Finders Keepers

  It's mostly Pete who carries Tina across to the basement window, through the falling sparks and burning scarves of insulation. One lands on the kid's back, and Hodges swipes it away. Pete lifts her. Jerome grabs her under the arms and hauls her out, the plug of the computer cord Morris used to tie her hands trailing and bumping behind.

  "Now you," Hodges gasps.

  Pete shakes his head. "You first." He looks up at Jerome. "You pull. I'll push."

  "Okay," Jerome says. "Lift your arms, Bill."

  There's no time to argue. Hodges lifts his arms and feels them grabbed. He has time to think, Feels like wearing handcuffs, and then he's being hoisted. It's slow at first--he's a lot heavier than the girl--but then two hands plant themselves firmly on his ass and shove. He rises into clear, clean air--hot, but cooler than the basement--and lands next to Tina Saubers. Jerome reaches through again. "Come on, kid! Move it!"

  Pete lifts his arms, and Jerome seizes his wrists. The basement is filling with smoke and Pete begins coughing, almost retching, as he uses his feet to pedal his way up the wall. He slides through the window, turns over, and peers back into the basement.

  A charred scarecrow kneels in there, digging into the burning notebooks with arms made of fire. Morris's face is melting. He shrieks and begins hugging the blazing, dissolving remnants of Rothstein's work to his burning chest.

  "Don't look at that, kid," Hodges says, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Don't."

  But Pete wants to look. Needs to look.

  He thinks, That could have been me on fire.

  He thinks, No. Because I know the difference. I know what matters.

  He thinks, Please God, if you're there . . . let that be true.

  55

  Pete lets Jerome carry Tina as far as the baseball field, then says, "Give her to me, please."

  Jerome surveys him--Pete's pale, shocked face, the one blistered ear, the holes charred in his shirt. "You sure?"

  "Yeah."

  Tina is already holding out her arms. She has been quiet since being hauled from the burning basement, but when Pete takes her, she puts her arms around his neck, her face against his shoulder, and begins to cry loudly.

  Holly comes running down the path. "Thank God!" she says. "There you are! Where's Bellamy?"

  "Back there, in the basement," Hodges says. "And if he isn't dead yet, he wishes he was. Have you got your cell phone? Call the fire department."

  "Is our mother okay?" Pete asks.

  "I think she's going to be fine," Holly says, pulling her phone off her belt. "The ambulance is taking her to Kiner Memorial. She was alert and talking. The paramedics said her vital signs are good."

  "Thank God," Pete says. Now he also starts to cry, the tears cutting clean tracks through the smears of soot on his cheeks. "If she died, I'd kill myself. Because this is all my fault."

  "No," Hodges says.

  Pete looks at him. Tina is looking, too, her arms still linked around her brother's neck.

  "You found the notebooks and the money, didn't you?"

  "Yes. By accident. They were buried in a trunk by the stream."

  "Anyone would have done what you did," Jerome says. "Isn't that right, Bill?"

  "Yes," Bill says. "For your family, you do all that you can. The way you went after Bellamy when he took Tina."

  "I wish I'd never found that trunk," Pete says. What he doesn't say, will never say, is how much it hurts to know that the notebooks are gone. Knowing that burns like fire. He does understand how Morris felt, and that burns like fire, too. "I wish it had stayed buried."

  "Wish in one hand," Hodges says, "spit in the other. Let's go. I need to use an icepack before the swelling gets too bad."

  "Swelling where?" Holly asks. "You look okay to me."

  Hodges puts an arm around her shoulders. Sometimes Holly stiffens when he does this, but not today, so he kisses her cheek, too. It raises a doubtful smile.

  "Did he get you where it hurts boys?"

  "Yes. Now hush."

  They walk slowly, partly for Hodges's benefit, partly for Pete's. His sister is getting heavy, but he doesn't want to put her down. He wants to carry her all the way home.

  AFTER

  PICNIC

  On the Friday that kicks off the Labor Day weekend, a Jeep Wrangler--getting on in years but loved by its owner--pulls into the parking lot above the McGinnis Park Little League fields and stops next to a blue Mercedes that is also getting on in years. Jerome Robinson makes his way down the grassy slope toward a picnic table where food has already been set out. A paper bag swings from one of his hands.

