Time Out of Mind by John R. Maxim Read Free Book Online Page B

con fusing at first. What happened was that Satterthwaite adopted the kid and then filed for a legal name change. Judges won't usually let a stepfather do that, but Satterth waite knew his way around the courts and he found one who would. It turned out to be a waste of time because the kid changed it back to Corbin, Jonathan T, just before he started high school. The second petition for a name change said he wanted to keep his blood identity and, besides, Jonathan Satterthwaite was too much of a mouthful. Try saying it fast after you've had too many Perriers.”
    Dancer waved off the suggestion with an impatient flick of his fingers. In his eyes, and in the nervous tapping of his knuckles, Lesko saw a curious mixture of excitement and annoyance. It was the body-language equivalent of a slap to the side of one's head when he learns something he should have known all along. As in, So that's where the goddamned kid was. Lost in a bunch of legal papers and some lawyer's ego trip. Lesko had the clear impression that he'd just earned his fee.
    “ Anyway,” he continued, “the kid finished high school and then followed his real father to Notre Dame. Father's footsteps all the way. Good grades, played most of the same sports. Made co captain of the baseball team. He wasn't the star his old man was, but Corbin's thing was really boxing. Real good record as an intercollegiate light-heavy. He was going out for the 1968 Olympic trials until mononucleosis knocked him on his ass. Otherwise, never knocked out, never off his feet. He still puts on the gloves over at the New York AC. This guy's no pansy even if his head's not always on straight.”
    Dancer's eyebrows ticked upward. “You found a history of that?”
    “ Of what?”
    “ Irrational behavior. Compulsiveness. Paranoia.”
    Lesko studied the smaller man. “Who said anything about that?”
    “ Have you or have you not?”
    Lesko hadn't. Not really. Not in Corbin's past, anyway. Well, maybe one little thing. ”I talked to one of his teach ers who remembers him getting counseling for what they call an identity crisis these days, but the problem doesn't seem to have been serious. The teacher wouldn't have even mentioned it except I told him I was doing a government security check.”
    “ Go on.”
    “ That's mostly it.” But what the hell, thought Lesko, let's see what happens if I let out a little more line. “Except I'm not surprised if the kid had problems. As far back as I can trace it, the guy's family had a real cloud over it.”
    Something happened on Dancer's face. A subtle change. It struck the ex-cop that Dancer was suddenly far more interested in what Lesko knew than in the facts themselves.
    “ What are you saying?” Dancer asked finally.
    Lesko leaned forward on his elbows. “Jonathan Corbin is an only child. A son. His father, Whitney Corbin, also an only son, dies violently before Corbin is born.”
    “ Wars have a way of producing violent deaths, Mr. Lesko.”
    “ His grandfather,” continued Lesko, ignoring the inter ruption, “was again an only child. A son. The grandfather, also named Jonathan T Corbin, gets killed by a Chicago hit-and-run driver in March of 1944. Same year as the fa ther. He also gets run down at the height of wartime gas rationing when there's only a handful of private cars driv ing around in all of Chicago. The grandfather, by the way, was another ball player. Except this guy made it to the majors. He pitched for the White Sox during the 1907 and 1908 seasons, a spitballer. But then they outlawed the spitball after the 1908 season and he eventually retired. Too bad. This guy actually played on the same team as Tinker to Evers to Chance. You know. The double-play combination. There was even a poem about them.”
    “ You were driving toward some point, Mr. Lesko.”
    “ Sorry. Just want you to know that when I dig, I dig deep.”
    “ Noted.”
    “ Next there's the great-grandfather, Hiram Forsythe Corbin, who died in a