Agnes Among the Gargoyles (42 page)

   Bezel has been a great help to the Boras. He has helped them to liquidate Jackie's business. A restaurant supply house bought some of the equipment. He hired a team of Dominicans who speak no English to cart the rest of the stuff out to a junkyard in New Jersey.

   The Dominicans arrive and begin work at once. They are polite to the point of servility; with banquettes on their backs they wait patiently for Anne or the doctor to step out of the way.

  Anne contemplates the boxes of memorabilia, the photos and scorecards and fight programs. "It seems a shame to put this stuff in an attic and forget about it."

   "We could just forget about it," suggests Dr. Bora.

   "I have an idea," says Bezel.

   He telephone's Barnett's Saloon. He talks to Gary, his old boss. "I know you're always nosing about antique shops looking for this stuff," says Bezel. "I've got four big boxes of the real animal: playbills, ticket stubs, drawings...."Gary has to check with his general manager, but he thinks it's a great idea.

   Bezel presses his advantage, telling Gary that Jackie's things must be inventoried and displayed together and labeled. Gary says that it sounds okay to him; he'll run it by the GM.

   "Like a loan to a museum," Bezel tells the Boras.

   Soon the Boras are gone. Bezel will finish up with the Dominicans. When they have everything loaded onto the truck, Bezel motions to their leader, who is the easiest to communicate with. His English is as bad as that of the others, but he seems to have a stronger command of sign language.

   The crew follows Bezel down into the cellar. Bezel unlocks a storage alcove. Inside is an old meat freezer with a padlocked door.

   "Okay?" says Bezel. "Broken. No good. Junk."

   The Dominicans shoulder the load. They bring it outside, heave it cheerfully onto the truck, then sit down on it. Bezel pays them, tipping generously. They drive off to deposit the load in New Jersey. Where they're going isn't technically a spot for dumping at all but just a place where people dump things. The gulls will peck away at the freezer door in frustration.

"You know what the strangest thing is?" Agnes says to Sarah. "I still like Father Clarence. I feel I understand him, sort of."

   Sarah rolls her eyes and winces. "You're like that women who married Ted Bundy.

   "I get the shakes when I think of what he did to Barbara, and the way he shot Tommy. But I don't know...."

   "He's a monster. Ivan was right."

   "You're right. Ivan's right. I should just hate him. That's what's called for."

   That Matthew Clarence was adopted from the Spengler Foundling Home in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, was a dark secret in his family. Not even Ivan knew. He came out of Spengler at the age of six, his foundling days long past and permanent damage already done by an attendant named Vivian Lee DeShields, who spouted scripture and threatened to cut off his penis.

   "That will do it to you," says Tommy.

   Tommy is decorated by the mayor. His father, the cop of all cops, cries openly when Tommy hobbles up on his crutches to accept his ribbons and clusters for valor. After the ceremony, while waiting for Tommy, Agnes finds herself standing next to Tollivetti. The reporter devours a Gyro. Onions hang out of his mouth like the viscera of some prey; he tucks them in daintily.

   "You seem to turn up everywhere," Agnes comments.

   "You should talk," says the reporter. "You know what I should have done? I should have moved in with you right after then Wegeman shooting. Is there a story you haven't been involved with since then?"

   "I've had a run of bad luck," says Agnes.

   Tollivetti crumples his napkin. "Or caused some for everybody else, I don't know which. You'll enjoy this. I've got Clarence's military records. He apparently made quite a few trips to an allergist at one of the base hospitals. He was prone to food reactions, particularly from Paprika—whenever he ate it, he had a violent reaction, and I don't mean he broke out in a rash on his chest. I mean, literally, a
violent
reaction. About the time of the first Minotaur slaying, his cook, Edith Criswell, was given as a gift a large jar of imported hot Paprika, which she began to use, even though he had specifically mentioned that he was allergic to it. So years from now, when you come across the phrase
the Paprika defense,
think of me, would you? Oh, shit, look at the time! I'm late! See ya!"

   The reporter runs at full steam down Seventh Avenue, disappearing in a forest of fast-food wagon umbrellas.

