بخش 03 - فصل 32

32

When Pete comes fully back to himself, he’s in a place Morris Bellamy knows well: Government Square, across from the Happy Cup Café. He sits on a bench to catch his breath, looking anxiously back the way he’s come. He sees no sign of Red Lips, and this doesn’t surprise him. Pete is also thinking again, and knows the man who tried to kill him would attract attention on the street. I got him pretty good, Pete thinks grimly. Red Lips is now Bloody Chin.

Good so far, but what now?

As if in answer, his cell phone vibrates. Pete pulls it out of his pocket and looks at the number displayed. He recognizes the last four digits, 8877, from when he called Halliday and left a message about the weekend trip to River Bend Resort. It has to be Red Lips; it sure can’t be Mr Halliday. This thought is so awful it makes him laugh, although the sound that comes out sounds more like a sob.

His first impulse is to not answer. What changes his mind is something Red Lips said: Your house used to be my house. Isn’t that an interesting co-inky-dink?

His mother’s text instructed him to come home right after school. Tina’s text said their mother knew about the money. So they’re together at the house, waiting for him. Pete doesn’t want to alarm them unnecessarily – especially when he’s the cause for alarm – but he needs to know what this incoming call is about, especially since Dad isn’t around to protect the two of them if the crazy guy should turn up on Sycamore Street. Dad’s in Victor County, doing one of his show-and-tells.

I’ll call the police, Pete thinks. When I tell him that, he’ll head for the hills. He’ll have to. This thought brings some marginal comfort, and he pushes ACCEPT.

‘Hello, Peter,’ Red Lips says.

‘I don’t need to talk to you,’ Peter says. ‘You better run, because I’m calling the cops.’

‘I’m glad I reached you before you did something so foolish. You won’t believe this, but I’m telling you as a friend.’

‘You’re right,’ Pete says. ‘I don’t believe it. You tried to kill me.’

‘Here’s something else you won’t believe: I’m glad I didn’t. Because then I’d never find out where you hid the Rothstein notebooks.’

‘You never will,’ Pete says, and adds, ‘I’m telling you as a friend.’ He’s feeling a little steadier now. Red Lips isn’t chasing him, and he isn’t on his way to Sycamore Street, either. He’s hiding in the bookshop and talking on the landline.

‘That’s what you think now, because you haven’t considered the long view. I have. Here’s the situation: You went to Andy to sell the notebooks. He tried to blackmail you instead, so you killed him.’

Pete says nothing. He can’t. He’s flabbergasted.

‘Peter? Are you there? If you don’t want to spend a year in the Riverview Youth Detention Center followed by twenty or so in Waynesville, you better be. I’ve been in both, and I can tell you they’re no place for young men with virgin bottoms. College would be much better, don’t you think?’

‘I wasn’t even in the city last weekend,’ Pete says. ‘I was at a school retreat. I can prove it.’

Red Lips doesn’t hesitate. ‘Then you did it before you left. Or possibly on Sunday night, after you got back. The police are going to find your voicemail – I was sure to save it. There’s also DVD security footage of you arguing with him. I took the discs, but I’ll be sure the police get them if we can’t come to an agreement. Then there’s the fingerprints. They’ll find yours on the doorknob of his inner office. Better still, they’ll find them on the murder weapon. I think you’re in a box, even if you can account for every minute of your time this past weekend.’

Pete realizes with dismay that he can’t even do that. He missed everything on Sunday. He remembers Ms Bran – alias Bran Stoker – standing by the door of the bus just twenty-four hours ago, cell phone in hand, ready to call 911 and report a missing student.

I’m sorry, he told her. I was sick to my stomach. I thought the fresh air would help me. I was vomiting.

He can see her in court, all too clearly, saying that yes, Peter did look sick that afternoon. And he can hear the prosecuting attorney telling the jury that any teenage boy probably would look sick after chopping an elderly book dealer into kindling with a hatchet.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I submit to you that Pete Saubers hitchhiked back to the city that Sunday morning because he had an appointment with Mr Halliday, who thought Mr Saubers had finally decided to give in to his blackmail demands. Only Mr Saubers had no intention of giving in.

It’s a nightmare, Pete thinks. Like dealing with Halliday all over again, only a thousand times worse.

‘Peter? Are you there?’

‘No one would believe it. Not for a second. Not once they find out about you.’

‘And who am I, exactly?’

The wolf, Pete thinks. You’re the big bad wolf.

People must have seen him that Sunday, wandering around the resort acreage. Plenty of people, because he’d mostly stuck to the paths. Some would surely remember him and come forward. But, as Red Lips said, that left before the trip and after. Especially Sunday night, when he’d gone straight to his room and closed the door. On CSI and Criminal Minds, police scientists were always able to figure out the exact time of a murdered person’s death, but in real life, who knew? Not Pete. And if the police had a good suspect, one whose prints were on the murder weapon, the time of death might become negotiable.

But I had to throw the hatchet at him! he thinks. It was all I had!

Believing that things can get no worse, Pete looks down and sees a bloodstain on his knee.

Mr Halliday’s blood.

‘I can fix this,’ Red Lips says smoothly, ‘and if we come to terms, I will. I can wipe your fingerprints. I can erase the voicemail. I can destroy the security DVDs. All you have to do is tell me where the notebooks are.’

‘Like I should trust you!’

‘You should.’ Low. Coaxing and reasonable. ‘Think about it, Peter. With you out of the picture, Andy’s murder looks like an attempted robbery gone wrong. The work of some random crackhead or meth freak. That’s good for both of us. With you in the picture, the existence of the notebooks comes out. Why would I want that?’

You won’t care, Pete thinks. You won’t have to, because you won’t be anywhere near here when Halliday is discovered dead in his office. You said you were in Waynesville, and that makes you an ex-con, and you knew Mr Halliday. Put those together, and you’d be a suspect, too. Your fingerprints are in there as well as mine, and I don’t think you can wipe them all up. What you can do – if I let you – is take the notebooks and go. And once you’re gone, what’s to keep you from sending the police those security DVDs, just for spite? To get back at me for hitting you with that liquor bottle and then getting away? If I agree to what you’re saying …

He finishes the thought aloud. ‘I’ll only look worse. No matter what you say.’

‘I assure you that’s not true.’

He sounds like a lawyer, one of the sleazy ones with fancy hair who advertise on the cable channels late at night. Pete’s outrage returns and straightens him on the bench like an electric shock.

‘Fuck you. You’re never getting those notebooks.’

He ends the call. The phone buzzes in his hand almost immediately, same number, Red Lips calling back. Pete hits DECLINE and turns the phone off. Right now he needs to think harder and smarter than ever in his life.

Mom and Tina, they’re the most important thing. He has to talk to Mom, tell her that she and Teens have to get out of the house right away. Go to a motel, or something. They have to—

No, not Mom. It’s his sister he has to talk to, at least to begin with.

He didn’t take that Mr Hodges’s card, but Tina must know how to get in touch with him. If that doesn’t work, he’ll have to call the police and take his chances. He will not put his family at risk, no matter what.

Pete speed-dials his sister.