Foxy's Tale

by Karen Cantwell

  “Well here, call him up.” Knot handed Myron his cell phone and Myron looked at it as if he’d been handed the controls to the Space Shuttle.

  “Ach, who knows how to use such a machine? I got his number in my apartment.” He left and disappeared on the path toward the front of the house.

  Knot sat down on top of a pile of clothes. He looked exhausted. “Come on, Kuh-not,” Amanda took him by the arm. “Let’s go back up and eat. Put on your slippers or a pair of boots or something.” She removed the chewed shoe from of his hand and led him like a child back to the closet.

  “Oh, my meal is going to be ruined. Just ruined.” He was almost crying. “And now I have to get all new shoes. The whole thing is a waste.” He waved towards his closet.

  They got him dressed, as if he was a toddler who’d skinned his knee, and trooped back upstairs. While they were walking single file, Congressman X broke the dismal silence. “Who was that woman in your back garden, Knot?”

  The caravan stopped a moment, confused by what he meant. Knot, who figured it was the martinis talking, said, “Oh honey, we’re giving you a strong cup of coffee when we get back upstairs.”

  “I didn’t see anyone,” said Foxy, treading carefully since the walkway wasn’t shoveled all that well. “Your eyes were playing tricks on you. No one would be back there with all of that snow.” They trudged on and reached the front door while Nick turned and looked back behind them. Upstairs they all took off coats and hats, and Amanda and Knot turned the stove on and finished the meal preparation. By the time it was done, Myron returned.

  “Did you reach him?” Foxy asked.

  “Vaht am I, a piker? In an hour he’ll be here. In two hours he’ll know vaht’s vaht. So, do ve eat or vaht?” He sat at the table and they all joined him. Knot, Amanda, and Nick brought plates and food.

  “So,” Foxy said, “Mr. Standlish, for someone who’s fairly new to the city, you seem to know a lot of tradespeople. It’s a lucky thing for us. First the locksmith and now an exterminator.”

  “A neighbor can’t help a neighbor?” he said. “In my time, Mrs. (he never actually said her name) ve had alvays somevone vatching to see everything was going to be kept on the up and uppers. In this vay, ve all vatch out for each other. This is a good thing, no?”

  “That is exactly my theory of government, Mr. Standlish,” chimed in Congressman X. “My, this is delicious,” he added, after tasting the Boeuf Bourguignon.

  Knot beamed and seemed to have recovered some of his composure. “I hope those little vermin haven’t eaten their way through every shoe I own. It’s quite an investment, you know.”

  “Maybe they came into the house with that trunk we sold to Mrs. DuPont,” Foxy said and laughed.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  The exterminator was a tubby little guy hauling a big bag of clanking tools and equipment. His wool ski cap looked worn enough to have been knitted by Betsy Ross, and his galoshes were caked with snow.

  “I walked all the way,” he told Myron, who helped him place his bag down by the stairs on the first floor. The others crowded around. “They haven’t plowed any streets yet except down by the Mall and around the White House. This’ll take days to clear out, and where they gonna put all this snow? I tell ya, this has really slowed me down.” He looked around at the group. “So,” he said, “you got rats? The cold brings ’em out. Normally I don’t work on a Saturday, especially in this type of weather but, for Myron, I made an exception.” He slapped Myron on the back and Myron looked a bit puzzled. “So where we got the critters?”

  They all trooped single file back outside and down to Knot’s apartment, which was still a chaotic mess. Once inside, Knot, with Amanda and Nick helping, moved around the room picking up clothes, towels, shoes, and other items. He hauled out a laundry basket and they stuffed it full. Then they rounded up glasses, plates, cutlery, mugs, trays, and leftover bits of party debris, nuts, chips, dips.

  “No wonder you have rats,” said Amanda, making a face at the kibbles and bits. Nick went over to a large window facing the garden. There was a small table crowded with wine glasses, some half full and, as he glanced out the window, once again he sensed someone lurking, this time behind the fence that enclosed the garden.

  “Did you see that?” he whispered to Amanda.

  “What?”

  “Someone out there, past the fence.”

  Amanda came over to look. “I don’t see anyone. Why?”

