Chapter 38
Thirty-Eight
The remainder of that weekend and through Monday, I was lost, lost to the world in which I’d been born, having become a citizen of the world of Gertie’s novelettes and novellas.
The world of her fiction was our world in every respect, but it was made better and more interesting by her perspective on it.
There was much honest sentiment in her work but no sentimentality, compassion without the indignity of pity, forgiveness that required penitence, righteous indignation but not acidic anger regarding those who were foolish or ignorant.
Three of her stories were brilliant. Seven were very good.
The remaining five suffered not in the quality of the writing but in their conception, although even they were readable, engaging, and most likely publishable.
At ten o’clock Tuesday morning, having settled on my sofa with the manuscripts six hours earlier, I was unaware that Captain Farnam had come calling with a purpose that he declined to reveal until I was included in the discussion.
Loretta came to me to say they could have Captain thrown out or even call the police to deal with him if he refused to leave.
However, considering that he had made no effort to intrude in our lives for nearly eight years, we would be wise to consider he might be desperate.
Desperate men do reckless and stupid things if granted no consideration.
She promised that he would not get what he wanted if what he wanted would compromise my future or diminish my happiness.
She assured me there was no reason to be afraid of him, that she and Franklin would not let him near me.
“I’m not afraid Captain will hit me,” I said.
“I never was. He’s a coward. I sometimes worried he would drive me to some remote place and abandon me in the bitter cold and dark, where I’d have little chance of surviving.
And I feared one day he would stop stealing library books for me. But fear him? He himself? Never.”
“He insists on talking outdoors where no one can overhear us. He thinks we can record any conversation occurring in the house, for God’s sake.
Considering the life he’s led, maybe he has good reason to be paranoid.
Lynette and Mr. Reinhardt are setting up folding chairs on the great lawn.
He didn’t even trust the pavilion, as if Pinkerton agents might be hiding in the airspace under the floor. ”
She held my hand as we walked from the house, through the rose garden, and out to the center of the one-acre lawn.
Three folding chairs were arranged in a line, facing one chair that stood twelve feet away from them.
Captain waited in the lone chair. In eight years, he’d lost some hair and gained weight, but he was as pale as ever.
When other men pack on the pounds, they look soft.
He appeared as bone-hard solid as the mineralized skeleton of a dinosaur fossil.
As ever, he wore a three-piece tweed suit, which he felt conferred on him some respectability.
Although this was a warm July morning, not one bead of perspiration lent a human aspect to his face.
As we sat facing him, he said, “Nice dress. Does the job. Some might say it’s odd, but they’d never guess what’s hiding under it.”
“Enough of that,” Franklin said, “or you can leave right now.”
“I’m not insulted,” I said. “You can’t be insulted by a skunk when it sprays you. It’s just a scared little animal that has no weapon but its stink.”
Loretta smiled and put a hand on my shoulder. “My girl.”
Captain remained expressionless. He loathed giving anyone the satisfaction of seeing that either condemnation or praise affected him.
“Whether you’re kind or unkind matters not at all to me.
This isn’t personal. I’m a dealmaker, a businessman.
I’ve come to make an offer that will spare you from a tragedy.
If we reach an agreement, I’ll keep my end of the bargain.
If you choose not to do the right thing, the consequence will be of your making, not mine. ”
“What offer? What deal?” Franklin demanded. “I can conceive of no business we could have with you.”
“That’s okay,” Captain said. “I’ve already conceived of it for you.
I require one hundred thousand dollars. Because the banks have stabilized in recent years, I imagine you no longer keep the largest part of your assets in cash, which is how I need to receive it.
But surely you have at least a hundred K in your home vault. ”
“You’re out of your mind,” Loretta said.
She rose to her feet and took two steps toward him before she seemed to realize she had sprung into motion.
She halted, looking down at him with contempt.
“We paid you forty thousand to pry you away from Adiel. She never belonged with you. We adopted her almost eight years ago. She’s not yours, and she never will be. ”
He held up both hands, palms toward Loretta, as though advising her to calm down and give him a chance to explain himself.
“I have not come here to lay claim to Alida—or Adiel, as you call her. I am well aware the adoption is legal. I’ve no rights to her.
Sit down, please. Gather yourself so we can handle this like businesspeople. ”
After a hesitation, Loretta returned to her chair with some reluctance.
Franklin’s hands were fisted on his thighs, but his voice was quiet and measured. “Do you have photographs of her? You swore you didn’t. If now you’re suggesting you’ll publicly embarrass her, if you’re demanding money not to do it—that’s extortion. A felony.”
“I am not a cruel man,” Captain said. “I’ve been a good friend and generous benefactor to many poor, deformed creatures from whom most people would turn away in disgust and fear.
I have no photos. Your money would not be extorted from you.
You would be paying an insurance premium to guarantee the girl’s safety. ”
If words had weight, “safety” would have fallen to the lawn with a solid thud.
When I looked away from Captain, not fearful but outraged, I became aware that the day had grown eerily quiet.
The Bram usually was graced with birdsong, but not now.
The sky often presented a ballet of swallows and phoebes, but currently offered not one bird in flight.
The dog was keeping his distance, watching us from within the pavilion, his head between two of the balusters.
All of Nature’s own seemed to have retreated in recognition that Evil had come into these gardens.
“We can deal with you,” Franklin said. “This is the closest you will ever get to her—and live.”
“Again,” Captain said, “you attribute to me a criminal capacity I do not have. I could never commit the slightest physical harm to Alida Adiel. You would be buying insurance to protect her from an individual with a more violent nature than I possess.”
“And where would this threat come from? Who would it be?”
Captain smiled and nodded. “One does not sell insurance without specifying the threat against which the client is buying protection. I will explain. After receiving your forty thousand in 1930, I sold my interest in the Museum of the Strange for a tidy sum and as well my oceanside lot in San Clemente. I realized I now had sufficient funds to pursue investments that, in a few years, would ensure a far more luxurious retirement than I’d been anticipating.
Indeed, I did quite well in spite of the economic crisis—until 1935.
My mistake was in believing that our government would be competent enough to set the financial ship aright long before then.
I structured my investments to pay off by ’35.
Foolish of me. Here we are in 1938, no better off, and no one in Washington wiser about how to fix the situation.
For the past three years, I have been bleeding dollars, the worst illness I’ve ever known.
Month by month, I thought more often of the Fairchild clan sailing through the Depression on their fine estate.
I learned what I could about your family.
I couldn’t see on what basis I could encourage you to do business.
Then all my years running the Museum of the Strange brought me the answer. ”
As Captain talked, there was no mistaking how smug he was, how certain of his position and his power over us.
I knew him to be a man who brought to his business—in fact to every aspect of life—the shrewdness of a poker player who occasionally might lose a hand but rarely lost the game.
Although Loretta and Franklin knew him less well than I did, they concluded he had a valid reason to be smug; in spite of their anger, they didn’t interrupt him.