The truth about the money is out, but maybe he can say money was all he found, and hide the fact that he tried to sell a murdered man’s most private property just so his sister could go to a school where she wouldn’t have to shower in a pack. And where her dumb friend Ellen would be in the rearview mirror.
He knows his chances of getting out of this clean are slim approaching none, but at some point – maybe this very afternoon, watching the hands of the clock move steadily toward the hour of three – that has become of secondary importance. What he really wants is to send the notebooks, especially the ones containing the last two Jimmy Gold novels, to NYU. Or maybe The New Yorker, since they published almost all of Rothstein’s short stories in the fifties. And stick it to Andrew Halliday. Yes, and hard. All the way up. No way can Halliday be allowed to sell any of Rothstein’s later work to some rich crackpot collector who will keep it in a climate-controlled secret room along with his Renoirs or Picassos or his precious fifteenth-century Bible.
When he was a kid, Pete saw the notebooks only as buried treasure. His treasure. He knows better now, and not just because he’s fallen in love with John Rothstein’s nasty, funny, and sometimes wildly moving prose. The notebooks were never just his. They were never just Rothstein’s, either, no matter what he might have thought, hidden away in his New Hampshire farmhouse. They deserve to be seen and read by everyone. Maybe the little landslide that exposed the trunk on that winter day had been nothing but happenstance, but Pete doesn’t believe it. He believes that, like the blood of Abel, the notebooks cried out from the ground. If that makes him a dipshit romantic, so be it. Some shit does mean shit.
Halfway down Lacemaker Lane, he spots the bookshop’s old-fashioned scrolled sign. It’s like something you might see outside an English pub, although this one reads Andrew Halliday Rare Editions instead of The Plowman’s Rest, or whatever. Looking at it, Pete’s last doubts disappear like smoke.
He thinks, John Rothstein is not your birthday fuck, either, Mr Halliday. Not now and never was. You get none of the notebooks. Bupkes, honey, as Jimmy Gold would say. If you go to the police, I’ll tell them everything, and after that business you went through with the James Agee book, we’ll see who they believe.
A weight – invisible but very heavy – slips from his shoulders. Something in his heart seems to have come back into true for the first time in a long time. Pete starts for Halliday’s at a fast walk, unaware that his fists are clenched.
23
At a few minutes past three – around the time Pete is getting into Hodges’s Prius – a customer does come into the bookshop. He’s a pudgy fellow whose thick glasses and gray-flecked goatee do not disguise his resemblance to Elmer Fudd.
‘Can I help you?’ Morris asks, although what first occurs to him is Ehhh, what’s up, Doc?
‘I don’t know,’ Elmer says dubiously. ‘Where is Drew?’
‘There was sort of a family emergency in Michigan.’ Morris knows Andy came from Michigan, so that’s okay, but he’ll have to be cagey about the family angle; if Andy ever talked about relatives, Morris has forgotten. ‘I’m an old friend. He asked if I’d mind the store this afternoon.’
Elmer considers this. Morris’s left hand, meanwhile, creeps around to the small of his back and touches the reassuring shape of the little automatic. He doesn’t want to shoot this guy, doesn’t want to risk the noise, but he will if he has to. There’s plenty of room for Elmer back there in Andy’s private office.
‘He was holding a book for me, on which I have made a deposit. A first edition of They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? It’s by—’
‘Horace McCoy,’ Morris finishes for him. The books on the shelf to the left of the desk – the ones the security DVDs were hiding behind – had slips sticking out of them, and since entering the bookstore today, Morris has examined them all. They’re customer orders, and the McCoy is among them. ‘Fine copy, signed. Flat signature, no dedication. Some foxing on the spine.’
Elmer smiles. ‘That’s the one.’
Morris takes it down from the shelf, sneaking a glance at his watch as he does. 3:13. Northfield High classes end at three, which means the boy should be here by three thirty at the latest.
He pulls the slip and sees Irving Yankovic, $750. He hands the book to Elmer with a smile. ‘I remember this one especially. Andy – I guess he prefers Drew these days – told me he’s only going to charge you five hundred. He got a better deal on it than he expected, and wanted to pass the savings along.’
Any suspicion Elmer might have felt at finding a stranger in Drew’s customary spot evaporates at the prospect of saving two hundred and fifty dollars. He takes out his checkbook. ‘So … with the deposit, that comes to …’
Morris waves a magnanimous hand. ‘He neglected to tell me what the deposit was. Just deduct it. I’m sure he trusts you.’