  “I just keep having this feeling that someone’s been tracking me all day. Ever since I walked to the hospital this morning. But I never really see anyone.”

  “Probably your imagination,” said Amanda and took a bunch of wine glasses by their stems to the tiny kitchen.

  “Aha!” The exterminator’s voice sounded triumphant. “Here’s where they’re getting in.” He moved a stuffed chair out of the way and pointed to a hole in the interior back wall of Knot’s living room where rats had gnawed through. “What’s back there?”

  Everyone looked at Foxy. She shrugged. “How should I know? I had no idea there was anything down here but this apartment.”

  “Well, there is,” The exterminator told her. “You own the building?”

  “Yes.” She nodded.

  “There’s some kind of space back there. Got to be a way in. I’ll have to set traps. Could be a whole clan of rats living back there. Or we could bust a big hole in this wall.” He pointed to where the rats had chewed through. “Don’t make no diff to me either way. But it has to be big enough for me to get through.”

  “I’d rather not break any walls,” said Foxy. She was getting more and more worried about the cost of this mess.

  “Oy,” said Myron. “Here ve got some real tsuris. Not the end of the vorld, in my opinion, however.” He looked at his friend the exterminator. “Possible is it there is another vay in?”

  “I can have a look. Only thing I can think is a stairway leading down there from somewhere else.”

  Amanda thought about all the articles she’d read on the Underground Railroad. “It would have to be from upstairs somewhere,” she offered, and they all trooped back up to the ground floor. They stood by the stairs. The exterminator opened his bag, which was fully loaded with battery powered lights, traps, poison, ropes, a collapsible shovel, a knife, flashlights. He took out a small wooden dowel that had been sanded round at one end and capped with a rubber ball cut in half. He began tapping the walls and worked his way around to behind and under the stairs. When he stood directly beneath them, there was a vertical panel about five feet tall that essentially hid the lower half of the underside of the stairs. It looked as if it hadn’t been touched in years, but it had been freshly painted with the walls. “What’s this here?” he asked Foxy.

  They moved over to where he stood. “Oh, I was told there was an old broom closet that was sealed up decades ago. I don’t think there’s anything in it, because I have a broom closet in the store.”

  “Let’s take a look,” he says and slid the knife along the right side of the panel between it and the framing. He hit something but the panel didn’t budge. So he placed the knife blade on the left side and began to slide it down and all of a sudden he hit a spring and the thing popped open about two inches, revealing a set of interior hinges on the right side near the top and bottom, hidden by the framing trim. “Aha,” he said. “Lookee what we got here.”

  Amanda got so excited she clapped. “See, it was used for the Underground Railroad. I knew it. I just knew it.”

  Foxy tapped Amanda’s hand to tell her to be quiet, but she was too excited. “We mustn’t touch anything. There could be historical artifacts down there. Oh, this is so exciting.”

  Myron and his friend yanked at the door until it squeaked open on hinges that were dry from age, revealing a low staircase, very narrow, with unusually steep steps, as if it had been added as an afterthought or to take up minimum room. The exterminator fumbled around in his bag for a flashlight. He chose the industrial mo
del that cast a wide, bright beam. “Anyone who wants to come down, get yourself a flashlight. There’s three more in my bag. And Myron, hand me that reflector clamp-on lamp. It’s really dark down here.”

  Myron looked confused, as if he couldn’t understand what his friend wanted, so Nick stooped over and found the light. He took one of the flashlights and handed the remaining one to Amanda.

  “Wait,” Knot told them. “I want to see. Don’t you?” he turned to Foxy and Congressman X.

  “I’ll get – let’s see how many do we need?” Knot asked and darted down the hall and outside to his apartment. He came back into the house in a dither, letting the door close behind him but forgetting to slide the deadbolt lock into place, balancing four small flashlights he’d bought before the snow storm hit – just in case they lost power. “Well,” he said when they looked surprised at how many he’d brought back. “I wanted to be prepared. You never know.”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Waving beams of light from the flashlights illuminated the steps as the group filed down one after the other. Cobwebs stuck to their hair and arms and dust kicked up from a hundred years of neglect.

