by Levy, Marc
So . . . think about it. What would you have done in my place? Well, you’d probably have made the same mistake that I was about to.
2
SALLY-ANNE
October 1980, Baltimore
Sally-Anne left the loft and peered down the steep stairwell.
One hundred and twenty steps to the ground floor. It was a harrowing descent, down three dark and dingy levels with exposed light bulbs casting halos of light into the abyss. Those stairs were a death trap. The way down was treacherous, and the way up a grueling climb. Sally-Anne endured both, morning and night. The freight elevator had long since died, its rusty gate swallowed up in the dingy landscape of dust and brick.
As she exited the front door of the building, Sally-Anne was blinded by the bright sunlight reflecting off the wooden docks, like always. Old redbrick warehouses lined the street. Tall cranes loomed at the end of a jetty, battered constantly by sea winds as they stood forever awaiting cargo ships that would never enter the decaying port. The neighborhood was abandoned and untouched, not yet gentrified by canny developers. Only a motley grab bag of young people had chosen to settle there: budding artists, musicians, writers, the destitute, as well as trust-fund babies, whose dreams and creativity were nourished often in illicit ways. The nearest corner store was a ten-minute motorcycle ride up the road.
Sally-Anne’s Triumph Bonneville was a veritable monster: 650 cubic centimeters capable of rocketing forward at more than a hundred miles an hour, should the driver be crazy enough to hazard such speeds. The blue-and-white fuel tank had been banged up a bit, a souvenir of a memorable crash back when Sally-Anne was still learning to tame the beast.
A few days before, Sally-Anne’s parents had told her to leave the city and go see the world. Her mother had scrawled cold, hard numbers onto a check, then had carefully torn it from the checkbook with manicured hands—carefully tearing her daughter from her own home—and handed it to Sally-Anne.
Sally-Anne had considered blowing the money on booze and other debauchery. But she soon became consumed with a thirst for revenge, enraged at being forced into exile for a crime she didn’t commit. She resolved to achieve a level of success that would make her parents rue the day they had ever turned their backs on her. Although it certainly was an ambitious undertaking, she was armed with a brilliant mind, breathtaking beauty, and an address book teeming with useful contacts.
Success in her family was measured by dollars in the bank and possessions that could be put on display. Sally-Anne was never short on cash, but that wasn’t what interested her. What Sally-Anne loved was people. She laughed at how much it appalled her family to see her shun high society and go mingle with those on the other side of the tracks. She may have had her faults, but Sally-Anne had scores of heartfelt friendships.
The azure sky above made it hard to imagine it had rained throughout the night. On a motorcycle like hers, a slick road was a merciless thing. Feeling the warmth of the engine humming beneath her, Sally-Anne reveled in the Triumph’s speed as it swallowed the asphalt in front of it. The wind whipping at her face filled her with a sense of boundless freedom.
She caught sight of the phone booth in the distance, standing alone at an intersection in the middle of no-man’s-land, and pushed back her glove to check the time on her watch. Shifting down a few gears and tightening her grip on the hand brake, Sally-Anne expertly steered the Triumph up onto the sidewalk and lowered the kickstand. She approached the pay phone, eager to confirm that her accomplice was on schedule.
Five rings? It shouldn’t have taken that long. Sally-Anne’s throat tightened, but relaxed when May picked up at last.
“Everything okay?” Sally-Anne asked.
“Yes,” May answered tersely.
“I’m on my way. I just wanted to make sure you’re ready.”
“I’d better be. It’s too late to back out now, isn’t it?”
“And why would we want to do that?” asked Sally-Anne.
A laundry list of reasons leapt to May’s mind. The stakes were too high, and none of it seemed worth the risk. What good was vengeance if it did nothing to change the past, to erase what had happened? And what if their plan went off the rails and the two of them actually got caught? It would be too much to bear. Nonetheless, May would have taken any risk for Sally-Anne, no matter how great. And so, she stayed silent.
“Just don’t be late,” Sally-Anne insisted.
A police car came cruising around the corner and Sally-Anne’s heart froze. She knew she had to keep her fears at bay; otherwise, how in the world would she be able to go through with it? She had done nothing wrong, at least not yet. Her motorcycle was parked legally, and using a pay phone wasn’t a crime. The cruiser carried on past, allowing just enough time for Sally-Anne to catch the officer throwing a sleazy look her way. Give me a break! she thought as she hung up the receiver.
She glanced at her watch once more and did the math in her head. Twenty minutes until she was at the Stanfield estate’s front door. Sixty until she was off the property. Ninety minutes in all until she was safely back home. In the span of a mere ninety minutes, both their lives would change forever. With that thought in mind, Sally-Anne mounted the Triumph, kick-started the engine, and zipped down the road.
On the other side of the city, May slipped her jacket on. She checked that the lockpick was still there, wrapped in tissue in her right-hand pocket, and paid the locksmith for it on her way out. As she stepped out of the building, May was hit by a harsh blast of cold air. The wind made the bare branches of the poplars creak above, sending shivers down her spine. She pulled her collar up around her neck and walked a bit faster.
