On Archimedes Street (37 page)

This man really knows my son. Maybe a few years in Italy is what he needs. He’s speeding through college too fast.
She stepped away, making sure not to overhear anything they exchanged in private.

And now here was Achille. She’d been expecting his visit sooner or later. Say-Say visited every day, leaving Achille to fume. They had tea and laughed over Achille, adding fuel to the fire of his suspicions while they enjoyed each other’s company. Clothes were a frequent topic of conversation, and Paule was charitable enough to let Say-Say believe she was dispensing as well as receiving advice.

“Dearest Paule. Ravishing as always.”

“You lie so charmingly, Achille.” Paule, being French, said his name very prettily and properly: ah-sheel. People called him “Achilles” at their peril—a pet peeve. “But it is Say-Say who is ravishing lately. Don’t you find her more beautiful than ever?”

Achille knew better than to rise to the bait by betraying any hint of jealousy or resentment.

“I’ve come on a delicate matter, Paule. Perhaps we could talk in your study?”

Was Achille going to confront her over Say-Say? This was the last thing she’d expected. “Of course.”

Paule did not hide behind her desk to gain advantage but sat in a facing chair.

“There is no way to say this but bluntly, Paule. I believe Frenchy and Dutch have been intimate.”

“I know so.”

“
What
?
How?”

“I believe the evidence of my own ears. I inadvertently overheard them as Dutch and his friend visited today.” Paule made it a habit never to lie unnecessarily. It made things so much easier, especially when the object was to deceive.

“We must encourage this attachment, Paule.”

“What in the world for? Let them find their way. If it’s to be, so be it. But frankly, I can’t imagine them together. Too much alike, and far too different at the same time. Really, it came as a surprise. I’ve always known about Frenchy. A mother knows these things. But Dutch? Never imagined.”

“I think Dutch is involved with Flip as well.”

“And I can confirm that too, through the evidence of my own ears once again, in the same conversation.”

“And I must do everything in my power to break that up, Paule.”

“Why? You certainly can’t believe you can change someone’s sexual orientation.”

“I don’t know about that one way or the other, and I don’t care.”

“Then why?”

“I believe Flip is my son.”

If Achille expected shock, agitation, or any response other than cool composure from Paule, he was disappointed. “And what leads you to believe this?”

As Achille explained, Paule arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Surely you realize that this is the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence.”

“Surely not. Though circumstantial, it’s overwhelming. What are the chances that—”

“I’m surprised at you, Achille. Perhaps you’d be justified in drawing this inference if you lived in the days before paternity testing, but there’s no need for guessing in this day and age.”

Achille was nettled at the unexpected turns this conversation was taking. This was not how he had anticipated it at all. “Very well. I suppose you’re right. Though God knows how I’ll obtain a sample for testing without arousing suspicion.”

Paule’s silvery laugh became almost full-throated. “Oh, please, Achille. Don’t make me laugh. This is hardly a problem that would confound your Machiavellian powers for ten seconds.”

He frowned again. “And if I do obtain the sample, and I’m proved right. What then?”

“That’s hardly my problem, Achille.”

“No, of course it isn’t. I’d do right by the boy, that goes without saying.”

“What about the mother?”

Achille waved his hand as if brushing a gnat from his face. “Irrelevant. Although she should have told me. But what about the boys themselves? They’re in an incestuous relationship….”

“But surely they can’t have children together.”

One of the reasons Achille feared and admired Paule was the similarity of their thought processes, confirmed once again by this remark. “And of course, telling them might destroy their happiness. It’s a moral dilemma.”

“I’m sure you’ll dispatch it with the same efficiency that you’ve brought to every other moral dilemma you’ve ever faced.”

Damn the woman!
Achille saw right through the ambiguity of the remark to its intention. “And finally there’s Say-Say….”

Ah. The sly fox. Here comes the true subtext. What is he up to?

“It will break my heart to wound her with this evidence of my past infidelity. But I’ll throw myself at her feet. My best hope is her loving, maternal nature. If I can win her back….” He realized his slip.

Paule looked at him without expression.

“I mean, if I can win her respect back, heal the rift, then she will go gaga over this Flip. She’ll be buying him clothes, luring them back to the Garden District where she can cluck over them both.”
Far from your feminine clutches and lavalieres.

