Finders Keepers (10 page)

“The Rocking-Horse Winner” had resonance, all right, bigtime resonance, because Pete could hear his own house whispering
There must be more money
 . . . and all too soon there would be less. But money wasn't
all
the trunk had contained, was it?

That was another
and yet
. One Pete Saubers thought about more and more as time passed.

•••

For his end-of-year research paper in Mr. Ricker's Gallop Through the Glories, Pete did a sixteen-page analysis of the Jimmy Gold trilogy, quoting from various reviews and adding in stuff from the few interviews Rothstein had given before retreating to his farm in New Hampshire and going completely dark. He finished by talking about Rothstein's tour of the German death camps as a reporter for the
New York Herald
—this four years before publishing the first Jimmy Gold book.

“I believe that was the most important event of Mr. Rothstein's life,” Pete wrote. “Surely the most important event of his life as a writer. Jimmy's search for meaning always goes back to what Mr. Rothstein saw in those camps, and it's why, when Jimmy tries to live the life of an ordinary American citizen, he always feels hollow. For me, this is best expressed when he throws an ashtray through the TV in
The Runner Slows Down
. He does it during a CBS news special about the Holocaust.”

When Mr. Ricker returned their papers, a big A+ was scrawled on Pete's cover, which was a computer-scanned photo of Rothstein as a young man, sitting in Sardi's with Ernest Hemingway. Below the A+, Mr. Ricker had written
See me after class
.

When the other kids were gone, Mr. Ricker looked at Pete so fixedly that Pete was momentarily scared his favorite teacher was going to accuse him of plagiarism. Then Mr. Ricker smiled. “That is the best student paper I've read in my twenty-eight years of teaching. Because it was the most confident, and the most deeply felt.”

Pete's face heated with pleasure. “Thanks. Really. Thanks a lot.”

“I'd argue with your conclusion, though,” Mr. Ricker said, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers together behind his neck. “The characterization of Jimmy as ‘a noble American hero, like Huck Finn,' is not supported by the concluding book of the trilogy. Yes, he throws an ashtray at the television screen, but it's not an act of heroism. The CBS logo is an eye, you know, and Jimmy's act is a ritual blinding of his inner eye, the one that sees the truth. That's not my insight; it's an almost direct quote from an essay called ‘The Runner Turns Away,' by John Crowe Ransom. Leslie Fiedler says much the same in
Love and Death in the American Novel
.”

“But—”

“I'm not trying to debunk you, Pete; I'm just saying you need to follow the evidence of any book
wherever
it leads, and that means not omitting crucial developments that run counter to your thesis. What does Jimmy do
after
he throws the ashtray through the TV, and after his wife delivers her classic line, ‘You bastard, how will the kids watch Mickey Mouse now?'”

“He goes out and buys another TV set, but—”

“Not just
any
TV set, but
the first color TV set on the block
. And then?”

“He creates the big successful ad campaign for Duzzy-Doo household cleaner. But—”

Mr. Ricker raised his eyebrows, waiting for the but. And how could Pete tell him that a year later, Jimmy steals into the agency late one night with matches and a can of kerosene? That Rothstein foreshadows all the protests about Vietnam and civil rights by having Jimmy start a fire that pretty much destroys the building known as the Temple of Advertising? That he hitchhikes out of New York City without a look back, leaving his family behind and striking out for the territory, just like Huck and Jim? He couldn't
say any of that, because it was the story told in
The Runner Goes West
, a novel that existed only in seventeen closely written notebooks that had lain buried in an old trunk for over thirty years.

“Go ahead and but me your buts,” Mr. Ricker said equably. “There's nothing I like better than a good book discussion with someone who can hold up his end of the argument. I imagine you've already missed your bus, but I'll be more than happy to give you a ride home.” He tapped the cover sheet of Pete's paper, Johnny R. and Ernie H., those twin titans of American literature, with oversized martini glasses raised in a toast. “Unsupported conclusion aside—which I put down to a touching desire to see light at the end of an extremely dark final novel—this is extraordinary work. Just extraordinary. So go for it. But me your buts.”

