‘How many times were you there?’
‘Maybe five.’ It had actually been closer to a dozen, between 1976 and 1978. Alone at first, then with either Freddy or Curtis or both.
‘Ever ask questions about the town’s most famous resident while you were there?’
‘Sure, once or twice. So what? Probably everybody who ever stops at that diner asks about—’
‘No, that’s where you’re wrong. Most out-of-towners don’t give a shit about John Rothstein. If they’ve got questions, it’s about when deer season starts or what kind of fish they could catch in the local lake. You don’t think the locals will remember you when the police ask if there have been any strangers curious about the guy who wrote The Runner? Curious strangers who made repeat visits? Plus you have a record, Morrie!’
‘Juvenile. It’s sealed.’
‘Something as big as this, the seal might not hold. And what about your partners? Did either of them have records?’
Morris said nothing.
‘You don’t know who saw you, and you don’t know who your partners might have bragged to about the big robbery they were going to pull off. The police could nail you today, you idiot. If they do and you bring my name up, I’ll deny we ever talked about this. But I’ll give you some advice. Get rid of that.’ He was pointing to the brown paper bag. ‘That and all the rest of the notebooks. Hide them somewhere. Bury them! If you do that, maybe you can talk your way out of it, if push comes to shove. Always supposing you didn’t leave fingerprints, or something.’
We didn’t, Morris thought. I wasn’t stupid. And I’m not a cowardly big-talking homo, either.
‘Maybe we can revisit this,’ Andy said, ‘but it will be much later on, and only if they don’t grab you.’ He got up. ‘In the meantime, stay clear of me, or I’ll call the police myself.’
He walked away fast with his head down, not looking back.
Morris sat there. The pretty waitress returned to ask if she could get him anything. Morris shook his head. When she left, he picked up the bag with the notebook inside it and walked away himself. In the opposite direction.
He knew what the pathetic fallacy was, of course – nature echoing the feelings of human beings – and understood it to be the cheap, mood-creating trick of second-rate writers, but that day it seemed to be true. The morning’s bright sunlight had both mirrored and amplified his feeling of exultation, but by noon the sun was only a dim circle behind a blear of clouds, and by three o’clock that afternoon, as his worries multiplied, the day grew dark and it began to drizzle.
He drove the Biscayne out to the mall near the airport, constantly watching for police cars. When one came roaring up behind him on Airline Boulevard with its blues flashing, his stomach froze and his heart seemed to climb all the way into his mouth. When it sped by without slowing, he felt no relief.
He found a news broadcast on BAM-100. The lead story was about a peace conference between Sadat and Begin at Camp David (Yeah, like that’ll ever happen, Morris thought distractedly), but the second one concerned the murder of noted American writer John Rothstein. Police were saying it was the work of ‘a gang of thieves,’ and that a number of leads were being followed. That was probably just PR bullshit.
Or maybe not.
Morris didn’t think he could be tracked down as a result of interviews with the half-deaf old codgers who hung out at the Yummy Diner in Talbot Corners, no matter what Andy thought, but there was something else that troubled him far more. He, Freddy, and Curtis had all worked for Donahue Construction, which was building homes in both Danvers and North Beverly. There were two different work crews, and for most of Morris’s sixteen months, spent carrying boards and nailing studs, he had been in Danvers while Curtis and Freddy toiled at the other site, five miles away. Yet for awhile they had worked on the same crew, and even after they were split up, they usually managed to eat lunch together.
Plenty of people knew this.
He parked the Biscayne with about a thousand others at the JC Penney end of the mall, wiped down every surface he had touched, and left the keys in the ignition. He walked away fast, turning up his collar and yanking down his Indians cap. At the mall’s main entrance, he waited on a bench until a Northfield bus came, and dropped his fifty cents into the box. The rain grew heavier and the ride back was slow, but he didn’t mind. It gave him time to think.
Andy was cowardly and full of himself, but he had been right about one thing. Morris had to hide the notebooks, and he had to do so immediately, no matter how much he wanted to read them, starting with that undiscovered Jimmy Gold novel. If the cops did come and he didn’t have the notebooks, they could do nothing … right? All they’d have would be suspicion.