Please, not again.
With a rising sense of dread, he turned slowly to look at the clock.
Damn it.
Stuck again. The red hand wasn’t moving. And this would have been disturbing enough, except that Kevin could feel that other thing coming back again, too. That panic thing.
The voice.
You’re supposed to be doing something. Something important.
He could recognize it as his own voice now, but this was not a source of much comfort. Because all at once he was convinced that he should be anywhere but here, that the last thing he should be doing was sitting alone in a teacher’s lounge, wasting valuable time.
Get ready.
“For what?” he said out loud, to the walls and to the empty chairs.
As if responding to Kevin’s voice, Danny Fisher came barreling into the room like a defensive lineman looking to make a tackle. Kevin steeled himself for the inevitable blow to the shoulder, but this time the big man spared him. “Okay!” Danny said happily. “Made it through the first day. You walking home?”
Kevin nodded. He supposed he was. Anything was better than sitting here, soaking up his own paranoid delusions. And he was glad to find out that he had no more responsibilities, because he had quite a lot he wanted to do this afternoon. There were three months’ worth of questions he needed to start asking.
They walked down the stairs together. As they emerged onto the sidewalk, Kevin realized he had never been so glad to be a native New Yorker. He had no memory of having ever been at this school, but that didn’t stop him from being able to locate himself. There was Park Avenue over there, to his left. And on the right, along Lexington, he spotted the corner of a supermarket he recognized. Which meant this was 74th street. Upper East. Piece of cake.
Across the street, parked one behind the other, were two large vans. Two large, white, Ford e250 vans. But neither Danny nor Kevin noticed them. There was no reason to.
Kevin turned for home.
“Hey,” Danny said, and stopped in his tracks. He gave Kevin a questioning look. “What’s up? You getting some groceries or something?”
“What?”
“Isn’t your apartment this way?”
Kevin was on the verge of saying no, of saying listen, I may have had a weird day, and I may not remember what I’ve been doing all summer, but I think I can remember where my own damn apartment is. But then he stopped himself.
It’s been three months. Plenty of time to move. New job, new place.
“I’m low on eggs,” Kevin said smoothly. “Quick detour.”
Danny shrugged. “Fair enough. I need some burger meat anyway.”
Kevin breathed a little sigh of relief. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if Danny had simply waved goodbye and said he’d see him tomorrow.
I don’t even know where I live.
When they left the market, Kevin was careful to let Danny walk a half-step in front of him. He tried not to let it show that he was suddenly feeling lost in his own city. When Danny came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the sidewalk after a few minutes, Kevin worried there might be something wrong.
But Danny only put out his hand. “All right, my friend,” he said, flashing that wide, happy grin at him. “Good first day. See you in the morning.”
Kevin shook his massive hand and tried to nod along. He was struck again by the man’s curious combination of obvious intelligence and sheer physical size. Maybe it was the suit that threw him off. Or the glasses. Or maybe just the constant good cheer.
With a different outfit, Kevin thought, you’d be a very scary-looking man.
But all he said was, “Thanks for helping me through it.”
To which Danny shook his head and smiled again. Then he turned and continued on his way.
Kevin watched him go for a minute, wondering what sort of bone-crushing workout routine Danny Fisher subscribed to during his afternoons. Then he reminded himself that he had all kinds of problems of his own to worry about.
Starting with getting into his apartment.
He turned and looked at the entrance to the building where Danny had left him. He hadn’t been paying attention to where they were walking – he had been too busy trying to follow Danny’s lead – but now he had a chance to look around. They hadn’t gone far from the school, barely more than a quarter of a mile. He was standing in front of a large green awning between 66th and 67th street on Park Avenue. The grass and flowers on the avenue’s wide median strip were still green and blooming in early September, and there was a doorman standing silently at the entrance to this building. Just as there was in front of virtually every Park Avenue apartment building.
Nice spot.
He turned and headed for the door, wondering if this part of his day might be about to come to a rather sudden halt. But the doorman, when he saw that Kevin meant to come in, nodded curtly at him and said “Good afternoon, Mr. Brooks,” before backing up quickly to open the door and stand out of the way.
Kevin stopped just inside the entrance and looked around. It was a huge lobby, long and wide, with three banks of elevators spaced along the left side. The walls were papered with a thick, textured matting, and there were framed impressionist prints every few feet on the walls. The floor was inlaid with strips of black and white marble, and there were brass light fixtures spaced along the ceiling.
He turned back to the doorman. “I left my key at the office. Do you have my spare?”
The doorman went into a large wooden drawer located behind the desk. A minute later, he had found it.
