After a few minutes of retching and vile cursing in three languages, two cups of mint tea from Miss Rochester-Winthrop’s Dresden-blue retirement gift teapot and a check to cover the damages to 38 petunias and a tulip patch, Dr. Limpstead, er, limped back to his Georgian cottage to furiously recalculate the programming vectors of the ChronoMaster FlexTron9000. He worked all through the night, slept on his laptop stand and recalibrated the entire software package by Wednesday afternoon. If it was Wednesday.
The second time traveler in history, the same Dr. Burgonius Limpstead V, flipped the switch of his ChronoMaster Flextron9001 and plunged into a hurricane of sound, agony and blinding flashes of light, suddenly appearing almost 46 feet above a grassy plain that would be New Bedford in about 200 years or so, give or take a decade or two. The semi-automatic “dead man switch” flipped Dr. Limpstead, who was struggling to regain the breath the fall knocked out of him, into a chaos of deafening shrieks, bone-searing agony and blinding daggers of light until he plopped unconsciously into Miss Rochester- Winthrop’s newly-seeded tulip patch, plowing into it at roughly 11 miles an hour and turning said patch into a foxhole.
After almost an hour of empty retching and full-body cramps, two cups of chamomile tea and a few lady fingers, plus a check for landscaping what was left of Miss Rochester-Winthrop’s garden, Dr. Limpstead called a cab to drive him home, and after pointedly ignoring the look of Middle Eastern stupefaction he received for the ride, fare and miserly tip, Dr. Limpstead began furiously recalculating the programming of the ChronoMaster FlexTron9001. He worked all through the weekend, slept on both his laptop stand and denim-covered ottoman and recalibrated the entire software package and hardware components by Thursday morning. If it was Thursday.
Digital cameras on 17-second delay were sent out to become time-traveling devices 1, 2, 3, 4 (came back soaked and useless), 5, 6 (which took 163 pictures of what looked like oil in water, with human ears scattered in precise Cartesian patterns), 7, 8 and finally 9, which showed New Bedford circa1851. All nine cameras reappeared in Miss Rochester-Winthrop’s garden, causing the merry spinster to drop the idea of a petunia and tulip garden and use the money the nice Dr. Limpstead kept paying her to pave over the whole area and open an outdoor café.
Finally, the third time traveler in history, Dr. Burgonius Limpstead V, flipped the switch on the ChronoMasterFlexTron10000 and plunged into a warm current of soft pastels, music of the spheres and a slight tingling sensation along his fingertips. He landed gently in a shadowy alley along the east side of the New Bedford square. As expected, a small gentleman of swarthy moustache and prosperous dress was walking west, his walking stick swinging along lightly. Dr. Limpstead gave him a stupendous punch in the mouth, knocking the stunned gentleman onto his fundament. “Don’t name the boy 'Burgonius’, damn it!” he roared.
Dr. Limpstead flipped the “Return” switch and floated back amidst cool pastels, tinkling bells and a mild buzz along the knees, gliding softly into Miss Rochester-Winthrop’s Tea Tulip Café. The merry spinster smiled. “Why, David, how nice to see you again.”
The next day, Dr. David Limpstead developed a marvelous new handheld GPS console with the uncanny ability of locating flower shops.
NINETEEN SECONDS
Nineteen seconds…
A lifetime… in nineteen seconds…
Harry London slammed chest-first into the rubble, his helmet flipping up and banging against a chunk of concrete as ragged as a scream. Heavy machine-gun bullets chewed the air and dirt around him as he struggled to merge his flesh with the cover he so desperately had run to.
Across the charred and mangled street, strewn with several bodies in uniform and gray tweeds, Gunther Meis swung his heavy Vickers machine-gun in a deadly spray, trying to catch up to the British soldier racing desperately across the clearing to leap for cover. The Vickers was unwieldy, the narrow tripod legs slipping on the dusty floor inside the crumbled building that once housed a druggist and his medicines. Gunther cursed as the soldier skidded behind a concrete slab, the bullets spanging to fly off in unknown directions. He stopped firing to scan the street again, and the empty windows of the few remaining houses across the way. He checked the belt and grunted, satisfied he had ammo to fire a full minute’s burst if he cared to. He shifted his weight, peered quickly over the parapet and ducked as a bullet whinged off to his left.
