That made sense, he thought. If she was this legendary collector, who had remained anonymous, she would have needed help. She would have needed people to deliver messages, to watch her back, and to make payments. Henry didn’t know what it took to be a world class stolen art collector, but he was sure it wasn’t a one woman job.
For a moment there was slightest glimmer of hope. Maybe a lieutenant had knocked off Mickey? He started to rerun the imaginary conversation again, this time, with a plausible explanation. She didn’t order the hit, it was his decision, and she didn’t approve. He would ask her why she didn’t tell him the truth. The glimmer of hope died, when he realized that there still wasn’t an answer he could accept.
Henry went to bed and slept for almost two hours, until a loud bang, from his basement, woke him up.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Henry was startled and couldn’t imagine what had just exploded. He grabbed the baseball bat in the corner and made his way through his house, turning on one light at a time. On the basement stairs, with his mind a bit clearer, realized it must be the closet. There wasn’t anyone downstairs so he opened the door and lying on the floor was a New York Times.
The date October 16, 1988; thirty-three and one half years from where Henry stood, and he knew it must have a clue. His closet, with its gift from the future, seemed to give him the little extra nudge in the right direction, whenever he needed it. Henry had suspected that the newspapers left this week had been put there from the near future, but he had found them too late. He had been bothered by this, blaming himself for missing a chance to save Mickey.
Henry took the paper upstairs, dropped it on the table, and started a pot of coffee. He had spent enough hours thinking about the how and why of his closet, without coming up with any ideas, that he took it all in stride. He looked at the front page and read a few articles. This was almost as cool as the machine which played movies in color. Reading about the future was exciting, but he couldn’t indulge his desire to think about all the strange things advertised and written about. This paper contains a clue, something which will point him in the right direction and help with the next move.
Henry didn’t expect a huge headline from 1988, screaming ‘Henry Wood Saves Day’ with an article describing what he had done in 1955. It would be subtle. He read a few more articles and nothing. The coffee was finished brewing, so he poured himself a cup, added sugar and cream and sat back down. Out of habit he pulled out the sports section. What he saw next shook him to the core.
He just stared at it. The headline almost stopped his heart. It wasn’t the clue, it was something much worse. Everything he should be thinking about seemed to be nothing but a din of background noise. He read the article, twice, and just didn’t understand. It appears that the night before, in front of 55,983 people, in California, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the first game of the World Series against somebody called the Oakland Athletics, 5-4. His love of baseball and the Dodgers made this the most horrible revelation he could imagine. How could they leave?
The coffee was good. Henry had a hard time getting back to the paper, he wondered if he would live long enough to find out who wins game two and the series. If he did make it to October 1988, he would have to remember to put a few bucks on game one. That made him smile, but only a little. The worst part was living with the specter of their move hanging over his head. He would go to more games this year, just in case. He assumed it didn’t happen for at least 20 or 30 years though, they were just too loved right now, to leave anytime soon. The cup was empty, but he wasn’t up in the middle of the night, to think about baseball. He needed a second cup.
After another 20 minutes of reading he came to an article about the tearing down of a building in the Bowery. This was it. He didn’t know the relevance, but the description in the article sounded like it was one of Randy’s hiding places. The article talked about how the clever hiding place looked like it had been created and then gone unnoticed by every tenant since. If they hadn’t been tearing down walls, it might have never been discovered.
Henry decided he was up now. He got in the shower to get ready for the day.
At his apartment in the city, his phone rang again. It was the third call he had missed.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
It was not what Katarina expected. They sat in leather chairs in a large space. In front of them was a table, with a pitcher of water, and a couple of glasses. On the other side of the table sat a gentleman with a white beard, drinking a glass of wine. The floor was concrete, but had a nice Oriental rug on it. There were very bright lights surrounding them. The lights were to overpowering to see the walls. Katarina sensed there were people, beyond the lights, but couldn't tell how many.