He didn’t hold his mother entirely responsible for those rapes, but she deserved her share of the blame. Anita Bellamy, the famous history professor whose book on Henry Clay Frick had been nominated for a Pulitzer. So famous that she presumed to know all about modern American literature, as well. It was an argument about the Gold trilogy that had sent him out one night, furious and determined to get drunk. Which he did, although he was underage and looked it.
Drinking did not agree with Morris. He did things when he was drinking that he couldn’t remember later, and they were never good things. That night it had been breaking and entering, vandalism, and fighting with a neighborhood rent-a-cop who tried to hold him until the regular cops got there.
That was almost six years ago, but the memory was still fresh. It had all been so stupid. Stealing a car, joyriding across town, then abandoning it (perhaps after pissing all over the dashboard) was one thing. Not smart, but with a little luck, you could walk away from that sort of deal. But breaking into a place in Sugar Heights? Double stupid. He had wanted nothing in that house (at least nothing he could remember later). And when he did want something? When he offered up his mouth for a few lousy sheets of Blue Horse paper? Punched in the face. So he’d laughed, because that was what Jimmy Gold would have done (at least before Jimmy grew up and sold out for what he called the Golden Buck), and what happened next? Punched in the face again, even harder. It was the muffled crack of his nose breaking that had started him crying.
Jimmy never would have cried.
???
He was still looking greedily at the Moleskines when Freddy Dow returned with the other two duffel bags. He also had a scuffed leather carryall. “This was in the pantry. Along with like a billion cans of beans and tuna fish. Go figure, huh? Weird guy. Maybe he was waiting for the Acropolipse. Come on, Morrie, put it in gear. Someone might have heard that shot.”
“There aren’t any neighbors. Nearest farm is two miles away. Relax.”
“Jails’re full of guys who were relaxed. We need to get out of here.”
Morris began gathering up handfuls of notebooks, but couldn’t resist looking in one, just to make sure. Rothstein had been a weird guy, and it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that he had stacked his safe with blank books, thinking he might write something in them eventually.
But no.
This one, at least, was loaded with Rothstein’s small, neat handwriting, every page filled, top to bottom and side to side, the margins as thin as threads.
—wasn’t sure why it mattered to him and why he couldn’t sleep as the empty boxcar of this late freight bore him on through rural oblivion toward Kansas City and the sleeping country beyond, the full belly of America resting beneath its customary comforter of night, yet Jimmy’s thoughts persisted in turning back to—
Freddy thumped him on the shoulder, and not gently. “Get your nose out of that thing and pack up. We already got one puking his guts out and pretty much useless.”
Morris dropped the notebook into one of the duffels and grabbed another double handful without a word, his thoughts brilliant with possibility. He forgot about the mess under the blanket in the living room, forgot about Curtis Rogers puking his guts in the roses or zinnias or petunias or whatever was growing out back. Jimmy Gold! Headed west, in a boxcar! Rothstein hadn’t been done with him, after all!
“These’re full,” he told Freddy. “Take them out. I’ll put the rest in the valise.”
“That what you call that kind of bag?”
“I think so, yeah.” He knew so. “Go on. Almost done here.”
Freddy shouldered the duffels by their straps, but lingered a moment longer. “Are you sure about these things? Because Rothstein said—”
“He was a hoarder trying to save his hoard. He would have said anything. Go on.”
Freddy went. Morris loaded the last batch of Moleskines into the valise and backed out of the closet. Curtis was standing by Rothstein’s desk. He had taken off his balaclava; they all had. His face was paper-pale and there were dark shock circles around his eyes.
“You didn’t have to kill him. You weren’t supposed to. It wasn’t in the plan. Why’d you do that?”
Because he made me feel stupid. Because he cursed my mother and that’s my job. Because he called me a kid. Because he needed to be punished for turning Jimmy Gold into one of them. Mostly because nobody with his kind of talent has a right to hide it from the world. Only Curtis wouldn’t understand that.
“Because it’ll make the notebooks worth more when we sell them.” Which wouldn’t be until he’d read every word in them, but Curtis wouldn’t understand the need to do that, and didn’t need to know. Nor did Freddy. He tried to sound patient and reasonable. “We now have all the John Rothstein output there’s ever going to be. That makes the unpublished stuff even more valuable. You see that, don’t you?”
Curtis scratched one pale cheek. “Well . . . I guess . . . yeah.”
“Also, he can never claim they’re forgeries when they turn up. Which he would have done, just out of spite. I’ve read a lot about him, Curtis, just about everything, and he was one spiteful motherfucker.”
“Well . . .”
Morrie restrained himself from saying That’s an extremely deep subject for a mind as shallow as yours. He held out the valise instead. “Take it. And keep your gloves on until we’re in the car.”
“You should have talked it over with us, Morrie. We’re your partners.”
Curtis started out, then turned back. “I got a question.”
“What is it?”
“Do you know if New Hampshire has the death penalty?”
???
They took secondary roads across the narrow chimney of New Hampshire and into Vermont. Freddy drove the Chevy Biscayne, which was old and unremarkable. Morris rode shotgun with a Rand McNally open on his lap, thumbing on the dome light from time to time to make sure they didn’t wander off their pre-planned route. He didn’t need to remind Freddy to keep to the speed limit. This wasn’t Freddy Dow’s first rodeo.
Curtis lay in the backseat, and soon they heard the sound of his snores. Morris considered him lucky; he seemed to have puked out his horror. Morris thought it might be awhile before he himself got another good night’s sleep. He kept seeing the brains dribbling down the wallpaper. It wasn’t the killing that stayed on his mind, it was the spilled talent. A lifetime of honing and shaping torn apart in less than a second. All those stories, all those images, and what came out looked like so much oatmeal. What was the point?
“So you really think we’ll be able to sell those little books of his?” Freddy asked. He was back to that. “For real money, I mean?”
“Yes.”
“And get away with it?”
“Yes, Freddy, I’m sure.”
Freddy Dow was quiet for so long that Morris thought the issue was settled. Then he spoke to the subject again. Two words. Dry and toneless. “I’m doubtful.”