by Bruce Wagner
“Thank you, sir.”
He gave her a hug and ushered her out before she had a chance to start bawling.
Jane Scull heard a commotion. Some lights came on, and she was confused. Was it morning? She climbed down from her bunk, rubbing her eyes. Then looked up: horror! She ran to William, now surrounded by policemen, hands fastened behind his back.
“It’s all right, Janey! It’s all right.”
A staffperson restrained her while a lady cop stood between Jane and her beau.
“Uttt? Cant ake youuuh!” Now all the hours spent enunciating before the mirror were for naught. She trundled after, and William asked an officer if he might please say a word to his frightened friend. Seeing that he was peaceable, they allowed a supervised moment before locking him away.
“Janey darling, it’s a mistake—I’ll be back, don’t worry! Don’t cry, there’s no reason for it. I left ice cream in the freezer with a special topping. You’ll have some, won’t you?”
She nodded and composed herself to speak as best she could. He leaned to her mouth and had trouble understanding, but at the last moment, just before they made him go, his eyes flashed righteously—she was asking if he’d hurt a girl, a little girl! That’s why she thought they had come for him …
“Janey, Janey, who told you such a thing? That child was my life! I did everything I could to help her!” He was flabbergasted, and numbly took in those gathered around as if they were picadors and he had been one hundred times lanced. “Who would tell you such a thing?” They pulled him away, and William had no time to explain. “Now, don’t you worry your pretty head,” he shouted. “D’you hear? I have done nothing, Janey! [His refutation being general, for he knew not why they had come for him, either.] Have your ice cream in the morning and by the time you finish, I’ll be home!”
As the handcuffed giant awkwardly insinuated himself into the backseat, an officer held a palm over his head in the baptismal gesture that ushered the doomed into custody.
“See to my personal things, Janey! My book—see that it’s safe!”
She nodded vigorously, while the staffers held her back, and cried when the black-and-white peeled away, joyful with what she’d known in her heart all along: her William was bighearted and tender and good. Her William was the Lord’s child, and innocent too! She would visit Please-Help.-Bless once more, then have dessert—and by the time she finished the very last spoonful, her man would be forever home.
CHAPTER 35
Probable Cause
The very next morning, Samson Dowling drove downtown to interview the prisoner, who was being held on charges of murder and rape. Arraignment wasn’t until Tuesday, and a public defender would not be appointed before then; the client would be shackled and already in court on the occasion of that first meet.
After the MacLaren interview, his gut told him it was unlikely that the suspect (who since the arrest had reluctantly identified himself as William Marcus) had participated in any nefarious acts, sexual or otherwise, involving the girl. He would no doubt be cleared of such accusations—but that was the least of the prisoner’s worries.
Regarding the murder, Samson had a few threadbare theories. He believed the defendant was in a relationship with the deceased and that there had been a squabble over money or drugs—perhaps even a classic sex-gone-bad scenario escalating to homicide. Things got a little murkier after that. One of his thoughts was that after the killing, a remorseful “Mr. Marcus” aided the girl as a kind of penance. Yet what troubled the detective most were the vicious circumstances surrounding the mother’s death.
The coroner’s report concluded that the woman had been raped postmortem. Amaryllis had told intake workers that her brother and sister were crawling on the bed when she came home to find the body, meaning they had been either in the kitchenette or the room itself while the crimes were being committed. Whether they were sound asleep or not meant little; their sheer presence betrayed a coldness on the part of the killer that was unsettling.
Other details nagged. Investigators were unable to lift prints from the scene; it was the detective’s experience that in a case like this, such fastidiousness (given the low-life players) was unusual to say the least. In other words, there was a degree of professionalism involved. Then there was the actual method of strangulation, accomplished by ligatures of uncommon complexity. What was the meaning of it?
But the most damning piece of evidence was the navy-blue ascot. Amaryllis had corroborated that it belonged to William Marcus aka Topsy; and while the silken item—stuffed deep in the victim’s throat—had not been the instrument of her death, it revealed yet another layer of brutality.
Samson found himself high in the Twin Towers, sitting opposite a weather-beaten mountain of Caucasian male, roughly forty-five years of age, with long, slender fingers on delicate hands and cool, gray eyes. His informant (whom the detective paid off and hoped never to have dealings with again) had accurately conveyed that since relocating to the beach, the formerly hirsute “Mr. Marcus” was now in fact close-shaven; Samson wished he’d at least gotten a glimpse of that near-legendary beard, for it had helped him better form a picture these last few months. William Marcus was assumed to be an alias but would have to be lived with until the computers told them otherwise.†
He began rather delicately, for his instincts told him there was no other way to approach the creature before him; but soon he was asking anything he wanted, for something in the man made him want to rush to the heart of things. Where had he been living before the beach? Had he bivouac’d downtown, under a bridge? Had he ever worked for a man named Gilles Mott in a Temple Street bakery for pocket money? Did he bring a young girl there? And where did he meet that selfsame girl? Was it the girl’s mother who introduced them?
