Walls within Walls (6 page)

Back when they lived in Brooklyn, CJ knew he could count on his father to leave his basement office at four
PM
and come upstairs. Mr. Smithfork would cook, throw a football around, or help the kids with homework, but he would never, ever go back to his office. Now that he worked in a midtown skyscraper, his home office seemed like a second job he had to go to. He often came home late, and then would go right into his office. Sometimes he even ate in there.

“So, Dad,” said Brid, “how'd you get out of work so early?”

Their dad pushed his bushy brown hair back from his face and said, “I thought I'd come home early because school starts tomorrow.”

“Dad,” said Brid, “school doesn't start till September seventh, and today is just the second.”

“I knew that,” their dad said a little sheepishly. “Want to throw the football around?”

This grabbed Patrick's attention. “In the park?” he asked.

“Great idea!” said Brid. “But CJ and I have a lot of homework, so why don't you just take Patrick, and we'll see you back here for dinner.”

CJ glared at Brid. Homework? School hadn't even started, so how could they have homework?

“Dad,” said Patrick, looking outside onto Fifth Avenue. “Didn't you notice it's raining?”

“I didn't mean football in the
park
,” their dad said. “I meant living room football. They don't call this a ballroom for nothing.” He winked, and CJ thought he hadn't seen his dad do that in a really long time.

Three minutes later, they were passing the football around. Maricel had carried off Carron, protesting loudly, for a bath. With its twenty-foot ceilings and rectangular shape, the living room was the perfect miniature football field. CJ moved the two long couches against the walls, making end zones. Brid stuck brooms and mops deep into the cushions so they stood upright, creating goalposts. Luckily, they hadn't done much in the way of unpacking, so there was nothing breakable in the room. Even though dragging around the furniture scratched the
floor, and putting dirty mops on a couch wasn't a sanitary idea, Bruce Smithfork didn't say a word.

As soon as Brid got the final handle to stay upright, Patrick yelled, “Hike!” and the game was on. The teams were Mr. Smithfork and Patrick versus CJ and Brid, and soon both sides were in a sweaty rumble. Collapsing at last onto the floor, CJ thought it was a good time to ask their dad some questions.

“Dad, do you know who lived here before us?”

“Nope. They were renters, not owners. We bought the apartment from people we never met.

“We really liked this apartment because it had so much character. It seemed like the walls had stories to tell us, stories from a different time.”

Brid and CJ looked at each other as their dad stood up and moved his tie around his forehead like a sweatband. “Go long, Pat!” he yelled as he let the ball sail to his younger son.

CJ easily two-hand touched his brother to stop the play, and Pat fell hard onto the couch.

“But the original owner died a long time ago, right?” CJ said.

“That's right. He died and left the original apartment to his family, and they divided it up into four different apartments. They all came up for sale after the Great Depression, when it was hard to sell any apartment, never mind one with bizarre rules attached. The fact that
not only that owner, but any owner in the future, had to agree to not wreck the walls made it a bit of a white elephant.”

“A what?” asked Brid.

“An expensive possession that is a financial burden to maintain,” said CJ. “It's just an expression.”

Just then, Maricel came back into the living room with Carron. She looked alarmed at the football game, but Carron was grinning.

“We pay you?” Carron asked.

“Of course you can play with us,” said her dad.

“She just had her bath,” said Maricel. “She shouldn't get dirty now. Playtime is done for the day.”

“It's just football,” said Mr. Smithfork. “Living room football is very clean.”

Maricel gathered her purse from the front hall. “Good night,” she said with an edge to her voice, and rang the elevator button.

Boom!
Brid dove for a long-shot pass and landed on the back of the couch so hard that it fell over backward. It smacked the uncovered wooden floor with a noise that echoed loudly through the apartment. Carron burst out laughing, while Patrick dove on top of Brid. Thinking this was a game she would like, Carron got on top of him.

As they lay there, spluttering and giggling, the elevator arrived for Maricel. They were surprised to see that Ray was accompanied by two women. One wore a white blouse,
dark skirt, a strand of pearls, and sensible pumps. She looked around eighty years old. The other wore what CJ had started to call “the Fifth Avenue uniform,” a simple gray dress with a white apron across the front. This was the dress of the helpers: the dog walkers, the nannies, the maids, the baby nurses, and the ladies hired to buy groceries. The neighborhood was filled with women wearing these clothes.

The older woman stood with her mouth open, staring at the overturned couch and Mr. Smithfork with a tie around his head. Aside from the heavy panting of the football players, there was no sound in the room.

