I'll Let You Go (50 page)

He reached through a spiderweb and took up the volume, opening its cover:

J
ane visited a clinic that she thought would rid her of the child but was told it was too late. And still no one knew, no one but (horror of horrors!) Please-Help.-Bless. For they had been intimate and he had caressed her belly as Jilbo had done, and licked every place with his
tongue. The baby became a third party to their intimacies; he said he could change the features of its fetal face with the tip of what he had between his legs (he never tired of dispensing this bit of folk wisdom). He went roughly in both holes, and even Jilbo had not done that. The only thing that kept her from coming completely undone was that she had not yet been with her William in a lover's way, not for lack of desire but because of his courtly, thoughtful manner. She
did
desire him (there would be time enough for that when they married), but for now did him the favor of forbearance, one William returned, for it
was
the most beautiful, refined favor, built upon Godly love. If they
had
been together as such, and she with the demon Please-Help.-Bless
after
—why, then Jane would already have thrown herself in front of a big Blue Bus! For how could she have lain with her gentleman again, after being sucked and prodded by that diseased, invidious harpy, that snide and limping carbuncle, the wheedling agent of her precious William's destruction?

The gimp had one day followed her, pinning her to a wall; though thin and rickety, there was strength in him too and what he had to say nearly crippled her.

“I know yer boy!” he rasped. She smelled the stink of his purulent gums. “I know yer boy
Topsy
from Adam! From day one! I seen you with him. He was a good boy once—helped with my sign. Then got
kinked
—like his friend with the tore-up dawg; got ridda
him
, too. Ain'
none
of 'em right in the head, jus' like you! Come down to the
beach
and shave that big
beard
, he did. Don't wear that fancy suit no more so no one'll find 'im. So what. So
shit
what.
I
find 'im.
I
know yer boy. He fuck the kiddies, that's what
he
do. Kill some lady too, thas right! They
lookin'
fer him—I'm
tight
with who's lookin', all right? Man with a gold shield. Ahm tellin' you this is
serious
shit—Gold Shield gave me the
hewhaw
to help find 'im. 'Cause I know the
streets
. Gold Shield ain' gonna
rest
'fore he find yer boy! They look to
me
, all right? An' there I walks straight into him! An' him, with
you
—he's
yer
boy! Fuckin' you too, huh? Fuckin' an' suckin' you
an'
the kiddies,
tha's
right.”

She was crying; he knew she was his.

“Throttle back, baby—s'all good. Didn't know that, did ya? Didn't know yer boy stole a li'l girl, that's what
he
did. Cleaned her pussy real good with his tong. Made it bigger too—li'l girl like uh elephant now!
Slap slap slap slap slap
. Wet wet wet wet wet. Bet
chew
tight. Bet
chew
tight like that li'l girl
used
to be. You
looks
like a cow, but ahl betchew got a
seven-year-old girlie hole! Betchew gotta hole like a calico
cat
! Best let me
at
that hole or yer boy's goin'
down
, unnerstan'? They killim! Killim in jail! Killim! Killim! Killim!” He bit her neck and dug at the crotch of her donated skirt. “Gun let me fuck you? I
likes
big girls, ooh! Gunna haff to take them hearing aids out to do yer ears! Make you
heer
again! And I
likes
you 'cause you cain't talk, ooo! Gunna do yer mouth, ooo! An yer ass, ooo! Gun do that li'l calico
cat
pussy, ooo! ooo! ooo!”

He had gambled and won—he owned her now. Like a hunter, he'd watched the couple stroll the Promenade arm in arm, Jane with curls and tendrils piled atop her head like a loopy career girl, Topsy smoking his Rite Aid pipe. The beggar snarled at the domesticity of it, wondering what exactly was between them. When he first had his big idea, he wasn't sure she'd believe his accusations
or
his threats—that he was the only thing that stood between her boyfriend and jail—he only knew he wanted her bad enough to play it out.
Gut have that deaf-dumb cow
. And it made perfect sense when she heard it, because Jane had always seen that her William's eyes shone with something more than the brushfire flames of now diminishing hallucinations; but rather, with the awareness that someone, some
thing
, was after him—on the trail of the man she dared call husband. She had misread whatever it was William saw gaining on him (his old life); regardless, Jane Scull would let no harm come to her man, and it was upon that sentiment Please-Help.-Bless preyed.

More than any of it, she felt the awful familiarity of this monster, who was, alas, a member of her tribe, and began finally to consider that the Lord might have made her for such men. Yet along with the shame and agony attending such a realization came a measure of peace.

W
hile the currents of our main story pull inexorably toward the tributaries of denouement, it is an opportune moment to look in on Mr. Dodd Trotter, whose fortunes this week have fallen, bidding him to flutter from his perch on
Forbes
's global tree of the “world's working rich,” and comfortably resettle five or six branches down. As to the wisdom of our timing, opinions as usual may vary; yet each player asserts himself in his own way, with his own urgency.

The day before his mother's eviction from chez Pullman and subsequent hospitalization, Dodd was finally on his way to meet Dr. Melvin Janklow, the genial Beverly Vista psychologist who had once talked him through the hard times of his youth. (In the few months that had elapsed since that first phone call, their dinner date had for one reason or another been postponed.) He'd flirted with the idea of Trader Vic's before discarding the Polynesian-themed restaurant as too kitschy, regardless of all the fond boyhood associations. He had Frances-Leigh make reservations at Michael's instead, at the beach.

