Jacob's Folly (17 page)

“Do you think you would be able to wean yourself off this practice?” he asked dryly.

“In prison I was not allowed to have a jug of water,” I replied.

“This is not a prison,” he said. “If you decide to continue with your
rituals, your superstitions, that is your choice. If you decide to free yourself of them, that is also your choice. You are a free man, Gebeck.”

“These are difficult habits to break,” I said, my sentence emerging from my mouth in an ugly string of mangled French. The count winced.

“You have time,” he said. “Now dress yourself, get me my breakfast, and then we will begin in the library. You have an enormous amount of work to do. What's that?” He asked, pointing to my fringed garment, the tzitzit that I always wore beneath my clothes, which was laid out over the back of my chair.

“It's my protective garment.”

“You will wear it beneath your chemise?”

“Yes.”

The count wrote this down in his little red book. “And your head covering?”

“You were right. I decided the wig was enough.”

The count smiled and nodded.

I began my day with Le Jumeau. When I entered the kitchen, he was there eating his breakfast. The cook, Clothilde, had her broad back to me. The stiff cloth of my livery made me move differently, with a straighter back, a longer neck. My wig was a bit itchy around the temples, but otherwise I felt very well in myself.

“You're a late riser,” said Le Jumeau, glancing up at me.

“Not usually,” I said. I didn't want to tell him about the count's visit. It was embarrassing.

“Luckily for us, the count doesn't usually wake up until ten.”

“What shall I do?” I asked.

“Do what I do. If you shadow me for a few days, you'll get the hang of my duties.”

Clothilde snorted a laugh.

“But why does the count need two of us?” I asked.

“In a great house, it's normal to have more than one valet,” said Le Jumeau.

A bell rang insistently. Le Jumeau stood up. “And he's conscious.
The day begins.” Clothilde began heating water immediately. In moments she had set a silver tray with a porcelain jug of coffee, a cup, some fresh cream, bread, and a nest of freshly boiled speckled quail's eggs.

“You carry it,” said Le Jumeau to me. “Hold it like this,” he said, taking the breakfast tray in both hands and holding it stiffly before him, back straight, expressionless. “Your face must remain dead.”

I took the heavy tray and tried the look. Both Clothilde and Le Jumeau burst out laughing. “Don't worry,” he said. “You'll get it eventually.”

I followed Le Jumeau as carefully as a tightrope walker, terrified to upset the delicate gold-rimmed porcelain on the silver tray. After trudging up two sets of stairs and down several hallways, we arrived at the count's high, gilt-trimmed door. Le Jumeau knocked softly. The muffled voice of the count answered. Le Jumeau opened the door and stepped back to let me in. I walked in stiffly, my face frozen. Only my eyes moved, roving over the tray to be sure nothing toppled.

“On the bed,” Le Jumeau ordered softly. I placed the tray with its stand like a little bridge over the lap of the count.

“How is our neophyte doing?” asked the count.

“Very well, Monsieur le Comte,” said Le Jumeau. “Soon he will be fit for every sort of demand.”

“He looks French, don't you think?” asked the count, beaming at me with his bulging, myopic eyes, his ugly young face creased with sleep.

“Absolutely Gallic,” said Le Jumeau.

“He looks, in fact,” said the count, “more French than I do, though I come from one of the oldest houses in France.”

“French, French, utterly French,” sang Le Jumeau, opening the silk curtains.

“No need to overdo it, Le Jumeau,” said the count, cracking an egg.

“What does Monsieur wish to wear today?” asked Le Jumeau, clicking his heels in what seemed to me to be an open parody of a military stance.

“My gray silk,” said the count. “Gebeck, follow him closely. You will be dressing me soon enough.” Le Jumeau was silent, but his animosity was palpable. I really didn't want to be on the bad side of the valet. He seemed dangerous. “You know, I just realized, I haven't given Gebeck a first name!” exclaimed the count.

