Finders Keepers

by Stephen King

  "Not for money!" Red Lips shouts back. "He sold out!"

  He takes a step forward, the muzzle of the gun dipping slightly.

  "He sent Jimmy Gold to hell and called it advertising! And by the way, who are you to be high and mighty? You tried to sell the notebooks yourself! I don't want to sell them. Maybe once, when I was young and stupid, but not anymore. I want to read them. They're mine. I want to run my hand over the ink and feel the words he set down in his own hand. Thinking about that was all that kept me sane for thirty-six years!"

  He takes another step forward.

  "Yes, and what about the money in the trunk? Did you take that, too? Of course you did! You're the thief, not me! You!"

  In that moment Pete is too furious to think about escape, because this last accusation, unfair though it may be, is all too true. He simply grabs one of the liquor decanters and fires it at his tormentor as hard as he can. Red Lips isn't expecting it. He flinches, turning slightly to the right as he does so, and the bottle strikes him in the shoulder. The glass stopper comes out when it hits the carpet. The sharp and stinging odor of whiskey joins the smell of old blood. The flies buzz in an agitated cloud, their meal interrupted.

  Pete grabs another decanter and lunges at Red Lips with it raised like a cudgel, the gun forgotten. He trips over Halliday's sprawled legs, goes to one knee, and when Red Lips shoots--the sound in the closed room is like a flat handclap--the bullet goes over his head almost close enough to part his hair. Pete hears it: zzzzz. He throws the second decanter and this one strikes Red Lips just below the mouth, drawing blood. He cries out, staggers backward, hits the wall.

  The last two decanters are behind him now, and there is no time to turn and grab another. Pete pushes to his feet and snatches the hatchet from the desk, not by the rubberized handle but by the head. He feels the sting as the blade cuts into his palm, but it's distant, pain felt by somebody living in another country. Red Lips has held on to the gun, and is bringing it around for another shot. Pete can't exactly think, but a deeper part of his mind, perhaps never called upon until today, understands that if he were closer, he could grapple with Red Lips and get the gun away from him. Easily. He's younger, stronger. But the desk is between them, so he throws the hatchet, instead. It whirls at Red Lips end over end, like a tomahawk.

  Red Lips screams and cringes away from it, raising the hand holding the gun to protect his face. The blunt side of the hatchet's head strikes his forearm. The gun flies up, strikes one of the bookcases, and clatters to the floor. There's another handclap as it discharges. Pete doesn't know where this second bullet goes, but it's not into him, and that's all he cares about.

  Red Lips crawls for the gun with his fine white hair hanging in his eyes and blood dripping from his chin. He's eerily fast, somehow lizardlike. Pete calculates, still without thinking, and sees that if he races Red Lips to the gun, he'll lose. It will be close, but he will. There's a chance he might be able to grab the man's arm before he can turn the gun to fire, but not a good one.

  He bolts for the door instead.

  "Come back, you shit!" Red Lips shouts. "We're not done!"

  Coherent thought makes a brief reappearance. Oh yes we are, Pete thinks.

  He rakes the door open and goes through hunched over. He slams it shut behind him with a hard fling of his left hand and sprints for the front of the shop, toward Lacemaker Lane and the blessed lives of other people. There's another gunshot--muffled--and Pete hunches further, but there's no impact and no pain.

  He pulls at the front door. It doesn't open. He casts a wild glance back over his shoulder and sees Red Lips shamble out of Halliday's office, his chin wreathed in a blood goatee. He's got the gun and he's trying to aim it. Pete paws at the thumb-lock with fingers that have no feeling, manages to grasp it, and twists. A moment later he's on the sunny sidewalk. No one looks at him; no one is even in the immediate vicinity. On this hot weekday afternoon, the Lacemaker Lane walking mall is as close to deserted as it ever gets.

  Pete runs blindly, with no idea of where he's going.

  30

  It's Hodges behind the wheel of Holly's Mercedes. He obeys the traffic signals and doesn't weave wildly from lane to lane, but he makes the best time he can. He isn't a bit surprised that this run from the North Side to the Halliday bookshop on Lacemaker Lane brings back memories of a much wilder ride in this same car. It had been Jerome at the wheel that night.

