Cards in the Cloak

by Jeremy Bursey

  Chapter 7

  “Boom”

  The other main problem he had standing between him and the success of his search was his business. The Hat Shoe had experienced a boom in customer base after World War II came to an end, and Norman had to unload much of the profits into a marketing campaign that would generate even more business. Then, as the wheel of progress would spin faster and faster, Norman would eventually have to supply the demand for hats and shoes in other sections of Chicago, so he had to start preparing his business for expansion. And unlike the close call he had with opening a second store in 1929, which was halted thanks to the death of his business partner, Anderson Flatt, and the related evaporation of equity in the one business they did have, Norman was actually in a position to open that second store, and he knew that if he didn’t, then his customer base would seek out alternative accessory shops—like that horrible Head Toppers and Feet Stoppers, which was already stealing a few of his big spenders.

  So, he had to put the search on hold. Again.

  Building and furnishing his second Hat Shoe shop in the Dunning neighborhood on the west side of town required a large chunk of his revenue stream, and because he didn’t know anyone who knew the accessories business quite like he did, it also required his daily intervention. He ended up giving complete control of the original store to Linwood, his second-in-command, so he could better focus on growing the new one. And because the demand remained hot for longer than he’d ever thought possible, he opened a third store in Lincoln Park near the lake, a risk given the difficulty businesses in the area had recovering after the Depression, a fourth down south in Ashburn, which he later admitted was a bad idea since so few people lived there at the time and most of the neighborhood was covered in ash, but he knew that if he could overcome the stigma of building his shop downwind of a mental hospital in Dunning, then he could overcome anything in business. So, by 1949, he opened his fifth and final store, Hat Shoe Deluxe, in the one place that nobody ever thought it would succeed: Englewood. They were right; he had to close the store in 1950 due to excessive violence in and around the neighborhood, and also due to the declining interest in hats and shoes.

  Now that Randall, his firstborn, was old enough to walk and feed himself, and because his second-born, name and gender still undetermined, was yet to be born, and because his existing shops were generating a life of their own, Norman thought it was the best time he’d get for a while to take another stab at the search for Maxie McWalter’s family, and hopefully figure out the type of root he had uncovered—Nancy had told him years ago that she wanted three children before she packed it in, and she was already past forty, so her chances for getting that third kid in the world was reaching the desperation level, and she wouldn’t let Norman leave the house for an extended period of time again until the kids were all able to fend for themselves, which Norman didn’t think would happen for at least another ten years—so, at the end of 1950, he took another trip out of town to cross another name or two off his list (and hopefully discover that he wouldn’t have to keep going past the second name).

  The second name on the list was much farther away from Chicago than Springfield. He would have to drive all the way out to Wyoming to meet up with Frederick Lyson’s family. The third name, Harold Dykstra, had an address tied to Texas, in a small town about fifty miles east of Dallas, while the fourth and fifth names had their next of kin residing in cities much closer to home: St. Louis and Minneapolis respectively. There were so many more names on the list than that, and his heart sank every time he looked at it because he knew there just wasn’t enough time to cover them all, but he wanted to maximize his chances at finding Maxie McWalter, and to do so as quickly as possible. And he needed to ensure that he acknowledged every name on that list. With what appeared to be more than a hundred names to search for, he had his work cut out for him. Skipping over any of them was a possibility that lurked outside his comfort zone. For that reason, he thought going down the line was the most accurate method for finding everyone. But given how spread out the families were from each other, he saw the potential for wasting precious time. So, he had to come up with a sensible system.

  At home, Norman didn’t have the concentration to develop the best plan for visiting as many families as possible. Every time he’d sit down to study his list, Randall would climb on his lap and play with his blocks, or Nancy would ask him to fetch her a cup of hot water or rub her feet or fix whatever thing had broken in the last hour. At work, Norman had to put out fires, sweet-talk his customers into buying hats and shoes in a world headed toward suits and ties, and deal with the occasional threats and lawsuits from disgruntled employees and careless deliverymen. To give his business anything less than a hundred ten percent while on the job (and sometimes off) was to guarantee another nail in the coffin that had the Hat Shoe’s name on it. So, he couldn’t focus on his list there, either.

  The compromise he struck was to commit to a two-week vacation (Nancy’s sister would stay at the house in his place to look after things) and do all of his planning on the road. Nancy had fought with him that morning about the trip, telling him that he had no right to leave them for two whole weeks, but he reminded her that her sister was coming to stay with them, and that she needed to back off. Then he promised her that he wouldn’t be late coming home, that two weeks meant two weeks.

  “It’s still two weeks,” she said.

  He left before she could debate it further.

  Because cities had formed in regions all around him, he couldn’t just simply hop into the Ford and drive and hope for the best. He needed a solid plan of action. Therefore, he spent the first night away from home in a small hotel in the western outskirts of Chicago, rented a pen and a map from the front desk, and charted his path based on proximity of location. Then he wrote down his notes.

