“I’ll give you a hand carrying it out, Stu,” Ted Sorenson offered. The others went back to browsing. It would take more than a growl to drive them off. That’s why lions stay sleek.
Ted and I lugged the heavy Starck Victrola out to my van and eased it carefully inside. Lurch followed us out, glowering from the porch.
“Our host seems a bit jumpy,” Ted said. “Maybe he’s been seeing Potter’s ghost.”
“Who?”
“Jerome Potter. He used to have a photography studio in this house. It was a beautiful home then. I had all my school pictures taken here. Most kids did back in the day. Potter committed suicide in... can’t recall. Thirty-odd years ago. Hanged himself here. Somewhere upstairs, I think. A real shocker at the time. Rich guy comes back to his hometown just to kill himself.”
“Back from where?”
“I don’t know. He’d been away a few years. Maybe Florida. My memory’s not what it used to be.”
“Mine either,” I smiled.
“No, I guess not,” he said, glancing quickly at the half-moon scar on my forehead. “Sorry, Stu, I wasn’t thinking.”
“Forget it. I already have. Thanks for the help, Ted.”
Climbing into my truck, I fired it up and let it idle a few minutes, warming it gently. It’s a Corvan, a mint-condition 1966 Chevy Greenbrier, rear engine, air cooled. The American Porsche of delivery vans.
But as I shifted into reverse, I noticed Lurch, still on the porch, staring. He watched me all the way out of the drive. And into the street.
My visit to Lurch’s lair wasn’t pleasant but it turned out to be profitable. Checking my card file the next morning, I found an inquiry note about Victrolas, called the number, and sold the Starck sight unseen for triple what I paid for it.
Mamie Szmanski, a View-Master buff from Midland, agreed to take the box of untitled reels off my hands at two bucks a pop with a right of return for any she couldn’t use.
Packing up Mamie’s box for UPS I found a couple of glass stereopticon negatives mixed in with the reels. Ghostly images, barely more than line drawings, echoes from a past we can’t even imagine.
One of the slides caught my eye. The face of a boy staring up at me. His life probably played out and ended before I was born. But even in reverse black and white there was something haunting about his image. I put it in a desk drawer, out of sight. I have enough ghosts of my own.
A few customers came in and I was up roughly six hundred bucks before noon. All in all, not a bad morning for November.
My father-in-law, Phil Barrett, dropped by with lunch. Nothing elaborate, a couple of sandwiches from Subway. I furnished the coffee, custom-ground Colombian beans brewed in a fifties-era graniteware coffeepot with the original Bakelite knob.
Phil brings in lunch a couple of times a week. A duty, I think. A courtesy to my late wife. He’s a nice man, big as a bear, six-two, two-fifty, an amiable giant, quick with a joke or a story. Phil’s also a decorated Vietnam vet who built a small machine shop into a booming auto parts business and made a ton of money in the process. A two-term mayor of Bay Harbor, he’s presently sitting on the city council.
I mention this because Phil never does. He’d rather hear your story than tell you his. A rare quality. Especially in a politician.
He stuck by me after the auto accident that killed my wife and almost turned me into an eggplant. When doctors suggested it might be time to pull the plug on me, Phil not only refused, he made sure I got the best care available and covered the financial gaps in my health insurance.
He truly treated me like a blood son when he could just as easily have walked away. After all, we aren’t actually related by marriage anymore. Only by a funeral.
Sometimes I wish he would walk away. Since the accident, my memory is shaky. Tiffany and I were married nearly seven years, but I can only remember a few days of it, scuffling days, when we were living together at U of M, scraping by.
I have pictures of her, of course, but that’s all they are to me. Photographs. I can’t remember when they were taken, or where. Or what our lives were like at the time. Perhaps it’s a blessing. But it feels more like a betrayal.
I’m pretty sure I loved her, though. Once in awhile Phil will say something, or turn his head a certain way, and I’ll get a memory flash, a momentary glimpse of Tiff that pierces my heart like an ice pick.
It’s not Phil’s fault. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
I’ve never mentioned it to him. He has pain enough of his own. And I’m the guy who caused it. The one who married his only daughter and carried her off to Detroit to pursue my hotshot legal career. The one who was driving when a drunk swerved across the centerline and erased Tiffany and most of my memories of her.
I’m sure Phil would rather have lunch with almost anyone else on the planet. But twice a week, like clockwork, we share sandwiches at my desk and make conversation. About local politics, the antiques business, my health, his health. Anything but Tiffany.
Sometimes he brings me brochures for college classes or tells me about a law firm looking for a junior partner. He thinks I’m wasting my talents in the shop. I should go back to law school or retrain myself to do something else. Move on. Start a new life.
But how can I do that when I can’t remember my old one?
Just as Phil and I were running out of small talk, Karla Frantzis swept in. In a slate blouse and slacks, she reminded me of a junco, pert, energetic. Bright-eyed.
“Hi, am I interrupting?”
“Not a bit,” Phil said, rising. “I’m Phil Barrett, Stuart’s father-in-law.”
“Karla Frantzis,” she nodded. “Have we met? Your name seems familiar.”
“It’s probably on your lease,” I said. “Phil owns most of the buildings on this block, including yours. Karla’s buying out Clara Pattakos.”
“Glad to hear it,” Phil said. “We need more new faces in the Oldtown district. How’s the business doing?”
“Almost too well. I hope you weren’t kidding about that free advice offer, Mr. Kenyon.”
“Call me Stu, and I wasn’t kidding. What’s up?”
“I got a call from the city clerk’s office asking if I could handle an... execution sale? Is that the right word? Anyway, I said I’d do it, the shop needs the money, but they want to hold it tomorrow afternoon—”
“Tomorrow? They usually advertise them for a couple of weeks. What’s the rush?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never done one of these before. That’s why I’m here. I could really use your help.”
“No offense, Miss Frantzis, but I’d rather not—”
“Please, it won’t take much time. You’ve already seen the merchandise.”
“What do you mean, I’ve seen it?”
“The execution sale is at the old house on Centralia, where we met.”
“The Potter house?” Phil asked, frowning.
“You know it?” I asked.
“Everybody knows that old eyesore,” Phil shrugged. “The Potters were big rich once, lumber money. Gone now. The Downtown Development Authority bought the house a few months ago. It’s slated for demolition. Anybody living there must be squatting.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Karla said. “The clerk just asked me to catalog anything of value on the premises and sell it off tomorrow. If you’re willing to help with the pricing, we can tag everything tonight. I’ll handle the sale tomorrow and split the take fifty-fifty. Does that sound fair?”
“It’s more than fair, it’s just that—”
“I know, Clara already warned me these sales are awful and I shouldn’t have taken the commission. If you’d rather not help, I understand.”