What Time Devours (8 page)

“Right,” she said, and there it was again, that slightly sardonic skepticism in her long face and thin, wide mouth.

“What?” said Thomas. “Have you spoken to him already?”

“No,” she said. “In fact, we’ve no idea where he is.”

“Did you call Vernon Fredericks Literary?” said Thomas, nodding at the business card.

“Yes,” she said, and she smiled at last, a humorless, knowing smile that left her eyes hard and fixed.

“And?”

“Well, it’s interesting,” she said.

“How so?” said Thomas. He was beginning to feel toyed with.

“They’ve never heard of him,” she said.

“What?”

“He doesn’t work there. Never did. And nobody with the name of David Escolme has been registered at this hotel. Ever. See,” she added, smiling again, “that’s why it’s interesting.”

CHAPTER 13

It was like walking into a room and finding yourself on the ceiling.

“No,” he said for the third time. “Escolme. E-S-C-O-L-M-E. First name, David. He was here last night in room 304.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said the concierge, “but he wasn’t. There’s no one of that name in the system.”

“I was in there with him,” Thomas insisted.

“He wasn’t registered in that room.”

“But when I called this morning I was told he had checked out,” said Thomas.

“If that was, in fact, what you were told,” said the concierge with a look at Polinski, “the desk clerk made a mistake. I suspect that all she actually said was that he wasn’t registered and you assumed she meant he had checked out. We’re pretty careful about keeping guest information private around here.”

Thomas knew the woman was probably right, but he couldn’t let it go.

“Right,” he said, marching away and calling to Polinski over his shoulder. “Come with me.”

The policewoman said nothing as he led her into the elevator and hit the button for the third floor. She remained silent when they got off and made their way down the hallway to room 304, where Thomas rapped incisively on the door.

They heard movement almost immediately, and Thomas turned his stare on Polinski, as if certain he was about to be proved right.

He wasn’t. The door opened slowly and a woman in her seventies peered anxiously into the hallway.

“I’m looking for David Escolme,” Thomas snapped.

“Who?” the woman said, through the crack. She looked alarmed, and though Thomas couldn’t do anything about it, he knew it was his manner that was bothering her.

“David Escolme,” he barked. “Medium height, midtwenties . . .”

The woman was shaking her head.

“When did you check into this room?” Thomas tried.

“This morning,” she said.

“That’s enough,” said Polinski. “We’re sorry to have bothered you, ma’am.”

She took Thomas by the arm and began to propel him down the hallway. He shrugged out of her grasp with a splutter of irritation, but the old woman was already closing the door.

Thomas fumed silently as the elevator descended, and when he felt Polinski’s eyes on him, he turned on her.

“You think I made it up?” he spat. “What kind of lunatic would come up with a story like this? He was here, Goddamn it. Right there in that room. I could describe the pictures on the walls, the color of the drapes, anything to show I was in there last night.”

“You know that those kinds of details would prove nothing,” said Polinski. “You could have been in there anytime.”

“Why would I make this up?” he demanded as the doors opened. “Obviously it doesn’t get me off the hook as far as Blackstone is concerned. If anything, it just puts me in the frame more.
I
came to you about Escolme, remember?”

The two of them stood there, staring at each other, until they became aware of a woman, preposterously dressed in mink, with a bellhop waiting at her elbow. They walked out.

“Come here,” said Thomas, leading her back to the concierge’s desk. She followed a couple of steps behind as Thomas tapped the computer screen.

“Is this hooked up to the Internet?” he demanded.

“Sure,” said the concierge, with another look at Polinski.

“Can I just . . .”, Thomas began, moving around the desk and inserting himself into the concierge’s chair. He felt the other two looking at each other, but he didn’t care. He Googled VFL and pulled up their home page.

“See,” he said, “look at the New York office.”

“What?” said Polinski, now at his shoulder.

“The list of agents . . . ,” Thomas began.

But there was no list of agents. And as he clicked hurriedly on the other branches, none of them listed their agents.

“His name was right here,” he said. “He had his own page.”