  "Yo, Hollyberry!"

  She turns. "How many times have I told you not to call me that? A hundred? A thousand?" But she's smiling as she says it, and when he hugs her, she hugs back. Jerome doesn't press his luck; he gives one good squeeze, then asks what's for lunch.

  "There's chicken salad, tuna salad, and coleslaw. I also brought a roast beef sandwich. That's for you, if you want it. I'm off red meat. It upsets my circadian rhythms."

  "I'll make sure you're not tempted, then."

  They sit down. Holly pours Snapple into Dixie cups. They toast the end of summer and then munch away, gabbing about movies and TV shows, temporarily avoiding the reason they're here--this is goodbye, at least for awhile.

  "Too bad Bill couldn't come," Jerome says as Holly hands him a piece of chocolate cream pie. "Remember when we all got together here for a picnic after his hearing? To celebrate that judge deciding not to put him in jail?"

  "I remember perfectly well," Holly says. "You wanted to ride the bus."

  "Because de bus be fo' free!" Tyrone Feelgood exclaims. "I takes all the fo' free I kin git, Miss Holly!"

  "You've worn that out, Jerome."

  He sighs. "I sort of have, I guess."

  "Bill got a call from Peter Saubers," Holly said. "That's why he didn't come. He said I was to give you his best, and that he'd see you before you went back to Cambridge. Wipe your nose. There's a dab of chocolate on it."

  Jerome resists the urge to say Chocolate be mah favorite cullah! "Is Pete all right?"

  "Yes. He had some good news that he wanted to share with Bill in person. I can't finish my pie. Do you want the rest? Unless you don't want to eat after me. I'm okay with that, but I don't have a cold, or anything."

  "I'd even use your toothbrush," Jerome says, "but I'm full."

  "Oough," Holly says. "I'd never use another person's toothbrush." She collects their paper cups and plates and takes them to a nearby litter barrel.

  "What time are you leaving tomorrow?" Jerome asks.

  "The sun rises at six fifty-five AM. I expect to be on the road by seven thirty, at the latest."

  Holly is driving to Cincinnati to see her mother. By herself. Jerome can hardly believe it. He's glad for her, but he's also afraid for her. What if something goes wrong and she freaks out?

  "Stop worrying," she says, coming back and sitting down. "I'll be fine. All turnpikes, no night driving, and the forecast is for clear weather. Also, I have my three favorite movie soundtracks on CD: Road to Perdition, The Shawshank Redemption, and Godfather II. Which is the best, in my opinion, although Thomas Newman is, on the whole, much better than Nino Rota. Thomas Newman's music is mysterious."

  "John Williams, Schindler's List," Jerome says. "Nothing tops it."

  "Jerome, I don't want to say you're full of shit, but . . . actually, you are."

  He laughs, delighted.

  "I have my cell phone and iPad, both fully charged. The Mercedes just had its full maintenance check. And really, it's only four hundred miles."

  "Cool. But call me if you need to. Me or Bill."

  "Of course. When are you leaving for Cambridge?"

  "Next week."

  "Done on the docks?"

  "All done, and glad of it. Physical labor may be good for the body, but I don't feel that it ennobles the soul."

  Holly still has trouble meeting the eyes of even her close friends, but
she makes an effort and meets Jerome's. "Pete's all right, Tina's all right, and their mother is back on her feet. That's all good, but is Bill all right? Tell me the truth."

  "I don't know what you mean." Now it's Jerome who finds it difficult to maintain eye contact.

  "He's too thin, for one thing. He's taken the exercise-and-salads regimen too far. But that's not what I'm really worried about."

  "What is?" But Jerome knows, and isn't surprised she knows, although Bill thinks he's kept it from her. Holly has her ways.

  She lowers her voice as if afraid of being overheard, although there's no one within a hundred yards in any direction. "How often does he visit him?"

  Jerome doesn't have to ask who she's talking about. "I don't really know."

  "More than once a month?"

  "I think so, yes."

  "Once a week?"

  "Probably not that often." Although who can say?

  "Why? He's . . ." Holly's lips are trembling. "Brady Hartsfield is next door to a vegetable!"

