“Yeah, I guess,” Nutsy said.
“I’ve read some of your stories,” I said.
“That’s impossible,” he said. “Even my mom hasn’t read my stories. I post them on my personal blog, and there are only twelve followers. It’s like a writers’ support group.”
“Is everyone in the group a writer? Even Duncan?”
“He writes poetry. How do you know about my writing? And Duncan?”
“It’s not important how I know. I stumbled on it by accident. What’s important is that Duncan needs to return to Trenton to get a new trial date. Right now, he’s considered a felon.”
“He can’t go back there. It’s too dangerous for him. I’m trying to fix things, but in the meantime, Duncan has to stay hidden.”
“Living with his brother isn’t exactly hidden.”
“It was the best I could come up with,” Nutsy said. “He needs help. His sister-in-law is a dental hygienist. I figure she’s good with medication, at least. In a couple weeks if everything goes right, Duncan should be able to travel. Then he could get better hidden until I can straighten things out. Hell, maybe in a couple weeks, there won’t be an issue anymore.”
“Do you want to tell me the issue?”
“I can’t,” Nutsy said.
“I bet it has something to do with a clown’s oath,” Lula said. “Like the hypocritic oath doctors take. Did you take a clown’s oath?”
“No,” Nutsy said. “There’s no clown oath that I know about.”
“That’s a shame,” Lula said. “It’s one of the oldest professions and seems like there should have been an oath.”
“Maybe Duncan can reschedule his court date using FaceTime,” Nutsy said.
Lula and I looked at each other. We’d never considered FaceTime or Zoom.
“You should call Vinnie,” Lula said to me. “This here could be a game changer. Everyone would reup if they could do it on FaceTime.”
I called Vinnie and got him at the breakfast table.
“Is it possible to write a bail bond any way other than physically bringing the FTA into court or the lockup?” I asked him.
“Like what?” he asked. “Maybe when he’s in the prison ward at the medical center.”
“How about by FaceTime or Zoom?”
“In my dreams,” he said. “Where are you? Fantasyland?”
I hung up. “Great idea, but no,” I said to Nutsy and Lula. “I need to bring him back to Trenton.”
“He’s not in any shape to travel,” Nutsy said. “Give me two weeks to see if I can fix things.”
“And after two weeks?”
“If he’s in good enough shape and it’s safe, I’ll turn him over to you.”
“And if he’s not in good shape or it’s not safe?”
“I don’t know. We’ll talk.”
“Why are you so protective of Duncan?”
“It was my fault that he tried to rob Plover’s. I’m responsible for all this mess.”
“You were involved?”
“Not directly, but I wrote the story that pushed him into doing something stupid.”
“The story about Duncan Dreary.”
“Yeah. I thought it was just a fun thing we were doing together. You know, turning Duncan Dreary into Duncan Dare. Okay, so I’m not the most perceptive dude. I didn’t see that Duncan was buying into the whole transformation thing. I guess I should have known. All those Pink Panther movies. He loved them. I mean, I like them too, but I don’t want to be David Niven as the phantom.”
“Did you have any advance warning? Did he talk about robbing a jewelry store like David Niven?”
“We had lots of story ideas about robbing jewelry stores, but they were just story ideas. At least I thought that’s what they were. I guess you never know what’s going on inside people. One of the things that appealed to me about Duncan was that he was calm. He was like vanilla custard. Cool. Smooth. No surprises. My head is always a mess. I do outrageous things. I’ve done them all my life. Duncan seemed so sane and content with his life. And now it turns out that he was as crazy on the inside as I am on the outside. And then one day he showed up at Plover’s.”
“Wow,” I said.
“I had no advance warning,” Nutsy said. “I went brain-dead. I froze. My first thought was that it was a joke. And then it got serious. He had a gun. Turned out it was a fake gun, but I didn’t know that. I mean, he didn’t wink at me or anything. He was totally Duncan Dare. It scared the crap out of me.”
“That’s because you’re really a clown at heart,” Lula said. “I bet you’re one of those happy clowns with a smiley face and a red nose that goes beep.”
“I didn’t have a red nose,” Nutsy said. “I was more of a contemporary mime.”
“A mime?” Lula said. “Like one of those French guys who pretend there’s a fake wall? No wonder you couldn’t get a job with a circus.”
“A clown is a kind of mime,” Nutsy said. “For the most part, clowns are silent.”
“I never thought of that,” Lula said. “That’s a fact more people should know about.”
“Okay, I sort of get why you want to help Duncan,” I said. “Explain the part about being in danger if he goes back.”
“You won’t believe me. No one ever believes me. I can’t blame them. I’m Nutsy.”
“You could try being Andrew,” I said.
“Andrew and Nutsy are one and the same,” Nutsy said. “Truth is, I like being Nutsy. I’m okay with it. I’m starting to get a grip on it.”
“Good for you,” Lula said. “I see what you’re saying. I was lucky on account of I was Lula when I was born, and I never wanted to be anyone else. I’ve always been big and beautiful. And I got some complexity to me too.”
I suppose I had a grip on being Stephanie, but I felt that it wasn’t much of an accomplishment. I suspected I was a pretty easy book to read.
We were standing by the front door, and I could hear a television on in the next room. I walked in and found Duncan in his recliner.
“Hi,” he said.
His voice was soft, and his eyes were slightly unfocused.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
“Okay,” he said. “I remember you. You came to the hospital.”
“I work for your bail bondsman. You missed your court date, and you need to reschedule.”
“Now?”
“When you’re feeling better.”
“I guess I have to go back to Trenton to do that. I want to go back anyway. I miss Sissy and my goldfish. I even miss my job. I thought I didn’t like it, but now I miss it.”
“Duncan Dare didn’t like it,” I said.
“You know about Duncan Dare? That’s embarrassing. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You were test-driving a new you,” I said.
He smiled for the first time. “Yeah. Duncan Disaster.”
I smiled with him. “You should stick with Duncan Dugan.”
“Am I going to jail?” he asked.
“I don’t know. It’s possible that since you were such a complete failure as a criminal, the judge will be lenient.”
His eyes closed for a second. “Sorry I’m falling asleep,” he said. “They gave me a pill at the doctor’s office.”
I left Duncan and returned to Nutsy.