Bread to the Wise--Book I of The Libertine

  *****

  From the tapes Jake relates his end of the getaway:

  The Mercedes carbs were set up just right. We headed out fifteen minutes after Robert did, over the hills into Oakland via Canyon Drive, a pleasant enough jaunt if you were on a lark, that word Robert used that caused me to flinch as much as Amanda. The Bay side of the hills was no cooler than the interior valleys, though the residents were suffering more, unused to such heat. We gassed up at a filling station on MacArthur Boulevard, part of the inner city. The attendant said, “Man, I hope you and the young lady are heading outta here. Who turned off the effing air conditioning?”

  We drove with the windows open, eighteen wheelers coming down from the Altamont Pass filling the hot night air with smells of burning brakes, those going up the grade geared down and spewing high-rpm diesel fumes, until we were on the new freeway and passing them in high gear, the motion at least giving a semblance of cooling us, putting Mary Clare to sleep, her lips parted, face a dream of wise innocence. I envied Robert.

  Yet I felt good, a knight off to the Crusades, despite the fracas with Amanda. There was the righteous sense of rescuing Mary Clare a second time. I assured myself, as we cruised through Stockton, this was different from Meany rescuing her: she’d made the choice to go, Robert and I were simply instruments of that choice, protecting her integrity, not taking it.

  Because I was doing something significant, tiny but significant. Who knows where these two would go? I thought about the job at ABAG. Wouldn’t it be neat, meaning ironic and just, if Robert pulled it off, made his former bosses at the University eat crow? I had no trouble at all imagining Mary Clare in China—they’d love her, so much so, they’d want her to stay, help them look at themselves doing incredible things. Surely, by the time she got there, the Paris peace talks would be concluded, we’d have found out how to exist without being the world’s policeman, because it could no longer be done. Having sound relations with China would be paramount.

  Could I see Mary Clare as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs?

  I could.

  As we climbed into the Sierra foothills on the other side of Sacramento, Mary Clare woke. For a while she watched the scenery go by. We passed a motor home burning on the side of the highway, a Forest Service tanker parked behind it, too late to save the vehicle but making sure the fire didn’t spread to the brush.

  “We got you in some trouble,” she said at last, referring to the scene at parting with Amanda.

  “It was coming from a long time ago.”

  “How could Amanda not get along with you? What did you ever do?”

  I tried to tell her. I found myself comparing her and Robert with Amanda and me, not my words, Bienvenida was the one who nailed it. She said, “Roberto an’ Maria, they both know how it is to be helpless an’ come back again to be strong. They been through so much things, they doan have to talk an’ they know what the other one’s thinking.”

  I told Mary Clare about the incident that set it off. Amanda and I decided to marry and I had only one person I really wanted to witness it, my mother, declining in health, her heart deteriorating. She couldn’t fly anymore, so I innocently asked that the ceremony be held in Los Angeles, not appreciating the significance of ceremony to Amanda and her family—silver pattern picked out by puberty, the china pattern before college, her attendants lined up since high school, except for one Amanda didn’t talk to any more. If I’d had a sister she could have been the replacement, only I didn’t. I had a mother whose only son was about to be married and who was too frail to travel to Austin.

  I’d been in the army, so I was sensitive to institutions breaking individuals that don’t bend. Try being an MP in an army psychiatric hospital. But I had no idea a family could be that kind of institution, a total society, the wedding of elder daughter not an event for her alone but for her family—a Wirth wedding.

  Amanda would have called it off in a minute if I didn’t give in. I wrestled with calling it off myself, afraid to name her obstinacy selfishness, but didn’t have the guts to fight my desire for her. I pretended weddings were more important for the bride’s five hundred friends than for my mother and she, bless her flawed heart, went along. We had the ceremony filmed and a copy rushed to her, but that only made me bitterer.

  I thought I would forget, but I haven’t. I have spent twenty years knowing she never mellowed enough to admit I had a legitimate need. Knowing that Amanda at any age between our engagement and now would have been just as likely to call off the wedding.

