Lunar Park

20. kentucky pete

I kept my gaze fixed on the horizon. The sky was turning black, and the clouds roiling in it kept changing shapes. They resembled waves, crests, the foaming surf of a thousand beaches. My eyes kept checking the rearview mirror to see if anything was following us. I did not give a shit how Sarah would react once she noticed her doll was gone. She was going to have to deal with it, rock ’n’ roll. The writer noticed we were not heading toward the college, and he brought up “Minus Numbers” again. I patiently told the writer that we were not going to the college. I told the writer we were heading back to 307 Elsinore Lane. I told the writer that we needed to get back to Robby’s room. There was information on Robby’s computer. We needed to see what that information consisted of. The information would clarify things. This was why we were heading toward the house and not the college.

What is in the computer is simply a warning, the writer argued.

The answer is in that manuscript and not in those files, the writer argued.

I was drifting off, thinking of my own manuscript. I was thinking of how I knew at that point in time that I was never going to finish it. I dealt with this fact stoically.

When the writer started laughing at me I felt transparent.

The writer laughed: Pull over.

The writer laughed: Drop me off.

The cell phone rang. I grabbed it from the dashboard. It was Pete.

“Where did you get that doll?” I asked the moment I clicked on.

“Hey, Bret Ellis,” Pete drawled, hacking up something. “It’s a little early in the day—we have ourselves an all-nighter?”

“No, no,” I said, flinching. “It’s not that. I just wanted to ask you about that doll—”

“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 fuck?”

“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—”

I clicked off.

I concentrated on the blinding emptiness of the interstate.

What you just heard will not answer anything, Bret. This is what the writer said.

Look how black the sky is, the writer said. I made it that way.