudden softening in Benny’s demeanor. He hugged me and patted my back but then just as quickly released me. “Your regrets come twenty-three years late; but I must admit, David, you sound like you mean it.”

  “I would do anything to have those twenty-three years back—to have kept you as my best friend all of that time.”

  “Well, now that we’ve talked things over, hopefully we’ll have a lot of years together to make it up. But I’m still not going to meet with anyone from the FBI, OK, David? I was reluctant to tell Michael what I knew—about the Kennedy assassination—and look what happened to him. Your FBI friend may be working for the enemy. They recruit beautiful women to snare saps like you and me.”

  “OK, Benny, I understand. I won’t trouble you about it anymore. I’ll tell her what I learned from your mother—about the remote control airplane. But nothing else. She wanted me to bring you to her, but I’ll simply tell her I couldn’t find you.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  I was about to leave when Benny stopped me. “David, before you go, there’s something I owe you an apology for.”

  “For trying to sabotage our sound system at the turnabout dance the night I kicked you out of the group?”

  “Well, that, and something else. Here.” He handed me an envelope with my name handwritten on the front. I stared at it but didn’t recognize the writing.

  “I’ve been saving it for a while,” he added.

  “Who’s it from, Benny?”

  “You’ll hate me for this, David. It’s from the Montgomery girl—the one you met the night of the party for my dad. She brought it over to our house the day her family moved away. She asked me to give it to you. I was so pissed off at you I never told you about it. I’m sorry.”

  If I’d tried to say anything to Benny at that moment, it would have emerged from my throat as a primal scream. I clutched the envelope and turned away from him. I needed to get out of there. I walked hurriedly across the stage and down the stairs. Benny didn’t try to stop me. He must have realized that nothing he could have done to me was worse than this.

  When I opened the door to the outside, I turned back and was surprised to see him standing at a short distance behind me. His face looked awash in guilt and shame, but I couldn’t bear the sight of him right then. I needed to get away.

  As I ran across the parking lot to my car, Benny followed me outside. “David, I’m sorry,” he yelled.

  “There’s no excuse,” I managed to shout back, “not for this.”

  Chapter 13

  April 16, 1989

  I ran to my car in the parking lot, grasping the letter with both hands, not trusting that five fingers alone would be enough to secure it. I intended to wait until I was back at my apartment to read it, since first I needed some time to quiet the pounding of my heart and slow my racing thoughts. I placed the letter on the passenger seat and started the engine. But then I turned it off before I could shift into drive. For twenty-three years I had been fixated on a girl I believed wanted nothing to do with me. Maybe this letter meant that I had been wrong. How could I wait another second to read what she had written?

  I flipped the switch on the dashboard to turn on the interior lights, took a deep breath, and let my fingers fumble as I tried to open the envelope carefully, without tearing it. The adhesive holding down the flap had become brittle with age. Soon I was able to coax the two sides apart and lift out a folded sheet of light-blue crinkly stationery. After gently unfolding it, this is what I read.

  August 15, 1966

  Dearest David,

  I know that we only got to know each other for a few hours. But for me, those few hours meant a lot. When you didn’t come to see me the day after we met, I thought of a million reasons why you didn’t show up. They all involved you being delayed or having to do something you forgot you had to do. But not once did I think you would never come back to see me.

  My father told me this morning that we have to move away. Today. He says he can’t tell me where we are going but that it is very far from here. I know what I am about to say may sound like a little girl who still believes in fairy tales, but since I do, I am going to say it. I really fell for you, David Miller. And the feeling isn’t going away. I know in my heart that I can never feel quite the same way about anybody else. And so—and here is the fairy tale part—I want to believe that you have feelings for me too. It felt like that to me, and it is hard to accept that my heart may have been misled. And of course, for my feelings to be true, it must mean there is a reason you never came back to see me. A reason that I have not thought of.

  And so, if you can find it in your heart to want to search for me, please know that I always hope you will.

