“Right.”
“Well, there’s that thing from the card game. High, Low, Jack, and the Game. But why call him that? There’s Smiling Jack, there’s One-Eyed Jack, there’s Toledo Jack. Why High-Low Jack for Jack Ellery?”
Sooner or later he’d get to it.
“Mood swing,” he said.
“Mood swing?”
“Very changeable guy. He’s up, he’s down. He’s laid-back, he’s jumpy as a cat. He’ll hug you or he’ll slug you. Hey!”
“Hey?”
“Rhymes,” he said. “Hug you, slug you. Anyway, High-Low Jack. Now, wasn’t for the card game, wouldn’t have stuck. Like if his name was Ted, you wouldn’t call him High-Low Ted, because it wouldn’t mean anything. Or say his name was Johnny instead of Jack, which it could have been, they’re both short forms of John, right? High-Low Johnny? I don’t think so.”
“High-Low Jack,” I said.
“Right. Mood swing. Up one minute, down the next.”
Well, that was at least slightly interesting. Maybe it even made sense. One thing it didn’t do was shed any light on the question of who killed him, or why.
“He like that as a little kid?”
“How’s that?”
“You knew him when you were kids, right? Was he like that then, up one minute and down the next?”
“Not that I remember.”
“Maybe he was manic-depressive,” Scooter said. “I don’t know, everybody’s got good days and bad days, don’t they? Shrinks want to hang a label on everybody.”
I was beginning to tire of the conversation. The bottom line seemed to be that Jack was a moody guy, and I didn’t see that leading me anywhere. Whatever moods the man had had, one could only assume they ended at the grave.
“The world’s a heartless place,” I said, and Scooter said he couldn’t agree with me more. I had that right, he assured me.
“High-Low Jack,” he said. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it the first time you asked. Seems so obvious now.”
“Now that you think what a moody fellow he was.”
“Yeah, that’s a fact. One minute he’s cool as a cucumber, next minute he’s hot as a pistol. Wow!”
“Wow?”
“Just thinking, man. It came to me just like that.”
“What did?”
“Expressions, man. How you can turn ’em around and have fun with ’em. Like you could say cool as a pistol, you know?”
“I guess you could.”
“Or hot as a cucumber. Oh, man, can you dig it? ‘That chick is hot as a cucumber.’ I mean, wow.”
“Wow.”
“Just switching things around, you know? Or think how everybody always says they searched every little nook and cranny. Turn it around—every little cranny and nook. Makes just as much sense that way, and yet you never hear it.”
“Remarkable.”
“You said it, man. Why does it always have to be
“Right,” I said.
“Right as a whip. Smart as rain.”
“Uh—”
“Even Jack. High-Low Steven.”
I was hanging up when the last phrase came through. I brought the receiver back to my ear. “Say that again,” I said.
“What?”
“What you just said. About Jack.”
“Oh, just more switching, man. Like you say High-Low Jack and Even Steven, and I switched ’em around.”
“Oh, just expressions.”
“Right, having to do with Jack and his buddy.”
“His buddy.”
