Finders Keepers Read online

  Pete wishes he had never seen that fucking trunk.

  He thinks, But I was only trying to do the right thing. Goddammit, that's all I was trying to do!

  Ellen sees the tears standing in the boy's eyes, and notices for the first time--perhaps because he's shaved off that silly singles-bar moustache--how thin his face has become. Really just half a step from gaunt. She drops her cell back into her purse and comes out with a packet of tissues. "Wipe your face," she says.

  A voice from the bus calls out, "Hey Saubers! D'ja get any?"

  "Shut up, Jeremy," Ellen says without turning. Then, to Pete: "I should give you a week's detention for this little stunt, but I'm going to cut you some slack."

  Indeed she is, because a week's detention would necessitate an oral report to NHS Assistant Principal Waters, who is also School Disciplinarian. Waters would inquire into her own actions, and want to know why she had not sounded the alarm earlier, especially if she were forced to admit that she hadn't actually seen Pete Saubers since dinner in the restaurant the night before. He had been out of her sight and supervision for nearly a full day, and that was far too long for a school-mandated trip.

  "Thank you, Ms. Bran."

  "Do you think you're done throwing up?"

  "Yes. There's nothing left."

  "Then get on the bus and let's go home."

  There's more sarcastic applause as Pete comes up the steps and makes his way down the aisle. He tries to smile, as if everything is okay. All he wants is to get back to Sycamore Street and hide in his room, waiting for tomorrow so he can get this nightmare over with.

  10

  When Hodges gets home from the hospital, a good-looking young man in a Harvard tee-shirt is sitting on his stoop, reading a thick paperback with a bunch of fighting Greeks or Romans on the cover. Sitting beside him is an Irish setter wearing the sort of happy-go-lucky grin that seems to be the default expression of dogs raised in friendly homes. Both man and dog rise when Hodges pulls into the little lean-to that serves as his garage.

  The young man meets him halfway across the lawn, one fisted hand held out. Hodges bumps knuckles with him, thus acknowledging Jerome's blackness, then shakes his hand, thereby acknowledging his own WASPiness.

  Jerome stands back, holding Hodges's forearms and giving him a once-over. "Look at you!" he exclaims. "Skinny as ever was!"

  "I walk," Hodges says. "And I bought a treadmill for rainy days."

  "Excellent! You'll live forever!"

  "I wish," Hodges says, and bends down. The dog extends a paw and Hodges shakes it. "How you doing, Odell?"

  Odell woofs, which presumably means he's doing fine.

  "Come on in," Hodges says. "I have Cokes. Unless you'd prefer a beer."

  "Coke's fine. I bet Odell would appreciate some water. We walked over. Odell doesn't walk as fast as he used to."

  "His bowl's still under the sink."

  They go in and toast each other with icy glasses of Coca-Cola. Odell laps water, then stretches out in his accustomed place beside the TV. Hodges was an obsessive television watcher during the first months of his retirement, but now the box rarely goes on except for Scott Pelley on The CBS Evening News, or the occasional Indians game.

  "How's the pacemaker, Bill?"

  "I don't even know it's there. Which is just the way I like it. What happened to the big country club dance you were going to in Pittsburgh with what's-her-name?"

  "That didn't work out. As far as my parents are concerned, what's-her-name and I discovered that we are not compatible in terms of our academic and personal interests."

  Hodges raises his eyebrows. "Sounds a tad lawyerly for a philosophy major with a minor in ancient cultures."

  Jerome sips his Coke, sprawls his long legs out, and grins. "Truth? What's-her-name--aka Priscilla--was using me to tweak the jealous-bone of her high school boyfriend. And it worked. Told me how sorry she was to get me down there on false pretenses, hopes we can still be friends, so on and so forth. A little embarrassing, but probably all for the best." He pauses. "She still has all her Barbies and Bratz on a shelf in her room, and I must admit that gave me pause. I guess I wouldn't mind too much if my folks found out I was the stick she stirred her pot of love-soup with, but if you tell the Barbster, I'll never hear the end of it."

