Actually, since the patrol car was on the road, backlit against the summer sky, I made it back pretty quickly, but not before I ran into a few puddles. I turned on the dome light, clicked on the radio and dumped everything out of the wallet. State of California license, an insurance card, there was an ID card—Princeton—so once I got Mario on the radio, things moved quickly.
Mario said he'd radioed for an ambulance, but he had no idea how long it would take with the traffic.
"This is important, Mario!"
"I know, babe, really. And they'll turn on all the lights and sirens, but I just can't tell you more. So make sure this kid isn't gonna bleed out, and then brace his head and keep him talking. I'm running the car info through now, so hold on a sec."
I was squinting at the contents of the wallet. Both the driver's license and the ID card were made out to one Charles Edward Eppes, and the pictures matched. But it was a faculty ID and according to the license, Charles Edward was all of 20 years old. I could spot a fake New Jersey or New York ID from ten paces, but I didn't know what a California license was supposed to look like. And who would get one that said you were twenty? There were other cards: public library, Triple A, credit card, a photocopy card for the Princeton Library Consortium, something marked "Institute for Advanced Study Lab Admittance." All made out for the same guy. There was $31 in paper money and another $1.47 in change. (Yes, I counted it. I was nervous, OK? I was probably only waiting on Mario for maybe two minutes, but it felt like longer.) There was a stub from the New York Subway, a piece of gum, a safety pin, a couple of receipts, business cards from a publishing company, lots of slips of paper. Also a baseball card: Don Eppes of the Rangers. That was the only piece of paper that didn't have numbers scribbled all over it, back and front. So many numbers that I actually had trouble picking out the one where I'd written the license plate info. (Jesus, was Mario ever going to get back to me? I couldn't just sit here all night waiting for him to run the damn plates.).
No one would go through the trouble to manufacture a whole fake wallet, to put in all the crap that people pick up and stuff in their pockets in the course of a week. The guy in the car, even though he looked sixteen, was apparently a twenty year old associate professor. I wasn't surprised when Mario clicked back to tell me that the car really was registered to a Dr. Eppes, who apparently lived in California but was in Princeton for the year on some kind of academic exchange whatever. "Got good news for you though, babe."
"Mario, if you call me 'babe' again, you're gonna end up looking worse than the kid in that car. Where's my ambulance?"
He skated right past my question. "Good news is, this car has been in a couple of accidents before: two in California, one in Princeton and another one outside Chicago."
"It's an old car, Mario. Why is this supposed to make me feel better?"
"Cause all the accidents were within the past two years: Dr. Eppes runs into stuff all the time and he's always come out just fine."
"Everybody's luck runs out sometime," I said and really hated how squeaky my voice got.
"Hey, it's just—look, a lot of the damage, the structural damage to the car? That's not new, is all I meant. It didn't all happen tonight. It's not as bad as it looks, babe." He was very nice about it, really, and it did make me feel a little better, so I didn't tell him not to call me babe. I told him to do something about that ambulance while I kept Charles conscious.
Back out into the humid night. The insect racket surprised me all over again. Leaving the flashlight had actually been a good idea: the wreck wasn't exactly illuminated, but at least I wouldn't have to worry about the ambulance missing it.
I was probably gone for less than five minutes, but I can't tell you how relieved I was when I got to the car and the kid—Charles—smiled at me. Ok, he was alive and awake. All I had to do was keep him that way until the ambulance arrive.