Jeremy looked back up at Steve. “O.K. Shoot.”
“Fine,” Steve said. “Start with yesterday. Uncle Jack find you?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“In school.”
“When? Where? How’d it happen?”
“O.K.,” Jeremy said. “It was in the morning. Around eleven-thirty. In between class. I was in the hall just, uh, just hangin’ out. I went to my locker to get my books and there he was.”
“Uncle Jack?”
“Yeah.”
“What’d he do?”
“Well, he was actin’ kinda funny. I mean, he always was kinda funny, but even for him, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” Steve said. “Go on.”
“So he’s thankin’ me for getting him out of Bellevue, and he wants me to go with him.”
“Where?”
“He won’t say. Just I done him a favor, he’s gonna do one for me.”
Steve raised his eyebrows. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. But he don’t say what. It’s just, we gotta get out of here.”
“So?”
“So we start down the hall and Uncle Jack spots a teacher. He says, ‘Meet me out front,’ and scoots around a corner and I lose him. So after that I’m playin’ tag in the hallways with the teacher, and I finally get outside.”
“And he’s there?”
“Yeah, well he’s behind a parked car and he hisses to me.”
“What happens then?”
“We get out of there, we take a bus to Manhattan.”
“Who pays?”
“Him.”
“He had money?”
“Yeah.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know. He’s wearin’ this big old floppy coat, he fishes in the pocket, pulls out a couple of dollars. We take the bus.”
“To where?”
“Port Authority.”
“What happens then?”
“We walk over to Times Square, go down in the subway station.”
“What happens there?”
“He won’t pay, he says, ‘Fuck the Transit system.’ He pushes me under the turnstile, hops under himself.” Jeremy looked up. “Which is stupid, right? There’s a cop right there in the station. He doesn’t see, but he could, you know?”
“Yeah. So?”
“So we go down, catch the Number One up to 66th Street. We get out there, walk to the end of the platform. There’s an old bum sleepin’ there behind a dumpster and he wakes up, but Uncle Jack knows him, says it’s cool. So we sit down there.”
“What for?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m wondering. All he’s told me is, I did him a favor, he’s gonna do me one, then I’m gonna one more for him.”
“So what happened?”
“He whips out a pen and paper and writes a will.”
Steve blinked. “What?”
“He writes out a will. Turns out that was the favor. Some favor. He asks for a pen and when I don’t have one, he makes some crack about how you should always carry a pen, you never know when it’s gonna get you a million bucks. Then he sits down and he writes out a will.”
“Did you read it?”
“Yeah.”
“So what did it say?”
“He leaves his money to me. All of it.”
Steve sighed and rubbed his head. “Jesus.”
“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “Real shocker. But that’s the thing. That’s why I called you. I can afford a lawyer, right? He’s dead, I’m his heir, I got lot of money comin’, right?”
“Holy shit,” Steve said. He shook his head.
“What’s the matter?”
“What happened to the will?”
“He gave it to me.”
“He gave it to you?”
“Yeah. That was the other favor. He’ll do me a favor, then I’ll do him another one. That was it. To hold onto the will for him.”
“Where’s the will now?”
“Cops have it.”
“What?”
“I had it on me when I was arrested. The cops took all my possessions, so they have it now.”
“Oh shit.”
“What’s the matter? They won’t lose it. Safest place for it.”
“Yeah, sure,” Steve said dryly. “All right, let’s hear the rest of it.”
“The rest of it?”
“Yeah. What happened then.”
Jeremy shrugged. “Nothin’. That was it.”
Steve looked at him in exasperation. “No, that isn’t it. You’re in jail charged with murder. I’m trying to find some way to get you out. Let’s go on. Uncle Jack wrote the will and he gave it to you. Was that there in the subway station?”
“Right.”
“So what happened next?”
“Nothin’. I took the will and I left.”
“When?”
“What do you mean, when? Right then. When he gave it to me.”
“He didn’t want you to stick around?”
“No. He told me to take the will, put it in a safe place, say nothin’ about it to no one.”
“And did you?”
“What?”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“Christ, no. Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know. I’m just asking.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“All right. So you left him there in the subway station?”
“That’s right.”
“What’d you do then?”
“What does it matter?”
“I won’t know until I hear. I’m a lawyer. I gotta know the facts. What did you do then?”
“Well, by then it was afternoon, too late to go back to school. Not that I would have anyway. So I took the
