Bolling blinked as he processed the idea, repeated the ceremony of the spectacles in reverse, and reached into the portfolio.
“Here is the deed to the home, and it is assumed that all of the contents therein are also now in your possession. And you are now owner of . . .” His voice trailed off as he retrieved his spectacles and scanned the current papers in his hand. “Ah, Capitol Chatter.” He looked up again. “It’s a weekly tabloid. I read it often. Quite salacious.”
“I am familiar with it,” Max said, though before today he’d seen very few copies. At its inception, a sense of family loyalty made him a subscriber, receiving issues via post until Sister Aimee, in an impassioned sermon during which she’d littered her stage with a thousand such publications, declared their sensation and scandal unworthy of the very soil that nurtured the trees slaughtered to print them. Capitol Chatter was no doubt among the papers, and he’d spent that morning reading a lurid tale about a woman captured and bound in lascivious torture before a heroic rescue by her brother-in-law. The details of the story had been hidden from the public but ferreted out by a journalist of Tony Manarola’s ilk, if not Tony himself. Max had left the rest of the paper unread that day, and for the balance of the year lined his efficient apartment trash barrel with each new issue.
“Both his personal and business accounts are at the Capitol Bank and Loan.” A further search yielded the address of the institution, seemingly close by as the logistics of the city began to take form in Max’s head. “You will need to take a copy of the certificate of death and the will to gain access to the accounts. But you are free to take over the operations of the paper immediately, or as soon as you see fit. There is a Mr. . . .”
“Harper,” Max offered in an effort to expedite the conversation.
“That’s right. Harper. He should be able to enlighten you on the business details. And if you find yourself facing another libel suit, may I say on behalf of our firm that we have successfully defended you—your uncle, Mr. Moore, Mr. Edward Moore—and Capitol Chatter in the past.”
This last bit of conversation was delivered with a handshake, the words spoken at twice the velocity of all those previous. The portfolio that had seemed so thin at the beginning of the conversation now felt thick and burdensome as Max took it from across the desk.
“Libel?”
“I, of course, wasn’t given the case,” Bolling said, suddenly looking too small for his suit, “but I do remember the lovely basket of fruit your uncle, Edward, sent over after the verdict. Very little bloodshed—as they say—as I recall.”
“Very little,” Max repeated, feeling a slight twist of the corned beef. “Good to know.”
He gathered his hat and coat and scarf and gloves from the receptionist, cocooned himself in their warmth, and stepped out into the street to hail a taxi. Perhaps if he had the privilege of Miss Bisbaine standing beside him he’d have more instantaneous results, as she’d shown herself quite capable of attracting vehicular attention. Instead, he had his brand-new coat with the fur collar that he hoped gave him an air of affluence, and the fact that he stood outside a law office holding an impressively thick portfolio certainly added to the ruse. In the end, it took only a few minutes before a cab pulled to the curb in front of him, and he rambled off the memorized address lest the driver take him for a tourist and double the fare.
He divided his attention between the city unfolding on the other side of the window and the contents of the portfolio. Included with the paperwork was a small yellowed envelope that contained a key affixed to a card on which the address of Uncle Edward’s home was written. Its copy had been in the small box of things Thomas Harper had discreetly presented him with at the deli, and it now hung on a ring in Max’s pocket. There’d also been a worn leather wallet, a silver pocket watch, and a small pebble worried smooth. These items were nestled in the depth of his overcoat.
By the time the cab came to a stop and the driver announced his outrageous fare, everything had been neatly reassembled. He handed the driver a folded bill, instructed him to keep the change, and wrested himself from the car. It wasn’t surprising that his uncle wouldn’t have a car, and he’d have to either resign himself to walking or find access to a steady supply of cash.
