Keep the Baby, Faith Read online

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IF ANYONE HAD ASKED me, I would have said I didn’t get any sleep, but in the morning, Faith told me she heard me snoring on the frequent occasions she left the other bedroom to go to the bathroom. All I know is, awake or asleep, I was thinking about Faith Sidon and her little problem.

  It even did me some good. I woke up with plans, and I got right to work on them. The first thing I did was to call The Grayness and tell them I’d be in late today. Nobody minded. One of the (few) good things about my job is that as long as the work gets done, nobody cares when I do it, even if I drop in in the middle of my vacation. The next step was a call to Scarsdale, to tell my mother I had a surprise for Sue, and that she should call me the second she got home. Faith, meanwhile, was polishing off a bowl of instant farina. Straight, almost. Just a little sugar and milk.

  “I thought you were just having a baby,” I told her. “I didn’t know you had to eat like one.”

  “If you don’t like farina, why do you keep it around the house?”

  “I like it fine,” I told her. “I consider it a vehicle for butter, and maple syrup or brown sugar, or fruit, or nuts, or jam, or a combination of any of that.”

  She smiled. “Why didn’t you tell your mother?”

  “Tell her what?”

  “That I’m here. That it was really me on the phone last night?”

  “Strategy,” I said.

  Faith left it at that but there was a look on her face that said she’d like to know what I meant. It was a good, wholesome look of honest curiosity, and it looked especially nice on a face that had had a night’s rest and a good morning scrub. It was a face to feel brotherly toward. If I could only forget her story from last night, I could have enjoyed it.

  At eleven o’clock, my sister called.

  Sue and I have this game we play. We call it “Wasp,” but a better name would be “1950s Sitcom Family.” The winner is the last one to crack up.

  “Hiya, Sis!” I gushed, as soon as I heard her voice on the phone.

  “Hiya, Har!” she said. “Gee, it sure is swell to hear your voice!” Every declarative sentence in a Wasp game ends with an exclamation point.

  “Yeah, I know how it can be, burning the old midnight oil, trying to get that sheepskin!”

  “You said it, brother dear! What can I do you for?”

  “Wake up and smell the kaaffee!” I thought I heard a giggle on the other end. That phrase, and that pronunciation, usually did the job, but Sue was apparently getting tougher. “It’s what I can do you for!”

  “Wow!” she said. “I bet you’re about the best brother in the whole world!”

  The next sound was laughter. Mine. Sue said, “Hah! Gotcha. Good thing, too. I couldn’t have taken much more of that, myself.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “Well, I am touched, and everything, but what’s up? I mean, why was I supposed to call you the second I came through the door? Do I have to tell you Mom is having kittens?”

  “When is she not? Did you call the second you came through the door?”

  “I took my coat off first.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Too bad.”

  “For God’s sake, Harry, what—”

  “I’ve got a surprise for you,” I said, and I handed the phone to Faith.

  This was where the strategy came in. I spring Faith on my sister, and of course she gets all gooey about it, and has to rush into the city, right away, which is what I wanted. The advantage is, I don’t have to be the one to talk my mother into letting it happen, which can be a production—you just got here, now you’re rushing off, what’s your hurry, sure, go, I’m just your mother—need I go on? Sue has always been better at dealing with Mom than I have, anyway.

  It was arranged. Sue would drive to White Plains and take the next train in. I tried to get Faith to tell Sue we’d meet her at Grand Central, but I couldn’t get her attention. Or she was ignoring me. It didn’t really matter that much. Sue knew where I lived; she even had a key. She’d take a cab, it would take fifteen extra minutes.

  Meanwhile, they talked. Faith neglected to mention she was pregnant, which, I decided, would make for an amusing reunion scene. Faith finally said, “The sooner we hang up, the sooner you can get here,” and put the phone back. She was smiling when she turned to me.

  “We could have met her at Grand Central,” I said.

  The smile slid from Faith’s face like an egg from a Teflon pan. “No. It’s too dangerous.”

  I could feel my own smile wither and die. “Right,” I said.

  “Not just for me,” Faith said. “I couldn’t stand to have anything happen to you or Sue.”

  I told her that was very considerate of her.

  “You don’t believe me,” she said. Her voice was amazed.

  “It’s a pretty remarkable story,” I told her.

  “But, Harry,” she said, “it’s me!”

  “If it wasn’t you, I would have called the men in the white coats long ago.”

  “Don’t bother,” she said. “I’ll just leave. I—I’ll call and tell Sue where to meet me.” The idea now was for her to leap to her feet and stride regally from the room, but practically all of that was out of the question for a woman as pregnant as Faith. Especially one with a bum hand, useless even for levering her out of the chair.

  “Grow up. Stay put. Listen. Faith, if I disappeared for three years, then came back breathless, saying Prince Rainier had put the Monégasque Secret Service on me because I’d been shacking up with Princess Stephanie, wouldn’t you want to see a little evidence first?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!”

  “You wouldn’t? Well, you are well named. You have a lot more faith than most people.”

  “I mean your story is ridiculous.”

