Chapter
26
Outside, it was one of those special days in Los Angeles. Clear air. It was a welcome relief to the stuffy office Mathews seemed to enjoy. I suggested we grab a sandwich and walk the pier. I was anxious to completely fill him in on the lake and cove experiences, but I didn’t want to run the risk of getting emotionally caught up in them again, so the telling as we walked the crowded boardwalk was the insurance I needed.
He wasn’t glib or indifferent when he heard the stories, but he was unaffected. Maybe I didn’t tell them well enough, I worried. “Jesus, you don’t have to be so bored,” I said. “Those two incidents damn near did me in.”
He motioned for me to follow as he leaned over the railing of the pier and gazed out over the shoreline. “Charles, what you told me is unique only in that it was your experience. Similar stories are common among people with your kind of problem.”
“So, what does it all mean? I’m getting worn out,” I said.
He looked at me and shrugged. “I don’t have, or rather, you don’t have a definitive answer…yet. Let’s just say it all represents some kind of fear, perhaps a guilt you carry regarding the other one.”
“You mean, Charlie?” I said.
He nodded, of course.
“I know this may sound trite, but you really believe my memory loss is linked to some fear of Charlie, right?”
“Very possible.”
“And there are a few, very few, people who believe I am the Charlie guy, right?”
“We’ve been over this before.”
“No, no. Listen to me. Ivan, Finch and the, what’s his name...Benoit in Vegas, they’re just people who’ve said they’ve seen me a couple of times, but the ones who seem to really know Charlie are the three you said I mentioned in the session, Rousso, Albergetti and Detroit...and of course, there’s Sobel.”
“What’s your point?”
“Let’s suppose you’re right and I am afraid of myself. Let’s just say I’m Charlie and I’m scared to death to be Charlie...okay? Don’t I have to find out why in order to get the memory back?”
“Most likely,” he said.
“It would seem logical to go to those four or at least one of those four who say they know Charlie and ask them to fill me in with as much information about Charlie as they can, right?”
“Logical.” He was serious now. He wasn’t being the compassionate doctor, or the learned doctor or the clever doctor. He was just being the man I had told everything to; the man I had entrusted my life to five months earlier. “Look, you don’t need to meet anyone else, just Sobel.”
He started walking, breaking his sandwich crusts and throwing them out over the water for the seagulls. He was hesitant, then... “I spent yesterday with her. She knows everything about Charlie. She may be one of the very few. According to her, she has Charlie’s power of attorney and is the trustee to the estate, an estate she claims is in excess of two hundred million dollars, residing in foreign investments and banks all over the globe...under various names. It’s mostly private gambling dollars...tax free, unreported, undisclosed, and unknown to anyone except her.” He tossed the last of his crusts to the persistent beggar-birds, then glanced at my hand clutching the sandwich. “You going to eat that?”
He pointed to the sandwich I had stopped eating at somewhere around “…two hundred million.” I shook my head, not sure of what I’d just heard, and handed it to him.
He broke it into pieces and threw it up to the hovering squadron above our heads as he continued. “She told me all this because she believes I’m Charles Randall, the new business partner who had seven and a half million dollars’ worth of Swiss bank accounts she arranged for Charles while he/youyou were in Mexico.”
We stopped at a bench and sat down. “You apparently are not only a modern-day Howard Hughes, but along with your reclusive nature, you seem to live a life of aliases because of the uncanny gift you possess...gambling gift. She called it ‘casino clairvoyance.’ Does that ring a bell for you?”
I was feeling uncomfortable, to say the least. “No.” I said. “No bells.”
“Well, you apparently have a legal cheating device, Charlie. She says you’re more than lucky in seeing cards coming, dice rolling and balls on roulette wheels spinning.”
It was all starting to be too much, when...
“How about your relationship with her? Your Charlie relationship. When you saw her that day at the Hyatt...any flashes of having seen her before?”
“No. Of course not. Why?”
“Because she not only claims a lot of business dealings with you but...and this surprised me like it’s probably going to surprise you...she was your mistress until you got sick. You broke it off, for her sake you told her, and went to Mexico when you realized some untried drug might be the only thing that would save you. She’s in her own kind of denial over the breakup but has renewed hope after running into you briefly at the Hyatt. She thinks it was pure accident, seeing each other that way. She was so shocked, she says she must have acted like an idiot. She told me to apologize when I saw you. She’s still in love with you, Charlie.”
I rose up. “Whoa...slow down. My God...slow down. You’re telling me she just told you all this crap yesterday...and...and you believed it? You expect me to believe...two hundred million...aliases...” I was feeling strange, like at the lake in New York. I looked out to sea. Thank God it was still clear of any clouds or fog. “Next thing you’ll be telling me is that I’ve...”
He stood up and grabbed me by the shoulders, swinging me around, face to face. “Charlie...I’ll slow down, okay? I’ll even stop, if you want. But it could be the truth. It could be some much-needed answers, even if they don’t feel right. You’ve been through a lot, wandering around for almost six months not knowing who the hell you are. I think she’s telling the truth.”