Harry curled up, holding his helmet steady. The strap was broken. He breathed a sigh of relief as the bullets stopped. Rolling slightly left, he peeked at the machine-gun’s nest and saw the German soldier adjusting the gun’s position. Harry quickly sighted his rifle above the parapet and stopped breathing, heart pounding like a drum in his chest. Suddenly, the German raised his head and Harry pulled the trigger. The bullet went high and Harry cursed, rolling fast to his right to avoid the onslaught of bullets he knew was coming. He twitched a grenade from his vest, pulled the pin and held the explosive in his hand, silently counting One… Two…
Gunther turned his head away to avoid the dust coming off the wall and lunged back to pull the Vickers’ trigger. Bullets tore at the edge of the concrete slab, reducing it by chunks and cracks from vertical ledge to air. Gunther roared as the Vickers fired, slamming the gun to the left to rip at the top of the slab, then down, hoping to bounce the heavy bullets into the enemy. He saw a green-gray object fly up from behind the slab, arcing its way across the dead street towards him, and without thought, yanked the gun up and to the left to intercept the grenade--the grenade!--his roar becoming a mad shriek of rage.
Three… Four… Bullets shredded concrete to dust behind him, then walked like heavy rain across the slab to tear it above his head. The bullets then dropped to smash brutally into the slab’s lower edge and pieces of cement peppered Harry’s backs and legs. The slab was no cover there! Five… He threw the grenade in a stiff-armed toss, just like he was taught in Bingham, the thick-bodied metal apple curving up and away. Harry imagined it was flying straight and true, aimed with deadly precision at the machine gunner. He heard the bullets rise, then rise again as the hammering they caused became buzzing until suddenly a shriek of rage became--
An explosion. The grenade blew up as Gunther’s aim crossed its path. The shriek of rage rose to become…
Harry acted without thought, rolling to his feet as the explosion shredded the air everywhere, tucking his rifle and leaping to his feet, his mouth erupting into a shriek of rage that joined the German’s shriek…
Gunther saw the British soldier rise like a spectre, like a demon, from the blast’s cloud, rifle at the ready, shrieking just as he was…
Harry saw the German, heard him shrieking and pulled the trigger…
The shriek ended as the bullets tore through Gunther’s head and neck.
Nineteen seconds… A lifetime. In nineteen seconds.
LOOKING GOOD
The body flopped down the embankment, drawing a curse from the aged forensic doctor who hated the rain, the cold, his job and his peacefully-sleeping wife, in that order. Snapping off another swear word, he dragged his case carefully down the slick slope, muttering as water and mud found gaps in his clothing to savage his cringing skin.
Latham trudged across the soggy field, eyes darting across his path for any potential clue. He stepped up to the body, partially obscured by Dr. Jameson who was quickly dictating his observations in a tiny recorder.
"Can you estimate time of death, Hank?"
The recorder switched off. "For him or for me?" The doctor stood up, grunting at the effort. "For him, maybe six, maybe as much as ten hours ago. Could be twelve. For me, maybe a week or two, unless Helen's ass of a mother doesn't leave town."
Latham chuckled or grunted, then nodded. "Bit of a Beau Brummel, wasn't he?"
Dr. Jameson started. "Huh? What? I haven't heard that name in years! Where'd you pick it up?"
Latham smiled. "Old movies. Really old movies. From your time." The doctor snorted and bent over to look at the body again.
; "Yes. Definitely a dandy. Hand-made shirt, tailored suit. That's a real silk tie now shot to hell. Expensive fabric in that suit. Most likely London. And those shoes are hand-stitched or my name isn't Henry Horatio."
Latham started to say something and Hank stared it away. Bluntly: "Aren't you...?"
Latham grunted agreement. "Suspended. Again. The usual." Latham stared at the shoes, long enough for Dr. Jameson to change his gaze from Latham to the dead man's shoes...and back.
"Shot in the back of the head?"
The doctor nodded. "Small caliber, maybe a .32." The bullet's still in there, probably in a million pieces. I'll know in a few hours."
Latham grunted, then looked up, as if cleansing his face in the dull rain. "He had enemies all over the place. Lots of suspects."
