by Keith Laumer
“Foster,” I said. “I’m going to get you into a bed. Can you walk?” He groaned softly and opened his eyes. They were glassy. I got out and got him to the sidewalk. He was still half out. I walked him into the dingy lobby and over to a reception counter where a dim bulb burned. I dinged the bell. It was a minute before an old man shuffled out from where he’d been sleeping. He yawned, eyed me suspiciously, looked at Foster.
“We don’t want no drunks here,” he said. “Respectable house.”
“My friend is sick,” I said. “Give me a double with bath. And call a doctor.”
“What’s he got?” the old man said. “Ain’t contagious, is it?”
“That’s what I want a doctor to tell me.”
“I can’t get the doc ’fore in the morning. And we got no private bathrooms.”
I signed the register. We rode the open-cage elevator to the fourth floor, went along a gloomy hall to a door painted a peeling brown. It didn’t look inviting; the room inside wasn’t much better. There was a lot of flowered wallpaper and an old-fashioned wash-stand and two wide beds. I stretched Foster out on one. He lay relaxed, a serene expression on his face—the kind undertakers try for but never quite seem to manage. I sat down on the other bed and pulled off my shoes. It was my turn to have a tired mind. I lay on the bed and let it sink down like a grey stone into still water.
* * * *
I awoke from a dream in which I had just discovered the answer to the riddle of life. I tried to hold onto it, but it slipped away; it always does.
Grey daylight was filtering through the dusty windows. Foster lay slackly on the broad sagging bed, a ceiling lamp with a faded fringed shade casting a sickly yellow light over him. It didn’t make things any cheerier; I flipped it off.
Foster was lying on his back, arms spread wide, breathing heavily. Maybe it was only exhaustion, and he didn’t need a doctor after all. He’d probably wake up in a little while, raring to go.
As for me, I was feeling hungry again. I’d have to have a buck or so for sandwiches. I went over to the bed and called Foster’s name. He didn’t move. If he was sleeping that soundly, maybe I wouldn’t bother him.…
I eased his wallet out of his coat pocket, took it to the window and checked it. It was fat. I took a ten, put the wallet on the table. I remembered Foster had said something about money in the car. I had the keys in my pocket. I got my shoes on and let myself out quietly. Foster hadn’t moved.
Down on the street I waited for a couple of yokels who were looking over Foster’s car to move on, then slid into the seat, leaned over, and got the floor boards up. The strong box was set into the channel of the frame. I scraped the road dirt off the lock and opened it with a key from Foster’s key ring, took out the contents. There was a bundle of stiffish papers, a passport, some maps—marked up—and a wad of currency that made my mouth go dry. I riffled through it: fifty grand if it was a buck.
I stuffed the papers, money, and passport back in the box and locked it, and climbed out onto the sidewalk. A few doors down the street there was a dirty window lettered MAE’S EAT. I went in, ordered hamburgers and coffee to go, and sat at the counter with Foster’s keys in front of me, thinking about the car that went with them. The passport only needed a little work on the picture to get me wherever I wanted to go, and the money would buy me my choice of islands. Foster would have a nice long nap, and then take a train home. With his dough, he’d hardly miss what I took.
The counterman put a paper bag in front of me and I paid him and went out. I stood by the car, jingling the keys on my palm and thinking. I could be in Miami in an hour, and I knew where to go for the passport job. Foster was a nice guy and I liked him—but I’d never have a break like this again. I reached for the car door and a voice said, “Paper, mister?”
I jumped and looked around. A dirty-faced kid was looking at me. “Sure,” I said. I gave him a single and took the paper, flipped it open. A Mayport dateline caught my eye:
POLICE RAID HIDEOUT
A surprise raid by local police led to the discovery here today of a secret gangland fortress. Chief Chesters of the Mayport Police stated that the raid came as an aftermath of the arrival in the city yesterday of a notorious northern gang member. A number of firearms, including army-type machine guns, were seized in the raid on a house 9 miles from Mayport on the Fernandina road. The raid was said by Chief Chesters to be the culmination of a lengthy investigation.
C.R. Foster, 50, owner of the property, is missing and feared dead. Police are seeking the ex-convict who visited the house last night. It is feared that Foster may have been the victim of a gangland murder.
I banged through the door to the darkened room and stopped short. In the gloom I could see Foster sitting on the edge of the bed, looking my way.
“Look at this,” I yelped, flapping the paper in his face. “Now the cops are dragging the state for me—and on a murder rap at that! Get on the phone and get this thing straightened out—if you can. You and your little green men! The cops think they’ve stumbled on Al Capone’s arsenal. You’ll have fun explaining that one.…”
Foster looked at me interestedly. He smiled.
“What’s funny about it, Foster?” I yelled. “Your dough may buy you out, but what about me?”
“Forgive me for asking,” Foster said pleasantly. “But—who are you?”
* * * *
There are times when I’m slow on the uptake, but this wasn’t one of them. The implications of what Foster had said hit me hard enough to make my knees go weak.
