Clandestine

I moved to the grandmother of Michael Harris and tentatively placed an arm around her quaking shoulders. "Mrs. Cadwallader, what happened to Maggie's child? Where was he born? Who did Maggie and Johnny give him up to?"

She shrugged herself free of my grasp. "My grandson was born in Milwaukee. Some unlicensed doctor delivered him. I took care of Maggie after the birth. I lost my husband the year before, and I lost Maggie and I never even saw my grandson."

I held the old woman tightly. "Ssshh," I whispered, "Ssshh. What happened to the baby?"

Between body-wrenching dry sobs, Mrs. Cadwallader got it out: "Johnny took him to some orphanage near Fond du Lac—some religious sect he believed in—and I never saw him."

"Maybe someday you will," I said quietly.

"No! Only half of him is my Maggie! The dead half! The other half is that big, dirty, Dutch drug addict, and that's the part that's still alive."

I couldn't argue with her logic, it was beyond my province. I found a pen on the coffee table and wrote my real phone number in L.A. on the back of my bogus business card. I stuck it in Mrs. Cadwallader's hand.

"You call me at home in a month or so," I said. "I'll introduce you to your grandson."

Mrs. Marshall Cadwallader stared unbelievingly at the card. I smiled at her and she didn't respond.

"Believe me," I said. I could tell she didn't. I left her staring mutely at her living room carpet, trying to dig a way out of her past.

"My baby. My love."

"Where is he?"

"His father took him."

"Are you divorced?"

"He wasn't my husband, he was my lover. He died of his love for me."

"How, Maggie?"

"I can't tell you."

"What happened to the baby?"

"He's in an orphanage back east."

"Why, Maggie? Orphanages are terrible places."

"Don't say that! I can't! I can't keep him!"

I ran through Cutler Park searching for a pay phone. I found one and checked my watch: ten-fifteen, making it eight-fifteen in Los Angeles. A fifty-fifty chance: Either Doc or Michael would answer the phone.

I dialed the operator, and she told me to deposit ninety cents. I fed the machine the coins and got a ringing on the other end of the line.

"Hello?" It was unmistakably Michael's voice. My whole soul crashed in relief.

"Mike, this is Fred."

"Hi, Fred!"

"Mike, are you okay?"

"Sure."

"Where's your father?"

"He's asleep in the bedroom."

"Then talk quietly."

"Fred, what's wrong?"

"Ssshh. Mike, where were you born?"

"Wha-what? In L.A. Why?"

"What hospital?"

"I don't know."

"What's your birthday?"

"August 29."

"1945?"

"Yes. Fred—"

"Mike, what happened in the house on Scenic Avenue?"

"The house—"

"You know, Mike; the friends you stayed with while your mother went on her trip four years ago—"

"Fred, I . . ."

"Tell me, Mike!"

"Da-dad hurt the guys. Dad said that they were never going to hurt any other little boys."

"But they didn't hurt you, did they?"

"No! They were nice to me! I told Dad that—" Michael's voice had risen into a shrill wail. I was afraid he would wake Doc.

"Mike, I have to go now. Will you promise not to tell your father I called?"

"Yes, I promise."

"I love you, Mike," I said, not believing my own ears and hanging up before Michael could respond.

This time it took me a scant twenty-five minutes to make the run back to Milwaukee. Blue Mound Road had become an old friend in the course of three harried hours.

Back within the city limits where Blue Mound Road turned into Wisconsin Avenue, I stopped at a filling station and inquired with the attendant about the whereabouts of Marquette University and Milwaukee's skid row.

"The two are within shouting distance," the youth said. "Take Wisconsin Avenue to Twenty-seventh Street, turn left until you hit State Street. Don't hold your breath, but hold your nose."

Marquette University extended a solid ten blocks on the periphery of a skid row that rivaled L.A.'s Fifth Street for squalor and sheer despair—bars, package liquor stores, blood banks, and religious save-your-soul missions representing every faith and sect imaginable. I parked my car at Twenty-seventh and State and went walking, dodging and sidestepping knots of winos and ragpickers who were passing around short-dogs and gesticulating wildly at one another, babbling in a booze language compounded of loneliness and resentment.

I took my eyes off the street for five seconds and went crashing to the pavement; I had tripped over an old man, naked from the waist up, his lower body wrapped in a gasoline-soaked tweed overcoat. I got to my feet and brushed myself off, then attempted to help the old man up. I reached for his arms, then saw the sores on them and hesitated. The old man noticed this and began to cackle. I reached instead for a hunk of his overcoat, but he rolled himself away from me like a dervish until he was lying in the gutter in a sea of sewer water and cigarette butts. He cursed me and feebly flipped me the finger.