Maricel shrugged and stepped into the elevator, leaving the two strange women with the Smithforks.

“May I help you?” asked Mr. Smithfork.

Brid stared at the older lady. She was on the shorter side, light-skinned, twinkly-eyed, and fine-boned. Something about her seemed familiar. Brid watched the woman's eyes sweep the room, taking note of the living room goalposts and the overturned couch. For a flash, Brid thought she saw a half smile.

The woman cleared her voice. “Yes, hello. I'm your downstairs neighbor, and this is my housekeeper, Annika. We were just making certain a bomb hadn't exploded up here,” she said with a smile.

Annika added, “I think Madam would like to request quieter behavior. Madam's apartment has very high
ceilings, so the noise you make here is amplified downstairs.”

I'll bet she has high ceilings, thought CJ. According to the floor plan of the original apartment, that floor had much more height than the Smithfork apartment. Her ceiling had to be thirty-five feet high. But before anyone could answer, a cry came from the kitchen.

“Dinner!” It was their mom.

“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Smithfork, who was now awkwardly trying to remove his tie from his forehead. “Please, ladies, we are sorry about the noise. We didn't want to play outside in the rain.”

“Yeah,” said Brid, “we kind of take the word
ballroom
literally.”

The elderly woman cracked a full smile at Brid's joke. She seemed apologetic. So, when Mrs. Smithfork yelled, “Dinner,” the second time, Patrick asked, “Want to stay for dinner? My mom makes the best chocolate cake!”

“Oh, we didn't mean to interrupt anything. We just haven't heard so much life up here in a long time. I'm glad everyone is all right,” she said, smoothing her hair.

“Well, at least come meet my wife,” said Mr. Smithfork, who seemed to want a second chance to make a good impression. Brid hated that he seemed to care what people thought of him these days.

Annika bent to remove her shoes. Brid said, “You can leave your shoes on, it's not that kind of house.”

“Oh, okay,” Annika said with relief in her voice. Without anyone showing them where to go, the two women made the two right turns that took them down the hall to the kitchen. The family padded behind them.

Brid turned to CJ and whispered, “How did they know how to get to the kitchen?”

Mrs. Smithfork didn't cook like the chefs on television: no neat little piles of matching chopped foods arrayed in colorful bits. The Smithfork kitchen had oozy liquid dripping from the stainless steel countertops. Sprinkles of herbs dusted the floor, and bits of vegetables were scattered about. Sizzling chicken parts spat grease onto the industrial-sized gas range. CJ and Brid felt a little embarrassed that their mom looked so messy in front of these prim women.

“Hi there—welcome!” Mrs. Smithfork practically shouted.

“Hello, ma'am,” said Annika. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance. I work for your downstairs neighbor, Mrs. Munn,” she added, gesturing toward the older woman. “And my name is Annika.”

“We just came up to say hello and, I guess, welcome you to the building. I'm embarrassed we haven't brought a housewarming gift,” said Mrs. Munn.

“Would you like to stay for dinner tonight?” Mrs. Smithfork said brightly.

“Oh what a lovely invitation,” said the older woman. “Perhaps another time?” She seemed surprised by
Anne Smithfork's spontaneity.

“Oh, I understand,” said Mrs. Smithfork as the chicken started to smoke. “We'll see you again.”

“Yes, good-bye.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Smithfork, looking a little defeated. “And we'll keep the noise level down.”

The older lady nodded and grinned and went back to the elevator, with Annika trailing behind her.

At one the next morning, CJ's alarm clock went off. He wasn't sure why he felt this way, but he wanted to be alone when he examined the hearth in his dad's office. In a family like his, the middle of the night was the only time he could do that. He tiptoed to the office, noticing three partially filled coffee cups. It looked like his dad had spent a long night laboring over problems with his LeCube company.

Since Bruce Smithfork's screen saver was still glowing, CJ figured his father must have just left the room. CJ sat in the office chair and watched the words
DigiSpy, a division of the LeCube Company
form a swirling cyclone on the screen. This was the new spy game his dad was inventing. Every time CJ asked if he could test it out,
Bruce Smithfork would say, “Wait till it's through my testing department.” CJ could feel his insides deflate when that happened. His dad seemed to forget that CJ had once been his testing department. Now Bruce Smithfork employed people who had gone to college for that stuff, experts at making people want to buy his gaming system.

As CJ leaned back in his dad's chair, he noticed a poem etched into the wall above Mr. Post's built-in desk. It read:

Wonder why he had that there? CJ thought. That Post guy was just crazy for poetry. Weird.

