And I believe I’m fixing to die
That was better. America. What a wonderful country. Too bad it was doomed to fail.
45
Gideon Crew stepped out of the car and looked up at the admissions building of Throckmorton Academy. It loomed before them, a nineteenth-century Romanesque Revival structure of gray granite, rising from perfectly tended shrubbery, flower beds, and clipped lawns. A brass plaque screwed into the wall told them the structure was known as the SWITHIN COTTAGE, following the WASPish self-deprecating habit of calling gigantic and expensive houses “cottages.” It fairly exuded money, privilege, and smug superiority.
“This is really stupid,” said Orchid, standing in the parking lot, tugging down the jacket of her tacky orange pantsuit. “I don’t get it. We look like idiots. They’re going to toss us out on our asses.”
“Perhaps,” said Gideon, clutching a thick folder of papers that had taken him hours of sustained and careful labor to prepare. He smoothed down his checked pants and jacket, adjusted his polyester tie, and headed toward the front door.
“I don’t know why you dressed us like this,” Orchid whispered furiously. “We don’t fit in at all here.”
He took her arm reassuringly. “Just follow my lead. All will become clear, I promise.”
They entered a well-appointed waiting room, and the receptionist looked at them. “May I help you?” The tone was studiously neutral.
“Hello,” said Gideon heartily, approaching and shaking her surprised hand. “Mr. and Mrs. Crew. We’re here to enroll our son Tyler in the school.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“Yes.”
“With whom?”
Gideon liked that whom. Here was someone punctilious with her grammar. He shuffled through his papers. “Mr. Van Rensselaer.” It was one of those old New York names and he mispronounced it badly.
She rose and disappeared into an inner sanctum. A moment later she emerged again. “Mr. Van Rensselaer will see you now,” she said, emphasizing the correct pronunciation.
The admissions officer was exactly as Gideon had hoped: tall, relaxed, friendly, dressed understatedly. The slightly longish hair and modish glasses indicated a man who, if not exactly open-minded, thought of himself as tolerant and moderate.
Perfect.
Van Rensselaer greeted them warmly, his eyes betraying only momentary alarm as he professionally covered up his reaction to their dress and manner.
“Thank you so much for meeting with us,” said Gideon, after the introductions. “We’d like to enroll our son, Tyler, in the second grade. He’s a very special boy.”
“Of course. Naturally, we have a fairly comprehensive process here at Throckmorton Academy, involving interviews with the parents and child, teacher references, and a battery of age-appropriate testing. We have many more applicants than we can accept, unfortunately. And I am afraid to say, as I believe I explained on the telephone, there are currently no openings in the second grade.”
“But Tyler is special.”
Van Rensselaer had not seated himself. “So as I mentioned, while we’re glad to give you a quick tour of the campus, it would be unfair to take up more of your valuable time without any hope of admission for your son. If something opens up, of course, we’ll be in touch. Now, we’d be glad to arrange that tour.”
“Thank you. But I just thought I would leave this folder of Tyler’s work—” Gideon brandished the folder of papers toward Van Rensselaer, who eyed it with the faintest whiff of distaste.
“That won’t be necessary at this time.”
“At least let me leave you the symphony.”
“The…excuse me?”
“The symphony. Tyler composed a symphony.”
A long silence. “How old did you say Tyler was?”
“Seven.”
“And he had help composing this…symphony?”
“Oh heavens, no!” said Orchid, suddenly, her raspy cigarette-cured voice echoing in the hushed confines of the office. “What do we know about classical music!” A laugh followed.
Suppressing a smile, Gideon slid out the sheet music. After a moment, Van Rensselaer took it.
“He used GarageBand,” said Gideon. “It sounds great, lots of trumpets. The CD is taped there, too. You should listen to it.”
Van Rensselaer began flipping through the printed-out symphony. “Surely someone helped him do this.”
“No one. Really. We didn’t even know he was doing it.”
“Um, neither of you is musical?”
“I like Lady Gaga,” said Orchid, with a nervous laugh.
“Where does…Tyler get his musical interest?”
“No idea. He was adopted, you know, from Korea.”
“Korea,” Van Rensselaer repeated.
“Sure. Some of our friends were adopting kids from Asia and so we thought it would be cool, since, well—we can’t have children. And it was something we could have in common with them, you know, talk about. But the symphony isn’t the only thing. Here are some of his drawings. You can keep them—they’re copies.”
He slid out the drawings. It was amazing what you could find on the web. He’d added a little signature to the bottom of each one, TYLER CREW, before copying them.
Van Rensselaer took the drawings and looked at them.
“That’s our dog. Tyler loves the dog. And that’s some old church he found in a book.”
“Chartres,” murmured Van Rensselaer.
“What?” It had been devilishly difficult finding the right drawings from the vast selection available online; they had to combine childishness with artistic genius in just the right way.
“These are amazing,” said Van Rensselaer softly, paging through them.
“Tyler is special,” repeated Orchid. “He’s already smarter than I am.” She put a Chiclet in her mouth and began to chew. “Gum?”
Van Rensselaer didn’t answer. He was absorbed in the drawings.
“I gotta tell you,” said Gideon, “Tyler’s also just an ordinary kid. He’s not one of those stuck-up types. He loves to watch Family Guy with us, he laughs so hard. He especially liked the episode where Peter gets drunk and drops trou in the front yard, just as the cops are driving by.”
Orchid burst into a peal of laughter. “That one was the best.”
“Family Guy?” A look of horror bloomed on Van Rensselaer’s face.
“Anyway, in this folder are a bunch of Tyler’s sonnets, more drawings, and a bunch more musical compositions.”
“All done by himself?”
“I helped him with the cartoons,” said Gideon proudly. “But, well, we don’t know much about music, literature, or drawing. I own a sports bar, see. In Yonkers.”
Van Rensselaer looked from him to Orchid.
“He’s also good at mathematics, I don’t know how the heck he learned the stuff. Just like when he taught himself to read when he was two and a half. Also, I’ve got some letters from his teachers in there.” He pawed through the folder and extracted a couple of letters he had carefully composed and printed on faked school letterhead. “There’s one from his math tutor — he’s way ahead of his grade — and another from the principal.” The letters waxed eloquent about Tyler’s transcendental genius and some made carefully veiled allusions to his home environment.
“Oh, and here are his test results. Somebody gave him an IQ test.”
Van Rensselaer examined the results. His face became very still, almost blank, and the paper shook slightly. “I think…” he began slowly. “Under the circumstances…we may be able to find a place for Tyler here at Throckmorton. Of course, we’d still have to meet him and go through the application process.”
“Wonderful!” cried Orchid, clapping her hands. She was really getting into it.
“Please,” Van Rensselaer said, “have a seat.”
“Just a minute,” said Gideon as he sat down. “There are a few things I want to make sure of. First of all, will there be ot
her Asian students in his class? I don’t want him to feel left out.”
“Absolutely,” said Van Rensselaer briskly, switching into full salesmanship mode.
“Like, how many? Not just in the second grade, but in the elementary school. I want to know numbers.”
“Let me get the class lists.” Van Rensselaer called in the receptionist, issued the request. She returned a moment later with a piece of paper. The admissions officer glanced through it, slid it across his desk. “She’s checked the ones of Asian descent.”
Gideon took the paper.
“I’m afraid I can’t let you keep that. We are naturally very protective of our families’ privacy.”
“Oh, sure, sure.” He examined it. Fifteen students. That was his universe. He committed the names to memory.
“I also heard,” he said sternly, laying down the paper, “that there was a serious outbreak of flu on campus.”
“Flu? I don’t think so.”
“That’s what I heard. In fact, I heard that on June seventh, just before graduation, more than three-quarters of the elementary school was out sick.”
