The Night Tourist Read Free Page B

and picked it up. The shape of a “Y” was cut out of its center, and around the edges it said GOOD FOR ONE FARE .
    Just then, the door opened, and Jack instinctively closed his fist around the coin. An obese man his father’s age, with drooping, caterpillar-size eyebrows, waddled in. “You must be Louis’s son,” he said in a cheerful baritone. “I’m Dr. Lyons.”
    Jack felt his face turn red. “I’m just looking.”
    “As you should. Fascinating stuff, isn’t it?” Dr. Lyons joined Jack by the bookcase. “I collect artifacts from the city’s past—playbills, baseball cards, restaurant menus, World’s Fair memorabilia, subway tokens.”
    Jack stood stiffly in front of the shelf, fingering the subway token nestled in his palm. He watched Dr. Lyons’s face, hoping he wouldn’t notice the token’s absence. To Jack’s relief, after a quick glance at his collection, the doctor pointed to the couch. “Why don’t you take a seat?”
    Jack sat down and waited for Dr. Lyons to examine him, but the doctor just eased himself into his chair and spent a few awkward seconds doing nothing except staring at Jack. Finally he said, “I heard about your accident. You’re lucky to be alive. How do you feel?”
    “Fine,” Jack chirped. He suddenly wondered whether his father’s old friend was a quack. “Are you a medical doctor?” he asked.
    Dr. Lyons laughed. “Something like that. So, nothing . . . unusual?”
    Jack wondered if he should tell Dr. Lyons about the man who had leaped out the window, but then he remembered the enormous pile of death certificates and decided against it. Who knew what kind of bad medicine the doctor was practicing?
    “You favor your mother,” Dr. Lyons declared.
    Jack leaned forward. “You knew my mother?”
    The doctor laughed. “You look exactly like her.”
    Jack swallowed. “My dad never talks about her. What was she—?”
    “You’re a fine, healthy boy,” Dr. Lyons interrupted. He opened a drawer and rooted around in it. “Puer fortunae bonae . ”
    A boy of good fortune. Jack smiled at the Latin words.
    “I hear you’re a Classics scholar,” the doctor remarked. “Good at dead languages.”
    “I’m all right, I guess.”
    Dr. Lyons finally stopped staring at him and pulled out a bulky, ancient-looking camera. “Would you mind if I took your picture?”
    Jack shrugged.
    “It’s a 1947 Polaroid,” Dr. Lyons said, as if that explained everything. “First year they made them.”
    Jack gave an awkward smile as the flash momentarily blinded him.
    The doctor waved the photo in the air and then, after a quick glance, slipped it into the left drawer of his desk.
    “Sun sets early this time of year. We’d better get you on your way.”
    Jack knew he was supposed to stand up, but he didn’t. “That’s it? Don’t you want to examine me?”
    Doctor Lyons stood and opened his door. “That’s not necessary. I think we’re all squared away here.”
    Jack wanted to protest—nothing seemed to be squared away at all. He was also still holding Dr. Lyons’s subway token. But there was no easy way now to explain why he had it and give it back. Jack reluctantly stood and walked out. Dr. Lyons closed the office door behind him.

IV | The Whispering Gallery
    Jack stood in the main hall of Grand Central Terminal, peering up at the large black boards that listed the trains’ timetables. According to the New Haven line departures, he had a half hour till the next train. It wasn’t enough time to leave the station, but it also seemed wrong to come all the way to New York and see nothing except Dr. Lyons’s ratty office and the inside of a cab. He scanned the hall, decorated with giant wreaths for the holidays, and noticed a small crowd gathered by the information booth, looking up at the cathedral-high ceiling, which was painted a robin’s-egg blue and decorated with stars. He slipped over to join them.
    “The ceiling is an actual re-creation of the winter sky,”