‘I shut up shop early on Fridays. Around three. I could put in some gas and leave the keys under the right front tire.’
‘That’s perfect,’ Morris says. He can go in to the MAC, tell his fat fuck of a boss that he had a stomach bug but it passed, work until four like a good little office drone, then come back out here. ‘Listen, the Groundhogs play tonight, don’t they?’
‘Yeah, they got the Dayton Dragons. Why? You hankerin to take in a game? Because I could be up for that.’
‘Another time, maybe. What I’m thinking is I could return the truck around ten, park it in the same place, then take a stadium bus back into town.’
‘Same old Morrie,’ Roberson says, and taps his temple. His eyes have become noticeably bloodshot. ‘You are one thinking cat.’
‘Remember to put the keys under the tire.’ The last thing Morris needs is for Roberson to get shitfaced on cheap bourbon and forget.
‘I will. Owe you a lot, buddy. Owe you the motherfuckin world.’
This sentiment necessitates another bro-hug, redolent of sweat, bourbon, and cheap aftershave. Roberson squeezes so tightly that Morris finds it hard to breathe, but at last he’s released. He accompanies Charlie back into the garage, thinking that tonight – in twelve hours, maybe less – the Rothstein notebooks will once more be in his possession. With such an intoxicating prospect as that, who needs bourbon?
‘You mind me asking why you’re working here, Charlie? I thought you were going to get a boatload of cash from the state for false imprisonment.’
‘Aw, man, they threatened to bring up a bunch of old charges.’ Roberson resumes his seat in front of the Harley he’s been working on. He picks up a wrench and taps it against the grease-smeared leg of his pants. ‘Including a bad one in Missouri, could have put me away down there for the rest of my life. Three-strikes rule or some shit. So we kinda worked out a trade.’
He regards Morris with his bloodshot eyes, and in spite of his meaty biceps (it’s clear he never lost the prison workout habit), Morris can see he’s really old, and will soon be unhealthy, as well. If he isn’t already.
‘They fuck you in the end, buddy. Right up the ass. Rock the boat and they fuck you even harder. So you take what you can get. This is what I got, and it’s enough for me.’
‘Shit don’t mean shit,’ Morris says.
Roberson bellows laughter. ‘What you always said! And it’s the fuckin truth!’
‘Just don’t forget to leave the keys.’
‘I’ll leave em.’ Roberson levels a grease-blackened finger at Morris. ‘And don’t get caught. Listen to your daddy.’
I won’t get caught, Morris thinks. I’ve waited too long.
‘One other thing?’
Roberson waits for it.
‘I don’t suppose I could get a gun.’ Morris sees the look on Charlie’s face and adds hastily, ‘Not to use, just as insurance.’
Roberson shakes his head. ‘No gun. I’d get a lot more than a slap on the wrist for that.’
‘I’d never say it came from you.’
The bloodshot eyes regard Morris shrewdly. ‘Can I be honest? You’re too jail-bit for guns. Probably shoot yourself in the nutsack. The truck, okay. I owe you that. But if you want a gun, find it somewhere else.’
23
At three o’clock that Friday afternoon, Morris comes within a whisker of trashing twelve million dollars’ worth of modern art.
Well, no, not really, but he does come close to erasing the records of that art, which include the provenance and the background info on a dozen rich MAC donors. He’s spent weeks creating a new search protocol that covers all of the Arts Center’s acquisitions since the beginning of the twenty-first century. That protocol is a work of art in itself, and this afternoon, instead of sliding the biggest of the subfiles into the master file, he has moused it into the trash along with a lot of other dreck he needs to get rid of. The MAC’s lumbering, outdated computer system is overloaded with useless shit, including a ton of stuff that’s no longer even in the building. Said ton got moved to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York back in ’05. Morris is on the verge of emptying the trash to make room for more dreck, his finger is actually on the trigger, when he realizes he’s about to send a very valuable live file to data heaven.