The Eighty-eighth Key Ch. 26

"What the hell have you two been drinking!" Lloyd Callahan said, smirking.

"I'd just had some kind of wine, a white wine," Harry said, his voice now in a flat, deadpan, almost monosyllabic crawl. "A Piesporter, I think."

"Harry?" his father said, his concern now clear to Goodman.

So Goodman leaned over and waved his hand in front of Harry's eyes. Nothing. No reaction at all, so he leaned closer and asked: "Harry, what do you see? Right now? What do you see?"

"What the hell...?" Lloyd whispered...

...because just then a long stream of frost seethed from between Harry's lips...

And then Goodman grabbed Callahan and shook him violently...

...and in an instant, Harry came back to them...

...his jacket and face now covered with snow, his hand bleeding profusely from an open wound, little shards of ice embedded within the freshly torn skin...

_________________________________

Harry woke up from the dream and looked around the room. A hotel room - with no lights on - he assumed from the look of things, at least from what he could tell in the dark. He stood and groped his way to what he hoped was a washroom and found a light switch. With lights blazing he looked at his throbbing hand and saw it had been swaddled in gauze bandages, and the bathroom didn't look like any hotel he'd ever been in...

He walked back into the room and saw a hospital bed, cold medical monitors parked in one corner, and his father sitting in a chair - snoring away.

He went and sit on the edge of the bed and coughed, hoping to wake up his father with the sudden sound.

And it worked.

Lloyd opened his eyes and looked around, orienting himself to the unfamiliar surroundings. "Ah, you're awake. How do you feel?"

"What the hell happened?"

So Lloyd told him, all of it, everything that he and Ben Goodman had seen.

"It was a dream," Harry said after his father finished. "I was reliving that afternoon on the mountain. With Sara. And Avi. Lunch up there...we had lunch up there on the mountain."

"Is that when you cut your hand?"

"Yeah. And that's when the old man came. He took me to a little clinic and sewed me up. We talked a little, too..."

"About what?"

Harry scowled. "That's funny. Everything else seems so clear, but...I can't remember anything at all about the old man."

"What about the cane?"

"No...nothing."

"Harry, what do you think happened to you?"

Callahan looked down at his bandaged hand and shrugged: "That was the most real dream I've ever had, Dad. It was like I was there again, I could feel everything, too. I even tasted the wine again, but I've never dreamed anything like that before..."

"Neither have I."

"Then I was in the back of that station wagon you had. The one you had when we went to pick up June and take her to the hospital. You remember that one?"

"Yes, that Ford. Maybe it was a Fairlane, but I can't remember just now."

"I held her while she died - again. I keep going back there, ya know? I keep hoping I can change things..."

"I know. I've never felt so helpless."

"You liked her, didn't you?"

Lloyd looked down and smiled, remembering her eyes...

"Yeah, she was a peach. The real deal. I always thought you two looked happy together."

"I never told you what Mom did, did I?"

"No? What?"

"She was the one who sent June to the abortion doctor."

"What?"

"Well, she gave June the number for Student Health Services. They gave her the contact information."

"You know that's not exactly the same thing, right? Your mother didn't send June to the abortionist. June called and asked for help. Your mother did the only thing she could."

Harry looked around the hospital room, confused now, and more than a little upset. "You know, it feels like my life was on one track, headed in the direction it was supposed to, but then all that stuff happened and everything that's happened since is just wrong. None of this was supposed to happen."

"How do you come up with that?"

"I don't know, Dad, but it feels like June and I... Well, we were going to have a little boy. Maybe I would've gone to college, or she would've, and we'd have bought a house near you and mom and everything would have been different."

"What else would be different?"

"I'd have become a musician. A real musician...you know what I mean?"

"I do."

"And Mom would have never left. We'd have all been together like it was supposed to be."

"Supposed to be? What makes you say that, son?"

"I don't know, Dad, but that's the way I've always heard it should be, you know? Maybe that's what's most important. Continuity, I guess."

