I'll Let You Go (54 page)

There he was ahead, crossing the street called Speedway, a buzzard with a brown-bagged bottle of wine. He grinned and licked his chops. He was drunk, and some German tourists watched him paw her tits.

“Ahm
hun-nuh-gree
, you slappy cow bitch,” he said, mimicking her impediment. “An'
horrr-neee
. Wanna puts muh
whole haid
in there! Thinks you kin fits a whole haid? How 'bout a whole
fist
? How 'bout
two
fists? Two-fisted love!” The crapulent fiend pulled from the bottle and cackled.

She took his hand and said, “Want. Too. Fuck.”

She nearly dragged him down the sidewalk, and he got such a kick
out of her ardor that now and then he broke free, girlishly collapsing in laughter, hacking and wheezing and pointing. “The bitch in love! The bitch
love
me! Now howda ya like that!” Like an underworld Music Man, he almost burst into song.

She led him through the cyclone fence surrounding the depredated rooms of the Tropicana. The structure had been gutted and prep'd for rebuilding, but there were no guards or workers. Jane took Please-Help.-Bless upstairs—still bent over gleefully, he pulled from his wine—to the very same room she had shared with her William on their first night together. The mattress was gone and the space looked altogether different than it had before, and of that she was grateful.

This was the first time in a room for Jane and Please-Help.-Bless too. When he fucked her, it was usually behind the scratchy freeway brush near Lincoln and Olympic, a block or so from SeaShelter. He liked it when the people in cars could see them going at it.

“You looks thin—did I ball that kid outta you? Shit! How
'bout
that! I fuck him right outta you, huh? You
likes
that. Don' need no abortion
now
. Here it is, slappy-cow: the lean, mean 'bortion machine!” He unbuckled his pants and she lay down while hiking up her skirt. “You
love
me, don' chew? You love me
now
, now ain't that a bitch? She love me! She wanta
fuck
me! She
love
to fuck her daddy!”

She would tell her William everything now, every terrible thing she'd done, and risk him leaving her. She would risk it all, because that was the only way they could begin anew. She would tell William everything, and if he said it was too terrible and that they could never see each other again, she would just walk away and kill herself without him ever knowing. (She would never want him to think he had anything to do with such an act.) And if he told her to go to the police and confess what she had done, she would. They would arrest her for her crimes and she would be able to sleep again. She would at least be able to see her William—there were probably jails that held men and women under the same roof, like at SeaShelter. Maybe they could serve their time then leave jail together and come back to Santa Monica to start over. They could stay on the beach-bluffs awhile before checking in to the shelter, like that night they left the hotel after the raid.

She wet herself down there with spit, and Please-Help.-Bless spat wine on her too and opened her up with dirty fingers. “You look
good
,”
he said, turning her over and forcing his way in. “Ooh but you stank! Shit, you stank. Somethin' like to crawl up there and
die
. Maybe the baby did! Heh heh. Naw—I think you dropped that baby. It
good
you dropped that baby 'cause you thin now. You a thin cow. What'd that little peesuhshit have, cock or pussy? 'Cause if it had a pussy, you shoulda
saved
it for me.”

He grew quiet while he worked, and let go of the bottle.

“Pweeze,” said Jane, trying her best to enunciate. “Why yoo seh they killum.”

“Shut up, bitch. Shut up whileye fuck.”

“Yooo seh dey killum in pwih-sun. They
killum—
”

“Oh yeah!” He picked up the bottle and swigged while jimmying himself in. “Thas
right
they gun killum! That turn you on? They prolly killim right now while I fucks you! Man a menace! Das why I pull him off thuh streets!
I
do that.
I
have the pow-uh! Gold Shield lissen to
me
. Them boys in the joint, they find out he fuck kiddies, they killum good and slow! They gun
rape rape rape
jus' like I rape
yoh
ass. He gun bleed like
you
bleed 'cept he ain' gonna drop no
baby
.”

