Finders Keepers

by Stephen King

  "Hello," Drew said. This time he didn't offer to shake hands.

  "Hi."

  "You didn't bring the notebooks."

  "I need a number from you first. You said you'd make some calls."

  Drew had made none. It was still far too early for that. "If you recall, I gave you a number. I said your end would come to thirty thousand dollars."

  The boy shook his head. "That's not enough. And sixty-forty isn't enough, either. It would have to be seventy-thirty. I'm not stupid. I know what I have."

  "I know things, too. Your real name is Peter Saubers. You don't go to City College; you go to Northfield High and work part-time at the Garner Street Library."

  The boy's eyes widened. His mouth fell open. He actually swayed on his feet, and for a moment Drew thought he might faint.

  "How--"

  "The book you brought. Dispatches from Olympus. I recognized the Reference Room security sticker. After that it was easy. I even know where you live--on Sycamore Street." Which made perfect, even divine sense. Morris Bellamy had lived on Sycamore Street, in the same house. Drew had never been there--because Morris didn't want him to meet his vampire of a mother, Drew suspected--but city records proved it. Had the notebooks been hidden behind a wall in the basement, or buried beneath the floor of the garage? Drew was betting it was one or the other.

  He leaned forward as far forward as his paunch would allow and engaged the boy's dismayed eyes.

  "Here's some more. Your father was seriously injured in the City Center Massacre back in '09. He was there because he became unemployed after the downturn in '08. There was a feature story in the Sunday paper a couple of years ago, about how some of the people who survived were doing. I looked it up, and it made for interesting reading. Your family moved to the North Side after your father got hurt, which must have been a considerable comedown, but you Sauberses landed on your feet. A nip here and a tuck there with just your mom working, but plenty of people did worse. American success story. Get knocked down? Arise, brush yourself off, and get back in the race! Except the story never really said how your family managed that. Did it?"

  The boy wet his lips, tried to speak, couldn't, cleared his throat, tried again. "I'm leaving. Coming here was a big mistake."

  He turned away from the desk.

  "Peter, if you walk out that door, I can just about guarantee you'll be in jail by tonight. What a shame that would be, with your whole life ahead of you."

  Saubers turned back, eyes wide, mouth open and trembling.

  "I researched the Rothstein killing, too. The police believed that the thieves who murdered him only took the notebooks because they were in his safe along with his money. According to the theory, they broke in for what thieves usually break in for, which is cash. Plenty of people in the town where he lived knew the old guy kept cash in the house, maybe a lot of it. Those stories circulated in Talbot Corners for years. Finally the wrong someones decided to find out if the stories were true. And they were, weren't they?"

  Saubers returned to the desk. Slowly. Step by step.

  "You found his stolen notebooks, but you also found some stolen money, that's what I think. Enough to keep your family solvent until your dad could get back on his feet again. Literally on his feet, because the story said he was busted up quite badly. Do your folks know, Peter? Are they in on it? Did Mom and Dad send you here to sell the notebooks now that the money's gone?"

  Most of this was guesswork--if Morris had said anything about money that day outside the Happy Cup, Drew couldn't remember it--but he observed each of his guesses hit home like hard punches to the face and midsection. Drew felt any detective's delight in seeing he had followed a true trail.

  "I don't know what you're talking about." The boy sounded more like a phone answering machine than a human being.

  "And as for there only being six notebooks, that really doesn't compute. Rothstein went dark in 1960, after publishing his last short story in The New Yorker. He was murdered in 1978. Hard to believe he only filled six eighty-page notebooks in eighteen years. I bet there were more. A lot more."

  "You can't prove anything." Still in that same robotic monotone. Saubers was teetering; two or three more punches and he'd fall. It was rather thrilling.

  "What would the police find if they came to your house with a search warrant, my young friend?"

  Instead of falling, Saubers pulled himself together. If it hadn't been so annoying, it would have been admirable. "What about you, Mr. Halliday? You've already been in trouble once about selling what wasn't yours to sell."

  Okay, that was a hit . . . but only a glancing blow. Drew nodded cheerfully.

  "It's why you came to me, isn't it? You found out about the Agee business and thought I might help you do something illegal. Only my hands were clean then and they're clean now." He spread them to demonstrate. "I'd say I took some time to make sure that what you were trying to sell was the real deal, and once I was, I did my civic duty and called the police."

  "But that's not true! It's not and you know it!"

  Welcome to the real world, Peter, Drew thought. He said nothing, just let the kid explore the box he was in.

  "I could burn them." Saubers seemed to be speaking to himself rather than Drew, trying the idea on for size. "I could go h . . . to where they are, and just burn them."

  "How many are there? Eighty? A hundred and twenty? A hundred and forty? They'd find residue, son. The ashes. Even if they didn't, I have the photocopied pages. They'd start asking questions about just how your family did manage to get through the big recession as well as it did, especially with your father's injuries and all the medical bills. I think a competent accountant might find that your family's outlay extended its income by quite a bit."

  Drew had no idea if this was true, but the kid didn't, either. He was close to panic now, and that was good. Panicked people never thought clearly.

  "There's no proof." Saubers could hardly talk above a whisper. "The money is gone."

