The Secret Keepers Read online

  “Not sure what boy you mean,” Jack said, “but I assure you I’m nobody’s uncle. It’s possible that my contact is. I haven’t asked him.”

  The Counselor cleared his throat violently. “Who is your contact? What’s his name?”

  “He’s never told me his real name. We use code names. It’s safer that way. Also, it’s more fun.”

  There was a silence. Reuben was sweating. Why was Jack antagonizing the Counselor? Why not just be polite?

  A faint crackling sound reached his ears. A plastic wrapper.

  “Oh, good,” said Jack, “that should help clear up your sinuses. I’d love one myself, actually. No? Was that your last one? You know, it’s a little impolite—”

  “Do you think that I’ve been impolite to you?” the Counselor interrupted. He made a smacking, sucking sound as he moved the cough drop or candy around in his mouth. He sounded more relaxed, which for some reason Reuben found more disturbing than when he’d sounded annoyed.

  “Well, I wouldn’t make a fuss about it,” Jack said. “This is just business. Your boss gets something he wants, and my contact and I split the reward. Everybody’s happy.”

  “No one is happy,” the Counselor said. “You’ve given me no reason to believe that this contact of yours actually has the watch.”

  “He described it perfectly, though. I told you that on the phone.”

  The Counselor made another sucking sound. “Any number of people could have offered me the same description. It appears in newspaper advertisements every day. Or you might have spoken with a proprietor on Brighton Street, someone who’s actually seen the watch.”

  “That’s a good point,” Jack said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “You’ve wasted my time. My employer will be most displeased.”

  “Hold on, hold on,” Jack said. “Surely we can figure something out. I know my contact wouldn’t lie to me. We’ve had deals before. He’s always been reliable.”

  “Very well. Pick up that telephone and call him. Tell him to bring the watch here immediately. When I’ve confirmed that it’s the one my employer seeks, you’ll get your reward.”

  “There’s a problem with that idea,” Jack said. “I don’t have his number. He always calls me. He’s very skittish, this guy. But look, I see your point, so maybe we can compromise here. You could give me half the reward now and half after you claim the watch. That’s fair, right? We each have to trust the other a little bit.”

  “I have no reason to trust you,” said the Counselor, his froggy voice rising. “You’ve given me no name, you have no identification, and what you are telling me is no different from what a great many others could! You seem to have no idea of the situation you are in!”

  “I have no reason to trust you,” said the Counselor, his froggy voice rising.

  Sweat was streaming down Reuben’s face, trickling down his sides. Jack had botched it. Something horrible was about to happen, and not just to Jack. Reuben had only a few minutes before the watch ran out.

  “Oh!” Jack cried, snapping his fingers. Though he must surely be aware of the threat in the Counselor’s words, his tone gave no indication. “You know what? My contact did tell me something else about the watch. I don’t know if it will be useful—in fact, I was afraid it might be a deal breaker—but under the circumstances I suppose I had better tell you.” He cleared his throat. “The watch is kind of… broken.”

  The room was very still for a moment. Then the Counselor’s chair creaked. He exhaled loudly through his nose. “What do you mean,” he said—his voice so low that Reuben almost couldn’t understand him—“when you say that it’s broken?”

  “I mean it doesn’t keep time anymore. You can wind it up, but nothing happens. It just unwinds again. The hand doesn’t move.”

  There was another silence. And then the Counselor began to laugh. It was a raspy, ugly, disconcerting laugh. Jack laughed, too, in a false and wooden way, obviously intended to express a good-humored confusion. He’d been brilliant, though. He’d said exactly enough. Reuben felt shaky with relief.

  “Of course it doesn’t keep time,” the Counselor said. “The watch is a rare antique, not a functioning timepiece. My employer wants it nevertheless. He is a collector.” He let out another raspy laugh. “I thought that you meant the watch had been damaged in some other way. I wouldn’t care to deliver that news to my employer. But this—this is good.” The chair creaked again. “Very well. I’ll speak with him about your reward.”