Lloyd shook his head. "Maybe. Maybe not. But I think it's kind of dangerous to go through life thinking it's supposed to unwind along preordained milestones."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know I've spent countless nights on the bridge, talking to a helmsman at two in the morning and trying to stay awake..." He laughed a little at that thought. "I've talked to more than a few kids over the years, kids just out of school, and all they want to know is where they'll be when they're like fifty, or maybe sixty years old. They want certainty, Harry. Maybe that comes from all the uncertainty we face as we grow up, all those insecurities we experience day after day, but to me, these kids have already missed the point."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Life doesn't come at you like that. The captain of the Titanic was going balls to the walls because he wasn't expecting an iceberg out there, and I guess that's the point, Harry. Life is an endless succession of icebergs, even though some of them are right where they're supposed to be. Sometimes we get careless, but sometimes no matter what we do we're going to hit that bastard. And yeah, sometimes we go down with all hands lost. You can look at that as a trite cliché or you can accept that for what it is. Reality, I guess."

"We've never talked about it before, but do you believe in God?"

Lloyd sighed, looked down for a moment. "You know, Harry, sometimes I do, but most of the time I just shake my head and walk away from all that stuff. If there is a God he sure gets the blame for a lot of stupid stuff, yet it's the big things that bother me."

"Like?"

"Like looking at all those scarecrows after the war. How could God let something like that happen? Six million Jews. Twenty million political prisoners in Russia. Who knows how many in China." Lloyd sighed and spoke softly now: "How could God allow June to go through all the things she did at the end? No, I think God is kind of a phase we go through, and some people get stuck there. Maybe the ones who want to know how it all turns out in the end...when they're nineteen years old. No sense for the mystery of life, I guess. Like they don't even want to know. They just want to know how it all turns out in the end - and bypass all the hard stuff."

"You know, I've seen things out there on the street. Bad things, Dad."

"I bet you have."

"And I've done some bad things too."

"Yeah? Like?"

But Harry simply shook his head. "I can't go there now, Dad."

"What about you? Do you believe in Him?"

"No," Callahan said emphatically. "If God was up there watching all this? Watching what we do to other human beings? If there is, He must have washed his hands of us and split a long time ago, chalk us up to one big failed experiment."

Lloyd laughed a little at the thought. "Maybe so."

"Yeah, maybe so."

"So, what do you think this old man in the cape is all about? Think he could be God?"

Harry drifted for a moment, then came back... "No. I think there's a simpler explanation than that. Maybe something right under our noses."

"Such as?"

"I don't know, but obviously something weird happened yesterday..."

"Yeah, you could say that..."

"And I was thinking about the old man then. So something about my thinking created some kind of rift..."

"What? Like 'power of suggestion?'"

Harry shrugged. "Dad, I just don't know. The only thing I can tell you is that it all felt like a kind of lucid dream. Or, really, more like I was reliving a moment in time that had already happened."

Lloyd shook his head. "I've never experienced anything quite like that before. Not ever."

"Did Mom?"

"If she did she didn't tell me about it."

"So, a big fat mystery."

"Well, next time you see him, you could always just ask...

__________________________________

Goodman took the Callahans to the Rosenthal Music Company after Harry was discharged from the hospital, and he met with employees who had worked there for decades. What troubled Harry most was the implied deference shown because, after all, he was their new boss...

When he met with the manager of the store later that day Harry asked the old man if an employee buy-out would be an attractive option to the people who had, in effect, dedicated their lives to the store.

"I doubt it," Hans Bohr replied. "Actually, we've talked about this, and all of us feel it would be better if your family is still involved as owners and managers."

"You do know I live in California?"

"And so did Saul. That never interfered with his efforts."

"Who's running the store in San Francisco right now?"

"In effect, no one is."

"And what's happening? Is it doing okay?"

"It seems so, sir. The store more or less runs itself these days."

"How many people work there?"

"Just a handful. Two men in the store, the same for the piano showroom, and we sub-contract deliveries."

"Anyone you know there that should be promoted to manager?"

Bohr shook his head.

"How about you? Care for a change of scenery?"

"No, sir. This is my home."

"Well then, I hate to ask but could you assume a temporary manager's role until we can sort this out? If you need to go there from time to time, I assume that would be agreeable?"

