Sam peeked his head out the museum’s front doors. Nothing. Not a soul. With a sigh, he sauntered down the steps in the light rain and slid open the wooden panel that read CLOSED, exposing the OPEN sign.
He couldn’t tell Jericho the real reason he needed to keep the museum alive. Two months ago, he’d asked his informant for a tip about Project Buffalo—a place to start. The contact had written down a name: William Fitzgerald. It had seemed like a joke. What could the professor of the world’s dullest museum know about a secret government project during the war that had taken Sam’s mother away from him? But it was the only lead he’d gotten in a very long time, and so even though it made him feel like an ungrateful heel, any chance he got he searched every drawer, cabinet, crevice, and corner of the place for clues that might lead him to the truth. So far, his search had yielded bupkes. He couldn’t let the museum be sold off until he’d found what he was looking for or proved that his contact had been wrong and that Will was in the clear. At times, he wasn’t sure which of those scenarios would be best.
Sam craned his neck, looking for signs of possible visitors. A mother pushing a carriage. A window washer packing up his supplies. Two men in dark suits waiting out the rain in their sedan. And one fellow in a Harvard letter sweater striding up Sixty-eighth Street.
Sam smirked. “Perfect,” he said under his breath. He bounded down the steps toward the fella, smiling and waving. “Buckwald? Buck Macy, is that you, you son of a gun?”
“I’m sorry. You must have me confused with someone else—”
“Do I?” Whip-fast, Sam stuck out a hand. “Don’t see me,” he intoned, and the college boy’s eyes glazed over.
Sam reached into the fella’s jacket, found his wallet, removed five dollars, and placed the wallet back inside, all in the space of six seconds.
“Nine, ten, eleven, twelve…” Sam counted. When Sam hit fifteen, the man came out of his hypnotic trance, blinking and befuddled. Not bad, Sam thought. Fifteen seconds was the longest he’d ever been able to put somebody under.
“Are you all right, pal?” Sam said, all concern. “You got a little woozy there.”
“Must’ve been that party last night at the Harvard Club,” the college boy said, still a little dazed.
“Must’ve been that,” Sam agreed. “Sorry that I had you confused with somebody else. A Yalie,” he whispered.
“Well. It’s… I’m fine now. Yes,” the fella mumbled. “Thanks, old boy.”
“Anytime, old boy,” Sam parroted and sent the still-wobbly fella on his way. He kissed the five bucks he’d stolen and shoved it into his pocket.
“The Museum of the Creepy Crawlies thanks you for your generous donation, sir,” he said to himself, then hurried up the steps into the museum.
“Did you see that, Mr. Adams?” the driver of the sedan asked, breaking the silence in the car.
The man in the passenger seat retrieved a pistachio from the oil-stained bag in his hand and maneuvered it into his mouth, cracking the shell with his back molars. But he kept his eyes on the museum the whole time.
“I did indeed, Mr. Jefferson,” he answered at last.
The wind whipping down 125th Street in the wake of the zippering trolleys was brisk, and Memphis Campbell blew on his hands for warmth. A tall ladder leaned against the outside of a brownstone where two men hoisted a banner above a second-floor window: MISS CALEDONIA: READER OF OBJECTS, HEALER OF MALADIES, DIVINER EXTRAORDINAIRE. Memphis shook his head. Everywhere he looked, it seemed people were trying to cash in on the Diviners craze.