“Thank you.”
Kevin glanced down at the key, which had a tag on it reading “PH-C.” Being a born-and-raised Manhattan boy, he knew exactly what this label meant. But he still hesitated. He turned back to the doorman, who was hovering a few feet away in case anything else might be required.
“Are you sure this is – ”
“Sir?”
“Never mind.”
Kevin walked to the third elevator bank, the “C” bank, and pressed the button. The door opened immediately, and he stepped inside. He pressed the button marked “PH,” for “Penthouse.” In Manhattan apartment terms, this meant a residence that was not only on the top floor, but which had also not been divided up into two smaller apartments. In a building that was already very large and already very expensive, the Penthouse would be twice as large. Twice as expensive. For a Park Avenue apartment like this one, a mere $2.5 million in the bank would simply not be enough.
Not nearly enough.
“It might be enough to secure the loan,” Kevin said to no one, as he was riding up in the empty elevator. “Maybe.”
The elevator reached the top floor, and the door opened to reveal another door immediately before him. He used the key to open it, and then he stepped into his new apartment.
“Jesus,” Kevin said.
A Man Standing Behind Him
The entryway was modest. But it was the modesty of the simple whitewashed gangplank of an ocean liner, of the small American flag painted on the first-stage casing of a Saturn V rocket. Kevin could tell it was going to be a huge apartment. The ceilings, even in this small, immaculate room, were unreasonably high. A huge, full length mirror, framed and reinforced, hung on the near wall, and there was an antique table beside the front door for keys and the day’s mail. A Savonnerie rug lay on the gleaming, dark-stained wooden floors. Everything was spare and perfect. There were two doorways from which to exit this first room, one leading to an immense living room, the other to a long hallway, the kitchen and den, and then presumably to bedrooms.
Kevin went to the living room first. There was a built-in book case, one of the largest he had ever seen in a Manhattan apartment. It took up an entire wall of the room, and Kevin felt a surge of relief as he recognized some of his own things.
My books.
It was strange how deeply this affected him. All day he had been confused. All day he had been presented with people and thing
s and situations he did not expect. He was at a strange job, he had strange co-workers, and he was in a strange apartment. But at least this bookcase contained familiar things.
Not that they were all his books. Stepping closer, he could see titles that were certainly not part of his collection: books on languages, French and Spanish and Portuguese and even Russian; books on engineering and physics; books on game theory, on hunting, for God’s sake; he was not a hunter. He had never held a gun in his life.
Countless others.
Still, it was good to see some old favorites. And presumably he would find some of his other things in this apartment. But he would find the kitchen first, and then the bedrooms.
“Good afternoon.”
Kevin let out an involuntary shout: “Yow!”
There was a man standing behind him at the entrance to the living room, his hands at his sides. He was in his thirties, medium sized and trim, and he looked almost like a cadet standing at attention. He was dressed neatly, in gray slacks and a tucked-in black polo shirt.
Kevin regained his composure. “Who are you?”
“Andrew Helms,” the man said, his voice gentle and ingratiating. “Andrew, if you like. We met yesterday?” There was the slightest hint of confusion in the man’s voice. Because he had been through all of this before, his tone said. They had been through it before. “Your personal assistant?”
Kevin gave this information a moment to sink in. “Assistant,” he said, as though trying the word for the first time.
“Yes.”
Kevin sighed and put his head back for a moment “All right,” he said at last. “You do look efficient.”
“Thank you.”
“We met yesterday?”
“It was my first day.”
“No, wait a minute.” Kevin shook his head. “It doesn’t bother you that I don’t remember meeting you yesterday?”
Andrew tilted his head to the side. “I’m not offended. We’ve only just been introduced. You surely have countless matters to attend to, matters that require your focus and attention. Hence occasional forgetfulness, and hence your need for an assistant.” He ended this little speech with a trace of a smile, inviting Kevin to share in the incontrovertible logic, the inarguable transitive henceness of what he had said.
But Kevin only sighed. “I don’t mean I forgot your name. I’m saying I don’t remember you at all. I swear to God, I’ve never even seen you before.” He stopped and stared at the prim man, trying to convey some of the deep strangeness, some of the utter lunacy that he was experiencing.
But Andrew was unfazed. He shrugged, and the lunacy passed over and around him without a ripple, as though he were a vehicle that had been specially designed and streamlined to cut through such distractions. “Would you like a drink of water?”
“No,” Kevin said quickly. “And by the way, I don’t need an assistant. You can go.”