  “This is too creepy,” said Knot. “Creepy and far too dirty for my taste. I’m out of here.” He started to head back up the stairs.

  “Oh no you don’t,” said Foxy, grabbing him by the shirt sleeve. “If I’m going down into this filthy pit, so are you, my friend. Besides, you don’t seem to be so bothered by the grime in your apartment.”

  Knot huffed and batted her hand away. “That’s not grime, that’s just a little post-party debris. Nothing that a trash bag and a few disinfecting wipes can’t handle. This . . . well, this is ancient putrescence.”

  Congressman X gave Knot a push from behind. “Don’t be such a wimp. Be a real man, sweetie.”

  Knot was not amused.

  “That’s Civil War dirt, Foxy,” said Amanda. “Now be careful everyone. Don’t disturb anything and don’t touch anything. We could find some valuable artifacts. You never know.”

  “What we’re going to find is some rat crap,” said Knot. He covered his nose with the crook of his elbow. “What is that smell?”

  “That’s your ancient putrescence,” grumbled the exterminator. “Welcome to my world.” He flashed the light around the small room, and in a moment they were all down the steps standing in a group, holding their flashlights and peering around the empty space at dark walls, a low ceiling, and something else, way over in the farthest corner.

  “What’s that?” asked Foxy.

  “Ach,” Myron almost shouted and jumped in front of everyone to get to the corner first. “At last!” he yelled. “At last. Oy vey, at long, long last.” He dropped to his knees on the dirt floor and draped his arms over the thing.

  “What is he doing?” asked Foxy.

  “Look.” Knot pointed his flashlight right onto Myron and the thing he was hugging. “It’s another trunk. Like the one we sold to the DuPont woman. It’s almost identical. Isn’t that amazing? How could two such similar trunks end up in the same building? And how long has this one been here?”

  “Exactly von hundred and sixty years,” Myron told him. “Given or taken,” he added.

  The exterminator clamped the reflector light onto a beam and the room came alive, all shadows and cobwebs and old beams. He looked around for signs of rats and started laying traps.

  “You’ll sell me this von, yes?” Myron asked Foxy. “The trunk? I got cash upstairs. Lots of cash. Vahtever you vahnt.”

  “Oh no,” said Knot, walking over to examine the trunk. “First we’ll need to see what’s inside it. And this one, look, it has a big lock. Just look at that thing. Now how can we open that?” He reached down to touch the lock and Myron jumped up.

  “It vouldn’t be such a good thing to disturb this trunk. Me, I know about such things. Vaht am I, a shmendrik? No, my fine friend. Leaving it to me, this trunk.”

  “Foxy,” Knot was excited now, “remember that huge old key on the big key ring? Where is that thing?”

  “In my desk,” she answered.

  “I’ll run up and get it,” said Amanda.

  Congressman X stumbled over to the trunk and kicked it once. “Who cares about an old trunk?”

  After a moment of silence while they waited for Amanda to return, a distinct thump came from the trunk, almost like an echo.

  “Oh!” screamed Knot. “The rats are in the trunk.”

  “I doubt that,” said the exterminator, who was busy with his traps.

  Congressman X kicked the trunk twice this time. Two thumps came back this time.

  Everyone else crowded around the trunk just as Amanda returned with the key ring. No one noticed that someone else had quietly followed her down the stairs and stopped on the next to last step, staring into the room, past all the people, her eyes fastened on the trunk.

  “I don’t know,” said Nick. “Maybe we should leave it alone. What if rats are hiding in there?”

  “But, Nick, how could they be hiding in a locked trunk? There’s probably nothing at all inside there,” said Amanda.

  Knot was wound up by then. “Oh, there’s something in there. It answers back.”

  “No, no,” said Myron. “You should all go back to your nice party and leaving me here vith this trunk and the rats to be taking care of.”

  Foxy shined a flashlight on the lock. “Maybe we can open this now,” she said. “If it’s not a problem, then we can be done with all this and let the exterminator do his thing. How about you trying it for us?” she asked and motioned to the exterminator to come over.

  He took the key from her hand and looked up at Mryon. “Are you sure this is the right one?”

