Scavenger (2 page)

“What’s my name?” she asked.

“Amanda,” he was careful to answer.

“Excellent,” a doctor said. The watchful man never mentioned his specialty, but Balenger assumed he was a psychiatrist. “I think you’re ready to be released.”

2

The taxi entered the Park Slope district of Brooklyn. Trying not to stare at Amanda’s long blonde hair and soft blue eyes that reminded him so much of Diane, Balenger forced himself to peer out the window. He saw a huge stone arch with a statue at the top: a winged woman with flowing robes.

“Grand Army Plaza,” Amanda explained. “You like history, so you’ll appreciate that the arch commemorates the end of the Civil War.”

Even her voice reminded him of Diane.

“All those trees–that’s Prospect Park over there,” she continued.

Down a narrow street, the taxi stopped in the middle of a row of fourstory brownstones. While Amanda paid the fare, Balenger mustered the effort to get out. He felt the cold bite of a late October wind. His legs and ribs throbbed as did the abrasions on his hands.

“My apartment’s on the third floor.” Amanda pointed. “The one with the stone railing.”

“I thought you said you worked in a book store in Manhattan. This is an upscale district. How can you afford—” The answer quickly occurred to him. “Your father helps.”

“He never stopped hoping, never stopped paying the rent all the months I was missing.”

As Balenger climbed the eight steps, which felt like eighty, his knees became unsteady. Even though the wooden door was freshly painted brown, it gave the impression of age. Amanda put a key in the lock.

“Wait,” Balenger said.

“Need to catch your breath?”

In fact, he did, but that wasn’t his motive for stopping her. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Do you have another place to go, anyone else to take care of you?”

In both cases, the answer was “no.” During the previous year, while Balenger searched for his missing wife, he stayed in cheap motel rooms and could afford to eat only once a day, mostly sandwiches from fast-food restaurants. His savings account was drained. He had no one and nothing.

“You barely know me,” he told her.

“You risked your life for me,” Amanda responded. “Without you, I’d be dead. What else do I need to know?”

Neither commented that at the time Balenger believed the woman he saved was his wife.

“We’ll try it for a few days.” Amanda unlocked the door.

3

The apartment had one bedroom, a living room, and a kitchen. The ceiling was high, with molding around it. The floors were hardwood. Although everything looked bright and well-maintained, Balenger again had the sense of age.

“While we were in the hospital, my father stocked the refrigerator and the cupboards,” Amanda said. “Do you want something to eat?”

Balenger sank onto the leather sofa. Before he could answer, exhaustion overwhelmed him.

When he woke, it was dark outside. A blanket was over him. Amanda helped him to reach the bathroom and return to the sofa.

“I’ll heat up some soup,” she told him.

Afterward, she changed his bandages and dressings.

“While you were asleep, I went out and bought some pajamas for you.” She helped him put on the top, frowning at his injuries.

4

A nightmare jerked him awake, memories of shots and screams. Through frightened eyes, he saw Amanda hurry from the bedroom. “I’m here,” she assured him. In the pale light from a corner lamp, she looked even more like Diane, making him wonder if impossibly Diane’s spirit had merged with Amanda’s. She held his hand until his heart stopped racing. “I’m here,” she repeated. He lapsed back into a troubled sleep.

A cry from the bedroom jolted him upright. Wincing, he mustered the strength to rise from the sofa and struggle through the doorway, where he saw Amanda thrash beneath the covers, fighting her own nightmares. He stroked her hair, trying to tell her she was safe from the darkness and violence and fear, safe from the Paragon Hotel.
Clang.
In the back of his haunted memory, a flap of sheet metal slammed against the side of an abandoned building,
clang
, the mournful, rhythmic toll of doom.

He fell asleep next to her, the two of them holding one another. The next night was the same. And the next. They always had a light on. They kept the bedroom door open. Closed rooms gave them the sweats. Two weeks later, they became lovers.

5

He managed increasingly long walks. One gray December afternoon, as he returned from the snow-covered monuments in Grand Army Plaza, two men got out of a car in front of the brownstone. They wore somber overcoats. Their faces had pinched expressions. The cold air made their breath white with frost.

