بخش 03 - فصل 28

28

When the girl emerges from Mr Ricker’s homeroom, she’s smiling, so her conference must have gone all right. She even twiddles her fingers in a little wave – perhaps to all three of them, more likely just to Jerome – as she hurries off down the hall.

Mr Ricker, who has accompanied her to the door, looks at Hodges and his associates. ‘Can I help you, lady and gentlemen?’

‘Not likely,’ Hodges says, ‘but worth a try. May we come in?’

‘Of course.’

They sit at desks in the first row like attentive students. Ricker plants himself on the edge of his desk, an informality he eschewed when talking to his young conferee. ‘I’m pretty sure you’re not parents, so what’s up?’

‘It’s about one of your students,’ Hodges says. ‘A boy named Peter Saubers. We think he may be in trouble.’

Ricker frowns. ‘Pete? That doesn’t seem likely. He’s one of the best students I’ve ever had. Demonstrates a genuine love of literature, especially American literature. Honor Roll every quarter. What kind of trouble do you think he’s in?’

‘That’s the thing – we don’t know. I asked, but he stonewalled me.’

Ricker’s frown deepens. ‘That doesn’t sound like the Pete Saubers I know.’

‘It has to do with some money he seems to have come into a few years back. I’d like to fill you in on what we know. It won’t take long.’

‘Please say it has nothing to do with drugs.’

‘It doesn’t.’

Ricker looks relieved. ‘Good. Seen too much of that, and the smart kids are just as much at risk as the dumb ones. More, in some cases. Tell me. I’ll help if I can.’

Hodges starts with the money that began arriving at the Saubers house in what was, almost literally, the family’s darkest hour. He tells Ricker about how, seven months after the monthly deliveries of mystery cash ceased, Pete began to seem stressed and unhappy. He finishes with Tina’s conviction that her brother tried to get some more money, maybe from the same source the mystery cash came from, and is in his current jam as a result.

‘He grew a moustache,’ Ricker muses when Hodges has finished. ‘He’s in Mrs Davis’s Creative Writing course now, but I saw him in the hall one day and joshed him about it.’

‘How did he take the joshing?’ Jerome asks.

‘Not sure he even heard me. He seemed to be on another planet. But that’s not uncommon with teenagers, as I’m sure you know. Especially when summer vacation’s right around the corner.’

Holly asks, ‘Did he ever mention a notebook to you? A Moleskine?’

Ricker considers it while Holly looks at him hopefully.

‘No,’ he says at last. ‘I don’t think so.’

She deflates.

‘Did he come to you about anything?’ Hodges asks. ‘Anything at all that was troubling him, no matter how minor? I raised a daughter, and I know they sometimes talk about their problems in code. Probably you know that, too.’

Ricker smiles. ‘The famous friend-who.’

‘Beg pardon?’

‘As in “I have a friend who might have gotten his girlfriend pregnant.” Or “I have a friend who knows who spray-painted anti-gay slogans on the wall in the boys’ locker room.” After a couple of years on the job, every teacher knows about the famous friend-who.’

Jerome asks, ‘Did Pete Saubers have a friend-who?’

‘Not that I can recall. I’m very sorry. I’d help you if I could.’

Holly asks, in a small and not very hopeful voice, ‘Never a friend who kept a secret diary or maybe found some valuable information in a notebook?’

Ricker shakes his head. ‘No. I’m really sorry. Jesus, I hate to think of Pete in trouble. He wrote one of the finest term papers I’ve ever gotten from a student. It was about the Jimmy Gold trilogy.’

‘John Rothstein,’ Jerome says, smiling. ‘I used to have a tee-shirt that said—’

‘Don’t tell me,’ Ricker says. ‘Shit don’t mean shit.’

‘Actually, no. It was the one about not being anyone’s birthday … uh, present.’

‘Ah,’ Ricker says, smiling. ‘That one.’

Hodges gets up. ‘I’m more of a Michael Connolly man. Thanks for your time.’ He holds out his hand. Ricker shakes it. Jerome is also getting up, but Holly remains seated.

‘John Rothstein,’ she says. ‘He wrote that book about the kid who got fed up with his parents and ran away to New York City, right?’

‘That was the first novel in the Gold trilogy, yes. Pete was crazy about Rothstein. Probably still is. He may discover new heroes in college, but when he was in my class, he thought Rothstein walked on water. Have you read him?’

‘I never have,’ Holly says, also getting up. ‘But I’m a big movie fan, so I always go to a website called Deadline. To read the latest Hollywood news? They had an article about how all these producers wanted to make a movie out of The Runner. Only no matter how much money they offered, he told them to go to hell.’

‘That sounds like Rothstein, all right,’ Ricker says. ‘A famous curmudgeon. Hated the movies. Claimed they were art for idiots. Sneered at the word cinema. Wrote an essay about it, I think.’

Holly has brightened. ‘Then he got murdered and there was no will and they still can’t make a movie because of all the legal problems.’

‘Holly, we ought to go,’ Hodges says. He wants to get over to the Saubers home. Wherever Pete is now, he’ll turn up there eventually.

‘Okay … I guess …’ She sighs. Although in her late forties, and even with the mood-levelers she takes, Holly still spends too much time on an emotional roller coaster. Now the light in her eyes is going out and she looks terribly downcast. Hodges feels bad for her, wants to tell her that, even though not many hunches pan out, you shouldn’t stop playing them. Because the few that do pan out are pure gold. Not exactly a pearl of wisdom, but later, when he has a private moment with her, he’ll pass it on. Try to ease the sting a little.

‘Thank you for your time, Mr Ricker.’ Hodges opens the door. Faintly, like music heard in a dream, comes the sound of ‘Greensleeves.’

‘Oh my gosh,’ Ricker says. ‘Hold the phone.’

They turn back to him.

‘Pete did come to me about something, and not so long ago. But I see so many students …’

Hodges nods understandingly.

‘And it wasn’t a big deal, no adolescent Sturm und Drang, it was actually a very pleasant conversation. It only came to mind now because it was about that book you mentioned, Ms Gibney. The Runner.’ He smiles a little. ‘Pete didn’t have a friend-who, though. He had an uncle-who.’

Hodges feels a spark of something bright and hot, like a lit fuse. ‘What was it about Pete’s uncle that made him worth discussing?’

‘Pete said the uncle had a signed first edition of The Runner. He offered it to Pete because Pete was a Rothstein fan – that was the story, anyway. Pete told me he was interested in selling it. I asked him if he was sure he wanted to part with a book signed by his literary idol, and he said he was considering it very seriously. He was hoping to help send his sister to one of the private schools, I can’t remember which one—’

‘Chapel Ridge,’ Holly says. The light in her eyes has returned.

‘I think that’s right.’

Hodges walks slowly back to the desk. ‘Tell me … us … everything you remember about that conversation.’

‘That’s really all, except for one thing that kind of nudged my bullshit meter. He said his uncle won the book in a poker game. I remember thinking that’s the kind of thing that happens in novels or movies, but rarely in real life. But of course, sometimes life does imitate art.’

Hodges frames the obvious question, but Jerome gets there first. ‘Did he ask you about booksellers?’

‘Yes, that’s really why he came to me. He had a short list of local dealers, probably gleaned from the Internet. I steered him away from one of them. Bit of a shady reputation there.’

Jerome looks at Holly. Holly looks at Hodges. Hodges looks at Howard Ricker and asks the obvious follow-up question. He’s locked in now, the fuse in his head burning brightly.

‘What’s this shady book dealer’s name?’