May boarded a crosstown bus and used the window as a mirror, pulling her hair back into a bun that she secured with bobby pins. Two rows ahead, a man was playing Chet Baker on a little boom box in his lap, his head swaying and oscillating with the slow rhythm of “My Funny Valentine.” Another man seated nearby ruffled his newspaper in retaliation. “It’s just the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard,” the man with the boom box murmured to his irate neighbor.
May found the song more sad than beautiful, though the truth was probably somewhere between the two. She got off the bus six stops later, arriving at the foot of the hill without a moment to spare. Sally-Anne was there waiting for her on the bike, a second helmet in hand. She gestured for May to hop on board. Soon after, the engine roared to life, and the Triumph sped off into the distance.
3
ELEANOR-RIGBY
October 2016, Beckenham, outside London
It seemed to be a normal night like any other, but nothing would ever be normal again. Maggie leaned against the doorframe of her living room with an unlit cigarette between her fingers, as though sparking it up would somehow make all the insanity real.
I was sitting at the living-room table, fidgeting with nerves. I had the letter clutched in my hands as though it were some sort of sacred relic or talisman.
“Read it again,” Maggie ordered.
“Read it again, please,” I corrected, for good form.
“Right. Remind me who exactly showed up on whose doorstep in the middle of the night? So, come on, cut the crap . . . please.”
How was it that jobless Maggie could afford a one-bedroom flat, while I could barely find enough rent for a studio, even with a full-time job? I figured she had to have been getting some help from our parents. And with Mum out of the picture, that meant she must have roped Dad into her shenanigans now as well, which was the part that really irked me. One day I’d muster the courage to ask the question point-blank at a family meal . . .
That’s right, I thought to myself. One day I’ll have the guts to stand up to my little sister, and put her in her place once and for all. The thought intermingled with all the others zig-zagging around my head, keeping my mind from the letter that Maggie had ordered me to read for her again.
“Cat got your tongue, Rigby?”
I couldn’t stand it when Maggie bu
tchered my name by leaving out the Eleanor part, and my lovely sister knew this all too well. Aside from our unconditional sisterly love, there has never been anything simple about our relationship. As kids, we would only go as far as yanking each other’s hair, but our clashes grew fiercer the older we got. When the fighting got too intense, Michel would bury his face in his hands, as though our nastiness had unleashed some evil that turned our poor brother into a suffering martyr. An immediate ceasefire would commence, both of us having long since forgotten why we were fighting in the first place. We’d throw our arms around each other in a giddy little circle dance to convince Michel it was only a game from the start.
Maggie wanted to be like me, a calm redhead with an unassuming appearance who never let anything get to her—or at least not as far as she could see. As for me, I always dreamt of being strikingly beautiful like my younger sister, or having her thick-skinned nerve, not to mention the head of curly black hair that would have spared me years of teasing at school. Every exchange between the two of us had the potential to spiral into conflict. But as soon as our parents or anyone else started mucking about with one of us, the other would come running, ready to go to war in defense of her sister.
I sighed and reread the letter aloud for Maggie.
Dear Eleanor,
I hope you don’t mind that I’ve abridged your name, but hyphenated monikers run a bit long for my taste, even when they are as elegant as yours. But I digress. My opinion about your name is not why I’m writing to you today.
I’m sure the sudden death of your mother seemed like a profound injustice. She was meant to grow to a ripe old age and die in her bed, surrounded by children and grandchildren, the family for whom she sacrificed so much. Your mother was a brilliant and remarkable woman, capable of great good . . . and great evil.
Until now, you have only known the good.
This is the natural order of things: all we can ever see of our parents is what they wish to show us, how we in turn choose to see them. It’s easy to forget that they had a whole life before us. The life of which I speak was theirs and theirs only, a life with all of its dreams and fantasies, as well as the tormented hardship of youth . . .
They, too, had to break free of their chains. The question is: How did they do it?
Your mother, for instance, walked away from an extraordinary fortune thirty-six years ago. However, that fortune was not an inheritance. So, then, how did she come by it? Did she find it? Or . . . did she steal it? Why else would she have left it behind? There are so many unanswered questions, should you decide to seek the truth. But I would caution you: you will need to conduct your research skillfully. As you might imagine, a woman as shrewd as your mother would not bury her most intimate secrets somewhere they would be easy to find. As soon as you lay your hands on the proof that will back up my claims—for undoubtedly, your first reaction will be utter disbelief—you will need to find me. But not before the time comes, as I live on the other side of the world. Until then, take some time to think it over. You’ve much to do. Best get started straightaway.
I hope you’ll forgive me for leaving this letter unsigned. It’s not out of cowardice, I assure you, but rather for your own good that I remain anonymous. I’d caution against telling anyone about this letter—most of all Maggie and your father. Destroy it as soon as you’ve finished reading it. Keeping it will serve no purpose.
Please believe me when I say that I wish you nothing but the best, and hope you will accept my much-belated condolences.
“Pretty diabolical,” I remarked. “No way of gleaning a single detail, if it was written by a man or a woman, nothing.”
“Whoever wrote it is demented, that much I can tell you. The only sane thing in there is where it says to destroy the stupid thing.”