But again Andrew was unaffected. He didn’t move. He looked at Kevin as though his employer had suggested that the two of them jump out the window together. An amusing suggestion, yes, good fun, but not something that warranted any serious consideration. “You’ve paid for my services in advance, Sir. Two weeks’ worth. My effects, which are few, are in the servant’s quarters. Which is where I will return if you would like some time to yourself.”
Kevin ran a hand through his hair, and he let out a groan of frustration.
“You’ll find me quite useful, I believe,” Andrew went on. “And after a day or two, I suspect you’ll scarcely notice I’m even – ”
“Fine,” Kevin said suddenly, waving at him as though Andrew were a salesman who was taking up too much time. “I give up. Let’s move on. I have servant’s quarters?”
“Indeed.”
“Couldn’t we just call it the guest room or something?”
Andrew’s nose wrinkled. “The quarters are more than adequate for me – clean and tastefully decorated – but I’m not sure such a place would be suitable for guests. The room is, after all, directly off the kitchen, and just behind the laundry room.”
“Of course it is.”
“May I get you that drink of water?”
“No. I have to go out again. I have to…” Kevin stopped. What exactly did he have to do? Figure out what had been happening to him for the last three months, yes. But how exactly was he going to do that?
He had an idea. Not a foolproof idea, but it was something.
“I have to take care of some things,” he finished.
“Of course,” Andrew said. “Returning this evening?”
“What?” Kevin was briefly confused by the question. “Sure, I’ll be back.”
He had a flash of inspiration.
“Why?” he said slowly. “Didn’t I come back last night?”
Andrew waited a beat. “You did not,” he said, and his eyebrows went up just slightly, in an expression of concern or disapproval, Kevin could not tell. But then the moment passed, and Andrew was pressing on. “I’d be happy to prepare your dinner,” he said, “if you’ll tell me what you’d like.”
Kevin considered. Weird day or not, the idea of an expertly cooked meal was tempting. “I don’t know. Chicken and rice, maybe some salad?”
“Excellent. It will be waiting for you.”
“Okay. Do you have a watch?”
Andrew held out his arm as if for inspection. He was wearing a simple, black digital wristwatch that went well with his monkish attire.
“Does it work?” Kevin asked.
“Flawlessly.”
“All the time?”
“So far. For the last seven years, that is.”
Kevin nodded. “What time is it?”
Andrew did not point out that Kevin had his own watch, or that there was a large grandfather clock standing at the far end of the living room, not ten feet from them. “Nearly half past three in the afternoon,” he said.
“All right,” Kevin said. “I should be back by seven.”
Andrew nodded, turned, and left the room. Kevin assumed he was heading for his quarters or the kitchen, and at this point he had no intention of following. He didn’t need to confirm that his apartment was a small mansion. It was enough to know that he could come back here, and that there would be dinner waiting.
He had things to do.
Get ready.
“I’m going, I’m going,” he hissed under his breath, hoping Andrew wouldn’t hear him.
There were people he needed to talk to.
People who owed him some answers.
The One They Were Looking For
He walked rather than taking a cab or the bus or the subway. The act of putting one foot in front of the other was soothing, and the steady rhythm of his feet on the pavement reassured him that things were moving. That time was moving.
As it was supposed to.
It was two miles down to Times Square, then another seven blocks to the high-rise at 1 Penn Plaza, the building that held the testing center. Kevin hesitated at the entrance. This was one of his last clear memories. From before… whatever had happened to him this past summer. He could remember standing right at this spot, looking to his right and seeing Madison Square Garden at the end of the block. He felt a flash of nostalgia over his first hockey game there with his father, so many years ago. Then, looking up again, he wondered why a state licensure center would be located in a building where real estate was murderously expensive.
Some sort of government subsidy, he decided. Rent control for state facilities.
Now he walked into the building again, and already he could feel his pulse quickening. He found the nearest open elevator and pushed the button for the 20th floor. The elevator moved fast, and in seconds he was there. The door opened, and he stepped out.
Into a dentist’s waiting room.
Oh, come on.
He went to the check-in area. The receptionist looked up and gave him a patient, professional smile. “Name?”
“How long has this practic
e been here?”
The woman blinked. “Do you have an appointment?”
“I don’t need my teeth cleaned. Just tell me how long this office has been on this floor.”
“Oh.” The woman considered. She gave Kevin a critical stare, perhaps trying to decide whether he was a health inspector. Or maybe some kind of reporter. “About three months,” she said finally. “I started work here in the middle of June.” She grew expansive. “It’s a nice place, you know? And the benefits – ”
Undetectable (Great Minds Thriller) Page 5
