Roscoe

  Thirteen years later, alone with Hattie in the back seat of his car, Roscoe will ask her, “Where did Alex stay that night? Did he have a room at the hotel, or did you get him one?”

  “Wouldn’t he have stayed out at Tivoli?”

  “I doubt it. He was into the action. Do you remember seeing him at any point that night?”

  “I remember him looking very young and very cute, and talking to women.”

  “Which women?”

  “Older women. That’s who were there. There weren’t many his age.”

  “Which older women?”

  “Damn it, Roscoe, how can I remember? Maddie Corrigan or Dodie Vance, maybe. I remember thinking they found a way to send their husbands home. And Pamela.”

  “Alex with Pamela.”

  “He was dancing with her, and I thought it was his social shyness, hanging out with the family, not quite ready to step out with a stranger. Does this surprise you?”

  “Nothing surprises me, old Hat.”

  And Roscoe mused on whether a one-night stand on Jay Street might have moved to Pamela’s place in New York. Alex often went down to the city from New Haven on weekends. It would explain his anxiety over Gilby’s custody case, and his fierce hostility to Pamela. And while Pamela’s line, “It’s a wise child that knows its father,” means nothing to Elisha, who’s beyond scandal, it could weigh as a genuine threat to Alex, who isn’t. A theory. And Roscoe can tell no one.

  Roscoe’s Prayer to Elisha

  Old father, who art in heaven,

  Hallowed be thy name.

  Thy bingdom come,

  Thy will be done down here on earth.

  Forgive us our trespasses, old boy,

  And don’t worry about a thing.

  Beau Geste (1)

  Judge Francis Finn in shirtsleeves, his robe on a hanger on the corner coatrack, sat at his desk in his chambers, a wall of law books behind him, and watched the two benefactors who put him in this chair, Roscoe and Marcus Gorman, as they settled into leather armchairs facing him.

  “Are we going to find a way to resolve this suit amicably?” he asked them both.

  “Amicably between mother and son,” Marcus said.

  In Marcus’s smile Roscoe saw the confidence of a man with encyclopedic precedents for the indisputable custody rights of mothers. We’ll be here all morning.

  “I’ll want to talk with the young boy,” the judge said. “Is he in the courtroom?”

  “He is, Your Honor, with his mother,” Roscoe said.

  “You refer to his adoptive mother,” said Marcus.

  “His mother in fact if not biological fact,” said Roscoe.

  “The petitioner is here, Mr. Gorman?”

  “She is. We are ready.”

  “I have information worth airing before anything goes on the record,” Roscoe said.

  “I’ll be pleased to hear it,” Marcus said.

  “I’m not sure you’ll be pleased,” said Roscoe. “It’s about money. Pamela Yusupov is seeking custody of her son as a means of gaining money from the estate of the father, Mr. Danilo Yusupov.”

  “She wants her son. The money will support them,” said Marcus.

  “So she now says. But I am prepared to prove that Pamela, seeking money, not custody, approached Elisha Fitzgibbon months before his death. Veronica will testify to the amount she asked and how much they might have given to help her out. Pamela not only insisted on more, she wanted a continuing income. When Elisha rejected the idea she threatened to accuse him of fathering Gilby during a forcible encounter.”

  “Oh, for chrissake,” Marcus said, “this is desperation strategy. This is melodrama.”