As the car sputtered away, he found himself standing in front of a neat, modest redbrick home with three shallow steps leading up to a white front door. Beside the steps, partially hidden by a hardy piece of shrubbery, he saw the corner of his suitcase, having been delivered from the train station. He took in a deep, stinging breath and mounted the stairs, stooping to pick up his bag on the way. In it was almost everything he owned, minus his few household items he’d left for his landlord in exchange for grace in the breaking of his lease. Two good suits, a dozen shirts, photographs. Ida had been charged with packing and shipping the books both at home and in his office, as he was not willing to disrupt his library until he was certain of its new home. Abandoning an assembled mass of pots and dishes was one thing, a lifetime of selectively collected tomes quite another.
He secured the portfolio beneath his arm, freeing his hand to slip the key into the door, and soon stepped across the threshold into the darkened room. Dark only because the curtains were drawn against the light, and his first order of business after dropping his bag was to grasp the surprisingly heavy material and pull them open, wincing at the sound of the metal rings against the rod.
The room flooded with light, and something in him wondered if this wasn’t a rare occasion, as the surroundings immediately looked unaccustomed to the exposure. There was a small wood-burning stove and next to it a comfortable-looking leather chair with an afghan strewn across its back. A rolltop desk—its contents covered by the louvered top—a footstool, and a freestanding lamp comprised all the rest of the furniture, unless one wanted to throw a cushion on the steamer trunk under the window. One wall of the room was dominated by a massive bookcase that stretched floor to ceiling, each shelf packed with volumes of every size and shape crammed from end to end.
“Wow,” he said to the empty room, thinking of his modest collection, though he’d never thought of it as such until this moment.
He stepped around a corner into a small kitchen—sink, icebox, two-burner stove, and a square table sporting an oilcloth cover. Here he placed the portfolio, his hat, gloves, and scarf, draping his coat over one of the two high-back chairs. That’s when he realized the house was stone cold.
Before exploring the rest of the house, he went to the stove and was pleased to find a neat stack of wood ready to be lit and a full bucket of logs beside it. Possibly the work of a well-meaning neighbor, or a cleaning woman, or even Uncle Edward’s own habit. He took a long match from the box attached to the wall, lit it, and touched the flame to the kindling. Already the house felt a little more like home.
A short hallway introduced a tiny bathroom and two bedrooms. At first glance it was impossible to know which had been Uncle Edward’s, as each held a narrow quilt-covered bed, four-drawer bureau, nightstand, and lamp. Further inspection, however, gave clear preference to the room where a lone sock peeked from underneath the spot where the quilt grazed the floor and a shoe-blacking kit waited expectantly next to the dresser. After only the slightest hesitation, Max opened the top drawer to find a neat assembly of socks and underwear and garters, shirts in the drawer below that. Two suits hung in the closet above a pair of well-worn galoshes. The walls were largely bare, save for a few amateurish paintings of what he recognized to be DC’s famous cherry trees in full bloom.
Even though Uncle Edward hadn’t died in this house, it was still comforting to Max to know that he wouldn’t have to sleep in the dead man’s bed, and he deposited his suitcase on the bed in the second room. Within just a few minutes he’d completed the task of unpacking, filling the empty drawers and closet, and placing his shaving kit on the dresser for now, along with the two framed photographs—his parents at their wedding, and the three of them shortly after Max’s Army induction, weeks before their deat
h. This he studied closely, never quite recognizing himself in uniform. Not that he had any glorious—or inglorious—memories to coincide. As an only son of deceased parents, he’d served his country from behind a desk in an Army communications office, typing up reports of battle and heroism to be filed away as if such occurrences were little more than bureaucratic details.
The house was small and silent enough that he could hear the faint crackling of the fire in the stove in the other room, but at this moment, the lure of the bed was stronger than any warmth. A rummage through all the dresser drawers yielded a second quilt, and after stripping down to his long johns, he climbed in beneath both of them and squeezed his eyes shut.
“He didn’t die here,” Max said under the quilt he’d pulled up to his nose, and he repeated it a few more times, urging his mind to reconcile with his body and give in to the rest he so desperately needed. But it wandered, thinking briefly about the last man who slept in this house, and how he now, too, lay flat on his back, eyes closed, cold and alone.
