by Orca Various
Since I’m here, I decide to get on with it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? I cross the street and climb the porch steps, gripping the hand railing so I don’t slip and fall. I make it to the top and almost wipe out on an ice patch on my way to the screenless screen door that does nothing to protect the scarred inner door. I feel around for a doorbell but don’t find one. So I knock. The sound—sleeve-wrapped knuckles on wood—is muffled, so I slide an already-cold hand out from the protection of my jacket and rap again, harder this time. My knuckles sting from the cold and the contact.
No one answers.
There’s a light on. It’s the only one, as far as I can tell, and it’s right inside the door. But when I go up on tiptoe to peek through the tiny window near the top of the door, all I see are the front hall and a staircase to the second floor. There’s no sign of life.
I knock again.
I tell myself no one’s home. I tell myself I’ll come back tomorrow. But I can’t resist shifting to the right to peek in through the living-room window. At first I don’t see anything. It’s too dark inside. I press my nose against the glass and cup my hands around my eyes. That’s when I see it: a body lying on the living-room floor. I’m pretty sure it’s a man. In the light from the front hall, I see that he’s wearing a robe and pajamas. I also see a walker—one of the ones with wheels and a little basket attached to the front, the kind that old ladies shuffle behind at the mall. This walker is lying on its side, which makes me think its owner—an old man, or maybe a disabled man—fell down and is in trouble. Either that or he’s dead.
He’s definitely not moving.
I have a cell phone in my pocket. I could take it out and dial 9-1-1. But—don’t laugh—I did my homework before I came up here, and I know that it takes an average of thirty minutes to get a response from a 9-1-1 call in this town. It used to be different, but what used to be isn’t going to help me now. I wrench open the screen door and twist the handle of the inner door.
It’s locked.
So I apply my shoulder to it, you know, as in I throw myself against it, like a cop on a TV show.
Bad idea. If my shoulder could scream, it would wake the neighborhood.
I stumble backward, massaging what will probably turn into a massive bruise. That’s strike one, but I’m still at bat. I check out the door. It’s as decrepit as the rest of the house. And I happen to be wearing my favorite Docs—lace-ups with heavy soles and heels. So I aim my foot at the area to the immediate left of the door handle and kick it karate style.
The doorframe splinters. The door flies open.
I race inside.
The man on the floor—now that I’m up close, I see that he’s as ancient and rundown as the house—is warm to the touch, but I can’t tell if he’s breathing. I glance around for a light switch but don’t see one, and I don’t want to waste time looking for one. I press my ear close to the old man’s face. I feel a faint breath on my cheek. He’s alive.
“Sir? Sir, can you hear me?”
The old guy moans.
I fumble in my pocket for my phone.
The old guy’s eyes open.
“Help me up.” His voice is weak and wavery.
“Maybe I should call an ambulance,” I say. “Maybe you broke something.” Another thought occurs to me. “Do you have a heart condition, sir? Do you feel pain anywhere?” Pain is a symptom of a heart attack—isn’t it?
“Help me up,” he says. He moves to brace his hands on the floor.
“I don’t think that’s a good—”
He’s trying to push himself up, but he’s having trouble getting his arms to accept the weight he’s putting on them. But does that stop him? No, it does not.
I get to my feet, squat and slide my hands under his armpits, which, it turns out, are moist.
“Ready?”
He nods.
I start to pull him to his feet, thinking it will be easy. In his thick, heavy robe and what I assume are pajamas underneath, he looks kind of bulky. But his bony wrists and ankles and his long, thin face give me the impression that he’s all dried out and won’t be heavy. Getting him to his feet should be like swinging a little kid up into the air. But it isn’t. The old guy is dead weight. I have to try a second time, bracing my legs so I don’t strain my back. Up he comes. One of his hands clutches my arm. I’ll say one thing for him: he’s got a good, strong grip.
“My walker,” he says, wheezing.
I help him over to the nearest piece of furniture—a bookshelf—and get him to hang on while I retrieve his walker and set it right-side up. I wheel it over to him, and he grabs hold. He’s breathing hard, which makes me worry that he’s going to collapse again. But he doesn’t. He pushes his walker over to the wall and throws a switch; the room floods with light.
Then, instead of thanking me, he says, “Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my house?”
“I saw you lying on the floor in here. I thought—”
The old man looks at the window. He’s scowling when he turns back to me.
“How?” he demands. “How did you see me lying on the floor?”
I’m thinking of the best way to answer when I hear footsteps behind me and the distinctive sound of someone racking a shotgun. A deep voice barks, “Hands up or I’ll shoot.” He sounds like he means business.
I swallow hard and remember something I overheard on the plane. A man in a business suit was telling his seatmate that in Detroit a person has the right to shoot an intruder in his house. He also said that Detroit accounts for 43 percent of all concealed-weapons permits in Michigan, which means you don’t want to get on the wrong side of anyone when you’re there because you never know who’s packing. He swore there were church ministers in Detroit who carry guns—while they’re preaching!