  "How sure are you that Tina's brother went to this Halliday guy?" Jerome asks. He's in the back this afternoon.

  "He did," Holly says without looking up from her iPad, which she has taken from the Benz's capacious glove compartment. "I know he did, and I think I know why. It wasn't any signed book, either." She taps at the screen and mutters, "Come on come on come on. Load, you bugger!"

  "What are you looking for, Hollyberry?" Jerome asks, leaning forward between the seats.

  She turns to glare at him. "Don't call me that, you know I hate that."

  "Sorry, sorry." Jerome rolls his eyes.

  "Tell you in a minute," she says. "I've almost got it. I just wish I had some WiFi instead of this buggery cell connection. It's so slow and poopy."

  Hodges laughs. He can't help it. This time Holly turns her glare on him, punching away at the screen even as she does so.

  Hodges climbs a ramp and merges onto the Crosstown Connector. "It's starting to fit together," he tells Jerome. "Assuming the book Pete talked about to Ricker was actually a writer's notebook--the one Tina saw. The one Pete was so anxious to hide under his pillow."

  "Oh, it was," Holly says without looking up from her iPad. "Holly Gibney says that's a big ten-four." She punches something else in, swipes the screen, and gives a cry of frustration that makes both of her companions jump. "Oooh, these goddam pop-up ads make me so fracking crazy!"

  "Calm down," Hodges tells her.

  She ignores him. "You wait. You wait and see."

  "The money and the notebook were a package deal," Jerome says. "The Saubers kid found them together. That's what you think, right?"

  "Yeah," Hodges says.

  "And whatever was in the notebook was worth more money. Except a reputable rare book dealer wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot po--"

  "GOT IT!" Holly screams, making them both jump. The Mercedes swerves. The guy in the next lane honks irritably and makes an unmistakable hand gesture.

  "Got what?" Jerome asks.

  "Not what, Jerome, who! John Fracking Rothstein! Murdered in 1978! At least three men broke into his farmhouse--in New Hampshire, this was--and killed him. They also broke into his safe. Listen to this. It's from the Manchester Union Leader, three days after he was killed."

  As she reads, Hodges exits the Crosstown onto Lower Main.

  "'There is growing certainty that the robbers were after more than money. "They may also have taken a number of notebooks containing various writings Mr. Rothstein did after retiring from public life," a source close to the investigation said. The source went on to speculate that the notebooks, whose existence was confirmed late yesterday by John Rothstein's housekeeper, might be worth a great deal on the black market.'"

  Holly's eyes are blazing. She is having one of those divine passages where she has forgotten herself entirely.

  "The robbers hid it," she says.

  "Hid the money," Jerome says. "The twenty thousand."

  "And the notebooks. Pete found at least some of them, maybe even all of them. He used the money to help his folks. He didn't get in trouble until he tried selling the notebooks to help his sister. Halliday knows. By now he may even have them. Hurry up, Bill. Hurry up hurry up hurry up!"

  31

  Morris lurches to the front of the store, heart pounding, temples thudding. He drops Andy's gun into his sportcoat pocket, snatches up a book from one of the display tables, opens it, and slams it against his chin to stanch the blood. He could have wiped it with the sleeve of his coat, almost did, but he's thinking again now and knows better. He'll have to go o
ut in public, and he doesn't want to do that smeared with blood. The boy had some on his pants, though, and that's good. That's fine, in fact.

  I'm thinking again, and the boy better be thinking, too. If he is, I can still rescue this situation.

  He opens the shop door and looks both ways. No sign of Saubers. He expected nothing else. Teenagers are fast. They're like cockroaches that way.

  Morris scrabbles in his pocket for the scrap of paper with Pete's cell phone number on it, and suffers a moment of raw panic when he can't find it. At last his fingers touch something scrunched far down in one corner and he breathes a sigh of relief. His heart is pounding, pounding, and he slams one hand against his bony chest.

  Don't you give up on me now, he thinks. Don't you dare.

  He uses the shop's landline to call Saubers, because that also fits the story he's constructing in his mind. Morris thinks it's a good story. He doubts if John Rothstein could have told a better one.

