“Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-coloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, Doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them?”
- Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four
Up. Mop up, clean up, wash up, get up. Those were the first things I did.
The second thing I did was notice that the two was gone. As of this week I live in apartment “11_3.” There was something wrong about that. Much more wrong than the simple theft of a rusted metal digit, if theft it was. Yet that must have been what it was, of this I was unreasonably convinced.
How else to explain that it was the only missing number? And even if, in the commotion after the black out, it had somehow been knocked off my door, who would have removed it and the screws that once held it in place?
Two is an important number. It is the only prime number that is also even. In nature everything seems to come in twos. Light and dark. Positive charge and negative charge. Matter and antimatter. Male and female. So too in mythology. Heaven and Hell. Sky and earth. Mind and body. Life and death.
We have two hands, and two eyes, two feet, and two kidneys. There are two sides to every coin, and every argument. You need two people to have a marriage.
“Got a problem Mr. Alwyn?”
“My two’s been stolen,” I say before I look at my interrogator.
The boy has a thoughtful look on his face. He’s holding the same useless clipboard and wearing the same ridiculous over-sized suit as he was my first day at Wilshire Tower.
“Looks like a Mystery to me.” He says it with a capital M.
“You know,” I say, “You’re right. It is a mystery.”
“Are you a detective Mr. Alwyn?”
“Kind of,” I say. “A detective who only solves mysteries no one else cares about.”
“Well then this will be perfect! Who else would care about the location of your two?”
“Good point,” I say and I begin to wander off, unsure of my direction. The flip flop of Braxton Chamber’s clown shoes follows me like a cartoon echo of my steps.
“Except for me, of course!” He says. A serious look crosses his face. “Inspector Alwyn, can I be your deputy?”
“Detectives don’t have deputies, that’s for sheriffs,” I say, but the way he looks down at his toes and twists his mouth stops me from continuing. I wonder how many times he paced by my door that morning, waiting for me to exit, to notice what was missing, to enlist his aid in this very important mission. Possibly he had planned for the chance that I wouldn’t notice, had readied sly ways to draw my attention to the empty space on my door.
Well, I had nothing better to do.
I followed my odd guide on a wandering path through the building. As we explored I realized how little of Wilshire Tower I’d actually seen. Each floor had its own character. Seven was probably a full half of a foot lower down on the east end than the west end. On floor five I thought they’d installed new wallpaper, until I realized the green pattern was most likely organic.
Thirteen seemed to have its own floor plan entirely, as though the architect forgot about it until the last minute and had to improvise. This may not be so far from the truth, as the elevator doesn’t seem to go to floor thirteen. Instead we were forced to use the stairs, or at least the sixty percent of them that weren’t almost rotted through.
Luckily, Braxton knew which ones were safe. I waited before following him, watching him jump up the stairs nimbly and assuredly in a demented game of hopscotch.
On each floor we visited, Braxton would choose a room at random and knock – a surprisingly solid knock. Then he would wait, coughing importantly until the door was answered, when would squint his eyes and look up at the wary tenant.
“My associate,” he would say, “is missing his two.”
There might be a response, but even if there wasn’t he would go on.
“I’d just like to ask you a few questions.”
Next was the part where variations were allowed.
“Mr. Marconi,” he might say, “what is your favorite color?” Or “Mr. Oedkirk, have you frequented the antiques store lately?” Or "Captain Alex, were you aware that Mr. T is not, in fact, the official Fruit Loops mascot?"
Eventually our investigations led us to the basement, beneath all the residential floors. At first the doorman didn’t want to give Braxton the keys, but I stepped in.
“I’m looking for something,” I said.
At this the doorman nodded knowingly. He gave me the scratched up old key, and we entered the dark.
Down there waited a labyrinth of pipes and old mops and ancient asbestos stalactites. Our only light emanated from Braxton’s pocket flashlight.
Its beams sent the shadows running guiltily along the walls, as though they were hiding something from us. Occasionally, he would stoop down to better examine a “clue” and everything else would be plunged into total darkness.
