I'll Let You Go (26 page)

While Pullman grazed and loped and stretched, the master averted his eyes from the cracked pillar, unable to shake the feeling that his star-crossed parents were ensconced—she, in the kitchen preparing lunch (though all his life the boy never knew her to be in
any
kitchen); he, Marcus Weiner, in the library napping, the biography of a poet open on his tangle-down chest.

The sun was low and the sky bloodied. Pullman turned five today, and a small celebration awaited on Saint-Cloud, courtesy of Grandpa Lou. A melancholy Santa Ana hurried them out the open gate and up the hill toward home.

As much as he wished to attend the Dane's tribute, Tull couldn't stay.

Epitacio drove the distrait young Trotter to cousin Edward's, who wasn't well enough to make the trip to Saint-Cloud.

Among the children only Lucy paid homage, lending her writer's ear (augmented by Cartier pen and blue-paged BIRD NOTES for a
Blue Maze Mystery
); certain that a canine birthday gala would make its way into her book, she joined her grandparents and the others at a mossy set of nineteenth-century faux-bois tables and benches just outside the maze. Servants bustled about, pouring Armagnac, spooning into faience pots of silken goose liver—from Toulouse, of all places—garnishing extracts with a gelée of black cherries and leaves of chervil. (Ralph had already gotten into the star-anise-and-honey ice cream.) Soon, modest fireworks would grace Bel-Air skies for the dedication of the “Danish friend's” latest architecturally correct (the latter phrase, courtesy of Trinnie) doghouse: none other than the Pine-Lute tea pavilion, the second, after the Meier, of Trotter funerary models to be brought to full-scale life. Working-class Winter stood behind Bluey, tetchy in her tailored RN whites—uncomfortable the elaborate to-do was for a dog; a large, sweet one, but a dog nonetheless. Trinnie told her to “get over it.” She thought the extravaganza “brilliant” and took special care to observe her father delightedly mooning over the drowsy Dane, who lay upon a Moroccan ottoman incognizant of his good fortune, sated like a pasha.

On the way to Stradella, Tull compulsively felt his pocket as he had ever since the document was given him, to make certain it was still there.

H
e found his cousin relaxed and in good spirits, stitching taffeta in the workshop of the Boar's Head Inn. He wore nothing but a saffron sari and velvet Philippe Model hat, courtesy of his doting aunt; though his chin rested on the crook of the brace, he eschewed mask and gloves, so that for the first time Tull saw how the middle and ring fingers of each hand were fused. When he'd had his fill, he discreetly drew his eyes to Edward's tall, broken face.

“You know, I'm supposed to have surgery soon.”

“Really? What kind?”

“ ‘LeFort III'—that's the procedure.
LeFort III
. What a weird thing! With Apert's,
as you've probably noticed
, the middle face grows slower than the rest. They call it retrusion. LeFort is when they go in and do
grafting and bone-spacing.” He shook his head resolutely. “There is just no way. There's no payoff.”

“What do your parents think?”

“Same as they do about everything—Dad's laissez-faire and Mother's indifferent. You know: they want what I want. If I'm up for the surgery—fine. If I'm not—well that's fine too. But why would I put myself
through
that, Tull? It's just so fucked. And all from
one
little change in the FGFR2—that's fibroblast growth factor receptor 2, in case you were wondering. Something's wrong with the gene on chromosome 10, or some such bullshit. Well,
fuck
FGFR2 and the stem cell it rode in on. Do you know how many pages there are on the Internet about this crap? I mean, I could get
very
intimate with some punk in Denmark who shares my tragic deformity. Get jiggy with the whole codependent World Wide Webbed-finger family.” The buggy sat on the carpet beside the metal roll-up; Edward stepped in. “I am telling you, there are links up the yin-yang, every fucking orphan disease on the planet. Antley-Bixler! Langer-Geidon! Pfeiffer! Saethre-Chotzen! Arhinia! Baller-Gerold! Stickler! Carpenter! Parry-Rombergs! Craniosynostosis! Goodman! Jackson-Weiss! Sagittal synostosis! Treacher-Collins! And there's an
amazingly
pathetic homepage with a gallery of kids' fucked-up faces—a permanent, floating pediatric wax museum horror-show—with ‘virtual' candles burning. Whenever one of the deformed little guys croaks, his flame gets snuffed.”