  All because I didn’t know about letting go.

  I’ve hated living under a truce. Truces are for people who don’t trust each other. Truces make life conditional. Real life is always just around the corner, when peace is declared, but it is always getting put off. Like my writing was put off for decades.

  “Who knows about this besides you and Amanda?” Mary Clare asked.

  “Only one person who matters.”

  “Oh?”

  “Oh,” I echoed and Mary Clare had the good sense not to pursue it.

  I couldn’t explain to Clare about a woman totally without glamour, a nun who’d resigned her vows. She’d been a virgin at thirty-two when I met her and absolutely without preconceptions about sex. She wouldn’t have thought twice about moving a wedding ceremony. She didn’t know how to do anything but give.

  Ten miles closer to Tahoe, Mary Clare rolled up her window against the encroaching alpine chill. She said, “I bet you know why Bobby’s in La Morinda instead of being bursar of the Berkeley campus or some such.”

  “He doesn’t have the right credentials?” I said, trying to deflect.

  “Pooh. They could take care of that. He could be in a PhD program while he was filling the position. What’s the real reason?”

  I said, “You need to ask him. I found out when somebody who assumed I knew the story made reference to it. The rest involved a little research.”

  She said, “He’s sworn you to secrecy.”

  “I’ve sworn myself to secrecy.”

  The curves became sharper and the grades steeper. The engine labored enough I dropped into third gear. Mary Clare sat silent for perhaps a mile. “If you could, I can ferret it out.”

  I said, “I wouldn’t. It will mean much more if he volunteers it. And don’t be surprised if you find it’s not such a big deal it must be kept secret. To the Great Accountant in the Sky it’s no worse than sex and drugs in Berkeley.”

  Mary Clare reached over the back seat and retrieved her bomber jacket, slipping it around her shoulders. I turned the heater to its lowest setting. In the cozy cocoon of a car winding up a mountain road in its constricted capsule of light, we talked about Meany. She talked about the end of the engagement, the yearning for unencumbered love that Robert generated and the shock created by having to act to save his life. “If I weren’t so sure, so certain I have no hidden doubts about Robert, I might have felt guilty about ending it with Meany and especially how I did it. Robert is the only man I’ve ever known I didn’t try to make into a Zev. Zev the wolf, only he’s Zev the dragon in that tapestry. Not Robert, though.”

  “Is Robert the knight?” I asked.

  “I know I’ll never be his prisoner.”

  “Just a prisoner of love.”

  She said, “We’re all prisoners of love, Jake. It’s the fuel of our souls.”

  When signs of civilization began to appear along the road I said, “We’re on this cockamamie trip, you know, because Meany’s shown a side of himself we didn’t see until he decided he’d been betrayed. It’s his reliance on power to solve problems, even problems of the heart. He’s set his henchmen on Robert because Robert took away the love object of his waning years.”

  “Jake, you know those men in the Buick were never after Robert. And I don’t think this is a power trip. It’s not a problem he has to solve, it’s an ending that fits his personal mythology. The great man is jilted and someone must pay. But you’re right in o
ne respect: lesser egos would have come around themselves, instead of sending a couple of goons.”

  And then we were in South Lake Tahoe, looking for a motel. I wondered how I was going to register us, middle-aged man with a woman almost young enough to be his daughter: would they think I was her sugar daddy?

  There it was, a glitzy place, half um-pah-pah alpine lodge, half casino neon: just like South Lake Tahoe.

  We made it,” she said and put a hand on mine as I set the parking brake. All my adrenaline charge dissipated, replaced by the sadness of a lonely heart. I was as much alone as Robert and Mary Clare had been before they met. Forget family and career and clients, I was walking around not touching anyone or anything, I might as well have been on a moon of Neptune.

  And now I was reaching for Dante’s Multifoliate Rose: touching, entwining, needing, giving. We risk ourselves for that contact, we risk everything.

