“You mean, all that business with David Hollis?” Bob asks.
“Gee, I don’t know,” Mary Brenner says, and shrugs.
“Where he tried to kill that guardsman?” Harold says.
“Gee, I don’t know,” Mary Brenner says.
“Thought everybody here at the school would know about that,” Bob says.
“No, I don’t know about it,” Mary Brenner answers.
“So you wouldn’t know where he lives, huh?”
“No. No, I wouldn’t”
“We went to the address we had over near the railroad tracks, but the man living there says Hollis moved out last month. You wouldn’t know where he moved, huh?”
“No. I don’t even know him.” Mary Brenner tries a smile. “I never heard his name before you came in here.” The smile is faltering. “Never,” she says, and shrugs again.
“He’s not in any trouble, you realize,” Harold says.
“Even if he was…”
“This is just a routine check.”
“I still wouldn’t know him.” She studies them for a moment, and then decides she will try to clinch it The lie she is about to tell is immediately transparent; it is a good thing they are not looking at her. “Is he a student here?” Mary Brenner asks.
Bob raises his green eyes from his coffee cup and stares directly into her face. Mary Brenner blinks.
“How much is that, miss?” he asks.
“I’m not finished here yet, Bob,” Harold says.
“Thirty cents,” Mary Brenner says, anxious to speed them on their way.
“I’m not finished” Harold says again.
Bob puts two quarters on the counter. “Keep the change,” he says.
“Thank you.”
“Think your friend might know Hollis?” Bob asks.
“Which friend?”
“The one in the ladies’ room?”
“I don’t know,” Mary Brenner says. “Why don’t you ask her?”
“Well now, we can’t go in the ladies’ room after her, now can we?” Bob says, and smiles icily.
“No, I don’t guess so.”
“So why don’t you just pop in there and tell her we’d like a few words with her, okay?”
“Okay.”
“There’s a good girl,” Bob says.
“Miss?” I say.
Mary Brenner is quite anxious to get her girl friend out of the bathroom so that the attention of Harold and Bob will be diverted to someone else—anyone else. But I am just as anxious to get out of here, and when it seems she will ignore my voice, I raise it a few decibels.
“Miss!”
“Yes, your potatoes,” she says.
“No, never mind the potatoes, just let me have a check.”
“Sir, could you wait just one moment, please? These two gentlemen…”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I’m in a hurry.”
Bob glances at me. He says nothing. Into the silence, a second Streisand record falls into position on the juke. Mary Brenner fretfully bites her lip. She seems on the edge of tears. Her eyes are bright, almost feverish-looking. She writes my check and then hurries off to the ladies’ room. I leave money on the counter and go out of the coffee shop, certain that Bob’s gaze is following me all the way.
From a booth in the corner drugstore, I try Weglowski’s number. The phone is answered by a woman who can barely speak English. She asks me to wait, and then a young girl's voice comes onto the line.
“Yes?” she says.
“Who’s this, please?”
“This is Emilia. Who did you want?”
“Mr. Weglowski.”
“I’m sorry, my father’s out right now.”
“When do you expect him back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Would you ask him to call me, please? When he gets in?”
“All right, what’s your name?”
“Arthur Sachs.”
“Just a minute.” She puts down the receiver. I hear her clattering around, presumably searching for a pencil. “All right,” she says.
“Arthur Sachs,” I tell her again, “s-a-c-h-s.”
“And the number?”
“He has it”
“I’ll tell him you called.”
“Thank you,” I say, and hang up. I sit in the booth for several moments, wondering where the old man can be. I want to tell him that there are now agents in town, that we must now postpone the wiring of the bridge until the last possible moment. I wonder if Emilia is the girl who will be twenty years old tomorrow. I wonder if Weglowski will recognize the urgency of the situation and agree to forego her party. Tomorrow is Halloween, it is not safe to wire a bridge on a night when goblins and federal agents are abroad. I wonder if Weglowski is superstitious. I am wondering too many things. I take another dime from my pocket and dial Hester’s number. The telephone is answered on the third ring.
“Miss Pratt’s residence.” (Fanny Hollis, mother of Davey, my follower, who incidentally caused a slight commotion on campus last spring, and who has now incidentally brought federal agents to town looking for him in advance of the train’s arrival.)
“May I speak to Miss Pratt, please?”
“Who's calling?”
“Arthur Sachs.”
“One moment”
I wait. When Hester’s voice comes onto the line at last, it contains all of its customary warmth and good humor. “Yes, Mr. Sachs, what is it?” Good old Hester. The one constant in a variable universe.
“There are federal agents in town. They’re asking about David Hollis.”
“Where are you?” Hester asks immediately.
“In a phone booth, don’t worry. Do you know where he is?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I think he should get out, don’t you?”
“Possibly.”
“Will you warn him?”
“He’s not that difficult to find, you realize. His family moved last month, but they’re still living in town. Any competent…”
“Hester, if they get to Hollis, they may get to you next. And Epstein. And Raines.”
“What makes you think so?”
“You were all involved with Hollis last spring.”
“Only in arranging for his defense.”
“That’s enough these days.”
“I’ll contact David. It might be best for him to be someplace else when the train arrives.”
“And the rest of you?”
“Connie’s here now. I’ll ask him what he thinks.”
“Connie?”
“Professor Raines. Thank you for calling, Mr. Eisler.”
“Listen, Hester…” I start, but she has already hung up. I debate calling her back, and decide it can wait until I’ve talked to Weglowski. I walk back to the hotel and into the lobby. The agents are nowhere in sight. In the room, Sara is asleep, snoring lightly.
Thursday, October 31
It is All Hallows’ Eve, and Sara is still asleep when my son calls from New York.
I am rattled for a moment. He says, “This is David,” and at first I think it is Hollis, and then I realize it is my son, my David, and that he is in a different place, not here. But no sooner have I sorted this out than I become puzzled again. It is now ten a.m. Does that make it noon in New York, or only eight? Elementary, Eugene had said when he revealed his clever detection, but now I am hopelessly confused by time. Past, present, and future seem to be merging, as though I am sitting opposite my son in a railroad car, I facing the locomotive, he facing the caboose. I see everything ahead of the train. He sees the same things a moment later, as they flash past the window into his field of vision. The things I have already seen are the things he has yet to see. My past is his future. And there is no present for either of us.