“Haven't you?” asked the valet, folding a pair of exquisite dove-gray silk britches and vermilion stockings over the back of a chair.

“What about … Johann? Johann Gebeck, of Bavaria!”

“I thought you wanted him to look French,” said Le Jumeau.

“The accent precludes it,” snapped the count. “There are dark-haired Germans in the south. And he has blue eyes …”

“True,” said Le Jumeau.

“Johann Gebeck, this is your new birthday,” said the count. “Make a note of the date. We'll celebrate it next year.”

“Will Monsieur le Comte have a bath this morning?” asked Le Jumeau.

“No, you may dress me,” said the count, patting his wide mouth with a linen napkin. Le Jumeau took the tray to a side table. The count stood up by the bed and raised his arms. Le Jumeau lifted the count's chemise from him. Beneath the nightdress, the master was naked. He had a wide-hipped, tubby, knock-kneed frame. As he turned to step into the knickers Le Jumeau held out for him, I noticed his back was badly scarred with red spots.

“Oh, Gebeck,” said the count, as Le Jumeau drew up his linen and fastened it around his waist.

“Monsieur le Comte?”

“If there are any rituals you feel compelled to perform throughout the day, no matter how insignificant to you, please advise me.”

Le Jumeau's snigger broke over my head like a raw egg.

T
he phone rang cruelly in the middle of the night. Leslie felt a sharp pain in his right eye as he answered.

“It's Don,” said a low, conspiratorial voice on the other end of the line.

“Don?” The sound of his father-in-taw's voice at this time of the night was an automatic emergency. Leslie sat up immediately. “I'll be right over,” he said.

“No, no, son,” said Don in a slurred whisper. “We're not at home. We … just need a ride.”

“Where are you?” asked Leslie.

Leslie drove along the coast to the east end of the island, where the mansions were. He looked down at the beach. Near the shore, the waves were marbled with phosphorescence. The great houses stood at the edge of the bluffs. Leslie smiled, thinking that Don had finally found his way to his kind of people. He turned down a road lined with perfectly maintained hedges.

Iron gates opened for the truck the moment he arrived at the address Don had given him. The house, at the head of a long, circular drive, was large, shingled, beetling over the crashing sea. All the
windows were illuminated. Leslie recognized Don's Chrysler parked outside.

Leslie rang the bell. The door opened immediately. A small man with a mop of tong-curled brown hair, wearing what looked like a boy's blue blazer, looked up at Leslie expectantly.

“Hello, sir!” he said.

“I'm looking for Don and Libby Jenkins,” said Leslie. “Don called me and said he needed a ride,” he said.

“Did he mention that?” said the younger man nastily, stepping back to let Leslie into the house. Leslie noticed that his host had a very shiny face. His skin looked like ironed wax. He had tiny, dark, crescent eyes and a plump mouth.

“I'm Ross Coe,” he said, offering a boy's hand for Leslie to shake.

“Leslie Senzatimore,” said Leslie. He found Ross Coe distinctly alarming. “Where are Don and Libby?”

“Just down here,” said Ross. He wore patent-leather loafers with no socks, Leslie noticed as he followed him down a wood spiral staircase. Leslie found himself descending sideways. His feet were too long for the steps.

Don and Libby were sitting silently among a clutch of chattering people. Don was in his usual cherry cashmere and gray cravat, his elongated, squared-off head flushed and seemingly more creased than usual. He glanced at Leslie sheepishly, but made no move to get up, and said nothing. Libby, stuffed into a low-cut leopard-print minidress, sat beside him holding a glass of green liquid between her palms. She was staring into it, as if for an answer. Ross Coe led a petite, elegantly dressed older lady across the room. She had luxuriant brown hair. “This is my wife, Helga,” said Ross Coe, presenting the woman with a flourish of his small hand. Helga Coe had a fixed smile on her withered face, and big white teeth.

“Welcome to our home,” said Mrs. Coe, in what sounded like a German accent.

