by Stephen King
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."
"That's all?"
Hodges shrugs.
"Then I'm coming with you."
"Me too," Holly says, and grabs a substantial book called Wild Plants and Flowering Herbs of North America. She holds it as if she means to swat a stinging bug.
"No," Hodges says patiently, "you're going to stay right here. Both of you. And race to see which one can dial nine-one-one first, if I yell for you to do so."
"Bill--" Jerome begins.
"Don't argue with me, Jerome, and don't waste time. I've got an idea time might be rather short."
"A hunch?" Holly asks.
"Maybe a little more."
Hodges takes the Happy Slapper from his coat pocket (these days he's rarely without it, although he seldom carries his old service weapon), and grasps it above the knot. He advances quickly and quietly to the door of what he assumes is Andrew Halliday's private office. It's standing slightly ajar. The Slapper's loaded end swings from his right hand. He stands slightly to one side of the door and knocks with his left. Because this seems to be one of those moments when the strict truth is dispensable, he calls, "It's the police, Mr. Halliday."
There's no answer. He knocks again, louder, and when there's still no answer, he pushes the door open. The smell is instantly stronger: blood, decay, and spilled booze. Something else, too. Spent gunpowder, an aroma he knows well. Flies are buzzing somnolently. The lights are on, seeming to spotlight the body on the floor.
"Oh Christ, his head's half off!" Jerome cries. He's so close that Hodges jerks in surprise, bringing the Slapper up and then lowering it again. My pacemaker just went into overdrive, he thinks. He turns and both of them are crowding up right behind him. Jerome has a hand over his mouth. His eyes are bulging.
Holly, on the other hand, looks calm. She's got Wild Plants and Flowering Herbs of North America clasped against her chest and appears to be assessing the bleeding mess on the rug. To Jerome she says, "Don't hurl. This is a crime scene."
"I'm not going to hurl." The words are muffled, thanks to the hand clutching his lower face.
"Neither one of you minds worth a tinker's dam," Hodges says. "If I were your teacher, I'd send you both to the office. I'm going in. You two stand right where you are."
He takes two steps in. Jerome and Holly immediately follow, side by side. The fucking Bobbsey Twins, Hodges thinks.
"Did Tina's brother do this?" Jerome asks. "Jesus Christ, Bill, did he?"
"If he did, it wasn't today. That blood's almost dry. And there's the flies. I don't see any maggots yet, but--"
Jerome makes a gagging noise.
"Jerome, don't," Holly says in a forbidding voice. Then, to Hodges: "I see a little ax. Hatchet. Whatever you call it. That's what did it."
Hodges doesn't reply. He's assessing the scene. He thinks that Halliday--if it is Halliday--has been dead at least twenty-four hours, maybe longer. Probably longer. But something has happened in here since, because the smell of spilled liquor and gunpowder is fresh and strong.
"Is that a bullet hole, Bill?" Jerome asks. He's pointing at a bookshelf to the left of the door, near a small cherrywood table. There's a small r
ound hole in a copy of Catch-22. Hodges goes to it, looks more closely, and thinks, That's got to hurt the resale price. Then he looks at the table. There are two crystal decanters on it, probably Waterford. The table is slightly dusty, and he can see the shapes where two others stood. He looks across the room, beyond the desk, and yep, there they are, lying on the floor.
"Sure it's a bullet hole," Holly says. "I can smell the gunpowder."
"There was a fight," Jerome says, then points to the corpse without looking at it. "But he sure wasn't part of it."
"No," Hodges says, "not him. And the combatants have since departed."
"Was one of them Peter Saubers?"
Hodges sighs heavily. "Almost for sure. I think he came here after he ditched us at the drugstore."
"Somebody took Mr. Halliday's computer," Holly says. "His DVD hookup is still there beside the cash register, and the wireless mouse--also a little box with a few thumb drives in it--but the computer is gone. I saw a big empty space on the desk out there. It was probably a laptop."
"What now?" Jerome asks.