"Of course, sir. I would imagine all this is terribly new and unsettling to you. If there's anything any of us can do to help...?"

"Thank you, Hans."

Goodman took the Callahans to a meeting at the university; apparently, they wanted to purchase the Schwarzwald house 'as is' - for use as faculty housing, but Harry seemed non-committal about the idea, and he told the officials he would think about it and let them know.

When they were back in Goodman's rented Audi Harry asked him what the house was worth.

"In dollars? Perhaps a half million, maybe a bit more."

Harry shook his head. "You know, about three weeks ago I had a couple hundred bucks in my checking account, and maybe, and I mean maybe, a thousand in savings. It's hard to think about numbers like these without falling into a kind of fog."

"Perhaps you should hire a business manager to look over these assets?"

And then Lloyd spoke up: "Doubtful, Ben, that Harry could find someone he could trust to handle all these things - and not rob him blind."

"My daughter could handle it, and I guarantee her honesty."

Harry grinned. "Well then, maybe I should meet her soon."

"Have you decided about the house in Davos?" Goodman asked.

"Keep it."

"Good. What about the girl?"

"Id like to head that way right now, unless there's more I need to work on here?"

Goodman shook his head. "No, we are at a good enough stopping place now. I think you should go and see to her needs. For both your sakes."

"What's going on back in California?"

"All of the bodies from the ground assault team have been identified; all Columbians, most active-duty military personnel."

"Now, why is that surprising?"

"Why do you say that, Harry?"

"Seems like it would be a lot of trouble to get so many active-duty mercenaries into the country at one time."

"Unless they entered illegally."

Harry nodded. "Yeah. What about the men in the helicopter?"

"They are examining dental records, but frankly, if these people were not U.S. citizens that will be a dead end."

"Where's McKay?"

"Well, he wasn't on the helicopter, that much is certain. He was seen at work two days ago. Also, he is no longer using telephones we have tapped, so we have a new hole in our network information gathering capability right now. Everyone has gone silent, as a matter of fact."

"Escobar? Where is he?" Harry asked.

"Last seen leaving San Francisco through the Golden Gate in some sort of speedboat. A Donzi, I believe. And the odd thing? The boat was reported abandoned and adrift out past the Farallon Islands."

"I suppose it would be too much to hope the sharks got him." Lloyd sighed.

"No storms to account for that, and the fuel tanks were nowhere near empty."

"So," Lloyd added, "someone picked him up out there."

"That's what your Coast Guard thinks, but of course there's neither evidence of that, nor any proof."

"Okay," Harry said, crossing his arms over his chest, "Escobar is on the loose and McKay is home-free, laying low for the time being. What's our next move?"

"Well, this is the hard part. Avi was spearheading this effort through the PM's office, but now that he's gone there is little willingness to continue the operation in California, at least at current levels. I've convinced the PM to let us have a month to wrap this up; after that, you may be on your own. Of course, this depends on what we uncover concerning Escobar and his efforts in Beirut."

"Swell. Have you told Sam this?"

"No, not yet. And I'm not looking forward to doing so, either."

"What has Stacy decided to do," Harry asked.

"Complicated, to say the least. That friend of yours? The Army physician she's shacked up with?"

"Parish?"

"Yes. Well, I think they'd like to get married, and she's mentioned his family has a dairy farm in Oregon or Washington, someplace like that. I wondered about getting her Israeli citizenship, a new name and passport, and letting her immigrate from here."

"That's insane," Lloyd said. "She's a citizen, for chrissakes."

"She also killed an FBI agent," Goodman said gently. "A corrupt one to be sure, but an agent nonetheless."

"Just cook up some fake U.S. papers," Harry sighed, "and let her slip in that way. Then we can get her up to Oregon and into her new life. Should be easy."

"Okay," Goodman said, and this time even Lloyd noticed Goodman's odd new deference.

"So," Harry continued, now thinking out loud, "we have a month to wrap this thing up. I suppose we have an idea of who the remaining targets are within Bay Area law enforcement agencies?"

"Approximately, yes."

"Enough to establish probable cause for an arrest?" Harry added.