  “Now?” Jack said. “But if I don’t want to miss my rendezvous, I need to leave right away. Hasn’t your boss already authorized the reward?”

  “He’ll wish to discuss the details of the arrangement. Your associate will have to wait.”

  “You don’t know him. He’s edgy. If I don’t show up on time, he’ll take off.”

  “Perhaps you should tell him that you might be late. Perhaps you will suddenly ‘remember’ that you have his telephone number after all.” The Counselor coughed again. He was stepping toward the door through which he’d entered. Reuben could hear the Directions moving that way as well. “Regardless, I have my own call to make, on a different line. You’ll wait here until I return.”

  Reuben silently begged Jack not to argue. He needed to wind his watch again—he didn’t have much time. If the others left the room, he would have his chance.

  “Looks like I don’t have a choice,” Jack said with a sigh. “Try to make it snappy, won’t you?”

  The door was already squeaking open. If the Counselor heard Jack, he didn’t bother to reply. Reuben heard the men leaving the room—all but one, who lingered a moment in the doorway.

  “Hey,” the man said softly, as if not wishing to be heard by anyone but Jack, “you should be more careful. You’re pushing it, and you don’t want to do that. Believe me.”

  “Are you actually giving me a well-intentioned warning?”

  But the man was already closing the door behind him.

  “What do you know?” Jack said. “I think he actually was.”

  Reuben pushed in on the winding key and reappeared in a room he’d seen only in his imagination. He’d never done that before; the effect was strangely upsetting. In its general arrangement the room was much as he’d pictured it—the placement and size of the furniture, the distance between walls, the location of the fireplace—but all of the smaller details were different. The pattern in the carpet, the wallpaper, the color of the chairs and desk. Everything was where it should be, and yet it had all suddenly changed, as if by magic. Though he knew better, Reuben had the bizarre impression that he was hallucinating. It made him queasy.

  He wound the watch, looking out from under the cabinet. Jack sat with his back to Reuben and would not be turning around to look at him. They had agreed never to assume they had true privacy. Reuben was strongly tempted to whisper, though. He felt so alone and so nervous. Even the simplest exchange of words might help calm his nerves.

  But what if that door swung open unexpectedly? So many things could go wrong. Reuben held his tongue. He needed to focus on nothing but being ready to vanish again. The watch wound, he mopped his brow and shifted positions, sitting now with his legs crossed. He was already very tired. He wouldn’t use the watch until the last possible moment.

  From where he sat, Reuben couldn’t see much of the opposite door. His view was blocked by Jack’s chair and the Counselor’s desk. And the cabinet was deep enough that if he stayed where he was, with his back against the wall, he wasn’t likely to be spotted even if his watch ran out. That much was in his favor, anyway.

  So keep calm, he thought, and he reminded himself once more of what Jack had said: You’re the expert.

  He wondered if The Smoke would actually authorize the Counselor to give Jack half the reward up front. He doubted it—and Jack certainly didn’t expect it—but then again, what was a little money to The Smoke? The man was so close to getting his hands on that second watch, the object of his dreams; w
ho knew what he would agree to? Reuben wished he could be eavesdropping on that phone conversation. The spying would be easier, he hoped, once Jack had left and the Counselor thought himself alone.

  Jack got up from his chair. Cracking his knuckles, he went to stand near the wall opposite the fireplace. Reuben could see him only from the knees down. He was probably looking at the cuckoo clock.

  “You’re a very odd man, Mr. Faug,” Jack murmured as if to himself.

  Reuben was startled. They had agreed to take no chances.

  “Very odd,” Jack continued in his musing tone. “With your—”

  He cut himself short, and Reuben was left straining to hear what hadn’t been said. What had Jack been about to say? He clearly wanted to communicate something to Reuben, so why did he stop? Had he heard someone coming? Reuben listened intently. He didn’t hear anything but the faint ticking of the cuckoo clock.

