The Prince and the Pretender, page 19
After Tom and Dicky’s visit Mrs. Lindenhurst had rung her bell to summon Olga from the kitchen and announced, “Mr. Eric will be here tomorrow. Please tell John to get his room ready and make sure we have everything we need in the kitchen. And liquor, Olga, tell John to check the liquor. Mr. Eric does like his cocktail although I’ve always thought he drank a bit too much.”
Olga had run in search of her husband to report this latest development. “Should we call Mr. Goodwin?”
John gave the question a moment’s thought. “Don’t see that it’s anything different than what we heard from her before.”
Olga straightened her back. “You don’t? Before she was dreaming, now she expects the dream to come true. Tomorrow. What’ll happen tomorrow?”
“Nothing,” John reassured his wife. “Either she’ll forget about it or else tomorrow she’ll say to expect him tomorrow. I saw a movie where an old dame went dotty just like that. Everything was always gonna happen tomorrow only tomorrow never comes.” John returned to his coffee and sweet roll and dismissed his wife.
But tomorrow did come and John was the first to be informed of the fact. It was he who answered the young man’s ring, opened the front door and…“Mr. Eric!” John backed away from the apparition.
Olga, who was just descending the stairs which faced the door saw who was standing on their threshold as her husband retreated.
“Mother of God,” the poor lady screamed. “Mother of God, it’s him.” She ran to her husband, took a firm grip of his waist, and peered over his shoulder. The young man stepped into the house and the couple, moving like one, took another step backwards.
“Is Mrs. Lindenhurst home?”
“It’s really you, boy, isn’t it?” John whispered and his wife, taking this as a cue, ran from the room shouting, “It’s him, ma’am, it’s Mr. Eric. He’s come back.”
She had promised herself she would not allow the moment to be reduced to a maudlin spectacle. Eric was ill and he needed attention, not to be frightened out of his wits by a hysterical old lady. All her life, at the Ambassador’s side, she had dealt with crisis after crisis, from the momentous to the petty, and had never lost her head. She would do so once again. But when Eric walked into the sitting room with Olga and John hovering in the doorway, the legend was reduced to the status of mortal.
Her heart swelled in her chest as she let out a sob and, standing, she ran to her grandson, enfolding him in her arms and squeezing his firm body again and again as if to assure herself that he was indeed solid flesh and blood and not the mirage she had seen on more than one occasion in the past two years. “Eric…Eric…Eric… “ She wept as she repeated the litany.
He was embarrassed beyond words. His arms felt like bars of lead as he raised them to encircle the fragile old woman. He patted her back and tried to gently free himself from her grasp. “Please don’t do this…please don’t.”
“You’re back,” she sobbed. “My Eric is back.”
“Yes,” he said in an effort to calm her, “I’m back and everything is all right now. Eric has come home.”
17
In the offices of Goodwinn, Barr, and Goodwinn, Russell Goodwinn, unannounced, invaded the office of Henry Barr and without preamble exclaimed, “She’s taken some kid off the street and is calling him her grandson.”
Mr. Barr took off his rimless glasses and began polishing them.
“Who?” he asked.
“Mary Lindenhurst. Who else? I’ve been afraid this would happen since Eric drowned and now it’s happening. She’s even had a doctor, a psychiatrist, talk to them…the imposter.”
Mr. Barr returned his glasses to their rightful place. “What did the doctor say?”
“He said Eric — Eric, mind you — was in fine physical shape but suffering from severe memory loss due to a traumatic experience. Ha! How do you like that for a medical diagnosis of a corpse?”
“Perhaps it is the boy.”
“Hank, you’re getting as senile as the old lady. Eric Hall is dead.”
“Mary Lindenhurst might be a little senile but she’s not blind. If this boy weren’t her grandson, surely she would know it.”
Mr. Goodwinn pounded his thumb against his chest. “And so would I. I’ve known Eric since he cut his first tooth and I’m on my way there right now.”
“And what are you going to do?” Mr. Barr asked, once again removing his glasses.