“I hardly think that’s possible.” Van Rensselaer called the receptionist back in. “Get me the attendance records for the lower school on June seventh.”
“Very well.”
“How about some coffee?” asked Gideon, eyeing a pot in the corner.
“What? Oh, please excuse me! I should have offered it to you earlier. How negligent.”
“No problem, I’ll take it with extra cream and three sugars.”
“Extra cream and four sugars for me,” said Orchid.
Van Rensselaer rose and fumbled with the coffee himself. As he did so, the receptionist came back. She laid the document on the desk just as Van Rensselaer returned with the coffee. Gideon reached for it as he rose from his chair, and the combined movement somehow caused him to knock the cups and spill coffee all over Van Rensselaer’s desk.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” he cried. “What a klutz I am!” Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket he began mopping up the liquid, wiping the papers, fussing about, shoving everything this way and that.
They all joined in cleaning up the mess, the receptionist returning with paper towels.
“So sorry,” repeated Gideon. “So sorry.”
“No problem,” said Van Rensselaer, his voice tight, surveying the mess of damp, stained papers. “It could happen to anyone.” He brightened up again immediately. “We’d love to see Tyler as soon as possible. Shall we schedule the interview now?”
“I’ll call you,” said Gideon. “Keep the file. We gotta run.”
A few minutes later they were out in the car, driving through the wrought-iron gates. Orchid was almost helpless with laughter. “Jeez, you’re funny, you know that? I couldn’t believe the look on that guy’s face. He thought we were just awful people. Awful. I know all about guys like that — they always want blow jobs, ’cause their wives don’t like to get a—”
“Right, right,” said Gideon, hoping to head the conversation in another direction. “He wanted to save poor Tyler from us, that much was obvious.”
“So what’s the point? Why the charade? And don’t give me any more shit about Method acting.”
The class lists and June 7 attendance records were now safely in Gideon’s jacket pocket, and they would show exactly which Asian child was absent on the day after Wu’s plane landed at JFK. Because, Gideon expected, a child in the international terminal waiting area at JFK after midnight would not likely be attending school the next day.
“Method acting,” said Gideon Crew. “On my word of honor, it’s all about Method acting. And you’re a star.”
46
I just wish you’d tell me what the hell’s really going on!” Orchid said as they rounded the corner of 51st and Park. Gideon walked fast. He’d been avoiding her questions all the way back, trying to focus on his next move. And she was getting increasingly pissed at his evasions.
She struggled to keep up. “Damn it, why won’t you talk to me?”
Gideon sighed. “Because I’m tired of lying to people. Especially you.”
“So tell me the truth, then!”
“It isn’t safe.” They walked past the iron gates of Saint Bart’s park and Gideon heard a brief strain of old Blues music from a street musician. He suddenly halted and listened. The faint strains of the guitar floated to him over the sounds of midday traffic.
He placed a hand on her arm. “Wait.”
“You can’t keep me in the dark—”
He gave her arm a light warning squeeze and she stopped talking. “Just be cool,” he murmured. “Don’t react.”
He listened to the faint music, the raspy singing.
In my time of dyin’
Don’t want nobody to mourn
“What is it?” Orchid whispered.
Gideon answered with more gentle pressure. He turned and pretended to answer his cell phone, giving them an excuse to be standing there, listening.
All I want for you to do
Is to take my body home.
Gideon recognized it as a Blind Willie tune, “In My Time of Dyin’.” It aroused in him a faint sensation of déjà vu, and he searched his mind for where he had recently heard that same bottleneck guitar.
Bottleneck guitar.
It was on Avenue C. It wasn’t a guitar, but a bum humming that same old Blues tune. When he was leaving the diner. He pictured the dark street and he remembered a bum sitting on a stoop, humming — just humming.
