Those Night Court Blues

CHAPTER ONE

Joshua took the stairs whenever he visited the Met, Fifth Avenue, New York City. He enjoyed the splendour of the marble set against the pillars. However, once he reached the second floor, he found it quicker to slip through the walls, rather than go round them.

It was Sunday afternoon. It was raining, or it had been when he entered the museum. A rainy Sunday post-lunch attracted a particular type of visitor. Lovers and the elderly were drawn to the antiquities, searching for solitude or warmth. But they tended to congregate on the lower floors, leaving him free to enjoy his favourite haunt, the gallery of European Paintings 1250-1800.

His Sunday routine occupied his day off, calming him after a week in court. He attended the gallery to lose himself in the paintings. For some months, he’d chosen ‘The Fortune-Teller’ by George de la Tour for his scrutiny. Not a palm reading at all, but a painting of a crime scene: the old woman distracting the young dandy while her accomplices circled him, dipping into his pocket and stealing his purse. The threat was so obvious that Joshua found himself murmuring a warning to the fool, but just then a real voice shouted, and he spun round in surprise.

‘Hey! Do you think you could lend me a hand here?’

He looked across the room and saw a woman lying on the ground. Oh dear, a living female. It wasn’t clear why she was on the floor, but in any event, possessing neither flesh nor bone, he couldn’t assist her if he’d wanted to. Accordingly, he shrank back and was turning to resume his study of the painting when she spoke again:

‘Yeah, you mister. Don’t ignore me. I need you to help me out here if that isn’t too much to ask.’

He glanced over his shoulder and observing that the woman was pointing at him, he stated as firmly as it’s possible for a phantom to state: ‘I’m not here.’ And when that didn’t stop her glaring at him, he hissed, ‘You can’t see me.’

‘Really! You want to be invisible? Give me a break! Now get over here and help me look under this thing. You got a flashlight I can use?’

Perplexed by the woman’s ability to penetrate his defences, Joshua paced silently to where she’d hunkered down. He noticed that she’d spread a lemon-coloured jacket on the parquet floor and then lay on it, to get a better look at the underside of the bench the museum provided for visitors to rest on.

‘I think it must have slipped underneath somehow.’ She prodded at the seat. ‘Can you tell me if you see anything?’

‘What are you looking for?’ he asked.

‘My granddad’s medallion. Jeez! It had better be there.’

‘Ah,’ he said, his curiosity getting the better of him. ‘What is it, this medallion?’

Her head popped out from under the bench. ‘It was presented to the old man when he won an academy award back in the 1950’s. Some friends had the thing made to celebrate his achievement. Jeez! It had better be here.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s unique; it’s solid gold; and because my dad will have a choking fit when he finds I’ve lost it.’

‘An academy award. How interesting.’

‘Yeah. For news broadcasting.’

‘Ah yes. Broadcasting. I wonder is that the television?’

‘What is your problem, mister? Sure, it’s television. SBC, Schneckenhaus Broadcasting Corporation. That’s my family. Don’t tell me you live in the city, and you’ve never heard of SBC?’

‘Forgive me,’ replied Joshua. ‘But I cannot operate a television.’

‘Wow! You’re different. Now, are you going to help me look for my medal, sir?’

She glared at him. Eyes of hazel green flashed out of a pale complexion. Nevertheless, it was her hair that puzzled him. Clearly it had been bleached at some stage and he was conversant with that process. But then she appeared to have applied a crimson dye to it, but only in a streak, running across her head, from front to back. At first, he’d mistaken it for blood and feared she’d struck her head on the bench before realizing his mistake.

He snapped: ‘Young lady, I regret I cannot help you; since it is forbidden for me to have contact with you. Quite forbidden.’

‘Look mister. I get it, but you won’t get into trouble. I won’t say a word. Now, will you help me or are you just going to hang around looking sad?’

The medallion had dropped to the ground, then bounced like a coin and rolled a short distance to the gallery wall. It had come to rest beneath the Edward Degas painting of ‘Woman Combing Her Hair’. Joshua stared at the medal, wondering if one of the departed souls was responsible for stealing it. The younger ones enjoyed playing tricks on the beating hearts, it brightened the boredom of eternity. But he detected none of the usual signs of their activity and dismissed his suspicion.

‘You’ll find it beneath the painting.’ He pointed at the Degas.

The young woman scrambled to her feet, ran to where the medal lay and pounced on it with delight. ‘OMG!’ She clasped it to her chest. ‘I’m saved!’ Then, remembering who her saviour was, she turned and said, ‘Hey that’s just great. I owe you mister.’

‘My pleasure.’ Joshua nodded. ‘And now I must take my leave of you. I have things to attend to, and I…’

‘But I need to thank you, sir.’ She thrust her hand at him.

‘Ah, ah. No.’ Joshua threw up his arms as he stepped back, adding, ‘I mustn’t alarm you, but I cannot tolerate being touched. Nothing to do with you, I assure you.’