Paule smiled serenely.
Oho. So this was his ploy.
She waited for the other shoe to drop. Achille was never without a plan B.

“Unless, of course, Frenchy and Dutch fall in love. Then the moral dilemma would be resolved. And you and Say-Say would be in-laws, in a way.”

Paule had to hand it to Achille. Either he got his wife back or he’d form an alliance by a marriage of sorts to a Saint-Paix. Except for a little detail that had escaped him: He’d never lost his wife in the first place.

Paule temporized. “You’re getting ahead of yourself, Achille. The paternity test, remember?”

“Of course, of course. Your boy has grown so handsome.”

“So has Dutch.”

“They’d make such a handsome couple.”

“Yes. Like Mutt and Jeff.”

Chapter 50

I
T
HAD
taken Ed three weeks to make this decision. “I’m sorry to leave you high and dry with the tree business, Elwood.”

“Dat all right. Got me Dennis to help. He comin’ along fine. An’ the trut’ is—I wanna give it up an’ do somethin’ else. Much rather teach Dennis dan work on trees. An’ got plenty saved up. Gotta han’ it to MeeMaw. Don’t haveta woik alla the time anyways.”

Ed was returning to Ohio. He felt so foolish for ditching the car, destroying his driver’s license, panicking needlessly. It turned out, as his mother had told him during the call from Mississippi, that the special ed facility where Ed taught had installed a sophisticated surveillance system. It had not been the first alleged abuse, and the administration, once bitten, was twice shy. They had retrieved the footage of the session during which the girl was purportedly molested. And there it was for the parents to view—the edifying spectacle of their daughter propositioning and then threatening and blackmailing her teacher. Ed had felt a bit of pity for her, remembering the raging hormones of his own youth.

“Also—the instruction tape thing woiking out, I think. You seen dem. Whaddaya think, Special Ed?”

“I think they’re screwy and corny and crazy and crazily effective. You saw the superintendent’s face when she showed us that footage from the pilot where kids watched them. They went apeshit over them.”

Elwood beamed in pride. “Well, I relate, like dey say. Bin dere, in a place you nebber bin, Special Ed. I mean— Well, I relate, like they say. Been there, in a place you never were, Special Ed.”

Ed looked up in surprise. “Your tutor is making you enunciate correctly, and speak proper grammar?”

“She say—an’ I agree—dat when it come to lookin’ for a job, you gotta speak right. But I drop dat as soon as I can, an’ talk natural to the kids. Dey like it.”

And suddenly it all came together for Ed. “You’re going to get a special education degree, aren’t you, Elwood? You’ll work your ass off for as long as it takes until you walk across that stage with a mortarboard cap and stand up in front of a class of kids the first day of school.”

Elwood nodded. “Do you mine, me travelin’ in your footsteps?”

“I’m honored, Wailin’ Elwood. I’ll be there when you walk that stage. It’s why Mother Cabrini led me here.”

“Oh, cut the Cabrini crapola! Religion jes’ keep people iggerant, an’ make terra’ist. Bin readin’ about the Spanish Exhibition—”

“Inquisition.”

“Inquisition, an’ alla dem priests feelin’ up little kids, an’ A-rabs an’ Jews at each udder’s t’roats. Jes’ pick up the fuckin’
Picayune
. What alla dat mumbo-jumbo
for
? Like MeeMaw useta say, alla it rotten in Denmawk.”

Ed had to grin. “She led me here. I know it as surely as I know my own name.”

“An’ dat name Dumb-Ass Num’ Nuts.” Then Wailin’ Elwood sighed. “You gonna go back to teachin’ at dat school?”

“No. I’m going to resign officially. Then I’ll tell my parents I’m gay. Then I’ll buy a second-hand car and rent a U-Haul and fill it up with my stuff. Then I’m coming back here.”

“You comin’ back, Special Ed?” The note of joy in his voice lifted Ed’s heart.

“I think I’ll look for a place in the French Quarter.”

“Dat the place for you, all right. Dey jes’ gonna love you, Poily.”

“And I’m going to teach here, in Louisiana. Where they need me. And compete with you for teacher of the year.”

“An’ I gonna win.”

“Yes, you will. What about you?”

“I need me a anchor. I gonna look next door. But you come see me, right? An’ help me sometime if I… well, like wit’ exhibition an’ inquisition….”

