“I think so. I wish I had paid more attention to Eckleburg in Newton. I was followed from that meeting but assumed it was just a standard tail. I can’t figure out Eckleburg’s concern, but whatever it was, I guess it wasn’t really about money. Damn!”
“So, what was it about?” deVere asked.
Ginter shook his head. “No scenario makes any sense. Is someone trying to help us or hurt us? I just don’t know.”
DeVere smiled. “And now we’ve missed our target by a year. Did that cause us to already fail?”
“Do you trust her?” Ginter asked suddenly.
“Huh? Geez, Lewis, we’ve been over this already.”
“Paul, I didn’t trust her before. Maybe this screw-up was not so accidental.”
“We’ve had this talk,” Paul protested.
“There’s something else,” Lewis said. “Something I didn’t know last week. The reason she came to Cambridge. I thought her showing up was a bit too coincidental.”
“Lewis, she has a kid. Her ex has custody. She wanted to be closer to spend more time with him.”
“I have friends,” Lewis said. “All over the country. After our talk last Saturday I called down to North Carolina.”
“Yeah, so?” deVere asked warily.
“Amanda got divorced when she was teaching down there. I had my source pull her divorce file. Public record, you know. He overnighted me a copy. It came this morning.”
“Lewis, how is this any of our business?” Paul asked, agitated.
“She lied, Paul. There’s no kid in Braintree. The divorce decree says that they were married just over four years. No children.”
“Maybe it’s a mistake,” Paul argued. “How do you know the paperwork’s not wrong?”
“She was married to a guy named Gunther, William Gunther. My source checked him out. He was in real estate in Chapel Hill. Still is. There’s no William or Bill Gunther in Braintree. And after her divorce she went back to Leipzig again. Voluntarily.”
“Oh for Christ sakes, Lewis, you think all women lie. You don’t believe stories about freaking tires. There are a hundred possibilities. Maybe your friend is wrong. Maybe the records are wrong. Maybe the squishers are screwing with us. Did you ever think of that? How do you know they didn’t doctor up her file to make us suspect her? Why would she make up a story about a kid in Braintree? Vodkaville would have come up with a better one than that, and then planted documentation.”
Paul stood and began pacing. “Look, if Amanda wanted to screw us up, if she were Agency, heck if she and our Natasha friend and that Russkie dude were all best buddies, all she had to do was have a hit man take us out!”
Paul made a gun with his hand and thumb and pointed it at Ginter. “Pow. Pow. Pow. All over. Why screw around with putting us one year too late? That’s not Vodkaville’s style. You know that as well as anyone.”
Ginter tossed the folded paper aside and threw himself back on the bed.
“Maybe you’re right. But Eckleburg sending that Rhodes girl makes no sense. She knows nada about bomb making. Eckleburg should have known better.”
“Or Maddox?”
Ginter shrugged. “Either way, Eckleburg should have seen through it. Even if Maddox is dirty.”
“So, you got any ideas?” deVere asked.
Ginter sat back up, reopened the paper, and smiled.
“I’ve got one.” He pointed to an advertisement. “Moreau’s hardware, they should have automobile tools.”
“Huh?”
Ginter flipped to another page.
“I wonder how far it is to 1569 Elm Street? Resnik Motors.”
“Motors?” Paul asked. “What are you talking about?”
Ginter pointed to another ad. “A used 1961 Corvette for $2,995.00. And I’ve got the cash and a New York State’s driver’s license.”
DeVere snatched the paper from his friend and stared at it.
“What are you going to do with a used Corvette?”
Ginter smirked. “First off, find a place to get these copied so we can all have a set,” he said, indicating the itinerary.
“And second,” he added, “buy a gun.”
Chapter 16
Lewis Ginter turned on to the Amoskeag Bridge and guided the 1961 Corvette east across the iron cage structure that spanned the Merrimack River at Manchester’s northern edge. To his right stretched the city. Even though it was now mid-afternoon the temperature had only reached the upper seventies. The convertible’s top was down and beside him Pamela Rhodes reclined in the passenger seat, eyes closed, soaking in the sun.
Lewis felt a bit absurd in the white shirt, chinos, and dress shoes he had just purchased. His jeans, underwear, sport shirt, socks, and Reeboks—all he had come through the wormhole with—were safely stored in the Floyd’s bag stuffed inside a locker at the bus station located off the Carpenter’s lobby. Only what had come through the wormhole could return, and Lewis had no intention of appearing naked back at the lab.
He incessantly replayed the events of the last six hours. He was amazed at how normal everything seemed. He pressed his fingers tight on the steering wheel and concentrated on the sensation. Back in Cambridge he had often wondered what it would be like, what he would feel.
Ginter shifted into third gear. When he removed his left leg from the clutch he stretched it to the side until he felt the muscle in his lower back begin to pull.
“Damn Soviet artillery,” he muttered. “I’ve got an injury from a war that hasn’t been fought yet. If I can go back in time why doesn’t my back regenerate, too?” Then he realized that if his body regenerated, he would have come through the wormhole as a single cell, or even less, in 1963.
He was left with a sense of awe. When he had contemplated the possibilities in Cambridge he had thought that the experience might possess a movie-set-like quality. DeVere had mused that if the Accelechron propelled one through the wormhole, it was impossible to know what the experience would be.
At the eastern end of the bridge Lewis slowed and turned right under a blinking traffic light. He headed down Canal Street toward the Carpenter Hotel. The array of oncoming fifties, and early sixties models on the narrow road confirmed the reality. Along his right ran a double set of railroad tracks. Beyond, a canal formed a mile long border to the labyrinth of canals, train tracks, and mill buildings that stretched down to the river.
“A mill town,” Paul had recalled in his eleventh floor room at The Carpenter just hours earlier. According to Amanda, he remembered rightly. In its heyday, the Amoskeag Corporation had been the largest textile company in the world employing, at one point, over 17,000 workers. The corporation had run the town and to Lewis’ left stood the remnants of the company housing where the Amoskeag had been able to recover in rents much of the measly wages it paid its immigrant workers.
It had always been the story of the South, with its plantations and slavery, that revulsed Lewis, but the North too had its story.
The Corvette was humming perfectly, and Lewis slammed it into second to slow, waited for a 1958 Dodge to pass, and then swung left and accelerated up Middle Street toward the Carpenter. After his quick trip with Paul to Easler’s and Floyd’s clothing stores, he had talked Pamela into accompanying him on a walk to Resnik Motors. He had carefully examined the Corvette in front of a suspicious sales clerk before paying the $2,995.00 in cash. He was surprised that no title was involved. From there they drove to a place called Riley’s Gun Shop in Hooksett, and then made the short drive to Concord to register the car.
As he approached the stop sign opposite the porticoed entrance to the Carpenter he slammed on his brakes and jerked the ‘Vette hard into a parking space. Pamela roused and sat up.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, brushing back her bangs.