Jeremy Fink And The Meaning Of Life Part 12

"Let me guess," Lizzy says. "Today we're going to return this old telescope to Amos Grady, right?"

"No," Mr. Oswald replies. He turns back to the shelves and picks up an ornate stained-gla.s.s lamp with a frayed brown cord. "Today you're going to deliver this lamp to a Mr. Simon Rudolph on Avenue B."

He places the lamp into Lizzy's surprised hands. She examines it. "Does this thing even work?"

Mr. Oswald chuckles. "I never thought to try it."

"Was Amos Grady under eighteen?" Lizzy interrupts.

"Fourteen to the day," Mr. Oswald replies.

"Then what your grandfather did was illegal?" she asks.

I slide down in my chair, unsure where to look.

Mr. Oswald nods. "Oh, yes, quite."

"I knew it!" Lizzy exclaims. "I knew there was something suspicious going on here. Didn't I tell you, Jeremy?"

I slide farther down in my seat. My eyes are level with the top of the desk now.

Mr. Oswald returns to his chair. He holds up his hand. "Before you get the wrong idea, allow me explain as I promised earlier."

Lizzy places the lamp on the desk next to the telescope and sits back, arms folded. When I'm sure she's not going to yell anymore, I slide back up in my chair.

Mr. Oswald clears his throat. "Everyone in New York City knew my grandfather, Old Ozzy, they called him, even before he got old. Priests and rabbis and business leaders came to him for his sensible advice. Little children would follow him in the streets. He always had a piece of taffy or a pickle to give them."

"A pickle?" I can't help interjecting. "Kids would follow him for a pickle?"

Mr. Oswald smiles. "For blocks and blocks. These pickles were aged to perfection in big wooden barrels down by the piers. Nothing like them back then, or since."

I shudder involuntarily.

Mr. Oswald continues. "But more than the pickles, the children knew they could come to my grandfather with their worries. And in those days-the nineteen thirties and forties-there were a lot of worries to be had. Now as Miss Muldoun here rightly pointed out, it was, shall we say, frowned upon to accept an item in a p.a.w.nshop from a child. But as I said, times were tough back then, and everyone had money problems, even children. So Ozzy, he made a deal with the children who came to see him." He pauses here and says, "With me so far?"

We nod. I'm actually on the edge of my seat. Even with the part about the pickles.

"Ozzy told the kids he would buy what they offered on one condition. He made up a special form for them to fill out explaining where the item came from, and why they needed to sell it. He would sit the kids down in front of the typewriter, and even if it took them all day, they recorded their stories. Ozzy never judged the children's reasons, and he always paid a fair price. Having to fill out the form scared away all but the most resolute."

"But why didn't Ozzy turn around and sell these things to someone else?" I ask. "Isn't that how the p.a.w.n business works?"

Mr. Oswald nods. "Indeed it is. But helping these youngsters out was never about the money. Ozzy stashed the items and the letters in a special closet in the back of his storeroom, and no one knew about them, not even my own father, who ran the store for thirty years."

"Do you think he meant to give them back to the kids?" I inquire.

"I wish I knew," Mr. Oswald replies, glancing over at an old black-and-white photograph on his desk.

I hadn't paid attention to the photo before, but now I lean in to examine it. It shows a middle-aged man holding up a fish and a pole, posing next to a wooden sign that reads YOU SHOULD SEE THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY!

"Old Ozzy?" I ask.

Mr. Oswald nods. "A big fisherman in his youth."

"But how did you find these people after so many years?" Lizzy asks.

"I hired a good detective. With so much information on the Internet, it wasn't very difficult to find out more than we even wanted to know."

"Tell me about it," I mutter.

They both turn to look at me. I pick up the lamp and say, "So what's this guy's story?"

Mr. Oswald checks his watch. "I didn't plan to spend so much time here this morning. I don't have time to pack up the lamp. You can carry it, right?"

Without waiting for an answer, he reaches into his top drawer and pulls out an envelope. He holds it out to me. I am not surprised to see Simon Rudolph's name printed on it in the same neat handwriting as the other. I slide it into my back pocket.

Before I can remind him that he still hasn't told us anything about Simon or his lamp, James appears and hands Mr. Oswald his pipe and a newspaper.

"I have the car ready for the children out front, sir," James says.