  I didn’t say anything. She listened to herself, then took a step outside her own emotions and ran her story through again. Finally she said, “But it’s true!”

  “I’m not saying it’s not.”

  “But you want evidence. I don’t have any evidence!”

  “I’ll find the evidence. You just relax. If you’re telling the truth—”

  “I am!”

  “—the best thing for you to do is relax. Just let me check things out.”

  “How long is that going to take?”

  “A day. I work for a newspaper, remember?”

  She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t leave, either. The atmosphere remained perceptibly cool until my sister arrived.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THOSE WHO CAN, DO. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach teachers.

  And those who can’t teach teachers become specialty journalists.

  Herbert (Don’t Call Me “Herb”) Helverson was, if you can believe it, a more pathetic Grayness case history than I was. He was a couple of years older than I was, and had a bit more seniority, so every now and then, the Powers That Be not only let him write something, they even put it in the paper. Once, they even gave him a byline.

  The big difference between us was, Herbert loved what he was doing. He did various tables, charts and graphs for the Sunday Business Section, and he called companies to check spellings of names of guys who had recently been promoted to vice president, so the captions on the little mug shots they ran would be correct.

  This would be like giving an eleven-year-old kid the job of calling ballplayers to check the spelling of their names for the bubble-gum cards, and letting him make the lists on the backs. Herbert was just stone in love with Business, got a thrill from it. Kept track of it, followed it, just the way I followed the NFL.

  The similarity went deeper than that. There was a certain amount of wistfulness going on, too. Just as I would give two years off my life to have enough ability to play for the Giants, Herbert would kill or die to be able to once in his life make an investment that didn’t go sour. He was the kind of guy, who, if he’d been around in the late forties, would have put his life savings i
nto frozen radio dinners. To put it in sports terms, he had the desire, but not the touch. Actually, once or twice I had to help him balance his checkbook.

  I went to the Sunday Business Section office as soon as I got to The Grayness after I left Faith in the custody of my sister.

  That reunion had been something to see. Sue had walked in, smiled at me, then got a look at Faith. I never believed people’s eyes could actually bug out before. Sue, with the typical Ross perspicacity, had said, “You’re pregnant,” just in case Faith hadn’t previously been aware of it, then ran to her and gave her a big hug.

  Then they started to babble. They always had. It used to amaze me—I don’t think either of them has ever completed a sentence in the presence of the other.

  “Why didn’t you—”

  “Because I didn’t want—”

  “But your best friend, I mean—”

  “I missed you, but—”

  Like that. I knew they were good for hours, so I just told them not to leave the apartment until I got back. Sue wanted to know why. With her brother, she completes sentences.

  “Faith will tell you all about it,” I promised, and left, locking the door behind me. I smiled as I went down in the elevator. This would be something else that would keep them in the apartment—Faith would tell Sue what a beast I was, and Sue, being a younger sister, would have to agree. That meant she’d have to take Faith’s story for gospel, and that would keep them in the apartment until I knew what the hell I wanted to believe. Herbert Helverson was supposed to help me out with that.

  Herbert was hunched over his computer terminal, cackling away about the strength of the dollar, especially with the drop in the prime rate. “You just watch,” he said, before he could have known I was there. “You just watch. Parity with the Pound. It’s coming. A year, two years, it’s coming.” He patted the gray-painted machine like the flank of a faithful horse. He really loved that computer.

  I know it makes sense for the Business Section (daily or Sunday, though they pretend to be deadly enemies with nothing in common) to have computers to work with, but these things have taken over The Grayness. We’re supposed to be the World’s Greatest Newspaper, but the only actual paper in the place anymore is in the bathrooms.

  I coughed. Herbert turned, pushing his half-glasses up his nose as he did. There was always something vaguely Victorian about him, with his narrow face, and lank hair, and high collars and pinstriped suits.

  “Harry,” he said. He sounded glad to see me. He always sounded glad to see me. All of the business reporters had money in something or other (remember that the next time you read an impartial report on coming trends), and they tended to avoid Herbert’s company, considering him somewhat of a jinx. “What brings you around here? I already had lunch.”

  “Me too,” I lied. “No, I’d just like a favor. Some background on a business and some of the management.”

  “You sound like you’re looking for investment advice.” The idea of someone asking him for investment advice hit him, and he gave three loud, short barks of laughter. Then he was grave, awed by the potential responsibility. “You’re not, are you?”

  “Does the dollar really look that good?” I asked him.

  “Absolutely. I’m going to take a bath on those pounds I bought in April. Who wants to buy them now?”

  “Why don’t you just hang on to them, and go to Britain on your vacation.”

  “That won’t make up for the money I lost.”

  “No, but you’ll still get a pound’s worth of merchandise for them.”

  He looked at me as if I were suddenly speaking Tagalog. To a lot of these Business Section guys, economics is like tic-tac-toe, a game played on paper with no application to the real world. I decided to let it go, or there was no telling when I’d get out of there.

  “Tell me about Paul Letron and Letronique Cosmetics.”

  Herbert squinted at me, first through his lenses, then over the top of them. “Why do you want to know about him?”