“Edward, I think you should chill. You're gonna stroke out.”

“Yeah well, if I ever
do
, you better put a pillow over my head, cuz. Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Exceptional!” he said, giving Tull his best scary Tom Cruise smile. “Now, get in.” Edward pushed a button on the console and the door of the workshop zipped into a galvanized drum. They pulled out. “Sorry you're missing the birthday.”

“It's OK. I did kind of want to see the fireworks, though.”

“Long in the tooth, that Pullie, isn't he?”

“He's only five.”

“Gettin' up there for a Dane.”

“Can we please just leave him out of it?”

“For Danes, anything past birthday number six is gravy—as any true aficionado knows.”

They drove along the winding path that surrounded the vast, fragrant property. There were stretches of woodsy darkness; against resistance from his wife, Dodd gave one of the farther fields over to Trinnie, who had planted tall plumed pampas grass, which shivered as they motored past, trying to tell them secrets. Tull felt his cousin's aloneness and guiltily saw himself hovering over the comatose boy with a Pratesi pillowslip. Again, he felt for the letter in his pocket.

The buggy rolled by the guest-house pool before Edward pointed it back to Olde CityWalk. He began a tired rant about his mother's “Dead Baby Society” that segued neatly into Dodd's recent mania-fueled purchase of an empty prison in Palm Desert.

All the while, in anticipation of introducing his topic, Tull's heart beat faster than he would have liked. Finally, he said: “Edward … the letter you gave me—”

“I was wondering when you'd bring that up.”

“Where—did you get it?”

“I—well,
Lucy
and I—I have to give her credit—we made a rather
thorough
inventory of our parents' effects. Father tends to keep certain items—including eighteenth-century pornographic etchings—in a
special
drawer in his walk-in closet. I'm telling you, cousin, my parents are not well!”

“Just tell me about the letter.”

“Sadly, it was the only thing we were able to come up with—you know, I'm a little surprised you haven't done any footwork of your own. I mean,
shit
, Tull, the Withdrawing Room's most probably a Tut's tomb of nostalgic puzzle-pieces! You never know
what
you'd find: stuffed in one of the maquettes, say—or the mattress of Grandpa's Murphy bed. Or hidden behind a panel of the Piranesi …”

“Edward—do you think … do you think they actually found him?”

“All I could pry from Joyce was that they hired a man—or, should I say,
Grandpa
hired a man to look for Marcus Weiner.”

“I already knew that,” said Tull, thrilled to know something about anything.

“But did you know it was a guy Dad went to school with?”

“What school—”

“BV—Beverly Vista. I heard him talking—Mom and him—at midnight, in the kitchen. I've got the place
wired
. There's still a few bugs, but …”

“What did they
say
?”

“He was telling Joyce about Marcie Millard.”

“Marcie Millard?”

“The lady hammering Dad for money to rebuild their alma mater.”

In the weeks after the initial revelation of his father's undeceased state—that terrible hour with Trinnie and Grandpa Lou in the Withdrawing Room—he had been loath to think of Marcus Weiner at all, let alone make inquiries of anyone who might possess the facts. A firewall had descended; even kids at school whose parents had been privy to the resurrected scandal seemed to have lost interest in provoking him. Now, something had shifted and Tull was beginning to wake up.

“But do you think they
found
him?”

The cousin grew pensive, letting the question take air. “Do I think they found your father? Is that what you're asking?”

“That's what I'm asking.”

