Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

“You know, I’m supposed to have surgery soon.”

“Really? What kind?”

“ ‘LeFort III’—that’s the procedure. LeFort III . What a weird thing! With Apert’s, as you’ve probably noticed , the middle face grows slower than the rest. They call it retrusion. LeFort is when they go in and do grafting and bone-spacing.” He shook his head resolutely. “There is just no way. There’s no payoff.”

“What do your parents think?”

“Same as they do about everything — Dad’s laissez-faire and Mother’s indifferent. You know: they want what I want. If I’m up for the surgery — fine. If I’m not — well that’s fine too. But why would I put myself through that, Tull? It’s just so fucked. And all from one little change in the FGFR2—that’s fibroblast growth factor receptor 2, in case you were wondering. Something’s wrong with the gene on chromosome 10, or some such bullshit. Well, fuck FGFR2 and the stem cell it rode in on. Do you know how many pages there are on the Internet about this crap? I mean, I could get very intimate with some punk in Denmark who shares my tragic deformity. Get jiggy with the whole codependent World Wide Webbed-finger family.” The buggy sat on the carpet beside the metal roll-up; Edward stepped in. “I am telling you, there are links up the yin-yang, every fucking orphan disease on the planet. Antley-Bixler! Langer-Geidon! Pfeiffer! Saethre-Chotzen! Arhinia! Baller-Gerold! Stickler! Carpenter! Parry-Rombergs! Craniosynostosis! Goodman! Jackson-Weiss! Sagittal synostosis! Treacher-Collins! And there’s an amazingly pathetic homepage with a gallery of kids’ fucked-up faces — a permanent, floating pediatric wax museum horror-show — with ‘virtual’ candles burning. Whenever one of the deformed little guys croaks, his flame gets snuffed.”

“Edward, I think you should chill. You’re gonna stroke out.”

“Yeah well, if I ever do , you better put a pillow over my head, cuz. Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Exceptional!” he said, giving Tull his best scary Tom Cruise smile. “Now, get in.” Edward pushed a button on the console and the door of the workshop zipped into a galvanized drum. They pulled out. “Sorry you’re missing the birthday.”

“It’s OK. I did kind of want to see the fireworks, though.”

“Long in the tooth, that Pullie, isn’t he?”

“He’s only five.”

“Gettin’ up there for a Dane.”

“Can we please just leave him out of it?”

“For Danes, anything past birthday number six is gravy — as any true aficionado knows.”

They drove along the winding path that surrounded the vast, fragrant property. There were stretches of woodsy darkness; against resistance from his wife, Dodd gave one of the farther fields over to Trinnie, who had planted tall plumed pampas grass, which shivered as they motored past, trying to tell them secrets. Tull felt his cousin’s aloneness and guiltily saw himself hovering over the comatose boy with a Pratesi pillowslip. Again, he felt for the letter in his pocket.

The buggy rolled by the guest-house pool before Edward pointed it back to Olde CityWalk. He began a tired rant about his mother’s “Dead Baby Society” that segued neatly into Dodd’s recent mania-fueled purchase of an empty prison in Palm Desert.

All the while, in anticipation of introducing his topic, Tull’s heart beat faster than he would have liked. Finally, he said: “Edward … the letter you gave me—”

“I was wondering when you’d bring that up.”

“Where — did you get it?”

“I — well, Lucy and I–I have to give her credit — we made a rather thorough inventory of our parents’ effects. Father tends to keep certain items — including eighteenth-century pornographic etchings — in a special drawer in his walk-in closet. I’m telling you, cousin, my parents are not well!”

“Just tell me about the letter.”

“Sadly, it was the only thing we were able to come up with — you know, I’m a little surprised you haven’t done any footwork of your own. I mean, shit , Tull, the Withdrawing Room’s most probably a Tut’s tomb of nostalgic puzzle-pieces! You never know what you’d find: stuffed in one of the maquettes, say — or the mattress of Grandpa’s Murphy bed. Or hidden behind a panel of the Piranesi …”

“Edward — do you think … do you think they actually found him?”

“All I could pry from Joyce was that they hired a man — or, should I say, Grandpa hired a man to look for Marcus Weiner.”

“I already knew that,” said Tull, thrilled to know something about anything.

“But did you know it was a guy Dad went to school with?”

“What school—”

“BV — Beverly Vista. I heard him talking — Mom and him — at midnight, in the kitchen. I’ve got the place wired . There’s still a few bugs, but …”

“What did they say ?”

“He was telling Joyce about Marcie Millard.”

“Marcie Millard?”

“The lady hammering Dad for money to rebuild their alma mater.”

In the weeks after the initial revelation of his father’s undeceased state — that terrible hour with Trinnie and Grandpa Lou in the Withdrawing Room — he had been loath to think of Marcus Weiner at all, let alone make inquiries of anyone who might possess the facts. A firewall had descended; even kids at school whose parents had been privy to the resurrected scandal seemed to have lost interest in provoking him. Now, something had shifted and Tull was beginning to wake up.

“But do you think they found him?”

The cousin grew pensive, letting the question take air. “Do I think they found your father? Is that what you’re asking?”

“That’s what I’m asking.”

“To that, I would have to answer … no. No, Tull, I do not think they found your father, I am sorry or not sorry to say.”

A long, sad silence ensued as they navigated the stony streets of Olde CityWalk on the approach to the Majestyk, an authentic movie house that seated seventy-five. Like all structures in Edward’s world, it was built to accommodate his motorized magic carpet; the boys got popcorn and soda without having to disembark.

The cousin grew serious while steering down the wide aisle of the plush auditorium. “You know, I think Lucy’s theory is sound. Why would Grandpa Lou want to find such a man? He wouldn’t want Trinnie to be tortured again.”

“But he hired someone,” said Tull, fairly pleading.

“Unless,” said the cousin, with a mildly crazed look in his eye, “unless he wanted to find him so he could kill him for what he did to her.” Tull saw that he wasn’t joking. “It is a possibility. I’ve given it some thought.”

“Shit, Edward! Are you saying Grandpa wanted to murder my father? Jesus!”

“Maybe Grandpa did kill him — maybe he found him and killed him and now maybe he wants to be caught — maybe he wants us to catch him. Expose him, so he can repent. Let’s say for argument’s sake that it’s true — that he did ‘the job’—”

“Jesus, Edward!”

“It would have to have haunted the guy through the years, especially since it seems your mom’s forgiven him — forgiven Marcus Weiner, I mean. Or at least would like to have had the chance. She’s still in love with him. I mean, you know she goes and stays in the tower sometimes …” He thwacked Tull’s arm in excitation. “Beginning to sound like a real Lucy Trotter Mystery, ain’t it?”

They left the buggy and sank into the Majestyk’s ergonomic row of Herman Millers.