  “Personal curiosity. I met someone who says he knows him.”

  “During the last three years?”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  “Who is this person? Can I talk to him?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. Not now, he couldn’t, at any rate. “Why?”

  “The man is the talk of the business world. I mean, he was before he disappeared, but since, it’s been intense.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, look at him. He’s only four years older than you are—you’re twenty-nine, right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  “And he’s the same age I am,” Herbert said in tones of reverence, “and he’s already been in the Forbes 400. Twice.”

  “Shall I genuflect? Or can I just bow my head?”

  Herbert had no sense of humor, so he rarely knew when he was being put on. I mean, I have enormous respect for people who make honest money in business—I read Ayn Rand (speaking of no sense of humor), and mostly, I even buy her. But this wasn’t respect, this was worship. I know I should have been expecting it from the man who had his copy of Iacocca bound in leather, but it was still a bit much.

  “You don’t have to do anything, Harry.” Herbert took it absolutely deadpan. “Not being in business, you don’t know what the man has done to inspire such respect in me.”

  “That’s one of the reasons I came here,” I told him. “To find out.”

  Herbert nodded. Sounded fair enough to him. “There are some terrific businessmen out there, geniuses, some of them, artists. Paul Letron is one of them. He went into a cutthroat business. Cosmetics is murder. It has to be, because the stuff these people make is all the same; the only difference is the image; the image is everything—and he carved out an enormous share of it by the time he was twenty-eight. By the time he was thirty-three, he was one of America’s richest men, in charge of a multinational he built himself. And he still owns most of it. Astounding.”

  “You said he was even more astounding since he dropped out of sight.”

  “He is.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  “Well, the company’s doing as well as ever, better. They get memos, they do what they say, and they make money. But nobody ever sees Letron anymore, or even talks to him on the phone.”

  “Like Howard Hughes.”

  “Not exactly. That’s the weird stuff.”

  “Weirder than Howard Hughes? Come on, Herbert.”

  “It’s not that. It’s just that we keep hearing rumors about him.”

  “Come on,” I said again. “I’m about as far removed from journalism as you can get and still work for a newspaper, and even I hear rumors.”

  “Yes, but these rumors…”

  “Yeah?”

  “They keep checking out.”

  A little moving sign went across my vision in lights: HOLY SHIT!!! SHE TOLD THE TRUTH!!!

  I made my voice calm. “What kind of rumors, Harry?”

  “Oh, like he was living in this big villa in Italy, helping peasants on the estate crush grapes…”

  “And he was?” I was feeling vindicated. If this was a rumor that checked out, I could haul Faith off to a shrink with a clear conscience.

  “He had been. He cleared out before a reporter could get there. But the peasants all confirmed the story, grapes and all.” He looked at me as if he were disappointed in me. “We ran the story, Harry, in Business People. I wrote it up. Don’t you read your own paper?”

  I did not actually tell him to shut up. I was thinking, cleared out of Italy, went where? France did present itself.

  “Tell me another rumor that checked out, Herbert,” I said.

  “Well, he got married. To a teenager. Young American girl. From Westchester, I think.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I could think of a million better things to kid about.”

  I wanted to get this straight. “Now, Herbert. We are talking about the Paul Letron? Let Us Make Y
our Face Fabulous? Your hero?”

  “Of course. Are you all right, Harry?”

  “I’m terrific. You wouldn’t happen to have this teenager’s name, would you?”

  “Just a second.” He punched a few buttons. “Here it is: Faith Sidon, U.S.A. First marriage for each. Our reporter got an affidavit from the man who performed the ceremony, and he got the number of the marriage certificate. The reporter saw it with his own eyes. We ran this story, too.” He was beginning to sound genuinely hurt.

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “We did, Harry. I’ll send down to the morgue for the microfilm.”

  “No. I can’t believe about the wedding.”

  “Why not? Rich older men have been marrying teenagers for centuries. I suspect getting to sleep with teenagers is one of the best parts about getting rich.” He sighed, probably realizing he’d never know unless he hit the lottery, and Business Section reporters make it a point of honor never to play the lottery. Too risky.

  Herbert looked off into the distance like a mystic. “I wonder what he’s up to now.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “me too,” but I had a pretty good feeling I already knew. Paul Letron was holding down a hospital bed in some French nursing home, in an irreversible coma, waiting to die, or waiting for his child to be born, if enough brain cells remained active for him to remember the plan.

  The moving sign cut across my vision again, only this time there were more exclamation points behind the holy shit.

  I was of the True Faith, now. Oh, there were still things to check out, and I was going to check them, but it would be a formality. I was a believer. I had latched on (just like a real reporter!) to a great big story.

  The question now was, what was I going to do with it?

  CHAPTER TEN

  IT WAS ABOUT THREE o’clock in the afternoon when I walked up to the desk in the Westbrook Hotel and asked if any of the Letrons was at home.

  The Westbrook was a carven pile of granite near Central Park that had been catering to the needs of the Best People (and also to the merely rich) for nearly a hundred years. It was a small piece of the feudal system surrounded by New York’s howling democracy.