Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon [118]
“I think I told you about it once,” I said. “A black satin jacket. With a fur collar? Marilyn Monroe wore it when she married Joe DiMaggio.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Crabtree, wrapping his arms around himself. It was a breezy morning, with a chill hint of rain in the air. “I always wanted to get a look at that thing.”
“I took James upstairs to show it to him. I guess James felt sorry for it.”
“And?”
“And so while I was out in the hallway, you know, wrestling with Doctor Dee—he boosted it.”
“How like him,” said Crabtree. The tungsten glint of irony had returned to his voice. “So? I don’t see why that’s a problem.”
“Don’t you?”
“He can just give it back.”
“Uh huh. That’s awfully good thinking, Crabs.”
He squinted at me, trying to determine why I sounded like I was fucking with him.
“Well, so where is it?” he said.
“Lying on the backseat of the car.”
Crabtree looked over his shoulder toward the driveway.
“I see,” he said, after a moment. “And where did we leave the car last night? I can’t quite seem to remember.”
“I feel reasonably certain that we left it right about where you’re looking.”
“Huh? Holy shit, Tripp, what, the car’s been stolen?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “I think it sort of got repossessed.”
“Repossessed? How could it be? I thought you said the fucking thing was some kind of a payoff from Happy Blackmore. I thought he owed you money.”
“It was,” I said. “He did. Only I’m starting to think the car wasn’t exactly Happy’s to give me, if you know what I mean. He never did bring me any pink slip for it. I haven’t been able to register it yet.” I felt myself blush. “Happy kept saying he had the title in his files.”
“In his files,” said Crabtree, looking arch. “Happy Blackmore.”
“I know,” I said. “Sounds pretty stupid, now.”
Several years before, Crabtree had advanced Hap several thousand dollars to ghost the autobiography of a catcher, a rising star who played for Pittsburgh and hit the sort of home runs that linger in the memory for years. Old Happy had spent months engaged in what he called—straight-faced—his preliminary researches before delivering an outline so poorly constructed and filled with inaccuracies that Crabtree and his bosses had immediately moved to cancel the contract. Not long afterward the power-hitting subject himself had died in a car wreck, out on Mt. Nebo Road, leaving nothing in Happy’s notorious “files” but the fragments and scribblings of a ghost.
“Maybe it’s around here somewhere,” I said, hopelessly.
“Sure. Maybe you parked in someone else’s driveway by mistake.”
“I wouldn’t put it past me,” I said. “Ha ha.”
“Ha,” said Crabtree. “Neither would I.”
We went into the house and pulled on shoes and pants, and then took a walk around the block to look for the Galaxie. The morning felt cold and inauspicious, and I was sorry to see that after yesterday’s sunshine the usual heavy clouds had returned, low and threatening and so brilliant they hurt the eyes. As we walked I told Crabtree about my exchange with Vernon Hardapple at the Hi-Hat.
“How did he find you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Happy—oh.”
We’d almost made it back to the house, now, and as we approached the foot of my driveway I spotted a twisted white scrap of paper lying in the grass. I knelt down to pick it up, shook the dew from it, and handed it over to Crabtree.
“I think I might’ve lost a bunch of these that night” I said. “I dropped my wallet”
“‘Grady Tripp, Novelist’?” said Crabtree, reading the soiled business card on which, over my address and telephone number, this dubious legend was engraved.
“Sara gave them to me, for my last birthday,” I said, trying to keep from blushing. “I think she was trying to cheer me up.
“Sweet,” said Crabtree. He slipped the card into the pocket of his T-shirt. “All right, then. Clearly Vernon came and took his car back.”
“Clearly.”
“So.”
“So?”
“So we’re just going to have to find him, and the car, and get the coat back from him.” He nodded, encouraging himself. “I