“Buh you canh
stop
them—”

“Now, why
would
I,
bitch
? Now shut tha fuck up. Ain' gonna stop
nuthin'
. They killum! Killum! Killum!”—the word capping each painful thrust.
“Killum! Killum! Killum! Killum! Killum! Kil—”

In the midst of his transport, Please-Help.-Bless stopped dead—or nearly so, for Jane Scull had plunged a knife deep into his bowels. The smell of perforated belly erupted in her sensitive nostrils, pelting like a weapon itself. She used the knife William had bought her for protection; the same that had cut the umbilicus in the bathroom at McDonald's.

Please-Help.-Bless stared into her eyes, lips clamped, shaking like a zealot. It was then, with him seizing beneath her, that she uttered the fruit of weeks of diligent elocutionary practice: “
You—are—dy—ing.”
His body retracted, crab-like. The bottle was still in his hand and shattered against the wall. He slashed at her throat, which opened like a well of water everlasting. She was gone before him, though not by long.

Her weight acted as a full-body tourniquet, so that when he wriggled out from beneath, impaled on her dagger, a bucket of blood and insides poured forth. He slipped and slid as he stood on the killing floor. It is
said we revert to infancy at the time of our death; the vagrant reverted only to the name by which he first was known.

“Someone help me!” he cried from the door frame.

And that was the end of him.

A
maryllis's farewell lay on the floor in the middle of the cousin's apartments, and they paced around it—even Edward hobbled about—like lost hikers awakened to a final campfire extinguished by careless neglect. Toulouse accused Edward of being cavalier
and
Machiavellian; Edward accused Toulouse of being lovesick, needy and vain; Lucy accused both of being hypocrites and was in turn lambasted for having the gall to be secretly relieved that the girl was gone, to which the outraged mystery writer responded by sobbing hysterically while hurling various items against the walls of Boar's Head Inn proper. To make matters worse, an oblivious Boulder showed up on a film break and spoke blithely of her crush on Joaquin Phoenix and how she had gone to Diane Keaton's house for dinner and held the
Annie Hall
Oscar in her hand.

Toulouse left in a huff and walked up the hill to Saint-Cloud. The Dane's gait seemed wobbly, and he thought:
That's all I need. For Pullman to up and die on me …
He had failed her; he had failed everyone. He remembered the girl's misery on meandering up this very slope—that was the day he pushed her away, the day he wasn't man enough to do the thing his mother and father had done in that very room. A day that would live in infamy.

Then came the revelation, as they passed the gate at La Colonne:
she had taken refuge there
—there, in the master suite, she awaited!

Boy and dog raced through the hole in the hedge, charging at tower's entrance. “Amaryllis!” he cried, past boxwood and yew. “Amaryllis!” He sprinted up the spiral stairs. “Amaryllis! Amaryllis! Amaryllis!” But where would he spirit her? It would be too strange and impractical to keep her
here;
they couldn't hide from Mr. Greenjeans. And Stradella and Saint-Cloud were bridges already burned … he would need to come up with something brand-new—maybe this time he'd leave Edward and Lucy out of it. No: he'd
never
be able to pull that off. Maybe he would just tell his mom …

Things were as they had left them. Toulouse went to the window and looked out. He imagined seeing Amaryllis far below, coquettishly staring back at him; he thought of Trinnie and how desolate she must have felt that morning, searching the meadow with newlywed eyes. He called her name a few more times, then feebly ducked his head into the rooms on each floor. His instincts had been so wrong; what a surprise.

Again, he climbed the hill to his grandfather's house. He resolved that he
would
tell Trinnie, not so much because it was in her power to find the girl (he was convinced Samson Dowling would prove up to the task), but rather to selfishly enlist her aid in restoring Amaryllis to his world once she was back in captivity. Toulouse knew his mother would be unable to resist, especially if he confessed his love for the foundling; a quintessential romantic, she'd always been one to nurse a broken-winged sparrow. He would play on her ample reservoirs of parental guilt—anything to make the woman throw her bountiful energies into pulling Amaryllis from the county quicksand. The timing wasn't great. The Trotters were consumed by the Bluey crisis, and no one had been thrilled with the adopt-a-homeless-child episode; it was generally agreed that Toulouse and his cousins had abused their privilege and the family's trust. Even Edward was in the doghouse, though perversely enjoying his “grounded” status.

