Taboo: A Memoir Ch. 11-12

Jacquot thought about it, thumb on his chin, tongue inside his lower lip making his tag of whiskers bristle. "I'd need some cash up front...to make the buys."

"How much?" I asked.

"Twenty thousand."

"That much we could probably get."

We eyed each other like two hostile business rivals edging towards a merger.

"I can supply you," Jacquot said in his hoarse voice, "but it can't be directly. We'd need a cut out...a drop box...so you don't get the stuff right from me. I leave it there, you pick it up later. If you get busted, there's gotta be no way it can get traced back to me."

"I wouldn't tell 'em anything."

"The hell you wouldn't. Anybody would. The thing is to keep 'em from proving it."

"Yeah, OK." He was going for it. Now we were just working out the details.

"I'll think it over," Jacquot said.

"Good. Otherwise...." I let my voice trail off. "It's the only way to avoid something terrible...for all of us."

He crossed his legs and assessed me coolly, running his index finger along his broken nose.

"Diana can't know about this," I went on. "She'd never go along with it. So tell her you'll settle for twenty thousand."

"For now."

He still wanted to torment her. My hatred of him flared up again, but I repressed it into a shrug of male complicity. "Have it your way. But as soon as I pay you the two hundred thou...if you try for any more...I'll kill you. I don't care what happens."

"Big talk." He snorted with dismissive contempt, but his eyes were full of pain. "You two are really crazy, you know that? It's the weirdest! I heard about this kind of stuff but never thought...." He gave a harsh laugh to show he was worldly. "How long you been diddling her?"

I tried to slide back into the man-talk mode. "Not long. It's a new development. How'd you figure it out?"

His smirk showed he enjoyed having his sleuth skills appreciated. "That first night when I looked at the bed...got me to thinking. She's got no boyfriend, but there's two pillows next to one another, both with head holes in 'em, nice and cute and cuddly like. Then I see a guy's socks and underwear tossed in the corner...jockey shorts—like young guys wear." He laughed mockingly at me. "Hey, I'm a slob too. Like father, like son." His smile turned malicious again. "So I thought it was worth doing a little sneak and peak. What clinched it was—I never saw lights on in your bedroom on the weekends, just in hers. Ha! I knew you must be sleeping with her. Then I had to get the evidence."

"That you did." I let him have his moment of glory, then stood up and said, "I need to use the john."

"Right in there." His tone was almost hospitable.

Now began the real purpose of my visit. I was hoping there'd be a window big enough to get through from the outside if I left it unlocked. But there was only a tiny vent. That meant Plan B.

I took off the top of the toilet and saw that the shut-off bulb on the float mechanism was attached by a cord. I opened my pocket knife, plunged it into the water, and frayed the cord apart with the blade to make it look like it had broken. I put the top back on and flushed the toilet, then washed my hands and knife at the sink but dried them on my jeans rather than use his mildewed towels.

"The toilet won't shut off...just keeps running," I told Jacquot when I came out. "Might overflow."

"Goddamnit!" He glared at me and went to check it. "What'd you dump in it? All your used rubbers?"

As soon as he was out of the room, I unlocked the windows by the fire escape, then took out one of the two lids of grass I'd brought with me and shoved it out of sight under the couch.

Jacquot came out muttering about plumbing. We warily agreed to talk in a few days about our deal. As I looked at his gloomy, haggard face and thought about how we were trying to ruin each other's lives, I winced with regret. It shouldn't have to be this way. My mind wandered through a maze of might-have-beens. If he hadn't run out on us...stayed around...I could've had a real father, whatever that meant. We could've been a regular family...if there was such a thing. Jacquot could've been someone I looked up to...my buddy. I wouldn't've known what a jerk he was...he'd just be my dad. We could've gone fishing together. He could've taught me how to shoot baskets. But then mom and I probably wouldn't be doing what we were doing...and I'd a lot rather be doing that than shooting baskets. This was our life and I liked it. If we had to fight to keep him from destroying it, so be it. I left without shaking his hand.

Out on the street I found his Triumph and taped the other lid of grass under the cycle seat.

Next day I came back during his work hours. His bike was gone. I knocked on his door: no answer. I climbed out onto the fire escape through the hall window, circled around to his apartment, opened the window, and slid inside. If someone saw me, they might called the cops, but I thought the chances were slight. It was a poor neighborhood in the summer—people hang out on the fire escapes, since they don't have AC or balconies. And most poor people don't want anything to do with the cops.

The apartment was so small it didn't take long to find the pictures. He had a couple of telephotos of mom and me riding in the buff, but I guess he couldn't get close enough to snap our revels by the beaver dam. The photos of us playing inside were a bit blurred, probably because of the low light and slow speed, but you could tell who it was and what we were doing. The last one caught the terror on mom's face as she looked up and saw him.

The negatives weren't there. He must've locked them up someplace, maybe a safe deposit box. I looked for that kind of a key but couldn't find one.

Footsteps thudded up the stairs, then down the hall; my heart began jackhammering. I ran to the window and opened it, about to flee, but whoever it was walked on past. With a sigh of relief I continued hunting.

In a little box with a pair of cuff links and a tie clasp I found a folded piece of paper with "89" then "20-10-22" written on it. The second number looked like a combination, the first could be a box number. But what kind? Not safe deposit—I didn't think they used combinations. Maybe one of those private mailbox places that had just started up. It was a hot new business, like a post office box but more confidential. I'd heard drug dealers used them for their shipments.

That was all I could find, so I left, figuring Jacquot wouldn't know I'd been there unless he looked for the pictures.