There it was again, that sense of walking on the ceiling: chandeliers where coffee tables should be, all the doors upside down. It made no sense.

“Can I use your phone?” said Polinski.

“Knock yourself out,” said the concierge, who was watching all this like she’d stumbled into a sideshow.

Thomas typed Escolme’s name into the search engine.

“There!” he said, triumphant. “David Escolme, Vernon Fredericks Literary.” He clicked on the link.

The computer hesitated, then loaded the page. It was instantly clear that this was not what Thomas had consulted before. At first he thought it was a weather site, but then realized that the weather map was merely filling space. The key piece of information was underneath it:

“Site unoccupied. If you are interested in purchasing this domain name . . .”

Beside him, Polinski was giving Escolme’s name to another switchboard operator. After a moment she said, “So it’s not company policy to post any information on agents? And this has not changed over the last few days?” There was a pause and she nodded and then said, “No, that’s fine. Thanks.”

She hung up.

“This is crazy,” said Thomas. “The page was right here.”

“Look at the URL,” said Polinski. “It’s not part of the VFL site. If there was a page for Escolme here, someone just copied the style of the agency, placed some links to it from their own page and posted it through some other provider. And there’s something else. We ran Escolme’s New York address.”

“And?”

“Seems he moved out. No forwarding.”

Thomas felt outmaneuvered. Nothing made him angrier.

“And you were planning to mention that, when?”

“I wasn’t.” She shrugged. “Because I’m the cop and you . . .”

“Aren’t,” he concluded for her. “So now what?”

“I’m going to talk to the concierge some more—privately—find out who was registered to room 304.”

“Meaning I should leave.”

“I expect you’ll be hearing from me soon,” said Polinski.

“Is this one of those ‘don’t leave town’ warnings?” said Thomas.

“It would be helpful if you made yourself available for further inquiry,” she said.

Thomas smiled.

“Of course,” he said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to finish my beer.”

But he didn’t go straight to the bar. He swung by the Shakespeare Conference’s notice board, snatched a lime-green flyer for a staged reading of some obscure Middleton play off an adjacent table, and scribbled on the back of it: “David Escolme (in case you’re skulking around here, masquerading as a Shakespearean). Re
LLW
or anything else. Don’t call me again. Ever. TK.”

With two furious slashes he underlined the
Ever
, took a thumbtack from the corkboard, and punched it through the paper with such force that the backing cracked. A heavy woman who had been peering at the board flashed him a look of alarm and backed hurriedly away.

Thomas walked back to the Coq d’Or, his head low and bullish.

CHAPTER 14

“Where’s my beer?” he said to the startled barkeep. “I was sitting there. I had to step outside for a minute and . . .”

“I’m sorry, sir, I just dumped it. Thought you were gone.”

“Well, I’m back,” he said. “And I’m thirsty, and I’m a teacher, which means I can’t afford to take two sips of a six-dollar beer and then throw it away.”

He was still hissing mad, and knowing that he was taking it out on the bartender didn’t make him feel any better.

“Let me get you another,” said the bartender. “It was one of the Goose Islands, right?”

“The Honker’s Ale,” Thomas nodded.

“I’m partial to the Wheatmiser, myself,” said the bartender.

“Maybe I’ll try that next,” said Thomas.

“It’s got a punch,” said the bartender.

“So do I,” said Thomas.

“I see that.” The barman grinned.

“Sorry,” said Thomas. “Strange day.”

“They all are,” said the bartender, putting the freshly poured beer in front of him. “Enjoy.”

“Cheers,” said Thomas, sipping and savoring. “Good. You know anything about champagne?”

“Some,” said the bartender. “Our selection’s limited, though. What did you have in mind?”

“Ever heard of Saint Evremond Reims?”

“Reims is a town in France, in the Champagne region, specifically,” said the bartender, pleased to have the answer, or part of it. “You know the French don’t think that anything from outside that region can be called champagne? If it’s from California, it’s just sparkling wine.”

“What about Saint Evremond?”