“I’m going to kick the bastard out on his ass, that’s what I’m going to do.”
Mr. Goodwinn did nothing of the sort. “It’s Eric,” he announced on his arrival.
Mrs. Lindenhurst stretched out her arm to the young man who had just entered the room. “That’s exactly what John and Olga keep saying,” she said. “You didn’t believe me, Russell, did you?”
Mr. Goodwinn continued to stare at the young man who, prompted by Mrs. Lindenhurst, now sat beside her as she put her arm through his. “You are Eric,” Mr. Goodwinn stated, not sure if he believed his own words. “You are Eric Hall.”
“He’s not always this way, Eric, he’s really a very competent lawyer. His name is Russell Goodwinn and he’s an old family friend as well as our legal advisor.”
“How do you do, sir,” Eric said.
“You…you don’t know me?”
“Of course he doesn’t know you, Russell, and he doesn’t know me either. Now snap out of it and get your wits about you. There’s a lot to be done.” Eric winked at his grandmother and she winked back. “Tell Russell your story, dear, and try to pretend he isn’t staring at you as if you had two heads.”
Eric spoke and Mr. Goodwinn listened. When Eric had finished Mr. Goodwinn shook his head and sighed. His very logical mind told him he had just heard the plot of an Agatha Christie novel while his legal training pointed to the evidence, exhibit A, seated not five feet from him. “I think you had better get Russell a drink, dear.”
Eric went to the sideboard and opened the panel. Mrs. Lindenhurst let out a sharp cry and Eric froze. “You knew where the bar was,” she cried. “You remember…you’re starting to remember. Oh, I knew it would all come back to you.”
Mr. Goodwinn sat forward and, picking up Mrs. Lindenhurst’s enthusiasm, asked, “Do you remember what I drink, son?”
Tom didn’t tell me that, Nicky thought. In fact he didn’t even know you existed. “No, sir, I don’t.”
“It’s scotch, and you used to call me Russ.”
“Scotch it is, Russ. Straight up?”
Mrs. Lindenhurst beamed. This was her Eric.
It was decided that the offices of Goodwinn, Barr and Goodwinn would announce the return of Eric Lindenhurst Hall. They would issue a fact sheet, and that was all they would issue. They would not answer questions and there would be no communication whatsoever between the press and Eric. “Let them make of it what they will.” Mrs. Lindenhurst added in lieu of an amen.
And what they made of it was a three-ring circus. It was all that Tom had said it would be, and more. The bold, black headlines, the “we interrupt this program” radio flashes, the television coverage tracing not only the career of Ambassador Lindenhurst but the debut and wedding of Eric’s mother and, of course, the tabloids’ “Back to Life” and “She Never Stopped Hoping” feature stories.
Mrs. Lindenhurst exercised her considerable influence at City Hall and the cordon of men in blue that Tom had envisioned appeared in front of the mansion on Ninety-second Street. The telephones inside the mansion were turned off and one phone, with a three-digit number, was temporarily installed. Nicky was awed at the power of the Lindenhurst name and actually started to enjoy himself.
It was going just as Tom had said it would go but the master planner wasn’t on hand to view his creation. Twenty-four hours and Nicky already missed Tom. He wondered when he would be allowed out of this newest and grandest of his gilded cages.
The day after the story broke the people who had aided, fed, clothed and assisted the heir to the Lindenhurst fortune on his way back to the bosom of his beloved grandmother came forward. Their number was legion. In fact, if all the drivers who claimed to have given the boy a lift from New London, Connecticut to New York City had been on the New England Expressway at the same time, the Lindenhurst heir would have been caught in the most colossal traffic jam of the twentieth century. The more brazen reported their deed to the press, the modest only told their story to family and friends. The boy had been fed, according to vendors en route, enough hamburgers and hot dogs to feed, and give indigestion to, a small army.