I glance at the doorframe. It’s shattered, thanks to me and my Docs. The lock is likely broken. No one invited me in, yet here I am. And that, I believe, fits the definition of intruder in any and every jurisdiction you’d care to mention.
My life doesn’t exactly flash before my eyes. But certain parts of it do. Specifically, the part a couple of days ago when I stopped minding my own business—which, I believe, is the best way for anyone to spend his life—and started minding someone else’s.
TWO
Three days before my first-ever venture into Detroit, I was finishing up a Christmas-break/pre-embarkation (for the Major, not me) vacation in Uruguay. Montevideo, to be exact. Down there, unlike back home, it was summer, and that meant some serious beach time. In fact, I spent what was supposed to have been one of my last mornings listening to the ocean and staring (gaping? ogling? definitely drooling) at some pretty senoritas in string bikinis that exposed smooth, sleek expanses of suntanned skin and long-baby-long, long legs.
“Rentres tes yeux dans leurs trous,” said someone beside me. The Major, dripping saltwater. “Et ta langue dans ta bouche.”
Right, as if it was my fault my eyes were bugged out and my tongue was trailing like a parched dog’s on a sizzling July afternoon. Put a dozen guys, any guys in the world, old, young, anything but blind, on the sand near the surf in Uruguay and you’d have been tripping over tongues and eyeballs. Even the Major cast an appreciative glance in the direction of those senoritas when he thought I wasn’t looking.
“Allons-y,” he said. Let’s go.
We’d been in Montevideo for ten days, and ever since we’d arrived, the Major had reverted to speaking 100 percent French with me. With his buddy, an old guy named Ed Mitron, he spoke English. With Ed’s house staff—yeah, you heard me; old Ed has an entire staff, housekeeper, cook, gardener, chauffeur—he exercised his Spanish and insisted that I exercise mine. Which was no sweat. If you know French, Spanish is a breeze. And when there are girls around like the one I met five days in and spent one entire day with, trust me, you have all the motivation you need to practice your language skills.
The Major was on me the whole time about manners. “Cet invitation
, c’est un honneur. C’est un homme auquel je dois beaucoup. Ce qu’il m’a enseigné a sauvé ma vie. Alors, sois bon. Tu comprends?”
Yeah, yeah. I’d been hearing that story for weeks: how the Major owed his life to Ed, how if it wasn’t for what Ed had taught him, he’d have been dead long ago, and how, as a result, I’d better be on my best behavior. “Or else” wasn’t said, but it was strongly implied.
Ed was the one who had invited us down here. He and the Major hadn’t seen each other in a long time. How long, I’m not sure. But they must have talked, because Ed was up-to-date on me. He knew I’d been in Iceland. He knew I was there because of my mom’s father, David McLean. He asked me a million questions about how things were in Iceland these days (which made me think he’d visited the place at some point in the past) and about what kind of guy would send his grandsons all over the world fulfilling his last requests. I had to tell him I didn’t exactly know. The truth was, I’d only met David McLean once in my whole life. The Major knew more about him than I did, and he filled in Ed as best he could.
The Major toweled off as we trudged up the beach to our rental car. Ten minutes later, we were back at Ed’s. Ten minutes after that, the Major was packed and dressed and the three of us, the Major, Ed and I, were in Ed’s limo, being driven to the airport by Ignacio the chauffeur.
The Major was saying his goodbyes to Ed before joining the line for airport security when my phone vibrated.
It was Adam.
Check your email NOW, his text read. You are NOT going to believe this, but we’re all in.
Adam is one of my cousins on my mother’s side. There are six of them in all, and I didn’t even know they existed until a year ago. Adam and I had stayed in touch after our grandfather died.
“Alors, mon fils,” the Major said, “sois bon pour ta grand-mère.” As if I was ever anything but good for Grandma—my mom’s mom, not the Major’s. She’s okay for an old lady. In fact, she’s better than okay. “Je te revois dans un mois.” A month without the Major would be the closest thing to a picnic I could have in January, but, of course, I didn’t say that. Instead, I let him engulf me in a massive bear hug.
“Au revoir, papa,” I said.
Ed and I watched the Major disappear into the security-check lineup. He didn’t turn for one last goodbye wave, but then, I didn’t expect him to. That wasn’t the way the Major operated.
“Well, how do you want to spend your remaining time in Uruguay?” Ed asked. I was due to fly back to Toronto in two days for a visit with my grandma. From there, I would return home to finish my last semester at school. But first I wanted to see what Adam thought was so important. If I’d had the same kind of phone as he did and the money for a decent data plan, I could have hit the Net then and there. But I didn’t.
“I have to find an Internet café,” I said.
“No, you don’t.”
“But I need—”
“Rennie, you insult my hospitality. You can use the computer at my house. You can use any of the facilities at my house. There is no need even to ask. After all, how could I refuse anything to the son of the man who saved my life?” That was one thing the Major forgot to tell me but that old Ed had been going on and on about since we arrived. The Major had pulled Ed out of the line of fire somewhere in Kuwait—they both happened to be there, for different reasons, when Iraq attacked. To listen to the two of them, you’d think all guys ever did in the military was save each other’s butts. That and indulge in a whole lot of what Grandma would call male bonding.
