Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

“It’s my understanding you know a man who goes by the name of William.”

“I do not.”

“He has a nickname — Topsy.”

“I don’t know a William and I don’t know a Topsy.”

“Are you sure? Tall fellow, British. Bearded. Seems he’d be hard to miss! Not sure how I have. Used to go to St. Vincent’s now and then, but they haven’t seen him there lately. I heard you have. Heard he was your running partner.”

“ ‘Running partner’!” he spat contemptuously, withdrawing a civility already overextended. “May I go about my business, Detective ?”

“Wears strange … suits. Are you sure, Mr. Fitzsimmons?” The one-legged transient, mildly startled to be addressed in such a way, let it ride. “Are you sure you haven’t seen him?”

“I don’t run with nobody.”

“You have been seen in the past with someone of that description.”

“Seen? By who?” He nodded toward the river. “The scumbag snitch?”

The detective laughed. “ And others. I heard the two of you shared an encampment—”

“I ain’t asshole buddies with no one.”

“—right around here, no? Look, I understand you wanting to protect your friend, but there’s been a murder. A little girl is involved.”

“Got nothin’ to tell you.”

The detective changed tack.

“You used to be a caseworker, didn’t you?”

“Who told you that?”

“You know, Mr. Fitzsimmons, you’re something of a legend over at the DCFS. They said you were one of the finest to ever pass through, and I believe it! One of the good guys — someone who cared. Life doesn’t have to be this way, George. If you want help getting off that pipe, I can take you someplace right now. Just hop in and I’ll personally see you’ve got a bed in a detox so you can kick this thing. That’s no bullshit. In six months you can be back doing your thing. Helping kids. Making a difference.”

“TPR, my friend.”

“What’s that?”

“Termination of Parental Rights. I’m done with mom and dad — some of us are , you know: Welfare and Institutions Code, Section 366.26, Senate Bill 243, confer January first, 1989. Baby, I was fully successful in all hearings, petitions and permanency plans. Who did they think they were playing with? The Department willfully demonstrated neglect, cruelty, abandonment and moral depravity — and let me tell you something else, Officer: it was demonstrated by my attorneys as such.”

“I’m going to give you my card,” said Dowling, reaching into his wallet. “If you see our friend, tell him I’d like to talk to him. It’s for his own good. Maybe he can help us clear some things up. And my offer to you still stands.”

“Look to the parent, Detective, always look to the parent,” Fitz said, shuffling after him. “If the minor has been sexually abused or there is substantial risk the minor will be sexually abused, as defined in Section 11165.1 of the Penal Code, by his or her parent or guardian or a member of his or her household or the parent or guardian has failed to adequately protect the minor from sexual abuse when the parent or guardian knew or reasonably should have known that the minor was in danger of sexual abuse”—the detective got into his car and started the engine—“and for the purposes of this subdivision ‘severe physical abuse’ means any of the following: any single act of abuse which causes physical trauma of sufficient severity that if left untreated would cause permanent physical disfigurement”—Fitz lit out after the Taurus as it pulled away, pulling on the crutch with all his strength—“permanent physical disability or death! any single act of sexual abuse which causes significant bleeding, deep bruising or significant external or internal swelling or more than one act of physical abuse, each of which causes bleeding, deep bruising, significant external or internal swelling, bone fracture or unconsciousness; or the willful, prolonged failure to provide—”

The car was out of sight. Fitz leaned on the crutch, panting. A broad smile came to his face and he laughed out loud. Then his brow furrowed; he would have to make sure his friend Will’m relocated — fast.

He called out: “Half? Half, baby? Darling, come …”

And limped toward the river.

Tull and the Dane still went for walks in the sheltered park of La Colonne, yet without the innocence of earlier explorations. They came and went as they pleased, traipsing through wild savanna and fields of lawn sedge studded by fifty-foot purple beeches — and tramped amid the whimsical all-in-black Mourning Garden, designed by Trinnie between halfway-house stints. It was filled with bat-like devil flowers, dark-blood Queen of Night tulips and bamboo “Noir” that shot up like bayonets. Mr. Greenjeans, who seemed born to the place and surely would die there, waved jovial greetings from afar; it was from him Tull learned that his mother had recently passed nights in the tower’s bridal suite.

While Pullman grazed and loped and stretched, the master averted his eyes from the cracked pillar, unable to shake the feeling that his star-crossed parents were ensconced — she, in the kitchen preparing lunch (though all his life the boy never knew her to be in any kitchen); he, Marcus Weiner, in the library napping, the biography of a poet open on his tangle-down chest.

The sun was low and the sky bloodied. Pullman turned five today, and a small celebration awaited on Saint-Cloud, courtesy of Grandpa Lou. A melancholy Santa Ana hurried them out the open gate and up the hill toward home.

As much as he wished to attend the Dane’s tribute, Tull couldn’t stay.

Epitacio drove the distrait young Trotter to cousin Edward’s, who wasn’t well enough to make the trip to Saint-Cloud.

Among the children only Lucy paid homage, lending her writer’s ear (augmented by Cartier pen and blue-paged BIRD NOTES for a Blue Maze Mystery ); certain that a canine birthday gala would make its way into her book, she joined her grandparents and the others at a mossy set of nineteenth-century faux-bois tables and benches just outside the maze. Servants bustled about, pouring Armagnac, spooning into faience pots of silken goose liver — from Toulouse, of all places — garnishing extracts with a gelée of black cherries and leaves of chervil. (Ralph had already gotten into the star-anise-and-honey ice cream.) Soon, modest fireworks would grace Bel-Air skies for the dedication of the “Danish friend’s” latest architecturally correct (the latter phrase, courtesy of Trinnie) doghouse: none other than the Pine-Lute tea pavilion, the second, after the Meier, of Trotter funerary models to be brought to full-scale life. Working-class Winter stood behind Bluey, tetchy in her tailored RN whites — uncomfortable the elaborate to-do was for a dog; a large, sweet one, but a dog nonetheless. Trinnie told her to “get over it.” She thought the extravaganza “brilliant” and took special care to observe her father delightedly mooning over the drowsy Dane, who lay upon a Moroccan ottoman incognizant of his good fortune, sated like a pasha.

On the way to Stradella, Tull compulsively felt his pocket as he had ever since the document was given him, to make certain it was still there.

He found his cousin relaxed and in good spirits, stitching taffeta in the workshop of the Boar’s Head Inn. He wore nothing but a saffron sari and velvet Philippe Model hat, courtesy of his doting aunt; though his chin rested on the crook of the brace, he eschewed mask and gloves, so that for the first time Tull saw how the middle and ring fingers of each hand were fused. When he’d had his fill, he discreetly drew his eyes to Edward’s tall, broken face.