Buried.
Invisible.
“Griffin.”
And then he saw nothing but the tiny woman with the enormous brown eyes who wrote for a rag and read H. G. Wells. Suddenly his mind and body were in accord, completely rejuvenated, driving him from the bed. He donned a pair of pajamas and his dressing robe over them, grateful for the extra layer of warmth, and headed to the front room to search the bookcase, even though the odds of finding the book were not in his favor.
By now it was late afternoon, and the front room dangled on the edge of darkness save for the sliver of light from the fire behind the grate. He pulled the little chain on the floor lamp and, thankful that the cord reached across the room, held it to the uppermost corner of the bookshelf and began to scan.
There was no rhyme or reason to the organization of the books. Biographies next to travel journals, poetry, history, but enough novels to be optimistic that he would eventually find the title he sought. And then, there it was, a smallish red book; on its cover, an eerie etching of a masculine form in repose, wearing a long smoking jacket—much like his own dressing gown—and slippers. He’d read it long ago. In fact, this might well have been the same copy he’d devoured over the course of a series of stormy winter’s nights much like this one, thrilling at the idea of passing through the world unseen.
Little had he known just how possible it was to do so.
The novel beckoned him as it had in childhood, but so did his stomach. When he’d left the deli that afternoon, he had no idea he would ever be hungry again, and his thoughts turned fondly back to the meal and to those with whom he’d shared it. One in particular, with sleek black hair and wide doe eyes. Clearly she’d been flirting with him throughout the afternoon, but he wouldn’t be duped by such flattery. Just as clearly she flirted with everyone. Including total strangers who honked from automobiles.
No, she was a woman to be admired. The only woman he’d ever met who had a working knowledge of both science-fiction novels and underground illegal drinking establishments. Neither of those attributes warranted the thoughts that followed, thoughts about the laughter that picked him up and carried him away with the joke, or about the bit of cabbage dangling from the corner of her vermilion lips, and how he could have reached out and—
Hungry. He was hungry, so he took himself to the kitchen with little hope that his deceased bachelor uncle would have left any kind of viable meal in his cupboards. When he was a kid, a funeral meant a houseful of food, and he and his friends would dodge the gathered mourners and fill plate after plate with loved ones’ best offerings. But Uncle Edward had lived an invisible life, as far as he could tell. Still, he opened the first cupboard to find a sparse collection of dishes along with a single pot and a single pan. In the next, however, he was greeted with an array of boxes and cans and a note written on the back of a photograph:
He is a loss to us all.
Welcome to the “Family.”
It was a photograph of the Capitol Chatter staff, all of them gathered on the steps of what Max knew to be their office building. Uncle Edward sat in the midst of them, scowling, as was young Trevor, given that the old man’s cigar smoke must have been wafting directly into his face. Amusing as that was, his eyes went straight to Miss Bisbaine, who stood on the far right, her body contorted in a flapper’s pose worthy of the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.
Smiling, he tucked the photograph into the front cover of the book and set about heating up a can of Campbell’s tomato soup. Once it was poured, steaming, into a sturdy white mug, he took it and the book into the front room, where he found Uncle Edward’s leather chair to be the most comfortable piece of furniture a man could imagine. He spread the crocheted afghan over his lap, took a cautious sip, and opened to the first page of the novel.
It occurred to him briefly that he might not want to spend his first evening in a dead man’s home reading about another man who had the ability to pass through life undetected, but any fear he might have had disappeared when he envisioned her face, Miss Bisbaine’s face, a sparkle in her eyes as fresh as snow, saying, “I would have called you Griffin.”
And so he embarked on the story of Griffin, but he got no further than the first few sentences before his sputtered soup was sprayed upon the page.
“How could she . . . ?” His question lingered in the silence of the house as amusement and wariness came over him. To be sure it wasn’t a matter of a half-willing trick of the mind, he read the words out loud. “‘The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow . . .’”