  Jack grunted, the sort of grunt that suggested he thought he’d heard something, though evidently he hadn’t. Or that perhaps he actually did hear something, but it wasn’t what he thought it was. Regardless, he didn’t finish whatever he’d started to say. Instead, he walked slowly over to the fireplace.

  Suddenly Reuben felt the skin prickle on the back of his neck. He didn’t know why, but he felt itchy all over, and his heart started beating faster. What was it? Why was he so frightened all of a sudden? His fingers squeezed the winding key. He held very still. Sweat stung his eyes and blurred his vision. Reuben tried to blink them clear.

  That was when he heard the breathing.

  Faint, so faint that he almost couldn’t hear it. But it was right in front of him. Reuben felt bile rise in his throat. Now he understood. Now he knew what he had sensed. He was not the only unseen person in the room.

  The Smoke was there, too.

  Reuben’s heart was hammering so loudly he felt sure The Smoke would hear it. His pulse surged in his ears. He could no longer hear the breathing. But he could smell sweat and leather, a musky scent of hair oil or lotion, a hint of wintergreen. The smells of a living, breathing man.

  Did he know that Reuben was here? Could he smell the boy hiding under the cabinet?

  Reuben wanted to cry out for help. He struggled to suppress the urge, held his breath. All he could think about was The Smoke not finding him, not getting him. Don’t get me, he pleaded in his mind. Don’t get me please don’t get me don’t get me.

  He didn’t make himself invisible. Even the infinitesimal sound of the winding key sliding into place might give him away. His chest burned from lack of air. He hadn’t been prepared, hadn’t gotten a good breath. He’d simply stopped breathing.

  Jack grunted again, a sound of mild bafflement, and turned away from the fireplace. Reuben saw his legs moving toward the Counselor’s desk. After two steps they seemed slightly clearer, as if Reuben’s vision had abruptly sharpened, though in fact his eyes still stung, were still blurry with sweat. No other person would have noticed the subtle change, no one who didn’t know what Reuben knew. He had been looking right through The Smoke.

  Jack was moving about the room now—not purposefully, as if looking for something, but randomly, as if he were restless. He took a few steps and paused, took another few steps and paused. Reuben was staring hard at where he knew The Smoke had been crouching, so close that Reuben could almost have touched him. But he couldn’t tell anymore, couldn’t distinguish one area of blurriness from all the rest. He closed his eyes. He was going to have to breathe.

  Don’t get me.

  In the dead-quiet room there came a sudden, preposterously loud eruption of noise—Clang! Cuckoo!—and Reuben gasped.

  Jack gasped, too, whirling to face the clock on the wall. The little doors clacked shut, and all was silent again.

  “For crying out loud,” Jack said. He gave a soft chuckle. Laughing at his own reaction. He dropped into his chair again, drummed his fingers on the desk.

  Oh, please don’t have heard me, Reuben was thinking. His gasp had been small. It was possible that Jack’s louder gasp had drowned it out. Maybe. It depended on where The Smoke was in the room now. And Reuben didn’t know.

  He sat still, breathing as quietly and as little as possible. His head throbbing. Every muscle tensed.

  It took him a minute to notice that the odors in the air around him had dissipated. The Smoke had moved away. But to where? He couldn’t have left the room. Neither of the doors had opened. Which meant, Reuben suddenly realized, that he must have been in the room the entire time. How had he managed that?

  The fireplace. It had to be. He’d been crouching in the fireplace.

  Jack seemed to have relaxed. He was still drumming his fingers, and now once again he mused aloud, “Yes, sir, Mr. Counselor, you are one odd bird. You and your peppermints and your ancient suit.”

  Reuben wanted to scream, The Smoke is right here in the room with us, Jack! He’s right here!

  Then, out of the depths of his alarm and confusion, an understanding began to surface. Why had Jack mentioned the mints? He’d already made a point of mentioning them before, when the Counselor was unwrapping one for himself. For some reason he’d wanted to be sure Reuben knew about them. The mints and the ancient suit. Jack thought these details would mean something to Reuben. And suddenly they did.

  The Counselor was the man from the subway.