  “In assorted ways, counselor,” Roscoe said. “I presume you’ve both heard the slanderous rumor that Elisha died by his own hand. His autopsy fully proves otherwise, that he was terminally ill and died of a coronary occlusion. I could affirm this with abundant fact and fanatical vigor if necessary, or I could, for the sake of our argument, hypothesize that, if he did take his life, he did so to protect his wife and his son. Elisha had readily agreed to adopt Gilby at birth and raise him as his own, for he was his own. He did not tell this to Veronica when he agreed to the adoption. She was still grieving to distraction over the loss of their five-year-old daughter and eager for another child. And he was not ready to admit that, in a bout of heavy drinking and debauched wildness, he had raped her sister. I can personally verify that Pamela is a supreme seductress, even when she isn’t trying, and that uncountable men have acted upon this obvious truth, Elisha being one of them. I don’t blame Pamela for their carnal encounter, nor did Elisha. He took the blame and lived with the shame, and in time did what he felt was necessary—he adopted his own sin and lived with it lovingly, giving the boy the fullest and richest life a father can give a son. He thought he’d lived the sin down, but then here it came back to plague him. Pamela, poor soul, fallen on hard times, sought financial relief through Elisha, and the man became unhinged. He was dying and he knew it, but when he tallied up the credits and debits he saw a way out. Pamela was determined to destroy his reputation to gain a bloodsucking income, but Elisha could not let that happen, nor could he chance the possibility that, in vengeance, she’d destroy not only him but his son Alex, and his beloved wife. And so he revealed to Veronica his shame and her sister’s threat. Pamela had no qualms about destroying her sister’s family. She had envied Veronica all their years growing up—Veronica the greater beauty and the fortunate wife; Pamela, the inferior little strawberry tart, always viewing herself as the sister in the cinders.”

  “Jesus, Roscoe,” said Marcus. “Sister in the cinders?”

  “I know you enjoy language, counselor,” Roscoe said. “And so Elisha, as a way of putting himself and the family beyond Pamela’s reach, designed his own death. You can’t blackmail a corpse. He knew that, for those aware of the blackmail, his death would be judged as the act of a shamed man who could not face public disclosure. But he also knew Veronica would understand why he was really doing this, and she did. He even told his secretary, just before his suicide, that the enemy was closing in and that Roscoe would understand who that was. And I certainly do. But Elisha misread his enemy’s perseverance. In the courtroom outside the door of these chambers on the first day of this hearing, Pamela whispered to Veronica, ‘It’s a wise child that knows its father.’ We all knew what she meant. Her blackmailing would continue. I wonder, counselor, did your client mention any of this to you?”

  “Roscoe,” said Marcus, “you are a maestro. Your inventions are as entertaining as your rhetoric. But I fail to see your point. The father of the boy is Danilo Yusupov, and this is not disputed, not even by my client.”

  “Perhaps she’ll change her mind,” Roscoe said, and he opened his briefcase, took out copies of Yusupov’s and Gilby’s blood tests, and gave them to the judge and Marcus.

  “Mr. Yusupov’s blood group, which is O, doesn’t match Gilby’s, which is AB,” Roscoe said. “As you well know, Your Honor, such disparity is a legally sound basis of nonpaternity.”

  “That’s correct,” said the judge.

  “This is a fraud,” said Marcus. “You politicians can fabricate any document and you often do.”

  Roscoe opened his briefcase and handed his listeners more papers. “A letter from Yusupov’s lawyer,” he said, “with verification of his blood test. Call the man in Los Angeles if you like. He resents Pamela’s lawsuit as much as we do. And finally,” he added, finding more papers, “Elisha’s and Pamela’s blood tests.”

  “How did you get my client’s blood test?” Marcus asked.

  “I married her,” Roscoe said. “We took blood tests together and I kept them. Call me sentimental. The blood groups of Elisha and Gilby are both type AB, and are compatible with Pamela’s blood group, which is A. This is not positive evidence that Elisha was the father, but it means he could have been.”

  “We need time to investigate this, Your Honor,” Marcus said. “The pater
nity of Yusupov has never been in question before today.”

  “Very true,” Roscoe said. “Yusupov rejected the child and behaved as if he never existed, and we now know he had good reason. And that’s how it remained until Pamela became a blackmailer. Her story of rape, however true, will be just another lie when her blackmail and perjury go public, and you should convey to your client, Marcus, that we stand ready to prosecute her for both blackmail and for perjury in representing Mr. Yusupov as Gilby’s father when she knew he was not. Let’s face it, counselor, your client is a scheming and perpetually lubricious woman, and I will celebrate that fact with exuberant fanfare if we go forward. I also admit the possibility that she was truly confused and believed she had diddled Yusupov when it was actually Elisha, or Elisha when it was actually Yusupov. Or maybe it was John Gilbert, for whom Gilby was named. Perhaps she could track down Mr. Gilbert’s blood type and seek relief from his estate. I don’t want to seem too severe with Pamela for losing track of her multitudes, and for the sake of Elisha, we will not bring any charges at all if she desists from this charade.”

