Finders Keepers (25 page)

“I need you to loan me a car, Charlie. Short-term. Not even twelve hours.”

“When?”

“Tonight. Well . . . this evening. Tonight's when I need it. I can return it later on.”

Roberson has stopped laughing. “That's a bigger risk than takin a drink, Morrie.”

“Not for you; you're out, free and clear.”

“No, not for me, I'd just get a slap on the wrist. But drivin without a license is a big parole violation. You might go back inside. Don't get me wrong, I'm willin to help you out, just want to be sure you understand the stakes.”

“I understand them.”

Roberson tops up his glass and sips it as he considers. Morris wouldn't want to be the owner of the bike Charlie is going to be putting back together once their little palaver is done.

At last Roberson says, “You be okay with a truck instead of a car? One I'm thinking of is a small panel job. And it's an automatic. Says ‘Jones Flowers' on the side, but you can hardly read it anymore. It's out back. I'll show it to you, if you want.”

Morris wants, and one look makes him decide the little black panel truck is a gift from God . . . assuming it runs all right. Roberson assures him that it does, even though it's on its second trip around the clock.

“I shut up shop early on Fridays. Around three. I could put in some gas and leave the keys under the right front tire.”

“That's perfect,” Morris says. He can go in to the MAC, tell his fat fuck of a boss that he had a stomach bug but it passed, work
until four like a good little office drone, then come back out here. “Listen, the Groundhogs play tonight, don't they?”

“Yeah, they got the Dayton Dragons. Why? You hankerin to take in a game? Because I could be up for that.”

“Another time, maybe. What I'm thinking is I could return the truck around ten, park it in the same place, then take a stadium bus back into town.”

“Same old Morrie,” Roberson says, and taps his temple. His eyes have become noticeably bloodshot. “You are one thinking cat.”

“Remember to put the keys under the tire.” The last thing Morris needs is for Roberson to get shitfaced on cheap bourbon and forget.

“I will. Owe you a lot, buddy. Owe you the motherfuckin
world
.”

This sentiment necessitates another bro-hug, redolent of sweat, bourbon, and cheap aftershave. Roberson squeezes so tightly that Morris finds it hard to breathe, but at last he's released. He accompanies Charlie back into the garage, thinking that tonight—in twelve hours, maybe less—the Rothstein notebooks will once more be in his possession. With such an intoxicating prospect as that, who needs bourbon?

“You mind me asking why you're working here, Charlie? I thought you were going to get a boatload of cash from the state for false imprisonment.”

“Aw, man, they threatened to bring up a bunch of old charges.” Roberson resumes his seat in front of the Harley he's been working on. He picks up a wrench and taps it against the grease-smeared leg of his pants. “Including a bad one in Missouri, could have put me away down there for the rest of my life. Three-strikes rule or some shit. So we kinda worked out a trade.”

He regards Morris with his bloodshot eyes, and in spite of his
meaty biceps (it's clear he never lost the prison workout habit), Morris can see he's really old, and will soon be unhealthy, as well. If he isn't already.

“They fuck you in the end, buddy. Right up the ass. Rock the boat and they fuck you even harder. So you take what you can get. This is what I got, and it's enough for me.”

“Shit don't mean shit,” Morris says.

Roberson bellows laughter. “What you always said! And it's the fuckin truth!”

“Just don't forget to leave the keys.”

“I'll leave em.” Roberson levels a grease-blackened finger at Morris. “And don't get caught. Listen to your daddy.”

I won't get caught, Morris thinks. I've waited too long.

“One other thing?”

Roberson waits for it.

“I don't suppose I could get a gun.” Morris sees the look on Charlie's face and adds hastily, “Not to use, just as insurance.”

Roberson shakes his head. “No gun. I'd get a lot more than a slap on the wrist for that.”

“I'd never say it came from you.”

The bloodshot eyes regard Morris shrewdly. “Can I be honest? You're too jail-bit for guns. Probably shoot yourself in the nutsack. The truck, okay. I owe you that. But if you want a gun, find it somewhere else.”