“To that, I would have to answer … no. No, Tull, I do not think they found your father, I am sorry or not sorry to say.”

A long, sad silence ensued as they navigated the stony streets of Olde CityWalk on the approach to the Majestyk, an authentic movie house that seated seventy-five. Like all structures in Edward's world, it was built to accommodate his motorized magic carpet; the boys got popcorn and soda without having to disembark.

The cousin grew serious while steering down the wide aisle of the plush auditorium. “You know, I think Lucy's theory is sound. Why
would
Grandpa Lou want to find such a man? He wouldn't want Trinnie to be tortured again.”

“But he
hired
someone,” said Tull, fairly pleading.

“Unless,” said the cousin, with a mildly crazed look in his eye, “unless he wanted to find him so he could
kill
him for what he did to her.” Tull saw that he wasn't joking. “It
is
a possibility. I've given it some thought.”

“Shit, Edward! Are you saying Grandpa wanted to murder my father? Jesus!”

“Maybe Grandpa
did
kill him—maybe he found him and killed him and now maybe he wants to be caught—maybe he wants us to catch him.
Expose
him, so he can repent. Let's say for argument's sake that it's true—that he did ‘the job'—”

“Jesus, Edward!”

“It would
have
to have haunted the guy through the years, especially since it seems your mom's forgiven him—forgiven Marcus Weiner, I mean. Or at least would like to have had the chance. She's still in love with him. I mean, you
know
she goes and stays in the tower sometimes …” He thwacked Tull's arm in excitation. “Beginning to sound like a real Lucy Trotter Mystery, ain't it?”

They left the buggy and sank into the Majestyk's ergonomic row of Herman Millers.

“Did you bring the letter?” asked the cousin.

Tull nodded.

“Then read it.”

“I already have. About a thousand times.”

“Then read it
again
—out loud.”

“What's the point?”

Edward glared. Tull took the document from his pocket, unfolding it like a cynical tourist would a useless map.

“ ‘If I was shocked at the reckless insinuation—' ”

“From the beginning, Tull.”

“ ‘
Mr. Tabori,' ”
he began, annoyed. “ ‘If I was
shocked …
at the
reckless insinuation
of your employee … I was absolutely
dumbfounded
by the letter from your attorney which my office received today.'
New paragraph
. ‘I have referred the matter to my own counsel, who would probably object to my sending this note. I suggest that you retract your slanderous allegations or you will find this former customer to be a litigious one. Sincerely, Marcus Weiner.' ”

Tull paused; his cousin sighed deeply.

“A bit stilted, no? His guilt is apparent.”

“What difference does it make?”

“What difference? I'll
tell
you: we found him. Lucy did, anyway.”

The air left Tull's lungs. “You
found
him?”

“It seems so.”

“What are you
saying
? You found him
where
? How—”

“Good old gumshoe work. And the Internet, I am pleased to say, had nothing to do with it. Lucy spoke with him on the phone, plain as day—not a single e-mail exchanged! Hard man to reach, as you may well imagine.”

Tull broke into a sweat and was unable to swallow. “Where is he?”

“Los Angeles area,” said the cousin, coolly. “We made an appointment to see him. Tomorrow, after school.”

Edward pressed a touch-panel and the lights dimmed. The heavy curtains lifted, layer by crushed gold layer.

“But, does anyone—does anyone
know
? Did you tell your—”

“God, no! And no one's
going
to. Everyone's going to keep their mouths shut. This is strictly between
us
.”

The projector was dropping from its hidden perch all along and within moments the MGM lion roared. From the blackness came a noisy choir of ticking clocks. A sundial appeared from stage left, cross-fading with an hourglass from stage right (just like in the old
Twilight Zone
s Tull watched on Thanksgiving Day marathons), followed by myriad antiquey minute-repeater mechanisms, which culminated in a floating Big Ben, its watchtower face erupting in a thunderclap of light. A title bubbled up: