“How long has this routine been going on?”
“How many years?”
“Yeah. How many years?”
“About four years.”
“How old are you, Gummy?”
“Seventeen.”
“So you couldn’t have been using the minibus as a signal to the chief originally. What were you using?”
“My bicycle. I’d chain it to a parking meter: He’d be able to see it through his office window. My bike had a purple banana seat and a high rear-view mirror.”
“How did you get started being the go-between?”
“I got hooked my first year in high school. The runner was a senior named Jeff. He blew his brains out with a shotgun. I didn’t know he had been the runner until next time I went to Fat Sam.”
“Was it Fat Sam who got you going?”
“No. The day after I was turned off I was pretty uptight, you know, pretty nervous. It was all beginning to hang out. In fact, I don’t think I had really known I was hooked until that day. Until Jeff killed himself and the supply turned off. A couple of cops met me at the bicycle rack, at the school. They picked me up and brought me to the station. I was scared shitless. The chief closed the door to his office, and we had our first talk. We made our first deal.”
“It was the chief who first got you going?”
“Yes.”
“Was it Fat Sam who gave you your first drugs?”
“No. It was Jeff. At the high school. He got his free. He had extra. He gave it to me. I guess, seeing I was the son of the superintendent, they figured getting me hooked would give them some extra protection. At least regarding the drugs in the school. After a few months, Jeff stopped giving it to me free and sent me to Fat Sam. He said I wanted too much. For a while, until Jeff blew his brains out, I had to pay for it.”
“How did you pay for it?”
“I burglarized my parents’ house three times.”
“Your own house?”
“Yeah. I was afraid to burglarize anyone else’s. I was just a little kid. I really hated stealing the color television.”
“Did your parents ever suspect you?”
“No. They would just report the burglary to Chief Cummings. Buy new stuff with the insurance money.”
“Do your parents know you are a drug addict?”
“Yes. I guess so.”
“Have they never talked to you about it?”
“No. Dad doesn’t want to make an issue out of it. After all, he’s superintendent of schools.”
“Okay, Gummy. Just sit there and let me type a minute.”
Fletch typed almost a whole page, single-spaced. He had Gummy sign the three copies. Lewis Montgomery. He had the handwriting of a nine-year-old boy. Fletch witnessed the signature on each copy.
“Is Bobbi really dead?”
Fletch said: “Yes.”
“She OD’d?”
“Yes.”
“Shit, I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
“It’s time this whole scene broke up. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, I’ve been wondering how it would stop. Jeff blew his brains out.”
“I know.”
“I do feel badly about Bobbi.”
“I know.”
Fletch put the third copy of the deposition folded into his back pocket. He put the typewriter back into its case.
Gummy said, “What will happen to me now?”
“Tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock, I want you to be waiting at the beer stand. Fat Sam will be waiting there with you. You’ll be picked up. Probably by plainclothesmen. Until tomorrow at eleven o’clock, I want you to shut up.”
“Okay. Then what will happen? What will the fuzz do to me?”
“They’ll probably bring you to a hospital and check you in under another name.”
“I’ve got to come down, huh?”
“You want to, don’t you?”
“Yes. I think so.”
Fletch did not understand why Gummy did not leave. The boy remained sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, his face toward the window.
It was a moment before Fletch realized Gummy was crying.
Fletch walked into the lean-to carrying the typewriter.
Fat Sam was lying on his back on a bedroll on the sand, reading Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization. The bedroll stank. Fat Sam stank.
“Hello, Vatsyayana.”
In a back corner of the lean-to was a pile of empty soup cans. They stank.
Fletch handed Vatsyayana Gummy’s deposition.
“I.M. Fletcher, of the News-Tribune.”
Fat Sam put the book face-down on the sand.
While Fat Sam read the deposition, Fletch sat cross-legged on the sand and opened the portable typewriter case. Again he put an original and two carbons in the carriage.