I'll Let You Go (33 page)

“I could
not
let that happen—”

“
You don't know
anything
. He
loved
me!”

His heart nearly broke, because he saw once and for all, through that pitiable declaration, that Katrina would never—could never—be whole. “Yes, he did. Yes, he did. I believe that.”

“You
believe
, in your
arrogance
 …”

But she was too exhausted to go on. There was no energy left, not even for contempt.

“Those kind of people do
not
get better, Katrina. That is medical fact.”

Trinnie stood up. He thought his daughter would leave, but instead she sat in the barber's chair, ready for the final cut.

“You said he hurt someone.”

“He broke her arm. He picked her up on the road. She told the police that he said she was his wife—”

“His
wife
—” Pierced again.

“—and that he would punish her for sleeping with his best friend.”

“Oh God.”

“When she tried to leave the car, he struck her and she jumped out. She could have been killed, Katrina.”

“What happened then?”

“He was sent to hospital. I made sure the bills were paid—it was a fine hospital, Katrina. He was there eight weeks with no improvement. I was going to move him to a more permanent place, but he escaped. We searched another year but were never able to find him.”

“I'll go see his parents. Maybe the Weiners will—”

He knew where she was heading. “It's no use, Trinnie. There's been no sign. Don't you think I've been in touch with Harry and Ruth?”

“Don't I think?” she said poisonously. “Does it
matter
to the grand puppeteer what I think? Of
course
you've been in touch with the Weiners. You're all probably best of friends!”

“There was always the chance he would contact them. They understood that if he returned, I would help them—help keep him from harm's way.”

“Keep him from
me
—”

“Yes! I would
not
have him coming for you! For you or my grandson …”
He swigged another shot, then said, more calmly: “I see this fever of Toulouse's has been communicated to
you
 … Katrina, it would be a miracle if he were alive.”

“Yes it would,” she said heavy-handedly. “Especially if you already killed him.”

He took her comment with utter seriousness, pausing thoughtfully to demonstrate that such an act had not been entirely outside the realm of feasibility. He let the moment pass.

“Katrina,” he said earnestly. “I have lost both sleep and years over this. I knew how much you loved him—how much it would have meant for you to see him again. And I love you more than life! I would not have been able to live with myself had I … had I done what to
you
was the ‘right thing.' But I have suffered—”

“
You
have suffered!”

“Yes,” he said, like a humble peasant. “And the boy should be able to find what he finds. But it's all over for me soon, don't you know, and I
will
not have regrets! I did what I thought was best for you, and would do it again.”

A bony hand shakily went to the skin already purpling under his jaw.

“I would do it again!”

J
oyce bathed her son while Dodd slept in the solarium. He was feeling the spacey effects of Neurontin, its dosage upped to 500 milligrams in the wake of a spate of recently acquired ruins—doctor's orders.

Tull told Grandpa Lou he wanted to stay at Olde CityWalk awhile. School was almost over, and it was convenient to be on Stradella cramming for finals with the cousins (nightly screenings at the Majestyk didn't hurt). Carcassone felt wrong of late; the scent of his mother's aromatherapy and perfumes filled him with dread—the scent of his mother herself. Truth be told, he was spooked. He sensed that Trinnie's latest visit was drawing to a close, and didn't want to be there when she pulled up stakes.

He went to the shrink twice a week, refusing to speak of mother
or
father. The therapist didn't seem to mind; he had all the time in the world, he said, and at $250 an hour, Tull was sure he was right. The boy
did speak of Pullman, who had grown listless, and become chief repository of the analysand's worst fears. He dwelled morbidly on the topic of longevity and developed a penetrating anxiety that his noble consort, that Apollo of dogs, that “Continental Gentleman,” was in fact on his last legs. (Because of the breed's short life-span, Trinnie had initially opposed the Dane's adoption, but Tull fell in love. Mother and son were at a children's party in Malibu when Greg Louganis, the famed Olympic diver, walked by with
three
at the reins. Thereafter, Epitacio chauffeured the eight-year-old boy to Mr. Louganis's hillside home almost daily; when a pup became available, he wouldn't take no for an answer.) While the therapist thought it a wonderful way to work through abandonment issues, Tull became terrified to the point of sleeplessness of losing his pet—repeated visits to the veterinarian uncovered none of the usual suspects that befell a Dane: no heartworm or Von Willebrand's or dysplasia of hips. As a preventive tool, a regimen of hedonism was prescribed—his large companion suffered Shiatsu massages three times a week. On Sundays, he took Pullman to a ranch in Carbon Canyon, where a hippie woman practiced “touch therapy”—small circular motions designed to release tension (the “form” Pullman liked most was called Clouded Leopard). The creature visited the chiropractor for adjustments; a crew in a van came to attach magnets and inject B-12 into acupuncture points along chi meridians. He was put on a diet of raw venison, bonemeal and flaxseed oil (when Lucy wasn't letting him cadge from her brother's strongbox of marzipan). Tull even brought him to a psychic, who while pronouncing him in the best of health still saw fit to prescribe Bach flower remedies and St.-John's-wort to her amenable client, and dispense Elavil samplets to “take the edge off an innate sense of sadness.” Like another troubled Dane before him, the dog seemed too aware of his transitoriness on Earth—such fatal, neurotic knowledge, the psychic assured, was in the breed's collective bones. Major karmic cleansing was in order.

The two took afternoon naps beside the armillary sphere, a dogeared copy of
When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals
splayed upon Tull's chest. It was thought that Pullman needed more exercise, so they hired Kali Guzman, the very same who took Diane Keaton's and Michael Ovitz's dogs on their morning runs. That was good, because Tull needed to find someone to work with the Dane in the summer while the Four Winds group was traveling. He didn't feel like
going on the supersonic excursion but didn't really want to stay home, either—he wanted to get away from his mother; he wanted to get away from the ghost of his father; he wanted to get away. Still, Tull worried about leaving Pullman behind.