‘Oh sure. We’ve all had it at home but never mind. I’m Maddy, by the way.’

‘Delighted to meet you, Maddy and I’m pleased you’ve been reunited with your medal.’

He was turning to leave when she said, ‘Yeah, that’s all fine but you haven’t told me your name, sir. You can’t help me out and then wander off without at least telling me who you are.’

‘My name? My name is Grace, Joshua Grace at your service.’ He gave a little bow, his body seeming to shimmer in the air as he made this quaint gesture. But, as she told her parents when she saw them for dinner, she’d been out partying the night before and her contact lenses were playing up, so she couldn’t be sure about the man’s appearance.

‘And you’re a guide here? You’re part of a reenactment group, right?’ She gestured to his clothes.

He wore a long grey coat with buttons running down one side and slits on the other. It had low pockets with sleeve cuffs turned back. Aside from the coat he was dressed in white shirt, neckerchief tied around his throat, waistcoat, white stockings and leather shoes on his feet.

‘A guide?’ He started to shake his head but changed his mind and said, ‘Why yes, a guide. You could say so.’

‘I like the pants.’

He looked down at his trousers which were cut short and had buckles at the knees. ‘Breeches, I think they called them back then.’

‘Sure, breeches. Pretty impressive anyhow. What period are you doing?’

‘Oh. Mid 1700, that sort of time. Historic New York, you know.’

‘And your accent is so good. You’re pretending to be a Brit, right? Is that your thing?’

He stared at her, his grey eyes considering the question. ‘It’s kind of you to say so, but I am British in fact, or at least I was, originally.’

‘But that’s great.’ She clapped her hands together. ‘My mom and dad would be so impressed I met you, a real British person. Which bit of Britain do you come from?’

‘Plymouth was my birthplace. That’s a seaport on the south coast of England. A long time ago, of course.’ The man stepped back until he stood by the door that led out of the gallery. ‘Now, if you’ll forgive me. I must leave you. Duties to attend to, letters to write; you know how it is.’

And with that last word hanging in midsentence Maddy felt a fluttering sensation in the back of her head. It was as delicate as a moth tapping at a window. She had just put her hand up to catch it when it stopped and in that moment the man vanished from sight. His shape seemed to dissolve into fragments, particles which tumbled through the air before descending to the floor like flakes of snow.

She had time to gasp, ‘Oh my gosh!’ And then he was gone, leaving nothing behind but an empty doorway.

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CHAPTER TWO

Maddy was not a fan of tricks. She didn’t like it when people disappeared like a conjuring act, leastways she didn’t care for it until she’d worked out how she could do it herself.

She marched through the doorway in pursuit of the man in the long coat. Accelerating quickly from gallery to gallery, her Nike Dunk’s pattering across the marble floor, until she was called out by a guard who told her to stop running. But she increased speed again, tripping down the staircase and coming to a halt in the entrance hall. No man. No one dressed for a historic reenactment. Right and left she looked, her irritation rising. How did he pull that one off?

She ran out of the doors and looked across at the crowd of trippers standing in the plaza outside. Tourists and students conversed under a clouded sky, dressed in jackets and sweat tops in blues, greens and reds; the colours too joyful to offer a hiding place for the greyness of the guide.

Disappointed, she was turning to go back into the museum, when she detected a movement out of the corner of her eye. A stalking sort of walk. It was him! On the far side of the street. His silhouette was unmistakable. ‘Well, I’ll be…’ she hissed as she watched him striding away, taking a route up Fifth Avenue.

Pausing only to give a yelp of excitement, Maddy rushed off in pursuit of the old gentleman.

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Her quarry strode along the Museum Mile, passing the Guggenheim, the Smithsonian Design Museum and then the Jewish Museum. He flitted past these landmarks without stopping.

After jogging for a while and then resorting to fast walking when jogging left her breathless, Maddy was able to close the gap between them. She wasn’t concerned about being spotted since the guide, if that’s what he was, appeared unconcerned about his surroundings. He didn’t pause on the sidewalk or look around, he just pressed on maintaining a metronomic stride.

What troubled Maddy, and what became more apparent the closer she got to him, was the lack of impact he had on his surroundings. Here was a man, dressed in long coat and pants that stopped at the knees. He was a sight, to be sure. And yet no one called out to him or stood and applauded or took photos. Families with children were streaming from the other direction, pressing southwards, eager for a Sunday outing now the rain had stopped. Yet he slipped through them, unnoticed or ignored. Either New Yorkers had lost their reputation for wisecracks, which Maddy doubted, or they couldn’t see this apparition striding through them.

She was musing on this puzzle when the figure took a right at the Museo del Barrio before continuing on East 104th Street. He passed Madison Avenue, gliding through the traffic and then turned left onto Fourth. There he continued walking for a few blocks until he arrived outside a narrow house with a bowed frontage topped by a green copper roof.