“Frank Balenger?” the taller man asked.

“Who wants to know?”

They pulled out identification: UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY.

“Sign this.” When they reached the apartment, the heavier agent handed Balenger a pen and a document.

“It’d be nice if I could read it first.”

“It says you relinquish any claim to evidence you gave the Asbury Park police.”

“The double eagle,” the taller agent said.

Now Balenger understood. He disliked them even more.

“The Gold Reserve Act of 1933 makes it illegal to use gold coins as currency,” the heavier agent said. “It does permit citizens to own them as collectibles. But you can’t own something if you stole it.”

“I didn’t steal it.” Balenger felt heat rise to his face. “The original owner died in 1939. The coins were hidden in the Paragon Hotel. For all these years,
nobody
owned that coin until I put it in my pocket.”

“The only coin that survived the fire. Did you take a close look?”

Balenger worked to steady his voice. “I was a little preoccupied, trying to stay alive.”

“It’s dated 1933. Before the government made it illegal to use gold as currency, the mint manufactured the double eagles for that year. All the coins needed to be destroyed.” The taller agent paused. “But some were stolen.”

“Including the one you put in your pocket,” the other agent said. “Which means it’s the property of the U.S. government. They’re so rare, the last time we got our hands on one, it was auctioned at Sotheby’s.”

The first agent added, “For almost eight million dollars.”

The number had so much weight that Balenger didn’t trust himself to speak.

“Because of legal technicalities, we gave the person we got it from a portion of the money,” the agent continued. “We’re prepared to offer you a similar deal. We’ll call it a finder’s fee. Something generous enough to get a lot of publicity and encourage collectors to surrender similar illegally acquired coins, no questions asked.”

Balenger tried to sound casual. “What kind of fee are we talking about?”

“Assuming this coin sells for as much as the previous one? You’ll keep two million dollars.”

Balenger needed to remind himself to breathe.

6

A glorious Saturday in May. Sweating after a long jog around Prospect Park, Balenger and Amanda unlocked the brownstone’s front door and sorted through the mail the postman had shoved through the slot.

“Anything interesting?” Amanda asked as they climbed the stairs.

“More financial advisors eager to tell me what to do with the money we got from the coin. Pleas from more charities. Bills.”

“At least, we can pay them now.”

“Weird,” Balenger said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Take a look.”

Outside their apartment, Balenger handed her an envelope. Its old, brittle feel made Amanda frown. She raised it to her nostrils. “Smells musty.”

“It ought to. Check the stamp.”

“Two cents? That’s impossible.”

“Now look at the postmark.”

It was faded with age but readable.

“December thirty first?”

“Keep reading.”

“
Eighteen ninety-nine
? What the . . .” Amanda shook her head. “Is this a joke?”

“Maybe an advertising gimmick,” Balenger said.

After they entered the apartment, Amanda tore open the envelope and removed a sheet of paper. “Feels as brittle as the envelope. Smells as musty.”

The message was handwritten in thick strokes. Like the postmark, the ink was faded with age.

Mr. Frank Balenger

Dear Sir,

Forgive the intrusion. Knowing your fascination with the past, I took the liberty of using an old postmark to attract your attention. I invite you and Ms. Evert to join me and a group of guests on the first Saturday of June at one p.m. at the Manhattan History Club (address below). After refreshments, I shall deliver a lecture about messages to the future that we open in the present to understand the past. I refer, of course, to those fascinating future-past artifacts known as time capsules.

Yours,
Adrian Murdock

“Time capsules?” Amanda looked bewildered. “What on earth?”

“The first Saturday of June?” Balenger leaned into the kitchen and glanced at a calendar. “That’s next weekend. The Manhattan History Club?”

“You’re right. It’s got to be an advertising gimmick.” Amanda examined the paper. “Sure seems old. It ought to, considering it comes from a history club. They’re probably looking for new members. But how did they get our names and address?”

“Last fall, when everything happened, the newspapers indicated you live in Park Slope,” Balenger said.