  32

  When Pete comes fully back to himself, he's in a place Morris Bellamy knows well: Government Square, across from the Happy Cup Cafe. He sits on a bench to catch his breath, looking anxiously back the way he's come. He sees no sign of Red Lips, and this doesn't surprise him. Pete is also thinking again, and knows the man who tried to kill him would attract attention on the street. I got him pretty good, Pete thinks grimly. Red Lips is now Bloody Chin.

  Good so far, but what now?

  As if in answer, his cell phone vibrates. Pete pulls it out of his pocket and looks at the number displayed. He recognizes the last four digits, 8877, from when he called Halliday and left a message about the weekend trip to River Bend Resort. It has to be Red Lips; it sure can't be Mr. Halliday. This thought is so awful it makes him laugh, although the sound that comes out sounds more like a sob.

  His first impulse is to not answer. What changes his mind is something Red Lips said: Your house used to be my house. Isn't that an interesting co-inky-dink?

  His mother's text instructed him to come home right after school. Tina's text said their mother knew about the money. So they're together at the house, waiting for him. Pete doesn't want to alarm them unnecessarily--especially when he's the cause for alarm--but he needs to know what this incoming call is about, especially since Dad isn't around to protect the two of them if the crazy guy should turn up on Sycamore Street. Dad's in Victor County, doing one of his show-and-tells.

  I'll call the police, Pete thinks. When I tell him that, he'll head for the hills. He'll have to. This thought brings some marginal comfort, and he pushes ACCEPT.

  "Hello, Peter," Red Lips says.

  "I don't need to talk to you," Peter says. "You better run, because I'm calling the cops."

  "I'm glad I reached you before you did something so foolish. You won't believe this, but I'm telling you as a friend."

  "You're right," Pete says. "I don't believe it. You tried to kill me."

  "Here's something else you won't believe: I'm glad I didn't. Because then I'd never find out where you hid the Rothstein notebooks."

  "You never will," Pete says, and adds, "I'm telling you as a friend." He's feeling a little steadier now. Red Lips isn't chasing him, and he isn't on his way to Sycamore Street, either. He's hiding in the bookshop and talking on the landline.

  "That's what you think now, because you haven't considered the long view. I have. Here's the situation: You went to Andy to sell the notebooks. He tried to blackmail you instead, so you killed him."

  Pete says nothing. He can't. He's flabbergasted.

  "Peter? Are you there? If you don't want to spend a year in the Riverview Youth Detention Center followed by twenty or so in Waynesville, you better be. I've been in both, and I can tell you they're no place for young men with virgin bottoms. College would be much better, don't you think?"

  "I wasn't even in the city last weekend," Pete says. "I was at a school retreat. I can prove it."

  Red Lips doesn't hesitate. "Then you did it before you left. Or possibly on Sunday night, after you got back. The police are going to find your voicemail--I was sure to save it. There's also DVD security footage of you arguing with him. I took the discs, but I'll be sure the police get them if we can't come to an agreement. Then there's the fingerprints. They'll find yours on the doorknob of his inner office. Better still, they'll find them on the murder weapon. I think you're in a box, even if you can account for every minute of your time this past weekend."

  Pete realizes with dismay that he can't even do that. He missed everything on Sunday. He remembers Ms. Bran--alias Bran Stoker--standing by the door of the bus just twenty-four hours ago, cell phone in hand, ready to call 911 and report a missing student.

  I'm sorry, he told her. I was sick to my stomach. I thought the fresh air would help me. I was vomiting.

  He can see her in court, all too clearly, saying that yes, Peter did look sick that afternoon. And he can hear the prosecuting attorney telling the jury that any teenage boy probably would look sick after chopping an elderly book dealer into kindling with a hatchet.

  Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I submit to you that Pete Saubers hitchhiked back to the city that Sunday morning because he had an appointment with Mr. Halliday, who thought Mr. Saubers had finally decided to give in to his blackmail demands. Only Mr. Saubers had no intention of giving in.

  It's a nightmare, Pete thinks. Like dealing with Halliday all over again, only a thousand times worse.