"Teenagers," Lizzy mutters under her breath. "Practically," she adds.

"Good, good," Mr. Oswald says to James. He lifts a Post-it note off the top of his desk, and hands it to him. "There is no house number outside Mr. Rudolph's door," he warns us all. "Mr. Rudolph's a bit, shall we say, eccentric. Bring your notebooks to our next visit. I'll be out of town for the next two days, so I will see you on Friday. Thank you in advance for a job well done." Mr. Oswald leaves the room, and James follows.

Lizzy and I are alone. Neither of us makes a move to take the lamp. "Um, I guess we should go, too?" I suggest.

"This is just like last time," she grumbles, but she picks up the lamp. "We don't know anything about this guy. We don't know what to expect."

As we head toward the front door I whisper, "This isn't exactly like last time."

"I know, I know," Lizzy replies, and then poorly mimics Mr. Oswald's voice. "Because nothing is ever exactly like anything else."

"No. I mean this time we know what the envelope is for."

Lizzy stops walking and stares at me. "Did I just hear what I think I heard? Is the honorable Jeremy Fink suggesting we open the envelope before we get there?"

"He might be," I say with a proud smile.

"There's hope for you yet," she says approvingly.

I'm glad she's pleased by my willingness to break the rules, even though Mr. Oswald didn't specifically tell us not to read it. But honestly, I'm motivated less by curiosity and more by fear. I don't like being unprepared for anything. And if Mr. Rudolph is as "eccentric" as Mr. Oswald said, I want to know exactly what we're walking into.

Chapter 11: The Lamp.

"You can open it," I whisper, pushing the envelope across the seat to Lizzy.

"No, you," she says, pushing it back.

"You!" I toss it onto her lap, and she tosses it right back.

"Oh, for goodness' sake," James says from the front seat. "I'll open it."

Guiltily, I pa.s.s the envelope through the partially open window divider. I hear a ripping sound, which makes me cringe a little, and the letter appears a few seconds later. This one isn't as yellowed as the other one. I unfold it slowly.

Oswald's p.a.w.n Emporium Date: August 11, 1958 Name: Simon Rudolph Age: 14 (today) Location: Manhattan Item to p.a.w.n: Multicolored gla.s.s lamp Personal Statement of Seller: I need the money to buy a silver watch. All my friends have nice watches, but my mother is too busy spending money on herself at Bergdorf's and Bloomingdale's to buy me anything. She has twenty of these lamps. She won't notice one missing. She does not notice anything. I once stood on my head for twenty whole minutes till my face was purple. Mother went on gabbing to her friend on the telephone about what to wear to dinner at the club. EVERYONE knows the telephone is not supposed to be used for such everyday things. Dad claims that I need to learn the value of money, but I KNOW the value of money. Some day I am going to be even richer than him and then I won't NEED to p.a.w.n anything. I'll have FIFTY silver watches!

When I finish reading it, Lizzy says, "Wow. What a spoiled brat."

I hand her the letter. "It says here he got twenty dollars for the lamp. Silver watches must have cost a lot less back then."

"He looks so... intense," Lizzy says, staring at the photo clipped to the bottom of the letter. "I wonder what he was thinking at that moment." She tilts the paper so I can see it.

"Maybe he's thinking about the meaning of life," I suggest.

"You think so?"

"Why not?"

Lizzy leans forward and pushes the letter through the half-open window to James. "What do you think, James?"

Without taking his eyes from the road, James holds the letter in front of him and gives it a quick glance. "I think he's wondering if he should have eaten that last pickle."

Lizzy and I laugh as James tosses the letter back to us and then raises the window divider the rest of the way.

Rain begins to plop down on the car. I'm very glad to be right here, in this car, at this moment. Still, finding the keys for the box is never far from my mind. Every minute we're doing something else is making me a little antsy. Lizzy turns away from watching the rain slide down the back window and opens a soda.

I clear my throat. Asking Lizzy serious questions usually doesn't go over well, but I have to try. "Um, Lizzy?"

"Hmm?" she asks, guzzling the soda so fast I'm afraid it's going to come out her nose. She's not allowed soda in her house.

"Do you ever... I mean, have you ever... I mean..."

She glances at her watch theatrically. "Spit it out, I'm getting old here."

"Fine. Do you ever think about the meaning of life? Like, do you think you know what it is?"