“The club waited an awfully long time to get in touch with us.”

Balenger thought about it. “When the coin was auctioned last month, there was more publicity. The media dredged up what happened at the Paragon Hotel. They mentioned my fascination with history. Maybe this guy thinks he can persuade me to give his club a donation.”

“Sure. Just like those financial advisors eager to get commissions from you,” Amanda decided.

“Time capsules.” Balenger’s tone was wistful.

“You sound like you’re actually tempted to go.”

“When I was a kid ...” He paused, transported by the memory. “My father taught high-school history in Buffalo. His school was tearing down an old classroom building to make space for a new one. There was a rumor about a time capsule—that a graduating class from years earlier put one in the foundation when the building was new. After the demolition workers went home each day, a couple of kids and I used to search for the capsule in the wreckage. Of course, we had no idea what something like that would look like. It took me a week, but by God, I finally spotted a big stone block in an excavated corner of the building. The block had a plaque that said CLASS OF 1942. ALWAYS TO BE REMEMBERED. AT THE THRESHOLD OF OUR FUTURE. What happened was, over the years, grime covered the plaque. Shrubs grew in front of it. People forgot.”

Amanda gestured for him to continue.

“Anyway, the block had a hole in it,” Balenger explained. “I saw a metal box inside. When I ran home and told my father, at first he got angry that I was playing in a demolition area and could have gotten hurt. But when he learned what I’d found, he made me take him there. The next morning, he asked the workers to pry open the block. ‘For God’s sake, don’t damage what’s inside,’ I remember him saying. The workers were as fascinated as
we
were. In fact, a lot of teachers and students heard what was happening and came over, too. A worker used a crowbar and finally pulled out a metal box about the size of a big phone book. It was rusted shut. The students urged the worker to break it open, but my father said we should make a ceremony of it and have a fundraiser. People could buy tickets to watch the time capsule get opened. The money would pay for library books. ‘Great idea,’ everybody said. So the principal called the newspaper and the radio and TV stations to publicize the event, and the grand opening was scheduled for a Sunday afternoon in the school auditorium. TV cameras were there. A thousand people paid a dollar apiece to watch.”

“What was in it?” Amanda asked.

“Nobody ever found out.”

“What?” Amanda looked surprised.

“The principal had the time capsule locked in a cabinet in his office. The night before the grand opening, someone broke into the office, pried open the cabinet, and stole the box. You can imagine how disappointed everybody was. I always wondered what those students from 1942 thought was important enough for the future to see.”

7

The building was one block south of Gramercy Park, on East 19
^th
Street, in the area’s historic preservation district. Saturday traffic was quiet. An overcast sky made the air cool enough for light jackets. Balenger and Amanda stood outside the brick row house and studied a weathered brass plaque that read 1854. Above the entrance, another plaque read MANHATTAN HISTORY CLUB.

They climbed steps and entered a shadowy vestibule that felt as if it hadn’t changed in its century and a half. A poster sat on an easel, showing a distinguished-looking, gray-haired man with an equally gray mustache. He was thin, with lines creasing the corners of his eyes. He wore a conservative suit and held a metal cylinder in his hands.

THE MANHATTAN HISTORY CLUB
WELCOMES
ADRIAN MURDOCK
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY,
OGLETHORPE UNIVERSITY, ATLANTA.
“WORLD ENOUGH AND TIME:
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIME CAPSULES.”
JUNE 2, 1 P.M.

Balenger heard voices beyond the vestibule.

A matronly, fortyish woman in a plain dark dress entered the corridor from a room on the right. When she noticed Balenger and Amanda, she smiled. “I’m glad you could join us.”

“Well, the invitation was so clever, we couldn’t resist,” Balenger said.

The woman blushed. The rising color in her cheeks was emphasized by her lack of makeup. Her brunette hair was pulled back severely in a bun. “That was
my
idea, I’m afraid. Our lectures haven’t always been wellattended, so I thought a little drama was in order. I never dreamed how much work it would take for the committee to deliver the invitations. I’m Karen Bailey, by the way.” She offered her hand.