“He’ll be okay, girl. Wait and see, he’ll be fine.”
But in case he wasn’t, I looked under the bed. Where, according to Mr. Bowditch, I’d find everything I needed. There was the holstered gun on its concho-studded belt. There was his keyring and a wallet I’d never seen before. And there was an old-fashioned cassette tape recorder that I had seen, perched atop one of the plastic milk-crates of rickrack on the third floor. I looked in the recorder’s window and saw there was a Radio Shack cassette in the machine. Either he had been listening to something or recording something. My money was on recording.
I put the keyring in one pocket and the wallet in another. I would have put the wallet in my backpack, but it was still at school. I took the rest of the stuff upstairs and put it in the safe. Before closing the door and spinning the combination, I went to one knee and plunged my hands wrist-deep in those gold pellets. As I let them sift through my fingers, I wondered what would happen to them if Mr. Bowditch died.
Radar was whining and barking from the foot of the stairs. I went down, sat on the rollaway, and called my dad. I told him what had happened. Dad asked how he was.
“I don’t know. I didn’t see him. I’m going to the hospital now.”
Halfway across the goddam bridge, my phone rang. I pulled into the Zip Mart parking lot and took the call. It was Melissa Wilcox. She was crying.
“He died on the way to the hospital, Charlie. They tried to revive him, they tried everything, but the infarction was too bad. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
I said I was, too. I looked at the window of the Zip Mart. The sign there was the same: a heaped plate of fried chicken that was THE BEST IN THE LAND. The tears came and the words blurred. Mrs. Zippy saw me and came out. “Everything all right, Cholly?”
“No,” I said. “Not really.”
There was no point in going to the hospital now. I pedaled back across the bridge and then walked my bike up Sycamore Street Hill. I was too pooped to ride, especially not up that steep grade. I stopped outside our house, but that house was empty and would be until my father got home. Meanwhile, there was a dog that needed me. I guessed she really was my dog now.
6
When I got back to Mr. Bowditch’s house, I spent some time petting Radar. I cried while I did it, partly from shock but also because it was sinking in: there was a hole where I’d had a friend. The stroking soothed her, and it did the same for me, I guess, because I began to think. I called Melissa back and asked if there would be an autopsy. She told me there wouldn’t be, because he hadn’t died unattended and the cause was clear.
“The coroner will write out a death certificate, but he’ll need some ID. Do you have his wallet, by any chance?”
Well, I had a wallet. It wasn’t the same as the one Mr. Bowditch carried in his hip pocket, that one was brown and the one I’d found under the bed was black, but I didn’t tell Melissa that. I just said I had it. She said there was no rush, we all knew who he was.
I was starting to wonder about that.
I Googled Leon Braddock’s number and called him. The conversation was short. Braddock said that all of Mr. Bowditch’s affairs were in order, because he had not expected to live long.
“He said he didn’t intend to buy any green bananas. I thought that was charming.”
The cancer, I thought. That was why he put his affairs in order, that was what he expected to get him, not a heart attack.
“Did he come to your office?” I asked.
“He did. Earlier this month.”
When I was in school, in other words. And he hadn’t told me anything about it.
“I bet he took a Yoober.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Nothing. Melissa—his physical therapist—says someone, the coroner I guess, needs to see ID for the death certificate.”
“Yes, yes, just a formality. If you take it to the hospital’s front desk, they’ll make a photocopy. Driver’s license if he still has one—even an expired one would do, I think. Something with a picture. Not a rush, they’ll release the body to the funeral home without it. I don’t suppose you have any idea which funeral home—”
“Crosland,” I said. It was the one my mother was buried out of. “Right here in Sentry.”
“Very good, very good. I’ll take care of the expenses. He left money in escrow for just such a sad eventuality. Please tell me what the arrangements are, perhaps your parents can take care of that. I’ll want to see you afterward, Mr. Reade.”