Keeping Time: A Novel (16 page)

Michael, getting on it, bending his knees all the way, slipping his big feet on the high top rung. Listening. Daisy, talking. Telling him everything. The past flowing out of her mouth and into his young ears, open wide and waiting.

Michael’s head, spinning with the details. When she finished, he popped off the stool and pulled on her hand that had so little weight to it. Yanking her to her feet. Marching her out of the kitchen.

“His name is Michael, like mine?” That, making him happy. “Baker? We’ll find him on the computer. We can probably find him tonight. Come on. You might be able to talk to him before bedtime!”

Daisy’s hand, rising to her collarbone, her arthritic fingers spread out like a bumpy fan. Allowing herself to be pulled down the hall, shuffling hurriedly over the hardwood floor in low-heeled shoes. Permitting him to pull a chair over for her at the computer. Getting excited herself as it blinked on, listening as Michael tossed out plans. They would start by googling
Michael Baker
.

Daisy’s heart, pounding.

Michael, keying in
Michael Baker
, typing faster than Daisy anticipated. He was very efficient, like a secretary in the old days, in the days when no thirteen-year-old boy would ever have been caught dead typing.

He got 10,840,000 results.

Michael, frowning. “His name is too common. Do you know his middle name?”

“Leonard.”

Michael, entering it. Got 6,010,000 results, including thousands regarding a murderer with the same name in Minneapolis. Michael, frowning again. Working on new approaches when his mother walked in. Her baggy jeans, riding low, biting a nail, her hair spilling untidily forward.
An overflowing laundry basket resting on her left hip, her arm around it like a friend. Telling Michael to get s to Michael. &

TWENTY-FIVE

RICHARD, WEARY, WALKING in the front door close to eleven. Putting down his briefcase, pouring himself a drink, noting that the level of Cointreau in the bottle had gone down. Picturing Daisy sipping a glass, speculating that the family had been graced with another night of stories. Wishing he had been there.

The house was quiet. He turned on the TV, flipping briefly through the channels as if they were pages of a magazine, making his way through his drink. He would have these few minutes before going upstairs and telling Elisabeth what had happened. He had tried calling several times throughout the day to tell her. But couldn’t reach her.

She was awake when he walked in. Sitting on the bed, leaning back against a tall pile of pillows, a laptop propped up on blankets over her stretched legs. Saying, “Hey” to him but not looking up from the screen. Busy on the computer. Richard, sympathetic that she still had taxes to deal with.

But Elisabeth wasn’t doing taxes. She was scrolling through images of Old English sheepdog puppies. Hiding behind them.

Richard, loosening his red and blue tie with his forefinger, undoing it in small, incremental, right and left movements. His head, moving in the same rhythm in opposite directions. The sound of silk shifting
silk. Elisabeth, pressing the arrow down key, moving the screen slowly so as not to miss a puppy, hearing, “You’re never going to believe what happened today.”

“Oh?” Showing only a minimal amount of interest.

Richard, “Somebody stole my bike.”

“No!” Acting totally surprised.

“Yeah. Right out of the garage. They took the lock and everything.”

“How’d they do that?” Acting incredulous. Her eyes wide.

“Damned if I ?” Elisabeth, asking aplCrknow. It was made of kryptonite. The attendant claims he saw nothing.” Richard, taking his usual great care placing his tie on the rack. The rest of the house could be in shambles for all he cared, but not his suits, ties, shirts. Those he babied, keeping them picture perfect.

“No kidding.” Elisabeth, in all seriousness, as if trying to imagine such a thing. Saving for later, for private moments for many years to come, the deep introspection and speculation about how she could have done what she had done. Now she was just working at keeping guilt and shame at bay and the bit of laughter that went with it.

Richard, sitting on the edge of the bed, affecting the mattress beneath her. Untying his shoe. Pulling it off from the heel. The sound of a sock slipping out of a tight, stiff space. The heat of his foot, released into the air. Richard, rolling down his sock, picking the tip out of his toes, saying, “The attendant has no idea when it happened, but the man before him, on the six p.m. to one a.m. shift, said he was pretty sure that it was there when he was. The next guy didn’t see anybody taking it. You’d think it would take some time to cut through kryptonite. You’d think it would make noise and draw attention. You’d think someone might notice.” The sound of his other shoe coming off. A trace scent of leather.

“You would,” Elisabeth, agreeing. Needing a place to hide. Finding one. Reaching over and picking up her glass of red wine from the bedside table. Her fourth. Downing it. Wiping a runaway drip off the side of the glass with her tongue, the last drop.

