Taft 2012 - Jason Heller [20]
I didn’t want to bother the guy, though—it’s a holiday.
• Location: Airport
NINE
Cincinnati wasn’t anything like he remembered. And it was exactly like he remembered.
What differed was the skyline. The buildings—so many more of them!—seemed like sad hulks pitted against the cosmos, crumbling guardians infested from within and taken for granted by their wards. In his day, Cincinnati was a city on its way up. New architecture, new commerce, new industry. It was clear, without having to consult any history book, that things had changed.
At the same time, the encroaching winter smelled and felt the same in his lungs and on his skin as it ever did. Rolling down the window of the automobile that carried them from the airport, he savored that familiar bouquet of frost and steam and industry, although, he had to admit, the air seemed cleaner than it had in his day. It stung his nose, but, more than that, it stung his memory.
“Rachel!” he said suddenly, rummaging around in one of his bags. “I’d completely forgotten. I know you must be in a rush to get home to your husband, as I am to meet him. But is there a chance we might make a stop along the way?” He produced an opened envelope from his luggage and handed it to her. “Can you please pass this up to the driver? The address is on it.”
“What is this?” she said, turning it over.
“Just an almost acquaintance, one whose actual making is long overdue.”
Rachel, thankfully, didn’t pester or question him the way Susan would have. She nodded and spoke to the driver, who pulled the car off the busy thoroughfare and was soon cutting through a series of slushy side streets. It had started snowing, and a light dusting of tiny flakes drifted through the air like angels.
Within minutes, they’d arrived. Taft asked for the envelope back from the driver, and he double-checked the address with the one on the building. This was it. Patterson Senior Village.
“Kowalczyk, do you mind waiting?” he said as he opened the door and stepped into the snow. “I assure you, there’s no one of dangerous intent in there.”
“I know,” the agent said. “I’ll come into the building anyway. But don’t worry, I’ll leave you to your private conversation. Oh, that reminds me—” He handed Taft one of those small, miraculous telephones everyone seemed to have permanently attached to their ears. “My number’s on speed dial. Here, let me show you. Just hit the number one if you ever need to call me, two for Susan, and three for Rachel. Sound good?”
Taft held the tiny device in his hand then slipped it into the pocket of his overcoat. It was thoughtful of Kowalczyk, but he certainly wouldn’t be needing it here. This telephone was a marvel of the future. He was here to speak to the past.
THE HALLS SMELLED like some sort of sickening mixture of medicine and candy. Come to think of it, the walls also imagined the color of such a mingling. Taft had had no problem getting past the front desk; he knew he’d already been added to the list of potential visitors, a fat, hopeful clipboard full of unchecked names that the clerk at the desk had referenced before calling an orderly to escort him to the room.
He passed open doorways that added a mild tang of urine and disinfectant to the already cloying odor. Taft felt a twinge somewhere in his midsection and wished suddenly that he hadn’t been nauseous on the aircraft.
Finally, they arrived at the door: Room 128. As the orderly knocked, announced the visitor, and turned the doorknob, Taft wondered at the notion of having one’s environment, one’s entire existence, reduced and restricted to one building, one room. He realized sadly that, during his time in office, he’d known that feeling all too well.
The door swung open. The air, thankfully, become sweeter, bearing a heady bouquet of rosewater. “Well, are you gonna stand out there all day?” The voice was ragged around the edges, but the woman to whom it belonged couldn’t have looked less so.
Ms. Irene O’Malley—or rather, Irene Kaye, as the widow had retained her long-departed husband