23

At three o'clock that Friday afternoon, Morris comes within a whisker of trashing twelve million dollars' worth of modern art.

Well, no, not really, but he
does
come close to erasing the records
of that art, which include the provenance and the background info on a dozen rich MAC donors. He's spent weeks creating a new search protocol that covers all of the Arts Center's acquisitions since the beginning of the twenty-first century. That protocol is a work of art in itself, and this afternoon, instead of sliding the biggest of the subfiles into the master file, he has moused it into the trash along with a lot of other dreck he needs to get rid of. The MAC's lumbering, outdated computer system is overloaded with useless shit, including a ton of stuff that's no longer even in the building. Said ton got moved to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York back in '05. Morris is on the verge of emptying the trash to make room for more dreck, his finger is actually on the trigger, when he realizes he's about to send a very valuable live file to data heaven.

For a moment he's back in Waynesville, trying to hide contraband before a rumored cell inspection, maybe nothing more dangerous than a snack-pack of Keebler cookies but enough to get him marked down if the screw is in a pissy mood. He looks at his finger, hovering less than an eighth of an inch over that damned delete button, and pulls his hand back to his chest, where he can feel his heart thumping fast and hard. What in God's name was he thinking?

His fat fuck of a boss chooses that moment to poke his head into Morris's closet-sized workspace. The cubicles where the other office drones spend their days are papered with pictures of boyfriends, girlfriends, families, even the fucking family dog, but Morris has put up nothing but a postcard of Paris, which he has always wanted to visit. Like
that's
ever going to happen.

“Everything all right, Morris?” the fat fuck asks.

“Fine,” Morris says, praying that his boss won't come in and look at his screen. Although he probably wouldn't know what he
was looking at. The obese bastard can send emails, he even seems to have a vague grasp of what Google is for, but beyond that he's lost. Yet he's living out in the suburbs with the wife and kiddies instead of in Bugshit Manor, where the crazies yell at invisible enemies in the middle of the night.

“Good to hear. Carry on.”

Morris thinks, Carry your fat ass on out of here.

The fat fuck does, probably headed down to the canteen to feed his fat fuck face. When he's gone, Morris clicks on the trash icon, grabs what he almost deleted, and moves it back into the master file. This isn't much of an operation, but when it's finished he blows out his breath like a man who has just defused a bomb.

Where was your head? he scolds himself. What were you thinking?

Rhetorical questions. He was thinking about the Rothstein notebooks, now so close. Also about the little panel truck, and how scary it's going to feel, driving again after all those years inside. All he needs is one fender-bender . . . one cop who thinks he looks suspicious . . .

I have to keep it together a little longer, Morris thinks. I have to.

But his brain feels overloaded, running in the red zone. He thinks he'll be all right once the notebooks are actually in his possession (also the money, although that's far less important). Get those puppies hidden away at the back of the closet in his room on the ninth floor of Bugshit Manor and he can relax, but right now the stress is killing him. It's also being in a changed world and working an actual job and having a boss who doesn't wear a gray uniform but still has to be kowtowed to. On top of all that, there's the stress of having to drive an unregistered vehicle without a license tonight.

He thinks, By ten PM, things will be better. In the meantime, strap down and tighten up. Shit don't mean shit.

“Right,” Morris whispers, and wipes a prickle of sweat from the skin between his mouth and nose.

24

At four o'clock he saves his work, closes out the apps he's been running, and shuts down. He walks into the MAC's plush lobby and standing there like a bad dream made real, feet apart and hands clasped behind his back, is Ellis McFarland. His PO is studying an Edward Hopper painting like the art aficionado he surely isn't.

Without turning (Morris realizes the man must have seen his reflection in the glass covering the painting, but it's still eerie), McFarland says, “Yo, Morrie. How you doin, homie?”

He knows, Morris thinks. Not just about the panel truck, either. About everything.

Not true, and he knows it isn't, but the part that's still in jail and always will be assures him it
is
true. To McFarland, Morris Bellamy's forehead is a pane of glass. Everything inside, every turning wheel and overheated whirling cog, is visible to him.

