Reborn

4

Jim's palms were sweaty and his fingers trembled. It took him three tries at the combination before the tumblers clanked within the safe door.

Why am I making such a big deal of this?

He yanked the lever to the right and pulled the door open. He saw three shelves inside—two of them empty, the third nearly so.

"Looks like a crash dieter's refrigerator," he said.

He emptied the third shelf and brought everything to a nearby table. The entire contents of the safe consisted of four yearly journals, uniform with the others he had found, a small black-bound volume, and an oversize green book. The only other item was an unsealed legal-size manila envelope. Jim picked this up and found a few hundred dollars in tens and twenties within.

"Mad money," he said.

Carol had opened the big green book.

"Look at this."

Jim leaned over her shoulder. Inside the front cover was a faded black-and-white photo of a shirtless Hanley holding an infant, tiny enough to be a newborn, in his arms. It was dated Jan. 6, 1942.

"I'll bet that's me!" Jim said. "I must be that newborn!"

"Look at how hairy he is," Carol said. "Remind you of anyone?"

Jim smiled. "I wonder if he had hairy palms?"

Wonder filled him as he looked into Roderick Hanley's smiling face. A proud father if there ever was one. He turned the page and saw another photo of a brick-fronted garden apartment. He recognized it immediately.

"That's Harbor Terrace Gardens! We lived there till I was seven!"

There followed a few blurry, long-range photos of an unrecognizable child playing in front of the apartment complex, then a shocker. A class photo with an inscription in Hanley's now familiar hand: Kindergarten, 1947.

"That's my class! That's me at the end of the second row!"

Each page had a different class picture, even an occasional portrait shot.

Carol said, "Where did he get these? Do you think Jonah and Emma—?"

"No. I'm sure they didn't know anything about Hanley. It would be easy enough for him to go to the photographer and buy prints, don't you think?"

"Sure. I guess so." Carol sounded uneasy.

Jim looked at her. "What's wrong?"

"Well, don't you feel kind of creepy knowing he was secretly watching you all the time?"

"Not at all. Makes me feel good in a way. I mean, it tells me that although he'd let go of me physically, he hadn't let go emotionally. Don't you see? He lived most of his life in a Manhattan town house through 1942. Then he suddenly sold it and moved to Monroe. Now I know why—to watch me grow up."

Thinking about it gave Jim a warm feeling inside. He didn't raise me, but he never forgot about me, never completely abandoned me. He was always there, watching over me.

"Here we go," Carol said with a little laugh that sounded forced. "The Football Years."

There followed page after page of newspaper clippings. Anyplace his name was mentioned, even if it was simply a list of the players who had seen action in a game, Hanley had cut it out, underlined Jim's name, and pasted it into the scrapbook.

Jim was struck now by the irony of those football games. Jonah and Emma were in the stands for every game. In his mind's eye he saw himself turning on the bench and waving to his parents—all three of them—for right behind them sat Dr. Hanley, enthusiastically cheering Our Lady's Hawks—and one running back in particular—to victory.

Weird. And touching, in a way.

He wondered how Hanley had reacted to the injuries his son inflicted on the field. Did he cringe at the pain he saw, or did he hunger for more?

After football came photos cut from the Stony Brook yearbooks, and later on, even Monroe Express articles with the James Stevens byline.

"He was really some sort of completist, wasn't he?"

"Yeah. From reading his journals I feel I know him. He definitely wasn't the kind of guy to do anything halfway."

The doorbell rang.

Who the hell—?

Jim went to the window and looked down toward the front driveway. He recognized the rusty Beetle.

"Oh, no! It's Becker!"

"He's kind of late, isn't he?"

Then Jim remembered what Becker had been looking into and decided he'd better talk to him.

"Maybe he's learned something about Jazzy Cordeau."

He hurried downstairs with Carol close behind and pulled open the door as the bell rang a third time. Becker stood there on the front porch, grinning.

"What's up, Gerry?" Jim said.

Becker kept grinning as he stepped into the front hall.

"Still think Jazzy Cordeau might be your mother?"

"What did you find out?"

"This and that."

Jim felt his fists clench and his muscles tighten. He had wanted to be the one to uncover her identity before anybody else—especially before Gerry Becker! And now Becker was playing cute.

"What?"

"She was a hooker."

Jim heard Carol gasp beside him. His anger grew, fueled by Becker's taunting tone.

"Very funny."

"No. It's true. I have it on reliable authority—first from a Sergeant Kelly, N.Y.P.D., and later from an old pal of his who used to work vice—that she was midtown's finest piece of ass in the late thirties and on through the war. Except for a period of time right before the war when she dropped out of sight for almost a year. Some people say that in her final years, when she was shooting smack like I drink Pepsi, she talked about having a baby someplace, but no one ever saw the kid. The timing's right. Think that kid might be you, Stevens?"

Anger had ballooned into barely suppressed rage. Jim could see how much Becker was enjoying this. He forced himself to speak calmly.

"That's all you've got?"

"Nope. Got a picture of her when she was a stripper." He pulled a photo out of a manila envelope and handed it to Jim. "What do you say? Think this could be Mama?"

Jim stared at the photo of a shapely young woman in a rhinestone G-string. She was beautiful, but there was no way in the world she could be his mother. Because she was black—very black.

Becker guffawed. "Had you going there, didn't I? I really thought I'd tracked her down, and turns out she's as black as the ace of spades! Is that a riot or what?"

Something exploded in Jim. He shifted the photo to his left hand, cocked his right arm, and belted Becker in the face. His arms windmilling for balance, Becker stumbled backward out the door and landed flat on his back on the front porch. Blood began to drip from his nose as he looked up at Jim in shock.

"What—?"

"That's for being a malicious bastard!" Jim said through his clenched teeth.

"Can't you take a joke?"

"Not funny, jerk! Now get the hell out of here and don't come back!"

He slammed the door closed and turned to see Carol's shocked expression.

"Sorry," he said.

"It's okay," she said, slipping her arms around him. "That was a really rotten thing to do to you. But did you have to—"

"Hit him?" Jim shook his head. "No, I suppose not." He hadn't even enjoyed it. Maybe that was a good sign. "You know what they say."

"I know. 'Violence is the first resort of the mentally inferior party.' "

"I'd have to beg an exception to that rule."

"Granted," Carol said.

"I'd also like to beg a drink."

"Also granted."

Jim looked again at the photo of Jazzy Cordeau's slim, sensuous black body and seductive smile.

"Sheesh! Make it a double!"