Donna Tartt - The Secret History

It wasn't until I'd dropped Henry off and was being driven, at a rapid clip, towards the dark center of town, that I realized how poorly I had been apprised of the situation I was heading into.

Henry hadn't told me a thing. Had there been an accident? For that matter, was anyone hurt? Besides, if this was such a big deal – and it was Henry's car, after all – why wasn't he coming, too?

A lone traffic light rocked on a wire over the empty intersection.

The jail, in Hampden town, was in an annex of the courthouse.

It was also the only building in the square that had any lights on that time of night. I told the taxi driver to wait and went inside.

Two policemen were sitting in a large, well-lit room. There were many filing cabinets, and metal desks behind partitions; an old-fashioned water cooler; a gumball machine from the Civitan Club ('Your Change Changes Things'). I recognized one of the policemen – a fellow with a red moustache – from the search parties. The two of them were eating fried chicken, the sort you buy from under heat lamps in convenience stores, and watching 'Sally Jessy Raphael' on a portable black-and-white TV.

'Hi,' I said.

They looked up.

'I came to see about getting my friend out of jail.'

The one with the red moustache wiped his mouth on a paper napkin. He was big and pleasant-looking, in his thirties. 'That's Charles Macaulay, I bet,' he said.

He said this as if Charles were an old friend of his. Maybe he was. Charles had spent a lot of time down here when the stuff with Bunny was going on. The cops, he said, had been nice to him. They'd sent out for sandwiches, bought him Cokes from the machine.

'You're not the guy I talked to on the phone,' said the other policeman. He was large and relaxed, about forty, with gray hair and a froglike mouth. 'Is that your car out there?'

I explained. They ate their chicken and listened: big, friendly guys, big police.385 on their hips. The walls were covered in government-issue posters: fight birth defects, hire veterans, REPORT MAIL FRAUD.

'Well, you know, we can't let you have the car,' said the policeman with the red moustache. 'Mr Winter is going to have to come down here and pick it up himself.'

'I don't care about the car. I just want to get my friend out of jail.'

The other policeman looked at his watch. 'Well,' he said, 'come back in about six hours, then.'

Was he joking? 'I have the money,' I said.

'We can't set bail. The judge will have to do that at the arraignment. Nine o'clock in the morning.'

Arraignment? My heart pumped. What the hell was that?

The cops were looking at me blandly as if to say, 'Is that all?'

'Can you tell me what happened?' I said.

'What?'

My voice sounded flat and strange to me. 'What exactly did he do?'

'State trooper pulled him over out on Deep Kill Road,' said the gray-haired policeman. He said it as if he were reading it. 'He was obviously intoxicated. He agreed to a Breathalyzer and failed it when it was administered. The trooper brought him down here and we put him in the lock-up. That was about two-twenty five a. m.'

Things still weren't clear, but for the life of me I couldn't think of the right questions to ask. Finally I said, 'Can I see him?'

'He's fine, son,' said the policeman with the red moustache.

'You can see him first thing in the morning.'

All smiles, very friendly. There was nothing more to say. I thanked them and left.

When I got outside the cab was gone. I still had fifteen dollars from Henry's twenty but to call another cab I'd have to go back inside the jail and I didn't want to do that. So I walked down Main Street to the south end, where there was a pay phone in front of the lunch counter. It didn't work.

So tired I was almost dreaming, I walked back to the square past the post office, past the hardware store, past the movie theater with its dead marquee: plate glass, cracked sidewalks, stars. Mountain cats in bas-relief prowled the friezes of the public library. I walked a long way, till the stores got sparse and the road was dark, walked on the deep singing shoulder of the highway till I got to the Greyhound bus station, sad in the moonlight, the first glimpse I'd ever had of Hampden. The terminal was closed. I sat outside, on a wooden bench beneath a yellow light bulb, waiting for it to open so I could go in and use the phone and have a cup of coffee.

The clerk – a fat man with lifeless eyes – came to unlock the place at six. We were the only people there. I went into the men's room and washed my face and had not one cup of coffee but two, which the clerk sold me grudgingly from a pot he'd brewed on a hot plate behind the counter.

The sun was up, it was hard to see much through the grime streaked windows. Defunct timetables papered the walls; cigarette butts and chewing gum were stomped deep into the linoleum. The doors of the phone booth were covered in finger 4 prints. I closed them behind me and dialed Henry's number, half-expecting he wouldn't answer but to my surprise he did, on the second ring.

'Where are you? What's the matter?' he said.

I explained what had happened. Ominous silence on the other end.

'Was he in a cell by himself?' he said at last.

'I don't know.'

'Was he conscious? I mean, could he talk?'

'I don't know.'

Another long silence.

'Look,' I said, 'he's going before the judge at nine. Why don't you meet me at the courthouse.'

Henry didn't answer for a moment. Then he said: 'It's best if you handle it. There are other considerations involved.'

'If there are other considerations I'd appreciate knowing what they are.'

'Don't be angry,' he said quickly. 'It's just that I've had to deal with the police so much. They know me already, and they know him Coo. Besides' – he paused – "I am afraid that I'm the last person Charles wants to see,' 'And why is that?'

'Because we quarreled last night. It's a long story,' he said as I tried to interrupt. 'But he was very upset when I saw him last.

And of all of us, I think you're on the best terms with him at the moment.'

'Hmph,' I said, though secretly I was mollified.

'Charles is very fond of you. You know that. Besides, the police don't know who you are. I don't think they'll be likely to associate you with that other business.'

'I don't see that it matters at this point.'

'I am afraid that it does matter. More than you might think.'

There was a silence, during which I felt acutely the hopelessness of ever trying to get to the bottom of anything with Henry.

He was like a propagandist, routinely withholding information, leaking it only when it served his purposes. 'What are you trying to say to me?' I said.

'Now's not the time to discuss it.'

'If you want me to go down there, you'd better tell me what you're talking about.'

When he spoke, his voice was crackly and distant. 'Let's just say that for a while things were much more touch-and-go than you realized. Charles has had a hard time. It's no one's fault really but he's had to shoulder more than his share of the burden.'

Silence.

'I am not asking much of you.'

Only that I do what you tell me, I thought as I hung up the telephone.

The courtroom was down the hall from the cells, through a pair of swinging doors with windows at the top. It looked very much like what I'd seen of the rest of the courthouse, circa 1950 or so, with pecky linoleum tiles and paneling that was yellowed and sticky-looking with honey-colored varnish.

I had not expected so many people would be there. There were two tables before the judge's bench, one with a couple of state troopers, the other with three or four unidentified men; a court reporter with her funny little typewriter; three more unidentified men in the spectators' area, sitting well apart from each other, as well as a poor haggard lady in a tan raincoat who looked like she was getting beat up by somebody on a pretty regular basis.