“Maybe we should get Nader and Mike involved. We can cover more bases.”
“Oliver, allow me to explain the concept of division,” said Benny. “Ten thousand divided by two equals five thousand, correct?”
“Fine, then,” I said. “If you’re worried about your cut of the reward, then why get me involved? You could keep it all to yourself.”
“Ollie, please. We’re best friends.”
It delighted me to hear him say this aloud. Within the dynamics of our quartet, I had always cast myself as Benny’s right-hand man, the Chewbacca to his Han Solo, but there were times I wasn’t so sure. Sometimes I’d catch wind of sleepovers I hadn’t been invited to, and when we hung out the following week, I would find myself squinting with confusion at new terms that had entered the group’s private lexicon in my absence, phrases like douche chill, inside jokes with me on the outside. Hearing him call me his best friend made my ribcage swell.
That is, until he continued, “Plus, we’ll need to get your uncle involved.”
Uncle Stan. My connection to the Hanover Police Department. That’s all it was.
Uncle Stan lived on Beech Street, a couple of miles from our apartment complex. We decided to approach him at home the next day, while he was off-duty, instead of marching into Hanover PD and whipping the entire force into a lather and, as Benny put it, “gathering investors along the way.” Every person we told, Benny said, would want in on the reward money.
“Not sure investors is accurate,” I said.
“Irregardless,” said Benny. “We only tell your uncle, and if he can slap cuffs on Thurston by himself, we’re still talking thirty-three hundred apiece. Not too shabby.”
We strolled beneath maples and sycamores and hemlocks in various stages of corduroy explosion, the sky gunmetal and threatening rain. I had managed to find out from my father, through a little code-making of my own, that Uncle Stan was off-duty on Sunday.
“How’d you get his schedule,” said Benny, “without tipping off your dad?”
“You’re gonna like this,” I said, and I told Benny about the NFL players’ strike and the Wide World of Sports and our game of Mastermind.
I had just arranged my first guess.
“Nope,” said my father.
“You can’t just say nope,” I said. “You have to, like, illustrate where I went wrong.”
“You were totally wrong,” said my father.
“None of my pegs were right?” I said. “That’s barely even possible.”
My father shrugged, and I got an idea.
“Uncle Stan knows how to play.”
“How nice for Uncle Stan.”
“It is nice. He’s really good, too.”
“Maybe I should call him up and congratulate him on his skill with shitty children’s games.”
“Maybe you should, you know, unless he’s at work?”
My father snorted.
“It’s hardly a children’s game. Look. It says six and up on the box.”
“If a seven-year-old can play it, then the goddamn cat can probably play it.” But then something twinkled behind my father’s eyes. “He does have today off, though. I should call and see if he wants to pop on down to the Chalet.” My father waggled his fingertips in anticipation of a frothy pint at his favorite nearby tavern.
My mother came out of the bedroom, holding a dress on either side of her.
“No one’s going to the Chalet. We’re having dinner with the Marklesons. Which one of these should I wear?”
It was as if someone had opened a valve and let all the air out of my father. He deflated back into the couch as, onscreen, a tetrahedron of swimmers kicked their legs in unison.
“The one on the left.”
“Really?” my mother said. “I like the other one.”
Making eye contact with me, he said, “So then why did you ask?”
“I just wanted my opinion confirmed. Which you’ve done. Thank you.”
My father shook his head as if to say, You see what I have to deal with?
Dodging puddles down Beech Street, it occurred to me that our predicament with the reward money was not unlike that of the NFL players trying to get a proportionate slice of the financial pie they risked injury, week after week, to produce.
Benny said, “I give your performance a B.” He paused and added, “Minus.”
“What? We know he’s home.”
“We know he’s not working. Why, in the name of Yoda, did you not simply call him?”
“You’re like the mayor of duplicity! I’m following your lead.”
Benny shook his head and we climbed the front steps of Uncle Stan’s house and rang the doorbell. “If he’s not home I don’t know what we’re gonna do.”
But Uncle Stan opened the door.
“Well, if it isn’t my favorite nephew and Little Lord Shortpants! Come on in.”
Still a bachelor, Uncle Stan’s place suffered, both decoratively and olfactorily, from a lack of female inhabitance. Wrinkled pants lay jettisoned across furniture. Mismatched shoes rested wherever they’d been kicked off. Across from the couch, a recliner was aimed directly at the television instead of at an angle that promoted conversation. The whole place smelled as if someone had just prepared French onion soup, in bare feet, while farting nonstop. Benny, who was accustomed to a meticulous organization of toys and regularly vacuumed rugs and a rigidly charted rotation of Minuteman Candle Company fragrances at his apartment, now walked into my uncle’s house and sat down and said nothing. It took me a moment to realize he was holding his breath.
Uncle Stan fell into the recliner. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
I said, “We’ve got some information. Kind of a lead.”
“Go on,” said Uncle Stan.
Not sure how to proceed, and getting no help from Benny, I said, “Well, there’s this house across the street from our school.”
My uncle said, “I’m with you so far.”
I turned to Benny, who only nodded.
“The one with the pizza place and barbershop.”
“I’m familiar with it,” said Uncle Stan.
Beside me, Benny began to turn blue.
I said, “We think Mickey Thurston is hiding out there.”
Benny’s withheld breath exploded in a great salivary wheeze.
“No! Not like that!” he cried.
“Take it easy!” I said.
Benny let out an animal wail as if his brain had short-circuited. “Goddamn it! You dangle the information! You don’t come right out with it!”
He gasped for air and said, “Mr. Zinn, are you running a dog kennel in here? Or maybe you’ve got a barrel of vinegar fermenting in the kitchen?”
“Well, well, well,” said Uncle Stan. “If it isn’t Woodward and Blowhard. What makes you think it’s him? I mean, hiding out this close to Walpole seems reckless, even for ol’ Mick.”
“That’s what I said!”
But then we told him about the bandages and the raccoon eyes and the lingering in a third-floor window all day and pacing the sidewalk as if his getaway were imminent. Uncle Stan scratched his chin and got up to fetch a beer from the kitchen and Benny lunged for the window and sucked the outdoor air. When he came back into the room Uncle Stan told us to run on home, that he had some things to look into.
We were in English class the next afternoon when we heard the sirens.
“And so our unnamed narrator attempts to tell us not that he is innocent of murdering the old man, but what?” Ms. Hannum surveyed the room.
Generally speaking, I took a casual approach to reading assignments. I’d skim the material or buy CliffsNotes and wing my essays with an above-average degree of success. But “The Tell-Tale Heart” was like four pages long, and I enjoyed it, so I raised my hand.