بخش 03 - فصل 06

6

In the shop again, Morris deposits the bloody stuff in one of the bags and zips it closed. Then he sits down to investigate Andy’s laptop.

It’s a Mac, much nicer than the one in the prison library but basically the same. Since it’s still wide awake, there’s no need to waste time hunting for a password. There are lots of business files on the screen, plus an app marked SECURITY in the bar at the bottom. He’ll want to investigate that, and closely, but first he opens a file marked JAMES HAWKINS, and yes, here is the information he wants: Peter Saubers’s address (which he knows), and also Peter Saubers’s cell phone number, presumably gleaned from the voicemail his old pal mentioned. His father is Thomas. His mother is Linda. His sister is Tina. There’s even a picture of young Mr Saubers, aka James Hawkins, standing with a bunch of librarians from the Garner Street branch, a branch Morris knows well. Below this information – which may come in handy, who knows, who knows – is a John Rothstein bibliography, which Morris only glances at; he knows Rothstein’s work by heart.

Except for the stuff young Mr Saubers is sitting on, of course. The stuff he stole from its rightful owner.

There’s a notepad by the computer. Morris jots down the boy’s cell number and sticks it in his pocket. Next he opens the security app and clicks on CAMERAS. Six views appear. Two show Lacemaker Lane in all its consumer glory. Two look down on the shop’s narrow interior. The fifth shows this very desk, with Morris sitting behind it in his new tee-shirt. The sixth shows Andy’s inner office, and the body sprawled on the Turkish rug. In black-and-white, the splashes and splatters of blood look like ink.

Morris clicks on this image, and it fills the screen. Arrow buttons appear on the bottom. He clicks the double arrow for rewind, waits, then hits play. He watches, engrossed, as he murders his old pal all over again. Fascinating. Not a home movie he wants anyone to see, however, which means the laptop is coming with him.

He unplugs the various cords, including the one leading from a shiny box stamped VIGILANT SECURITY SYSTEMS. The cameras feed directly to the laptop’s hard drive, and so there are no automatically made DVDs. That makes sense. A system like that would be a little too pricey for a small business like Andrew Halliday Rare Editions. But one of the cords he unplugged went to a disc-burner add-on, so his old pal could have made DVDs from stored security footage if he had desired.

Morris hunts methodically through the desk, looking for them. There are five drawers in all. He finds nothing of interest in the first four, but the kneehole is locked. Morris finds this suggestive. He sorts through Andy’s keys, selects the smallest, unlocks the drawer, and strikes paydirt. He has no interest in the six or eight graphic photos of his old pal fellating a squat young man with a lot of tattoos, but there’s also a gun. It’s a prissy, overdecorated P238 SIG Sauer, red and black, with gold-inlaid flowers scrolling down the barrel. Morris drops the clip and sees it’s full. There’s even one in the pipe. He puts the clip back in and lays the gun on the desk – something else to take along. He searches deep into the drawer and finds an unmarked white envelope at the very back, the flap tucked under rather than sealed. He opens it, expecting more dirty pix, and is delighted to find money instead – at least five hundred dollars. His luck is still running. He puts the envelope next to the SIG.

There’s nothing else, and he’s about decided that if there are DVDs, Andy’s locked them in a safe somewhere. Yet Lady Luck is not quite done with Morris Bellamy. When he gets up, his shoulder bumps an overloaded shelf to the left of the desk. A bunch of old books go tumbling to the floor, and behind them is a slim stack of plastic DVD cases bound together with rubber bands.

‘How do you do,’ Morris says softly. ‘How do you do.’

He sits back down and goes through them rapidly, like a man shuffling cards. Andy has written a name on each in black Sharpie. Only the last one means anything to him, and it’s the one he was looking for. ‘HAWKINS’ is printed on the shiny surface.

He’s had plenty of breaks this afternoon (possibly to make up for the horrible disappointment he suffered last night), but there’s no point in pushing things. Morris takes the computer, the gun, the envelope with the money in it, and the HAWKINS disc to the front of the store. He tucks them into one of his totes, ignoring the people passing back and forth in front. If you look like you belong in a place, most people think you do. He exits with a confident step, and locks the door behind him. The CLOSED sign swings briefly, then settles. Morris pulls down the long visor of his Groundhogs cap and walks away.

He makes one more stop before returning to Bugshit Manor, at a computer café called Bytes ’N Bites. For twelve of Andy Halliday’s dollars, he gets an overpriced cup of shitty coffee and twenty minutes in a carrel, at a computer equipped with a DVD player. It takes less than five minutes to be sure of what he has: his old pal talking to a boy who appears to be wearing fake glasses and his father’s moustache. In the first clip, Saubers has a book that has to be Dispatches from Olympus and an envelope containing several sheets of paper that have to be the photocopies Andy mentioned. In the second clip, Saubers and Andy appear to be arguing. There’s no sound in either of these black-and-white mini-movies, which is fine. The boy could be saying anything. In the second one, the argument one, he could even be saying The next time I come, I’ll bring my hatchet, you fat fuck.

As he leaves Bytes ’N Bites, Morris is smiling. The man behind the counter smiles back and says, ‘I guess you had a good time.’

‘Yes,’ says the man who has spent well over two thirds of his life in prison. ‘But your coffee sucks, nerdboy. I ought to pour it on your fucking head.’

The smile dies on the counterman’s face. A lot of the people who come in here are crackpots. With those folks, it’s best to just keep quiet and hope they never come back.