I'll Let You Go (5 page)

And how
was
the precocious cousin treated at school? As noted, he was first tormented by “Gimme head, Headward!” and its varied variations—then Special Ed, Dilbert, Cat-in-the-Hat and, finally, Casper (the boy, when stung, could be less than friendly and more than trenchant). Only once, around a month or so after he'd begun to wear the self-stitched hoods, had a bored and motley crew unveiled him; ever stalwart, Edward replaced the hood and claimed not to be bothered. His stoicism, and the fact that he never reported the crime, duly impressed—from then on he was watched over and given tender respects and, because of his vast intellect and sagacity, consulted and revered.

“Edward,” said Tull with a frisson of relief. “There's something I
don't get. If a labyrinth doesn't have dead ends, how can someone get lost?”

“You can't. It's impossible. The myth's a metaphor—we don't
want
to get out. We're hardwired for failure. It's in our genes. Even flies want to fail.”

“What do you mean?”

“Put a hundred flies in a jar and leave the lid on awhile. Take it off and only a few escape.”

“What does that prove?”

“Psychologists say the flies suffer from ‘premature cognitive commitment': meaning, the commitment that they're still trapped.”

“That is
so brilliant
,” said Lucy as she maneuvered the buggy into a harbor of manicured bush. “See? Fits perfect. Though I'm not sure it'll turn.”

“Back up, Lucy!” said Tull with proprietary zeal. “You'll ruin the hedge.”

Like the Tin Man, Edward swiveled on the bench to watch while she threw the buggy in reverse. “What's a $400,000 hedge?” He shrugged, nonchalant.

She cleared it, then turned back to her brother. “Tell him about Joyce.” Then to Tull: “Our mother has a pet project.”

“Animal CAT scans?” asked Tull, pleased to elicit a smile from the invalid.

“Mother Joyce has been searching for a calling,” said Edward. “The middle-aged need their passions, you know.”

“We were
hoping
,” said Lucy, eyes atwinkle, “that it would be in the form of a personal trainer.”

“Or pool man.”

“That would have been the
best
.”

“At first, we thought she'd adopt a disease, but that's tricky.
My
particular anomaly's too shamelessly grotesque to build a telethon around. Too obscure.
Unphotogenic
.” Lucy chortled, then nudged a tire against Pullman's back; he twitched an ear. “Then Mother read an item in the
Times
about a baby in a dumpster. A drive-by: someone tossed it in and the thing died. People don't leave kids on doorsteps anymore
—
they'd have to park the car, God forbid. Park and toss and you're ahead of the game. And what does Mother do when she reads about said odious
crime? Remember, this is no ordinary woman! This is a filthy rich woman with too much time on her hands! She goes to the morgue to claim it, that's what. But they won't just
give
it to her, they make her
wait
thirty days. I, for one, find it comforting to know the finders-keepers rule has such broad and universal application. Voilà! a month later, there she sits, morgue-ready, far away from the Hills of Holmby. Comes the Man—from her emotionally charged description, we read between the lines and deduce the deputy to be a burly cretin with, no offense to you, Tull, sweaty, orangish body hair. From the distant end of the hall, Frankensheriff walks toward her.
Clump clump clump
. And what does Frankensheriff do? Hands Joyce a Hefty bag dripping with the baby's remains!”

“Edward, that is
gross
.”

“You're serious,” said Tull, happily playing straight man.

“And Mother vows—this being the first in a series—Mother vows the next time she comes, she'll do things a little differently. Two weeks later, she makes good. Hands the sheriff one of those humongous Hermès scarves from a few seasons back with an African theme, because the next little dead baby's
black
. Oh, Mother Joyce thinks of everything! Frankensheriff appears in said distant hall—
clump clump clump—weeping
as he approaches,
sobbing
as he hands it off! He's caught the spirit! Touched by an angel! Frankensheriff stands converted!”

“But what does she
want
?” asked the incredulous Tull. “What's she going to
do
with them?”