“Probably the house, like Moët or Krug, you know? But I’ve never heard of it. Maybe they produce primarily for the French home market, like Mercier.”

“Thanks,” said Thomas, impressed.

“We even now?”

“The moment you poured my replacement pint,” Thomas grinned.

“Never get between a Shakespearean and his beer,” said a voice to his left.

Thomas turned. It was a woman, slight, professional looking in a brown pantsuit. Her hair was a straight chestnut tied back in a disarmingly girlish ponytail, but her eyes were cool and mature. She was probably in her midthirties, but the smirk, like the ponytail, took a decade off her. She looked attractive. And familiar.

“Actually, I’m a civilian,” he said.

“I thought you said you were a teacher,” she said.

“High school,” he said.

“Oh,” she said. “I’d say something encouraging about your attending the conference, but that would be patronizing, wouldn’t it?”

“Probably,” he said. “And I’m not actually attending the conference.”

“Your lapel badge would suggest otherwise, Thomas,” she said.

“Oh,” he said. “Yes. I was just stopping by.”

“Hear any interesting papers?” she said, then caught herself. “Wait. Don’t answer that. You walked out during questions after mine, so don’t be
too
honest.”

He smiled, recognizing her.

“A bit over my head,” he said. “I’m sure it was very smart.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Coin of the realm here, isn’t it? Smart, I mean.”

“That’s the official story,” she said, flashing that slightly impish grin. “We’re all incredibly clever and saying deeply insightful things, and if you don’t understand them, then you obviously aren’t clever or insightful and don’t really belong. It’s a bit like the Emperor’s New Clothes.”

“I remember,” said Thomas, adding, “I was a graduate student for a while.”

“In Shakespeare?” she said. “Where?”

“Boston University.”

“Who did you work with?”

“Dagenhart,” said Thomas.

“My God, did you really?” she said, clearly delighted. “Randy Randall Dagenhart! He’s here, you know.”

“Yes, I saw him.”

“Used to be a terror to virginal graduate students everywhere.”

“The way I remember it, that’s a pretty small constituency,” said Thomas.

“True,” she said. She looked at him directly as if concluding an assessment, one he passed. “I’m Julia McBride,” she said. “Jules to my friends or what passes for them in academia.”

“Thomas Knight,” he said, shaking her hand.

“Pleased to meet you, Thomas,” she said, toasting him with a cream-colored cocktail in a stainless steel martini glass. “I shouldn’t make fun of Randall. He’s had his share of hardships, after all.”

“I don’t know much about him.”

“Oh, you know, the usual. Bad marriage. Or went bad. So he became a bit of a hound, I’m afraid. For a while.”

“Then what?”

“Not sure. His wife got sick. Something serious and debilitating. A stroke, maybe. He had to look after her. I don’t think she was disposed to be very appreciative. Anyway . . . He’s in a session on early comedy tomorrow,” she remarked. “You going to go?”

Thomas shrugged. He had not thought that far.

“It’s reputed to be little more than a commercial for the seminar he’s running at the institute in Stratford next week,” she said. “There’s a special mini conference over there, since it’s an off year for the ISC, and all the rules are different.”

“The ISC?”

“Sorry. International Shakespeare Conference. Meets every two years. Invitation only. The word is that if you miss twice without a damned good reason, you get stricken from the list. But this thing is different. Smaller. A little less intense. They are even allowing graduate students to present, if you can imagine that. All the old-school textual critics have been recruited. I’m using it as an excuse to get over to the U.K. and see some shows, but I probably won’t attend a lot of the sessions. Not really my speed. At least we won’t have to deal with the Oxfordians there.”

“Oxfordians?”

“Those lunatics who claim the Earl of Oxford wrote the plays, and Shakespeare—for reasons passing human understanding—took the money and the credit. Bonkers, of course. Stratford is the one place those people avoid.” She turned to the barman and raised her empty glass. “Same again, please.”

“What is that?”

“They call it a Drake Chocolate Kiss,” she said, with a playful grin. “Sorry you asked now, aren’t you? You can have a taste if you like.”