  “I have no idea, but it’s certainly old enough to be the one,” said Foxy.

  “But, Mrs.,” pleaded Myron, “I could so much better do that for you.”

  “Mr. Standlish, let the man do his job.”

  “But Mrs.,” he repeated, “this may be not a job for him, but I can do it for you better.”

  “Mr. Standlish, please. It is my house, after all.” She motioned for the exterminator to go ahead and Myron’s shoulders drooped.

  The exterminator slid the big old key into the lock. He turned it. As the lock creaked with age, they all heard a groan.

  “What was that?” asked Knot.

  “The exterminator,” said Nick. “Would you calm down, dude?”

  “Wasn’t me.” The exterminator shook his head.

  “Oy vey, now ve got troubles,” said Myron.

  There was a louder groan. “It’s loosening. Hear that?” Knot’s voice was excited. “The lock is just old and reluctant.” He leaned down next to the exterminator and slid his hand under the top edge of the trunk lid as the lock popped open. Knot gave it a hard yank and the top lifted an inch from the sides. This time the groan was a gasp. “Oh, did you hear that? Air’s been trapped in there for so long, it farted.” He gave it one last yank and the top popped open, and all the flashlights converge on the inside, where they saw, not rats, not old artifacts, not maps or clothes or gold or jewels or anything but a body dressed in black.

  “Not this vay,” said Myron, raising his hands to the heavens. “No no, not like this how it is supposed to be happening.”

  And then a hand appeared with a ruffled cuff around its wrist. And in the hand was a straight black ebony cane with a handle made of what appeared to be gold in the shape of bat’s wings.

  The hand rose above the trunk. It held the cane horizontally so it was parallel to the floor, and then the arm came up farther. A body followed, clothed in a black cape with a ruffled collar. All the flashlights converged on this creature as it rose up to its full height, a foot taller than Myron, who stood closest to the trunk. The body moved so slowly that the assembled group was transfixed and struck silent by this sight. As it stood to its full height, the face turned this way and that, its eyes narrowed, and now it was clear that this creature was a man, and everyo
ne in the room, including the exterminator, was still as ice.

  “How nice,” a deep voice emerged from the form as one leg encased in a black leather boot that covered up past the knee rose out of the trunk and the man placed his booted foot on the floor. The other booted leg followed and he stood, clear of the trunk, tall, elegant, from another time and place, in the small, cramped room with these people staring at him, aghast.

  “Ahhhh,” he said in a deep, resonant voice that had the sound of a seasoned radio announcer. “So nice to be able to stretch my legs at long last.”

  Foxy, Knot, Nick, and Amanda took one step back. The exterminator’s mouth was wide open. “In all my years, I ain’t never seen one of these.”

  “Ain’t?” asked the form. “You ain’t never? What sort of language is this?” He scanned the faces of the assembled group, then finally laid eyes on Myron. “Well, it certainly took you long enough. He speaks even worse than you do.” He pointed at the exterminator.

  “Poppa!” Myron lunged to the caped figure in a loving gesture that was instantly rebuffed.

  “Stay where you are. You’ll wrinkle my clothes.” He gave Myron a visual once-over. “As usual, you are such a disappointment. Who would ask for such a son?” He looked over the confused faces again. “Who are your friends? Will you introduce us?” A smile grew slowly on his face, revealing a set of pearly white teeth, the canines overly long and pointed.

  Foxy gasped. Knot swooned expecting to be caught by Congressman X but only stumbled, because Congressman X was backing up toward the stairs.

  Amanda grabbed Nick’s arm. “Is this really happening?”

  Her words caught the attention of the caped, fanged man. His smile grew wider.

  “This is my Poppa,” Myron said to no one in particular. “Nikifor Budzinski.” He nodded nervously, then, as if he had forgotten to say something, then added, “the Eighth.”

  Nikifor Budzinski waved his hand in a grand manner, then bowed to the assembled, fear-struck crowd. When he stood straight again, he brought his attention back to Amanda and began to walk slowly toward her. “My dear, you are a lovely sight to behold at my unveiling. How wonderful to be presented with so young and fresh a flower of womanhood.”