“But nothing, I guess,” Pete said. “You could be right.”

Only Mr. Ricker wasn't. Any doubt about Jimmy Gold's capacity to sell out that remained at the end of
The Runner Goes West
was swept away in the last and longest novel of the series,
The Runner Raises the Flag
. It was the best book Pete had ever read. Also the saddest.

“In your paper you don't go into how Rothstein died.”

“No.”

“May I ask why not?”

“Because it didn't fit the theme, I guess. And it would have made the paper too long. Also . . . well . . . it was such a bummer for him to die that way, getting killed in a stupid burglary.”

“He shouldn't have kept cash in the house,” Mr. Ricker said mildly, “but he did, and a lot of people knew it. Don't judge him too harshly for that. Many writers have been stupid and improvident about money. Charles Dickens found himself supporting a family of slackers, including his own father. Samuel Clemens was all but bankrupted by bad real estate transactions. Arthur Conan
Doyle lost thousands of dollars to fake mediums and spent thousands more on fake photos of fairies. At least Rothstein's major work was done. Unless you believe, as some people do—”

Pete looked at his watch. “Um, Mr. Ricker? I can still catch my bus if I hurry.”

Mr. Ricker did that funny yowza-yowza thing with his hands. “Go, by all means go. I just wanted to thank you for such a wonderful piece of work . . . and to offer a friendly caution: when you approach this kind of thing next year—and in college—don't let your good nature cloud your critical eye. The critical eye should always be cold and clear.”

“I won't,” Pete said, and hurried out.

The last thing he wanted to discuss with Mr. Ricker was the possibility that the thieves who had taken John Rothstein's life had stolen a bunch of unpublished manuscripts as well as money, and maybe destroyed them after deciding they had no value. Once or twice Pete had played with the idea of turning the notebooks over to the police, even though that would almost surely mean his parents would find out where the mystery money had been coming from. The notebooks were, after all, evidence of a crime as well as a literary treasure. But it was an
old
crime, ancient history. Better to leave well enough alone.

Right?

•••

The bus had already gone, of course, and that meant a two-mile walk home. Pete didn't mind. He was still glowing from Mr. Ricker's praise, and he had a lot to think about. Rothstein's unpublished works, mostly. The short stories were uneven, he thought, only a few of them really good, and the poems he'd tried to write were, in Pete's humble opinion, pretty lame. But those last two
Jimmy Gold novels were . . . well, gold. Judging by the evidence scattered through them, Pete guessed the last one, where Jimmy raises a burning flag at a Washington peace rally, had been finished around 1973, because Nixon was still president when the story ended. That Rothstein had never published the final Gold books (plus yet another novel, this one about the Civil War) blew Pete's mind. They were so good!

Pete took only one Moleskine at a time down from the attic, reading them with his door closed and an ear cocked for unexpected company when there were other members of his family in the house. He always kept another book handy, and if he heard approaching footsteps, he would slide the notebook under his mattress and pick up the spare. The only time he'd been caught was by Tina, who had the unfortunate habit of walking around in her sock feet.

“What's that?” she'd asked from the doorway.

“None of your beeswax,” he had replied, slipping the notebook under his pillow. “And if you say anything to Mom or Dad, you're in trouble with me.”

“Is it porno?”

“No!” Although Mr. Rothstein could write some pretty racy scenes, especially for an old guy. For instance the one where Jimmy and these two hippie chicks—

“Then why don't you want me to see it?”

“Because it's private.”

Her eyes lit up. “Is it yours? Are you writing a
book
?”

“Maybe. So what if I am?”

“I think that's cool! What's it about?”

“Bugs having sex on the moon.”

She giggled. “I thought you said it wasn't porno. Can I read it when you're done?”

“We'll see. Just keep your trap shut, okay?”