“Oh, no, Mr. Foster,” I said. “You can’t lose your memory again—not right now, not with the police looking for me. You’re my alibi; you’re the one that has to explain all the business about the guns and the ad in the paper. I just came to see about a job, remember?”
My voice was getting a little shrill. Foster sat looking at me, wearing an expression between a frown and a smile, like a credit manager turning down an application.
He shook his head slightly. “My name is not Foster.”
“Look,” I said. “Your name was Foster yesterday—that’s all I care about. You’re the one that owns the house the cops are all upset about. And you’re the corpse I’m supposed to have knocked off. You’ve got to go to the cops with me—right now—and tell them I’m just an innocent bystander.”
I went to the window and raised the shades to let some light into the room, turned back to Foster.
“I’ll explain to the cops about you thinking the little men were after you—” I stopped talking and stared at Foster. For a wild moment I thought I’d made a mistake—that I’d wandered into the wrong room. I knew Foster’s face, all right; the light was bright enough now to see clearly; but the man I was talking to couldn’t have been a day over twenty years old.
* * * *
I went close to him, staring hard. There were the same cool blue eyes, but the lines around them were gone. The black hair grew lower and thicker than I remembered it, and the skin was clear.
I sat down hard on my bed. “Mama mia,” I said.
“¿Qué? es la dificultad?” Foster said.
“Shut up,” I moaned. “I’m confused enough in one language.” I was trying hard to think but I couldn’t seem to get started. A few minutes earlier I’d had the world by the tail—just before it turned around and bit me. Cold sweat popped out on my forehead when I thought about how close I had come to driving off in Foster’s car; every cop in the state would be looking for it by now—and if they found me in it, the jury wouldn’t be out ten minutes reaching a verdict of guilty.
Then another thought hit me—the kind that brings you bolt upright with your teeth clenched and your heart hammering. It wouldn’t be long before the local hick cops would notice the car out front. They’d come in after me, and I’d tell them it belonged to Foster. They’d take a look at him and say, “nuts, the bird
we want is fifty years old, and where did you hide the body?”
I got up and started pacing. Foster had already told me there was nothing to connect him with his house in Mayport; the locals there had seen enough of him to know he was pushing middle age, at least. I could kick and scream and tell them this twenty-year-old kid was Foster, but I’d never make it stick. There was no way to prove my story; they’d figure Foster was dead and that I’d killed him—and anybody who thinks you need a corpus to prove murder better read his Perry Mason again.
I glanced out of the window and did a double take. Two cops were standing by Foster’s car. One of them went around to the back and got out a pad and took down the license number, then said something over his shoulder and started across the street. The second cop planted himself by the car, his eye on the front of the hotel.
I whirled on Foster. “Get your shoes on,” I croked. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
We went down the stairs quietly and found a back door opening on an alley. Nobody saw us go.
* * * *
An hour later, I sagged in a grimy coach seat and studied Foster, sitting across from me—a middle-aged nut with the face of a young kid and a mind like a blank slate. I had no choice but to drag him with me; my only chance was to stick close and hope he got back enough of his memory to get me off the hook.
It was time for me to be figuring my next move. I thought about the fifty thousand dollars I had left behind in the car, and groaned. Foster looked concerned.
“Are you in pain?” he said.
“And how I’m in pain,” I said. “Before I met you I was a homeless bum, broke and hungry. Now I can add a couple more items: the cops are after me, and I’ve got a mental case to nursemaid.”
“What law have you broken?” Foster said.
“None,” I barked. “As a crook, I’m a washout. I’ve planned three larcenies in the last twelve hours, and flunked out on all of them. And now I’m wanted for murder.”
“Whom did you kill?” Foster inquired courteously.
I leaned across so I could snarl in his face: “You!” Then, “Get this through your head, Foster. The only crime I’m guilty of is stupidity. I listened to your crazy story; because of you I’m in a mess I’ll never get straightened out.” I leaned back. “And then there’s the question of old men that take a nap and wake up in their late teens; we’ll go into that later, after I’ve had my nervous breakdown.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve been the cause of difficulty,” Foster said. “I wish that I could recall the things you’ve spoken of. Is there anything I can do to assist you now?”
“And you were the one who wanted help,” I said. “There is one thing; let me have the money you’ve got on you; we’ll need it.”
Foster got out his wallet—after I told him where it was—and handed it to me. I looked through it; there was nothing in it with a photo or fingerprints. When Foster said he had arranged matters so that he could disappear without a trace, he hadn’t been kidding.
“We’ll go to Miami,” I said. “I know a place in the Cuban section where we can lie low, cheap. Maybe if we wait a while, you’ll start remembering things.”
“Yes,” Foster said. “That would be pleasant.”
“You haven’t forgotten how to talk, at least,” I said. “I wonder what else you can do. Do you remember how you made all that money?”
“I can remember nothing of your economic system,” Foster said. He looked around. “This is a very primitive world, in many respects,” he said. “It should not be difficult to amass wealth here.”
“I never had much luck at it,” I said. “I haven’t even been able to amass the price of a meal.”
“Food is exchanged for money?” Foster asked.
“Everything is exchanged for money,” I said. “Including most of the human virtues.”
