The Man Who Cancelled Himself (34 page)

“When are you due?” I asked her.

“Two more weeks,” she replied wearily. “Personally I think I’m going to explode before then.” She glanced back at her building, where Mario stood under the awning with Lulu. “I wanted to thank you for her. It’s awfully damned decent of you, considering what I’ve put you through.”

I shrugged. “The truth is I had no choice.”

“Horseradish. You could have boarded her.”

“She got worms the last time I did. She still hasn’t forgiven me.”

“I promise you I’ll take good care of her.”

“I know you will, Merilee.”

“I’ll make her a big plate of asparagus with hollandaise sauce first thing.”

“She doesn’t eat asparagus.”

“I do—all the time. Hot, cold, pureed. Morning, noon, and night. Can’t get enough of it.”

We stared at each other a moment.

Until she looked away and said, “God bless Alex Trebek.
Jeopardy!
is all that’s left between me and total mental meltdown.”

“Now there’s a horrifying thought.”

“It gets worse. I’m even … promise me you won’t laugh …”

“I won’t laugh, Merilee.”

“I’m seriously considering getting into soap operas. I keep hearing they’re actually better than prime time.”

“Can’t be any worse.”

Her brow creased fretfully. “Poor Mister Hoagy. You’re not having much fun these days.”

“Or nights.”

Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Sorry, I cry all the time,” she blurted out. “Doesn’t mean anything.” She dabbed at her eyes with my handkerchief. “Is that a new suit? I don’t remember it.”

It was the pure white linen I’d had made for me in Milan. “It is. Like it?”

“Oh, God, Hoagy,” she blubbered. “You’re such a sight for sore eyes I’m going to start sobbing uncontrollably. Please go before I made a huge fool of myself in public.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

She laughed through her tears. We stared at each other some more. Until she broke it once again. “It’s all gone, Hoagy. Isn’t it?”

“What’s all gone, Merilee?”

“The love.” She swallowed. “You don’t love me anymore, do you?”

I leaned over and kissed her damp, flushed forehead. “Take good care of yourself, Merilee,” I said. Then I walked on down the block with a lump in my throat and that same ache in my chest. The rest of me was just plain numb.

W
HEN’S LYLE GETTING HERE,
young fella?”

They were older than I expected. Closer to eighty than seventy. Not far from feeble. And they were by no means ogres. Of course, that was easy for me to say. They were Lyle Hudnut’s parents, not my own.

Herb Hudnut was a scrawny, defeated little man with a chicken neck, big ears that stuck straight out, and a full head of white hair that was combed flat, except for a schoolboy cowlick. He smelled of Vitalis. He had a striped knit shirt on over a white T-shirt—not a look I recommend—blue polyester slacks, and heavy black Florsheim wing-tips with white support hose. He was very fidgety. Kept moistening his lips and reaching nervously for the pocket of his shirt, as if he had something valuable in there and he wanted to make sure it was still there. Near as I could tell he had nothing in there. He had an old, faded tattoo on the back of his left forearm. His hands shook.

It was Aileen who Lyle took after the most. She was big. and she was hefty. Must have outweighed Herb by fifty pounds. She had the same jack-o’-lantern face as Lyle, the same chin half submerged in a puddle of jowls, the same pug nose, the same shrewd, twinkling blue eyes. There were still a few streaks of rust in her curly, steel gray hair. She wore a lime green pantsuit, ventilated white nurse’s oxfords, and crimson polish on her nails. Her hands were big and meaty like Lyle’s. They clutched stubbornly at the white vinyl handbag on the sofa beside her, as if she were afraid to let it go. Kind of like Herb and his shirt pocket. She was smoking a cigarette and watching me carefully. She seemed much sharper and more alert than Herb. Tougher, too. My guess was she always had been.

Both of them were anxious. They thought they were about to see their son for the first time in a long, long time. I had let them think this. On behalf of Lyle I had booked them a suite for the night at the Mayfair Regent Hotel on Park Avenue, which I think is the nicest of the smaller luxury hotels. I thought it best not to put them in the Essex House. There was no telling who they might run into there. The Mayfair also happens to do a superior high tea. I’d told them I’d be there for tea—with Lyle. The cart sat there beside us heaped with china pots and eight different teas and plates of sandwiches and cakes.

“When’s Lyle getting here, young fella?” Herb repeated, his voice whiny and apologetic, and tinged with working-class Queens.

