I'll Let You Go (66 page)

“But I didn't
pay
you for the day you drove him there! I don't like people doing things for free. Now take it!”

“Sir, something happened,” he said, still stepping back, head hung low. “It was my fault, and I didn't tell you about it. And I don't want to take your money.”

“Happened?
What
happened?”

“The boy, sir—Toulouse. He went along.”

“He went what?—”

Epitacio started in their direction; the old man's posture had turned apoplectic enough to hint at a return trip to the diagnostic center whence they had come.

“It was a mistake, sir—a game, he said. He was hiding in the Mauck.”

“Hiding?”

“Climbed in, evidently, when I picked up the truck at Stradella. Hid in the cabinet the whole way, sir! Didn't even know he was
there
till we got where we were going. Then he asked me to send him home in a taxi, but I wouldn't let him, sir, no sir, so he stayed on. Sat in the front seat.”

“My God. Did they speak?”

“Who, sir?” (The old man had forgotten the caretaker was in the dark.) “You mean, Mr. Weiner and the boy? Why no, sir, they didn't. But he was terribly upset.”

“The boy?”

“Why no, sir—Mr. Weiner was. Over his loss. Cried all the way to Santa Barbara. Never stopped! I don't think he even
noticed
the boy.”

“Now, isn't that something!—”

The old man scratched his chin, which was, to Sling Blade's observation, auspicious.

“But the boy was very respectful, sir, I'll say that. You would have been proud.” He nodded his head, saying more than he knew. “
Honored
the man, very much so. Honored him.”

“That little son of a bitch.” Mr. Trotter grew contemplative before shrugging his shoulders. “Well—I suppose there's no stopping him … a
stowaway
!”

“My fault, sir. Should've checked. But, you see, I'd left the kids only two minutes before. I was
sure
they were all still in that room when I—”

Both caretaker and chauffeur were surprised to see his scowl replaced by a leprechaun's grin, ear to ear. A laugh issued forth that neither had heard before; like a bee to nectar drawn, Dot Campbell dive-bombed from a hundred yards. Epitacio hustled to shut the door after the old man, who had jauntily climbed in front. As Dot came in for a landing, he uncharacteristically ordered his driver to brake.

“Hello, Mrs. Campbell!” he said, convulsed.

“Hello, Mr. Trotter! Happy mood today?”

“Happy, happy, yes! Happy indeed! And why wouldn't I be? My little son of a bitch grandson is a
stowaway
!”

W
e will soon return to star-crossed father and son, remaining at their side for the duration (more or less) of our tale. But first the author must digress. Let us turn our attentions to an old—not
so
very old—standby, whose fortunes had fallen significantly enough in the last forty days to displace him to the rankling of
Forbes
's number thirty-seven. It can be sworn that he will never fall much farther than that.

Dodd Trotter descended upon Stradella House, having just returned from India, St. Petersburg and Seoul. He was on the phone with his mother, who was resting comfortably at her Woodland Hills cottage complex, Winter and the gilded book of obituaries faithfully at hand.

“Did you see the picture, Doddie?” asked the old woman.

“What picture, Mother?”

“In the paper today.”

“I've just come home—didn't get a chance to look. Is it in the
Times
?”

“So handsome.”

“Who, Mother?”

“There's a beautiful loafer with a tassel lying there.”

“The
Times
? New York or L.A.?”

“Do you remember the loafers we used to get you from Church's, Doddie?”

“I do.”

“This loafer—it's just lying there on the platform. Right where people wait for the subway. A couple got married. Young, handsome couple. I think he worked in public relations. They have
money
. They took the train to get married. Impetuous. One of those spontaneous things.
Fun
. And, suddenly, he doesn't feel so well and he goes outside—the space between cars? For fresh air, Doddie. And they think he just—well, they're not sure! Electrocuted. So handsome! You should see the picture.”

“That's awful.”

“And, Doddie, another race-car driver died. Not a very well known one—they all die the same way now. You see, they're very good at restraining their
bodies
, but they don't have anything that holds the
head
or the
neck
, so when they crash, they just go wild in there. Those cars are like little cages, Doddie! They gush blood from their mouths and noses like a fire hydrant. Terrible. The people who get to them first—a
horrible
thing. Because you see, Doddie, they keep that image in their heads for years. Just like water from a hydrant; that's how they all say it looks. In ten seconds you're completely emptied out.” Before he could speak, she began to sing, a soft thread that tightened into steel wire. “ ‘Woodenhead Jones was uh-fat and uh-funny, dumber than sticks and stones … an' that's just why the kids all called him Woodenhead Puddin'-head Jones!' ”

“—Mother?—”

“ ‘Teacher told his
mother
she would take him by the
hand—teach
him a thing or
two …
like his older
brother
he began to under-
stand
, he learned ev'ry-
thing
she ever
knew
!'—”

“Mother? Are you all right?”

The old nanny wrestled the phone away and assured him she just needed to be fed. Bluey shrieked like a zoo monkey, berating and mimicking Winter as she hung up.

Dodd asked the driver to take him to his office in Beverly Hills before going home.

When he passed through the lobby, the guard said his secretary was in. That wasn't unusual, even on a Sunday (though Dodd discouraged it). Frances-Leigh, a widow, didn't exactly need the extra income; even with the bears having raided the picnic, she still held some $7 million in Quincunx stock.