“This is a strange world,” Foster said. “It will take me a long while to become accustomed to it.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said. “Maybe things would be better on Mars.”
Foster nodded. “Perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps we should go there.”
I groaned, then caught myself. “No, I’m not in pain,” I said. “But don’t take me so literally, Foster.”
We rode along in silence for a while.
“Say, Foster,” I said. “Have you still got that notebook of yours?”
Foster tried several pockets, came up with the book. He looked at it, turned it over, frowning.
“You remember it?” I said, watching him.
He shook his head slowly, then ran his finger around the circles embossed on the cover.
“This pattern,” he said. “It signifies.…”
“Go on, Foster,” I said. “Signifies what?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t remember.”
I took the book and sat looking at it. I didn’t really see it, though. I was seeing my future. When Foster didn’t turn up, they’d naturally assume he was dead. I’d been with him just before his disappearance. It wasn’t hard to see why they’d want to talk to me—and my having vanished too wouldn’t help any. My picture would blossom out in post offices all over the country; and even if they didn’t catch me right away, the murder charge would always be there, hanging over me.
It wouldn’t do any good to turn myself in and tell them the whole story; they wouldn’t believe me, and I wouldn’t blame them. I didn’t really believe it myself, and I’d lived through it. But then, maybe I was just imagining that Foster looked younger. After all, a good night’s rest—
I looked at Foster, and almost groaned again. Twenty was stretching it; eighteen was more like it. I was willing to swear he’d never shaved in his life.
“Foster,” I said. “It’s got to be in this book; who you are, where you came from— It’s the only hope I’ve got.”
“I suggest we read it, then,” Foster said.
“A bright idea,” I said. “Why didn’t I think of that?” I thumbed through the book to the section in English and read for an hour. Starting with the entry dated January 19, 1710, the writer had scribbled a few lines every few months. He seemed to be some kind of pioneer in the Virginia Colony. He complained about prices, and the Indians, and the ignorance of the other settlers and every now and then threw in a remark about the Enemy. He often took long trips, and when he got home, he complained about those, too.
“It’s a funny thing, Foster,” I said. “This is supposed to have been written over a period of a couple of hundred years, but it’s all in the same hand. That’s kind of odd, isn’t it?”
“Why should a man’s handwriting change?” Foster said.
“Well, it might get a little shaky there toward the last, don’t you agree?”
“Why is that?”
“I’ll spell it out, Foster,” I said. “Most people don’t live that long. A hundred years is stretching it, to say nothing of two.”
“This must be a very violent world, then,” Foster said.
“Skip it,” I said. “You talk like you’re just visiting. By the way; do you remember how to write?”
Foster looked thoughtful. “Yes,” he said. “I can write.”
I handed him the book and the stylus. “Try it,” I said. Foster opened to a blank page, wrote, and handed the book back to me.
“Always and always and always,” I read.
I looked at Foster. “What does that mean?” I looked at the words again, then quickly flipped to the pages written in English. I was no expert on penmanship, but this came up and cracked me right in the eye.
The book was written in Foster’s hand.
* * * *
“It doesn’t make sense,” I was saying for the fortieth time. Foster nodded sympathetic agreement.
“Why would you write out this junk yourself, and then spend all that time and mo
ney trying to have it deciphered? You said experts worked over it and couldn’t break it. But,” I went on, “you must have known you wrote it; you knew your own handwriting. But on the other hand, you had amnesia before; you had the idea you might have told something about yourself in the book.…”
I sighed, leaned back and tossed the book over to Foster. “Here, you read a while,” I said. “I’m arguing with myself and I can’t tell who’s winning.”
Foster looked the book over carefully.
“This is odd,” he said.
“What’s odd?”
“The book is made of khaff. It is a permanent material—and yet it shows damage.”
I sat perfectly still and waited.
“Here on the back cover,” Foster said. “A scuffed area. Since this is khaff, it cannot be an actual scar. It must have been placed there.”
I grabbed the book and looked. There was a faint mark across the back cover, as though the book had been scraped on something sharp. I remembered how much luck I had had with a knife. The mark had been put here, disguised as a casual nick in the finish. It had to mean something.
“How do you know what the material is?” I asked.
Foster looked surprised. “In the same way that I know the window is of glass,” he said. “I simply know.”
“Speaking of glass,” I said. “Wait till I get my hands on a microscope. Then maybe we’ll begin to get some answers.”
CHAPTER IV
The two-hundred pound señorita with the wart on her upper lip put a pot of black Cuban coffee and a pitcher of salted milk down beside the two chipped cups, leered at me in a way that might have been appealing thirty years before, and waddled back to the kitchen. I poured a cup, gulped half of it, and shuddered. In the street outside the cafe a guitar cried Estrellita.
“Okay, Foster,” I said. “Here’s what I’ve got: The first half of the book is in pot-hooks—I can’t read that. But this middle section: the part coded in regular letters—it’s actually encrypted English. It’s a sort of resumé of what happened.” I picked up the sheets of paper on which I had transcribed my deciphering of the coded section of the book, using the key that had been micro-engraved in the fake scratch on the back cover.