“Good to meet you,” said Leslie, then he stood at the lip of the room, arms dangling, waiting for Don and Libby to make a move. But both his parents-in-law sat immobile.

“Ready to go, Don?” Leslie asked.

“Sure, sure,” Don said. But he didn't move. A youthful, elfin man in his sixties wearing a white cap, white jeans, and a crisp white shirt sprang out of what seemed to be a bathroom, singing, “Love is in the air …”

Ross Coe let out a high giggle, his shiny, ball-of-wax face contorting as if pushed this way and that by a sculpting hand, his eyes growing even smaller, like slits. It was impossible to tell how old he was.

“Leslie Senzatimore,” said Ross Coe, “this is Derbhan Nevsky.” Derbhan Nevsky ran spryly up to Leslie and took his hand between both his rigid palms, leaning forward and thereby shrinking still more. “Great to meet you,” he said in a grating voice. Leslie was fighting the urge to lie down on the couch. He wanted to sleep so badly. It came to him that he was almost a foot taller than every freak in this room.

“Don, it's late, I gotta get up early,” Leslie said, looking at his watch. Three o'clock in the morning. He may as well forget about sleep.

“Sure, sure, son,” said Don absentmindedly. His face was livid, his eyes unfocused.

“They drank a little of the Green Fairy,” Ross Coe said. “Strong stuff. Sit down for a minute.” Leslie could see he wasn't getting Don and Libby off the couch anytime soon. Sighing, he sat on the slippery leather.

“What line of work are you in, Leslie?” asked Derbhan Nevsky, leaning forward in his chair with a jerk. His every movement seemed provoked by an electric zap. His clothes were bleached blue-white. Even his sneakers were white. His face beneath the cap was tanned, leathery, humorous.

“Boat repair and customizing,” Leslie answered. There was a pause.

“Senzatimore Marine!” exploded Nevsky, lifting off the couch and pointing at Leslie as if he had guessed a clue at charades.

“Right,” said Leslie grimly.

“Senzatimore Marine, top-of-the-line customizing of classic boats, best in the state,” Nevsky said, opening up to Ross Coe to share this news. Leslie attempted a smile. “Ross! Here's your man!” Ross Coe smiled vaguely, nodding, as he sat down to a gleaming grand piano.

“That must be a sound business,” said Nevsky, whipping back around to Leslie.

“It's not the worst,” said Leslie.

“Probably helps to have Don here for a father-in-law.” Nevsky chuckled.

“What was that?” asked Leslie, looking at Don, who gave him a strained smile. Ross Coe began to play.

“Rosco's a genius,” pronounced Nevsky. Leslie noticed that Libby's eyelids were fluttering.

“What is the Green Fairy?” asked Leslie.

“It's absinthe, a kind of alcohol brewed from herbs,” said Nevsky. “They'll be fine. Rosco's father was in shipping. Coe Frigates. He made billions in the eighties. Sent Rosco to Brown. As for me, I'm in entertainment,” he said.

“Oh?” asked Leslie.

“Personal management. I used to be out on the West Coast. But not anymore,” he continued, snapping his fingers with both hands. “I fried myself out there. Had everything I could wish for. Back in the day. Overdid it. Rising from the ashes now. Based in New York. Rosco here. Obsessed with boats.” Snap. “You should get to know him.” Leslie had a look at Ross Coe, playing the complex piece with ease, swaying back and forth with the music, his waxy face shining. Behind him, his aged wife stood with a patient, capped smile, reading the music and turning the pages when he needed her to.

Don and Libby were silent on the way home.

“So what was all that about?” asked Leslie, glancing at the lurid sunrise, maraschino red bleeding into the sky like it was paper toweling.

“That young man,” said Don.

“Ross Coe,” said Leslie.

“Yes. That young man is one of the richest residents of the state,” said Don. “We happened to meet him at the Mexican restaurant in Patchogue.”

