Lair of Dreams
“Now who’s the nihilist?”
Jericho waited until Sam had gone. Then he slid the newspaper out from under his book and opened it to the article on Evie. Over the past few months, he’d sent her two letters and composed at least two dozen more that he hadn’t sent. The letters were all the same: Dear Evie, I hope you’re doing well. I really enjoyed your radio show. The Bennington isn’t quite as interesting since you left. But he was fairly certain she could read between the lines: Dear Evie, I miss you. Do you ever think of me?
Together, he and Evie had lived through their own small war of a night. No one else truly understood the pure evil they’d faced in that house with John Hobbes. A few days later, as the morning light crept over the city, he’d kissed her for the first time. How often he relived that moment—the taste of Evie’s mouth, the feel of her body against his, the comfort of her arms around his back. It had been the best few hours of his life. And then it was over. Evie had come to his room that night, and all he wanted was to kiss her again. I can’t, she’d said quietly as she pushed his hands away. It’s no good. It’s Mabel, you know. She adores you. And she’s my dearest friend in this world. I can’t, Jericho. I’m sorry. She’d left him sitting in his room in the dark. But she’d never left his thoughts.
Jericho tore Evie’s picture neatly from the paper and slipped it into his pocket even though he’d promised himself he’d stop doing that.
“What a chump,” he said—a phrase he’d gotten from Evie. Then he closed the book and set about his work in the empty museum.
He couldn’t tell Jericho the real reason he needed to keep the museum alive. Two months ago, he’d asked his informant for a tip about Project Buffalo—a place to start. The contact had written down a name: William Fitzgerald. It had seemed like a joke. What could the professor of the world’s dullest museum know about a secret government project during the war that had taken Sam’s mother away from him? But it was the only lead he’d gotten in a very long time, and so even though it made him feel like an ungrateful heel, any chance he got he searched every drawer, cabinet, crevice, and corner of the place for clues that might lead him to the truth. So far, his search had yielded bupkes. He couldn’t let the museum be sold off until he’d found what he was looking for or proved that his contact had been wrong and that Will was in the clear. At times, he wasn’t sure which of those scenarios would be best.
Sam craned his neck, looking for signs of possible visitors. A mother pushing a carriage. A window washer packing up his supplies. Two men in dark suits waiting out the rain in their sedan. And one fellow in a Harvard letter sweater striding up Sixty-eighth Street.
Sam smirked. “Perfect,” he said under his breath. He bounded down the steps toward the fella, smiling and waving. “Buckwald? Buck Macy, is that you, you son of a gun?”
“I’m sorry. You must have me confused with someone else—”
Sam reached into the fella’s jacket, found his wallet, removed five dollars, and placed the wallet back inside, all in the space of six seconds.
“Nine, ten, eleven, twelve…” Sam counted. When Sam hit fifteen, the man came out of his hypnotic trance, blinking and befuddled. Not bad, Sam thought. Fifteen seconds was the longest he’d ever been able to put somebody under.
“Are you all right, pal?” Sam said, all concern. “You got a little woozy there.”
“Must’ve been that party last night at the Harvard Club,” the college boy said, still a little dazed.
“Well. It’s… I’m fine now. Yes,” the fella mumbled. “Thanks, old boy.”
“Anytime, old boy,” Sam parroted and sent the still-wobbly fella on his way. He kissed the five bucks he’d stolen and shoved it into his pocket.
“The Museum of the Creepy Crawlies thanks you for your generous donation, sir,” he said to himself, then hurried up the steps into the museum.
“Did you see that, Mr. Adams?” the driver of the sedan asked, breaking the silence in the car.