  Because traveling in a wide circle would’ve inevitably excluded all of the western mountain and coastal cities and many of the ones to the east, making it that much harder to sweep them in future expeditions should any be required, he decided the best approach was to tackle all the cities that fell along a jagged line in one specific direction. And because he wanted to maximize his chances at finding the right family on the first pass, he decided he would plan his route along a path that would capture the most cities between Chicago and the Pacific Ocean. The best route he found terminated in southern California, and included major city centers such as Des Moines, Omaha, Denver, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. As long as he didn’t dawdle in any particular home, he could’ve been back in Chicago just before the two-week expiration on his trip.

  So, the following morning, he set out to discover the long-lost identity of the man who called himself Maxie McWalter, beginning with an address in a small Iowa town called Independence. It had taken him a few hours to travel from Chicago to Independence along U.S. 30, but he managed to reach the registered home of Samson Geirgard by lunchtime.

  Just as he had five years earlier, when he visited Gregory Hutchins’s mother, Norman found himself standing patiently on the front porch of a cozy farmland home while he waited for the resident to answer the door. When the door finally opened, he was surprised to see a young woman in her late twenties on the other side with two children hanging from either arm. She was in a flowered dress, but she was not at all ready for the ball. She looked as though sleep was a luxury reserved only for the rich who could afford nannies.

  “Yes?” she said plainly, without any sense of mystery or caution.

  Norman outstretched his hand, but immediately retracted it when he realized she could not shake it without dropping a child on his head.

  “Norman Jensen,” he said. “I’ve come to talk with the relatives of Samson Geirgard.”

  The young woman had a blank stare on her face.

  “This was his family home in the late nineteen tens,” Norman said. He tried to peek over her shoulder for any sign of 1910’s fashion lurking in the family room, or perhaps an older person who might�
�ve been alive and functioning in those days. He did see plenty of small furniture items that could’ve been made before the Great War, but nothing gave the history of this home away. “Do you perhaps have a grandmother or grandfather living here who might be able to help?”

  The woman smiled with as much grace as a person in her situation could manage. Even as the child on her left began tipping her sideways, she maintained her best face in spite of the obviously misguided question.

  “I am sorry,” she said, “but I do not know of a Samson Geirgard. My family bought this house in the early thirties, so if there were any Geirgards here, they’ve long since departed.”

  Norman frowned. This was just his second house visit on this outlandish quest, and he had already uncovered the fatal flaw to his plan. People died off or changed houses over time. Waiting thirty years after the war to start this mission was primed for risk and built for ultimate failure. To be faced with this at the start of his second mission was a bad sign of things to come.

  But he wasn’t about to let it affect him. He would continue on to Des Moines, Omaha, and Denver, hitting whatever small towns were in range of U.S. 30 in between, and then keep going southwest toward Los Angeles down a new route, rinsing and repeating, until he could successfully cross off each name on his list.

  However, perseverance in completing the initial task did not sweep aside the underlying problem he now faced: he still didn’t know the true identity of Samson Geirgard, and now he had the newer problem of not quite knowing how to find him.

  “Would your parents remember who they bought the house from?”

  “My father built his house himself. This house belongs to my husband’s family, so no. But I don’t know how much they remember of the previous owner. You could ask his father if you’d like. He might be in the barn out back.”

  Norman tipped his hat.

  When he walked to the back of the house, he found a small barn standing amid a field of hay. Inside, an old man was cleaning a tractor with a dirty rag.

  “Excuse me,” Norman called out to him. “Was wondering if you could help.”

  He explained to the old man his situation. He left out the part about searching for the ingredients necessary to build an influenza cure, but he did go into detail about his mission to find Maxie McWalter. The old man listened attentively during the entire speech. When Norman finished his story, the old man leaned forward and smiled.

  “What was that?” he asked. “My hearing ain’t so good.”

  Norman repeated his entire story to the old man, or at least the abbreviated version of it, but did so in a louder voice. The old man smiled again.

  “Ah, yes, I remember the name Geirgard. But I never met the folks. They passed this property off to the Smiths in 1928, just before the Depression. Don’ know where they went, but they left in a hurry, since many of their belongings‘re still in the attic. The Smiths sold me the property in the early thirties when they gave up their hands at farming. Just wad’n cut out for the job, I reckon.”

  “So, you have no idea where the Geirgards are today?”

  “No, sir. Mayhaps you can check the census?”

  “Mayhaps.” Norman shook the old man’s hand. “Thank you for your time.”

  Before he left, he called the young mother to the front door and offered her a coupon for a free hat from Hat Shoe, should she ever find herself in Chicago. It was the least he could do for causing her to nearly drop her children on their noggins.