I allowed myself to calm a moment, then asked, “If that’s the truth, why does it feel...not just surprising, not just uncomfortable, but completely wrong. Wrong, Mathews. Wrong. There’s nothing inside me that feels like the man you’ve described...she’s described. I feel simple inside. I feel like the way I’m living now, the hotel, the money all the stuff, is foreign to me...doesn’t belong with Charles Randall. And, yes, I’m sorry, I do feel like a Charles Randall, not like a Charlie Stevens.”
I turned and started walking away. “You better call her and tell her Charlie Stevens is dead. Make up any story you want...Mexico...died with her name on his lips, I don’t care...but,” I turned back to him. “I’ve got to live with myself, and I’m not the man you described. I’m sorry. Charlie Stevens is gone.” I turned and continued walking away.
His voice was calm, but with the projection of a Shakespearean player, “Charles? She showed me a picture of the two of you, together.”
I stopped. I was afraid to turn around. How could I feel this way and still be the Charlie that Mathews and Sobel thought I was? As I pondered the thought, he slowly came up behind me and passed a picture in front of my eyes...a picture of a yacht with Sobel and a man that looked like me standing on the deck...except... “
“Is that you?” he asked.
My had was trembling as I took the picture and studied it for what felt like forever.
Standing before Sara’s mirror, I repeated the question, “Is that me?” We stood together comparing the picture to the image in the mirror.
“Except for the twenty extra pounds, glasses, and lighter hair, it looks a lot like you.”
“That’s what I told Mathews. But, it’s not me.”
“Well, it’s... “
“No,” I interrupted her. “Look at the hairline.”
“Could be a piece,” she said. “Maybe you lost your hair with the treatments.”
“No. This was taken before any of the cancer problem started. And if that’s a piece, why would anyone want to have such a radical receding hairline. That’s the whole point of a toupee. No, I’ll bet that’s the guy’s natural hairline, and...” I examined my own hair, “...tell me this is new hair where that guy’s bald or tell me my hair’s been bleached, huh? Does it look damaged or new?”
“It definitely doesn’t look new,” she said. “And damaged it’s not, but you could have grown replacement hair if it was screwed up by bleaching.”
She walked away and sat on the bed. “This is all getting to be too much, Charles. After your call last night and the cove business, well, I did some checking myself today. One thing Mathews said she told him that’s probably true is the business about Charlie Stevens having aliases. The passport bureau has no record of a Charlie Stevens or a Charles Stevens matching your age and description. I have a friend in Washington, works for the FBI in forensics. Fingerprints on either of the names don’t exist. He got another friend in the bureau to check on birth records and social security numbers. He came up blank as well. That just suggests that even the name Charlie Stevens is possibly an alias.”
She took my hand and pulled me down beside her. “We know one thing. You are a man that is alive, that looks enough like someone else to pass for him—at least for the few that treat you as Charlie—and we know you want to know the truth. That memory you have of an office, a family, the fire...that’s an unknown that maybe holds the key, and don’t forget the memory is YOURS, whoever you are. That’s no one else’s opinion. That happened to you.” “Sobel,” I said. “What?”
“Sobel is part of that memory too.”
I got up and went to the mirror again, comparing the picture to me one more time. “I can either walk away from the whole thing, live very comfortably off the Swiss accounts or... “
“Or?” she queried.
“Or meet everything head on. Mathews didn’t want me to show myself to her before. He was worried about her maybe not giving straight answers. Well, he thinks he got straight answers. Now, it’s my turn.”
I turned back to Sara. My emotions were telling me she was the essence of all I needed in a woman. I didn’t want to lose her. “What if I check on Sobel, confirm she’s still in New York, get back there and tell Sobel the whole story, everything. I’m bound to find out why she’s in the memory if nothing else. With that out of the way, maybe the rest will come to me.”
“That’s assuming she believes you.”
“What do you mean, believes me? It’s the truth.”
“To you, Charles, it’s the truth. To her, you’re Charlie, remember?”
“I’m Charles to you, right?”
As I peered out the window at the distant lights below, the flight attendant leaned down. “Would you care to purchase a drink, sir?”
“No, thank you.” I pulled the blanket over my shoulder and curled into as comfortable a position as I could. Coach was certainly different from First Class, but so was Charles different from Charlie. I had taken the first really honest step since it had all begun. I was going to be one hundred percent me, whatever my name was. I was going to be how I felt.
I remember closing my eyes and thinking of my last words to Sara and her reply as I left, “Of course,” she had said. “I’ve only known Charles and that’s all I ever want or need to know. Be careful. Take care of yourself. I’ll be here.”
To say I was traveling light, well, I had an overnight bag - under the seat size allowed- and my copy of “ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN.” I had read several chapters on the flight and as I walked through the terminal, I found myself more at ease and less self-conscious than before, wondering if it was the book’s influence or the chino pants, loafers, cotton pullover and windbreaker I’d purchased at Sears just before the flight. I even wondered if my Mickey Mouse T-shirt under the pullover, was the secret weapon. But whatever it was, I was in New York following my instincts, being whoever I was, whoever Charles was. I was here to meet Sobel and get some answers, by myself. Mathews had helped me a lot, but he had been navigating the ship too long and I was, after all, the captain. Sara had been my anchor, but now I felt like the anchor needed pulling and I had to navigate the unknown myself, because...because I just felt that way. No other explanation.