“Are you folks happy with your suite?” I had to speak up. Both were slightly deaf.

“Everything’s just fine,” Herb replied, looking around at the sunny, elegant sitting room. The sofa and club chairs were grouped before an ornamental fireplace. On the coffee table between us sat the baskets of fruit and flowers I’d had sent up. “All seems kinda on the grand side for just us two. Single room woulda been hokey-dokey. How much is this costing Lyle, anyways?”

“Not to worry. He can afford it.”

“Bet he can.” Herb chuckled proudly.

“We was just so excited when you called us, Mr. Hoag,” said Aileen, stubbing out her cigarette. “Lyle hasn’t contacted us in so long.” Her voice was fluttery and high-pitched for such a big woman, and had a peculiar singsong quality to it, as if she were reading a nursery rhyme. If you listened hard you could hear Uncle Chubby’s bedtime story voice in it. “Y’see, he still has a whole lot of childhood anger toward us. My, my, we know we made mistakes. All parents do. Mine sure did. But there comes a time when you have to let go of whatever grudge you hold.”

“And Lyle just plain hasn’t,” said Herb, moistening his lips anxiously. “Up till now.”

“It’s been years since he spoke to us,” confessed Aileen.

“We always watch him on TV, of course,” Herb said.

“My, my, he’s gotten so heavy,” said Aileen. “Just like Daddy did. Daddy weighed just over three hundred pounds when he passed away. Poor thing had to have a custom-made casket.”

“So when’s he getting here?” Herb asked, yet again.

I poured us Irish breakfast tea through a silver strainer and offered them sandwiches. Herb declined. Aileen tried the salmon. Then I sat and crossed my legs and said, “He’s not coming.”

They exchanged a look. “Change of plans?” asked Herb hopefully.

“I’m afraid I’ve lured you folks here under false pretenses. The truth is that Lyle doesn’t know anything about this.”

She shot me a sidelong scowl.
The
Scowl. It sent prickles up my neck. “What the heck is this? You said on the phone you was some kind of associate of his.”

“I am. And I need your help. Desperately.”

Aileen shook her head at her husband. “I knew it was too good to be true. I
knew
it.” She bit into her sandwich.

“I needed to speak to you two in private,” I explained. “And I didn’t think I could get away to Bay Shore without arousing Lyle’s suspicion. I’m sorry if I got your hopes up.”

“That’s just what you did, young fella,” said a crestfallen Herb, his hands shaking so badly his teacup rattled in its saucer. In another couple of years he’d be ready to be a waiter at Ratner’s. He set it down on the coffee table. “What kind of help you mean?”

“Lyle’s in serious trouble. Somebody’s trying to kill him.”

Aileen’s eyes widened. “Kill him? What the heck for?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“What are you?” asked Herb. “Some kind of detective?”

“I’m his collaborator. I’m helping him write his life story.”

Aileen pointed a pudgy finger at me. “Sure. You’re the fella who used to be married to what’s-her-name. The one who got herself pregnant.”

“That’s me.”

“It’s disgraceful what she did.” Aileen’s sandwich was gone. She reached for another. “And I used to like her movies, too. Especially that outer-space one where they shaved her head. She looked so cute without her—”

“I’m trying to help Lyle,” I broke in. “So are the police. Only there are certain things he won’t talk about. I can’t help him unless I have all of the facts. I need the facts.”

“Facts about what?” she asked.

“About whether or not he had shock therapy. About what’s wrong with him—if anything.”

They exchanged a frightened look. My heart beat a little faster.

“Maybe,” Herb suggested carefully, “he don’t want you to know.”

“I have to know.”

“But if the boy don’t want you to, it’s not really our place to—”

“I have to know.”

“What’s this got to do with somebody trying to kill him?” asked Aileen.

“Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. I can’t tell—without knowing.”

They were silent a moment.

Aileen broke it. “This isn’t some dirty film for people to read about in the checkout line at the supermarket, y’know. This is our personal heartbreak.”

“A family matter,” agreed Herb, nervously fingering his shirt pocket.

“I know that. And nothing will go in Lyle’s book unless he wants it to. I’m on Lyle’s side. You must believe that.”

“Why the hell should we?” she demanded, turning hot on me. Lyle had her temper, too.

“Now, simmer down, hon. We have no reason to tussle with this young fella.” Herb patted her knee reassuringly. “How do we know we can trust you, Mr. Hoag? That’s what we’re wondering.”