  —But, as my Uncle Irish would say: so what?

  five

  I didn’t have to fake it, driving away from the Pritchett house, I was as wound up as a rookie driver at LeMans or Daytona, determined to win, to drive those suckers in the big ugly Buick into the ground. And the high didn’t diminish as I drove into Moraga and couldn’t see the Buick behind me. I was afraid I might have been too good at making a getaway and lost them.

  I spotted them, finally, in the rear view mirror. My high went even higher when I found them pulled up at a red light not more than forty feet away—outside lane, two car lengths back. I gave them no more than a sidelong glance, hoping they hadn’t had their eyes trained on my not too feminine face under the scarf. Hoping they were trying to be as inconspicuous as I wished I were. I brought my hairy arm, poking through the unbuttoned side curtain, inside the car.

  Watching my hands shake.

  My plan had been to cross beneath the freeway, head west, drive north on the East Bay Freeway until I could climb into the Berkeley hills—the Gilman Street exit was my target—and lose them in the maze of streets up there, the ones permanently mapped in my memory. Now I had to improvise.

  With just enough room—oh, about two inches clearance on each side—I squeezed the little ragtop between the car in front and the ones parked and found the side street that went by Black’s Market. Where the street forked I went left, towards the freeway entrance heading east. I contained the urge to tromp on the accelerator, drawing on my ring experience, which told me never to be ruled by emotion: don’t be angry, don’t be scared, be sharp.

  I swung into the butt-end of commuter traffic from San Francisco and the East Bay, controlling anger and fear, recalling the exploits of Juan Fangio at Monaco as I wove smoothly through traffic, mixing balanced portions of glee, rage and caution in the carburetor of my brain. I fell in behind a shiny double tanker hauling milk, swung out and came alongside—hubcap to hubcap—and drove that way, just at the right speed and no one impeding me, until the tanker signaled to take my lane. I looked up at the driver in the tractor cab, who was looking down at me in Clare’s kerchief, pointing and laughing. I let glee get an upper hand as I pointed and laughed, too, and gave the driver the bird. So we both laughed a lot and he swung his rig into the space I better not be occupying or be squashed.

  I wound the TR3’s old tractor engine to a hair-raising thirty-five hundred RPM and managed to get clear ahead of the tanker, doing all of seventy, and took off on Pleasant Hill Road, crossed under the freeway, then up again, now heading west. The traffic was lighter, early pleasure seekers heading for Baghdad-By-The-Bay or maybe The City Where There Is No There. I looked for a big ugly Buick traveling the opposite direction but saw none.

  I drove at just over the speed limit and steered clear of laggards until I came to Fish Ranch Road, looking for headlights behind me. The only ones I saw were those of another sports car, low slung, bouncing on stiff suspension. Then I exhaled a little glee as I opened the distance between me and the tailing headlights, drifting through tight corners, working the spunky little car to the limits of my driving skills, then slaloming down Claremont Avenue to the Claremont Hotel.

  As I threw him the keys the attendant said, “Hey, weren’t you here the other day in a cherry Chevy panel truck?”

  “Youbetchum.”

  “Where’d you get this doodlebug?”

  “Out of storage.”

  “That’s where it belongs,” he said.

  I said, “Treat it nice, cause it belongs to my true love.”

  Entering the hotel, I wonder how I’d lost my tail so soon. Out of my flight bag I brought an envelope with Howie Manheimer’s name on it: the résumé he’d asked for.

  Howie was at his desk, working late. ABAG’s front door was open but no one was there until I walked into the inner sanctum.

  “You must be eager for the job,” Howie said when I handed him the envelope.

  I said, “I’m going to wind up this project in record time and retire again.”

  “Glad to see you haven’t lost your swagger,” Howie said.

  “Look, Howie, you ought to know, if I get the job I’ll need to take time off to get ready for the Meany trial, and see about my back.”

  “How much time is time?” Howie asked, looking over his glasses.

  “A day here, a day there. The DA hasn’t decided if he even wants me in the courtroom. I’ll keep you posted, naturally.”

  “You really think they’ll get Mr. Big to trial?”

