The LeBaron Secret

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  “Poor Eric.”

  “You should have heard her little speech today. All about larks and honeybees and wild mustard and purple vetch—whatever the hell that is.”

  Once more she shapes the ash on her cigarette. “You know,” she says, “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Thinking what?”

  “There was an article a couple of weeks ago in Newsweek. In fact it was the cover story. It was on Alzheimer’s disease, that thing old people get. It’s like senility. They can remember something that happened fifty years ago, but they can’t remember whether they opened the refrigerator door to put something in or to take something out. She’s what now—seventy-four? Do you think that might be what she has, Eric?”

  “Ha! I wish it were.”

  “I mean—well, that thing she did with the plane. That was really pretty crazy. I know how embarrassed you were by that. We were all embarrassed. ‘Is that the woman you work for?’ friends said to me.”

  “No, she was just acting up. Just being cute. Just seeing how much she could get away with—she and George Hessler. And I’m sure as hell George had something to do with it. Must have. She let him do it because she thinks he’s cute.”

  Marylou Chin laughs softly. “Well, he is pretty good-looking,” she says. “But after all.”

  “No,” he says, “she’s always been like this, I’m afraid, M’lou. As long as I’ve known her. Which of course is all my life.”

  “What about when your father was alive? Was she the same way with him?”

  He frowns. “That was a little different. They were more like a working partnership. In business together. Dad was a smoothie, Mother was the toughie. When heads needed to get banged together, that was Mother’s job. They came to Dad to apply the Band-Aids. That was what he did best, smoothing over the hurt feelings Mother left in her wake.”

  “Poor Eric,” she says again. “It just hurts me so to see what she’s doing to you!”

  “A working partnership, that’s what that marriage was. You know, sometimes I’ve tried to imagine my mother and my father fucking, and I just can’t. I just can’t picture the two of them—you know, making love. Fucking. And yet they must have, two or three times at least.”

  They sit in silence for a while, and very slowly Marylou Chin stubs out her cigarette. “Well, I know what I think you ought to do,” she says finally.

  “What’s that?”

  “Confront her. Tell her exactly what you think. It’s wrong for you to keep your thoughts and feelings bottled up like this. I think you should go to her and tell her that you don’t intend to take this kind of treatment anymore. Give her an ultimatum.”

  “Ha,” he says. “What good would that do? She’d just say, ‘Fine, get out.’ And then where’d I be? Out on the street, without a job.”

  “But she’d be a fool—an absolute fool—to let you go!”

  “But don’t forget, I know her, M’lou. I know her much better than you do, and I’ve known her much longer. I know her, I tell you.”

  “Well, even if she were foolish enough to let you go—why, there are dozens of companies that would be just dying to snap you up, all over town!”

  “You don’t understand,” he says. “This is my career. I’m nearly forty years old, and I’ve worked for this company for half my life. I’ve made this company my career. Even summers, home from college, I was out there with the braceros, picking grapes, getting paid by the box lot, working for Baronet. It’s the only job I’ve ever had.”

  “But there are plenty of other—”

  “If she were mad enough, and she might well be, she could see to it that no other winery in California would hire me—ever. She has that kind of power, M’lou. I’ve seen her use it.”

  “It’s—inhuman, is what it is!”

  “That’s my mother. No, I’m afraid that isn’t the solution.”

  “But even without a job, you’d have—”

  “Money, you mean?”

  She hesitates, biting her lower lip. She is skating on thin ice here. As his secretary, she manages his personal checkbook, makes periodic deposits and withdrawals for him. But of his overall financial picture she knows little, and she is, after all, only his secretary. She decides to make light of things. “Well,” she says easily, “the newspapers always include you in the list of San Francisco’s wealthiest men.”

  “A regular Gordon Getty, eh?”

  “No, I simply mean that—considering who you are, with your talent and brains—you could do anything you wanted in this city.”

  “Yeah.” He is frowning now, looking not at her, but hard at the surface of his desk. “Yeah, well, one of the things I’d like to do right now is my alleged job as marketing director of Baronet.”

