Downtime (5 page)

“You’re kidding.” In a way, it made sense. I could tell Ezra had something of the scam artist in him. Henry was a little harder to believe. “Not making enough at the museum to pay the rent?”

“I know what you’re thinking, Mr. Nash.” Derry stripped down, draping his suit over a chair. He was as solid as I’d imagined, his meaty arms and thick waist taking away nothing from his smooth musculature. He gathered back his hair with a big fist and tied it, then sheathed himself in a nightshirt. “It isn’t easy to believe, I know. But I’ve seen it with my own eyes and it’s no trick, I promise.” He climbed into bed and sank back on the pile of pillows with a sigh. “A sure blessing it is,” he murmured, closing his eyes.

The last time I’d slept in a bed with a man I hadn’t had sex with, I’d been four years old. As if being hurtled backward through time to the near-Dark Ages wasn’t bad enough. “Henry chat up the ghosts too?”

Derry laughed a tired laugh. “Good night, Mr. Nash.” He leaned over and shut off the lamp.

It took me a while to fall asleep. The house must’ve had paper-thin walls, because I could hear almost everything going on, from footsteps creaking above to unintelligible chatter below. At one point, I heard what sounded like a violin, but I might’ve drifted off and dreamed it. I dreamed of other things too. London and Leonard. New York, a Mets game, and a bottle of beer. That was the good dream. One brief disturbing dream had me waking to feel under my pillow for my gun. It was still there. And I was unfortunately still here, years and years from where I was supposed to be.

In the gray light of dawn through the bedroom curtains, I could see the lump of quilt that was Derry and hear his soft, steady snore. It was weirdly comforting. If I’d been alone, the room would’ve felt even more alien than it did. I looked over the edge of the quilt at the hand-carved mahogany and the flowery upholstery that would be cluttering antique shops in my time and I tried to convince myself this wasn’t really any different than staying at a bed and breakfast. It didn’t help. I might not know how I’d gotten here, but I knew where I was. The age of uncomfortable clothes and stifling manners. Slow travel and provincial entertainment. Infrequent bathing and untreated water. Cholera and tuberculosis.

Bleak enough. But throw in the attitude toward sex—evil, unforgivable, damn-you-to-eternal-Hellfire sex, treated as if it were an invention of man on par with murder—and it was too damned depressing to think about. And that was just sex between men and women. Any other kind and a guy could find himself serving time or worse.

The whole damned planet was Third World, with no safe, clean home to run to. Knowing I wasn’t going to get any more sleep, I eased up out of the big pillow that was Derry’s bed and waited a heartbeat to make sure I hadn’t wakened Derry. He slept on peacefully, and I started to look around for my clothes. The chilly room, the floorboards under my feet, and a dire need to find a bathroom gave me a Boy Scout camp flashback I wasn’t in the mood for. Ezra had all my stuff, including the suit he’d lent me.

Taking my gun, I crept to the door and peeked into the hall. Dark and quiet. With a vague feeling it was inappropriate to be wandering around in only a nightshirt, I headed for the room Ezra had designated the water closet. I tapped lightly at the door, and when no one answered, I went inside. Half expecting a wooden board with a hole carved in it, I was relieved to find a fairly regular-looking toilet. A shower and a shave was probably too much to ask for. I’d just do that when I got home.

I went to Ezra’s room and knocked. He came to the door already dressed. “An early bird,” I noted. “Well, that figures.” Most of the people I didn’t get along with turned out to be morning people, including Leonard—well, and Reese, but I’d put up with it for the sake of supposed true love.

Ezra swung the door open so I could come in. “I detect a note of contempt,” he remarked, “but you’re up already too.”

“If I were home, I’d be in bed another five hours. I don’t sleep as well in a strange bed.”

“You have my sympathy. What are you doing?” he added as I reached for my jeans. “You aren’t going to breakfast in those clothes?”

“I’m wearing my own stuff, pal. If Kathleen doesn’t like it, she can kick me out.” I dragged on the jeans and tugged my shirt over my head.

He didn’t say anything until I’d dropped onto his window seat to put on my sneakers. “If we should meet with any difficulty in sending you back—”

“You won’t.”

“But if we do—”

“You brought me here. You’re sending me home. If you have to spend the whole day reading every word of that book, you’re going to. If we need to spend the night in the damned museum to get it done, so be it. That’s the plan and there’s no Plan B.” Double-knotting my laces, I got up, strapped on my gun, and pulled my jacket on over it. “Are you ready to go?”

He sighed. “Do you mind if we have a bite of breakfast?”

“You sure Kathleen will feed a disreputable slob like me?” I picked up the comb on the dresser and ran it through my hair.

“I don’t know that I could say for certain.”

I tossed down the comb. “I’m sure there’s a restaurant or two out there that won’t turn me away.”

“Even though you can’t pay the bill?”

He seemed to enjoy trying to provoke me. I could provoke right back with the best of them. “Maybe, since you’re the one who brought me here, you could pay it with the cash you scammed off Mrs. Hastings last night.”

The corners of his mouth turned up in what seemed embarrassment. “Derry told you. He tends to make more of it than it is.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet. You know, I’ve arrested con men like you. You’re just about one of the lowest forms of life around. Taking money out of the pockets of grieving people—damn, I don’t know how you live with that. Looks like you’ve even managed to con Derry.”