  "I'm sure it is, or you wouldn't be here. But the financial trail remains. And who will follow it besides the police? The IRS! Who knows, Peter, maybe your mother and dad can also go to jail, for tax evasion. That would leave your sister--Tina, I believe?--all alone, but perhaps she has a kind old auntie she can live with until your folks get out."

  "What do you want?"

  "Don't be dense. I want the notebooks. All of them."

  "If I give them to you, what do I get?"

  "The knowledge that you're free and clear. Which, given your situation, is priceless."

  "Are you serious?"

  "Son--"

  "Don't call me that!" The boy clenched his fists.

  "Peter, think it through. If you refuse to turn the notebooks over to me, I'm going to turn you over to the police. But once you hand them over, my hold on you vanishes, because I have received stolen property. You'll be safe."

  While he spoke, Drew's right index finger hovered near the silent alarm button beneath his desk. Pushing it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do, but he didn't like those clenched fists. In his panic, it might occur to Saubers that there was one other way to shut Drew Halliday's mouth. They were currently being recorded on security video, but the boy might not have realized that.

  "And you walk away with hundreds and thousands of dollars," Saubers said bitterly. "Maybe even millions."

  "You got your family through a tough time," Drew said. He thought of adding why be greedy, but under the circumstances, that might sound a little . . . off. "I think you should be content with that."

  The boy's face offered a wordless reply: Easy for you to say.

  "I need time to think."

  Drew nodded, but not in agreement. "I understand how you feel, but no. If you walk out of here now, I can promise a police car waiting for you when you get home."

  "And you lose your big payday."

  Drew shrugged. "It wouldn't be the first." Although never one of this size, that was true.

>   "My dad's in real estate, did you know that?"

  The sudden change in direction put Drew off his stride a bit. "Yes, I saw that when I was doing my research. Has his own little business now, and good for him. Although I have an idea that John Rothstein's money might have paid for some of the start-up costs."

  "I asked him to research all the bookstores in town," Saubers said. "I told him I was doing a paper on how e-books are impacting traditional bookstores. This was before I even came to see you, while I was still making up my mind if I should take the chance. He found out you took a third mortgage on this place last year, and said you only got it because of the location. Lacemaker Lane being pretty upscale and all."

  "I don't think that has anything to do with the subject under discus--"

  "You're right, we went through a really bad time, and you know something? That gives a person a nose for people who are in trouble. Even if you're a kid. Maybe especially if you're a kid. I think you're pretty strapped yourself."

  Drew raised the finger that had been poised near the silent alarm button and pointed it at Saubers. "Don't fuck with me, kid."

  Saubers's color had come back in big hectic patches, and Drew saw something he didn't like and certainly hadn't intended: he had made the boy angry.

  "I know you're trying to rush me into this, and it's not going to work. Yes, okay, I've got his notebooks. There's a hundred and sixty-five. Not all of them are full, but most of them are. And guess what? It was never the Gold trilogy, it was the Gold cycle. There are two more novels, both in the notebooks. First drafts, yeah, but pretty clean."

  The boy was talking faster and faster, figuring out everything Drew had hoped he would be too frightened to see even as he was speaking.

  "They're hidden away, but I guess you're right, if you call the police, they'll find them. Only my parents never knew, and I think the police will believe that. As for me . . . I'm still a minor." He even smiled a little, as if just realizing this. "They won't do much to me, since I never stole the notebooks or the money in the first place. I wasn't even born. You'll come out clean, but you also won't have anything to show for it. When the bank takes this place--my dad says they will, sooner or later--and there's an Au Bon Pain here instead, I'll come in and eat a croissant in your honor."

  "That's quite a speech," Drew said.

  "Well, it's over. I'm leaving."

  "I warn you, you're being very foolish."

  "I told you, I need time to think."

  "How long?"

  "A week. You need to think, too, Mr. Halliday. Maybe we can still work something out."

  "I hope so, son." Drew used the word deliberately. "Because if we can't, I'll make that call. I am not bluffing."

  The boy's bravado collapsed. His eyes filled with tears. Before they could fall, he turned and walked out.

  12

  Now comes this voicemail, which Drew listens to with fury but also with fear, because the boy sounds so cold and composed on top and so desperate underneath.

  "I can't come tomorrow like I said I would. I completely forgot the junior-senior retreat for class officers, and I got elected vice president of the senior class next year. I know that sounds like an excuse, but it's not. I guess it entirely slipped my mind, what with you threatening to send me to jail and all."

  Erase this right away, Drew thinks, his fingernails biting into his palms.

  "It's at River Bend resort, up in Victor County. We leave on a bus at eight tomorrow morning--it's a teacher in-service day, so there's no school--and come back Sunday night. Twenty of us. I thought about begging off, but my parents are already worried about me. My sister, too. If I skip the retreat, they'll know something's wrong. I think my mom thinks I might have gotten some girl pregnant."

  The boy voices a brief, semi-hysterical laugh. Drew thinks there's nothing more terrifying than boys of seventeen. You have absolutely no idea what they'll do.

