Page 17 - WTP VOl. X #3

are you doing? Any news?”
By that time, Holmes had returned the three pounds of bunko weed to his apartment, after keeping it stashed in the library for a month, checking on it ev- ery day, white-knuckling his way through the entire ordeal. Every day, he had pulled the over-sized books away to check on the bag, steeling himself each time to find it gone and discovering he was out six-hun- dred-and-seventy-five dollars. Now the weed was back in his apartment, ready for its eventual moneti- zation, although Holmes was wary about selling it to anyone. Especially Charlie Lambert.
“I can’t help you,” he said to Lambert that night. Lam- bert had climbed the stairs and was looking down at Holmes, his big brown eyes bearing down on him.
“You mean, like not tonight?” Lambert said. “That’s cool.”
Holmes spoke slowly and deliberately. “I mean no deal, Charlie.”
“Not ever?” Lambert said. “That’s right.”
“Why not?”
Holmes didn’t want to say, “Because I think you’re a narc.” Or, “Because I don’t like you.” Instead, he said, “It can’t be done, Charlie. That’s all I can say.”
“All right,” Lambert said, and he walked down the steps and started down the sidewalk toward town. Holmes thought he lived in an apartment further down the hill. His last view of Lambert: the guy was standing in a pool of fluorescent light cast by a street lamp. Outside the light, there was darkness. Lambert stepped out of the light and disappeared.
Holmes never saw him again. He finished the disser- tation, went to parties, celebrated, graduated, moved to Pittsburgh for his first bank job. In two years, he moved to New York. He never saw Lambert again, and he never saw Florio. He kept in touch with a few friends, the connections devolving into an exchange of Christmas cards once a year. Returning to the cam- pus for his fortieth reunion had been an impulsive decision. He figured nostalgia was involved. Middle- aged risk behaviors.
“I never figured out if he was a narc,” he said to Patsy.
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“Every day, he had pulled the over-sized books
away to check on the bag, steeling himself each time to find it gone and discovering he was out six-hundred-and- seventy-five dollars. “
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