  “But she won’t let—”

  “She does happen to be the president of the company, M’lou.”

  “It’s just that I can’t stand seeing her use you as her—whipping boy!”

  “Are you calling me a pantywaist?”

  “No! You’re one of the brightest, most talented men I’ve ever known. But that woman—”

  “That woman also happens to be my mother.”

  “Of course! And of course you love her. But any mother who loved her son wouldn’t treat him this way.” The ice beneath her feet grows ever thinner, but she plunges on. “It’s just—it’s just that I wish you’d let me take you to my Assertiveness class, Eric. We’re into some consciousness-raising stuff now. We meet every—”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t think I need your Assertiveness class, M’lou. Thanks, anyway.”

  “I’ve made you angry, haven’t I? Oh, Eric, I’m sorry! But it’s just—it’s just that I thought you were asking for my opinion.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll handle things. Don’t worry about me, M’lou.”

  She laughs unhappily. “It’s my Assertiveness class, I guess. It’s made me too assertive. I’m sorry.”

  “I just don’t want you getting any gray hairs over this. Leave things to me, okay?”

  “Of course, Eric.”

  They sit in silence for a while. Miserably, she thinks: I have made him even more upset.

  He thinks: This is all my fault for bellyaching to her in the first place.

  “Well—” she says, and with the fingers of her right hand she flicks an imaginary ash from the skirt of her blue silk suit. Then she uncrosses her long legs and stands up. “Well, I’m skipping lunch today, so I’ll be right outside if you need me for anything.”

  “Thanks, M’lou.”

  “Can I order a sandwich for you?”

  “Uh—no, thanks.”

  She hesitates. “Will I—be seeing you tonight?” she asks him.

  Still frowning, he shakes his head. “I think—not,” he says. “I’ve been getting some grief on the home front, too. So I think I’d better say not.”

  “Poor Eric.”

  He looks up at her.

  “Tomorrow, maybe?”

  “We’ll see,” he says.

  “I’m sorry if I made you angry. Really sorry.”

  “No, not angry.” He smiles at her faintly. “Skip to M’lou,” he says. “Skip to M’lou, my darling. Skip to M’lou, my dear.”

  She tries to return the smile. Then, slowly, she turns away from him and moves across the room on her slender high heels. At the door she hesitates again. “Shall I leave your door open or closed?”

  “Closed, I think.”

  She opens the door, lets herself out, and then very quietly closes the door behind her.

  Alone in the office, Eric thinks: Skip to M’lou. And then thinks: In this direction lie only frustration, confusion, and despair. He has just decided to give her up. For the third time this week.

  He sits for a long time in the empty office, staring at the hunting prints (pink-coated hunters pursuing the fox) without seeing them, avoiding with his eyes the low table against one wall, where, in three matching silver frames inscribed with his initials, the photographs of a bl
onde wife and two pretty daughters smile at him with expressions of remarkable self-assurance and confidence, none of them in need of an Assertiveness class.

  Finally, he reaches for the telephone on his desk, lifts the receiver, and presses a short series of musical numbers. When a woman’s voice answers, he says, “Gloria, may I speak to my mother, please?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. LeBaron, but Mrs. LeBaron has left for the day. May I help you?”

  “Then connect me with the house, please.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. LeBaron, but Mrs. LeBaron left instructions that she would be receiving no calls.”

  “Thank you, Gloria.” He replaces the receiver in its cradle. Then he looks at his watch. What time will it be in New York? He mentally adds the three hours. Not quite four. He picks up the phone again and taps out a longer series of numbers. Very well, he thinks, I am now ready to play exactly the kind of game, Mother, that you will understand.

  “Aunt Joanna?” he says when she answers. “I think I need to come to New York to see you.”

  Assaria LeBaron has ordered her driver to take her directly from lunch with the Madison Avenue boys to Candlestick Park, where her ball club, the San Francisco Condors, is in spring training. There is a great deal of fuss and to-do and general consternation when her motorized chair materializes through the entrance of the temporary field house and makes its way across the linoleum of the foyer. Harry Olsen, the team’s manager, rushes up to her, and says, “Mrs. LeBaron, the boys have just come in from the field—they’re in the showers right now!”