"We call the police." Hodges doesn't want to do it, senses that Pete Saubers is in bad trouble and calling the cops may only make it worse, at least to begin with, but he played the Lone Ranger in the Mercedes Killer case, and almost got a few thousand kids killed.
He takes out his cell, but before he can turn it on, it lights up and rings in his hand.
"Peter," Holly says. Her eyes are shining and she speaks with utter certainty. "Bet you six thousand dollars. Now he wants to talk. Don't just stand there, Bill, answer your fracking phone."
He does.
"I need help," Pete Saubers says rapidly. "Please, Mr. Hodges, I really need help."
"Just a sec. I'm going to put you on speaker so my associates can hear."
"Associates?" Pete sounds more alarmed than ever. "What associates?"
"Holly Gibney. Your sister knows her. And Jerome Robinson. He's Barbara Robinson's older brother."
"Oh. I guess . . . I guess that's okay." And, as if to himself: "How much worse can it get?"
"Peter, we're in Andrew Halliday's shop. There's a dead man in his office. I assume it's Halliday, and I assume you know about it. Would those assumptions be correct?"
There's a moment of silence. If not for the faint sound of traffic wherever Pete is, Hodges might have thought he'd broken the connection. Then the boy starts talking again, the words spilling out in a waterfall.
"He was there when I got there. The man with the red lips. He told me Mr. Halliday was in the back, so I went into his office, and he followed me and he had a gun and he tried to kill me when I wouldn't tell him where the notebooks were. I wouldn't because . . . because he doesn't deserve to have them and besides he was going to kill me anyway, I could tell just by looking in his eyes. He . . . I . . ."
"You threw the decanters at him, didn't you?"
"Yes! The bottles! And he shot at me! He missed, but it was so close I heard it go by. I ran and got away, but then he called me and said they'd blame me, the police would, because I threw a hatchet at him, too . . . did you see the hatchet?"
"Yes," Hodges says. "I'm looking at it right now."
"And . . . and my fingerprints, see . . . they're on it because I threw it at him . . . and he has some video discs of me and Mr. Halliday arguing . . . because he was trying to blackmail me! Halliday, I mean, not the man with the red lips, only now he's trying to blackmail me, too!"
"This red-lips man has the store security video?" Holly asks, bending toward the phone. "Is that what you mean?"
"Yes! He said the police will arrest me and they will because I didn't go to any of the Sunday meetings at River Bend, and he also has a voicemail and I don't know what to do!"
"Where are you, Peter?" Hodges asks. "Where are you right now?"
There's another pause, and Hodges knows exactly what Pete's doing: checking for landmarks. He may have lived in the city his whole life, but right now he's so freaked he doesn't know east from west.
"Government Square," he says at last. "Across from this restaurant, the Happy Cup?"
"Do you see the man who shot at you?"
"N-No. I ran, and I don't think he could chase me very far on foot. He's kind of old, and you can't drive a car on Lacemaker Lane."
"Stay there," Hodges says. "We'll come and get you."
"Please don't call the police," Peter says. "It'll kill my folks, after everything else that's happened to them. I'll give you the notebooks. I never should have kept them, and I never should have tried to sell any of them. I should have stopped with the money." His voice is blurring now as he breaks down. "My parents . . . they were in such trouble. About everything. I only wanted to help!"
"I'm sure that's true, but I have to call the police. If you didn't kill Halliday, the evidence will show that. You'll be fine. I'll pick you up and we'll go to your house. Will your parents be there?"
"Dad's on a business thing, but my mom and sister will be." Pete has to hitch in a breath before going on. "I'll go to jail, won't I? They'll never believe me about the man with the red lips. They'll think I made him up."
"All you have to do is tell the truth," Holly says. "Bill won't let anything bad happen to you." She grabs his hand and squeezes it fiercely. "Will you?"
Hodges repeats, "If you didn't kill him, you'll be fine."
"I didn't! Swear to God!"
"This other man did. The one with the red lips."
"Yes. He killed John Rothstein, too. He said Rothstein sold out."
Hodges has a million questions, but this isn't the time.
"Listen to me, Pete. Very carefully. Stay where you are. We'll be at Government Square in fifteen minutes."
