Where I'm Calling From

think my bike cost about sixty dollars, you guys,” the boy named Gilbert said. “You can pay me for it.”
    “You keep out of this, Gilbert,” the woman said to him.
    Hamilton took a breath. “Go on,” he said.
    “Well, as it turns out, Kip and Roger used Gilbert’s bike to help Kip deliver his papers, and then the two of them, and Gary too, they say, took turns rolling it.”
    “What do you mean ‘rolling it’?” Hamilton said.
    “Rolling it,” the woman said. “Sending it down the street with a push and letting it fall over. Then, mind you—and they just admitted this a few minutes ago—Kip and Roger took it up to the school and threw it against a goalpost.”
    “Is that true, Roger?” Hamilton said, looking at his son again.
    “Part of it’s true, Dad,” Roger said, looking down and rubbing his finger over the table. “But we only rolled it once. Kip did it, then Gary, and then I did it.”
    “Once is too much,” Hamilton said. “Once is one too many times, Roger. I’m surprised and disappointed in you. And you too, Kip,” Hamilton said.
    “But you see,” the woman said, “someone’s fibbing tonight or else not telling all he knows, for the fact is the bike’s still missing.”
    The older boys in the kitchen laughed and kidded with the boy who still talked on the telephone.
    “We don’t know where the bike is, Mrs. Miller,” the boy named Kip said. “We told you already. The last time we saw it was when me and Roger took it to my house after we had it at school. I mean, that was the next to last time. The very last time was when I took it back here the next morning and parked it behind the house.” He shook his head. “We don’t know where it is,” the boy said.
    “Sixty dollars,” the boy named Gilbert said to the boy named Kip. “You can pay me off like five dollars a week.”
    “Gilbert, I’m warning you,” the woman said. “You see, they claim,” the woman went on, frowning now,
    “it disappeared from here, from behind the house. But how can we believe them when they haven’t been all that truthful this evening?”
    “We’ve told the truth,” Roger said. “Everything.”
    Gilbert leaned back in his chair and shook his head at Hamilton’s son.
    The doorbell sounded and the boy on the draining board jumped down and went into the living room.
    A stiff-shouldered man with a crew haircut and sharp gray eyes entered the kitchen without speaking. He glanced at the woman and moved over behind Gary Berman’s chair.
    “You must be Mr. Berman?” the woman said. “Happy to meet you. I’m Gilbert’s mother, and this is Mr. Hamilton, Roger’s father.” The man inclined his head at Hamilton but did not offer his hand.
    “What’s all this about?” Berman said to his son.
    The boys at the table began to speak at once.
    “Quiet down!” Berman said. “I’m talking to Gary. You’ll get your turn.”
    The boy began his account of the affair. His father listened closely, now and then narrowing his eyes to study the other two boys. When Gary Berman had finished, the woman said, “I’d like to get to the bottom of this. I ‘m not accusing any one of them, you understand, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Berman—I’d just like to get to the bottom of this.” She looked steadily at Roger and Kip, who were shaking their heads at Gary Berman.
    “It’s not true, Gary,” Roger said.
    “Dad, can I talk to you in private?” Gary Berman said.
    “Let’s go,” the man said, and they walked into the living room.
    Hamilton watched them go. He had the feeling he should stop them, this secrecy. His palms were wet, and he reached to his shirt pocket for a cigarette. Then, breathing deeply, he passed the back of his hand under his nose and said, “Roger, do you know any more about this, other than what you’ve already said?
    Do you know where Gilbert’s bike is?”
    “No, I don’t,” the boy said. “I swear it.”
    “When was the last time you saw the bicycle?” Hamilton said.
    “When we brought it home from school and left it at Kip’s house.”
    “Kip,” Hamilton said, “do you know where Gilbert’s bicycle is now?”
    “I swear I don’t, either,” the boy answered. “I brought it back the next morning after we had it at school and I parked it behind the garage.”
    “I thought you said you left it behind the house,” the woman said quickly.
    “I mean the house! That’s what I meant,” the boy said.
    “Did you come back here some other day to ride