  It seemed crazy, yet it was the only thing that made sense. Reuben had described him to Jack and Penny, everything from his suit and tie right down to his minty breath. No wonder Jack’s carefree tone had faltered upon the Counselor’s entrance. He must have known it the moment he laid eyes on the man. It had caught him off guard.

  Reuben’s mind, still furiously making connections, didn’t stop with the Counselor and the man on the train, though. He had smelled The Smoke’s breath. It was minty. And he’d smelled something else that he thought might be hair oil. The man on the train’s hair had been slick with it.

  The man on the train was the Counselor.

  And the Counselor was The Smoke.

  They were all the same man. There was only one man. And now Reuben was the only person in the world who knew it.

  By the time the Counselor’s voice could be heard on the other side of the door, Reuben had figured some things out. The Counselor—The Smoke—must have a secret way into this room. He left visitors alone here, trying to make them believe they had privacy. Then he crept back in, using the watch, and eavesdropped on them. He hoped that they would make a phone call or talk to themselves. If they did, he picked up information that he could use against them.

  Nor was that all. For regardless of whether the unfortunate persons he’d summoned had revealed any secrets, in his guise as the Counselor he might come back in and say to them, “My employer tells me that you admire that cuckoo clock,” sending chills down their spines, because not only had they indeed gone over to study the cuckoo clock in the Counselor’s absence, but they had also experienced the profoundly unsettling feeling that another, unseen presence was in the room with them.

  The stories about The Smoke as a phantom, a spectral creature, thrived for good reason.

  Explanations were surging forward in Reuben’s mind, crashing and crashing like waves on a beach. He’d been so terrified when he realized that The Smoke was in the room, he’d felt convinced that he was the reason for it. But the truth, obviously, was that The Smoke had been spying on Jack. And to do so invisibly meant to do so blindly, which meant that he must have been concentrating very hard on Jack’s movements and on his own. He had no idea that Reuben was there, and so almost certainly he hadn’t sensed Reuben hiding under the cabinet, hadn’t noticed his tiny gasp.

  Almost certainly. This was the hope that Reuben clung to as the door squeaked open. He pulled out on the winding key and vanished, his heart pounding as hard as ever.

  The Directions took up their positions. The Smoke, coughing, was settling into his chair again. Reuben understood now that the “allergies” were fabricated
, part of the man’s ruse. As the Counselor he portrayed himself as impossibly noisy—coughing, sniffing, clearing his throat—and then as The Smoke he crept back into the room in perfect silence. He must use that froggy voice only with his rare visitors. That was why Reuben hadn’t recognized it.

  At last the Counselor—The Smoke—cleared his throat and said, “I’ve been authorized to give you a reward, but not according to your arrangements. My men and I will accompany you to the rendezvous. Your associate will deliver the watch directly to me.”

  “That’s out of the question,” Jack replied. “For one thing, my contact won’t have the watch with him. I’m to leave his share of the reward money in a certain location. After he’s collected it, he’ll contact me and tell me where the watch is hidden, and I will convey that information to you. He won’t do it any other way.”

  “You said you were to meet him,” said The Smoke. “You said that he would leave if you didn’t arrive on time.”

  “I meant that he’d leave if I didn’t deliver the money on time. We have a system.”

  “But he must be there to collect the money.”

  “He doesn’t show his face until after I’ve gone. I’ve never laid eyes on him, to tell you the truth. Like I said, he’s skittish. If you came with me and tried to speak to him, I guarantee you he’d just slip away. Good luck getting the watch if he does that. He won’t trust me anymore. I’ll never hear from him again.”

  “You needn’t worry about that,” The Smoke said. “I will give you the money, and you will deliver it to the specified location. It will seem obvious to your associate that you are alone. He’ll suspect nothing.”

  “What do you mean it will ‘seem obvious’ that I’m alone?” Jack said. “Will I be alone or won’t I?”

  “Such questions are no longer your concern,” The Smoke said.

  “I have to look out for myself, don’t I? So let me be clear. I’m not going anywhere with you.”