“She wants,” chimed Lucy, “to bury them.”

Pullman rose indifferently, and in doing so, violently jostled the buggy, whose tire had been resting on his flank.

“Weird,” said Tull.

“And the perfect thing is that it's not even an original thought! There's a woman who's been burying throwaways for years—that's where Mother got the idea. From
People
magazine. You see, her tragedy—and ours—is that Mother Joyce cannot even be original in her Buddha Compassion phase.” Edward yawned with boredom, circling back to his aunt. “You know, there were
so
many things Trinnie might have done besides build a fucking maze. I mean, she could have gone Versailles: some conical hedges, a
hegemony
of hedges—big drippy grotto with waterworks automata—no Hefty bags here! Maybe
un grand escalier …
I
did
see them haul in a Rodin, but your mom assured it wasn't the centerpiece;
that'd have been
such
a cliché. She's too clever by half.” He clutched his hands theatrically to his bosom. “ ‘Aunt Trinnie, this is too cruel!' I said. ‘A
labyrinth
—and here
me
, with my deformity—Mini-Me the Mini-Minotaur!' ”

“And how did she respond?” asked Tull, playing along.

“With something very … Trinnie-like,” answered the cousin.

“I believe,” said Lucy, “it was: ‘Edward, shut the fuck up.' ” Her brother rasped and hooted, then Lucy got a grand idea. “You know what we should do? We should just drive in! Come on, Edward! Journey to the center of the labyrinth—I dare you!”

“We'll tie some yarn to the cart,” said Tull. “In case we get lost.”

“I'll pass.”

“He's afraid,” shouted Lucy gleefully. “Edward's afraid!”

“That would be you,” said the cousin. “I've seen how far
you've
gotten. You won't even go in with Pullie.”

“That isn't true,” she said defensively. As impossible as it may seem, the Trotter children were, in regard to the maze, wary of exploration.

“Then
no
one's been to the center,” said Tull.

“What? Not even you?” asked Edward, a bit stunned.

“Well, when would I? They only just finished it.”

“Nearly two weeks ago, they did,” said Edward, thoroughly pleased. “Well, well, we
are
a timid group!”

“Then let's do it,” said Tull. “What's the big deal?”

“The big
deal
is what your mother put in the middle of the damn thing.”

“The Rodin?”

“Guess again.” He paused, striking his Benny pose. “A dumpster fetus—what else?”

While Tull and Lucy laughed, exhaustion darkened Edward's face like a cloud, and his sister sprang to help. They walked from bench to buggy, supporting him on each side. Lucy got in to drive and smiled at Tull, pained and poignant; Edward would need to skip a few days of school to get his strength back, and she hoped he wouldn't have to go to the hospital. Pullman cantered about the carriage, then licked Edward's hand, but the cousin twitched it away. As Lucy drove the serpentine path to the house, the Dane galloped toward a rakish figure on the hill: Grandpa Lou.

Trinnie shouted at the children that it was time to see Bluey, then
Ralph shouted to
her
that they would be late and she hurried off. As they entered the living room, Tull called out hello, but the old man didn't hear.

He was already down on all fours, chuffing with Pullman at the door of the Palladian doghouse.

A
fter they dropped Edward at the cousins' home on Stradella Road, they descended Saint-Cloud in the four-wheel Cadillac truck that took them to and from school. The gentle driver, Epitacio, was aptly named; he rarely spoke, and when he did, one could imagine the words being his last. The children were enormously fond of him.

“Epi, can we stop at Rexall for nonpareils?” The chauffeur shrugged as if to disappoint, then toothily grinned. Tull turned his attentions to Lucy. “So what's going on with Edward? Seemed like he had a fever or something.”

“He's OK.” She tapped her fingers and stared out the window. “He might have another surgery. No biggie.”

They sat quietly while Epitacio guided the SUV toward Cedars, down, down, down through the stone West Gate.