  I said, “They’ve exhausted all the pre-trial motions; it’s still on.”

  “I’m not going to lay odds on it. —So, you want to start on Monday?”

  “Why not? —Listen, Howie, I’ve got to run. Want me to lock the door as I go out?”

  “Did I leave it open?”

  “Some junkie’s probably out there right now, swiping your electric typewriters.”

  “In the Claremont Hotel?”

  “Happens every day.”

  As I turned to go Howie said, “Lock the fucking door.” I watched him in the reflection off the glass partition, burying his nose again in whatever he’d been reading.

  I thought ahead as I walked through the lobby. I’d take a leisurely drive to the mountains, stop once for gas and coffee; it would be an uneventful trip. I hoped the radio worked, otherwise it was going to be hard staying awake. I’d make a second stop, at the Red Barn for a sinful hamburger—cheese, bacon, avocado. Be in South Lake Tahoe well before midnight.

  Outside, all my plans changed: there was the big ugly Buick. I harkened back to a stratagem in the last Bond movie : a homing device. It would be like Meany to hire people who drove ugly cars but used the latest technology. I fished five bucks out of my pocket and went up to the parking attendant. “Where do employees park?”

  “Down below the tennis courts.”

  “Drive my car down there, would you?” I said. “I’ll pick it up in just a few minutes.”

  “Sure I will, but why?”

  “See that green Buick over there, on the edge of self-parking? That’s why. They’re after me.”

  The parking attendant grinned. He was a James Bond fan too. I gave him a wink and walked back into the hotel and through the door that read, “Tennis Club Members Only,” and went down the stairs through another door and passed a couple of aging jocks in tennis whites, eying me, wondering where they’d seen me before. I eyed them back. I may have played tennis with them once upon a time. The humidity increased and I could hear baritone voices echoing off tile, smell Absorbine Jr. The night air felt colder by contrast, under floodlights, peppered by the ping and bop of all the courts in full swing. The gate at the end of the walk was locked but had no barbed wire on top. I climbed it, amazed I had the strength, after all the forced leisure. I was in the employees’ parking lot when the TR3 rolled in.

  “What if those guys ask about it?” the attendant asked.

  I fished another five out of my pocket, but the attendant said, “No, we’re cool.”

  I said, “They think my sweetie’s been driving
the car. Don’t let on, just tell them you put it away for the night.”

  He grinned and trotted the long way around to the upper lobby while I searched under the car for the beeper device.

  A magnet held a gizmo no bigger than a pack of Luckies beneath the flare of the left front fender.

  “Shit,” I said. I turned the gizmo around in my hand like a rare coin or an ancient relic, said “shit” again and congratulated myself for being so smart. I let the thing attach itself to a light standard not far from the car. Then I left via Claremont Avenue, while the Buick was on the Ashby Avenue side of the hotel. No way they were going to know the car wasn’t sitting idle down below.

  Now the mixture in my mental carburetor was rich on exhilaration. I drove uphill faster than down, braking hardly at all, down-shifting into the apex of corners, wishing I had the horsepower of my old BMW under the hood. At the crest of the hill I turned left, heading for Tilden Park. Tilden’s roads were so tightly curved I could lose the Buick even if they were still on my tail. Which they weren’t. I knew they weren’t. I turned the radio to KJAZ playing Al Hibbler singing, “Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me” in his rich baritone, which seemed to fit with my manner of fleeing baddies in a place where sheer horsepower counted for naught and knowing the lanes and byways did.

  I drove like a pro for twenty minutes, to arrive in Richmond with the gas gauge on empty.

  I allowed myself no more blithe assumptions about the Buick Twins being morons. They may not have waited for a chat with the parking attendant, they might have lit out again in five minutes. They might have made an educated guess about where I was heading—they’d followed Mary Clare east this morning hadn’t they—and even now might be cruising gas stations in Richmond.

  So I filled the tank, crossed the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, past Red Rock, where I used to fish, turned at the road running behind San Quentin, parked on the shoulder and dowsed the lights, but kept the engine running.