He arrived in time for dinner and was startled to find an old couple at table with Trinnie and Grandpa Lou. It took a moment to place them—Harry and Ruth, the Weiners of Redlands! Introductions were made before Trinnie knowingly turned to her son and uttered the kind of arch drawing-room cliché that set the new, improved Ralph Mirdling's teeth on edge: “I see that you've already met.”

“A
ren't you curious about our guests? I mean, what they're doing here?”

Trinnie was making sport, but her son wasn't receptive.

“It's a
wonderful
thing that we're here,” said Ruth. “Wonderful!”

“I can't believe it myself,” offered Harry. The spiffed-up face still drooped on one side but was so closely shaven (Ruth had done the job) that his cheeks looked like marzipan. “This marvelous house—hasn't changed! Nothing has changed.”

“Nothing, and everything! Well, aren't you
wondering
, Toulouse?” his mother asked mischievously.

“Now, don't bother the boy!” said Grandpa Lou.

“The Weiners graciously consented to come to dinner tonight so that I could make amends.” She looked at her son with near-religious gravitas. “It's important to make amends. Do you know what ‘amends' are, Toulouse?”

“Of course he knows!” exclaimed Ruth, beaming.

“But does he
really
—”

“Why talk to the boy like that, Katrina?” chuffed Louis, stabbing a forkful of quail salad.

“He's
extremely
intelligent,” Ruth went on. “Like his cousin Edward.” She was thrilled to be sitting there dropping names and having discourse with … family! “Why, I couldn't even
follow
some of the things that child discussed!”

“Marvelous boys,” said Harry, soaking an endive in Persian mulberry sauce. “Marvelous
minds
.”

“Now, don't bother him, Katrina!”

“Father, he'll be fine!” She gently mussed Toulouse's hair with her fingertips, then took a breath, centering herself. “There's an old saying—Ralph told it to me—back when he was still Rafe! But it's a beautiful saying: ‘When someone plants a tree under which they will never sit, that's how you know civilization has arrived.' ”

“That's lovely,” said Ruth, putting her hand on her husband's.

“And quite pertinent,” said Harry, “for a designer of gardens.”

“It's Greek—he probably read it during his
Poetics
period. Remember, Tull?” Then, to the Weiners: “Rafe is an old paramour. And so is Ralph!”

“Avery
young
old paramour,” said Toulouse.

“Oh!” said Ruth. She liked a little spice.

Trinnie eyed her son with mock reproach. Then: “He wrote for the movies, or was trying to, anyway. I think he was convinced that Aristotle could teach him something about screenwriting.”

“Now he prefers the ancient philosopher Ron Bass.”

Trinnie gave him another look.

“I wonder what Detective Dowling reads,” he cattily mused. Toulouse was on a roll.

She ignored the remark and turned to her affable in-laws, who, for their part, were somewhat confused by the banter. “The Greeks knew how to keep it real,” she said. (His mother's hip-hopisms made the boy squirm.) “I share this, to illustrate something about amends—that they always come too late.” She lifted her glass of cranberry juice to the Weiners in
salud;
Grandpa Lou looked up, hastily raising his own. “Tonight, I have planted a tree. It was meant to be planted long ago, but never took root.” She winced, blinking back maudlin tears as she addressed their visitors. “I hope that … now that you know the tree is
here
, you'll feel free to sit under it when you like, and avail yourself of the shade.”

Toulouse thought he was going to be sick. “You're not even making sense!”

“It is
never
too late,” said Ruth ingratiatingly. “And it's very
nice
what you've done, Katrina—to call after all this time and have us here for this
lovely
dinner.”