Max thought back to the picture he had made coming across the snow-covered cemetery that afternoon, and Uncle Edward’s house filled with the rich sound of his own laughter.
“‘A fire, in the name of human charity!’” he said, quoting the text with dramatic good nature. “‘A room and a fire!’”
It was all Griffin required at the outset of his tale, and here Max found himself with not only a room and a fire, but a blanket and a book and warm, satisfying soup. If he could have one other thing, it would be to tell her—as if she didn’t know—how perfectly she’d greeted him. But it would be days before he’d see her again, not until the scheduled meeting for the staff, and by then the joke would have grown as cold as the night outside. So he savored all that the Invisible Man sought, reading until, having marked his page with the photograph and tucked his spectacles into the breast pocket of his dressing robe, his head dropped in sated sleep.
“A Monkey in Mourning”
Here’s a Monkey Riddle for you. Why is Monkey wearing a black dress in the middle of the day? Why are tears puddled up in her big brown Monkey eyes? Why is she at a church on Thursday and sitting home, feeling sad, on a Saturday night? The answer to all three is the same. This little Monkey is in mourning.
Last week, Capitol Chatter lost its most important critter: our Big Gorilla, Edward Moore. If it weren’t for this Gorilla, there’d be no little Monkey running around in this great big jungle. Sure, he could hoot and holler and howl when Monkey was late to work, but it never took more than a song to soothe him. A song—and a cruller from Sobek’s Bakery. Sometimes two. Most gorillas love a good pastry.
So if the jungle seems a little quieter, it’s also lost one of its greatest characters. He loved this city, with all its dirt and grime and secrets. All of us at Capitol Chatter swing through the vines bringing our stories back to the nest he built for us. This little Monkey might be in mourning, but she’ll keep swinging. And she doesn’t mind wearing black, given she spent half of her allowance on a new Coco Chanel number last month. She can’t wait to wear it on a new adventure. That’s what the Gorilla would have wanted.
By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. Open, locks, whoever knocks!
SHAKESPEARE, MACBETH
MONICA RIPPED THE DRAFT of her column from the roller of her little typewriter and gave it a final read.
“E
dward Moore, Gorilla.” She smirked to herself. He would have loved that. “Shoulda thought of that earlier.”
Today there’d be no Trevor to deliver her work to the office. In fact, he’d been here last night with a notice that she—along with all the other staff—were to be in the office at nine sharp for a meeting with the new boss. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been anywhere on a Monday morning, let alone at nine o’clock.
Sharp.
It was already past eight thirty, so sharpness would be impossible, especially since she wasn’t even dressed yet. With all of her best stuff still in hock at the laundry, she could either wear the same black number she’d worn to the funeral (“bought” on account at Nellie’s) or the green tartan and sweater that made her look like she lost her bagpipes in a tumble across the moors. The stockings she’d washed the night before weren’t completely dry, and she cringed against the cold as she stretched them up her legs.
Peering into the mirror above her sink, she used her tiny silver scissors to give a fresh, crisp trim to her bangs before tugging a heather-colored tam to a perfect angle.
“Sharp.”
She carefully rolled the article and tucked it into the pocket in the lining of her heavy wool peacoat, ignoring the crunch as she belted it. With a little fast hoofing, she might actually make it to the office on time, but the minute she’d typed the word Sobek’s, she wanted a warm cherry Danish and coffee, and her peacoat had been hiding a dime.
In the end, she wasn’t more than twenty minutes late—forgivable by any standards with the exception, apparently, of Maximilian Moore’s.
During the days between Edward’s funeral and this morning, the common area in the middle of the run-down third-floor office space had acquired an enormous wooden table, like something from a Victorian rummage sale, around which were squeezed an assortment of mismatched chairs. Max stood at the head of the table, tapping a pencil against his palm. He said nothing as the door clicked behind her but shot a meaningful glance at the large round clock on the wall.
All for a Story Page 5