It is very important that Agnes track down the first Mrs. Travertine. The task is not proving easy. The only thing Agnes knows about her is her name: Bea. Agnes's lawyer tells her that of the mysterious Bea cannot be found, then Hannah will never see those disputed benefits. The money will pile up in an escrow account, untouched by anyone and eventually returned to the general funding pool.

   "Typical," says Agnes. "Just typical."

   But then Agnes and her mother have some good luck. In an old family Bible, Hannah discovers two ancient postcards to Johnny from Bea. They had been addressed to Johnny at his office, not at home.

 The first one, postmarked Atlantic City—"Greetings From The Steel Pier!"— was written several years after Hannah and Johnny had been married. Bea makes reference to a recent telephone conversation with Johnny, then asks him to "please send along copies of those papers we discussed. It was careless of me to lose them and I am frantic." The second postcard, dated a few months later and bearing a sepia-toned photograph of the Pettigrew Museum in Sioux Falls, is another reminder to send the vital papers, "although I think, in some ways, it is a bit late for all that, as I am now Mrs. Robert Pettigrew of the great state of S. Dakota."

   "If he wanted to hide them from me the Bible was the perfect place," says Hannah drily. "It's not like we sat around reading it. For years, it held up that wobbly end table."

   The Travertines didn't even put the family Bible to its traditional secular use. Marching as ever to their own drummer, they kept their birth statistics and baby footprint cards and locks of hair and old report cards in
Bennett Cerf's All-Time
Favorite Laffs: Witticisms, Anecdotes, and Tall Tales.

   After a consultation with her lawyer, Agnes plays detective. She spends the better part of a week on the telephone. She tells her mother's hard luck story to every clerk and bureaucrat in the country. Agnes follows Bea's trail out of Sioux Falls (where the Pettigrew family is prominent) to St. Louis, then to Rockford, Illinois, then to Europe, where the trail dies. Agnes's heart sinks. She feels like a bloodhound stymied by a river, only in this case the barrier is the Atlantic Ocean.

   Agnes calls in a favor. She telephones Winston Pike, father of Sybil Pike, whose life after all she did save. Mr. Pike has many years of experience in the Foreign Service, and connections in the State Department. He learns that the Pettigrews moved to London in 1975. Bea's husband, a neurosurgeon, too a position at St. Magnus-The-Martyr in tony St. John's Wood. Agnes calls the hospital and gets the forwarding address, which is in Short Hills, New Jersey. A call to directory assistance reveals that the Pettigrews are still there.

   Bea Pettigrew is now a widow. Letters pass back and forth between her lawyer and Robin DuPrey, Agnes's lawyer. Robin assures Agnes that it's all just legal dancing, but Agnes is dubious. Robin DuPrey is tall and storklike; she recently had her hair woven and braided and beaded, and it hangs to her shoulders like a mop full of trinkets, and she reminds Agnes of a puppet on a kid's TV show. Agnes likes Robin because she seems not in the least like a lawyer, but perhaps choosing a lawyer on that basis is a typical Travertine misstep. Maybe what Agnes needs is a shark.

   But her worries turn out to be unfounded. Bea Pettigrew will not contest the claim. She admits that she has no right to the money.

   The papers will be signed in Robin DuPrey's Brooklyn office. Agnes enlists her lawyer in a subterfuge. Agnes wants to get a look at the first Mrs. Travertine. She will sit in the waiting room, posing as just another client; all she asks is that her lawyer not tip her hand.

   By the time Agnes plants herself in the waiting room, the first Mrs. Travertine and her lawyer are already in the office with Robin. Agnes is burning with curiosity. She is also nervous. There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip. When will they be finished? You'd think they were signing the Treaty of Versailles in there. What are they doing, exchanging sabers? Robin's secretary has an apothecary jar of sourballs on her desk. Agnes eats so many of them that the secretary pointedly removes them. Agnes sighs and looks out the window at the Manhattan skyline. There used to be a lovely view of the Chrysler Building, which is now almost completely obscured by the unfolding concentric triangles of Wegeman and Ho's Centriplex. All that is visible of the older skyscraper is a dignified sliver, like a line of lace slip showing at the bottom of a gaudy dress.

   There is a commotion from within. Agnes takes a seat and opens a magazine. She affects a look of boredom.