  "You can't blame yourself for that, Holly. You absolutely can't. You hit him because he was going to blow up a couple of thousand kids."

  He tries to touch her hand, but she snatches it away.

  "I don't! I'd do it again! Again again again! But I hate to think of Bill obsessing about him. I know from obsession, and it's not nice!"

  She crosses her arms over her bosom, an old self-comforting gesture that she has largely given up.

  "I don't think it's obsession, exactly." Jerome speaks cautiously, feeling his way. "I don't think it's about the past."

  "What else can it be? Because that monster has no future!"

  Bill's not so sure, Jerome thinks, but would never say. Holly is better, but she's still fragile. And, as she herself said, she knows from obsession. Besides, he has no idea what Bill's continuing interest in Brady means. All he has is a feeling. A hunch.

  "Let it rest," he says. This time when he puts his hand over hers she allows it to stay, and they talk of other things for awhile. Then he looks at his watch. "I have to go. I promised to pick up Barbara and Tina at the roller rink."

  "Tina's in love with you," Holly says matter-of-factly as they walk up the slope to their cars.

  "If she is, it'll pass," he says. "I'm heading east, and pretty soon some cute boy will appear in her life. She'll write his name on her book covers."

  "I suppose," Holly says. "That's usually how it works, isn't it? I just don't want you to make fun of her. She'd think you were being mean, and feel sad."

  "I won't," Jerome says.

  They have reached the cars, and once more Holly forces herself to look him full in the face. "I'm not in love with you, not the way she is, but I love you quite a lot, just the same. So take care of yourself, Jerome. Some college boys do foolish things. Don't be one of them."

  This time it's she who embraces him.

  "Oh, hey, I almost forgot," Jerome says. "I brought you a little present. It's a shirt, although I don't think you'll want to wear it when you visit your mom."

  He hands her his bag. She takes out the bright red tee and unfolds it. Printed on the front, in black, it shouts:

  SHIT DON'T MEAN SHIT

  Jimmy Gold

  "They sell them at the City College bookstore. I got it in an XL, in case you want to wear it as a nightshirt." He studies her face as she considers the words on the front of the tee. "Of course, you can also return it for something else, if you don't like it."

  "I like it very much," she says, and breaks into a smile. It's the one Hodges loves, the one that makes her beautiful. "And I will wear it when I visit my mother. Just to piss her off."

  Jerome looks so surprised that she laughs.

  "Don't you ever want to piss your mother off?"

  "From time to time. And Holly . . . I love you, too. You know that, right?"

  "I do," she says, holding the shirt to her chest. "And I'm glad. That shit means a lot."

  TRUNK

  Hodges walks the path through the undeveloped land from the Birch Street end, and finds Pete sitting on the bank of the stream with his knees hugged to his chest. Nearby, a scrubby tree juts over the water, which is down to a trickle after a long, hot summer. Below the tree, the hole where the trunk was buried has been reexcavated. The trunk itself is sitting aslant on the bank nearby. It looks old and tired and rather ominous, a time traveler from a year when disco was still in bloom. A photographer's tripod stands nearby. There are also a couple of bags that look like the kind pros carry when they travel.

  "The famous trunk," Hodges says, sitting down next to Pete.

  Pete nods. "Yeah. The famous trunk. The picture guy and his assistant have gone to lunch, but I think they'll be back pretty soon. Didn't seem crazy about any of the local restaurant choices. They're from New York." He shrugs, as if that explains everything. "At first the guy wanted me sitting on it, with my chin on my fist. You know, like that famous statue. I talked him out of it, but it wasn't easy."

  "This is for the local paper?"

  Pete shakes his head, starting to smile. "That's my good news, Mr. Hodges. It's for The New Yorker. They want an article about what happened. Not a little one, either. They want it for what they call 'the well,' which means the middle of the magazine. A really big piece, maybe the biggest they've ever done."

  "That's great!"

  "It will be if I don't fuck it up."

  Hodges studies him for a moment. "Wait. You're going to write it?"

  "Yeah. At first they wanted to send out one of their writers--George Packer, he's a really good one--to interview me and write the story. It's a big deal because John Rothstein was one of their fiction stars in the old days, right up there with John Updike, Shirley Jackson . . . you know the ones I mean."

