Time and Again(53)

The phone rang again. A thick accent, speaking too quickly for Patrick to understand, was shouting at him.

“Who is this, and what do you want?”

“We want what is ours,” the voice said more clearly. Then the line clicked off.

Patrick sat down. This was upsetting. In all his years, he had never had one of his deals go south. Too much was getting out of control. Patrick didn’t like this at all. How in the hell has anyone gotten this number? he thought. He spent a few minutes trying to figure out how many times he had given it out. Six times, all to people he trusted. He stopped packing. He could send for the stuff later. Patrick put on his collar and headed off to the church. Paranoia began its assault on his calm.



***

Celine had the office open, and Henry noticed a new plant.

“That is a nice touch. What kind is it?”

“It is the green kind.”

“You don’t know?”

“I liked the shape of the leaves and thought it would look good in the corner, which it does. I have named it 'Betty.' She is a friendly plant.”

“Is she?”

“Yes, in fact, I believe she will be an excellent guard plant.”

Henry sensing that this could go on for a while, said, “Any messages?”

“Yes, the professor is on his way, as is Mike. Bobby called too; he is very excited. He found something out, but was talking too quickly for me to understand what. I imagine he may have had a stroke, so I don’t expect we will see him. I hope not, but he was pretty wound up.”

“He will be fine. It’s his way.”

Henry grabbed a cup of coffee. He placed a call to update Dr. Schafer, who was pleased to hear from him. Then he dug out Mickey’s notebook and recopied the pages he had given the captain, in his own notebook. It was still troubling Henry that he couldn’t decipher Mickey’s code.

The phone rang and Celine answered it. Henry was pleased with his hire. He heard her answering a few questions; it was obviously a wife looking to catch her husband. She told her they were booked, but could set up an appointment for next week.

He turned back to his deciphering and noticed the words seemed to have fewer vowels than he would have expected. He remembered a time, when they were both drunk. Mickey had made a toast, “To words with no vowels.” Henry thought it was one of the funniest things he had ever heard. Now there were a bunch of words without vowels, but they weren’t really words at all. Henry counted the number of letters in each group, but that didn’t get him anywhere. Maybe each letter equaled a numeric, he thought to himself.

Henry wasn’t sure, but his gut told him he was on the right track. The phone rang again. He ignored it until Celine said, “Mr. Wood, a woman named Luna, for you.”

“Hey Luna, how are you feeling today?”

She laughed. “I took the day off from the bakery. I am feeling a little rough.”

“Me too, but I owe Mickey, so I drug myself out of bed.”

A heavy sigh came, then, “I feel just terrible about Mickey, even though I never met him. After hearing the stories last night, I know I would have liked him a lot.”

“You did a good job with the wake. Mickey would have loved it. I like to think he was watching.”

“So you made it home all right…er…obviously, I guess.”

Henry sensed the question not being asked, but didn’t want to discuss it. “Yes.”

“Good, well, I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I will let you get back to work. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Thanks Luna, you are a good friend.”

The sound of Bobby coming was unmistakable. The decoding would have to wait.





Chapter Forty-Four



Bobby shut the door, louder than he intended. "Sorry." He opened it up again, peeked through at Celine, then whispered, "Sorry, I didn't mean to slam the door."

Celine giggled.

"Henry, I have a friend, well, really more of an acquaintance. He lives in London, drinks too much, but he's really smart. He used to work for a guy who was some professor at Oxford. You know, tweed suits, proper accent, snooty attitude.... Well, I met the professor once. It was a few years ago…” He took a breath and looked up at the ceiling. “…no, I think it has been almost ten years ago...wait, it was before the war. It was a long time ago. I didn’t think he would remember me, so I called Norton. Norton is my friend, well, acquaintance. I like him well enough; I suppose we could be friends. It is hard though, him living in London and all.”

Henry listened. Bobby seemed to be on a roll, and disrupting his runaway train of thought could be dangerous. It wasn’t worth the risk.