“I'm all right, Mr. McFarland.”

Today McFarland is wearing a plaid sportcoat approximately the size of a living room rug. He looks Morris up and down, and when his eyes return to Morris's face, it's all Morris can do to hold them.

“You don't
look
all right. You're pale, and you got those dark whack-off circles under your eyes. Been using something you hadn't oughtta been using, Morrie?”

“No, sir.”

“Doing something you hadn't oughtta be doing?”

“No.” Thinking of the panel truck with JONES FLOWERS
still visible on the side, waiting for him on the South Side. The keys probably already under the tire.

“No what?”

“No, sir.”

“Uh-huh. Maybe it's the flu. Because, frankly speaking, you look like ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag.”

“I almost made a mistake,” Morris says. “It could have been rectified—probably—but it would have meant bringing in an outside I-T guy, maybe even shutting down the main server. I would have been in trouble.”

“Welcome to the workaday world,” McFarland says, with zero sympathy.

“Well, it's different for me!” Morris bursts out, and oh God, it's such a
relief
to burst out, and to do it about something safe. “If anyone should know that, it's you! Someone else who did that would just get a reprimand, but not me. And if they fired me—for a lapse in attention, not anything I did on purpose—I'd end up back inside.”

“Maybe,” McFarland says, turning back to the picture. It shows a man and a woman sitting in a room and apparently working hard not to look at each other. “Maybe not.”

“My boss doesn't like me,” Morris says. He knows he sounds like he's whining, probably he
is
whining. “I know four times as much as he does about how the computer system in this place works, and it pisses him off. He'd love to see me gone.”

“You sound a weensy bit paranoid,” McFarland says. His hands are again clasped above his truly awesome buttocks, and all at once Morris understands why McFarland is here. McFarland followed him to the motorcycle shop where Charlie Roberson works and has decided he's up to something. Morris knows this isn't so. He knows it is.

“What are they doing, anyway, letting a guy like me screw with their files? A parolee? If I do the wrong thing, and I almost did, I could cost them a lot of money.”

“What did you think you'd be doing on the outside?” McFarland says, still examining the Hopper painting, which is called
Apartment 16-A
. He seems fascinated by it, but Morris isn't fooled. McFarland is watching his reflection again. Judging him. “You're too old and too soft to shift cartons in a warehouse or work on a gardening crew.”

He turns around.

“It's called mainstreaming, Morris, and I didn't make the policy. If you want to wah-wah-wah about it, find somebody who gives a shit.”

“Sorry,” Morris says.

“Sorry
what
?”

“Sorry, Mr. McFarland.”

“Thank you, Morris, that's better. Now let's step into the men's room, where you will pee in the little cup and prove to me that your paranoia isn't drug-induced.”

The last stragglers of the office staff are leaving. Several glance at Morris and the big black man in the loud sportcoat, then quickly glance away. Morris feels an urge to shout
That's right, he's my parole officer, get a good look!

He follows McFarland into the men's, which is empty, thank God. McFarland leans against the wall, arms crossed on his chest, watching as Morris unlimbers his elderly thingamajig and produces a urine sample. When it doesn't turn blue after thirty seconds, McFarland hands the little plastic cup back to Morris. “Congratulations. Dump that, homie.”

Morris does. McFarland is washing his hands methodically, lathering all the way to his wrists.

“I don't have AIDS, you know. If that's what you're worried about. I had to take the test before they let me out.”

McFarland carefully dries his big hands. He studies himself in the mirror for a moment (maybe wishing he had some hair to comb), then turns to Morris. “You may be substance-free, but I really don't like the way you look, Morrie.”

Morris keeps silent.

“Let me tell you something eighteen years in this job has taught me. There are two types of parolees, and two only: wolves and lambs. You're too old to be a wolf, but I'm not entirely sure you're hip to that. You may not have
internalized
it, as the shrinks say. I don't know what wolfish shit you might have on your mind, maybe it's nothing more than stealing paper clips from the supply room, but whatever it is, you need to forget about it. You're too old to howl and
much
too old to run.”