  "I'll come on Monday afternoon instead," Saubers resumes. "If you wait that long, maybe we can work something out. A compromise. I've got an idea. And if you think I'm just shining you on about the retreat, call the resort and check the reservation. Northfield High School Student Government. Maybe I'll see you on Monday. If not, not. Goodb--"

  That's where the message-time--extra-long, for clients who call after-hours, usually from the West Coast--finally runs out. Beep.

  Drew sits down in his chair (ignoring its despairing squeal, as always), and stares at the answering machine for nearly a full minute. He feels no need to call the River Bend Resort . . . which is, amusingly enough, only six or seven miles upriver from the penitentiary where the original notebook thief is now serving a life sentence. Drew is sure Saubers was telling the truth about the retreat, because it's so easy to check. About his reasons for not ditching it he's far less sure. Maybe Saubers has decided to call Drew's bluff about bringing the police into it. Except it's not a bluff. He has no intention of letting Saubers have what Drew can't have himself. One way or another, the little bastard is going to give those notebooks up.

  I'll wait until Monday afternoon, Drew thinks. I can afford to wait that long, but then this situation is going to be resolved, one way or the other. I've already given him too much rope.

  He reflects that the Saubers boy and his old friend Morris Bellamy, although at opposite ends of the age-spectrum, are very much alike when it comes to the Rothstein notebooks. They lust for what's inside them. It's why the boy only wanted to sell him six, and probably the six he judged least interesting. Drew, on the other hand, cares little about John Rothstein. He read The Runner, but only because Morrie was bonkers on the subject. He never bothered with the other two, or the book of short stories.

  That's your Achilles' heel, son, Drew thinks. That collector's lust. While I, on the other hand, only care about money, and money simplifies everything. So go ahead. Enjoy your weekend of pretend politics. When you come back, we'll play some hardball.

  Drew leans over his paunch and erases the message.

  13

  Hodges gets a good whiff of himself on his way back into the city and decides to divert to his house long enough for a veggie burger and a quick shower. Also a change of clothes. Harper Road isn't much out of his way, and he'll be more comfortable in a pair of jeans. Jeans are one of the major perks of self-employment, as far as he's concerned.

  Pete Huntley calls as he's heading out the door, to inform his old partner that Oliver Madden is in custody. Hodges congratulates Pete on the collar and has just settled behind the wheel of his Prius when his phone rings again. This time it's Holly.

  "Where are you, Bill?"

  Hodges looks at his watch and sees it's somehow gotten all the way to three fifteen. How the time flies when you're having fun, he thinks.

  "My house. Just leaving for the office."

  "What are you doing there?"

  "Stopped for a shower. Didn't want to offend your delicate olfactories. And I didn't forget about Barbara. I'll call as soon as I--"

  "You won't have to. She's here. With a little chum named Tina. They came in a taxi."

  "A taxi?" Ordinarily, kids don't even think of taxis. Maybe whatever Barbara wants to discuss is a little more serious than he believed.

  "Yes. I put them in your office." Holly lowers her voice. "Barbara's just worried, but the other one acts scared to death. I think she's in some kind of jam. You should get here as soon as you can, Bill."

  "Roger that."

  "Please hurry. You know I'm not good with strong emotions. I'm working on that with my therapist, but right now I'm just not."

  "On my way. There in twenty."

  "Should I go across the street and get them Cokes?"

  "I don't know." The light at the bottom of the hill turns yellow. Hodges puts on speed and scoots through it. "Use your judgment."

  "But I have so little," Holly mourns, and before he can reply, she tells him again to hurry and hangs up.

  14

  While Bill Hodges was explainin
g the facts of life to the dazed Oliver Madden and Drew Halliday was settling in to his eggs Benedict, Pete Saubers was in the nurse's office at Northfield High, pleading a migraine headache and asking to be dismissed from afternoon classes. The nurse wrote the slip with no hesitation, because Pete is one of the good ones: Honor Roll, lots of school activities (although no sports), near-perfect attendance. Also, he looked like someone suffering a migraine. His face was far too pale, and there were dark circles under his eyes. She asked if he needed a ride home.

  "No," Pete said, "I'll take the bus."

  She offered him Advil--it's all she's allowed to dispense for headaches--but he shook his head, telling her he had special pills for migraines. He forgot to bring one that day, but said he'd take one as soon as he got home. He felt okay about this story, because he really did have a headache. Just not the physical kind. His headache was Andrew Halliday, and one of his mother's Zomig tablets (she's the migraine sufferer in the family) wouldn't cure it.

  Pete knew he had to take care of that himself.

  15

  He has no intention of taking the bus. The next one won't be along for half an hour, and he can be on Sycamore Street in fifteen minutes if he runs, and he will, because this Thursday afternoon is all he has. His mother and father are at work and won't be home until at least four. Tina won't be home at all. She says she has been invited to spend a couple of nights with her old friend Barbara Robinson on Teaberry Lane, but Pete thinks she might actually have invited herself. If so, it probably means his sister hasn't given up her hopes of attending Chapel Ridge. Pete thinks he might still be able to help her with that, but only if this afternoon goes perfectly. That's a very big if, but he has to do something. If he doesn't, he'll go crazy.