I found myself truly playing along with Braxton’s fantasy. I looked at his clues, followed his zigzag march through the basement. As we went I imagined who the perpetrator might be. Man or woman? Woman I decided. Maybe she was some kind of Jungian shadow aspect of myself, trying to sow chaos and disorder in my life.
All I knew for sure was that I was suddenly caught up in this mad child’s game. I felt alive, something I wasn’t expecting so soon after my failed experiment. And then I knew what I had to do.
“Listen, Braxton,” I say, “Thank you for your help, but, uh, I’ve got to follow a lead. You keep a lookout for anything suspicious around Wilshire, okay?”
He nods and leads me back up the rickety steps, back out into the light. I lock the basement door behind us.
“I’m glad I could help,” he says as I walk away. “You’re not such a bad guy after all.”
I walked out into the rain and to the payphone, where I rung up Emilie’s cell phone number. It rings, and rings and then there it was: the familiar voice, the one I’d heard so many times before.
It was saying, “Your message has been forwarded to the automatic voicemail messaging system of,” and then a recording of my daughter’s voice said, “Emilie Alwyn” and I hung up. A few quarters later, it’s ringing again. This time Emilie picks up.
“Dad,” she says, “Why are you calling me in the middle of class?”
“I, uh,” I say, “I love you Emmy.”
Silence on the other side.
”Uh, I mean,” I say, grasping for a more concrete purpose, “Look, uh, they’ve set up a carnival near the apartment I’m staying in. I know how much you love carnivals… why don’t you come visit me after school today?”
“Dad,” she says. “I’m eleven.” A pause, and then, “Look, I’ll text mom about it.”
”Ok. Great! Now…”
”Uh-oh, gotta go.” And she was gone.
I fidgeted in my apartment the whole rest of the afternoon, wondering what I should do, how I would know whether Emilie was even coming. I jumped when I heard the knock on my door, and rushed to open it.
“Nice place, dad.”
“Hey! Yeah… not exactly a palace, I guess. It’s wonderful to see you though!”
“So what about this carnival?”
There was something magical about it. On the surface I could see how grimy everything was. I could see how rickety the rides were, probably held together by Elmer’s glue. And, of course, it was still raining lightly. But there was… something.
Maybe it was the way the flickering, colored lights multiplied in the puddles so that it looked like we were surrounded by flocks of electric fairies. Or maybe it was the way the dull lot behind the library had been transformed, if only for a week, into a miniature kingdom of whirling, hurly-burly rides. Maybe it was that Emilie and I were the only people at the carnival that rainy afternoon.
For all her pretense over the phone, she enjoyed the carnival just as much at eleven as she did at ten. We rode and we talked, but I can’t remember what about. Middle school probably. The problems with her teachers, and her sister, and the boys in her classes. After weeks apart, it was just good to be reassured that she didn’t hate me.
At one point, we walked by the fortune telling booth. For a moment I was tempted, but I don’t believe in fate, and if I did, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t want to know mine.
I walked her back to the subway station she had used to come visit me. She was so young to be taking it alone.
“I can’t believe she let you come by yourself,” I said.
“Oh yeah,” Emilie said, “Well, mom gave me pepper spray. She wasn’t going to let me go originally, but I promised to give you this. Go figure.”
She handed me a stuffed, sealed envelope. I walked her down to the train, and watched her disappear into the tunnel before I opened the envelope.
I read, didn’t believe what I read, then carefully placed the papers back inside the envelope, placed the envelope into my pocket. Tomorrow, it wouldn’t be true anymore, couldn’t be, but I knew, empirically, it would be.
The letter inside said: “My lawyer has drawn everything up. All you have to do is sign, and it’ll all be over, painless as possible. You’ll see I’ve been very generous, and I think you’ll find everything is in order.” Beneath it, as promised, were the divorce papers.
I stumbled back, passed the doorman without even a nod, and returned to my apartment. As I entered, I saw the two was still missing.
