The Collection

Davis spread his hands in an expansive gesture. 'It's in­valuable.'

'A ballpark figure.'

He leaned forward, across the counter. 'I'm not sure you realize what you have here, Mr. Franks. With this one sheet of paper, you can entirely rewrite the history of our coun­try.' He paused, letting his words sink in. 'History is myth, Mr. Franks. It's not just a collection of names and dates and facts. It's a belief system that ultimately tells more about the people buying into it than it does about the historical partic­ipants. What do we retain from our school lessons about George Washington? About Abraham Lincoln? Impressions. Washington was the father of our country. Lincoln freed the slaves. We are who we are as a nation because of what we believe they were. This letter will shatter that belief system and will forever change the image we have of Washington and perhaps all our Founding Fathers. That's a huge respon­sibility, and I think you should think about it.'

'Think about it?'

'Decide if you want to make this knowledge known.'

Mike stared at him. 'Cover it up? Why? If it's true, then people should know.'

'People don't want truth. They want image.'

'Yeah, right. How much do I owe you?'

'The appraisal fee is fifty dollars.' Davis started to write out a receipt, then paused, looked up. 'I know a collector,' he said. 'He's had feelers out for something of this nature for a very long time. Would you mind if I gave him a ring? He's very discreet, very powerful, and, I have reason to be­lieve, very generous.'

'No thanks.'

'I'd call him for you, set up all the-'

'Not interested,' Mike said.

'Very well.' Davis returned to the receipt. He finished writing, tore the perforated edge of the paper, and handed Mike a copy. 'But if I may, Mr. Franks, I'd like to suggest you do something.'

'What's that?' Mike asked as he took the receipt.

'Sleep on it.'

He thought about Washington's letter all the way home. It was lying on the passenger seat beside him, in a protective plastic sleeve that Davis had given him, and he could see it in his peripheral vision, dully reflecting the sun each time he turned north. It felt strange owning something so valuable. He had never had anything this rare in his car before, and it carried with it a lot of responsibility. It made him nervous. He probably should've had it insured before taking it any­where. What if the car crashed? What if the parchment burned? His hands on the wheel were sweaty.

But that wasn't why his hands were sweaty. That wasn't really why he was nervous. No. That was part of it, but the real reason was the note itself.

I will Skin your Children and Eat Them.

The fact that the words had been written by a real person and not a character in a novel would have automatically made him uneasy. But the fact that they had been written by George Washington ... Well, that was just too hard to take. There was something creepy about that, something that 1 made a ripple of gooseflesh crawl up the back of his neck f each time he looked at the plastic-wrapped brown parch­ment. He should have felt excited, proud, but instead he felt J dirty, oily. He suddenly wished he'd never seen the note.

Ahead of him on a billboard above a liquor store, a caricature of George Washington-green, the way he appeared on the dollar bill-was winking at him, promoting the high T-bill rate at the Bank of New York.

He looked away from the sign, turned down Lincoln Av­enue toward home.

Mike paced up and down the length of the kitchen. 'He implied that rather than give it to the Smithsonian or some­thing, I should sell it to a private collector who would keep it a secret.'

Pam looked up from the dishes, shook her head. 'That's crazy.'

'That's what I said.'

'Well, don't get too stressed out over it-'

'I'm not getting stressed out.'

'Will you let me finish my sentence? I was just going to say, there are a lot of other document appraisers, a lot of museum curators, a lot of university professors. There are a lot of people you can take this to who will know what to do with it.'

He nodded, touched her arm. 'You're right. I'm sorry. I'm just... I don't know. This whole thing has me a little freaked.'

'Me too. This afternoon I was helping Amy with her homework. They're studying Johnny Appleseed and George Washington and the cherry tree.'

'Two myths.'

'There's a picture of Washington in her book....' She shivered, dipped her hands back into the soap suds. 'You ought to look at it. It'll give you the willies.'

He smiled at her. 'I could give you my willy.'

'Later.'

'Really creepy, huh?'

'Check it out for yourself.'

'I will. You need me in here?'

'No.'

He patted the seat of her jeans, gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. 'I'll be out front then.'

'All right. I'll be through here in a minute. Go over Amy's math homework, too. Double-check.'

'Okay.' He walked into the living room. Amy was lying on the floor watching a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond. Her schoolbook and homework were on the coffee table. He sat down on the couch and was about to pick up the book, when he saw the cover: mountains and clouds and a clipper ship and the Statue of Liberty and the Liberty Bell. The cover was drawn simply, in bright grade school colors, but there was something about the smile on the Statue of Lib­erty's face that made him realize he did not want to open up the book to see the picture of George Washington.

A commercial came on, and Amy turned around to look at him. 'Are you going to check my homework?' she asked. He nodded. 'Yes,' he said. 'Do it quick, then. I'm watching TV.' He smiled at her. 'Yes, boss.'

The pounding woke them up.

It must have been going on for some time, because Amy was standing in the doorway of their bedroom clutching her teddy bear, though she'd supposedly given up the teddy bear two years ago.

Pam gave him a look that let him know how frightened she was, that told him to go out to the living room and find out who the hell was beating on their front door at this time of night, then she was no longer Wife but Mom, and she was out of bed and striding purposefully toward their daughter, telling her in a calm, reasonable, adult voice to go back to bed, that there was nothing the matter.

Mike quickly reached down for the jeans he'd abandoned on the floor next to the bed and put them on. The pounding continued unabated, and he felt more than a little frightened himself. But he was Husband and Dad and this was one of those things Husbands and Dads had to do, and he strode quickly out to the living room with a walk and an attitude that made him seem much braver than he actually felt.

He slowed down as he walked across the dark living room toward the entryway. Out here, the pounding seemed much louder and much ... scarier. There was a strength and will behind the pounding that had not translated across the rooms to the rear of the house and he found himself think­ing absurdly that whatever was knocking on the door was not human. It was a stupid thought, an irrational thought, but he stopped at the edge of the entryway nevertheless. The door was solid, there was no window in it, not even a peep­hole, and he did not want to just open it without knowing who-

what-was on the other side.

He moved quickly over to the front window. He didn't want to pull the drapes open and draw attention to himself, but he wanted to get a peek at the pounder. There was a small slit where the two halves of the drapes met in the middle of the window, and he bent over to peer through the opening.

Outside on the porch, facing the door, were four men wearing white powdered wigs and satin colonial garb.

He thought for a second that he was dreaming. The sur­realistic irrationality of this seemed more nightmarish than real. But he saw one of the men pound loudly on the door with his bunched fist, and from the back of the