Unknown 9 by Layton Green (each kindness read aloud txt) 📕

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

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Cover design by Pascal Hamelin

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Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

Print ISBN: 978-1-9992297-9-5

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9992297-8-8

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Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

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First Edition

Between the idea

And the reality

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the Shadow

—T. S. ELIOT

PROLOGUE

NEW YORK CITY

SUMMER 1970

Broken glass and discarded wrappers littered the sidewalk as the veil of night settled on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Now the streets belonged to the pushers and addicts, muggers and gang members. For a man such as Dr. James Corwin, professor of theoretical physics at Columbia University, a lone figure in a fedora and tailored linen suit, an outfit that screamed for attention in the rough neighborhood, trouble seemed inevitable.

Yet his environs did not bother him. Dr. Corwin had come of age in a slum in Kingston, Jamaica. He had survived much harder streets, had traveled the world and back again.

What bothered him was the puzzle of the abandoned building across the street.

Only thirty-one years old, Dr. Corwin had received tenure at Columbia a year earlier, a most impressive feat. He was also a member of another organization, the Leap Year Society, which he considered even more prestigious—but which he still knew precious little about, despite his recent induction.

Earlier that morning, Dr. Corwin had arrived at his office to find a manila envelope delivered beneath his door. Inside was a calling card bearing the ouroboros seal of the LYS. Printed on the back of the card was a clock set to midnight above the address that had led him to this abandoned building on Canal Street.

The message was clear.

He checked his watch. 11:30 p.m. A graffiti-stained, roll-up aluminum barrier covered the ground floor of the building. How to get inside? Was the lack of an obvious entrance a precaution against prying eyes? A hidden message, a challenge?

Knowing the Leap Year Society, it was probably all three.

This suited Dr. Corwin just fine. He loved intellectual puzzles, searching for the hidden meaning of things, uncovering the patterns and enigmas strewn about the world like the pieces of a broken pearl necklace.

In theory, a society of driven, intelligent individuals from around the globe searching for esoteric knowledge was a perfect fit for him. Yet the reality was a serpentine road that wound through a dark and tangled wood, leading to an unknown terminus that gave him a shiver of anticipation.

Whatever lay in store, he was prepared to take it on. Best to stay the course for now, rise through the ranks and discover the tantalizing secrets of the upper echelons of the Society. Secrets which the elder members dangled like ripe mangoes before their inductees.

He took a closer look at the abandoned building as steam drifted out of a sewer grate beneath his feet. Decades of neglect had left the exterior stained with soot and grime, but the architecture was exquisite. Pillars in bas-relief flanked three arched faux windows high above the street. Heavy ornamentation rich in mythology framed the windows and decorated the cornice. The white terra-cotta resembled marble at first glance, and the elaborate design—Spanish Baroque, if he wasn’t mistaken—implied an abandoned theater or museum.

No address was visible, yet the red-brick apartment buildings on either side, both fronted by fire escapes and AC units sagging in the windows, bore street numbers above and below the one he was seeking.

This had to be the place—but what was it? All he knew for certain was that he was supposed to get inside before midnight.

He leaned on his ironwood cane and studied his surroundings. The smell of garbage and reefer and fried grease. Sirens in the distance, the rattle of the subway underfoot, the shouts of an angry husband drifting through a window.

Down the street, a few drunks were heckling an old woman walking her dog. All the shops were closed except for a bar with a blinking neon sign missing letters. The Brooklyn Bridge loomed in the distance. The intrigue and danger of Chinatown lurked just around the corner. Getting involved in a shady altercation on the Lower East Side would not be a good look for a young professor. He needed to get off the street.

Could one of the sewer grates lead to an underground entrance? Perhaps, though he rather hoped it didn’t, since he loathed tight spaces. He approached the building to study the aluminum barricade. If he cut the padlock securing the bottom, he could roll up the gate. Yet this seemed too obvious a solution, and lifting the noisy barrier would alert the neighbors, along with every ruffian within earshot.

He turned and crossed the street behind him, eyeing the building from a new perspective. Now he could see, set farther back on the flat rooftop, a boxy structure secured by an iron cage. It was too dark to tell exactly what it was.

His gaze roamed to the fire escapes of the adjacent apartments. A set of iron stairs on