Richard, standing up, undoing his belt, yanking it fast through the belt loops like a subway train making no local stops. Throwing it on the bed. It kept its coil.

TWENTY-SEVEN

THE INTERNET YIELDED no real results. Michael Baker was way too common a name, as was Michael L. Baker and even Michael Leonard Baker. Michael, Daisy, Josh, David, and even Pete, when he was around, spent long hours huddled around the computer every afternoon after school. This left Ann with just the other grandchildren, begrudging Daisy her visit, her time. Wishing she would go back already.

Elisabeth’s days were spent in quiet guilt. Nights she was deep under the covers, her back to Richard. There were no more midnight rides. Anxiously waiting to hear that Dart Man had struck again, hoping to hear that Richard was cleared. So far, nothing. Morning after morning she sat with feet planted in low-heeled pumps on the floor under her desk, spreadsheets on the screen, but she was staring acrurchase of a h

TWENTY-EIGHT

THE THREE OF THEM, en route to 11440 Second Street, Brooklyn, New York. Early Saturday morning. Zipping by the Brooklyn Museum, the enormous Brooklyn Library, the Brooklyn Zoo, the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. Hordes of people.

Elisabeth, making a left onto Prospect Park West, the main boulevard. People, promenading. Babies in strollers, dogs on leashes. A gorgeous, lush park, very much like Central Park, on one side; it had been designed by the same team, Olmstead and Vaux, after they had finished in Manhattan. Magnificent architecture, buildings more than a hundred years old. Nineteenth-century brownstones four stories high; flowers spilling abundantly out of window boxes; bikes, skateboards, Rollerblades; children jumping rope, drawings made with thick pastel-colored chalk on the sidewalks.

Daisy, in the front seat. Her heart, pumping rapidly as they neared the address.

Michael, in the back, reading the directions and the history of that section of Brooklyn: Park Slope. Flipping through the chapter on the Brooklyn Bridge. Showing pictures. Elisabeth, nearing Second Street, scanning the curb for parking spots that didn’t exist.

Richard, at work on a Saturday. David and Josh were at friends’
houses, playing computer games. Pete was on third base, hop#, ’b. They ing to turn the game around. Ann was at the hairdresser, complaining nonstop about Daisy to the woman who was coloring her hair.

After sixteen rotations around the block, a spot opened up when an old Volkswagen pulled out. Elisabeth, ramming the SUV into the spot. It was so tight between the car in front and the car behind that she and Michael couldn’t get over to Daisy on the sidewalk. They had to talk to Daisy over the top of the car as they confirmed which way to walk, finally heading uphill. Elisabeth was not alone with her bumper-to-bumper parking. They had to walk more than half a block before Elisabeth and Michael found enough space between two parked cars to cross over to the sidewalk.

A few minutes later they found the address. It was the top building on Second Street, just off the main boulevard, Prospect Park West. A four-floor brownstone with double glass doors. The numbers 11440 were painted on the glass in gold, outlined in black. The same gold and black paint ran around the boundary of the glass doors.

A directory, listing six names. Daisy, holding her breath as Michael read the names.

No Baker. Michael, looking at Daisy, expecting disappointment, but he found Daisy smiling. Saying, “Oh, come now, Michael, we didn’t really expect that he’d still be here. We knew it wasn’t going to be that easy.”

Michael, “I guess.” Scratching the back of his left shoulder, his elbow poking straight at Daisy, bobbing up and down in rhythm.

“Should we ring a bell?” Elisabeth, asking. “While we’re here, maybe we should talk to the super.” She was wearing Richard’s Levis, down low like Michael’s. She had begun reaching for them automatically, putting them on without thinking. One foot was on a higher brownstone step than the other. The back of her hand was on the top of her knee, palm upward, fingers relaxed, cupped, and idle.

Daisy, nodding. The bottom of her beige pleated skirt billowed around her calves in the soft breeze, a breeze that brought with it the
mixed smell of window box flowers. Flowers were everywhere in this neighborhood, seemingly at every window and on every step. A hotdog vendor had set up across the boulevard at one of the entrances to Prospect Park, selling water, ices, ice-cream pops, hot pretzels. The sun, bright, strong, and intense, shot rays through the medium-sized maple trees lining the sidewalk. It was a fragmented ray by the time it hit the brownstone steps, creating moving patterns of shadow and light on all three of them.