Well, well, well so I can die easy
Well, Well, Well
Well, Well, Well so I can die easy
Now he listened with care. The guy was good. More than good. Not flashy, not technical, but playing easy and slow, as a real Delta Blues tune should be played. But as Gideon listened, he realized that some of the lyrics were different from the version he knew best; this was another version, one he wasn’t as familiar with.
Jesus gonna make up
Jesus gonna make up
Jesus gonna make up my dyin’ bed.
The revelation struck him hard. Disguising his surprise, he shut his phone as if the call were over and urged Orchid forward by the arm, toward the awning of the Waldorf. As soon as they were inside he quickened his pace, propelling her through the lobby, past the giant urn of flowers, toward Peacock Alley.
“Hey! What the hell?”
They swept past the maître d’, brushing aside his proffered menus, walked through the restaurant to the back, and pushed through the double doors into the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” The voice of the maître d’ was drowned out by the clatter of pots and shouts. “Sir, you can’t—”
But Gideon was already moving fast toward the rear of the kitchen. He pushed through another set of double doors into a long hallway lined with giant walk-in refrigerators.
“Come back here!” came the maître d’s distant voice. “Someone call security!”
Gideon took a sharp turn, blew through a third set of doors, and ended up in an inner receiving bay. Continuing on, a protesting Orchid following in his wake, he trotted through the bay and onto the outside receiving dock, clambered down the steps, and ran down a short alley to 50th Street, still hustling Orchid along. He swiftly crossed the street through blaring traffic, trotted two blocks uptown, entered the Four Seasons Restaurant, ran up the stairs to the upper level of the Pool Room, and entered the kitchen.
“Again?”
Racing through the kitchen to more protests and shouts, they emerged onto Lexington Avenue opposite the 51st Street subway entrance. At Gideon’s urging, they ran across the street and jogged down the stairs. He swiped his card through the turnstile twice, and they emerged onto the platform just as an uptown train was pulling in. Orchid in tow, Gideon boarded the train. The doors closed.
“What the hell?” Orchid said, gasping for breath.
Gideon sank back into a seat, thinking fast. He’d heard the same
voice humming and singing on Avenue C. And today, the man had been playing a very rare version of a Blind Willie tune — a version that had only been released on vinyl in Europe and the Far East.
If we can find you, Garza had said, so can Nodding Crane. And now it seemed he had.
Gideon exhaled slowly, looked carefully around the car. Surely it was impossible that Nodding Crane had followed them onto the uptown train.
“I’m sorry.” He took her hand, still recovering his breath.
“I’ve just about had it with your shenanigans,” said Orchid, yelling.
“I know. I know.” He patted her hand. “I’ve been really unfair to you. Look, Orchid: I’ve dragged you into something that’s a lot more dangerous than I realized. I’ve been a real idiot. I need you to go back to your apartment and lie low — I’ll contact you later when all this blows over.”
“No way! You’re not gonna leave me again!”
Now she was really shouting, turning heads all the way down the car.
“I promise I’ll call you. I promise.”
“I won’t be treated like shit!”
“Please, Orchid. I really like you, I really do. That’s why I can’t drag you into this trouble.” He looked at her carefully. “I will call you.”
“Why don’t you just say it?” she cried, the tears suddenly springing into her eyes and rolling down her face. “You’re in some kind of trouble, aren’t you? You think I can’t see that? Why don’t you let me help you? Why do you keep pushing me away?”
He didn’t have the heart to deny it. “Yes, I’m in trouble, but you can’t help. Just go back to your place. I’ll come back for you, I promise. It’ll be over soon, one way or another. Look — I’ve got to go.”
“No!” She clutched at him like a drowning woman.
This was futile. He needed to get away from her — for her own safety. The subway rolled into 59th Street, halted with a groan, and the doors slid open. At the last moment, making a sudden decision, Gideon twisted free and ran out. He stopped and turned to apologize again, but the doors slammed shut, and he had a glimpse of her devastated face through the window as the train pulled out of the station.
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