   Mrs. Pettigrew's lawyer hugs his briefcase to his chest like a flotation board. Robin DuPrey glances at Agnes and plays it cool and looks incredibly suspicious. And Mrs. Pettigrew...Mrs. Pettigrew is a horrendous disappointment. The Pettigrews are socially important (albeit in South Dakota) and Agnes had expected to see a woman of sophistication. Agnes at least expected someone taller. Mrs. Pettigrew can't be more than five feet. She has a nervous smile and a tawny moustache. If Agnes had to guess her occupation she might say laundromat changemaker.

   The attorneys exchange guarded talk. Bea takes a cutting from the secretary's coleus.

   Agnes must face an unpleasant fact about herself. She had hoped that Bea Pettigrew would be an aristocrat.

   Agnes pretends to read
New York
magazine. It is one of those big double issues: "7500 Wondrous Things About The Big Apple!" On the cover are three actors eating sun-dried tomatoes at Zabar's. On her way out the door Bea catches a glimpse of those familiar faces—they portray the core love triangle on her favorite soap—and she bends down for a closer look.

   "Now what are they up to?" she says to no one in particular.

   Agnes stops spying on poor Bea just long enough to make the woman aware of her rudeness by lowering the magazine slowly. She and Bea look at each other.

   "What the...?" says Bea.

   Agnes turns away, but it is too late. Her face has betrayed her.

   Bea's eyes narrow with suspicion. "As I live and breathe. You must be Annie Travertine."

   Agnes doesn't answer. Robin DuPrey looks panicked, as though she has done something wrong.

"Sure you are," says Bea. "I'd know you anywhere."

Agnes tries to maintain some dignity. "I'm Johnny's daughter, yes."

   "Well I'll be a son of a gun," says Bea. She whistles softly. "You look just like him. Like he spit you out of his mouth. Boy, I never thought we'd meet face-toface, Annie."

   "It's Agnes."

   "No, Annie."

* * *

"He insisted your name was Annie," says Bea.

   They are in a coffee shop around the corner from Robin's office. Bea dips challah bread into her watery spaghetti and meatballs.

   "I wonder why he did that?" says Agnes.

   "Well, he lied a lot," says Bea. "He probably wasn't crazy about Agnes so he changed it to Annie in his head. That's how he was."

   "He told my mother he was a detective when they met."

   "I can top that, sweetheart. He told me he was the Northeast Regional Secretary for the 4-H Clubs of America. He was seventeen years old and living in a walk-up on Bedford Avenue. I guess it was the first thing that came into his head. See, we were looking at a pig in Coney Island at the time. He came up beside me in Feltham's World of Wonders as I was admiring the world's largest porker. Imaging that. I was easily impressed."

   Agnes plays with a saltshaker. "Did you believe him?"

   "No, not really. And I know your mother didn't believe him about being a detective, either. But that was the game you played. You wanted to believe him, so you didn't examine what he said too closely. And it was flattering that a man would lie to get your attention. That was the impressive part. But don't be too hard on us."

   Even at the end, it was hard to get the truth out of Johnny, Agnes reflects. He wound up at Caledonia Hospital on the Concourse with advanced stomach cancer. Agnes was too young to visit his room, and he couldn't come downstairs, so she didn't see him for weeks. When Hannah told Agnes that her father was coming home, Agnes was beside herself with joy. When they wheeled him out into the lobby, he weighed about ninety-eight pounds. There was an artist's supply store down the street from the hospital, and Johnny looked like one of the posable stick men in the window. Agnes barely noticed the state he was in. She had never felt such a swelling of love for another human being. Everything would be all right now that he was leaving the hospital. Agnes didn't know about people being sent home to die.

   "I guess he was a liar," says Agnes.

   Bea shrugs. She wipes some tomato sauce from her lips. "He told be a big long story about going to Mexico and getting a divorce. I suppose in my heart I knew it wasn't true. But, hey, he wasn't all bad. He loved you like crazy."

   Agnes looks up hopefully. "Really?"

   "How do you think I knew who you were? He sent me pictures of you for years and years. He told me how smart you were in school. He told me that someday you'd go to Harvard."