“What doll, man?”
“That bird thing that I asked you to get for my little girl?” I said, trying to sound like a concerned parent and not one of Pete’s favorite drug fiends. “I needed one of those Terbys for her birthday? And they were sold out everywhere? Do you remember that?”
“Oh, right, yeah, that ugly freakin’ thing you wanted so bad.”
“Yes, exactly,” I said, relieved that Pete actually remembered. We were on course. “Who did you get it from?”
I could hear him shrugging. “Just some contact.”
“Who was it?”
“Why?”
“I need specifics, Pete. Who was it?”
“You sure you’re not high, man?”
Realizing my voice sounded hoarse and labored, I tried to push it into a neutral tone.
“This is important, okay? You don’t need to name names or anything. Did your contact get this through a toy store or someone else or what?”
“I didn’t ask him where he got it.” I could see the glazed expression on Pete’s face in the way he said this. “He just brought it to me.”
Okay. I breathed in. We were heading toward something. The contact was a man.
“What did the guy look like?” I was gripping the steering wheel tightly in anticipation of Pete’s answer.
“What did he look like?” Pete asked. “What the f**k?”
“Was it a young guy? Was it an old guy?”
“Why do you wanna know this shit?”
“Pete, just give me some kind of description.” I lowered my voice. “Please, I think it’s important.”
“It was a younger guy.” Pete said this mystified.
“What did he look like?”
“Look like? He looked like a college kid. In fact he was a college kid. He was a student at that place you teach at, man.”
The writer began grinning.
The writer was writhing ecstatically in his seat.
The writer wanted to applaud.
My silence encouraged Pete to continue.
“I was meeting up with some kids the first week of classes, and I gotta admit I tried everywhere, even a guy I knew down in Cabo—that thing was just not available—and I knew how much cash you were laying out, so I was getting kinda desperate and so I was just asking pretty much everybody and one night when I was . . . visiting . . . the college, making a little run, I asked this group of kids if anyone could get me one of those things and this kid said he could get me one the next day. No problem.”
I was driving down the interstate.
I was ignoring the unswaying palm trees that had turned the interstate into a corridor.
I had aligned the car with the lane we were in.
The writer could no longer contain his glee.
Kentucky Pete kept talking, though what he said no longer mattered.
“And so I stopped by the parking lot of the Fortinbras and we met up and he had it and that’s all she wrote.” Pete inhaled on something, and his voice deepened. “I gave him half the cash and I kept the rest as a finder’s fee and it was a done deal.”
“What did he look like, Pete?”
“Jeez, man, you keep asking that like it means something.”
“It does. Tell me what he looked like.”
Pete paused and inhaled again. “Well, you’re probably gonna think I’m taking the easy way out of this one, but he looked a little like you.”
I found it in myself to ask: “What do you mean?”
“Well, he looked like you if you were a little younger.”
I found it in myself to ask: “Was his name Clayton?”
“I don’t keep records, dude.”
Outside this car everything was a blur. “Was his name Clayton?”
“All I know was that I met him up at the college and he drove this little white Mercedes.” Pete coughed. “I remember the car. I remember thinking damn, the kid is loaded. I remember thinking that this was going to be a very lucrative term.” Static. “But I never saw the kid again.”
The Porsche swerved slightly. Another wave of fear delivered.
“Was his name Clayton?” I stuttered and tried to sit up straight. I might as well have been talking to myself.
There was a long pause crackling with static. And then there was silence.
I was about to click off.
“You know what?” Pete finally returned. “I think that was his name. Yeah, Clayton. Sounds right.” A concerned pause during which Pete figured something out. “Wait a minute—so you know the guy? Then what the hell are you calling me for—”