There was a combined restaurant/bookstore nearby where we ate. After the meal, we went into the store to browse a while, each going in his own direction. About fifteen minutes later I looked up and by coincidence saw Lily outside talking with Lincoln’s stoned fortune teller. Still sitting, he pointed to something on the table in front of him. I couldn’t make out what but assumed it was one of his cards. Lily paid close attention and wrote hurriedly in a small notebook she often carried. He’d speak, tap the card, gesture, and she’d scribble scribble scribble. I watched until they finished. She took out money and gave it to him. They shook hands and she started back toward the store. I lowered my head to the book in hand. Don’t ask me what the title was. I couldn’t say. She came in and right over to me, smiling and friendly.
“What do you say, lover? About ready to go?”
“Give me another five minutes. I want to check one other thing.”
She went to find Lincoln while I asked the woman at the counter for the section on tarot cards. There were two books. The first said, “Wands. This suit indicates animation and enterprise, energy and growth. The wands depicted in the cards are always in leaf, suggesting the constant renewal of life and growth. The associations are with the world of ideas, also with creation in all its forms.” The second said, “It is the suit of beginnings, of formless fire energy. It requires clear goals and plans, it requires a firm foundation for the energy not to burn itself out. Notice that the knight rides through a desert, devoid of houses and people as well as trees and water. Without something to carry that energy to a purpose, the desert will not open up to life.”
The way I usually do “Paper Clip” is to draw the two figures and their surroundings first, then write the caption. Normally I know how I want it to look and sound, but there are times when the drawing completely changes the final words.
A line I came up with, driving back from Venice, was: “Truth is like oxygen—get too much of it and it makes you sick.” I envisioned my two characters with fishing poles in hand, their lines going into the screen behind them. One of these guys has hooked a fish so enormous that the only detail we see of it is the beginning of a mouth and a colossal eye. Where did the idea come from? I hadn’t found out anything real “bad” about Lily, no terrible new truth. Yet. Still, way down deep in my bones I felt something big and surely bad was coming. Heavy intuition. The sound of devils whispering…
I drew my two guys fishing, drew their fish, wrote the words “Truth is like…” at the bottom of the page, and stopped.
Take out a new sheet of paper. The two are running away from gigantic images of themselves on the screen. I wrote, “Honesty is the Scariest Policy.”
New sheet of paper.
I did four different variations on the idea and would have done a fifth if Lily hadn’t come into the room and asked me to come to bed. As was her way, she put a hand on my shoulder and looked at what I had on the drawing board. My stomach tensed. What would she say? Could she know why I’d done this?
“Gee, Max, these are cynical. They’re not like you. Or are you in a bad mood? Do you really believe this?”
“I believe truth isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“Really? You told me you’re not a big liar.”
I wanted to say this, I wanted to say that. To turn around and look her in the eye, demand, “Are you a big liar? Because you got me running scared, Lily. The more I pursue this, the more my imagination’s going bad. What’s going on? Tell me your secrets. Tell me the truth. No, tell a lie. Say everything’s fine. Even if I don’t believe you for a minute.”
When she left I started another drawing. The two face the reader. Rising out of the screen behind them is a big hairy monster’s arm. It’s clear in the next second it’ll snatch them up and eat them for dinner. Oblivious to what’s coming, one says, “Believe me, Paranoia’s the only sure growth industry in the nineties.”
“Mr. Fischer? This is Tony Goff.”
“Excuse me?”
“Tony Goff, of the Known/Unknown Agency.”
“Oh yes, of course. Excuse me.”
“I gathered a dossier for you. Whenever it’s convenient, I’d like to arrange a meeting.”
“Is there a lot?”
“Yes, it’s quite substantial. I have, oh, almost a hundred pages of material.”
“A hundred pages?”
“Yes, well, in a federal case there’s invariably a great deal of paperwork.”
“Federal? Oh Christ, okay. Can we meet today?”
“I’m at your disposal.”
“My God, they’re both so beautiful!” I looked up quickly to see how Goff reacted to my gush. But it was impossible not to exclaim when you saw the Meiers for the first time. He’d shown me three pictures. You can be fooled by photographs, tricked by light or angle into believing someone is more or less than they really are. But line up three and you get a good idea of what’s true. Anwen and Gregory Meier were beautiful. They belonged at gala openings, in glossy magazine ads for tanning oil or skimpy underwear. See a couple like this on the street and you love and hate them in equal measure. The lucky ones. Golden People. Without knowing a thing about them you assume they’re rich, successful, have a fabulous sex life, a wonderful life generally.
“Wait till you see this last one.” He found a sheet in his thick folder and slid it across the desk to me. “A little different, huh?”
“That’s not the same woman!”
“It is.”
“Unbelievable. She looks fifty years old and dying of cancer.”
“She’s only thirty-three now, and that shot was taken several years ago. I tell you, though, I’ve seen the life sucked out of people for a lot less reason than the one she had. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“No, thanks. Tell me the story, Mr. Goff.”
He rubbed the back of his head and stared at me a long few moments. “Are you a journalist, Mr. Fischer?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“Because of this.” He pointed at the folder. “I know those nonfiction crime books are very popular these days. You know Michael Mewshaw’s? He’s my favorite. The one about the boy who murdered his parents? Outstanding.”
“What does this have to do with the Meiers?”
He didn’t appear to be in any hurry. Pushing his chair back from the desk, he locked his hands behind his head, elbows out, and looked at the ceiling. “A million kids a year disappear in America now. One million. That’s the newest finding. No big thing anymore. In my opinion, it started going out of control back in the sixties when they began vanishing and turning up on communes. Drugs were suddenly for celebrities and not just weird things beatniks took. And Free Love! Since being a virgin didn’t matter anymore, kids could do what they wanted with their bodies and feel grownup the minute they reached puberty. What can my parents tell me I don’t already know? Instant independence. Now, to make it worse, there’s a fifty-percent divorce rate, which means every other kid comes from a broken home. The real statistics are coming out on child abuse in the home. And these new, cheap killer drugs… Ah, don’t get me started. I’m not even talking about teenagers here. Kid fifteen or sixteen runs away, they’re old enough. Maybe not enough to know better, but they can fend for themselves.
“The Meiers’ baby was kidnapped. Two months old. They were living in Garamond, Pennsylvania, at the time. Gregory Meier was a banker in Philadelphia. He went to Haverford College, his wife to Bryn Mawr, which is right next door. Both of them came from New Jersey. High school romance, from what I can make out. They’d been married two years when the baby was born. A boy. His name was Brendan. Brendan Wade Meier.”
“A boy. This was how long ago?”
Goff looked through his papers. “Nine years. Nine years and… three months.”
“Go on.”
He didn’t. He stared at me instead. “You don’t know any of this, do you?”