“That
is
weird about your mother and those babies.”

“My parents are kind of insane, if you haven't noticed. The whole Trotter
dynasty—
and that means you, too. And ever since this
Forbes
thing—”

“How high was your dad on the list?”

“Like, the eighteenth-richest person.”

“How much?”

“Nine-point-four.”

“Billion?”

“Duh.”

“Whoa.”

“He's been on this giant binge.”

“What do you mean?”

“He got totally freaked when someone told him Ted Turner was the biggest private landowner in the country.”

“Like how much?”

“Turner? Like a million and a half acres.”

“In the U.S.?”

“And the world. Argentina, I think.”

“Whoa.”

“Dad doesn't really
want
that. I think he visited a few ranches for sale in Wyoming, but—can you imagine my father on a ranch? So he started buying … really
strange
things instead.”

“Like?”

“Buildings. Big, empty buildings. Foreclosure stuff. You have no
idea
how many empty buildings there are.”

“For investing?”

“He doesn't
do
anything with them—they just sit there with
homeless
people inside.”

“Squatters.”

“Whatever.”

“He probably has a master plan.” Tull fiddled with a mahogany air vent. “Lucy … do you think Edward's serious about all that maze stuff? You don't think he actually thinks my mother would—”

“Oh, don't be so paranoid. We
have
to take him into the maze, we
all
have to go, right into the middle—just to get it over with. Put him in a wheelbarrow! I'm writing a mystery about it, you know.”

“About what?”

“
The Mystery of the Blue Maze
—Mr. Hookstratten said the school would publish five hundred copies to sell at the fund-raiser. And the lady said I could sell them out of Every Picture Tells a Story.”

“What's that?”

“A store for kids' books. Mr. Hookstratten says it's a natural. He said publishers love it when a real kid writes a book, it could be a franchise. He said I should make it a little hard-edged, like maybe the girl's grandma is dying.”

“That's depressing.”

“It's
real
. He said that's the trend.”

Lucy glanced out the tinted window at the Beverly Center as they swooped toward the drugstore. She surveyed it with abstracted hauteur—as
if she owned the dun-colored retail fastness and all the serfs who desperately congregated within. A man with an aluminum crutch stood outside the Hard Rock with a sign: SOMEONE HELP ME.

“That's sort of why I wanted to come tonight. For research.”

“But Bluey isn't dying.”

“I
know
that,” she said disdainfully. “It's still good for research. Mr. Hookstratten says the
When a Grandparent Dies
books do really well in the marketplace.” Tull frowned at his cousin's mercenary ways. “
The Mystery of the Blue Maze
. Isn't that cool? Mr. Hookstratten said it's better when you put a color in the title.”

“Shouldn't it be green? A green maze?”

“That's the
cliché
,” she said, sounding much like her brother. “Anyhow, green looks blue in the dark. I already have the cover—I get all my ideas that way. I always start with a cover. Want me to describe it?” Without waiting for an answer, she hunched like a witch ready to conjure. “It's midnight, and a girl—I
may
name her Lucy—creeps toward the dark mouth of the maze. I'm calling it a maze, not a labyrinth, because Mr. Hookstratten said maze is less complicated. That with children's books you could be
ironic
but not
complicated
. Anyway, Lucy—if that's what I decide to name her—is in a long, flowing robe. She glides across the lawn, carrying a brass taper in her hand. The flame flickers across her thin, anxious, pretty face—”

“Did you hear about the tapir at the zoo?” he asked impetuously.

“I mean
taper
, as in
candle
 …”

“It tore off the keeper's arm.”

“I really don't care.”

The spell was broken; her expression curdled as Tull gave rein to a diabolically mischievous impulse. Impious and inspired, he leaned across the front seat and reached upward. “Let's talk to the
man
!” Epitacio smiled as the boy pressed a button on the roof console; a little arpeggio played, like the one that languorously strummed when he turned on his ThinkPad. Then came a Voice from the mystical GPS ether.