She shakes her head. "I try not to think about anything too deeply. It hurts my brain." With that, she turns to the window and stares out at the rain again.

There is no parking without a special permit on Mr. Rudolph's street, so James has to park in a lot two blocks away. It costs twenty dollars for one hour! He mutters something about highway robbery and the Better Business Bureau, and reluctantly hands the attendant the keys. The guy eyes the car hungrily as we get out. I bet it's not every day he gets to park a limo like this. As we walk toward the street, I whisper to James that he should check the odometer to make sure the guy doesn't take it for a joyride.

"You've seen too many movies," James says, but he runs back to the car, claiming he forgot something.

Luckily the brief storm ends as quickly as it began, so I don't have to be annoyed at myself for being unprepared. I make a mental note to keep an umbrella in my backpack from now on.

A slight mist rises off the hot sidewalk as we head down the block. It gives the neighborhood an eerie glow. Lizzy has pa.s.sed the lamp-holding duties to me, and I notice it gets admiring glances from pa.s.sersby. It really is a beautiful lamp, and I've never paid any attention to lamps before. Even though the sun isn't out, the lamp appears to be lit from within. If this lamp had been mine, I wouldn't have wanted to p.a.w.n it.

James reads out the street address. Not only does Mr. Rudolph not have a number on his door, neither do most of his neighbors. We get no answer at the first door we try. The second is opened by a little kid in a soccer uniform, who sneers and says, "I don't talk to strangers!" before slamming the door in our faces. James mutters something about this being the reason he never had children and then pushes the intercom outside the next door.

"Good morning!" a man's voice rings out. "How can I help you today?"

James leans closer to the intercom and says, "We are looking for a Mr. Simon Rudolph. Mr. Oswald sent us."

"Ah, yes," the voice cackles through the metal box. "The mysterious Mr. Oswald who would not reveal the nature of his business with me. No matter. I am always happy to welcome guests to my home." A few seconds later the door buzzes, and James pushes it open.

Lizzy and I don't move.

"What's wrong this time?" James says.

"I don't think this is the right guy," I reply.

Lizzy nods in agreement, pulling the letter out of her pocket.

"What makes you say that?" James asks.

"He doesn't sound anything like this letter," Lizzy says. "This guy sounds like he's been taking happy pills. Our guy was spoiled and obnoxious."

"People change," James says with exasperation. "That was nearly fifty years ago, for goodness' sake. This is the right guy. He's expecting us."

"Oh, all right," Lizzy says, pushing her way past him and into the building. "But if we get kidnapped into some cult, my father will be very angry with you."

We trudge up three flights of stairs until we reach the right door. It's open a crack. James whispers, "I'll be standing right out here."

"Are you sure?" I whisper back, glancing nervously at the door.

"You'll be fine," he insists, and moves a few feet away.

"We better be," Lizzy mumbles.

Tentatively I push the door open a few more inches. "Mr. Rudolph?" A few seconds go by, and I don't hear any noise inside. I glance at Lizzy, and she looks uneasy, too. Then she reaches past me and pushes the door the rest of the way open. We find ourselves staring into a big, nearly empty room with white walls and wood floors. There is one window, one table, one small plastic lamp, one hardback wooden chair, one large framed photograph (a sunset over a beach), and one bowl with one piece of fruit (an apple). The smell of flowers hangs in the air, but I don't see any.

As we're taking in the strangeness of it, a spry, wiry man walks through an archway at the end of the room. He is deeply tanned, wearing sandals, brown shorts, and a white T-shirt with the cryptic message: THE ONE WHO DIES WITH THE MOST TOYS WINS. Based on the letter from Mr. Oswald, he must be over sixty, but he looks at least ten years younger.

"Er, are you Simon Rudolph?" I ask, searching his face in vain for a resemblance to that intense boy in the faded photo.

"At your service," he replies with a small bow. "And you two are?"

"I'm Jeremy Fink, and this is Lizzy Muldoun." Lizzy gives the man a small nod. Her red hair and freckles are the brightest things in the room, next to the lamp that I'm holding and the sunset picture.

"I've heard of traveling with a flashlight," Mr. Rudolph says with a grin. "But a whole lamp? And such an ornate one, at that."

I quickly hold the lamp out to him. "This is yours. You p.a.w.ned it to Ozzy Oswald in 1958."