The Swans of Fifth Avenue(83)

“Nah.” Truman closed his eyes again and tilted his face toward the sky, not caring if he got sunburned. “They’re all too stupid. They’ll never recognize themselves. Besides, I’m very clever; I did use a few specific names, just to throw the others off the scent.”

“If you say so,” Jack replied. “But I’d think twice.”

“I don’t have to. Anyway, even if they do recognize themselves, what do they expect? They’re the ones who told me everything in the first place. Even after In Cold Blood. Even after I told them, the dumb bunnies, that I was writing a book about society.”

“What about Babe?”

Truman put his sunglasses on and splashed away on his raft.

“Just think twice, Truman, okay? Promise me you’ll do that?”

What he couldn’t tell Jack was that he couldn’t afford to think twice. He’d promised Esquire a second story, and this was all he had, because he couldn’t write, not really, the pages paralyzed him, his thoughts couldn’t be corralled, and he couldn’t let Jack, of all people, see. Jack, who had fallen in love with him because he was a writer; that was how they met, two serious artists who, on those first cozy mornings in bed together when they were intoxicated by discovery, like conquistadors conquering Mexico, planting flags and staking claim, jokingly argued about who was the Virginia and who the Leonard Woolf of their relationship.

No, he couldn’t let Jack see. And so he sent the story off, the first installment (only?), he told the editor, of his new book, Answered Prayers.

“La C?te Basque 1965,” the story was called.





CHAPTER 18


…..





Ann Woodward woke up that morning feeling like hell.

She always felt like hell, but that morning of October 9, 1975, the sky appeared grayer, the air colder, her breath more of a waste than it had seemed the day before. She had a headache; she’d had a headache for so long, she knew she’d feel worse without one. It was a companion. One of the few she could claim.

The headache, the ostracism, the entrapment—for she really was an animal in a cage, a gilded cage, but the bars were well constructed by her mother-in-law, Elsie. The food doled out grudgingly. The few glimpses of sunshine rationed. Her life was a prison.

Her sons, removed from her, raised by Elsie, and really, who could blame her? It wasn’t as if Ann was a good mother, she knew she wasn’t, but still it stung to have them taken from her like that. Her sons were now two more things she couldn’t call her own anymore.

So Ann rose, took a pill or two—because why not? She didn’t even know, for sure, what they did for her anymore—went to get the mail, and found, in a manila envelope, a copy of the upcoming Esquire, with a photo of Rich Little in a rumpled raincoat on its cover. One of the headlines trumpeted, “At last, Truman Capote’s new novel, Answered Prayers, a first look.” And that headline was circled, with a handwritten suggestion that “You might want to take a look at this.”

Ann’s first reaction was to laugh and toss it in the trash. Why the hell would she want to read Truman’s new book? She despised Truman; he despised her. She really didn’t know why, except that he told someone, who told her, that once she’d called him a fag. Apparently, he took offense at that, which was odd. Lots of people called him a fag, and he was a fag, wasn’t he? So why would she want to read his pathetic little story?

But then Ann thought of the day ahead; of the endless, yawning nothingness, perhaps a pained visit from Elsie, the old cow, or if not a visit then a phone call, just so Elsie could tell one and all that they were still close, of course, why wouldn’t they be?

Well, for starters, Ann always longed to tell her, I killed your son.

That was true. That was fact. Ann had killed Elsie’s son, Ann’s husband, Billy. Billy Woodward.

Sometimes it sounded so strange to say his name. It was like the name of a stranger to her now, he’d been gone so long. Dead, dead, dead…from a bullet that came from a gun held by her. Ann had never tried to claim otherwise.

As far as the accident part, though…

Yes, it was an accident. She hadn’t meant to kill him, not really. No, it wasn’t an accident. She sure as hell intended to scare him, or wound him, or do something that would release her from him, cause him to divorce her, give her a good settlement. Billy was a fag, too. He was. Nobody knew that about him, except Ann. She’d tried to use this as leverage, but he’d not risen to the bait. “No one will believe you,” the bastard told her that night, after yet another fight, a knockdown, drag-out brawl in the bedroom hall, even as their sons were asleep at the other end of the house.

So Ann went to sleep with a gun beside her. Who didn’t? Well, Billy did, too. Or at least, that’s what she told the police when they came, later. And indeed, when they went to Billy’s room to see, they found a revolver next to his bed.

She’d heard a prowler. Everyone knew about the prowlers! She’d heard steps on the roof, the dog barking, and when she went to her bedroom door, she saw a figure in the hallway. She blasted away at it, thinking only of her sons, her precious boys, whom she had to protect, didn’t she?

It wasn’t her fault that Billy had gotten up to pee.

That’s what she told the police. Upon her lawyer’s advice. Elsie’s, too.