  "Mum's the word," Hodges says. "So what now? Back to Massachusetts?"

  "Nope, I'm here for the summer. Got a job down on the docks swinging containers."

  "That is not work for a Harvard man, Jerome."

  "It is for this one. I got my heavy equipment license last winter, the pay is excellent, and Harvard ain't cheap, even with a partial scholarship." Tyrone Feelgood Delight makes a mercifully brief guest appearance. "Dis here black boy goan tote dat barge an' lift dat bale, Massa Hodges!" Then back to Jerome, just like that. "Who's mowing your lawn? It looks pretty good. Not Jerome Robinson quality, but pretty good."

  "Kid from the end of the block," Hodges says. "Is this just a courtesy call, or . . . ?"

  "Barbara and her friend Tina told me one hell of a story," Jerome says. "Tina was reluctant to spill it at first, but Barbs talked her into it. She's good at stuff like that. Listen, you know Tina's father was hurt in the City Center thing, right?"

  "Yes."

  "If her big brother was really the one sending cash to keep the fam afloat, good for him . . . but where did it come from? I can't figure that one out no matter how hard I try."

  "Nor can I."

  "Tina says you're going to ask him."

  "After school tomorrow, is the plan."

  "Is Holly involved?"

  "To an extent. She's doing background."

  "Cool!" Jerome grins big. "How about I come with you tomorrow? Get the band back together, man! Play all the hits!"

  Hodges considers. "I don't know, Jerome. One guy--a golden oldie like me--might not upset young Mr. Saubers too much. Two guys, though, especially when one of them's a badass black dude who stands six-four--"

  "Fifteen rounds and I'm still pretty!" Jerome proclaims, waving clasped hands over his head. Odell lays back his ears. "Still pretty! That bad ole bear Sonny Liston never touched me! I float like a butterfly, I sting like a . . ." He assesses Hodges's patient expression. "Okay, sorry, sometimes I get carried away. Where are you going to wait for him?"

  "Out front was the plan. You know, where the kids actually exit the building?"

  "Not all of them come out that way, and he might not, especially if Tina lets on she talked to you." He sees Hodges about to speak and raises a hand. "She says she won't, but big brothers know little sisters, you can take that from a guy who's got one. If he knows somebody wants to ask him questions, he's apt to go out the back and cut across the football field to Westfield Street. I could park there, give you a call if I see him."

  "Do you know what he looks like?"

  "Uh-huh, Tina had a picture in her wallet. Let me be a part of this, Bill. Barbie likes that chick. I liked her too. And it took guts for her to come to you, even with my sister snapping the whip."

  "I know."

  "Also, I'm curious as hell. Tina says the money started coming when her bro was only thirteen. A kid that young with access to that much money . . ." Jerome shakes his head. "I'm not surprised he's in trouble."

  "Me either. I guess if you want to be in, you're in."

  "My man!"

  This cry necessitates another fist-bump.

  "You went to Northfield, Jerome. Is there any other way he could go out, besides the front and Westfield Street?"

  Jerome thinks it over. "If he went down to the basement, there's a door that takes you out to one side, where the smoking area used to be, back in the day. I guess he could go across that, then cut through the auditorium and come out on Garner Street."

  "I could put Holly there," Hodges says thoughtfully.

  "Excellent idea!" Jerome cries. "Gettin the band back together! What I said!"

  "But no approach if you see him," Hodges says. "Just call. I g
et to approach. I'll tell Holly the same thing. Not that she'd be likely to."

  "As long as we get to hear the story."

  "If I get it, you'll get it," Hodges says, hoping he has not just made a rash promise. "Come by my office in the Turner Building around two, and we'll move out around two fifteen. Be in position by two forty-five."

  "You're sure Holly will be okay with this?"

  "Yes. She's fine with watching. It's confrontation that gives her problems."

  "Not always."

  "No," Hodges says, "not always."

  They are both thinking of one confrontation--at the MAC, with Brady Hartsfield--that Holly handled just fine.

  Jerome glances at his watch. "I have to go. Promised I'd take the Barbster to the mall. She wants a Swatch." He rolls his eyes.