“It also says not to tell anyone about it, most of all you.”
“You were right to ignore that advice.”
“You . . . and Dad.”
“Hold on—there’s no way you’re telling Dad. I’m not letting you worry him with your sketchy web of crap.”
“Would you just stop it! Always telling me what to do and what not to do. I’m the oldest!”
“What, you’re one year older so you’re somehow blessed with superior intelligence? In that case, you wouldn’t have come running over here to show me the stupid letter in the first place.”
“I didn’t come running,” I corrected her. “I received it the day before yesterday.”
Maggie pulled up a chair and sat opposite me. I slid the letter across the table and watched my sister run her fingers across the surface of the paper, admiring the lavish stock.
“Don’t tell me you actually believe this rubbish,” she said with a sigh.
“I don’t know what I believe. But why take the time to write the thing if it was all just made up?”
“Because there’s a nutter on every corner, ready to do anything and everything to hurt people.”
“No one’s out there trying to hurt me. Boring as it may seem to you, I actually don’t go around making enemies.”
“What about some guy whose heart you broke?”
“If only! My love life is a barren wasteland, remember?”
“What about that reporter you were seeing?”
“He’d never be capable of anything this despicable. What’s more, we left things on good terms.”
“So, how exactly does this creepy letter writer know about me?”
“He seems to know a lot more than that. He says don’t tell Maggie, don’t tell Dad, but doesn’t mention Michel. So, that means—”
“It means he knew you wouldn’t risk traumatizing our brother by dragging him into this whole mess,” Maggie said, fidgeting with her lighter on the table. “So, the poison-pen must know exactly what he’s like. I have to admit that is a little unsettling.”
“Agreed. What do we do?” I asked, noting with silent amusement that Maggie had picked up on my nickname for the letter writer.
“Nothing. We do nothing. It’s the best way not to be baited into his twisted little game. We put this piece of rubbish where it belongs, and forget the whole thing.”
“Can you imagine Mum being rich when she was young? The letter said ‘a fortune,’ which doesn’t make any sense at all. If she had been rich, why did we always have so much trouble making ends meet?”
“Come on, don’t exaggerate. It’s not like we were living in poverty; we had everything we needed!” said Maggie, her temper rising.
“You may have had everything you needed, but there was a whole lot going on that you didn’t know about.”
“Like what?”
“Scrounging before payday, for example. You think Mum put in all those extra hours tutoring just for the hell of it? And all those weekends Dad spent editing manuscripts?”
“He worked in publishing and Mum was a teacher. I always thought that was just part of their jobs.”
“You thought wrong. Everything after the workday was extra. And when they sent us to summer camp, they didn’t just run off to the Bahamas. They worked in the summers, too. Mum even did shifts at the front desk of a hospital.”
“Our mum?” Maggie uttered in shock.
“Three summers in a row, when you were thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen.”
“And why were you told about this and not me?”
“Because I asked. See, who would have thought? Maybe one year does make a difference.”
That shut Maggie up for a moment, however fleetingly.
“No.” She shook her head. “No way. Mum sitting on some secret stash of money? It just doesn’t hold water.”
“The letter said ‘fortune.’ That might not necessarily mean money.”
“Fine. If not money, what was all that stuff about this mysterious fortune not being inherited?”
“Good point. The poison-pen also said we’d have to be skillful to find proof . . . Maybe there’s hidden meaning to the choice of words.”
“Sure, could be
. But that’s a whole lot of maybes. Just throw the stupid letter away, forget you ever saw it.”
“Right, sure! You don’t fool me for a second. I give it two days before you run over to Dad’s and ransack the place.”
Maggie flicked her lighter and lit up her cigarette at last, taking a nice long drag and puffing a cloud of smoke up toward the ceiling.
“Fine,” she conceded. “We’ll invite everyone here for dinner tomorrow. You grill the food, I’ll grill Dad and get some answers just to be sure, but I know it’s a total waste of time.”
“Perfect. We can order pizza or something and question Dad together. But we’ll have to be careful; Michel will be there.”
4
RAY
October 2016, Croydon, south of London
Ray wondered why his kids couldn’t just come to his place for dinner. As much as he loved seeing them, he was a homebody and far too old to change that now. No matter, he thought, as he took a herringbone blazer from the wardrobe. He could pick up Michel in the old Austin, which he hardly ever drove these days, ever since a Tesco Express had opened within walking distance.
Ray was under doctor’s orders to get in fifteen minutes of walking per day at the very minimum to keep his joints moving. Truth be told, he didn’t care all that much about that these days. He really didn’t know what to do with his body anymore, now that he was a widower. Nevertheless, he checked his reflection in the mirror, pulled in his stomach, and slicked back his hair.
Ray wasn’t too bothered by aging, but he did miss the thick mane of hair he’d had as a younger man. With the countless millions the government spent on pointless wars, it was a wonder they couldn’t do something useful, like discover a way to grow back hair. If he could travel back in time to his thirties, he would convince his wife to apply her scientific skills to growing back hair instead of working as a chemistry teacher. She would have found the magic formula, making a fortune so that the couple could coast through their golden years, living it up in palaces the whole world over.
