بخش 03 - فصل 18

18

Mid-morning.

Hodges is in court, and on best behavior. Holly would be proud. He answers the questions posed by the Bald Beater’s attorney with crisp succinctness. The attorney gives him plenty of opportunity to be argumentative, and although this was a trap Hodges sometimes fell into during his detective days, he avoids it now.

Linda Saubers is driving her pale, silent daughter home from school, where she will give Tina a glass of ginger ale to settle her stomach and then put her to bed. She is finally ready to ask Tina what she knows about the mystery money, but not until the girl feels better. The afternoon will be time enough, and she should make Pete a part of that conversation when he gets home from school. It will be just the three of them, and probably that’s best. Tom and a group of his real estate clients are touring an office complex, recently vacated by IBM, fifty miles north of the city, and won’t be back until seven. Even later, if they stop for dinner on the return trip.

Pete is in period three Advanced Physics, and although his eyes are trained on Mr Norton, who is rhapsodizing about the Higgs boson and the CERN Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, the mind behind those eyes is much closer to home. He is going over his script for this afternoon’s meeting yet again, and reminding himself that just because he has a script doesn’t mean Halliday will follow it. Halliday has been in this business a long time, and he’s probably been skirting the edges of the law for much of it. Pete is just a kid, and it absolutely will not do to forget that. He must be careful, and allow for his inexperience. He must think before he speaks, every time.

Above all, he must be brave.

He tells Halliday: Half a loaf is better than none, but in a world of want, even a single slice is better than none. I’m offering you three dozen slices. You need to think about that.

He tells Halliday: I’m not going to be anyone’s birthday fuck, you better think about that, too.

He tells Halliday: If you think I’m bluffing, go on and try me. But if you do, we both wind up with nothing.

He thinks, If I can hold my nerve, I can get out of this. And I will hold it. I will. I have to.

Morris Bellamy parks the stolen Subaru two blocks from Bugshit Manor and walks back. He lingers in the doorway of a secondhand store to make sure Ellis McFarland isn’t in the vicinity, then scurries to the miserable building and plods up the nine flights of stairs. Both elevators are busted today, which is par for the course. He scrambles random clothes into one of the Tuff Totes and then leaves his crappy room for the last time. All the way down to the first corner his back feels hot, his neck as stiff as an ironing board. He carries one Tuff Tote in each hand, and they seem to weigh a hundred pounds apiece. He keeps waiting for McFarland to call his name. To step out from beneath a shadowed awning and ask him why he’s not at work. To ask him where he thinks he’s going. To ask him what he’s got in those bags. And then to tell him he’s going back to prison: Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Morris doesn’t relax until Bugshit Manor is out of sight for good.

Tom Saubers is walking his little pack of real estate agents through the empty IBM facility, pointing out the various features and encouraging them to take pictures. They’re all excited by the possibilities. Come the end of the day, his surgically repaired legs and hips will ache like all the devils of hell, but for the time being, he’s feeling fine. This abandoned office and manufacturing complex could be a big deal for him. Life is finally turning around.

Jerome has popped into Hodges’s office to surprise Holly, who squeals with joy when she sees him, then with apprehension when he seizes her by the waist and swings her around as he likes to do with his little sister. They talk for an hour or more, catching up, and she gives him her views on the Saubers affair. She’s happy when Jerome takes her concerns about the Moleskine notebook seriously, and happier still to find out he has seen 22 Jump Street. They drop the subject of Pete Saubers and discuss the movie at great length, comparing it to others in Jonah Hill’s filmography. Then they move on to a discussion of various computer apps.

Andrew Halliday is the only one not occupied. First editions no longer matter to him, nor do young waiters in tight black pants. Oil and water are the same as wind and air to him now. He’s sleeping the big sleep in a patch of congealed blood, drawing flies.