"If you let me drive," Jerome says, "we can be there in ten."
Hodges ignores this. "The four of us will go to your house. You'll tell the whole story to me, my associates, and your mother. She may want to call your father and discuss getting you legal representation. Then we're going to call the police. It's the best I can do."
And better than I should do, he thinks, eyeing the mangled corpse and thinking about how close he came to going to jail himself four years ago. For the same kind of thing, too: Lone Ranger shit. But surely another half hour or forty-five minutes can't hurt. And what the boy said about his parents hit home. Hodges was at City Center that day. He saw the aftermath.
"A-All right. Come as fast as you can."
"Yes." He breaks the connection.
"What do we do about our fingerprints?" Holly asks.
"Leave them," Hodges says. "Let's go get that kid. I can't wait to hear his story." He tosses Jerome the Mercedes key.
"Thanks, Massa Hodges!" Tyrone Feelgood screeches. "Dis here black boy is one safe drivuh! I is goan get'chall safe to yo destin--"
"Shut up, Jerome."
Hodges and Holly say it together.
37
Pete takes a deep, trembling breath and closes his cell phone. Everything is going around in his head like some nightmare amusement park ride, and he's sure he sounded like an idiot. Or a murderer scared of getting caught and making up any wild tale. He forgot to tell Mr. Hodges that Red Lips once lived in Pete's own house, and he should have done that. He thinks about calling Hodges back, but why bother when he and those other two are coming to pick him up?
The guy won't go the house, anyway, Pete tells himself. He can't. He has to stay invisible.
But he might, just the same. If he thinks I was lying about moving the notebooks somewhere else, he really might. Because he's crazy. A total whack-job.
He tries Tina's phone again and gets nothing but her message: "Hey, it's Teens, sorry I missed you, do your thing." Beeep.
All right, then.
Mom.
But before he can call her, he sees a bus coming, and in the destination window, like a gift from heaven, are the words NORTH SIDE. Pete suddenly decides he's not going to sit here and wait for Mr. Hodges. The bus will get him there sooner, and
he wants to go home now. He'll call Mr. Hodges once he's on board and tell him to meet him at the house, but first he'll call his mother and tell her to lock all the doors.
The bus is almost empty, but he makes his way to the back, just the same. And he doesn't have to call his mother, after all; his phone rings in his hand as he sits down. MOM, the screen says. He takes a deep breath and pushes ACCEPT. She's talking before he can even say hello.
"Where are you, Peter?" Peter instead of Pete. Not a good start. "I expected you home an hour ago."
"I'm coming," he says. "I'm on the bus."
"Let's stick to the truth, shall we? The bus has come and gone. I saw it."
"Not the schoolbus, the North Side bus. I had to . . ." What? Run an errand? That's so ludicrous he could laugh. Except this is no laughing matter. Far from it. "There was something I had to do. Is Tina there? She didn't go down to Ellen's, or something?"
"She's in the backyard, reading her book."
The bus is picking its way past some road construction, moving with agonizing slowness.
"Mom, listen to me. You--"
"No, you listen to me. Did you send that money?"
He closes his eyes.
"Did you? A simple yes or no will suffice. We can go into the details later."
Eyes still closed, he says: "Yes. It was me. But--"
"Where did it come from?"
"That's a long story, and right now it doesn't matter. The money doesn't matter. There's a guy--"
"What do you mean, it doesn't matter? That was over twenty thousand dollars!"
He stifles an urge to say Did you just figure that out?
The bus continues lumbering its laborious way through the construction. Sweat is rolling down Pete's face. He can see the smear of blood on his knee, dark brown instead of red, but still as loud as a shout. Guilty! it yells. Guilty, guilty!
"Mom, please shut up and listen to me."
Shocked silence on the other end of the line. Not since the days of his toddler tantrums has he told his mother to shut up.
"There's a guy, and he's dangerous." He could tell her just how dangerous, but he wants her on alert, not in hysterics. "I don't think he'll come to the house, but he might. You should get Tina inside and lock the doors. Just for a few minutes, then I'll be there. Some other people, too. People who can help."