"Doubtful on two counts. Remember, we're dealing with information gleaned through illegal wiretaps. Further, we're identifying possible suspects by voice-print analysis, and that's rarely been held up as valid by U.S. courts."

"So, is your team comfortable with the information they have? Comfortable enough, I mean, to hit these people?"

"No, and that's why this conditional list is still around."

"What about McKay? Is the evidence on him iron-clad?"

"The team is about evenly divided on that, Harry. Half are convinced he's the mastermind behind the whole thing; the other half think he's a fucking moron."

"I'd vote for fucking moron," Harry sighed.

"Frank and Sam have both said as much. With a few extra embellishments tossed in for good measure."

"Understandable. So, we need to firm up the people on this list and take action in the next month...is that about right?"

Goodman nodded. "Yes."

"Dad? Why don't you go back to the compound with Ben? I'll be back in a few days, and we can go over plans to return then."

"I'd rather stay with you, son."

Harry sighed. "Dad? I'm old enough to stay out past my bedtime...ya know?"

Lloyd Callahan nodded and looked away.

"This might not be easy, or it could be the easiest thing that ever happened to me..."

"I just want to be there for moral support, son."

"You always have been, Dad. This won't be any different, and if I get in too deep, I know who to call."

The Audi pulled into the departure lane at Kastrup Airport and Goodman maneuvered to the Swissair area. Harry made sure he had his passport and wallet before he hopped out of the car, then he disappeared into the jostling crowd...

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© 2020 adrian leverkühn | abw | and as always, thanks for stopping by for a look around the memory warehouse...[and a last word or two on sources: I typically don't post all a story's acknowledgments until I've finished, if only because I'm not sure how many I'll need until work is finalized. Yet with current circumstances (a little virus, not to mention a certain situation in Washington, D.C. springing first to mind...) so waiting to mention sources might not be the best way to proceed. To begin, the primary source material in this case - so far, at least - derives from two seminal Hollywood 'cop' films: Dirty Harry and Bullitt. The first Harry film was penned by Harry Julian Fink, R.M. Fink, Dean Riesner, John Milius, Terrence Malick, and Jo Heims. Bullitt came primarily from the author of the screenplay for The Thomas Crown Affair, Alan R Trustman, with help from Harry Kleiner, as well Robert L Fish, whose short story Mute Witness formed the basis of Trustman's brilliant screenplay. Steve McQueen's grin was never trade-marked, though perhaps it should have been. John Milius (Red Dawn) penned Magnum Force, and the 'Briggs'/vigilante storyline derives from characters and plot elements originally found in that rich screenplay, as does the Captain McKay character. The Threlkis crime family storyline was first introduced in Sudden Impact, screenplay by Joseph Stinson. The Samantha Walker character derives from the Patricia Clarkson portrayal of the television reporter found in The Dead Pool, screenplay by Steve Sharon, story by Steve Sharon, Durk Pearson, and Sandy Shaw. I have to credit the Jim Parish, M.D., character first seen in the Vietnam segments to John A. Parrish, M.D., author of the most fascinating account of an American physician's tour of duty in Vietnam - and as found in his autobiographical 12, 20, and 5: A Doctor's Year in Vietnam, a book worth noting as one of the most stirring accounts of modern warfare I've ever read (think Richard Hooker's M*A*S*H, only featuring a blazing sense of irony conjoined within a searing non-fiction narrative). Denton Cooley, M.D. founded the Texas Heart Institute, as mentioned. Many of the other figures in this story derive from characters developed within the works cited above, but keep in mind that, as always, this story is in all other respects a work of fiction woven into a pre-existing historical fabric. Using the established characters referenced above, as well as a few new characters I've managed to come up with here and there, I hoped to create something new - perhaps a running commentary on the times we've shared? And the standard disclaimer also here applies: no one mentioned in this tale should be mistaken for persons living or dead. This was just a little walk down a road more or less imagined, and nothing more than that should be inferred, though I'd be remiss not to mention Clint Eastwood's Harry Callahan, and Steve McQueen's Frank Bullitt. Talk about the roles of a lifetime...given life by two actors who will stand tall through the ages.]