  Hodges grins. "I love your sis, Jerome."

  Jerome grins back. "Actually, so do I. Come on, Odell. Let's shuffle."

  Odell rises and heads for the door. Jerome grasps the knob, then turns back. His grin is gone. "Have you been where I think you've been?"

  "Probably."

  "Does Holly know you visit him?"

  "No. And you're not to tell her. She'd find it vastly upsetting."

  "Yes. She would. How is he?"

  "The same. Although . . ." Hodges is thinking of how the picture fell over. That clack sound.

  "Although what?"

  "Nothing. He's the same. Do me one favor, okay? Tell Barbara to get in touch if Tina calls and says her brother found out the girls talked to me on Friday."

  "Will do. See you tomorrow."

  Jerome leaves. Hodges turns on the TV, and is delighted to see the Indians are still on. They've tied it up. The game is going into extra innings.

  11

  Holly spends Sunday evening in her apartment, trying to watch The Godfather Part II on her computer. Usually this would be a very pleasant occupation, because she considers it one of the two or three best movies ever made, right up there with Citizen Kane and Paths of Glory, but tonight she keeps pausing it so she can pace worry-circles around the living room of her apartment. There's a lot of room to pace. This apartment isn't as glitzy as the lakeside condo she lived in for awhile when she first moved to the city, but it's in a good neighborhood and plenty big. She can afford the rent; under the terms of her cousin Janey's will, Holly inherited half a million dollars. Less after taxes, of course, but still a very nice nest egg. And, thanks to her job with Bill Hodges, she can afford to let the nest egg grow.

  As she paces, she mutters some of her favorite lines from the movie.

  "I don't have to wipe everyone out, just my enemies.

  "How do you say banana daiquiri?

  "Your country ain't your blood, remember that."

  And, of course, the one everyone remembers: "I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart."

  If she was watching another movie, she would be incanting a different set of quotes. It is a form of self-hypnosis that she has practiced ever since she saw The Sound of Music at the age of seven. (Favorite line from that one: "I wonder what grass tastes like.")

  She's really thinking about the Moleskine notebook Tina's brother was so quick to hide under his pillow. Bill believes it has nothing to do with the money Pete was sending his parents, but Holly isn't so sure.

  She has kept journals for most of her life, listing all the movies she's seen, all the books she's read, the people she's talked to, the times she gets up, the times she goes to bed. Also her bowel movements, which are coded (after all, someone may see her journals after she's dead) as WP, which stands for Went Potty. She knows this is OCD behavior--she and her therapist have discussed how obsessive listing is really just another form of magical thinking--but it doesn't hurt anyone, and if she prefers to keep her lists in Moleskine notebooks, whose business is that besides her own? The point is, she knows from Moleskines, and therefore knows they're not cheap. Two-fifty will get you a spiral-bound notebook in Walgreens, but a Moleskine with the same number of pages goes for ten bucks. Why would a kid want such an expensive notebook, especially when he came from a cash-strapped family?

  "Doesn't make sense," Holly says. Then, as if just following this train of thought: "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli." That's from the original Godfather, but it's still a good line. One of the best.

  Send the money. Keep the notebook.

  An expensive notebook that got shoved under the pillow when the little sister appeared unexpectedly in the room. The more Holly thinks about it, the more she thinks there might be something there.

  She restarts the movie but can't follow its well-worn and well-loved path with this notebook stuff rolling around in her head, so Holly does something almost unheard of, at least before bedtime: she turns her computer off. Then she resumes pacing, hands locked together at the small of her back.

  Send the money. Keep the notebook.

  "And the lag!" she exclaims to the empty room. "Don't forget that!"

  Yes. The seven months of quiet time between when the money ran out and when the Saubers boy started to get his underpants all in a twist. Because it took him seven months to think up a way to get more money? Holly thinks yes. Holly thinks he got an idea, but it wasn't a good idea. It was an idea that got him in trouble.

  "What gets people in trouble when it's about money?" Holly asks the empty room, pacing faster than ever. "Stealing does. So does blackmail."