  Love,

  Lena

  Chapter 14

  April 19, 1989

  I had promised Sandra Newton I would get back to her as soon as I learned anything from Benny or where he might be found, but it took me several days to decide exactly how to handle the information I had gleaned. For one thing, my thinking processes were in a hopeless muddle because of Lena’s letter.

  Could I ever forgive Benny for not telling me about it until now? Probably not. My life might have turned out totally different had I only known. Even as a sixteen-year-old, I would have been resourceful enough to track her down. Her family must have used a moving company to transport their belongings to a new home—so I would have called every mover in Chicago to find out which one. Within days, or weeks at the most, I would have found her.

  While the events were still fresh, I could have told her what happened when I came to see her on the day after we met, and why I thought her name was Mary—because that’s the name her aunt had called out in the middle of the night. And I could have told her what her aunt said to drive me away the next day. Of course I’d never gone back to her house after that. But it wasn’t because I didn’t want to see her again. It was because I believed that it was Lena who never wanted to see me again.

  Still, I needed to do some serious thinking about this discovery and whether I should allow it to influence my relationship with Benny. My former best friend was a deeply troubled soul, and I decided I needed to focus on the present and figure out a way to bring him back into the world. Carrying a grudge would only serve to perpetuate the errors of the past.

  I also wasn’t sure how much of this new information I wanted to share with Sandra Newton. I wanted to ask my uncle Bert’s advice first, but doing so might embroil him in an FBI investigation. While I believed part of what I’d learned might be relevant to the mystery of Whidden’s disappearance, I couldn’t reveal my meeting with Benny or his secret hiding place. I would keep that promise no matter what. I had to tell Sandra something of what I knew without compromising Benny.

  It was late morning on a busy Wednesday when I finally decided to call Sandra. Miss Jordan had been cross-examining me for days about that “beautiful young thing” who came to see me, and “when you gonna ask her out?” Although I wasn’t phoning her for a date, under different circumstances I might have wanted to. In any case, the letter from Lena was weighing too heavily on me now and tamped down any enthusiasm I might have had at the idea of connecting socially with such an attractive woman.

  The phone rang only once before Sandra answered. I don’t know how, but she knew it was me.

  “I’ve been waiting for your call, David. It’s been a few days.”

  “I know. Sorry. This isn’t exactly my regular line of work.”

&
nbsp; “OK, you’re excused. But tell me, were you able to locate Benny?”

  “No,” I lied, “but I did learn something when I spoke with his mother. I think it could be important.”

  “Important for finding Benny?”

  “No. Important for finding Dr. Whidden.”

  “OK…” she responded, sounding slightly skeptical. “What did she tell you?”

  I gave her an account of the unusual circumstances surrounding the Friedmans’ move to the Towers in 1966. I told her about Steven Friedman’s colleague at Holt Industries who’d essentially gifted him with the house across the street from the Montgomerys. I also told her about the remotely controlled model airplane and how Montgomery used it to dupe Benny’s dad into sharing information about the technology he was working on.

  “That’s why a hydrogen bomb fell out of a US transport plane over Greenland in August of 1966,” I explained. “You can check it out. It really happened. It was considered a horrific mistake, and the Russians clobbered us with it. That’s why Benny’s dad committed suicide. If you can learn the identity of the coworker who gave the Friedmans that house, I bet he can lead us to Montgomery.”

  Sandra did not respond immediately. “I’m unaware of the Greenland incident. Before my time, I guess. But I will check it out,” she said without any hint of skepticism this time.

  I welcomed her reaction since it made me feel like less of a lunatic.

  “Hey,” she added, “why don’t we get together for a drink tonight? Maybe I’ll have some answers by then—at least about who owned the house before the Friedmans moved in. And I’d rather not discuss the matter over the phone. Do you know Harry’s Cafe?”

  “Sure.” Harry’s had been a fixture on Rush Street, Chicago’s late night district, for years. As a single guy, I was quite familiar with it. “Now you’re talking about my stomping grounds.”

  “Really? Mine too. Well, sort of…I mean I’ve been there a few times.”

  I was surprised that a woman as successful and attractive as Sandra had ever stepped foot inside a place like Harry’s, a renowned pick-up joint.