Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

Fitz focused his rage upon the malignant beggar, for whom no love had been lost. “Why, that cocksucker snitch; he ought to be murdered!” At this moment, the once honorable George Fitzsimmons looked more than ever like one of those sociopathic eggheads from thirties heist films who plan bank jobs but don’t dirty their hands. “He brought that cop to the Higgins , Will’m, don’t you see?”—Fitz had heard it all from Misery House cronies—“so the weasel could’ve seen you that very first night you were with the girl. Now, I know you didn’t do anything with her; nothing but love and protect her. But they’ll accuse you of molestation , and God knows what else. That’s their game!”

Will’m was in a daze. “But how did she leave Frenchie’s? How would they let her wander away?”

“Never mind that —there was a murder , Will’m, a murder in the motel . The St. George! The girl’s mother they think was killed — that’s what the boys on the street tell me. And they’ve got her now, they’ve got the girl . They don’t like unsolved murders on the books, Will’m. If they can jail us for walking outside a crosswalk, then they’ll jail you for this, believe me! By the time they finish, she’ll turn on you herself!”

Will’m grabbed him by the shirt while Half Dead lamely launched himself at the aggressor’s calf. “Don’t you say it, Mr. Fitz! Don’t you say it, ever!”

“Oh, I don’t mean anything, Will’m”—he reached for the giant’s implacable wrists to loosen the grip—“Hell, she’s a kid —I know what happens to frightened kids when the goons get hold of ’em. Before you know it, it’s the mob after Frankenstein. You’d never be able to defend yourself.”

“I need to speak with Mr. Mott,” said Will’m, entering a trance again. “To find out what happened … how could it have come to this? What was she doing back at Higgins, in the dead of night?” He began to pace and sweat, kneading his hands like a heart-shaped motor. “And that mangy bum! That child-stealer! I’ll tear his head off!”

“Don’t go out there half-cocked! They’ll be gunning for you, can’t you see? You’ll walk right into their web! Lay low and let me make a few calls — I’ll find out where they stashed her.”

But alas he found out not a thing, due to more pressing concerns with the pipe. And what if he had? What good would it have been? If Will’m stormed the palisades and spirited her out, what would he do with her? He’d played hero before and look what happened.

After almost a week of pondering, he could take no more. Early one morning, when Fitz had already quit the Queen Anne for coffee at Misery House, he lit out to Frenchie’s. As he walked, the air was cold — having been sequestered for his own good (still hearing Fitz’s admonitions), he felt like some exposed and hunted thing. He would at least find out what had happened. Could Mr. Mott have argued with the girl? And might she have been so headstrong to escape, on rebellious, childish impulse? She was a headstrong child … or could it be that Mr. Mott didn’t love her, that he never took to her? No! I’m a better judge of character than that , he thought. Then perhaps something had happened to the bakery itself, catastrophic; perhaps Will’m would discover a charred, smoky lot with only cast-iron ovens remaining.

He looked left and right like a paranoiac and, jamming fists into pockets, tucked into the wind. Never had he bowed his head before, but now the old soul was injured or at least made vulnerable by his love for the girl. He had become the Chairman of the Disembodied.

Gray day with gray sun — looking over his shoulder for black-and-whites that might haul him to gaol. Their uniformed thugs and siren-shrieks were “abominations that oe’r the Rampart cared not twopence for hill or valley, poplar or lime, thistle or vetch, convolvulus or clematis — not twopence either for tower, spire, apse or dome.”

Forget six counties overhung with smoke,

Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke,

Forget the spreading of the hideous town;

Think rather of the pack-horse on the down,

And dream of London, small, and white, and clean,

The clear Thames bordered by its gardens green.

When he was close to Frenchie’s, his pace slowed and memories colluded. He saw himself fencing with Edward Burne-Jones at Oxford off Hell Quad, on Broad Street — arm in arm they strolled, in purple trousers, chanting Gregorians outside St. Thomas’s church. (Such was his love for Arthurian legend that as a student, he had literally worn chain mail.) He was a sight then in leggings and metal, with starfish spray of hair, charging along with Rossetti and Ruskin; then one day he met her and his life was changed forever. Jane Burden was his obsession, an adulterous woman who could never have had more apt a name …

“Will’m!” cried Gilles, standing in dusty apron at the bakery’s street-side door. In his reverie he’d walked straight past his destination. The wanderer turned with a baffled look. “I was beginning to worry!”

“Whatever for, man?”

“Well,” he said, “you haven’t been by.”

The big man had better bide his time; it wouldn’t do to just blurt things out.

“Oh, been languishing — miserable. This town is so sordid! Had to move: to Red House, near Hog’s Hole and hard by the route taken by Chaucer’s Canterbury pilgrims. Extremely medieval. Ruins of an Augustinian priory just down the road. But the work involved in fitting it up, Gilles, the work …”—he had never called the baker by first name before—“ ’twas exhausting . I’ve been but a dead man knocking at a gate.”

“Then come make yourself useful!”

Will’m followed him in.

Was it a dream — was it just a dream that he had dropped her there in the first place? Then he had a joyful thought: what if the skid-row grapevine had been wrong? Or, better yet, that George Fitzsimmons’s gathering of intelligence had originated in the smoke of his devil-pipe! His mood lightened considerably, and while he wouldn’t dare say it, his heart overflowed in anticipation of espying her there in the back room — of a sudden, he could see the flour-powdered shock of curls and himself kissing her chewed-up nails. He smiled, allowing the luxury (for it had been a terrible week) of conjuring her in a little apron, vaulting into his arms. He thought he’d been very clever to have steered her there for shelter from the elements, knowing she would find comfort at the source of her favorite confectionary treats; partaking of them would make her think of him and have faith that all would turn out well.

These ruminations happened in the wink of an eye, and though in a greater context a relatively short amount of time had passed since he’d dropped off his ward, it was a continual wonder how elastic that dimension could be. Yes, he had heard of her capture and lived with those squalid images for some days now; yet another part of him imagined the orphan already sprung full-blown into rosy-cheeked maiden and baker’s apprentice, a busy schoolgirl with eager contingent of boyish suitors — a vital and beloved member of the community, indispensable to her proud, adopted family: Frenchie’s Bakery and Fine Pastries.

As they entered the rear, his heart sank. Instead of the girl there was a woman, whom Gilles effusively introduced as his wife. Toweling one hand with the other in preparation to greet him, Lani’s eyes grew large. She shook his hand, happy to finally meet one of her husband’s stories — his best and biggest one — made flesh. By hirsute, tweedy bulk and sheer stylish volume , Will’m could not disappoint; for those of any sensitivities, he downright astonished. She cleared her throat and nervously smoothed her clothes, as if a celebrity had just stepped in. The baker positively cooed, knowing Will’m to exceed any and all expectations.