As he sank deeper into gloom, Lucy tried futilely to entertain by reading aloud selections from her book, but Tull was glacially indifferent to the apparent majesties of
The Mystery of the Blue Maze
. She drew solace in knowing Mr. Hookstratten had at least passed some of the pages on to a highfalutin editor in Manhattan.

After an hour of wheedling, the redhead got him to accompany her to the little hangar that had been built behind the Majestyk to house Edward's most recent diversion: a 747 simulator. You sat in front of banks of instruments while a computer initiated takeoffs and landings—the same one that pilots trained on. Lucy liked the way it projected constellations onto a “night sky”; but the best was when the computers made turbulence.

That afternoon, while fiber-optic stars bloomed outside the cockpit windshield, Lucy asked if he wanted to make out. Tull shrugged and she took that for a yes. She popped out her retainer, jumped onto his seat, and, straddling him, Frenched away. Tiny orange fuzz glowed on her upper lip as O'Hare or Heathrow or some such impossibly unnavigable complex receded into incandescent view on a virtual vector far below; he watched the vertiginous ten-thousand-light runway as they kissed. He liked the way her mouth smelled. When Tull focused on her, Lucy's lids were slammed shut in a CinemaScopic swoon. With sweaty hand she removed steamed eyeglasses—they folded up like a copper spider—without pausing in her business. Her neck, pale and faintly pulsing, looked ready for vampires. They'd been fooling around for six months now (though this was their inaugural flight) and the last few times her hand had drifted down, flopping onto his crotch with the occasional serious back-kneading of knuckles. His mind wandered during their rites and sometimes he even pretended to be with other girls, a fantasia that inevitably ended with Tull back in the Mauck kissing the homeless one called Amaryllis; in the cockpit, he would slowly open his eyes in a squint, trying to make his cousin look dark and leonine-haired. No such luck.

“Ho ho ho! Well what have we here?”

A damp-haired Edward, in chenille robe and silvery beaded hood, floated at the laddered entrance; toothy Eulogio (Epitacio's kid brother)
held the boy up as if making an offer to Aztec gods. Lucy involuntarily jumped, knocking her head against the ceiling before fumbling for her spectacles.

“Oh my God, Eulogio! Look! It's incest!”

Eulogio grinned, clucking like a simpleton.

“It is
not
incest,” Lucy remonstrated.

“Tell it to the court!”

Tull winced in embarrassment. “We were just … messing around,” he said sheepishly.

“You better get
down
, Edward!” she said, sternly pulling rank; he
was
her younger brother. “Take him down, Eulogio! You'll be in
big
trouble if he falls!”

“Can't leave 'em alone for a minute!” said Edward.

There was a movie tonight at the Majestyk—
Journey to the Center of the Earth
. Eulogio carried the boy outside and set him in the buggy before going to turn on the popcorn machine. A gloating Edward waited patiently for his shamefaced cohorts, who, smoothing their skirts, soon joined him. They rode back to the cobblestone streets of Olde CityWalk.

“So,” said Edward mischievously. “Ready for tomorrow?”

Tull was blank-faced.

The cousin turned to his sister. “Didn't you tell him?”

“Tell me what?”

“Do I
constantly
have to be the one to surprise you?”

“I talked to your dad's father,” said Lucy.

Again, Tull was blank.

“Your
grandfather
,” Edward enlightened.

“You're kidding.”

“Well, you
wanted
me to find them, didn't you?” said Lucy.

“I—I guess …”

“You
guess
,” said Edward. “Have you no concept of the amount of time and money that little maneuver of my sister's involved?”

“He's teasing, Tull. The Weiners are still in Redlands; they're listed. I got their number from 411.”

“Where
is
Redlands?” asked Tull, trying to be flip.

“About an hour from here. But we don't
have
to visit,” said Edward archly. “I mean, you don't really seem all that
excited
.”

“No, it's cool. My father's probably been in touch with them. Then maybe we can put an end to all this.”

“What
ever
,” said Edward, rolling his eyes at Tull's unconvincing sangfroid. “Hey they're
your
grandparents, not mine.”

“Not really. I mean, my father was adopted.”

“You know, you really have an attitude problem,” Edward said.

“You actually talked to them?” asked Tull of Lucy.

“Of course I talked to them. I
said
I did.”

“Someone has to do the legwork,” Edward said disparagingly.

“What did you tell them?” he asked Lucy.

His cousin answered instead, with campy hauteur. “That the Trotter
kinder
were descending en masse.”

“Harry and Ruth Weiner!” said the braided detective, beaming. “How's
that
for Jewish?”

T
he arrival of the Mauck in the Riverside County suburb could not have made more of a stir than an
X-Files
alien ship. The pitch-black vehicle, abristle with various satellite dishes and antennae, was strange enough; its crew, subsequently disgorged onto the usually lonesome dead end, had a nearly traumatizing effect on neighborhood denizens, mostly children on Razors who, like tugboats, had accompanied the craft a number of blocks during its slow-speed arrival to dock.

First came the space-age spreading of the gull wings; then Epitacio exited the driver's side with impressive stoicism while his brother Eulogio, being less experienced, played to the crowd with not inconsiderable élan. The two met congenially at the MSV's rear.

The onlookers swelled to about fifteen now, including three or four adults, who, looking busily preoccupied as only adults can on a weekend, still deigned to make their way over. One of the bolder kids seemed about to make a general inquiry when he was arrested by two happenings—Harry Weiner appeared on the front porch and made a tentative albeit silent greeting to the Monasterio brothers; moments later, the hatchback rolled up with a great hydraulic whoosh to reveal the Mauck's outrageous innards.