He took a cab from LaGuardia to the Waldorf, settled back in silence as the driver played reggae, and ignored him. He booked a single at the Waldorf, resisting the temptation of requesting a suite. There would be no such modern suites in Landover. It was a meaningless concession perhaps, but he had to start somewhere, and this was as good a place as any. One step at a time, as the saying went.
In his room, he took five minutes to unpack, then picked up the Manhattan phone directory and looked up the number to Rosen’s. He found it in bold print, dialed and waited. When the department store switchboard answered, he asked for Customer Service and was transferred. He indicated to the new voice that he was interested in an item in the Christmas Wishbook and needed to make an appointment with Mr. Meeks. There was a pause, a request for the item number, and again he was transferred.
This time he was kept waiting for several minutes. Then a third voice came on the line, a woman’s also, this one soft and graveled. Could he give her his name, address and the number of a major credit card? He could. When did he wish to see Mr. Meeks? Tomorrow morning, if possible. He was visiting from Chicago for a few days only. Would tomorrow morning at ten o’clock be satisfactory? That would be fine. Ten o’clock sharp, then? Fine.
The line went dead. He stared at it for a moment, then hung up.
He went down to the lobby, bought a Times, drank several scotches—Glenlivet and water over ice, as usual—and went in to dinner. He ate with the paper before him, scanning its sections without interest, his mind elsewhere. He was back in his room by seven. He watched a news special on El Salvador, and wondered how after so many years people could continue to kill each other so casually. A variety hour special followed, but he let it play without watching, distracted by a sudden need to analyze the particulars of what he was about. He had thought it through at least a dozen times already that day, but there was always the same nagging uncertainty.
Did he really know what he was doing? Did he really appreciate what he was getting into?
The answers this time were the same as they had been each time before. Yes, he knew what he was doing. Yes, he appreciated what he was getting into. At least, as far as he was able to, he did. One step at a time, remember. He knew he would be leaving a lot behind him if he went and if this Kingdom of Landover proved to be real, but most of it would be in the nature of material possessions and creature comforts, and those really didn’t matter to him anymore. Cars and trains and airplanes, refrigerators and stoves and dishwashers, indoor toilets and electric shavers—all the modern things that were left behind to go fishing in Canada. Except that on a fishing trip, such things were left behind for only a few weeks. That wouldn’t be the case here. This would be for much longer than a few weeks, and it wouldn’t be like any camping trip he had ever heard about—or at least he didn’t think it would.
What would it be like, he wondered suddenly? What would it be like in this fairy-tale kingdom called Landover—this kingdom that had somehow come to be offered for sale in a department store catalogue? Would it be like the land of Oz with Munchkins and witches and a tin man who talked? Would there be a yellow brick road to follow?
He resisted a sudden urge to pack up his suitcase and get the hell out of New York before going any further with the whole business. When you got right down to it, what mattered was not the sanity of his inquiry or the future into which he might choose to step. What mattered was the conscious decision to make some change in his life and in making that change to find something that would offer him the purpose of being that he had lost. When you held your ground, the old saying went, you stopped moving. When you stopped moving, everything about you would eventually pass you by.
He sighed. Trouble was, those old bromides always sounded truer than they were.
The variety show gave way to the late news, weather, and sports. Ben undressed and put on pajamas (did people wear pajamas in Landover?), brushed his teeth (did people brush their teeth in Landover?), shut off the television, and went to bed.
He was awake early the next morning, having slept poorly as he always did the first night away from home on a trip. He showered, shaved, dressed in a dark blue business suit, caught the elevator to the lobby where he purchased an early edition of the Times, and went into Oscar’s for breakfast.
By nine o’clock, he was on his way to Rosen’s.
He chose to walk. The decision was a perverse mix of stubbornness and wariness. The store was only half a dozen blocks from the hotel on Lexington, and anything that close ought to be walked. The day was iron gray and chill, but the rains had moved northeast into New England. A cab was a waste of money. Furthermore, by walking he could approach the store at his own pace and on his own terms—kind of work up to what he was going to do. The trial lawyer in him always appreciated the advantage of being able to orchestrate one’s own entrance.
He took his time, letting the feel of the autumn morning bring him fully awake, but he was there by nine-forty anyway. Rosen’s was a fifteen-storey chrome-and-glass cornerstone to two thirty-plus-storey skyscrapers that ran half a block on Lexington and the better part of a short block on the cross street west. An old establishment, the store had obviously been remodeled when the skyscrapers had gone in, the aged stone facade giving way to a more modern look. Plate-glass display windows lined the walkway along Lexington, filled with fashions displayed on mannequins with frozen smiles and empty stares. The late morning rush hour traffic passed them by unsmiling, unseeing. Ben followed the line of windows south to a recessed entry and passed through two sets of double-doors sandwiching a weather foyer to the store within.
The ground floor of Rosen’s opened out before him, cavernous, polished, sterile. Rows of metal-and-glass display cases filled with jewelry, cosmetics, and silver filled the hall, gleaming and shining beneath a flood of fluorescent light. A handful of shoppers browsed the aisles that ran between the display cases while store personnel looked on. No one seemed much interested in generating sales. It all had the appearance of some arcane ritual. He glanced about. To his right, an escalator climbed through the ceiling to the floor above. To his left, a bank of elevators lined a distant wall. Straight ahead, where even the most bewildered shopper could not fail to see it, a glass-encased directory announced the departments and the floors on which they could be found.
He took a moment to read the directory. There was no listing for Meeks. He hadn’t really expected that there would be. The departments were listed alphabetically. Under the letter C he found the heading, Customer Service, special ordering—eleventh floor. Fair enough, he thought—he would try that. He angled his way through the maze of cases to the elevators, caught one standing open and took it to the eleventh floor.
He stepped from the elevator into a reception area comfortably furnished with overstuffed chairs and couches and fronted by a broad, wraparound desk and typing station. An attractive, thirtyish woman sat behind the desk, absorbed in a phone conversation. Rows of lighted buttons blinked on and off on her console.
She finished her conversation, hung up the phone and smiled pleasantly. “Good morning. May I help you?”
He nodded. “My name is Holiday. I have an appointment at ten with Mr. Meeks.”
He might have imagined it, but he thought her smile faded slightly. “Yes, sir. Mr. Meeks does not use offices on this floor. Mr. Meeks uses offices on the penthouse level.”
“The penthouse level?”
“Yes, sir.” She pointed to another elevator in an alcove to Ben’s right. “Simply press the button labeled PL. That will take you to Mr. Meeks. I will telephone to let his receptionist know that you are coming.”
“Thank you.” He hesitated. “This is the Mr. Meeks who is in charge of special ordering, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. Mr. Meeks.”
“The reason I ask is that your directory lists Customer Service, special ordering, on this floor.”
The receptionist brushed nervously at her hair. “Sir, we post no listing for Mr.
Meeks. He prefers that his clients come through us.” She tried a quick smile. “Mr. Meeks handles only our specialty items—a very select collection of merchandise.”
“The items in the Christmas Wishbook?”
“Oh, no. Most of those are handled by regular personnel. Mr. Meeks is not in the employ of Rosen’s. Mr. Meeks is a privately employed sales specialist who acts as our agent in certain sales transactions. Mr. Meeks handles only the most exotic and unusual of the items offered in the Wishbook, Mr. Holiday.” She leaned forward slightly. “He designates his own line of sales items, I understand.”
Ben lifted his eyebrows in response. “Quite talented at his work, then, is he?”
She looked away again suddenly. “Yes, very.” She reached for the phone. “I will call up for you, Mr. Holiday.” She pointed to the second elevator. “They will be expecting you when you arrive. Good-bye.”