Her face fell when she saw him.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“Marcie Millard just called. I'm not quite sure why she called
here
, on the weekend …”

“That's obvious—she didn't want to talk to anyone. What did she say?”

Frances-Leigh took a breath. “She said the Board said they weren't going to go ahead with the proposal. She said they made a decision to restore and rebuild and draw from city funds.”

“When did they make that decision?”

“Well, they hadn't made it officially, but she said she'd spoken to three members over the weekend and they said that naming the school after you would be impossible—politically
and
legally—and that they were going to deal with everything on Wednesday. She sounded
very
upset.”

“That's just so asinine—I mean, if that's the focus. It's just crazy. Because my name on that school has never been an issue.”

“I told her that.”

“I couldn't have made that clearer to Marcie
or
the Board.”

“She said the Board was very flattered by your—your vision of—
your commitment—this is what she said—and they were going to call—they wanted to talk to you about a sculpture garden—Marcie said
something
about a sculpture garden, her kids were screaming in the back and I could hardly hear—a sculpture garden or maybe a fountain they were thinking about having in front of the school, you know, as you go into the main entrance …”

“We'll get the attorneys into it in the morning.”

Frances-Leigh closed her lips in solidarity. She knew how much the project meant to him; it had become his grand passion. And so
noble
—it didn't seem fair. She rested her hand on the museum-board base of the maquette.

A Frank Gehry–designed gallery space crowned the rooftop park like an ecstatic, silvery wimple. Dodd's plan was to revolve paintings through from his collection—Ruscha and Matisse in spring, van Gogh and Fischl in summer, Rothko and Chardin in fall, Pollock and Rembrandt in winter—so that students could
live
amidst art instead of having to do the museum dance.

“Well, maybe it's not over—they'd be
crazy
not to build it, especially with the economy in the shape it's in. They can't afford
not
to.” She wasn't even sure he was listening. “We still have a ton of options. We could quietly bring it to the media … let public opinion decide.”

“No,” he said vigorously. “I'd get ripped a new asshole, pardon my French.
Why isn't he doing this for the impoverished? Why is he lavishing money on the already rich?
”

“Your record speaks for itself. The Quincunx educational fund has already given away seventy million dollars in scholarships—”

“Oh, they don't care about that. Here's the better copy: BILLIONAIRE BULLISH ON VANITY SHRINE FOR SPOILED BRATS. You know—the Xanadu angle. Maybe I should just call it a Holocaust museum–
cum
–teaching institute—that way
nobody'd
bitch! They'd greenlight it right away.” He laughed, then became mindful of his secretary; he didn't want to appear too bitter. “I appreciate your feelings, Frances-Leigh, but this was supposed to be a very personal project. You know that's how I wanted it—from the beginning. Check your egos at the door. That's why we needed to go under the radar.” He sighed, lightly tracing the arc of the nun's habit with his finger. “Sometimes we live in a little world, filled with little people. And little people don't like big dreams.”

She nodded, still feeling the affront. “It's just so disappointing. I mean,
people
. People are disappointing.”

“A sculpture garden, huh. What a shame,” he said with a droll little smile. And then he left, without taking a final look at the perfect mock-up of what the design team had discreetly labeled

DODD TROTTER MIDDLE SCHOOL

T
rinnie decided to stay in Rancho Mirage through New Year's, getting massaged six ways from Christmas Sunday. She asked Toulouse to come, but he declined. He wanted to be with the cousins.

What with Bluey's crucifixion and Marcus's resurrection, the holiday felt more like Easter anyway; family spirits were rather low. They stayed in town (everyone but Trinnie—who wasn't, in actual Trinnie terms, really
out
of town), which was highly unusual at year's end. The trauma of recent events put the dynasty on a kind of tornado watch. They hunkered down, ready to take to the cellars.

On yuletide morning, presents were exchanged at Olde CityWalk, with the most gold stars going to Lucy for her gift to her brother. During their summer hegira, the budding author picked up an exquisite weave of Mor Pakh cotton, rayon and peacock feather in Morocco and had prevailed upon Isaac Mizrahi (an old friend of her aunt's) to design a light-hearted caftan—which Edward adored on sight.

Among the
cadeaux
Lucille Rose was happy to receive in turn were a bouquet of pens (among them a spiderwebbed Montblanc Octavian and a saffron-colored Omas, which paid tribute to both Buddha and the Dalai Lama) and a Louis Vuitton writing-desk trunk bestowed by Edward, in the style of the original commissioned by Leopold Stokowski. Such tools may do a young writer no harm.

Toulouse was showered with his favorites—bunches of nineteenth-century ivory bananas carved in half-peel and eerie, delicate watercolor eye portraits set in stickpins (the preceding from Edward). Lucy offered bounty for his mother—part of such largesse being that her cousin was
permitted to claim that he had selected them himself—that included a truffle shaver and a bamboo-handled sterling-silver fruit-and-flower cutter. But the most precious gift, at least as far as Lucy was concerned, she saved for last, and dramatically ushered him into the Black Lantern Book Shoppe to impart: standing under hastily rigged mistletoe, she gave him everything she had.

At around two o'clock, just as Pullman was opening his own spectacular goodies (including an old-fashioned milk bucket full of his favorite white truffles), Candelaria Monasterio clopped across the cobblestones to greet the merry gang. She told Toulouse that his grandfather had asked for him; Eulogio was waiting to drive him home.