  Roscoe closed his briefcase.

  “I trust, gentlemen, that these hypothetical facts will be kept confidential. Elisha’s death, which is not provable in this context unless we decide to prove it, stands as a heroic act of redemption—a beau geste, if you will—a noble gesture, a self-martyrdom by a saintly man, and his good name must not be despoiled. I have no intention whatever of prolonging this hearing any further, and if opposing counsel has no objection, Judge Finn, I move that you quash the custody petition, considering perhaps J. Hogan, ‘In the Matter of Gustow,’ that, ‘while the parent ordinarily is entitled to the custody of a child, the welfare of the child may be superior to the claim of the parent.’ I hope we can now have a speedy conclusion.”

  The judge looked to Marcus, who said, “I’ll speak to my client.”

  In the Courtroom

  Veronica’s and Gilby’s smiles radiated sunbeams as they heard the judge say, “. . . the home life of the child for his entire life has been so fortunate that it certainly should not be changed in favor of a technical mother’s care, and all parties now agree the boy should stay where he is, with the relator having the right to visit at reasonable times. The habeas corpus writ is quashed and dismissed.”

  Roscoe recognized fury in Marcus’s look, deceived by his client, a perjurer who didn’t even tell her lawyer the truth. Losing your touch, Marcus? Can’t tell the real ones from the fakers anymore? Roscoe felt warm palpitations in his pericardium imagining Pamela baffled by Marcus’s attack on her. Rape? Elisha? What has rape got to do with anything? I never said Elisha raped me. But Marcus can’t quite believe her. Even if there was no rape, there was action, and Gilby is over there to prove it. But Daddy Yusupov was no daddy, and that’s a fact. He was just an ex-Georgian prince, professional Russian exile, who had three million once, so they said. Pamela tried to tap into what was left of it and, another fact, she failed. Fashionable in black chalk-striped jacket and burgundy dress, her cubist bee-stung lips so out of fashion they are back, Pamela sat beside Marcus in stunned condition, hit by a brick she wouldn’t be quieter, eyes glazing as she wonders how the world could have changed so suddenly. She was yesterday’s darling and the world was still possible, with money on the table. But this is today, sweetheart.

  Roscoe insisted that Gilby speak to his mother before they left the courtroom. He was wearing his blue suit and a new red-and-blue necktie Veronica had bought him for this event. The necktie aged him five years, Roscoe decided.

  “I don’t want to talk to her,” Gilby told Roscoe.

  “Just say goodbye, that’s enough.”

  “The judge said she could visit me.”

  “She probably won’t.”

  Gilby went across the courtroom to where Pamela was hiding under her picture hat. “I came to say goodbye,” he said to her.

  “I’m so very sad to be losing you,” Pamela said.

  “I’m not. Goodbye.”

  Roscoe saw the sag of Pamela’s shoulders, her collapsed expression. She seemed to be shrinking as he watched. He stayed at a distance from her but walked to Marcus to offer a collegial handshake.

  “I’m glad we didn’t get into hand-to-hand combat,” Roscoe said.

  “I underestimated you, Roscoe. You are utterly without scruples. I congratulate you.”

  Roscoe spoke a few sentences of gratification to several news reporters in the hallway and then walked down the corridor with Veronica and Gilby on either side of him, the three arm in arm, so cooing, so happy they couldn’t, didn’t have to, wouldn’t talk about this thing, it was such a fat, happy, obvious fact of life. They giggled as they waited for the elevator, and when it came they all stepped on together, single file, arms still locked, and Roscoe said to the elevator man, “I greet you in a state of bliss, Webster.”

  “Win one, did you, Mr. Conway?” Webster asked.

  “I think I did.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “I’m being modest.”

  “He won,” said Veronica. “He so won. We all won.”