Dodd's jet landed around six o'clock at the Van Nuys airport. He had spent the day in North Carolina, touring a private school. The Cary Academy had been built a few years before the millennium by his friend Jim Goodnight, co-founder of a data warehousing software company; Jim only had about $4 billion but, as Dodd used to joke, “that didn't make him a bad guy.” The complex sat on about fifty acres—ten times that of the current BV “footprint” but only twice the size of the extended parcel that Dodd envisioned once surrounding homes and apartments were razed. The dogged CEO had built Cary from the ground up; its design
technologies and dedication to learning were superb. Seeing what a determined man like Jim could do in such a short period of time absolutely impressed and inspired.

Dr. Janklow was sitting at the bar when Dodd came in. He wore a jacket with suede elbow patches, as in days of old, and rose to give his former patient a hug. The retired therapist looked on the fragile side; cancer wars had taken their toll. Dodd understood he was probably nervous, too, not being accustomed to the hoopla of a chauffeur-driven night out. They were quickly ushered to an outdoor table.

Space heaters cut the crispness in the air. Dodd politely asked the doctor (who futilely insisted on being called Mel) for a précis of his life the last thirty-odd years. The truth was, the billionaire couldn't have cared less—his indifference stemming not from callous self-absorption but from a desire to freeze Melvin Janklow in time, as he remembered him, patched-up arms warmly extended in a crinkly-eyed hello, the underground priest of a small church—Church of the School Psychologist—that had been Dodd's refuge over so many troubled semesters.

“Well, you know, I've been sick! That takes up
lots
of time. Oh Jesus—got hit with prostate, then
skin
, then
breast
. Breast cancer! That's not a typical thing, not for men. But you learn to look on the bright side: never got it in the brain, balls or palate. Saw
those
characters when I went for chemo. ‘Pretty work,' as my Southern auntie used to say—ghoulish. But you don't want to hear about all
that
. Tell me about yourself, Dodd! Marcie says you're pretty high up there on the
Forbes
heap. I think that's all kind of silly myself. Do you really have that much money?”

“I have a lot, but I never see it.”

Dr. Janklow was tickled. “I
like
that,” he tittered. “You never
see
it! Who
wants
to see old dirty dollar bills anyhow?”

They reminisced awhile before Dodd got around to asking if he was aware of the sad state their alma mater was in, what with the seemingly permanent bungalows and school board entropy. The doctor nodded gravely and said that Marcie Millard sent him a petition bemoaning a bureaucracy that dared allow the halls of learning to remain in such prolonged post-earthquake disrepair. It was obscene. Dodd spoke of his vision for “the new BV,” an academic phoenix risen from the ashes.

“Well,” said the doctor, after getting an earful, “it does sound a bit
grand, but why not? Why should the good folks of Beverly Hills be denied? I think it's a
hell
of an idea, David.”

Dodd smilingly overlooked the misnomer.

“But what can
I
do? Now, what would you want with an old retired windbag with three cancers?”

“For me, tradition is
very
important. Dr. Janklow, if we can make this thing happen, I'd like you to have an office there—as an emeritus. You could come in whenever you like. Of course, you'd be salaried. If all this
does
come to pass—and my lawyers and friends on the school board are giving me every indication it will—I'd like
very
much if you stood alongside me during the ground-breaking.” The dinner guest was flustered to speechlessness, but Dodd was just gathering steam. “I want to be able to look around and see old friends and mentors, so there's a continuum. See, I'm one of those people who
remember
things: I remember you taking the time to come to my family's house on Roxbury Drive for supper. That meant a lot to me. You didn't have to do that—no one paid you extra or wrote about it in the
Courier
. I think you just thought it might make a difference. I remember some of the other kids finding out … and for a few days, I felt just a little more important, a little more comfortable in my own skin.”

The doctor looked sternly contemplative, as if working through a knotty math problem. “I have a confession to make.” He pushed around an endive with a fork. “For
weeks
I've been racking my brain.
Who is he?
” He paused dramatically. “Who is that boy?”

Dodd's face froze in a half smile. “I'm not sure what you mean.”

“Now, the only thing I can come up with is the
trauma
—I went through an awful, terrible time right about then. My wife and I were separating, a protracted thing. That's the only explanation I can give! Because even after three cancers, my mind has remained
agile
as ever. The Millards'll tell you. One thing I'm not and never have been is a forgetter.”

“Forget—”

“What I am trying to say, what I feel
genuinely
terrible about, is that I
cannot remember
. Cannot remember—
you
—at all! I have
racked my brain
. I saw so
many
children, so
many
girls and boys. Had so
many
dinners—feathers in the parents' caps, but they took a toll. Oh yes they took a toll. And that was fine, I was happy to do it! Would do it
again
. If
it's true that I was of some small comfort—and you said yourself it was a good, a worthwhile thing—then my, my … they were all good, wonderful children. Through the years. And you wouldn't have been the only one! Heavens. But where did you say you lived? Roxbury? South or north? Well, of course it would be north …”

“It was actually south.”

“Well—but you—you say it was twice a
week
you came? How is that
possible
? Twice a week! I have racked my brain. Even looked through the yearbooks—I've got every single one—you weren't in any of the yearbooks—”

Though crestfallen, Dodd gamely rallied. “I always arranged to get sick when those picture-days came around.”

The doctor laughed hollowly. “I can only say it
has
to have been because of my marital difficulties—which of course I had to shield not only from the students but from faculty as well. Took an enormous toll.”

“I'm sure it will come back.”

“I feel so foolish. Your
generosity
—I thought by seeing you it would jog my memory. Awful to say! It's the damnedest—what was it that we talked about? In my office … Did you have a specific problem?”

“I imagine it was nothing that unusual,” he said cordially, “in terms of the type of thing you heard from most of the kids who came to see you. And the advice or support that you gave.”

“So many of the children's troubles were alike; that's true today too, no?—hard to distinguish. Have you changed much?” Dr. Janklow squinted at him. “I mean, physically? From when you were—from those days? Because you look like the type who might have—”