He said good-bye in response, walked into the designated elevator and punched PL. The doors closed with the receptionist glancing covertly after him as she held the phone receiver to her ear.
He rode the elevator in silence, listening to the sound of the machinery. There were only four buttons on the panels above and next to the doors, numbered 1,2,3, and PL. They stayed dark for a time as the elevator rose, then began to light in sequence. The elevator did not stop for anyone else along the way. Ben almost wished that it had done so. He was beginning to feel as if he had stepped into the Twilight Zone.
The elevator stopped, the doors opened and he found himself back in a reception area almost identical to the one he had just left. This time the receptionist was an older woman, in her fifties perhaps, diligently engaged in sorting through a raft of papers stacked in piles on her desk while a harried-looking man of like age stood before her, his back to the elevator, his voice high-pitched and angry.
“… don’t have to do everything that old bastard tells us, and someday he’s going to hear about it! Thinks every last one of us is at his beck and call! If he doesn’t quit treating us like lackeys, then, damn it, I’ll take this to …”
He cut himself short as the receptionist caught sight of Ben. Hesitating, he turned and stalked quickly into the open elevator. A moment later, the doors slid shut.
“Mr. Holiday?” the receptionist inquired, her voice soft and graveled. It was the woman he had spoken to on the phone the previous afternoon.
“Yes,” he acknowledged. “I have an appointment with Mr. Meeks.”
She picked up the phone and waited. “Mr. Holiday, sir. Yes. Yes, I will.”
She placed the receiver back in its cradle and looked up. “It will only be a few moments, Mr. Holiday. Would you have a seat, please.”
He glanced about, then took a seat at one end of a sofa. There were magazines and newspapers on a table beside him, but he ignored them. His gaze wandered idly about the reception area, a well-lighted, cheerful center with solid wood desks and cabinets and cool colors on the walls and floors.
A few minutes passed and the phone on the receptionist’s desk rang. She picked up the receiver, listened momentarily, and hung up.
“Mr. Holiday?” She rose and beckoned. “This way, please.”
She led him into a corridor that opened up behind her work area. The corridor ran past a series of closed doors and branched left and right. That was all the further Ben could see.
“Follow the hallway back, left up the stairs to the door at its end. Mr. Meeks will be expecting you.”
She turned and walked back to her desk. Ben Holiday stood where he was for a moment, glancing first at the empty corridor, then at the retreating figure of the receptionist, then back again at the corridor.
So what are you waiting for? he asked himself admonishingly.
He went along the corridor to where it branched and turned left. The doors he passed were closed and bore no title designation or number. Fluorescent ceiling lights seemed pale against the pastel greens and blues of the corridor walls. Thick pile carpet absorbed the sound of his shoes as he walked. It was very still.
He hummed the theme from The Twilight Zone under his breath as he reached the staircase and began to climb.
The staircase ended at a heavy oak door with raised panels and the name “Meeks” stamped on a brass back plate screwed into the wood. He stopped before the door, knocked, turned the sculpted metal handle and stepped inside.
Meeks was standing directly in front of him.
He was very tall, well over six feet, old and bent, his face craggy, his hair white and grizzled. He wore a black leather glove on his left hand. His right hand and arm were missing completely, the empty sleeve of his corduroy jacket tucked into a lower pocket. Pale blue eyes that were hard and steady met Ben’s. Meeks looked as if he had fought and survived more than a few battles.
“Mr. Holiday?” he asked, his voice almost a whisper. He sounded a good deal like his receptionist. Ben nodded. “I’m Meeks.” The head dipped slightly. He didn’t offer his hand and neither did Ben. “Please come in and have a chair.”