He glanced out the office window, looking for the moon, but it was black outside, except for the lights of the surrounding buildings. Using just his flashlight and the blue light from the computer screen, he examined the fireplace. Nothing seemed amiss or unusual. He moved his hands up and down and felt nothing. The tiles seemed to be laid evenly, the cement holding them together perfectly aligned. He tried again, this time pushing each tile just in case there was a spring behind one of them. Nothing. CJ lay down and flashed his light
up the chimney, seeing only blackness and a tiny dot of night sky.

Sadly, thought CJ, this night will give way to another day, and that day is one day closer to Saint James's School. How he wished he were back in Brooklyn. He realized they might not have time to visit Grant's Tomb before school started, but who cared? He didn't care about the Post mystery anymore. He didn't care that his family was suddenly wealthy. He felt scared about his new life, this new neighborhood that came with so many rules. And that was the last thing he thought before falling asleep right there on the floor. He slept soundly with his head under the fireplace flue, his legs sticking out into the room.

It was dawn when his father came into the office. “Fall down the chimney, CJ?” he asked casually, grabbing some papers off his desk. By the time CJ could get his eyes open, Bruce Smithfork was gone. He had not even waited to hear the answer. CJ lay on the floor, dazed, rubbing his eyes while listening to his dad shut the front door, leaving to beat the rush to midtown Manhattan. There is nothing to wake up for, thought CJ, and he drifted back into a thick sleep.

The next time CJ woke, bright sunshine was everywhere. He could hear Maricel shooing Carron off the tricycle as she rode up and down the main hallway. CJ lay there figuring out what to do with his fourth-to-last
day of freedom. Maybe he would jump onto the A train, head back to his old neighborhood. He wondered if he would look different to his old friends after almost a week of living on the Upper East Side.

 

 

His mind swimming with nonsense, CJ stared up the chimney at nothing, until the nothing that he saw suddenly looked like something.

Up in the flue, about four feet from the ground, the tiles had some sort of inscription. He trained his flashlight on it, seeing numbers separated by dashes, placed in a ring. Were they dates? They were written in a circle, so how could he know where the inscription began and where it ended?

Quickly he sat up.
Smack!
He hit his head on the cold tile at the bottom opening of the fireplace.

“Agh,” he said, hardly stopping as he slammed open his dad's desk to get a pen. He wrote down the numbers, keeping them in order and noting the dashes.

Just as he finished, someone pushed the office door open so forcefully that it slammed against the opposite wall. It was Maricel. “Are you allowed in here?” she asked. CJ could tell she thought he was always up to mischief.

“Yes, my dad was in here with
me,” CJ answered, rubbing his head.

“Okay, then.” Maricel took a big breath. “Your mom is out. I put breakfast on the table for you and Brid. I'm taking Patrick and Carron to the park, and I think you should come, too.”

“Park, as in playground?” CJ grimaced.

“I cannot watch you if you aren't with me, and what are you writing?” Maricel sounded exasperated as she looked at the numbers on his pad.

“Just a math problem. Can Brid and I please stay home? We won't go anywhere. We'll be good. Please?”

She looked skeptical. “I need to check with your mother.”

“I used to stay home alone all the time. Really, we're used to it.”

“If they stay home, then I'm staying home,” Pat said. He was out of sight and his voice was muffled.

“¡Che Guevara! You see,” she said, “I cannot win in this house.” She threw up her arms and stormed off, taking only Carron with her, leaving CJ to stand and wonder why his Filipina nanny was speaking Spanish.

A full five minutes passed before the others came out of hiding.

“Is she gone?” asked Brid cautiously. She had been behind a closed bathroom door.

“I think so,” said CJ.

Giggles came from beneath the still-overturned sofa
in the living room. CJ nodded toward the sound. “Guess Pat managed to skip the playground, too.”

“Party time!” said Brid.

“No, it's clue time,” CJ said dramatically.

“Really? You found something?”

CJ motioned Brid back into the office, and Patrick crawled out from under the sofa to join them. “Lie on your back, right here,” CJ said as he crawled in and trained the flashlight on the exact spot.

“Whoa. Is that a secret code?” Brid asked.

“I don't know. Maybe it's from a combination lock,” CJ said. “We need to check the other two hearths.”

Brid took the flashlight. “So it's not really
in
the hearth, but you have to lie on the hearth to see it. Interesting.” Standing upright again, she picked up her pink spiral notebook and wrote down the numbers. Then she headed down the hall toward the living room fireplace, her brothers behind her.

“I didn't see them last night, but there are numbers here, too!” she said. At about the same height in the second chimney, the tiles were laid with another circle of numbers. This circle was larger, because it had more numbers.