A pause as Leslie thought of the place. “Ranchero's?”

“Yes.”

“If I was one of the richest residents of the state I wouldn't be eating at Ranchero's.”

“He and his wife like to meet people there,” said Don, a bit mysteriously. Leslie nodded.

“They are sociable people who like to mix,” added Don, as though in response.

“And match,” said Libby from the backseat.

“So then, you mixed a little at Ranchero's, and then you went home with them,” said Leslie.

“For a drink,” said Don.

“Plural,” said Libby.

“I developed a terrible headache,” Don said. “I'm a migraineur, as you know.” Libby cracked up. Her laugh was loose, hissing. She was plastered.

“So you've made some new friends, anyway,” said Leslie.

“These people could be of real interest,” said Don. “They are connected to avenues of intelligent risk. Of credible investment.”

“Investment,” repeated Leslie, hiding his concern.

“Sensible investment,” said Don. “These are cultured people.”

Leslie nodded. “As opposed to me,” he said, without rancor.

“It's just a different sphere, Leslie,” said Don.

“Oh, dry up,” growled Libby.

By the time Leslie had unloaded Don and Libby into the parent trap, it was nearly five. Deirdre was sitting up in bed when he walked in.

“What the hell did they do now?”

“Oh, boy,” said Leslie.

“Tell me.”

“They got snared by a couple of strange people, this very rich young
short person with a face like I can't even begin to describe, sort of—rubbery—he plays the piano—and his German wife, who must be seventy.”

“Where did they meet—”

“At Ranchero's.”

“Really?”

“This guy Coe. Coe Frigates. He has a house in East Hampton. The worst of it is, I think Don is making them think he has a lot of money. I'm too tired to talk about it. Oh, and your father's getting a migraine.”

“Why do my parents have to live right next to us?” asked Deirdre. “Why can't we rent them a house someplace else? Like Arizona?”

“Can we talk about it in the morning? Please?” Leslie lay down. “I only have two hours.”

It had been Leslie's idea to install her parents next door, five years ago, when he and Deirdre went to visit them in their eighteenth-century stone house in Connecticut and it was so clear that they weren't managing to live on Don's Social Security. Libby was working as an incompetent waitress in a roadside diner off Route 7, a sad little bungalow sandwiched between a McDonald's and a Wendy's. Don had been caught siphoning gas from a neighbor's tractor. Yet he insisted on taking the bus into the city once a month in his wedding tux so he could go to a concert at Carnegie Hall. It didn't matter what was playing, he just needed to be there. Leslie came home from that visit depressed. After three days of brooding, he suggested buying the house next door for the in-laws. He didn't realize they were to become his children.

Leslie turned out the light and lay on his back, trying to void his mind so he could get some sleep. He was so tired, but his heart was pumping in his chest like he'd run up a flight of stairs. Hot beneath the duvet, he flung his great leg out from under the fluff and lay there. Deirdre shifted, mute. She was clutching her sleep-rights tight.

As he waited for unconciousness, an ugly notion settled into Leslie's mind. He had humiliated himself at the Coe house. He felt obscurely ashamed—but for what? He went over the visit, but he could find nothing wrong in the way he had acted. If anything, Don and Libby had made fools of themselves. Maybe that's what it was. He was embarrassed for them? Yet it was personal, this sensation. There was fear mixed in too. Why? What harm could those weirdos do to him? He never had to see them again. Giving up on sleep, he got up and walked to the bathroom.

As he showered, Leslie concentrated on the coming day. He would begin by polishing out the scratches on the windshield of the 1968 Lyman. If that didn't work, they would have to order a new windshield; no way around it. He loved working on the old boats. He'd send the guys out on the outside jobs; he was too tired to drive all day—though he'd have to get Don back to the Coe house to pick up his car eventually. Maybe he'd let Deirdre do that. Thinking about his work, lathering his body, Leslie cleansed his mind as well as his skin. By the time he dried off, he was whistling.