Chapter 10: Silhouette

I bought the house. Eventually, I got to look at it up close and personal. But that's all ... Altifiord in Bern, had no key. But somebody had to have a key ... the light in the kitchen, remember? How long will a light bulb burn?

Then I read of a construction taking place in New York City. The crew was digging in the front of a store they were going to take down and discovered a whole store front and street that had been covered to "straighten" out a street. The work was done in the early 1890's.

One of the construction crew said, "hey, there's a light on in there." So ... that's how long a lightbulb can burn; 1890 to 1962. I wonder who got the electric bill?

Lessee. The bank crashed in '29 ... no help there, the city clerk doesn't have the key. No one has the key.

Jezebel ... bless her sweet hide ... said, "daddy has the safety deposit vault from the bank."

"The boxes?"

"Nope, the whole damn thing. His daddy bought it when they tore down the bank building."

"You're kidding."

"Nope, he's got the main vault too."

"Does he have the keys?"

"Yes." She dithered a bit and then confessed, "they're not numbered. They were but someone took off the number disks. We have those too."

"How many boxes?"

"A thousand ... almost."

"How almost?"

"Nine hundred and ninety nine." Jezebel blushed, "two keys per box."

Oh God!

"We have them all ... except one."

"One set?"

"One key."

"We'd better get started."

A month later, with the help of some of the "J's", we had matched 500 boxes and keys. They weren't all empty.

We found a .22 revolver; the murder weapon in three unsolved Boston murders ... Bearer bonds to 40 or so defunct enterprises, useless stock certificates, titles to some cars I'd love to own, foreign currency, half a million keys ... well it seemed like it ... some of the rarest ammo on earth, knives and a whole set of cheap china.

Every night we'd trek to the house and try what ever keys we had found. Nothing ever fit.

I was getting pretty pissed but we kept at it.

Every night we'd head back to the veranda and Jason would greet us with a satisfied grin ... we hadn't found it. We'd listen to the continuing story of the house for a couple of hours. The longer it went the more I was sure he was making it up as he went.

Jake would bump Jason's rocker and tell him he'd told us that part yesterday, or last week, or 15 minutes ago. The two of them would yap at each other like little dogs confronting very patient big dogs ... usually that was when I'd say I need a bath, and my "J" parade would get underway.