fifty-three

The room Marsellus had directed me to clearly reflected a woman’s tastes: pale Victorian striped wallpaper, an antique escritoire, wing chairs. When I got there, after changing Henry’s diaper and washing up in the bathroom, Marsellus was standing by the window.

He said mildly, “You should have come and talked to me a year ago.”

“I know,” I said.

He went on: “Trey was a very active child. Almost hyperactive. Me, he’d mind, but I’d seen him disobey his nanny repeatedly, run away from her when she’d told him to stay close to her side. I’d seen him run out into the street before, though he’d been told repeatedly not to. My wife and I were thinking of getting a man to look after him, someone who could take a firmer hand. But Miss Beauvais was a nice girl, and Trey liked her, so we put off that decision.” He paused, looking out the window. “When Trey died, I was very angry. Some of it was at her, and some at you. But a lot of it was at myself, for not doing something earlier.

“I have, like you said, a certain reputation in business. Some of that is deserved. Some of it is rumor and exaggeration. I don’t always discourage that, since with fear comes respect. But a reputation like mine has unintended consequences. It was the reason Trey’s nanny left town in the middle of the night. I assume she was acting on the same incorrect conclusion you later did, though to be fair to you, her disappearance gave you a little more evidence for it.”

Then he said, “The hardest rumors to combat are the ones that are never printed or even spoken in your presence. I know that some people continue to believe I had Trey’s nanny killed, and there’s nothing I can do to fight that.”

I nodded.

Marsellus said, “The advice you were getting in the days after Trey’s death, to give me some space, was that from Cletus Mooney?”

Again I was surprised. He saw it and said, “I didn’t learn about the connection until months after you left town. A business associate of mine used to see you two together in the clubs. You went to high school together, is that it?”

“He’s my cousin,” I said.

“Interesting guy,” Marsellus said. “Lotta people curious to see what kind of work he’ll be doing when he’s thirty.” He looked out the window again, then back to me. Finally he said, “This is a very big thing that you’re asking me to do.”

“I know,” I said.

“What are you going to do if I say no?”

“Stay hidden as long as I can, fight if I have to fight,” I said. “I know this is a big thing I’m asking, a lifetime, really. But I think this baby’s going to be something special. I think he’ll have things to give you, not just you to him.”

Marsellus was quiet a long time. I resisted the urge to jump into the silence with more selling points.

Finally he said, “Trey is buried next to my father in Inglewood Park Cemetery. Go apologize to him, like you have to me, and then we’re square.”

“You’ll take the baby?”

“Yes,” he said. “I will.”

In the first-floor entryway, Marsellus’s man took out the clip to my SIG and reloaded it for me, then handed it back.

Marsellus had accompanied me down, Henry in his arms. He said to me, “What are you going to do about Skouras? Do you expect to be able to hide from him forever?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly.

“I won’t protect you from his people. You and I are square, but I don’t owe it to you to start a war with an organization like his.”

“I know,” I said.

“Good luck, then,” he said. Then he turned to his driver. “Please take Miss Cain wherever she needs to go.”