“Brid, hand me that paper,” CJ said. Brid tossed her notebook to him. “Just tell me the numbers, and make sure you read them beginning at the twelve o'clock spot.”

Though her voice sounded far away, Brid shouted the
numbers, while CJ wrote them down.

23-1-9-20-5-18-4-21-13-2

CJ stared at the numbers while Pat, seeing that their work was done in the living room, seized the chance to get to the next fireplace before them. “I'm the only one who can fit in the kitchen fireplace,” he said, running down the hall, the others at his heels.

The kitchen hearth had the narrowest opening, making it hard to see inside.

Without any hesitation, Pat crawled onto the hearth, unfolded himself slowly, and stood up in the chimney.

“Pat, what's it like in there?” Brid asked, her pencil sketching the shape of the hearth.

They could hear Patrick cough. “It's dirty.”

“Is there anything unusual in there? Anything you can read?”

“Nope.”

“Bummer.”

“Pat?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You can come out now.”

“When I'm done.”

“When you're done with what?” said CJ.

“When I'm done seeing through the dirt. I need a rag or something to clean with.”

“Seeing what through the dirt?” Brid asked impatiently.

CJ was calmer. “Pat, are you reading something?”

“Stop shaking the flashlight. I'm not reading, I'm seeing. Can you really read numbers like words, or do you just see numbers?”

CJ groaned. “Pat,” he said, “you can hardly read as it is. What do you see?”

“Some very dirty numbers that I'm cleaning off with my shirt.”

Brid jumped up and down, flapping her arms.

“Pat, please tell us the numbers you see,” CJ said.

Pat's muffled voice read, “Twenty-two, one, fourteen, twenty, nineteen, nineteen, five, eighty-one.”

“Oh no!” said CJ. “It's not what I thought.”

“Not what you thought about what?” Brid asked, scribbling furiously.

“Well, at first, I thought the numbers were a substitution code, like where one is the letter
A
, two is
B
, and so forth. It's a pretty common code. But that would only work if no number was higher than twenty-six, because there are only twenty-six letters in the alphabet. Patrick saw an eighty-one, so it blows my theory. Now I don't know what the numbers mean.”

Brid was quiet for a second. “Pat, before you come out,” she said, “can you please give us that last number again?”

“Yup, eighty-one.”

“And which digit is first in that eighty-one?”

“Duh, the one.”

“So it reads
one
and then an eight?”

“Yup.”

“You're a genius, Pat. C'mon out now.”

“Depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“Depends if you have any bubble gum for me.”

CJ and Brid grinned at each other. “But how do we know he didn't jumble any of the other numbers?” CJ asked.

“Pat only turns things around at the beginning or end of a sentence,” said Brid. “I bet it's the same with numbers. Let's see if it works.”

Slowly, Pat pulled himself out of the hearth. He had soot on his head, which made him look like he was wearing a black cap. “How'd they ever find a grown-up as small as me to put those numbers in there?” he asked.

“Because they did it as it was being built,” said CJ. “Someone put these puzzles in right from the start, in the 1920s. Mr. Post must have known for a long time he wanted to hide stuff, but the question is why?”

“Maybe he needed a place to hide his riches,” Brid replied as she doodled in her notebook.

“From who?” said Pat.

“I don't know. Maybe the banks, or the government, so he wouldn't have to pay taxes?” said CJ.

“Or maybe bad guys,” Patrick said.

“Maybe he was worried the good times would end, and he needed a safe place to store money and valuables. Because the good times
did
end,” said Brid.

“Yes, the stock market crashed, and that started the Great Depression. Lots of people had no jobs, and some lost their homes,” CJ agreed.

“Sounds a little like now,” Brid said.

“A little, but much worse,” said CJ. “Maybe Mr. Post thought the world was coming to an end. Maybe he didn't trust his bank, and he didn't have a backyard to bury his treasure in.”

“And it's clear he didn't want anyone to just find it by accident,” Brid reasoned. “CJ?” she asked as she continued to try and translate the numbers into letters.

“Yup.”

“I'm definitely getting a message here.”

“Do you think the answer will be in this chimney?” Pat interrupted.

“Nope,” CJ said. “It's not going to be that easy. That's why I stopped carrying that big key around. No lock is suddenly going to show itself, screaming, ‘Open me.' This will take some detective work.”

CJ was looking over Brid's shoulder. “So it is a number-letter association,” he said, smiling.

“It's not even a skip-seven,” said Brid. “It's a straight substitution code. Are you ready?” she asked her brothers.