“You won’t need my help. We’ll be friends. Colleagues.”

T
HE
DNA
analysis of the three strands of blond hair, each with its root bulb, was conclusive, so the report said.

Flip was not his.

Achille supposed he should feel relieved. But, in the event, he felt nothing but pique. So much for bringing Flip under his roof, a new son for Say-Say to cluck over and dote on, a distraction from her liaison with Paule.

Yet he found his detective’s instincts, once quickened, hard to put to rest. Achille scrutinized a snap he had taken of Say-Say, Dutch, and Flip at the dining room table. He wasn’t convinced; the report must be wrong. The boy
must
be an Abbott. Still, DNA testing didn’t lie.

Unless…. Yes, unless!

He withdrew his smartphone from the interior pocket of his suit jacket, swiped to the list of people, and touched the number he dialed dutifully every two weeks, but never with pleasure.

“Hello? Who is it? Speak up, speak up!” Félix Abbott wheezed his complaints into his landline. Achille had given him one of those mobiles, or whatever they were called, but Félix never used it except as a paperweight. Cell phones were infernal contraptions, like everything else that had been devised to torture sensible people since 1955. Nothing good, in his opinion, had come down the pike since Eisenhower left office.

“Hello, Poppa.”

“Oh, it’s you. What do you want?”

“Maybe I want to talk to my own father. Is that a sin?” As soon as he said it, Achille regretted it. To that sanctimonious old fool, probably clutching his amethyst rosary in the hand that wasn’t holding the phone, everything was a sin.

“That’s rich. Tell me another one. The few times you
do
call I can just picture your face from the tone of your voice. And the face I picture? It looks like it’s sucking a lemon.”

Achille happened to glance up to catch his reflection in the mirror visible from his walnut partner’s desk. In fact, he sported a lemon-sucking look right now. He composed his features, hoping his facial serenity would summon an amiable voice to blunt the old man’s prickliness.

“I was just thinking back on old times and getting nostalgic, Poppa. Remember all those scrapes I used to get into? You would always bail me out. Remember the pregnancy scare with the Beauchamp girl? You saw right through that.” Achille summoned a hearty chuckle Félix immediately dismissed as counterfeit.

“You never
could
keep it in your pants. But at least
then
you had the excuse of being single while you sowed your wild oats. I’m on to what you’re up to now, with that Dianne woman. It’s scandalous! I’m ashamed to call you my son.
Poor
Say-Say.”

“I’m on the straight and narrow now, Poppa.”

“Hmmph! If that’s so, the Second Coming must be at hand.”

“But speaking of wild oats…. Poppa, did you or uncle Théophile ever….”

“What a suggestion! Do you imagine that I would defile our marriage bed by bringing home filth to your mother?” Félix looked down and closed his eyes to speak the next sentence. “God rest her soul.”

“Er—yes—God rest her soul,” parroted Achille. He, too, made the head-bowing gesture out of habit and then felt irritated at himself. “But, before you married…. Did you ever….”

“Filth! Trash! Trash! You’re talking nothing but dirt! The body is the temple of the soul, Achille,” said the old man pompously.

Achille rolled his eyes.

“I went to your blessed mother as pure as she was.” Félix looked down with a trembly jaw. Then he added, “God rest her soul.”

Had Achille looked up, he would have seen the lemon-sucking face in the mirror. “Er—yes—God rest her soul.” He suppressed the head-bowing.

“How about Uncle Théophile, then? When he was young, could he have fathered….”

“Certainly not.”

“How can you be certain?”

“I’m just certain, that’s all. Look, Achille, what is this all about?”

“Well, it’s Dutch.”

“What about Dutch?”

“He’s taken up with this boy, Flip. Flip Abbott, in fact.”

“Yes, so Dutch said.”

“Poppa, this Flip has the map of Alsace-Lorraine stamped on his forehead. He looks just like you, like me, like Dutch, like Théophile. Plus, his name is
Abbott
.”

“And what
of
it? Really, Achille, you’re wasting my time.”

“What if I told you that he and Dutch are now boinking each other’s brains out?”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“We’ll, I’ll
be
! Dutch likes pecker? Ain’t life a scream?” The old man cackled. “Well, he comes by it honestly. There’s one in every generation.”