He cleared his throat, settled his glasses more comfortably. “There are two exceptions to this ruling. One is Professor Bob Smith, who, alas, is not well enough to resume medical practice of any kind. Since his contribution over the sixteen years of his administration has been formidable, we have arranged that he be compensated in the manner prescribed herein.” Another sheet of paper was thrust at Desdemona. “The second exception is you yourself, Miss Dupre. Unfortunately the position of business director will cease, and I am led to understand from President MacIntosh that it will be impossible to find you an equivalent position within the university. Therefore we have agreed that your own redundancy package will consist of what is listed in here.” A third piece of paper.
Desdemona took a peek. Two years’ salary plus all pension contributions. If she married and quit working altogether and income-averaged, she’d do quite well.
“Tamara, turn the coffee pots on,” she said.
“I give Dean Dowling two years to ruin the place,” she said to Carmine that evening. “He’s too much a psychiatrist and too little a neurologist to get the best out of a well-run research unit. All the nuttier varieties of researcher will fool him. Tell Patrick not to be bashful about equipment, Carmine. Grab it while the going’s good.”
“He’ll kiss your hands and feet, Desdemona.”
“He oughtn’t, it’s not my doing.” She sighed contentedly. “Anyway, your bride comes with a dowry. If you can afford to keep me and however many children you deem sufficient, then my dowry ought to buy us a really decent house. I love this apartment, but it’s not suitable for raising a family.”
“No,” he said, taking her hands, “you keep your dowry for yourself. Then if you change your mind, you’ll have enough to go home to London. I’m not short of a buck, honest.”
“Well,” she said, “then think about this, Carmine. When he read Roger Parson Junior’s circular, Addison Forbes went right off the deep end. Work under Frank Watson? He’d rather die of tertiary syphilis! He announced that he’s going to work with Nur Chandra at Harvard, but I would have thought that Harvard isn’t short of clinical neurologists, so I hope Addison isn’t holding his breath. The thing is, I love the Forbes house with a passion. If the Forbeses do move, I suppose it will sell for heaps of money, but do we have a financial hope of buying it? Do you rent, or do you own this?”
“It’s a condo, I own it. I think we’ll be able to spring for the Forbes house, if you like it so much. The location is ideal – East Holloman, my family neighborhood. Try to like my family, Desdemona,” he pleaded. “My first wife thought they spied on her because Mom or Patsy’s mom or one of our sisters was always calling around. But it wasn’t that. Italian families are close knit.”
Though she hadn’t really changed in appearance, somehow to Carmine she wasn’t as plain as she used to be. Not love blinding his eyes; love opening them was a better way to put it.
“I’m rather shy,” she confessed, squeezing his fingers, “and that makes me seem snobby. I don’t think I’m going to have any trouble liking your family, Carmine. And one of the reasons why I’m so keen on the Forbes house is its tower. If Sophia ever wanted to come home, perhaps attend the Dormer Day School and then the bruited coeducational Chubb, it would make such super digs for her. From what you’ve told me, I think Sophia needs a real home, not Hampton Court Palace. If you don’t catch her now, in another year she’ll be skipping off to Haight-Ashbury.”
Tears came into his eyes. “I don’t deserve you,” he said.
“Rubbish, you must! People always get what they deserve.”
Part Five
Spring & Summer 1966
Chapter 31
In the week that followed Wesley le Clerc’s indictment for the murder of Charles Ponsonby, the mood changed statewide, ardently fueled by television. Public indignation at the existence of a Connecticut Monster grew rather than died down; he was seen as proof of godlessness, decayed morals, absent ethics, a world gone insane under the pressures of modernity, the avalanche of technology. The community was tolerating these genetic sports, allowing them to mature into a new kind of killer; yet no one grasped the fact that they presented as ordinary and law-abiding citizens. Or indeed that they were multiplying.
Wesley had his wish: he had become a hero. Though a large percentage of his admirers were black, many were not, and all of them were convinced that Wesley le Clerc had delivered a justice beyond the ability of the Law. If the pro-white bias of the Law was already dead in some states and dying in others, that was sometimes hard to see. Far easier to see the families of a few of the Monster’s victims appear on a TV program to be asked questions that lacked morals, ethics or plain good manners: How did it feel to look at your daughter’s head encased in clear plastic? Did you cry? Did you faint? What do you think about Wesley le Clerc?
Wesley had been charged with first-degree murder, the premeditated kind, and the only legal argument could be about that premeditation. Having put himself in the limelight, Wesley knew full well that in order to stay there, he had to go on trial. A plea of guilty meant that his only appearance in court would be for sentencing. Therefore he pleaded not guilty, and was remanded for trial without the granting of bail. Outside the court after this hearing, Wesley was accosted by a high-profile white lawyer who introduced himself as the leader of Wesley’s new defense team. A cluster of other white fatcat lawyers behind him were the rest of the team. To their horror, Wesley rejected them.
“Fuck off and tell Mohammed el Nesr that I have seen the true light,” Wesley said. “I will do this the poor black trash way, with a lawyer assigned from the public defender’s office.” His hand indicated a young black man with a briefcase. A faint shadow of pain crossed his face, he sighed. “Could have been me in ten years’ time, but I have chosen my course.”
Once the exaltation of that ride back to the cells in the company of Carmine Delmonico had died away, Wesley had undergone a sea change that perhaps had a little to do with what Carmine had said to him, but a great deal more to do with witnessing from a distance of three feet the life go out of a pair of eyes. All that was left of Charles Ponsonby was a husk, and what terrified Wesley was that he had liberated that unspeakably evil spirit to seek a home in some other body. Allah warred with Christ and Buddha, and he began to pray to all three.
Yet strength poured into him too, a different strength. He would somehow manage to make of this cardinal mistake a victory.
The first signals of victory were there when he was sent to the Holloman County Jail to wait out the months between his crime and his trial. When he arrived the inmates cheered him wildly. His bunk in the four-man cell was heaped with gifts: cigarettes and cigars, lighters, magazines, candy, hip clothing accessories, a gold Rolex watch, seven gold bracelets, nine gold neck chains, a pinky ring with a big diamond in it. No need to fear that he’d be raped in the shower block! No tormenting from the warders either; all of them nodded to him respectfully, smiled, gave him the O sign. When he asked for a prayer mat, a beautiful Shiraz appeared, and whenever he entered the meal hall or the exercise yard, he was cheered again. Black or white, the prisoners and their guards loved him.
A huge number of people of all races and colors didn’t think that Wesley le Clerc should be convicted at all. Letters to the editors of various papers nationwide flooded in. The lines of phone-in radio shows were overloaded. Telegrams piled up on the Governor’s desk. The Holloman D.A. tried to persuade Wesley to plead guilty to manslaughter for a much reduced sentence, but the new hero wasn’t having any of that cop-out. He would go to trial, and go to trial he did.