No less than three hotel owners on Block Island claimed to have employed the Lindenhurst heir during his stay on the island. Photographs of their establishments and their toll-free reservation phone numbers made it into a surprising number of newspapers and the story aired on several local TV stations. It was going to be a lively summer on Block Island.
A regular at the West Side Y.M. C.A. whispered to friends that he had tried to put the make on Eric Hall in the Y’s shower room. The number of smugglers who gave themselves up was nothing short of ludicrous. One, with a black bag covering his head, was interviewed by a respected investigative TV reporter who should have known better.
A television crew rented a boat in Montauk and, assisted by the Coast Guard, took viewers on a wave-by-wave tour of the route of the Lindenhurst yacht, stopped at the scene of the accident and then continued along the “rescue route” to within a short distance of Block Island. “And that,” said Robert Evans McBride, “is where Eric Hall was taken after being dragged from the sea and held captive for almost two years.” Cut to a long-shot of the Block Island coastline and then back to McBride standing on the prow of the boat, his blond hair waving in the breeze. “This is Robert Evans McBride reporting for WXYZ-TV. Thank you and goodnight.”
If the city of New York could have been silenced for one minute and all ears turned in the direction of a certain limestone building just off Central Park West, the population would have been treated to the sound of laughter emanating from the belly of Thomas Bradshaw. He laughed until his sides ached and the tears rolled down his cheeks. He had done it. The bastard from Nebraska had given the finger to the entire world and the entire world was licking the digit that had goosed it. If only he could share this moment with Nicky — they would fall into each other’s arms and roll across the floor with glee. They would open a bottle of champagne and toast their success. They would…Christ, he missed Nicky.
Only two days and he missed his friend.
§ § § §
In an obscure cemetery in England an old gray-haired woman stood in the pouring rain, holding a black umbrella over her head. She lingered before what was obviously a family plot, five graves marked by a single monument which bore the name Romaine. Was she crying or was it the rain, driven by a strong breeze, which created the illusion? But she was speaking to the silent, wet mounds of earth. “He has found his way home. Our Nicky has found his rightful place in life. I don’t know how it happened and I don’t care to know. It is enough that I have lived to see justice done. And, Alexis, he is a prince. Nicky is a prince and as rich as all the czars of Russia.”
In New York, Eric called Russell Goodwinn and insisted that the Casa Maria be acknowledged, officially, as the place Eric Hall had found love and comfort upon his arrival in New York. And so, with Mrs. Lindenhurst’s approval, Goodwinn, Barr and Goodwinn issued a second, and final, statement. The Casa Maria became an overnight success. Their regular customers were aghast at the uptown “carriage trade” which suddenly usurped their home away from home. Limousines became a common sight on Bleecker Street as the Casa Maria became the new “in” spot. Its owner repaid Tom’s bank in record time and repaid its former waiter by papering its walls with framed photos and clippings of the Eric Hall saga.
Tom was also clipping those same newspaper accounts of the life and times of Eric Lindenhurst Hall to add to his vast collection. The one he liked best concerned an old lady, living in Baltimore, who had actually called the Associated Press to tell them that Eric Hall was in reality her nephew, the Grand Duke Nicholas Alexievich, the czarevich of Russia. It was also reported that the lady had claimed, for over fifty years, to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of the last czar of Russia and had fought and lost a number of court battles in Europe for the right to be recognized as such. And, the article added, the lady was now quite old and quite senile.
Tom had to remember to show it to Nicky. He chuckled to himself and thought, “How Uncle Alexis would have loved that one.”
Almost a week later Tom still had not heard from Nicky but he did hear from Amy and Dicky Culver daily. Amy called after each new press release and TV newscast to congratulate herself on piecing together the story of Eric’s ordeal in a matter of hours. Tom acknowledged her brilliance. Then she announced she was going to open the Southampton season with a big “welcome home Eric” party. “Everyone will be there, Tom. Everyone.” Except Eric, Tom thought, and he proceeded to tell Amy that in view of the fact that Eric was not well and had returned from the grave and not a tour of duty in the service of his country, he thought the idea in the worst possible taste. Amy was miffed but stood her ground. A party she would have and, come to think of it, she had no intention of inviting Tom Bradshaw.
