That could be my old pal’s epitaph, Morris thinks. Here lies Andrew Halliday, a fat, stupid, shortsighted homo. He will not be missed.
The heat of late afternoon whacks him like a hammer, and he staggers. His head is thumping from being hit with that goddam decanter, but the brains inside are in high gear. He gets in the Subaru, where it’s even hotter, and turns the air-conditioning to max as soon as he starts the engine. He examines himself in the rearview mirror. There’s an ugly purple bruise surrounding a crescent-shaped cut on his chin, but the bleeding has stopped, and on the whole he doesn’t look too bad. He wishes he had some aspirin, but that can wait.
He backs out of Andy’s space and threads his way down the alley leading to Grant Street. Grant is more downmarket than Lacemaker Lane with its fancy shops, but at least cars are allowed there.
As Morris stops at the mouth of the alley, Hodges and his two partners arrive on the other side of the building and stand looking at the CLOSED sign hanging in the door of Andrew Halliday Rare Editions. A break in the Grant Street traffic comes just as Hodges is trying the bookshop door and finding it unlocked. Morris makes a quick left and heads toward the Crosstown Connector. With rush hour only getting started, he can be on the North Side in fifteen minutes. Maybe twelve. He needs to keep Saubers from going to the police, assuming he hasn’t already, and there’s one sure way to do that.
All he has to do is beat the notebook thief to his little sister.
34
Behind the Saubers house, near the fence that separates the family’s backyard from the undeveloped land, there’s a rusty old swing set that Tom Saubers keeps meaning to take down, now that both of his children are too old for it. This afternoon Tina is sitting on the glider, rocking slowly back and forth. Divergent is open in her lap, but she hasn’t turned a page in the last five minutes. Mom has promised to watch the movie with her as soon as she’s finished the book, but today Tina doesn’t want to read about teenagers in the ruins of Chicago. Today that seems awful instead of romantic. Still moving slowly back and forth, she closes both the book and her eyes.
God, she prays, please don’t let Pete be in really bad trouble. And don’t let him hate me. I’ll die if he hates me, so please let him understand why I told. Please.
God gets right back to her. God says Pete won’t blame her because Mom figured it out on her own, but Tina’s not sure she believes Him. She opens the book again but still can’t read. The day seems to hang suspended, waiting for something awful to happen.
The cell phone she got for her eleventh birthday is upstairs in her bedroom. It’s just a cheapie, not the iPhone with all the bells and whistles she desired, but it’s her most prized possession and she’s rarely without it. Only this afternoon she is. She left it in her room and went out to the backyard as soon as she texted Pete. She had to send that text, she couldn’t just let him walk in unprepared, but she can’t bear the thought of an angry, accusatory callback. She’ll have to face him in a little while, that can’t be avoided, but Mom will be with her then. Mom will tell him it wasn’t Tina’s fault, and he’ll believe her.
Probably.
Now the cell begins to vibrate and jiggle on her desk. She’s got a cool Snow Patrol ringtone, but – sick to her stomach and worried about Pete – Tina never thought to switch it from the mandated school setting when she and her mother got home, so Linda Saubers doesn’t hear it downstairs. The screen lights up with her brother’s picture. Eventually, the phone falls silent. After thirty seconds or so, it starts vibrating again. And a third time. Then it quits for good.
Pete’s picture disappears from the screen.
35
In Government Square, Pete stares at his phone incredulously. For the first time in his memory, Teens has failed to answer her cell while school is not in session.
Mom, then … or maybe not. Not quite yet. She’ll want to ask a billion questions, and time is tight.
Also (although he won’t quite admit this to himself), he doesn’t want to talk to her until he absolutely has to.
He uses Google to troll for Mr Hodges’s number. He finds nine William Hodgeses here in the city, but the one he wants has got to be K. William, who has a company called Finders Keepers. Pete calls and gets an answering machine. At the end of the message – which seems to last at least an hour – Holly says, ‘If you need immediate assistance, you may dial 555–1890.’
Pete once more debates calling his mother, then decides to go with the number the recording has given him first. What convinces him are two words: immediate assistance.
36
‘Oough,’ Holly says as they approach the empty service desk in the middle of Andrew Halliday’s narrow shop. ‘What’s that smell?’
‘Blood,’ Hodges replies. It’s also decaying meat, but he doesn’t want to say that. ‘You stay here, both of you.’
‘Are you carrying a weapon?’ Jerome asks.
‘I’ve got the Slapper.’