Cars were speeding along the three lanes of the boulevard. An occasional one turning down the street, looking for a parking spot. A small red-haired woman in a lime green T-shirt walked alongside a huge black scruffy dog. The top of the dog’s head, reaching almost to her shoulder.

Michael, answering, saying, “Definitely, we should talk to the super. Maybe he knows something.”

Daisy, nodding. “Let’s.”

So they did. Michael, reading the directory of names alongside the buzzers, saying, “It looks like this is the super—Brian F. Davis.”

Looking at the others for the go-ahead, his finger poised above the bell. Daisy and Elisabeth, nodding. Michael, ringing. They waited, shifting their weight around, listening to the breeze through the leaves, the call of birds, the sound of a basketball bouncing at some distance. Children. A sweaty man about Richard’s age on the opposite sidewalk, wheeling his bike down the hill. A pang of guilt rippling through Elisabeth. Elisabeth p?” Elisabeth, asking, shaushing that pang right out of her body.

They heard someone approaching—thongs on creaky hardwood floors—before the door swung open. A latch, slipping across. A man of medium height, weight, build, and age, holding a wooden spoon with something brown and gloppy on it, looking at them. Loose denim shorts and a black shirt. Probing dark eyes under thick eyebrows. A crooked wide nose, not precisely centered over thick lips, dark uncombed hair, too long on the top, short around the ears. The beginnings of tomorrow’s
stubble were visible today, polka-dotting the bumpy contours of his lower face and neck.

“Mr. Davis?” Elisabeth, asking.

“Yes?” Ready to turn down any request. To send them packing. One hand, resting on the doorknob, the other holding the spoon. Preparing to shut them out.

“We’re looking for someone.” Michael, saying.

The man’s eyes on Michael. Considering him.

“We’re hoping you can help us.” Daisy, adding. “We’d really appreciate it.”

The man, turning to Daisy. Then back to Michael, not understanding her accent.

“We’re looking for someone who lived in this building in 1945.” Elisabeth.

The man, looking at Elisabeth. Blinking. Repeating, “1945.”

“We know it’s a long shot,” Elisabeth, conceding. “We thought we’d try. This is the last known address of the man we’re looking for.”

Brian Davis repeating it, “1945.”

“It’s ridiculous, we know.” Daisy, adding a little self-deprecating chuckle.

“No,” Brian Davis, snapping, a rough edge to his deep voice. Surprising them, the three automatically stiffening. “What is ridiculous is that there may be someone here who
can
help you.” His left hand, dropping from the doorknob, falling to his side, indicating that he wouldn’t be shutting the door in their faces after all. “One of my tenants has been here since 1938.”

Daisy, grasping the information, becoming weak at the knees. Was there really someone here who had known Michael Baker? Could it be possible?

“No kidding.” Elisabeth. Impressed.

“No kidding.” Brian Davis, repeating, sharply. Again his voice, loaded
with unconcealed harshness—but not toward them. “Hulda Kheist, third floor, since 1938.”

Somewhere down the street a car horn was honking. A tall black man, skating elegantly past down the hill on Rollerblades, his pale blue T-shirt pressed against his firm stomach and chest. The breeze suddenly picking up, stirring the leaves. Daisy’s skirt flapping against her thin legs. She reached for Michael, taking the back of his upper arm, holding it because of the sudden wind. And the news. She hadn’t expected either.

Nor had Michael expected the news. Or that Daisy would need his arm. Looking at her, touched that she had reached for him.

“What wonderful news,” Elisabeth, saying. “She may really be able to help us.”

“Wonderful for you, maybe,” Brian Davis, spitting out, “but not for me since she pays only $278 a month and basically has done so since I bought this ?” Elisabeth, asking, shabuilding fourteen years ago.” Getting agitated. The hand holding the gloppy spoon traveling up the door frame, resting against it high over his head. One foot, toes down on the top of the other, creating a triangle in the space between his legs. “They told me when I bought this rent-controlled building that its being rent controlled wouldn’t be a problem, that the woman in apartment three was seventy-eight-years old and that when she went, I’d be able to bring her apartment up to current market value. She has a beautiful floor-through with views of Prospect Park that would rake in a fortune. I’d just have to live in the basement apartment until then. Then when I rented hers out, I’d be able to afford to move upstairs to the second floor, to what’s half the size of hers, pulling in $4,500 a month. Instead, I’ve been holed up for fourteen years. Fourteen years! Living like a rat underground while she and her bird live in total luxury for $278 a month! I’m forty-one years old and stuck in a hole in the ground waiting for Mrs. Hulda Kheist to go, one way or another.”