Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon [117]
“What’s that?” said Officer Pupcik.
“Walter’s jacket,” I said. “Dr. Gaskell’s, uh, his property. It was all a misunderstanding. It was really all my fault. I said I would show him something upstairs, and he didn’t understand that it wasn’t mine, and—” I stopped. I could see Officer Pupcik’s eyes starting to glaze over. No explanation is ever concise or truthful enough to suit a policeman. “Anyway, James would like to give it back.”
“Oh,” said Officer Pupcik, “and that’s a problem, then, isn’t it?” He nodded, once, looking pleased with himself for having figured it out. “You’ve got her in the shop.” He hoisted a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the driveway. “Couldn’t stand seeing her with that nasty ding in the hood, huh?”
“What’s that?” I said. “I don’t—Jesus.”
I had followed them down the porch steps, and now I looked, past the flower beds, over to the driveway. There was nothing in it but a bloody black oil stain on the cement.
“Oh, shit,” I said.
“What’s the matter?” said Officer Pupcik.
“Grady?” said James.
“It’ll be all right, James,” I said, temporizing, trying to think where I could have left the car last night. I’d walked all the way home from campus after the lecture, yes, and—no, that had been two nights ago. “Just try to explain everything to Dr. Gaskell as well as you can. I’ll be along with the jacket as soon as I get it back.”
“So, where is she?” said Officer Pupcik.
“What’s that? Oh, she’s at the body shop, uh huh. That’s right. Damn, I wish I’d thought to get that jacket out of her before I dropped her off.”
“Wull, hey, you’ns want me to drive you over there?”
“Yes, sure, uh, well, no,” I said, cleverly. “That’s all right. I don’t think I’m quite ready to leave the house yet.” I gave what I hoped would pass for a humorous pull on the flap of Mrs. Knopflmacher’s bathrobe. “I have to get dressed. I’ll have Crabtree—my editor, Terry Crabtree—drive me over there. Go on ahead, James. We’ll catch up with you.”
James nodded, appearing somewhat less certain now of the serendipitous drift of things. Officer Pupcik laid a custodial hand on his elbow and guided him over to the squad car. I followed them down to the foot of the driveway, my hands thrust with utmost cool into the geranium pockets of my big chenille robe. As they climbed in on their opposite sides the two young men looked back at me wearing nearly identical expressions of distrust.
Just before he started the car Officer Pupcik rolled down his window. He was holding a pair of aviator sunglasses in his hand but didn’t seem quite ready to slip them onto his face.
“So, let me get this straight,” he said. “You’re saying, you have Dr. Gaskell’s property, or you know where it is, is that it?”
“That’s right. Safe and sound.”
“And as soon as you get it from your car, which you left at a body shop, you’ll be bringing it right on over to him.”
“You betcha.”
He nodded, slowly, made one last furtive examination of Mrs. Knopflmacher’s bathrobe, and put on his sunglasses. Then he rolled up his window and drove away with James. I gave a weak little wave, and I was still there, waving at the empty street like a mad queen on a parade float, when Crabtree appeared at my shoulder a minute later.
“Where are they taking him?” he said. He’d pulled on one of my old T-shirts over his boxer shorts, and he was wearing a pair of Birkenstock sandals I had at some point years ago pilfered from his closet. The shirt, come to think of it, was one of his, too; it was a promotional pocket-T, acquired from a pharmacist lover, which claimed, in lavender script, that Ativan chased the clouds away. I wondered