Dr. Jameson coughed and spat. "Loomis had a finger in practically every filthy pie in town. And his hand was in political pockets all over the place. You could throw a rock anywhere in town and hit two people who hated his guts."
A long silence. "He never went anywhere without his goons. His bodyguards. Where are they?" "On a plane to Mexico or Brazil if they want to see their next birthday." Dr. Jameson looked down. "You know, it's going to be hell tracing his movements to figure out what happened to him." Latham shook his head. "That part's already cinched," he said softly. "Only three, maybe four places he could have been just before or when he got shot."
"You know this?" Dr. Jameson knew Latham's rep, but this was still a bit of a surprise. Latham pointed at the dead man's feet, so he bent over to take another look. He got up in a few seconds, crankier than before. "What about the shoes?"
Drawing a note pad from his jacket pocket, Latham shielded it as he wrote quickly. "Take a look at the laces, Henry Horatio." He wrote faster.
The doctor looked. "One of them's broken and tied together."
Latham tore off the page from the pad. "Here, give this to the Captain. I'm going someplace dry." Dr. Jameson read the note. Latham said, "Yeah, there's very few places Loomis could go to in town and find shoelaces worthy of hand-stitched shoes. At night."
FOUR MORE WORDS
“Would you like a refill?”
I’d forgotten where I was. When I looked up, the waitress was a different one. Finally. After the long wait, I was nervous. “Uh, yes. Please.” I didn’t really want the coffee. I think she knew that. In fact, I know she did.
She filled the cup with steamy ink and walked away, her stride slow and steady. I thought about her face, the near-smile it showed when she offered me the coffee, the deep blue of her eyes like a summer lake. I put too much sugar in the ink and had run out of cream, so I drank slowly, barely tasting the darkish brew.
She returned. I saw tiny lines around her eyes and a redness in them that I hadn’t noticed before, a tightness around her mouth that spoke of things best left unsaid, a kind of heaviness in her walk that seemed new. “Been here long?” she asked, her voice low in the pre-dawn softness.
I nodded, my eyes on the table. “Very much so.” I felt her smooth her apron with her hands, her body shifting to face me. I looked up, searching for kind eyes. “My girl just….left...”
The waitress, her badge saying “Virginia,” pressed her lips together, but didn’t say anything. The door opened, its tinkling bell shattering the mood. “I have to take that,” she said. “I’ll be right back.” The coffee still steamed, but it made no difference to me. I thought of the one who’d left me, choosing her own path to security over life with a freelance writer. And maybe choosing the new vice-president of her daddy’s firm over me. She talked about it enough, God knows. I should have believed her. I felt the deep smash of loss in my gut, again. I had chosen her--or perhaps she had chosen me--but in any case, I had a relationship where I thought I could make her happy and would make me happy, And I’d been wrong. On both counts. And the pain in me just grew.
“Have you eaten anything?” I shook my head. “How about some eggs over easy and toast?” I glanced up, nodded and as I was about to say something, Virginia walked away.
She came back in a couple of minutes with my second breakfast of the short day and I thanked her. She sighed a “You’re welcome,” then looked around the near-empty café. “So why did she leave you? Do you really know?” Her hands clutched at the apron.
I forked eggs into my mouth to give me time. The first answers that tumbled through my mind seemed trivial, beside the point, wrong. An honest answer came to me. “I didn’t make her happy.” I sipped some coffee and found some more truth. “And she didn’t believe in me.”
Her eyes darkened, a distant storm on warm seas. “Did she want you to make her happy?”
I started. That made me look up into a face filled with the sadness of understanding. “I...don't know,” I mumbled, “I hadn’t thought of that.” The new thought opened a floodgate of feelings that grew and grew. Virginia looked behind her and saw the counter was empty. My words now tumbled out. “I thought I was supposed to make her happy. And that doing so would make her believe in me. Because I love her and I need for her to believe in me.”
There were tears in Virginia’s eyes, tears from a pain that recognizes itself in another heart. “I’m sorry,” she said softly, her voice breaking. “Maybe--maybe it will work out.” Seeing her, it was all I could do to keep from crying.
“How will I know? When?” My voice seemed so small, so… hurt. So…lost.