She had agreed, and one thing you could say for Teens, she rarely broke a promise. That had been two years ago, and Pete was sure she'd forgotten all about it.

Billy Webber came rolling up on a gleaming ten-speed. “Hey, Saubers!” Like almost everyone else (Mr. Ricker was an exception), Billy pronounced it
Sobbers
instead of
SOW-bers
, but what the hell. It was sort of a dipshit name however you said it. “What you doin this summer?”

“Working at the Garner Street libe.”

“Still?”

“I talked em into twenty hours a week.”

“Fuck, man, you're too young to be a wage-slave!”

“I don't mind,” Pete said, which was the truth. The libe meant free computer-time, among the other perks, with no one looking over your shoulder. “What about you?”

“Goin to our summer place up in Maine. China Lake. Many cute girls in bikinis, man, and the ones from Massachusetts know what to do.”

Then maybe they can show you, Pete thought snidely, but when Billy held out his palm, Pete slapped him five and watched him go with mild envy. Ten-speed bike under his ass; expensive Nike kicks on his feet; summer place in Maine. It seemed that some people had already caught up from the bad time. Or maybe the bad time had missed them completely. Not so with the Saubers family. They were doing okay, but—

There must be more money, the house had whispered in the Lawrence story. There must be more money. And honey, that was
resonance
.

Could the notebooks be turned into money? Was there a way? Pete didn't even like to think about giving them up, but at the same
time he recognized how wrong it was to keep them hidden away in the attic. Rothstein's work, especially the last two Jimmy Gold books, deserved to be shared with the world. They would remake Rothstein's reputation, Pete was sure of that, but his rep still wasn't that bad, and besides, it wasn't the important part. People would like them, that was the important part.
Love
them, if they were like Pete.

Only, handwritten manuscripts weren't like untraceable twenties and fifties. Pete would be caught, and he might go to jail. He wasn't sure exactly what crime he could be charged with—not receiving stolen property, surely, because he hadn't received it, only found it—but he was positive that trying to sell what wasn't yours had to be
some
kind of crime. Donating the notebooks to Rothstein's alma mater seemed like a possible answer, only he'd have to do it anonymously, or it would all come out and his parents would discover that their son had been supporting them with a murdered man's stolen money. Besides, for an anonymous donation you got zilch.

•••

Although he hadn't written about Rothstein's murder in his term paper, Pete had read all about it, mostly in the computer room at the library. He knew that Rothstein had been shot “execution-style.” He knew that the cops had found enough different tracks in the dooryard to believe two, three, or even four people had been involved, and that, based on the size of those tracks, all were probably men. They also thought that two of the men had been killed at a New York rest area not long after.

Margaret Brennan, the author's first wife, had been interviewed in Paris not long after the killing. “Everyone talked about him in that provincial little town where he lived,” she said. “What else did they have to talk about? Cows? Some farmer's new manure spreader? To the provincials, John was a big deal. They had the
erroneous idea that writers make as much as corporate bankers, and believed he had hundreds of thousands of dollars stashed away on that rundown farm of his. Someone from out of town heard the loose talk, that's all. Closemouthed Yankees, my Irish fanny! I blame the locals as much as the thugs who did it.”

When asked about the possibility that Rothstein had squirreled away manuscripts as well as cash, Peggy Brennan had given what the interview called “a cigarette-raspy chuckle.”

“More rumors, darling. Johnny pulled back from the world for one reason and one reason only. He was burned out and too proud to admit it.”

Lot you knew, Pete thought. He probably divorced you because he got tired of that cigarette-raspy chuckle.

There was plenty of speculation in the newspaper and magazine articles Pete had read, but he himself liked what Mr. Ricker called “the Occam's razor principle.” According to that, the simplest and most obvious answer was usually the right one. Three men had broken in, and one of them had killed his partners so he could keep all the swag for himself. Pete had no idea why the guy had come to this city afterwards, or why he'd buried the trunk, but one thing he
was
sure of: the surviving robber was never going to come back and get it.