Page 57 of The Paradox Club

“Well,” said Montag 5 when they reached the end of the block, “isn’t this a cozy reunion.”

FINDING PHILCO

Harry knew from the moment he and Marie walked into the little antique shop on a side street in Chicago that everything had changed. He felt it like an electric shock before the bell on the door had stopped ringing, signaling to the crumpled old man in the back room that the rarity known as a customer had entered his realm. Not everyone is attuned to the presence of an untethered foreign object, but Harry, like his father and his grandfather before him, could always sense a nearby UFO. For those blessed (or cursed) with the gift of detection, a UFO vibrates the scalp or seeps into the tips of the fingers like a damp day in February. Not only his heritage, but also frequent visits to the vault of the Paradox Club—back in the days before Pilgrim 3 had closed it to all but a select few members—had attuned Harry to the tingle of something from another universe. As the door shut and the wizened face of the proprietor emerged from behind a curtain, Harry scanned the shelves, tables, and heaps of random objects for which the only unifying factor was age. His previous encounters with untethered objects had been in places considerably less cluttered than Herbert’s Antiques and Such. He squeezed Marie’s hand then dropped it, stepping into a dim corner of the shop where the dust betrayed Herbert’s lack of custom.

“Are you Herbert?” asked Marie cheerfully.

“The one and only,” said the old man, in a voice that belied his age. “How may I help you this fine day?”

“I’m looking for a few odd bits in my grandmother’s china pattern. Cups and saucers and a milk jug that have gotten cracked or chipped over the years.”

“And what was her pattern?”

“I don’t know the name, but I’d recognize it.”

“Indeed,” said the man, stroking a few wisps of hair on his chin that hardly deserved the moniker beard. Harry smiled as he listened to Marie work, all the while holding his hand out in the direction of one object after another. Half of an oak barrel, a glass inkstand, a Kodak Brownie camera, a gilt picture frame—each felt dull and cold when Harry touched them.

“Come with me,” said the man, leading Marie toward a narrow flight of stairs. “As the sign says, I keep the china upstairs where the bulls won’t knock it about.”

Harry marveled at the spryness with which Herbert mounted the stairs, but as soon as the old man was out of sight, he set to work more deliberately touching every object in the shop one at a time. He could hear the murmur of voices from above and knew it would be only a matter of time before the antiquarian concluded he had no china in the fictitious pattern of Marie’s grandmother. A leatherbound family bible, a salt cellar with a miniature silver spoon, a globe on a wrought iron stand, a lamp with a mica shade—Harry felt nothing. But the charge of the untethered object emanated from this corner, thought Harry. No doubt the big board was flashing red and Pilgrim 3 would soon be dispatching one of her minions to Chicago. He heard the clink of dishes upstairs and knelt on the floor, pulling back a moth-eaten tapestry that hung off the front of an oak table. And there, amid the cobwebs under the table, stood a Philco Model 70 Baby Grand Cathedral tabletop radio. Harry did not recognize it as such—he only knew it was an old radio, he’d say from the 1930s if he had to guess. The second he touched it, the buzz of another universe was amplified tenfold so that he could feel it, or so it seemed, on an atomic level. The sensation was so strong, Harry wasn’t sure he’d be able to lift the radio and carry it to the counter, but he managed, collapsing against the marble countertop just as Marie and Herbert reappeared.

“Are you all right, dear?” said Marie.

Harry wiped the sweat from his brow with a sleeve and stood up straight. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Just one of my spells. I wonder, how much for the old radio?”

“Goodness me,” said Herbert. “Where did you find that?”

“Just in among the…treasures,” said Harry, waving his arm to encompass the entire shop.

“My mind’s going,” said Herbert. “I used to remember every item in the shop. But I don’t remember ever seeing this.” He ran a finger along the top of the radio, then wiped the dust off onto his rumpled shirt.

“Memory is a funny thing,” said Harry. “But I would be interested.”

“It won’t work, you know,” said Herbert.

“I want it more as a decorative piece.”

“Fifty dollars?” said Herbert uncertainly.

“If you’ll throw in a box for me to carry it in,” said Harry, “we can call it a deal.”

Harry phoned Richard as soon as he had the radio back in the hotel where he and Marie were spending their weekend in the big city.

“You’re sure it’s a UFO?” said Richard.

“Positive,” said Harry. “I’ve never felt such a strong pull.”

“It’s just odd,” said Richard.

“What’s odd?”

“I’m at the club right now, and I was just downstairs. The big board is nothing but green lights.”

Harry digested this piece of information for a moment before responding. If the radio was not on the big board, that meant Pilgrim 3 didn’t know about it and couldn’t trace it. Which meant Harry could have private access to a powerful untethered foreign object without any interference from the keeper of the vault.

“I’ll be back in Madison tomorrow,” he said to the president.

“Don’t you think you should bring it to the club, if it really is a UFO?” said Richard.