The flash of pain in his eyes caught me off guard. Usually when I hauled someone in, I didn’t bother to lecture them. They knew they’d broken the law and they knew they were going to be paying the consequences. Railing at them seemed superfluous. But there were one or two types who brought out my dad in me, and con artists were one of them, especially cons who took advantage of people who were already hurting. When I did give them hell, I invariably got a whole pathetic spectrum of attitude, from assertions of innocence to a revolting righteousness that I had no appreciation for the special power God had bestowed on them.

But this was a new one. Genuine pain, as if I’d actually hurt the sorry bastard. “I suppose now you’re going to tell me you were trying to reassure Derry that his wife was waiting for him somewhere just around the corner.”

Ezra’s lips parted, then he swallowed whatever he was going to say and turned away. “We’ll leave after breakfast.”

I let him go, doubting I’d done anything to prick his conscience and make him give up the scam. I’d never met a reformed con artist. Once it was in their blood, it was there to stay. And there was not much else I could do. I couldn’t arrest him or drag him to the future to spend a little time in the can. I sighed in disgust and scooped up my useless cell phone. I was ready to blow this place.

I made my way down to the kitchen, to find Ezra and I weren’t the only ones already out of bed. Henry was at the table, along with a bespectacled man he introduced as Dr. Silas Gilbride. Dr. Gilbride greeted me with the weary pronouncement that there were three new babies in the world as of two-fifteen this morning, then pushed himself out of his chair and left his half-eaten breakfast to apparently head up to bed. Three babies too many, I guessed. I looked around to see what was for breakfast. The ham was back on the table, along with a pitcher of milk, thick slices of lightly toasted bread, and some of the cinnamon rolls from last night. I started with the bread and butter, wondering if there was any coffee to be had.

Derry joined us and Ezra followed shortly, but he didn’t seem to have much of an appetite. Maybe I’d gotten to him after all. If he’d suckered everyone in the house into believing he communed with the dead, he was one persuasive son of a bitch; but he couldn’t keep them on a string forever. It might be a naïve era, but these men weren’t stupid, nor was Kathleen. Maybe I could put the first glimmer of doubt in their minds. “By the way. How did it go last night with Mrs. Hastings? Reach out and touch anyone?”

If Ezra had had a mouthful of food, he’d have choked on it. He fixed wide eyes on me with a silent plea, but I had no intention of letting him keep up the charade. “Bet you got paid all the same, didn’t you?”

The clatter of a fork against a plate drew my attention across the table. Everyone sat silent and uneasy, but my revelation didn’t produce an explosion from Henry. Nothing more than a faint flush on his cheekbones gave away his wrath.

Ezra shot me a reproachful look and tried to repair the damage. “She asked for me, Henry. I could hardly leave her down there in tears.”

“I thought we’d reached an understanding.” Henry pushed his chair back and rose. “Apparently not.”

“What was I supposed to do?”

“You could have held your tongue—”

“He was standing right in front of me, for God’s sake,” Ezra interrupted, rising. “She just wanted a word. You aren’t being fair.”

“If you continue to go on this way, we shall neither of us be credible in this field. I have a reputation to protect. I will not have it brought down by a—” He stifled whatever he’d been about to say and the red in his cheeks heightened, though he was suddenly avoiding Ezra’s stare.

“Go ahead,” Ezra told him in a flat tone. “You’ve been thinking it from the start.”

The rivalry evidently wasn’t rancorous enough to push Henry into saying whatever he’d been thinking. Too damned bad, because I was really curious to hear it. Henry drew in a long measured breath and stalked out of the kitchen. Ezra sat, picked up his fork, poked at the food on the plate, then put the fork down.

“Damn it,” he muttered.

“We believe you,” Derry said quietly.

I checked a sigh. It was tough to get through to people who needed to believe this kind of thing was real. They might catch on eventually that they were being taken advantage of by two men they called friend, but I wasn’t going to persuade them it was a con, not in the little time I had left here. They didn’t know me or trust me the way they trusted Ezra. What had led to the argument between Ezra and Henry, I didn’t know, but I suspected Ezra was the flashier one in their cons and Henry didn’t like it. Ezra’s charm no doubt drew more clients. People liked a good show.

I left the table and wandered into what Ezra had called Kathleen’s sitting room. It was more cluttered than Derry’s bedroom, and that was saying something. The sofa with its high back and arms bore up under more than half a dozen fringed and embroidered pillows. It looked like the most comfortable seat in the house, and I didn’t see why I couldn’t have slept there as conveniently as Derry’s room.

The far door creaked and Hannah backed into the room, lugging a metal bucket full of coal. I’d worked at a young age too, but damn, the poor kid looked like she needed a break.

I got up to give her a hand. At the sight of me, she tried to swing back through the door with the heavy bucket. I caught the handle and eased it from her grip. “Hannah, right? I didn’t get a chance to say hello last night.” I held out my free hand and she stared at it, then at me, pretty thoroughly terrified. I gave her shoulder a pat. “It’s okay. Just helping you out a little. It looked pretty heavy.” And it was. She was stronger than she seemed, if she carried buckets of coal every day. “Where do you dump it?”