  “That’s all right, I just want to have a few words with them, Harry.”

  “They’re looking just great, Mrs. LeBaron,” he says as he hurries behind her chair. “But we had no idea you were coming, Mrs. LeBaron, and right now, right at the moment, the boys would love to see you, I know—but right now—if you could give them a few minutes, Mrs. LeBaron, I’ll tell them you’re here—but right at the moment, the boys are in the showers, Mrs. LeBaron! Mrs. LeBaron!” Hurrying behind her, as she propels herself down the long corridor, around the corner, past the massage tables and the piles of exercise mats, past the weight machines and the row of urinals, where the air smells of a mixture of camphor and winter-green oil and rubbing alcohol, toward the locker room and the sound of showers running.

  “Don’t worry, this won’t take a minute,” she says.

  “Boys!” Harry Olsen shouts ahead into the sound of running water. “Mrs. LeBaron is here!”

  Around one last corner, and into the big room full of steam.

  There is a series of sudden yelps as the players recognize their visitor, and there is a collective grab for towels, and jockstraps that have been lowered to below the knees are hastily hoisted into position as the showers are, one by one, turned off.

  “Boys, I know you’re busy,” Sari says cheerfully, “and I know you’ve got plenty to do this afternoon. But I wanted to drop by while I was in the neighborhood and have a few very brief words with you. There’s a little matter I’d like to clear up, and I thought you ought to get it from me, personally—straight from the horse’s mouth, as the fellow says. Now I know there’ve been published reports in the press—you’ve read them, I’ve read them—to the effect that I bought this club as a tax shelter. That, of course, is what reporters always do: speculate. Nobody knows what I do with my taxes besides myself, my accountant, and the IRS. So much for that. But that sort of speculation leaves the impression that I don’t give a tinker’s damn whether this team wins or loses. Boys, I’m here to tell you personally that that’s not the truth. Not only do I care, but I care deeply. I bought this club because I thought it was a club that had it in it to win ball games! That’s what I have faith you can do, and that’s what I want you to do, and that’s what I expect you to do. I want you all to give this club your best, and I want you to know that I’m behind you all the way. I want a team that will go into the World Series—if not this year, the next, and if not the next, then the year after that. Boys, I want a pennant, and I think you’ve got what it takes to give me that. You’ve got the right stuff, and that’s why I bought this club. I want you to know that while you’re out there, sweating and fighting and playing great ball on the field, I’ll be up there in the stands sweating and rooting and praying—yes, praying—for you. I want you to know that I’m not going to be some kind of absentee landlord. I’m going to do my best for you, and I know you’re going to do your damnedest for me, and someday we’re going to be going to the Series together—and when we get there, we’re going to win! Meanwhile, Harry here tells me you’re training great, and you’re looking great. Good! That’s what I want to hear. Keep it up! We’re in this together, all for one and one for all, and I’m behind you all the way and I know that you’re behind me. That’s all I wanted to say—good luck, good work, and God bless you all. You’ve got what it takes, and I love you for it. So now get out there—and play ball!”

  Just as quickly as she arrived, she is gone.

  In room 315 at the Marriott, the one out by the airport, the five members—four male, one female—of the group that calls itself The Dildos are snorting cocaine. At this very moment.

  “So what the fuck are we going to do?” says Maurice Littlefield, who calls himself Luscious Lucius; who, without his makeup, is badly acne-scarred; and who, though he may be its lead singer, is not the group’s brainiest member.

  “Zip-dee-doo-dah,” says one.

  “Hey, man, listen to this,” says another. He strikes a chord on his guitar. “Man, is that fuckin’ cool?” He lies back on one of the two queen-size, unmade beds, his legs spread apart, his eyes staring at the ceiling, the guitar across his chest. He is the tallest of the group. Their respective names don’t matter here.

  “But what the fuck are we going to do?” Littlefield says again.

  “Fuckin’ board of directors won’t pay us for the gig,” says the tall one to the ceiling. “They’re saying we ‘presented material that was offensive to the public taste.’ They had that in the contract.”

