بخش 03 - فصل 33

33

‘Hello? Peter? Hello? Hello?’

Nothing. The thieving sonofabitch has hung up. Morris’s first impulse is to rip the desk phone out of the wall and throw it at one of the bookcases, but he restrains himself at the last moment. This is no time to lose himself in a rage.

So what now? What next? Is Saubers going to call the police despite all the evidence stacked against him?

Morris can’t allow himself to believe that, because if he does, the notebooks will be lost to him. And consider this: would the boy take such an irrevocable step without talking to his parents first? Without asking their advice? Without warning them?

I have to move fast, Morris thinks, and aloud, as he wipes his fingerprints off the phone: ‘If ’twere to be done, best it be done quickly.’

And ’twere best he wash his face and leave by the back door. He doesn’t believe the gunshots were heard on the street – the inner office must be damned near soundproof, lined with books as it is – but he doesn’t want to take the risk.

He scrubs away the blood goatee in Halliday’s bathroom, careful to leave the red-stained washcloth in the sink where the police will find it when they eventually turn up. With that done, he follows a narrow aisle to a door with an EXIT sign above it and boxes of books stacked in front of it. He moves them, thinking how stupid to block the fire exit that way. Stupid and shortsighted.

That could be my old pal’s epitaph, Morris thinks. Here lies Andrew Halliday, a fat, stupid, shortsighted homo. He will not be missed.

The heat of late afternoon whacks him like a hammer, and he staggers. His head is thumping from being hit with that goddam decanter, but the brains inside are in high gear. He gets in the Subaru, where it’s even hotter, and turns the air-conditioning to max as soon as he starts the engine. He examines himself in the rearview mirror. There’s an ugly purple bruise surrounding a crescent-shaped cut on his chin, but the bleeding has stopped, and on the whole he doesn’t look too bad. He wishes he had some aspirin, but that can wait.

He backs out of Andy’s space and threads his way down the alley leading to Grant Street. Grant is more downmarket than Lacemaker Lane with its fancy shops, but at least cars are allowed there.

As Morris stops at the mouth of the alley, Hodges and his two partners arrive on the other side of the building and stand looking at the CLOSED sign hanging in the door of Andrew Halliday Rare Editions. A break in the Grant Street traffic comes just as Hodges is trying the bookshop door and finding it unlocked. Morris makes a quick left and heads toward the Crosstown Connector. With rush hour only getting started, he can be on the North Side in fifteen minutes. Maybe twelve. He needs to keep Saubers from going to the police, assuming he hasn’t already, and there’s one sure way to do that.

All he has to do is beat the notebook thief to his little sister.