  "Peter? Are you there?"

  "No one would believe it. Not for a second. Not once they find out about you."

  "And who am I, exactly?"

  The wolf, Pete thinks. You're the big bad wolf.

  People must have seen him that Sunday, wandering around the resort acreage. Plenty of people, because he'd mostly stuck to the paths. Some would surely remember him and come forward. But, as Red Lips said, that left before the trip and after. Especially Sunday night, when he'd gone straight to his room and closed the door. On CSI and Criminal Minds, police scientists were always able to figure out the exact time of a murdered person's death, but in real life, who knew? Not Pete. And if the police had a good suspect, one whose prints were on the murder weapon, the time of death might become negotiable.

  But I had to throw the hatchet at him! he thinks. It was all I had!

  Believing that things can get no worse, Pete looks down and sees a bloodstain on his knee.

  Mr. Halliday's blood.

  "I can fix this," Red Lips says smoothly, "and if we come to terms, I will. I can wipe your fingerprints. I can erase the voicemail. I can destroy the security DVDs. All you have to do is tell me where the notebooks are."

  "Like I should trust you!"

  "You should." Low. Coaxing and reasonable. "Think about it, Peter. With you out of the picture, Andy's murder looks like an attempted robbery gone wrong. The work of some random crackhead or meth freak. That's good for both of us. With you in the picture, the existence of the notebooks comes out. Why would I want that?"

  You won't care, Pete thinks. You won't have to, because you won't be anywhere near here when Halliday is discovered dead in his office. You said you were in Waynesville, and that makes you an ex-con, and you knew Mr. Halliday. Put those together, and you'd be a suspect, too. Your fingerprints are in there as well as mine, and I don't think you can wipe them all up. What you can do--if I let you--is take the notebooks and go. And once you're gone, what's to keep you from sending the police those security DVDs, just for spite? To get back at me for hitting you with that liquor bottle and then getting away? If I agree to what you're saying . . .

  He finishes the thought aloud. "I'll only look worse. No matter what you say."

  "I assure you that's not true."

  He sounds like a lawyer, one of the sleazy ones with fancy hair who advertise on the cable channels late at night. Pete's outrage returns and straightens him on the bench like an electric shock.

  "Fuck you. You're never getting those notebooks."

  He ends the call. T
he phone buzzes in his hand almost immediately, same number, Red Lips calling back. Pete hits DECLINE and turns the phone off. Right now he needs to think harder and smarter than ever in his life.

  Mom and Tina, they're the most important thing. He has to talk to Mom, tell her that she and Teens have to get out of the house right away. Go to a motel, or something. They have to--

  No, not Mom. It's his sister he has to talk to, at least to begin with.

  He didn't take that Mr. Hodges's card, but Tina must know how to get in touch with him. If that doesn't work, he'll have to call the police and take his chances. He will not put his family at risk, no matter what.

  Pete speed-dials his sister.

  33

  "Hello? Peter? Hello? Hello?"

  Nothing. The thieving sonofabitch has hung up. Morris's first impulse is to rip the desk phone out of the wall and throw it at one of the bookcases, but he restrains himself at the last moment. This is no time to lose himself in a rage.

  So what now? What next? Is Saubers going to call the police despite all the evidence stacked against him?

  Morris can't allow himself to believe that, because if he does, the notebooks will be lost to him. And consider this: Would the boy take such an irrevocable step without talking to his parents first? Without asking their advice? Without warning them?

  I have to move fast, Morris thinks, and aloud, as he wipes his fingerprints off the phone: "If 'twere to be done, best it be done quickly."

  And 'twere best he wash his face and leave by the back door. He doesn't believe the gunshots were heard on the street--the inner office must be damned near soundproof, lined with books as it is--but he doesn't want to take the risk.

  He scrubs away the blood goatee in Halliday's bathroom, careful to leave the red-stained washcloth in the sink where the police will find it when they eventually turn up. With that done, he follows a narrow aisle to a door with an EXIT sign above it and boxes of books stacked in front of it. He moves them, thinking how stupid to block the fire exit that way. Stupid and shortsighted.