And in case you’re wondering, yeah, Ed actually talked that way—all Spanish manners, like in the movies. Ed is short for Eduardo. He’s a native Argentinian who was educated in the United States and recruited, according to the Major, by people in Washington who knew a good man when they saw one. Recruited for what, he didn’t say. The Major operates on a need-to-know basis, which means if there’s no life-and-death reason for me to know something, he doesn’t tell me. Another thing about the Major—he doesn’t go in for hero worship. But he definitely admires Ed Mitron. Seeing the Major with his old mentor was like watching a twelve-year-old girl melt at the sight of her favorite boy band.
Ed is a lot older than the Major, and from what I’ve been able to figure out from their conversations, they met when Ed was the head of some overseas operation that the Major was involved in. I say “operation” because it’s not clear to me—and neither of them chose to explain—exactly what they were doing “over there” or even where “over there” is, or was. Ed was retired now and living the life. He came across like what my grandma would call a gentleman. He was always having your glass filled before it was empty or a snack fixed before you realized you were hungry. And he did his homework. He was as up-to-date on the Major and his career as he was on me, and he didn’t hesitate to offer advice. The Major listened, but I don’t know if he intended to take any of it.
So after the Major boarded his plane, Ed and I went back to Ed’s place, where he ushered me into a massive sun-drenched room facing the ocean. There was a desk in front of a wall of windows, a computer to one side of it, and a printer on a small table.
“Take as much time as you need,” he said. “I have some errands. I’ll see you at dinner.”
I settled into the desk chair and went online. A minute later, I was in my email account and checking what Adam had sent me. His email didn’t make any sense! I went back to the top. There were four sections, each with its own attachment. In the section for attachment one, he’d written: You won’t believe this, but it’s true. This is NOT a doppelganger. AND it’s one of a dozen, all with different names.
One of a dozen what?
I clicked on the first attachment. It was a scan of a passport, complete with photo. I recognized the face—I’d seen enough old pictures of it by now—but the name was wrong. I don’t mean misspelled. I mean dead wrong. I hit the Print button.
Not a doppelganger. Did that mean what I thought it meant? Was I really looking at a picture of my grandfather—not Grand-père, the Major’s dad, but my mom’s dad, the guy I didn’t even know existed until a year ago? If that was what I was looking at, why did the signature under the photo—and the name printed next to it—identify the passport holder as Klaus Adler? My grandfather’s name was David McLean.
Adam said this was one of twelve. Twelve what? Twelve pictures? Or…twelve passports? Is that what he meant? Twelve passports, all with different names? Why would my grandfather have twelve passports and twelve—what? Aliases?
I went back to the email and Adam’s note next to attachment two. We also found a notebook. We haven’t figured it out yet, but all the pages have little flags drawn on them. We figure the flags match up with the passports.
I clicked on the second attachment. It consisted of four pages from a small notebook with a little flag drawn in the bottom right-hand corner. I didn`t recognize it. The pages were filled with neatly printed letters, but they didn’t spell any words I know. They must be in some kind of code.
Attachment three: This one’s a doozy! I hoped it was the key to the code for attachment two.
It wasn’t. But it was a doozy.
It was a scan of a brief newspaper article, accompanied by a much larger photo of three men in military uniform. And not just any military uniform, but World War II Nazi uniforms, complete with swastikas. One of the three faces was circled. But why? Who was he? What did he have to do with David McLean?
Attachment four: Somewhere in Argentina? Maybe Buenos Aires? It was also a notebook page, this one with a hand-drawn map on it and what looked like an address scrawled under it. The writing wasn’t the same as on the rest of the pages.
I reread the entire email.
My cousins were a jump ahead of me. Five of the six had gotten together at grandfather’s cottage the day after Christmas. The sixth was in Spain. They’d been in touch with him. Apparently, they were looking for more firewood and they stumbled on the passports and a bunch of other stuff.
There’s money, Adam wrote. If I needed some, he could arrange a transfer. The cousins who were at the cottage had come up with a theory and decided to put it to the test. Some of them had taken a passport or two, and whatever information they could find, and were going to try to track down what it was all about. Had David McLean been a spy? If not, why all the false identities? What had he been up to? And why had he hidden this stuff up at his cottage? Why hadn’t he just destroyed it? Had he been planning to do something with it?
I thought about what Adam had written. Sure, I guess my grandfather could have been a spy. That was one explanation for all those passports. But was it the only one? Maybe he’d been on the run. Maybe he had more of a past than we or anyone else in the family knew. Maybe he’d been some kind of master criminal who’d finally retired from the life. Stuff like that can happen.
Get real, I told myself. What were the chances?
Sounds crazy, Adam wrote. Boy, he had that right. But we want to get to the bottom of this. I’m in. And since you’re already down there…
Oh yeah, that passport he sent me? It identified Klaus Adler as a citizen of Argentina. Guess what’s right next door to Argentina? That’s right—Uruguay.
You in? was how Adam ended his message.
I hit Reply and wrote: I’m in.