  Webster closed the accordion gate of the elevator but saw another passenger coming and reopened it. Pamela. Roscoe saw Marcus walking alone in the opposite direction, toward the far stairway. Pamela stepped toward the elevator, unaware of the enemy within. She stopped as Webster opened the accordion.

  “Going down,” Webster said.

  “You goddamn lying bastard,” Pamela said, seeing Roscoe.

  Roscoe stepped off the elevator into her words, moved into her face to block her eye contact with Veronica or Gilby. “What was that, my dear? Were you speaking to me?” And without turning he added, “Webster, take my friends down. I’ll only be a minute.” And Webster shut the elevator door.

  “Rape?” Pamela said. “Rape?”

  “Why not rape?” Roscoe said. “It’s as popular as blackmail.”

  “Liar, liar, liar!” Pamela shrieked.

  “Ah me, the perjurer offended by a falsehood,” Roscoe said.

  There was no rape by Elisha. Roscoe invented that. But truth is in the details, even when you invent the details. It was sweet the way true and fraudulent facts wrapped themselves around each other so sleekly. The next sentence is a lie. The preceding sentence is true. Which means the first sentence is a lie, and the second sentence is true, which means the first sentence is true and the second is a lie, which means the first was a lie again, or does it? A pair of impregnable truths. True-and-false equality, we call that.

  “It wasn’t rape,” said Roscoe, “and it wasn’t even Elisha, was it?”

  “You think you’ve won,” Pamela said.

  “Elisha won. He prepared us for you. Nobody will believe anything you say from now on, my dear.”

  “There are many ways of letting the truth be known.”

  “Yes, and if anything is said anywhere, anywhere, we will prosecute you, in this city Give scandal, you’ll get jail time, and that’s a guaranteed fact of your future. Don’t bring your venal jealousy back to this town, Pamela. Leave the family alone.”

  The elevator arrived and Webster opened the doors. Roscoe gestured to Pamela and they stepped into it.

  “Do you have any money?” he asked.

  “Millions,” she said.

  He took a roll of cash from his pocket and peeled off two one-hundred-dollar bills. He offered them to her. She stared at them.

  “Take a train somewhere. Shuffle off to Buffalo.”

  “You’re a lousy bastard,” she said, taking the money.

  “Thank you, Webster,” Roscoe said when they reached street level. He gestured to Pamela to step out first and held the street door for her. “What’s your phone number in New York?” he asked her. “We should stay in touch.”

  Pamela thought that was a riot.

  Beau Geste (2)

  Veronica sat in the back of the car and told Gilby to sit in front as Roscoe drove from the courthouse back to
Tivoli. She had not yet thanked Roscoe for the victory. Gilby had thanked him with his facial expression of joy, but that had now turned quizzical as the mystery hit him.

  “Why did we win?” Gilby asked.

  “I convinced the judge your father made a life for you that was better than any other you could have,” Roscoe said.

  “What about her? Will she try again?”

  “No chance. She’s gone.”

  “What about the Yusupov man?”

  “He’s gone too.”

  “Gone where?”

  “Out of your life.”

  “Yusupov isn’t my father?”

  “Never was.”

  “Why did they say my name was Yusupov?”

  “She said it was. She was married to him.”

  “Is my name still Yusupov?”

  “Never was. Rivera is the name on your birth certificate, but that’s wrong too and we’ll change it.”

  “Who’s Rivera? Was he my father?”

  “A woman named Rivera was Pamela’s housekeeper in Puerto Rico when you were born.”

  “She named me after a housekeeper? Why?”

  “Same reason she threw hard-boiled eggs at her poodle.”

  “What’s my real name?”

  “Gilbert David Fitzgibbon, same as always.”

  “Who’s my father?”

  “Your father is still your father. Still the main man in this family.”

  “Is Alex my cousin?”

  “He’s your brother.”

  “My father is his father?”

  “That’s how it used to be, that’s how it should be, that’s how it will be.”

  “My father wasn’t married to Pamela when I was born.”

  “No, thank God.”

  “That means I’m a bastard, doesn’t it?”

  “Who said that?”

  “People.”

  “Your father would die if he heard you say that.”

  “He already died.”