The bus into Manhattan had on board what I expected. All kinds rode the bus. I knew the guy in front of me, mid 40’s, dressed well, was anything but a guy who needed to ride the bus. His appearance belied the mode of transportation he had opted to take. But maybe he was like me...just being who he really was, not what his social or class status said he should be. Too bad, I thought, this wasn’t a Greyhound; we probably could have gotten to know each other. Then there was the funny looking guy across the aisle. “Burn-outs” was the last label I was aware they’d given his type. He had the obligatory multiple pierced ears, half shaved head with his name carved on the back side, dressed in black, black and more black with a cherry on top in the form of hot pink “meow cat” dark glasses. He was something to watch. He hummed all the way into town. Not what I expected... “Fly Me to The Moon.”
And so, on that bus ride into Manhattan, I started what was to become a passion on this trip...people watching. Everywhere I looked, there was a little of what I felt like. Maybe I could find enough pieces to make up the whole.
The bus dropped us at 41st street, which I was told by my black-on-black well-dressed friend was midway between civilization and “planets unknown.”
“Where’s a clean, average hotel close by,” I asked him.
He laughed, “Try Connecticut.” He grabbed his luggage and pointed. “Go west young man, go west. That’s the other side of 6th Ave. If you walk, go up Lexington or Madison, then swing over in the fifties. Been awhile, but Holiday Inn’s on 57th. Used to be tolerable. You don’t look like the type for a one-star, flashing-neon-sign-three-story-job. That suede wallet of yours must have cost you a bill or two. Take care.” He waved and caught a cab.
I stood there a minute, thinking back when he must have seen me pay the driver. I guess my wallet was a piece of the fast lane Mathews had warned me about. Difference this time was I wasn’t being chauffeured. I was standing on top of a steaming man hole cover in the middle of a cross walk, looking skyward at the endless stretch of stone, metal and glass converging out of sight, being bumped and stared at by what had to be tourists. I had learned before, New Yorkers don’t pay attention to anyone standing in the middle of the street. I was excited and a little scared. The blast of a horn reminded me the sign was blinking “Don’t walk.” I’d never noticed anyone paying attention to signs before, but...
“Move your ass, buddy.”
I moved...quickly.
The walk uptown had been pleasant enough. The trip with Mathews had limited me to the Central Park area and cabs, so this was all new to me. It seemed that Madison Ave. after ten at night was calm. Cabs played “dodge-em” and buses lumbered occasionally by, their fluorescent interiors highlighting the faces of tired workers and senior citizens. Peculiar, I thought. All were hunched over, peering out the windows at the street signs, looking as if they couldn’t relax until they were at the corner stop of their destination. I walked in the momentary nighttime solitude of one of the busiest streets during the day and waited for the next horn or diesel acceleration to break the silence. The buses that were now ahead of me in the distance made me think how growing old alone in New York had to be a special kind of estrangement. I felt pretty lucky with my own alienation at that moment.
The first thing that hit me as the bellman opened the door to my room was the odor. The hotel’s prices might have been ‘average,’ but the stench was definitely above average, maybe even five star.
“Gets a little stuffy until you hit the air conditioning,” the little old man in the costume shop get-up said as he flipped the switch, gave the thermostat a tap, then a hit, and rushed into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
Strange ceremony, I thought, as I heard him flip the light switch and stomp his foot hard. He was back out, wearing a big smile, flashing his gold fillings as he left and wishing me a pleasant stay. I handed him a one-dollar bill and thanked him. As he passed into the hall, the mirror on the back of the door betrayed his routine, showing his smile disappear and its return to despair.
I thought about that little old man a lot that night as I lay on my bed and watched the flashing-neon-sign-three-story-job across the street. Lights went on and off in the cheap rooms. Shadows lived out the drama of loneliness that only a New York non-rated hotel rate could show. As I scanned my own room, the thin walls relayed the companionless isolation of a traveling businessman buying his night’s pleasures on a dollar-fifty vibrating bed.
I was feeling more blessed by the minute. For reasons I clearly didn’t understand, I was saying thanks in a little prayer. I hadn’t thought of such things as prayer before. Where had that come from? It felt good and I said a second one for Sara and me. I wouldn’t know the value of those private moments for quite a while.
I fell asleep to the gyrating cycle of the vibrating bed in the adjoining chamber of hope.
From a testy session with Mathews, to Sara, to another plane flight, Charles finds himself determined to get the truth, live the truth, be... oh, how he hoped it could remain Charles.
To compare with Howard Hughes, Charlie Stevens would need about 200 billion. And, there is no evidence yet, that Stevens is a recluse. The FBI would have many criminal records for those two names because they are quite common. I doubt if the assistant had enough corroborating formation to determine that none of those criminals matched these people with as little information about them so far available.
Ron