Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon [123]
“Yeah?” he said. He raised the fingers of his left hand to his nose and idly sniffed at them. Presently it became clear that this was all he intended to say for the moment.
“So do you know him?”
“’Fraid not.”
“Really? I bet he comes here all the time? He’s just a little guy. Looks like a jockey.” His name’s Vernon, I almost added.
Clement took a step backward, and with an expression on his face of profoundest mock regret, started to shut the door.
“We’re closed, Gee,” he said.
“Wait!” I reached out and grabbed hold of the door with both hands. I did it without thinking and my intentions were largely symbolic, but I soon found myself pulling with all the strength in my arms. I didn’t want that door to close on me. “Buddy—!”
Clement smiled, flashing a gold incisor, and let go of the door. I flew backward, clinging like a windsurfer to my steely black sail before I lost my footing and sat down, hard, in the patch of mud by the door. The sound of my impact was impressive but not especially dignified. Clement took a step toward me and stood looking down, hands on his hips. He breathed carefully, like a runner pacing himself. I figured I had about two seconds to tell him something good. I offered him all the money in my wallet and whatever was in Crabtree’s, too. He refused it. The golden tooth winked at me. Clement was the kind of man who smiled only when he was angry. I made him a second offer, and this time he held out his hand to me and helped me to my feet. I looked back at the patch of mud, in which I had impressed my unique personal cartouche. Then I hobbled over to the car, peeling the seat of my jeans away from my skin.
Crabtree had rolled down the window. His eyebrows were arched and he was smirking his Crabtree smirk but there was something unamused in the expression of his eyes.
“Well,” I said, leaning against the door. “Well?”
I swallowed and looked away. I wiped my muddy fingers against one thigh. I told him what I had promised Clement in exchange for the Shadow’s name.
“No way,” he said, but without hesitating he reached into the breast pocket of his linen jacket and pressed a slender plastic prescription vial into my hand. “So he knows him, huh? Who is he?”
“That’s what I’m about to find out.”
“Peterson Walker,” said Clement, slipping the vial carelessly into the back pocket of his jeans. “People call him Pea. He used to fight.”
That figured; Happy Blackmore drew a fair portion of his unsavory acquaintance from the eye cutters and ring rats of the upper Ohio valley.
“A flyweight,” I guessed.
He shrugged. “More like a fleaweight,” he said. “He works for a sporting-goods store. I forget the name. Downtown, Second, Third Avenue. Something with a K.”
“Is it open on Sundays?”
“Man, what I look like? The fucking Yellow Pages?”
“Sorry,” I said. I turned to leave him. “Thanks a lot.”
“Ain’t going to get your car back,” said Clement, sounding suddenly friendly. I stopped and faced him again. “But you might go and get yourself smoked.” This prospect seemed in an abstract way to interest him. “Pea’s been looking for that car for months, man. Saying it used to belong to his brother and shit.”
“What happened to his brother?”
“He got himself smoked.” He cocked his large head to one side and scratched idly at his neck. “Couple of guys from Morgantown. Had something to do with a horse. I heard they was really trying to smoke Pea Walker.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I heard that, too.” I could see this was difficult for Clement to believe. “So this Pea guy carries a gun, huh?”
“That’s right. Big fat German nine.”
“I suppose that’s the kind of thing you would know,” I said, considering his reputation as a master of confiscation. “Is that kind of thing pretty common around here?”
“Ain’t no such thing as a flyweight with a gat,” observed Clement sagely, as he closed the black steel doors.
“Amazing,” said Crabtree when I got back into the car and told him what I’d learned. He was grinning now. “We had the story pretty much right.”
“Except for the sport, I guess, yeah.