Will’m unhappily agreed, and they sat to a makeshift meal, consumed in silence.
Then he retired and plunged into sleep. A carousel of grueling, tenebrous images swam before his rhino eye, a virtual News from Nowhere newsreeclass="underline" the Pre-Raphaelite orphan girl with nail-bitten hand resting upon a shit-stained illuminated manuscript. He heard his voice in the dream, but without English accent — the woman calling to him was not, for once, his Janey. He stood in a meadow. A man on a tractor rolled toward him, raffish cigarette stuck on lower lip. The tractor-man opened his mouth and spoke in Frankish tongue: “Monsieur,” he said, “would you be so kind to consider the appointment of Chairman of the Disembodied?”
He awakened feverish. The cracks of the garage hemorrhaged cold, blinding light. Fitz was gone — nor did his faithful partner lay on the familiar bed of onerous glad rags. Will’m gathered his carpetbag and strode to the courtyard to tell his friend good-bye. No sign of him. The house was peaceful as a grave. Into the drawing room he went, calling the name of his benefactor.
The body was in the parlor, one shoe on, one shoe off, a note pinned to the grimy seersucker lapel. He stooped prayerfully to read.
Will’m—
I’m sorry we parted in such a way but you slept so soundly (I know how upset you were about the girl) I didn’t have the heart to wake you for goodbyes. I didn’t have the heart to tell you over dinner about Half-Dead either. I found him in the river, and know who is the culprit; he will surely get his due but not by my hand. I have run out of time. I buried our fighting friend at the old encampment. There never was nor ever will be a braver, nobler soul. My “better” Half was the best of dogs and I gave him my best, too — and that, you will always have from me: my best. Take my advice, Will’m, and leave this city. You are a gentle, special man and I would wish no harm come your way … Half and I will welcome you, but not before your time has come. And Jesus, man! destroy this note, won’t you? It is incriminating.
Yours,
Geo. Fitzsimmons
A clump of excess rope lay on Fitz’s shoulder like an improbable epaulet. He tenderly pressed a knuckle to a cold cheek — the distended eyes looked straight ahead and would not be closed. Will’m tore the note into bits and stuffed an envelope, also addressed to him, into a pocket without opening, then broke from the house.
He stood from the park bench and walked north on a street called Charleville, past Beverly Drive. He knew this refined village — whence? His feet, propelled by habit or instinct, marched him to a brick building on a tree-strewn avenue called El Camino. He slowed, fixing an eye on the sleek structure’s entrance. There, he saw the symbol—
—and read with astonishment the legend above the doors:
The William Morris Agency
He gathered his courage and went in.
CHAPTER 22. The Disorderly World
When Tull heard that Boulder had left her manager and was interviewing at various agencies, William Morris among them, he asked if he might tag along. He was, after all, writing a paper about the Industry; Four Winds had already bestowed curricular credits for his field trip to the teen star’s downtown set. Lucy tried to glom on to the Morris outing, but Tull nixed it (three was a crowd). He put her on the investigative trail of the Redlands Weiners instead. Boulder was amused, mistakenly thinking the scion’s intentions were romantic — she wasn’t interested.
But maybe he would make a good boyfriend. Her mom said you could never sneeze at that much money. She said the Trotter family was “dynastic,” so Boulder thought maybe they could just do the quirky dynastic thing — marry, then live apart. She’d keep the hugest loft in New York (like Claire Danes), and have Tull stay in a separate room whenever he came to town. Maybe not so separate; he was kind of cute … though she didn’t see in him what Lucy saw — but oh my God! Claire Danes’s loft! There was a photo spread in one of her mother’s “shelter” rags, and it was amazing! The article said Ms. Danes stayed in the “SoHo aerie” when she wasn’t busy attending Yale — that’s where Jodie used to go, and Boulder was sure Jodie and Claire knew each other and that Jodie probably gave Claire constant shit about keeping up her grades and staying out of trouble … Boulder so wanted to live the bookish, ivied life during hiatuses from film. She had it all planned: during the week, she would sleep at the dorm, but Friday nights she’d take a train to her own private urban palace near the cool people like Christina (Ricci), Benicio and Drew. (She heard Benicio had the biggest cock, bigger even than Tobey Maguire’s.) She’d live in SoHo or Chelsea, like Winona and Selma and Kirsten … she could probably marry Tull and get him to agree to let her even keep dating! Then she’d be a billionaire but still be able to sleep with Spanish boy-singers or anyone she pleased — and go out with famous older girlfriends to movie premieres while getting degrees in linguistics and art history and drama.
Tull’s train of thought was less frivolous. As the Volvo sludged through traffic — it seemed like every street in the city was being torn up — Mrs. Langon’s chitchat ran the gamut from his cousin’s medical problems (“Poor boy! But to everything there is a reason”) to Trinnie’s Carcassone maze (“Katrina has always been a fascinating woman”). She even managed to rope in Dodd and Lucy. The woman loved having this boy in the car; it was like bagging Prince William.
Suddenly, they were at the redbrick citadel — for Tull, less an agency than a monument to a man long lost to the world.
He sat on the couch in a haze. Boulder was shiny and animated and called out “Hi!” to someone who whisked past. “Oh my God, that was Angelina!” The mom returned from reception and Boulder told her it was Angelina and the mom asked where and Boulder said she’d just gone out the door. A young woman appeared and invited them to “come up.” Tull, now queasy and perspiring, said he’d wait. Mrs. Langon put her hand on his shoulder like a do-gooder nun with a dead man walking. “Are you OK?” she asked solicitously. He said he was fine; maybe coming down with a little something, that’s all. Boulder, aloof and anxious to “go up,” told her mom to just leave him alone. As they went to the elevator, Boulder asked the young woman if that in fact was Angelina and she said it absolutely could have been but that she would find out for certain after they “were up.”
Sitting there about to vomit on the oversize Yamamoto jacket Trinnie bought him at Maxfield’s, Tull felt silly and incongruous. He would wait for them outside — he needed air. He stood to get his bearings.
Idly, he took in the oil portraits by the elevators. He assumed they were agency founders, but there was no inscription. The men looked nothing like his father in the photo Trinnie had shown him.
Lost in thought, he felt his nose wrinkle. He smelled something dense, acrid and vinegary, woodsy, foul. He turned his head and saw him — a bear of a man staring straight ahead at a framed patriarch. His great jaw trembled, making the colossal beard jitter, too, and Tull thought of the nimble upside-down rabbi in Bluey’s bedroom Chagall. He smiled at the boy, who for his part could not have moved a millimeter for any reason on earth. The stranger’s eyes lit up with shaggy candor and kindness; a mellifluous accent pierced the decorum.