Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon [38]
“It’s what he’s always done, you know,” I said. “But now …” I put my hands on the steering wheel and rocked it from side to side. “I get the feeling he’s going through the motions a little bit.”
“Because his career’s ruined, you mean?”
“Jesus,” I said. I squeezed the wheel tightly, as if we were about to fishtail on an icy road, and pressed my foot against the brake pedal, although we weren’t going anywhere. “Is that what he told you?”
“He said he hasn’t had a success in ten years and everyone in New York thinks he’s kind of a loser,” Tony said. He angled the mirror back toward me, and as he fiddled with it I caught a flash of my own swollen, sleepless face. “After that it was hard not to feel sorry for him.”
“But I guess he helped you there, didn’t he?”
“He did his best.” Tony lay a hand on the sleeve of my jacket. His fingernails, though bare, were still extravagant and nasty. “I’m sure your book is so good that he’ll be able to keep his job.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Isn’t it?”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s a gem.”
“Sure it is,” he said. “I have to go, all right?” I nodded. “Are you going to be okay?”
There was the rattle and slam of a screen door, and we turned toward the house. The porch light had come on, yellow and haloed in the rain, and I saw a small, white-haired man watching us from the top step, a hand raised to his forehead.
“My pop,” said Tony. “Hey!”
Something darted down the steps, past the statue of the Virgin, and then there was a scrabbling sound at the passenger door, and a sharp, white grin at the window.
“Shadow!” He opened the door to admit a fat, charcoal blue poodle who appeared delighted to see Tony Sloviak again. “Hi, girl!” The dog scrambled to get her forepaws, then her hind legs, up onto Tony’s lap, and proceeded to work over his face with her slow pink tongue. Tony turned his head this way, that way, laughing and pushing her down. “My dog,” he said.
“I gathered that.”
“Oh,” he said, “who’s my baby? Yes. You. You. Oh, who’s my—hey! Shadow!”
The dog dropped down from his lap, back out of the car, and cut suddenly away to the right. The next instant we heard her, at the back of the car, whistling a low sad canine tune.
“She found Doctor Dee,” I said.
“Grady,” said Tony, putting his hand to his mouth. “My other bags. I’m going to need to get in there.”
“That’s fine,” I said. I cut the engine. “Just as long as you get back out.”
We went around to the rear of the car, watched carefully by Shadow and the slender old man on the porch. I popped open the lid of the trunk.
“Stay down, Shadow,” said Tony, lowering his hand like a harness around the poodle’s shoulders so that she was unable to execute her apparent intention of leaping into the trunk and paying her last respects to Doctor Dee. “Hey, Grady, what, uh, what did happen to that poor husky dog?”
“James Leer shot him,” I said, pulling out the plaid Gladstone bag and setting it on the ground. “It was kind of a misunderstanding.”
“That kid’s fucked up,” said Tony. “And when your friend Crabtree gets through with him, he’s going to be even more fucked up.”
I fished out Crabtree’s empty garment bag and then slammed shut the lid of the trunk.
“I’m not sure that’s possible,” I said, but I wasn’t being honest. In my heart I believed that James Leer could still be saved, though not by Terry Crabtree; and if he could be saved, then he could always be made more fucked up.
“So, what, he packs a gun, that kid?”
“Sort of,” I said. I switched the garment bag to my left hand and reached into the hip. pocket of my jacket for the stainless little pistol. “He was carrying this. Actually, at one point tonight,