He turned and shuffled away, hunching as he went as if his legs no longer worked properly. Ben followed him wordlessly, glancing about as he went. The office was elegant, a richly appointed room furnished with a massive old desk of scrolled oak, matching chairs with stuffed leather seats and backs, and workbenches and endtables covered with charts and magazines and what appeared to be work files. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined three walls, filled with ancient tomes and artifacts of all kinds. A bank of windows comprised the fourth wall, but the curtains were drawn tight across them and there were only the ceiling lamps to give the room its oddly muted light. Deep pile carpet of earthen brown sprouted from the floor like dried saw grass. The room smelled faintly of furniture polish and old leather.
“Sit down, Mr. Holiday.” Meeks beckoned to a chair drawn up before the desk, then shuffled his way around to the overstuffed swivel chair on the other side, easing himself down into the worn leather gingerly. “Can’t move like I used to. Weather tightens the bones. Age and weather. How old are you, Mr. Holiday?”
Ben glanced up, midway through the process of seating himself. The sharp, old eyes were fixed on him. “Forty, come January,” he answered.
“A good age.” Meeks smiled faintly, but without humor. “A man’s still got his strength at forty. He knows most of what he’s going to learn, and he’s got the strength to put it to good use. Is that so with you, Mr. Holiday?”
Ben hesitated. “I guess so.”
“That’s what your eyes say. Eyes tell more about a man than anything he says. Eyes reflect a man’s soul. They reflect a man’s heart. Sometimes they even tell the truths a man wants to keep hidden.” He paused. “Can I offer you something to drink? Coffee, a cocktail, perhaps?”
“No, nothing, thank you.” Ben shifted in his chair impatiently.
“You don’t believe that it’s possible, do you?” Meeks’ brows furrowed deeply, his voice soft. “Landover. You don’t believe it exists.”
Ben studied the other man thoughtfully. “I’m not sure.”
“You appreciate the possibilities, but you question them, too. You seek the challenges that are promised, but you fear they may be only paper windmills. Think of it—a world like nothing anyone on this earth has ever seen! But it sounds impossible. If I might invoke a time-honored cliché, it sounds too good to be true.”
“It does.”
“Like a man walking on the moon?”
Ben thought a moment. “More like truth in lending. Or full faith and credit between sister states. Or perhaps consumer protection against false advertising.”
Meeks stared at him. “You are a lawyer, Mr. Holiday?”
“I am.”
“And you believe in our system of justice, then?”
“I do.”
“You do, but you know as well that it doesn’t always work, don’t you? You want to believe in it, but it disappoints you much too often.”
He waited. “That’s a fair statemen
t, I suppose,” Ben admitted.
“And you think it might be that way with Landover as well.” Meeks made it a statement of fact, not a question. He leaned forward, his craggy face intense. “Well, it isn’t. Landover is exactly what the advertisement promises. It has everything that the advertisement says that it has and much more—things that are only myth in this world, things only barely imagined. But real in Landover, Mr. Holiday. Real!”
“Dragons, Mr. Meeks?”
“All of the mythical fairy creatures, Mr. Holiday—exactly as promised.”
Ben folded his hands before him. “I’d like to believe you, Mr. Meeks. I came to New York to inquire about this … catalogue item because I want to believe it exists. Can you show me anything that would help prove what you say?”
“You mean flyers, color brochures, pictures of the land, references?” His face tightened. “They don’t exist, Mr. Holiday. This item is a carefully protected treasure. The specifics of where it lies, what it looks like, what it offers—that is all privileged information which can be released only to the buyer whom I, as the seller’s designated agent, ultimately select. As a lawyer, I am sure that you can appreciate the limitations imposed upon me by the word ‘privileged,’ Mr. Holiday.”
“Is the identity of the seller privileged as well, Mr. Meeks?”
“It is.”
“And the reason that this item is being offered for sale in the first place?”
“Privileged, Mr. Holiday.”
“Why would anyone sell something as marvelous as this fantasy kingdom, Mr. Meeks? I keep asking myself that question. I keep asking myself if I’m not somehow buying a piece of the Brooklyn Bridge. How do I know that your seller even has the authority to sell Landover?”