‘Oh wow,’ whispered Maddy.

She’d explored most of the Central Park district, admiring the old mansions of the upper east side in particular, but couldn’t remember seeing this house before. Once the divorce had been finalised her parents established themselves in separate apartments on either side of the park. It was a convenient arrangement which while leaving the warring couple not close enough to hurl abuse at one another, nevertheless meant visiting them was easy and Maddy would trot along the transverse roads that crossed the city’s backyard to reach one or the other in under fifteen minutes.

Even though she’d never seen the house before, the man clearly knew it well, skipping up the shallow steps to the entrance without stopping. As he approached the large black door, it folded open. Without a backward glance, he walked through it and disappeared into the darkness within.

‘Well,’ murmured Maddy, ‘and what goes on here, do you think?’

She remained on the other side of the street, stepping back to get a better look at the house: admiring the neatness of its red bricks, the single balcony on the first floor and the heraldic shields carved in stone over the upper windows. To either side the house was hemmed in by sandstone mansions. They towered over it, like two brothers taking their pretty sister to a prom.

Metal bars protected the ground floor windows, and it was difficult to see what was going on higher up due to the reflection of the light. While Maddy stood for a full five minutes, her brows furrowed in concentration, she could detect no stirrings of life in the building: no lights, no activity, nothing to betray that anyone lived there.

Dodging between the cars, she walked across the avenue and up to the front door, admiring the way the number 1213 was incised into the stonework over the entrance.

To the right of the doorway a brass plate was mounted on the wall. It was engraved with the words: ‘Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores.’ Below it was a wooden box with a glass front. Pinned inside was a sheet of paper which stated: ‘No visas issued at this office. All consular assistance provided downtown.’

The paper was curled, the typescript faded to yellow, and the finality of the message emphasized by several dead flies that lay with their legs in the air at the bottom of the box.

Undeterred by this lack of welcome, Maddy spotted a bellpush on the other side of the door and pressed it.

There was a tinkling sound in the distance, not like the buzzer most apartment blocks favoured but more like a sacristy bell. Whatever the manner of summoning attention, it didn’t work. No one responded, and no one came when she hit the bellpush a further four times.

She was just wondering whether she would abandon her quest and pay her mom a visit when she remembered that it was Sunday afternoon, a time when the matriarch retreated to her bed, donning eyeshades like goggles, with her head resting on a silk pillowcase. Maddy thought it best not to interrupt such slumbers.

Turning from the entrance and deflated following the excitement of the chase, she stopped. She heard no sound, no indication of life, and yet she had a sense that there was someone standing on the other side of the door.

‘Hullo?’ she called out.

Nothing. No answer. But in her inner eye she could see that person: motionless, holding their breath, and waiting for her to leave.

‘Hi? Is there anybody there?’

Still nothing in reply. She put her hand on the brass handle and turned it as she pressed against the shiny surface of the door. It creaked slightly but did not open. However, it moved sufficiently for Maddy to detect an ambivalence. Without permitting entrance it nevertheless did not seem entirely committed to keeping her out.

So, she gave it a second shove, and this time she applied her shoulder to it. And this time the door flew open.

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While Maddy was attempting to gain entry to the house two men were talking inside. No one was visible in the room lined with books, but nevertheless voices with British accents could be heard slipping under the door and down the corridor.

‘We’ve received news, your honour,’ announced the first voice.

‘Ah yes, Mr. Tapsell. News of what exactly?’

‘The Council, sir, the beating hearts want to convene a meeting. They’re eager to get round the table and discuss matters with you.’

‘Any reason for this sudden enthusiasm?’

‘Displeasure, sir.’

‘With us?’

‘That’s about it, as I understand it.’ Mr. Tapsell could be heard rubbing the stubble on his chin.

‘About what?’

‘Ah then, I wouldn’t have the details of that, your honour. Only that they’re keen to meet.’

‘Well then, meet we shall. I wouldn’t want the hearts to nurse some grievance against us. The peace has lasted too long to think of jeopardizing it.’

‘Quite right, sir. Quite right. We need respect and honour shown by both sides.’ There was a cheeriness to Mr. Tapsell’s voice, a jolliness that suggested the owner possessed red cheeks and side-whiskers.

‘Good. Usual format?’

‘Aye, your honour. Nothing’s changed as far as that’s concerned. There’ll be three of them, though I grant you the ones that turned up last time are long gone and they’ll be a new batch to get acquainted with.’

‘Very well. Could you pass the word for Mr. Blue and Reverend Creed, and then reply that we’d be delighted to meet the hearts at their convenience. Did they say when they wanted to assemble? Where and when, Mr. Tapsell?’

‘I have that, your honour. At Colonel Billopp’s Manor at ten in the forenoon next Friday. That’s how it came through, sir. Staten Island next Friday…’

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2947 words.