Virginia quickly wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. “I have to go now. People are waiting.” She turned and practically fled to the counter, her body stiff and tight.
I finished my cold meal and when I asked for the check, the beefy cook dropped it on my table. Instead of numbers, there were five handwritten words on it. One was “Paid.”
The others were Yes. I believe. And the lovely signature: Ginny.
I dashed out to find a jewelry store.
REFLEX ACTIONS
“Randall, old man, did I ever tell you about the time my penchant for badminton caused a bloody war in the Karachi?… Well I don’t remember doing that so I’ll tell you now. No, sit down, this is something you need to hear. Of course I’ve had dinner, my boy, I always have dinner before my goblets of port. Where was I? Oh! The Karachi. You’ve been there, haven’t you, old bean?… Well, why not? Young man like you could benefit from the experience of roughing it and facing the natives and all that. Breeds confidence and wisdom, I always say. Great for the leaders to have that kind of adventure under their belts, instead of pissing it away in classrooms and rowing parties along the Thames. Yes, I said 'pissing', Cranston and if you don’t like it you can call my solicitor and tell him he’s going to have to defend me for aggravated assault because I will knock you into next week if you ever upbraid me again on the Rules of this Club. I founded this Club and wrote the Rules myself, so next time leave me and my pissing alone. Randall! Randall. Sit down, old boy, sit down. You haven’t heard about the Karachi. What do you mean by ’again’? I was just getting started when Cranston here let his tongue get ahead of his walnut-sized brain once again. Huh. Very well. I went to the Karachi in the spring of aught-8, just after Jumen Ab-Gali became the head tribal chieftain in the mountain regions. Plenty of mountains there in Karachi so Ab-Gali was commanding a respectable chunk of the land. I went there to serve as civil adjutant to Colonel Henry Wigginham, who later went on to become the Under-Secretary of the Exchequer back when the Prime Minister went cock-a-whoop in the head and gave the Tories free rein.
Shut up, Cranston. If I say the P.M. went cock-a-whoop then the bloody P.M. went bloody cock-a-whoop. Go chase a maid or whatever you do in your pajamas. Randall! Close that window! We don’t need fresh air in the Club. At least not since Old Morrisey left this mortal coil to pass gas upwind of St. Peter. Now I said I was in Karachi to help Wigginham keep a civil tone there when my second month in I was invited to play badminton at the Ab-Gali camp. Some bloke named Churchill had introduced the game to the colonials there and for some twiggy idea it had caug
ht on with the natives. Now I was already known in several counties and not a few continental provinces as a mean badminton player, deft of hand, keen of eye and with the balance of a ballet dancer, so the invitation was right up my alley. Cranston, quit mumbling. I’m still keen of ear. I had my cedar-willow blend racket in my trunk and two fine birdies made of pheasant feathers which I thought I’d never get to use in Karachi. I went with Wigginham and several of the officers over to Ab-Gali’s camp, riding some horses that reminded me of the pickpockets down in Durston. Yes, Cranston, I’m very aware you’re from Durston. How did you make your money, again? Shut up. That was a rhetorical question. We arrived at the Ab-Gali camp and I’d never seen a greater collection of thugs, thieves, scalawags and bloody-minded pirates since the last time I’d sat in the House of Lords. By god these men looked mean enough to take on Satan’s minions and beat them to a bloody pulp. Sure enough, several of them were holding crude rackets and were grinning like fiends when I was presented as the challenger representing the entire British Empire. Somebody had to, Cranston, since you were filching pennies from old ladies and starving orphans. They had cleared a space and placed some ragged canvas between two poles to serve as net, a bit higher than regulation, but when I tried to point this out to them, they laughed and jeered. Well, by Jove, for King and Country! Time to play! On the very first point, I smacked a cheeky kill shot into the corner and the jeers became oohs of admiration. Well deserved, I assure you. But in the middle of the second point, something flew at my head and as I turned to see what it was, I unthinkingly smashed it away, breaking my racket. It was a rock. Bloody thing flew straight at Ab-Gali’s feet, hit a grenade there and exploded! It was so, Cranston! My superb reflexes ended up turning their cheating into a reason for war. Now that‘s the story, Randall, and you must excuse me for I’m going over there to throw Cranston’s bloody hairpiece into the fire. With him still under it.”