Dicky called, rambled on about nothing and ended up asking, “Have you heard from Eric?”
“No, Dicky, I have not heard from Eric. Does that make you happy?”
Jim Carr wanted to know if it were true that Tom had found Eric. Tom assured him it was. “But I didn’t read anything about it in the papers. Not a single mention of Tom Bradshaw.”
“Fools’ names, like fools’ faces,” Tom quoted to Jim, “always appear in print and public places.”
The mansion on East Ninety-second Street was the calm port about which the storm raged. Each day Mrs. Lindenhurst and Eric sat and talked and became acquainted with each other. Eric loved the grandmother he had recently acquired and Mrs. Lindenhurst adored the grandson she was getting to know for a second time.
“I’m twice blessed, Eric,” she told him. “Most people have the pleasure of watching their grandchildren grow up only once and here I am living that joy all over again.” She told him all about his family, recalling details of the past as only the very old can, and the young man still liked nothing better than to listen to the continuing saga of the human condition. And what a saga it was, crowded with names and places and events he had only read in the dull pages of history books. “Was I born in this house or in a hospital?” Eric asked his grandmother.
The old lady giggled. “You were born in Switzerland.”
“Switzerland?”
“Of course. Your mother and father took the longest honeymoon in history and didn’t settle down until after your birth someplace high in the Alps.”
Wait till Tom hears this, Nicky thought.
“My God,” Mrs. Lindenhurst suddenly put a hand to her lips. “Do you know your birth date, Eric?”
“February 17,” he grinned.
“You do remember. Oh, I’m so glad.”
“It was the one thing, Nana, I never forgot.”
After three days the Eric Hall story moved from the front pages to page three. In a week it was a dead issue. “If there are no new angles,” feature editors declared, “forget it.” Now the society and gossip columnists waited with baited breaths and sharpened pencils for the Lindenhurst scion to make his first public appearance.
They would have a long wait.
18
Tom heard the sound of the radio coming from his apartment before he had even put his key into the front door lock. His heart danced in time to the music as he rushed to get in, shouting his greeting before the cause of all this merriment became visible to his eyes.
“Nicky…God, am I glad to see you.”
“Please,” Nicky bowed, “the name is Eric. Eric Hall.”
Tom, grinning from ear to ear, bowed back. “If the name displeases thee, may I call you love?” A slight alteration, but a clever one, to the Shakespeare line.
“You, sir, are not Romeo.”
“And you, thank God, are not Juliet. Now shut up and let me look at you.”
They embraced for a long time, saying nothing for there was nothing to say. Genuine emotion cannot be verbalized, only experienced, a fact they were both delighted to learn.
“Christ, how I’ve missed you.”
“I don’t see why. My picture has been staring at you from every newspaper and television screen in the city.”
“We did it, kid. We really did it,” Tom beamed.
“Do you want to hear all the glorious details?”
“Not now, I have more important things on my mind.” Tom inserted his hand between their tightly pressed bodies. “I think you have the same things on your mind.”
“As I recall the bedroom is in that general direction?”
“For one suffering from amnesia you do remarkably well in the remembering department.”
“Get your ass in there.”
By some unspoken agreement they resolved to go slow, to make it last. But if absence makes the heart grow fonder it also makes the fuse grow shorter; in ten minutes they were satiated, content and at peace with themselves and each other. Encouraged by an early evening breeze their tree applauded their performance.
“The tree is all fresh and green,” Nicky said, as if in response to the rustling leaves.
“Just like you. Do you want a cigarette?”
“No. I’ve given up the weed.”
Tom lit one for himself. “Well, tell me all about it.”
Nicky shrugged. “It worked, but you know that. What else can I say?”
“What about the old lady,” Tom blew smoke into the air, “is she everything I said she was?”
“And more. You know, Tommy, I feel…no, I can’t explain it.”