“You don’t know.” I leveled my gaze at him. “But you can. I’m trying to help Lyle. He needs help. Just like …”

“Just like what?” Aileen demanded, leaning forward.

“Just like he always has,” I said quietly.

They exchanged another look.

“Has it occurred to you,” Herb said slowly, “that maybe there are some things Lyle doesn’t know himself? And that he’s better off for it?”

I nodded, though it’s been my experience that, when someone close to my celebrity says those words, they’re the ones who’d be better off, not my celebrity. “That’s a chance I have to take.
We
have to take.”

Aileen reached for her cigarettes. “Is Lyle happy?”

“Well, someone’s trying to kill him, like I said.”

“But how are his spirits?” asked Herb.

I sipped my tea. “He says he’s never been happier. And Lyle tends to believe what he says, whether it’s true or not.”

“Is it true?” she asked.

“I’d have to say no.”

“Any women in his life?” She lit her cigarette and kept it cupped in her palm, like a night watchman patrolling on a windy night.

“Several.”

“One in particular?” persisted Herb.

“Yes.”

“Nice girl?”

“She certainly has plenty to offer.”

“And is he seeing a good man these days?” asked Herb.

I tugged at my ear. “Good man?”

“A doctor,” she said, drawing on her cigarette.

“Do you mean a psychiatrist?”

Neither of them responded to this. They just sat there, waiting me out. The elderly can be exceedingly patient.

“He’s not seeing anyone,” I replied. “He says he’s into self-therapy.”

“Dear God,” murmured Herb, paling visibly.

Aileen poured him more tea, dumped four packets of sugar in it, and made him drink it down. When his color began to return she said to me, “Just exactly what has Lyle told you about his boyhood?”

“That he was a rebellious kid. A rockhead, as he put it. Constantly fighting with the other kids. Getting into trouble at school.”

Aileen cleared her throat. She was clearly ill at ease now. “Anything earlier than that?”

“His earliest memory is biting the mailman.”

“He was three,” she recalled dejectedly. “But we’d already been through so much with Lyle by then, Mr. Hoag. Night and day, day after day, from the moment we brought him home from the hospital. He cried constantly, see. Screamed with red-faced anger twenty-four hours a day. Cried when he was hungry. Cried when he was full. Cried when he was wet. Cried when he was dry. That child would not be pacified. Rocking him didn’t help. Holding him didn’t help—he pulled away from me if I so much as tried to touch him. I tried music, long rides in the car … Nothing worked. He would not sleep. Cried all night long, every single night. Occasionally, he’d pass out for an hour or two out of sheer exhaustion. But soon as he woke up he’d start in screaming again. He wore both of us ragged, Mr. Hoag. And frustrated me to the point of tears. I just didn’t know what I was doing wrong. I tried everything, believe me. But he just wouldn’t stop.”

“What did his pediatrician say?”

“That he wasn’t sick,” she replied. “That he wasn’t in pain. That he was just … angry.” She flicked her cigarette ash into the ashtray with a red fingernail. “I began to have fantasies about checking into a hotel all by my lonesome and taking a hot bubble bath and just
sleeping
for two whole days. That’s how tired I was. Finally, when Lyle was four months old, the doctor gave him something so he’d sleep.”

“So all three of us would,” Herb chimed in.

“Liquid phenobarbital, wasn’t it, Herbert?” she said to him.

He nodded. “Poor boy was on medication before he could even walk.”

“And after he could walk?” I asked. “What happened then?”

“He ran around the house like a little demon,” Lyle’s mother recalled, in her singsong voice. “Crashing headfirst into tables, chairs, walls. Herbert had to make him a little foam helmet with a chin strap so he wouldn’t knock himself out. If the weather was nice I’d let him out in our little yard, and he’d just run around and around in a circle until he collapsed, limp, from exhaustion. Then I’d carry him inside and put him to bed. That was the only time Lyle’d ever let me hold him.”

“Was he hyperactive?”

She put out her cigarette and sampled a tea cake. “Doctor said no. Said Lyle was healthy and normal—just full of steam. As a baby, he had no way to let off his steam, other than to cry. Or run into things. When he got to be two or three, he began to turn it on the grown-ups around him.”

“Such as the mailman?”

“Such as Aileen,” Herb replied darkly, glancing at her.