At a phone booth I checked the Yellow Pages and wrote down the addresses of all the mailbox places. I chugged to each one on my moped, tried that combination on box 89, but none of them opened. The Yellow Pages were a year old, though, so new places wouldn't be in there. I called the phone company and asked for new listings, but the operator said I'd have to know the exact name of the place, she couldn't check the files of the upcoming Yellow Pages by business type.

I was stymied. I knew someone could get them to check those files. Someone official in the Public Defender's office, for example. But that meant I'd have to tell her. There was no way out of it, so I phoned her at work.

At first Diana freaked out—she thought I'd get killed. But I kept explaining it until she realized it might work and it was our best chance...maybe our only chance.

"But what happens when he finds out they're gone?" she asked. "He'll know it's us."

"By then he'll be back in prison." I told her the rest of the plan.

Mom hated it, of course, but the brute logic of "better him than us" finally won out. She agreed to try to get the addresses and phone numbers of the new mailbox businesses.

It didn't take her long until she met me with the list. One of the places was near his apartment, so we went there first. I spun the combination on box 89; the dial clicked in; the box opened. We held our breaths. Inside lay a stamped, unmailed envelope addressed to the district attorney. "Just take it," Diana whispered. "Let's get out of here."

Sitting in the Beetle, we opened the envelope with trembling hands. Inside were curled strips of negatives and a handwritten letter from Jack Frye to the district attorney: "Enclosed is evidence I have gathered in a felony case of a crime against nature, incest. The photos of this perverted mother-son couple should be enough to convict them. To keep me from testifying against them, they may frame me for a crime or even kill me, in which case I have instructed a third party to mail this to you so you can bring them to justice and prosecute them to the full extent of the law. The perpetrators, I am sorry to say, are my former girlfriend and my son. I did everything I could to get them to stop their immoral activities, but now it is up to the court. Their names and address are...."

"Well that's one letter that won't get mailed," I said, giddy with relief.

Diana burst into laughter, close to hysteria. "Right, I'll deliver it to the DA personally. I have to see him this afternoon."

We kissed and hugged and bounced up and down, savoring our victory. We matched the prints to the negatives, with mom looking mortified, and found they were all there. "Ha!" she said triumphantly.

My spirits suddenly sank under a heavy thought. "He could've made another set...hidden it somewhere else."

Her expression turned serious as she pondered the possibility. "He could've. If he was dealing with pros, he probably would. But I bet he didn't think we're enough of a threat for him to have to bother. He couldn't imagine we'd find them."

I shot her a V sign. "But we did!"

"What bugs me most about it," mom said, still wigged out, "—the negatives turned my pubic hair all white. But I don't have any gray hair, especially there!"

"Let's get out of here...before we go crazy."

As Diana backed out of the parking space, Jacquot swung into the lot on his motorcycle. He saw us, roared behind us, and blocked our way.

"Oh my god!" mom cried. We both locked our doors.

Jacquot leaped off his bike and propped it on its kick-stand behind the car. He strode over to her window. Beneath his black helmet and silver goggles, his droopy black mustache curled in a grimace around yellow teeth. He tried the door, then pounded on the glass.

With a determined scowl Diana put the Beetle into reverse and backed right into his Triumph, knocking it over and pushing it across the parking lot. Jacquot screamed curses and kicked the car door. She put the Beetle into first gear and drove forward, leaving the bike behind and pealing out of the parking lot. Jacquot ran to his battered machine, pulled it upright and kicked the starter pedal. I was praying it'd be broken, but the engine roared to life, and he hopped on and chased after us.

Panic flaring from her face, mom floored the gas, but he caught up, darting and buzzing around us like an angry bee. The bike was scratched and one of the handlebars bent, but it ran. For now our battle was a stand-off: he couldn't stop us but we couldn't lose him.

How did he find out? Maybe a neighbor had seen me crawling out the window and phoned him at work.

Mom saw a police car approaching. She started blasting out SOSs on the horn, then rolled down her window and waved frantically. The cop drove past us, and mom's face fell in disappointment. Then he switched on his flashers and siren and made a U; mom's face lit up. "Stick around, Jacquot," she said.

Jacquot was gone.

I was so proud of her—Superwoman had saved the day.

I gave the patrolman a variation of the story I was going to phone in to the station: The man on the cycle was a drug dealer who had been pushing grass at my school. When I had told him to leave or I would turn him in, he had become furious and started threatening me and following me around. He was becoming more and more violent.

"You know the guy's name?" the officer asked me.

"No, but I've got his motorcycle number. And I know he keeps his dope underneath the seat, not in the saddlebags."

The cop radioed this information in, then offered to escort us home. Mom said thanks but she was sure the pusher was long gone and he didn't know where we lived.

Instead of going home, though, we spent the night in an out-of-the-way motel. We didn't sleep much and were too nervous to make love, but it was good to hold each other and know we'd made it this far. We were very glad to be together.

The next day Diana checked the booking records and found Jack Frye had been arrested for possession of a controlled substance. Since that was a parole violation, he'd be held without bail until trial and then sent back to Attica with this sentence added to the one on which he'd been paroled. This would be his third drug conviction—Jacquot would be away a long time.

"We've as good as killed him," Diana said when all this had sunk in. She wept with remorse. For someone who hated prisons as much as she did, this was about the worst thing she could've done to another person.

I felt bad too. Even though he had started the viciousness, he was still my dad. But I knew we had no other choice. "That's what he was trying to do to us, put us in prison. It's self defense...basic law of nature."

"It's murder," said mom.