  Hodges doesn't, but he nods.

  "Rothstein was sort of the go-to guy for teenage angst, and then middle-class angst. Sort of like John Cheever. I'm reading Cheever now. Do you know his story 'The Swimmer'?"

  Hodges shakes his head.

  "You should. It's awesome. Anyhow, they want the story of the notebooks. The whole thing, from beginning to end. This was after they had three or four handwriting analysts check out the photocopies I made, and the fragments."

  Hodges does know about the fragments. There were enough charred scraps in the burned-out basement to validate Pete's claim that the lost notebooks really had been Rothstein's work. Police backtrailing Morris Bellamy had further buttressed Pete's story. Which Hodges never doubted in the first place.

  "You said no to Packer, I take it."

  "I said no to anyone. If the story's going to get written, I have to be the one to do it. Not just because I was there, but because reading John Rothstein changed my . . ."

  He stops and shakes his head.

  "No. I was going to say his work changed my life, but that's not right. I don't think a teenager has much of a life to change. I just turned eighteen last month. I guess what I mean is his work changed my heart."

  Hodges smiles. "I get that."

  "The editor in charge of the story said I was too young--better than saying I had no talent, right?--so I sent him writing samples. That helped. Also, I stood up to him. It wasn't all that hard. Negotiating with a magazine guy from New York didn't seem like such a big deal after facing Bellamy. That was a negotiation."

  Pete shrugs.

  "They'll edit it the way they want, of course, I've read enough to know the process, and I'm okay with that. But if they want to publish it, it'll be my name over my story."

  "Tough stance, Pete."

  He stares at the trunk, for a moment looking much older than eighteen. "It's a tough world. I found that out after my dad got run down at City Center."

  No reply seems adequate, so Hodges keeps silent.

  "You know what they want most at The New Yorker, right?"

  Hodges didn't spend almost thirty years as a detective for nothing. "A summary of the last two books would be my guess. Jimmy Gold and his sister
and all his friends. Who did what to who, and how, and when, and how it all came out in the wash."

  "Yeah. And I'm the only one who knows those things. Which brings me to the apology part." He looks at Hodges solemnly.

  "Pete, no apology's necessary. There are no legal charges against you, and I'm not bearing even a teensy grudge about anything. Holly and Jerome aren't, either. We're just glad your mom and sis are okay."

  "They almost weren't. If I hadn't stonewalled you that day in the car, then ducked out through the drugstore, I bet Bellamy never would have come to the house. Tina still has nightmares."

  "Does she blame you for them?"

  "Actually . . . no."

  "Well, there you are," Hodges says. "You were under the gun. Literally as well as figuratively. Halliday scared the hell out of you, and you had no way of knowing he was dead when you went to his shop that day. As for Bellamy, you didn't even know he was still alive, let alone out of prison."

  "That's all true, but Halliday threatening me wasn't the only reason I wouldn't talk to you. I still thought I had a chance to keep the notebooks, see? That's why I wouldn't talk to you. And why I ran away. I wanted to keep them. It wasn't the top thing on my mind, but it was there underneath, all right. Those notebooks . . . well . . . and I have to say this in the piece I write for The New Yorker . . . they cast a spell over me. I need to apologize because I really wasn't so different from Morris Bellamy."

  Hodges takes Pete by the shoulders and looks directly into his eyes. "If that were true, you never would have gone to the Rec prepared to burn them."

  "I dropped the lighter by accident," Pete says quietly. "The gunshot startled me. I think I would have done it anyway--if he'd shot Tina--but I'll never know for sure."

  "I know," Hodges says. "And I'm sure enough for both of us."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. So how much are they paying you for this?"

  "Fifteen thousand dollars."

  Hodges whistles.

  "It's on acceptance, but they'll accept it, all right. Mr. Ricker is helping me, and it's turning out pretty well. I've already got the first half done in rough draft. I'm not much at fiction, but I'm okay at stuff like this. I could make a career of it someday, maybe."

  "What are you going to do with the money? Put it in a college fund?"

  He shakes his head. "I'll get to college, one way or another. I'm not worried about that. The money is for Chapel Ridge. Tina's going this year. You can't believe how excited she is."