Page 63 of The Paradox Club

“I could use you here,” said Richard. “I’m in Wisconsin tailing a car that I think is headed your way, but I’m not sure I can stay awake to drive all the way to New York.”

“Who are you tailing?”

“Before you come here, though,” said Richard, ignoring her question, “I have to ask you to do one thing first, and it won’t be easy.”

“What is it?”

“You need to go back to the club.”

“I can’t,” said Valentine 6, panic edging into her voice. “I barely made it out of there the last time.”

“I need Gatsby the Great,” said Richard, “or at least I need Pilgrim 3 not to have it.”

“I have it!” said Valentine 6. “I snuck it off Pilgrim 3’s desk before I left.”

“You’re an absolute dream,” said Richard. “I want you to fly out of there as soon as you can. Right now, we’re south of Madison, headed toward Chicago. Best if you fly to Detroit, that way you might be able to intercept us.”

“Who’s us?” asked Valentine 6.

“Never mind about that. Have you got a phone and credit card?”

“A credit card, yes, but I don’t have a safe phone.”

“Buy a burner at the airport and call me when you land. Don’t waste a minute.” With that admonition, the line went dead.

Valentine 6 stepped into the ladies’ room to assess her situation. Should she risk going home for a change of clothes and a toothbrush, or go straight to the airport? She dumped the contents of her purse onto the tiny counter to evaluate her assets—a phone she dared not and probably could not use; a small blank notebook and two pens; a wallet with three hundred dollars cash, government-issue photo ID, and two credit cards; a toiletry bag with two tampons, her anxiety medication, and some lip balm; the copy of Gatsby the Great she had stolen from the club; a packet of tissues and…a round black plastic object about the size of a quarter. She knew instantly it was a tracking device, and a smile crept across her lips as she imagined Lidenbrock 2 and Pilgrim 3 following her movements. Pilgrim 3 must not have noticed the missing book, or she’d have sent Lidenbrock 2 after it by now. Still, she had to hurry.

She shoved the wallet and the meds into the pocket of her jeans, tucked the book under her arm, and put everything else back in the purse. Leaving Bradley to pay for the coffee—a deception about which she felt no regret whatsoever—she slipped out the back door and walked out of the alley and two blocks uptown toward her apartment before hailing a cab.

“My sister went to Newark Airport and forgot her purse,” she told the driver. “A hundred dollars cash if you’ll drive it out to her. She’s waiting in front of American Airlines departures wearing a red dress.”

“I’m not really supposed to,” began the cabbie.

“One fifty,” said Valentine 6, shoving three fifty-dollar bills through the window. “There’s nothing dangerous in it, I promise. Look for yourself, if you want.”

The cabbie peered into the purse and, perhaps because he didn’t see anything that looked like a ticking time bomb, grabbed it and the cash and peeled away before Valentine 6 could change her mind. A block away she hailed another cab and headed to LaGuardia.

THE GREAT DEBATE

The membership of the Paradox Club generally hovered around two hundred, though at least a quarter of those rarely attended a meeting owing to their living on other continents. When the clubhouse had been outfitted in the 1950s, the club had only sixty members. But, when Richard had hammered the meeting to order on that fateful day in early 2005, over a hundred members were packed into a gathering space built for half as many. The air was still and stifling, and only Richard, who stood at the podium on a small dais at one end of the room, could turn his body without driving an elbow into someone else. Acrimony and bitterness hung in the room like early morning fog clinging to a ridge. After the president’s opening remarks, Harry rose to speak.

“It’s clear from the unprecedented attendance at this meeting that many of you have already heard at least some of what I’m about to tell you. Last spring, I discovered an untethered object in the form of a Philco Model 70 Baby Grand Cathedral tabletop radio. In this universe it would date from the early 1930s. I managed, over the next few weeks, to get it into working condition and began to receive broadcasts that clearly did not originate in this universe.”

“What makes you so sure about that?” asked Lidenbrock 2, who stood pressed to the wall on the left side of the room. One of Pilgrim 3’s minions, thought Harry. The question had surely been planted; Lidenbrock 2 didn’t have the spine to say anything without the direction of Pilgrim 3.

“The events being described were too similar to our own history to originate from another planet in our universe, but too different to originate here.”

“Probably just some local ham radio operator having some fun,” said Lidenbrock 2, glancing at Pilgrim 3, who gave him a slight nod. “After all, nothing showed up on the big board.”

“Nothing showed up on the big board,” said Harry, “because I blocked the signal with copperplate shielding. But right before this meeting I turned on the radio without the shield, and the big board responded, as you well know, Lidenbrock 2, since you were there for the demonstration. As for the notion of a ham radio operator, the signal came on a standard AM frequency, one reserved in this country for commercial broadcasts. The complexities of the differences between the broadcasts and our reality makes a hoax impossible.”

“What do you mean complexities?” said Lidenbrock 2. Clearly, he had instructions to challenge Harry at every turn.

“Young man, tell me,” said Harry, rounding on Lidenbrock 2, “is Pilgrim 3 suffering from laryngitis or perhaps stage fright? Because if she has questions for me, I’d prefer she pose them herself instead of using her lapdog to do her dirty work.”

“Fine,” said Pilgrim 3, rising from her seat in the front row. “I will ask. What complexities of these broadcasts give your theories the slightest credence?”

“I’m sure it will be difficult for someone of your intellectual stature to understand,” said Harry, turning to Pilgrim 3, “so I’ll make it as simple as possible. I observed not just differences in history like Amelia Earhart completing a round-the-world flight or the Hindenburg docking safely at Lakehurst on the sixth of May, but minor changes in things as complex as Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony—two whole measures that simply don’t exist in our reality.”