Тэд Уильямс - The War of the Flowers

Theo now remembered that he had heard his grandmother talk about her brother Eamonn at least once or twice: she had described him as "the handsome one in the family," but also said that he "never did put down roots," or words to that effect. But she had seemed fond of him, as his letter suggested. He also recalled her saying something like, "If only he'd put all that cleverness to work," about some close relative of hers, which he guessed now might be this Eamonn, "he'd have been a millionaire. But all that reading and such is no substitute for a bit of elbow grease."

Theo stared at the bankbook. What had happened to the man? Had he been sick when he wrote this? That "a journey from which there will be no returning" didn't sound very good. And what had he done to the family that he felt he had to apologize to Theo's mother, someone he seemed scarcely to have known?

The bank account was long empty, but where were the other papers the letter had mentioned? Theo knew he had more pertinent matters waiting for him, but this letter from his great-uncle was the first thing he had come across in ordering his mother's estate that wasn't simply depressing. After that weird turn he'd just taken, he very much wanted to be doing something, anything, that might take him outside into the fresh air.

And why is this key still here, anyway? It has to be a safe-deposit box. But even if it's at this whatever-it-is bank, this Traveler's place, it won't do me any good unless I know the box number. I suppose I could do it the legal way, show them it's part of my mom's estate and ask them to tell me the number, but that means I have to wait until it all goes through probate or some damn thing, doesn't it?

Irritated and weary at the thought, he picked at the edge of the stiff, ocher-tinted strip of tape that secured the key to the letter. The ancient cellophane parted from the paper on one side and the key swung out like a hinge, giving him a glimpse of ink. Behind it, so small that it had been hidden by the key itself, was the number "612" written in his great-uncle Eamonn's cramped, careful hand.

He found it on a strange little cross street halfway up a steep hill; it was one of those San Francisco Victorian houses so narrow that it was easy to walk past it without noticing the Traveler's Bank sign beside the doorbell. His first thought was that it was pretty strange to have a bank in a house, his second that someone must have kept the name but turned it into something else — one of those bijou restaurants people don't find unless a friend tells them about it, or a graphic arts studio. It was too small to be a modern bank, and on a street like this the walk-in business must be nonexistent.

There was a glass panel in the front door, but the lights seemed to be out inside and he could see nothing of what lay beyond. There was a speaker grille with a small button next to the bank's name, so he pushed it.

" Krrawk murrkagl mornt ?" The small, nervous voice that gurgled back out of the grille might possibly have been human.

"Hello? I have a safe-deposit box here, I think?"

After a few moments, the door buzzed. He popped it open, found himself in a dark stair-lobby, and walked up the steps. The door on the first floor landing was open. A plump young woman with pale, straight hair stood there, waiting nervously. "Did you say you have safe-deposit?" She had a bit of an accent, perhaps Eastern European.

"Yes. It was part of my mother's estate, given to her by her uncle, a man named Dowd." He handed her the letter and the passbook. "You can see for yourself. He had a regular savings account here, too." He held up the key. "The box number is 612."

"Oh." She said it as though he had just informed her nuclear war would begin at any moment. "Oh, no."

"What?"

She shook her head. "Mr. Root, he is not here." But she turned and led him through the door.

If it was a bank lobby, it was the strangest, smallest one he'd ever seen. The whole room was about the size of a Victorian parlor, and similarly decorated. Pictures of stern-looking men in antique black suits hung on the wall, surrounded by dusty baroque frames; in such a cramped room they seemed almost to be leaning in on top of visitors. Four clocks showing different times were displayed in a row on the wall, but instead of the usual London, Tokyo, and other financial centers, the plaques beneath the old-fashioned faces read Glastonbury, Carcassone, Alexandria , and Persepolis . Was it a musty old joke of some kind? He'd heard of most of them, but he wasn't sure why anyone would care what time it was in any of those places. There were a few other pieces of office equipment, but none of them appeared to be a great deal more recent than the Age of Steam, except for some kind of huge teletype machine with a table all to itself near the back of the room, which looked like it might have been state of the art during the Second World War.

"Do you still have the safe-deposit boxes?"

She nodded eagerly. "Oh yes. In back rooms." She gestured at the rear wall and the door there, flanked by portraits of two frowning patriarchs.

"And when will this Mr. Rude be back?"

"No, Root — like tree, yes? But I don't know." Her pleasure at being able to confirm the existence of the boxes had dissolved, plunging her into anxiety once more. "He comes in not very much. Maybe Friday? Maybe Monday?"

Theo looked around again. A stuffed crow stood in a glass case just behind the room's front door. "And you're just here by yourself the rest of the time?"

Now her slightly bovine features took on a look of alarm. "Not alone. There are other people in other offices — next door, there is Pan-Pacific Novelties."

"I don't mean any harm, I just… it seems weird. I mean, this is a bank, right? I've never seen a bank that looked like this."

She shrugged. "Most of customers very old, I think. They don't come here. Used to be very busy, this place, but years are gone. Now most of banking done by telephone, by fax." She pointed first at the rotary-dial phone, then at the massive piece of machinery Theo had noticed earlier. "Mostly I just answer questions."

"Questions? Like… ?"

She flushed, and was suddenly a much prettier girl. "Like, is fax machine on?"

He felt guilty for giving her the third degree. It wasn't her fault she was working for a company that was probably a front for some bizarre offshore money-laundering scheme. "Sorry. Let me just get into the box and I'll let you get back to your work."

"Get into box?"

"Yes. You said they're in the back, right? The safety-deposit boxes?"

"But Mr. Root not here."

"I don't need a loan or anything. There's a box in there that originally belonged to my mother's uncle. It's mine now. I've got the letter where he gave it to her, and I've got a photocopy of her letter making me executor of her estate, and I've got the key to the box. That's how these things work." He started toward the door at the back of the cramped room. "Back here, right?"

She flapped her hands a little and looked at the heavy old dial phone as if considering calling her absent boss to come save her from this madman who actually wanted to use the Traveler's Bank as a bank.

Or maybe she's thinking about stunning me with that ten-pound bakelite receiver if I get any farther out of line.

If the front room was dark and old-fashioned, Theo thought that the back room made it look like a pop-art painting by comparison. The only light came from a nest of wires which had once underpinned a spherical paper shade, the naked bulb now exposed in their midst like a glowing sun at the center of a medieval orrery. There were shelves and shelves of long, narrow boxes, but most of them seemed to be the bank's records, cartons stuffed with three-by-five cards lettered by hand.