  Was that it? Did Pete Saubers try to blackmail somebody about something in the Moleskine notebook? Something about the stolen money, maybe? Only how could Pete blackmail someone about that money when he must have stolen it himself?

  Holly goes to the telephone, reaches for it, then pulls her hand back. For almost a minute she just stands there, gnawing her lips. She's not used to taking the initiative in things. Maybe she should call Bill first, and ask him if it's okay?

  "Bill doesn't think the notebook's important, though," she tells her living room. "I think different. And I can think different if I want to."

  She snatches her cell from the coffee table and calls Tina Saubers before she can lose her nerve.

  "Hello?" Tina asks cautiously. Almost whispering. "Who's this?"

  "Holly Gibney. You didn't see my number come up because it's unlisted. I'm very careful about my number, although I'll be happy to give it to you, if you want. We can talk anytime, because we're friends and that's what friends do. Is your brother back home from his weekend?"

  "Yes. He came in around six, while we were finishing up dinner. Mom said there was still plenty of pot roast and potatoes, she'd heat them up if he wanted, but he said they stopped at Denny's on the way back. Then he went up to his room. He didn't even want any strawberry shortcake, and he loves that. I'm really worried about him, Ms. Holly."

  "You can just call me Holly, Tina." She hates Ms., thinks it sounds like a mosquito buzzing around your head.

  "Okay."

  "Did he say anything to you?"

  "Just hi," Tina says in a small voice.

  "And you didn't tell him about coming to the office with Barbara on Friday?"

  "God, no!"

  "Where is he now?"

  "Still in his room. Listening to the Black Keys. I hate the Black Keys."

  "Yes, me too." Holly has no idea who the Black Keys are, although she could name the entire cast of Fargo. (Best line in that one, delivered by Steve Buscemi: "Smoke a fuckin peace pipe.")

  "Tina, does Pete have a special friend he might have talked to about what's bothering him?"

  Tina thinks it over. Holly takes the opportunity to snatch a Nicorette from the open pack beside her computer and pop it into her mouth.

  "I don't think so," Tina says at last. "I guess he has friends at school, he's pretty popular, but his only close friend was Bob Pearson, from down the block? And they moved to Denver last year."

  "What about a girlfriend?"

  "He used to spend a lot of time with Gloria Moore, but they broke up after Christmas. Pete said she didn't like t
o read, and he could never get tight with a girl who didn't like books." Wistfully, Tina adds: "I liked Gloria. She showed me how to do my eyes."

  "Girls don't need eye makeup until they're in their thirties," Holly says authoritatively, although she has never actually worn any herself. Her mother says only sluts wear eye makeup.

  "Really?" Tina sounds astonished.

  "What about teachers? Did he have a favorite teacher he might have talked to?" Holly doubts if an older brother would have talked to his kid sister about favorite teachers, or if the kid sister would have paid any attention even if he did. She asks because it's the only other thing she can think of.

  But Holly doesn't even hesitate. "Ricky the Hippie," she says, and giggles.

  Holly stops in mid-pace. "Who?"

  "Mr. Ricker, that's his real name. Pete said some of the kids call him Ricky the Hippie because he wears these old-time flower-power shirts and ties. Pete had him when he was a freshman. Or maybe a sophomore. I can't remember. He said Mr. Ricker knew what good books were all about. Ms. . . . I mean Holly, is Mr. Hodges still going to talk to Pete tomorrow?"

  "Yes. Don't worry about that."

  But Tina is plenty worried. She sounds on the verge of tears, in fact, and this makes Holly's stomach contract into a tight little ball. "Oh boy. I hope he doesn't hate me."

  "He won't," Holly says. She's chewing her Nicorette at warp speed. "Bill will find out what's wrong and fix it. Then your brother will love you more than ever."

  "Do you promise?"

  "Yes! Ouch!"

  "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing." She wipes her mouth and looks at a smear of blood on her fingers. "I bit my lip. I have to go, Tina. Will you call me if you think of anyone he might have talked to about the money?"

  "There's no one," Tina says forlornly, and starts to cry.