Fair enough.
The screen blanks out. The Kid backs away from the Wife, who sits stunned in front of the computer. The Writer hunches over beside her, still staring at the screen as if wanting more. The Kid moves slowly toward the door thinking: I never should’ve said that shit about my fee because now they’re going to ask me how much he paid me and the Wife’s going to ask for the money back and I’ll have to give her what’s left of it if she does on account of she’ll need it for her kids and it isn’t like I actually earned the money by working for it but then I’ll be broke again and homeless with no job and I won’t be able to feed Annie and Einstein or even myself except by Dumpster diving so now I’m totally fucked again!
But they don’t ask him about his fee. They don’t ask him about anything. For the Wife and the Writer, the Kid’s interview with the Professor has provided nothing but answers. Instead of asking questions, they make statements.
Her pale face soaked with tears, the Wife turns and looks up at the Kid, who’s never seen a woman cry before: Thank you, she says. Then to the Writer: Thank you both. I know the truth now. I finally know who my husband really was. Finally! And I know what to expect. And when it comes, no matter how awful it is I’ll know how to deal with it and how to protect my children from it. I’ll be able to tell them that whatever people say about their father it isn’t true! And someday when they’re old enough to understand such things I’ll play this for them. So thank you! For their sake as much as mine.
The Writer places a hand on her shoulder. Some people would consider your husband a hero. I’m one of them.
The Kid stops at the door not so much surprised as appalled and stares at the two. They believe the Professor’s stupid story! Both of them! The Writer has leaned down and embraced the Wife. She sobs onto his shoulder wetting the sleeve of his yellow and red Hawaiian shirt.
The Kid slips out the door and waits in the Town Car.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ON THE DRIVE BACK TO APPALACHEE THE Kid slumps in the passenger’s seat in sulky silence with his arms folded across his chest and his feet propped against the dashboard while the Writer natters on — at least from the Kid’s perspective — about the Professor’s courage in accepting the fatal consequences of his past associations and the man’s loving-kindness toward his wife and children by making sure they knew the truth. Arming them against the coming scandal, he says.
The Kid tamps back an impulse to ask the Writer if he’s forgotten about the sick e-mail correspondence between Big Daddy and Doctor Hoo. Buried treasures and secret maps. Captain Kydds and Peter Pans. Disgusting! The Writer believes what he wants to be true, not what he knows to be true. Who does he think told the cops where to find the Professor’s body anyway? Who else had a motive? No one. It had to be the Professor himself. It was the only way he could be sure his cover story would get delivered to his wife, the only way he could defend himself from beyond the grave and also go out feeling smarter than everyone else. He probably holed up in a cheesy by-the-hour motel at a minimall somewhere west of the city for a few nights until his disappearance got on TV, then drove out to the canal and made an anonymous phone call to the cops with the motor of his van already running, lowered the window, and tossed the phone into the water, snapped the bike locks onto his wrists and feet, somehow shifted the van into drive and floored it. It would have given the crabs and eels only an hour or so to do all that damage to the Professor’s face but maybe that’s enough when they’re hungry. Complicated — maybe too complicated — but just complicated enough if you were married to the man like the Wife was or are slightly paranoid and believe in conspiracies like the Writer does to make suicide not quite believable which is exactly what the Professor needed to make his story believable to his wife and no doubt someday to his kids and evidently to the Writer as well.
But not to the Kid.
The Kid’s not buying it. Though he’d like to. It would help him sort out how to deal with the money. His fee. If the Professor’s story is a big fat lie and he was a big fat chomo into kiddie porn and worse then the money the Kid received for filming the story and delivering it to Gloria makes him an accomplice in the Professor’s big fat lie and life. Which makes the money dirty and he ought to hand it over to Gloria and her kids the same as if the Professor stole it from them. But if the Professor’s story is actually true then the money’s clean — it’s payment for the Kid’s services which involved a certain degree of risk for him and maybe still does if those secret agents assuming they exist ever find out about it — and he’s entitled to keep what’s left of the ten K and spend it any way he wants.
It’s in the Kid’s interest then, his financial interest, to believe the Professor’s story is true. It’s the only way he can afford to rent the houseboat and live out there with Annie and Einstein in Appalachee at the edge of Paradise among normal people like Dolores and Cat and the ranger. Otherwise he’ll have to give the money to the Wife and he’ll be penniless and without a job or a home and will have to go back down under the Causeway and live with the ghosts and whoever else among the convicted sex offenders of Calusa County shows up there. And he won’t be able to take proper care of Annie and Einstein or even feed himself except by stealing garbage from behind restaurants and supermarkets after they close.
He says to the Writer, You really believe the Professor’s story, right?
Definitely!
But how do you know it’s true? Instead of just believing it’s true.
You mean, do I have proof? Like scientific proof? No, of course not. Hardly anything about human behavior can be known that way. Even our own behavior. We just have to choose what to believe and act accordingly, Kid.
Yeah, well, I need to know if his story is true or not. Because as far as believing goes, I can come down on either side. And if I come down on one side my “human behavior” will be different than if I come down on the other and vice versa. No matter which side I come down on, I’ll worry it’s the wrong side and my human behavior will be wrong too. This ain’t a novel or a movie, y’ know, where that shit don’t matter as long as you know by the end what really happened.
The Writer laughs and shakes his head. You’re shoveling some heavy shit there, Kid. But I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. Whether he killed himself or someone else known or unknown did it for him, the Professor is dead and gone. You delivered his DVD to his widow and presumably you collected your fee, which I understand from Cat amounted to a rather large supply of hundred-dollar bills, right?
Yeah. Right.
So whether you believe the Professor’s story or not, your life will go on pretty much the same tomorrow as yesterday. You can live out there on your houseboat like Huckleberry Finn on his raft until your money runs out and then probably work for Cat and Dolores at the store until something better comes along. Sounds pretty nice to me, little buddy. I don’t see how your “human behavior” will be affected one way or the other by your not having scientific proof that the Professor’s story is true. You gotta believe, Kid! You just gotta believe.
Not, the Kid says. ’Course, that’s easy for you to say, you’re a writer. For people like me it’s not so easy to believe things. Every time I believed someone or something I totally fucked up my life. So you can let that one go, man.