  “So what the fuck do we do? Fuckers owe us five thousand dollars.”

  “What the fuck did you have to kill Sylvia for? That was what did it.”

  “The fucker bit me!” Littlefield cries. “What the fuck do you think this is?” And he points to his bandaged upper arm.

  “But did you have to do it right on the fuckin’ stage? That was what did it. Fuckin’ snake.”

  “I told you we should’ve took our money up front,” says the female member. “Remember I said that?”

  “Maybe we should hire a lawyer.”

  “Yeah, and pay him with what? Lawyers cost fuckin’ money, man, and they want their money up front.”

  “What I want to know is how do we pay for this fuckin’ motel room? How do we do that?”

  “That’s easy. We wait for dark, load our shit into the RV, skip town, and try to line up another gig.”

  “Yeah. Like we did in Topeka, and look where that fuckin’ got us. Now we can’t work anywhere in the whole state of Kansas.”

  “Is that where Topeka is—Kansas?”

  “Fuckin’ city.”

  “What we need is a hit single. That’s what we really need. A hit single. A gold record.”

  “Yeah, and meanwhile how do we eat? What do we do?”

  “Like, maybe, rob a bank?”

  “You mean it—rob a fuckin’ bank?”

  “Only kidding, asshole.”

  “So what do we do?”

  Still gazing at the ceiling, the tall one says, “What about that broad? Someone told me she was loaded.”

  “Loaded with what?”

  “Money, asshole. Loaded with money. C-A-S-H—cash money.”

  “Which broad?”

  “The one that came to hear us in Modesto. Shit, man, she was the one who got us last night’s gig.”

  “Where was Modesto?”

  “Shit, man, Modesto, California. A few months ago, remember? Came to hear
us, and came backstage after. She got us this gig. She lives here.”

  “Oh, yeah. But wasn’t she kind of old, man?”

  “What the hell? She said she liked our sound. She said could we do this gig, remember?”

  “Lucius’d have to fuck her to get the money out of her.”

  “I’m not fuckin’ some old broad!”

  The tall one sits straight up on the bed. “What the fuck difference does it make, asshole, how old she is, if she’s got money? If she’s got money, she can roll us out of here, and keep us rolling for a few more weeks till we get another gig.”

  “Yeah, Lucius should fuck her. Lucius got us into this fuck-up to begin with.”

  “Right! You get to fuck her, Lucius!”

  “Fuck her, Lucius!”

  “Shit, man, I don’t even remember her name.”

  A silence.

  “She was real thin. Brownish-colored hair.”

  “Oh, wow,” says the tall one. “That’s going to make her real easy to find. There can’t be more than one thin broad with brownish-colored hair in San Francisco. We’ll find her easy. You’re an asshole, Lucius.”

  “She told me her name. McLaren?”

  “No!” the tall one says.

  “McCarran?”

  “No, asshole! Her name is LeBaron—Melissa LeBaron. They make wine. You are a total asshole, Lucius.”

  “I’ll fuck her! I’ll fuck her!” Lucius says.

  It is night now, and the big White Wedding-Cake House at 2040 Washington Street is quiet, its curtains drawn and closed against the night. We are a contented house, the curtained windows seem to say from under their carved marble eyebrows, the windows that address the quiet street. We are the sleeping eyes of a house at peace. There are no bad dreams, no scandals, to disturb our sleep, no unquiet memories to jar us from our slumber. This, at least, is what the south facade seems to be saying, but the north facade, invisible from the street, tells a different story. Here the house is wide awake, the curtains on the big windows of the north-facing drawing room kept fully open at her behest, because Assaria LeBaron never tires of her view, and wants it spread out for her inspection instantly, at whatever moment she might choose to admire it. The fog has lifted now—almost lifted—and only the very tops of the twin towers of the Golden Gate Bridge are obscured in clouds, and the orange lights that adorn the bridge’s cables glitter like chains of stars. One can also see a few faint lights from Alcatraz, as well as from Tiburon and Belvedere, and the hills of Marin beyond.