The mind is a mysterious, plastic thing and never ceases to invent itself; it can plod faithfully along with a yeoman’s awareness or sparkle with exquisite brilliance before losing its way. It learns and relearns with startling agility but, like any Thoroughbred, likes to be put through its paces. As implausible as it may seem, had Detective Dowling not lately gone through the mental gymnastics of connecting the dots between the short-haired “consul’s daughter” recently met at the Saint-Cloud maze and the pallid little beast he had once driven from Hotel Higgins to MacLaren—if his brain had not been suchwise jarred, then his sudden and precipitous recognition of the lost soul before him might never have occurred at all—this being a roundabout way of explaining why midway into the thirty-minute interview his eyes glazed and his pulse quickened. What tipped him over? The odd, vaguely anglicized turn of phrase—remnants of an accent heard long-ago in Adirondacks interrogations? Intuition of familiar bones beneath fleshy mask before him? Or the ineffable thing of Trinnie’s voodoo upon Samson’s séanced heart … it was—it was—it was—
“Marcus?”
“Yes?”
“You’re Marcus Weiner.”
“Man, who?”
“You are him.”
Whether he knew or knew not, and if so by and what degree, William wasn’t ready to abandon his post.
“Marcus! It’s Samson,” he said, pointing rather absurdly to his own chest. “Samson Dowling—Dodd’s friend. Dodd Trotter—”
He glowered and said, “Sir, do not challenge me!”
The detective took a long breath, and retrenched. “Look: I want to help you.”
“Man, I am not desirous of your help!”
“Do you not know that your name is Marcus Weiner? That you have a family? And that you’ve been missing thirteen years? Do you not know this?”
SeaShelter, the morning after. An agitated SeaStaff bristles: can it possibly be that William, their William, eccentric lord of the kitchen and shining rehab poster boy, was actually a fugitive wanted in connection with the heinous murder of a downtown woman some months back? And that wasn’t all! Rumor had it that on top of it, he was being charged with the kidnapping and molestation of—suddenly paranoid, one of the
day managers thought it prudent to pay a visit to Le Marmiton and gather up any items extant that were William-made. Only days before, the Montana Avenue bakery had bought a half-dozen jars of pomegranate preserves, along with his trademark thumbprint cookies ladled with the fruit’s special sauce; such was their popularity that all had sold out. The woman behind the counter was glad to see the representative so she could order some more. The SeaStaffer anxiously scanned the shelves for potentially poisoned goods and, as he left, made an empty promise that a delivery would soon be on its way.
Jane Scull was devastated. SeaShelter “guests,” whom she thought of as friends, now declared with aplomb that William—whose pastries and foodstuffs they’d so greedily inhaled, and who had patiently adjudicated their squabbles and poignantly attended their subliterate tales of woe, and who had transcribed in careful calligraphic hand all their wretched poetries—their William, her William, was a strangler and a child-fucker who was going to fry!
She had an important question for Please-Help.-Bless.
Upon her request, a counselor opened William’s locker so Jane could retrieve News from Nowhere, wrapped in oilcloth and tightly bound with twine; her plan was to bring it to him in the afternoon. The same staffer had been good enough to draw a map showing how to get to the jail, albeit the wrong jail, but it’s the thought that counts. She put the book in her backpack, then launched for Pico Boulevard and environs.
She walked for hours, but there was no sight of him. Maybe he was done with her and had moved on to the next case—he was, after all, or so he said, a professional informant. “Me and Gold Shield, we’s a team!” She would not mention the woman they said her William had killed, for she wished to hear no lies about that, nor would she bother to tell him it was not true about William touching the girl; she already felt ashamed for not having gone to her man right away to tell him of the blackmailer. She had let herself be raped instead. She felt so agonized and traitorous and diseased on so many fronts—no, she would not press the outrageous innocence of her William’s case, not with that devil, nor with anyone else. She knew that in jail a murderer might be well regarded but the “other” kind, the child-bothering kind was … the thing Jane wanted to know, needed to know, was: would her William be killed in jail? For that’s what he had said …
Killim! Killim! Killim—
It was more than her heart could bear! Why did the devil say such a thing? And how would he know? She could not rely on her William being released, for the wheels of justice move slowly and the maulers of children are guilty until proven innocent. She knew nothing of the girl—could it be his daughter?—knew nothing of anything but her William. Was it possible the devil had made up a story just so they would kill him? That her William’s life was in his hands? But how, how! And there, in Tujunga, was Jilbo—Jilbo, who’d fathered her child, his hands on all the little ones … and her William in jail, this devil in her holes and Jilbo free as a dirty bird! She would talk to Gold Shield—My William is going to be killed! she would say. And that should not happen to a man when he is in jail, especially an innocent who is awaiting his trial. It is not right, it is not supposed to happen … She would find Gold Shield when she visited the prison. Jane bit her lip in recrimination; she should have asked for him on the night of the arrest. Selfishness! The police were all around and she could have talked to Gold Shield then, could have talked to any one of them … but she was busy blubbering instead; busy getting assurances from her true love that he was not a molester of children—assurances that he was not a devil—when she took this devil’s assurances whenever he liked—collecting her husband’s startled consolations: that’s how she’d spent their last moments together. As if anything her William might have done (no matter how immoral) could ever make a difference, or injure her love for him.
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. “K
illum! 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.
Amaryllis’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.
