Finders Keepers by Stephen King Page B

Chevy from a half-drunk bar-bitch in a Lynn taproom, paying with money the three of them had pooled. She had signed over the pink to Harold Fineman, which happened to be the name of Jimmy Gold’s best friend in The Runner . She had never seen Morris Bellamy, who knew enough to stay out of sight while that particular deal went down. Besides, Morris had done everything but soap PLEASE STEAL ME on the windshield when he left it at the mall. No, the Biscayne was now sitting in a vacant lot somewhere, either in Lowtown or down by the lake, stripped to the axles.
    So how did I wind up here? Back to that, like a rat running on a wheel. If some woman marked my face with her nails, did I haul off on her? Maybe break her jaw?
    That rang a faint bell behind the blackout curtains. If it were so, then he was probably going to be charged with assault, and he might go up to Waynesville for it; a ride in the big green bus with the wire mesh on the windows. Waynesville would be bad, but he could do a few years for assault if he had to. Assault was not murder.
    Please don’t let it be Rothstein, he thought. I’ve got a lot of reading to do, it’s stashed away all safe and waiting. The beauty part is I’ve got money to support myself with while I do it, morethan twenty thousand dollars in unmarked twenties and fifties. That will last quite awhile, if I live small. So please don’t let it be murder.
    â€œI need a lover who won’t drive me cray-zee !”
    â€œOne more time, motherfucker!” someone shouted. “One more time and I’ll pull your asshole right out through your mouth!”
    Morris closed his eyes.
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    Although he was feeling better by noon, he refused the slop that passed for lunch: noodles floating in what appeared to be blood sauce. Then, around two o’clock, a quartet of guards came down the aisle between the cells. One had a clipboard and was shouting names.
    â€œBellamy! Holloway! McGiver! Riley! Roosevelt! Titgarden! Step forward!”
    â€œThat’s Tea garden, sir,” said the large black man in the box next to Morris’s.
    â€œI don’t give a shit if it’s John Q. Motherfucker. If you want to talk to your court-appointed, step forward. If you don’t, sit there and stack more time.”
    The half dozen named prisoners stepped forward. They were the last ones left, at least in this corridor. The others brought in the previous night (mercifully including the fellow who had been butchering John Mellencamp) had either been released or taken to court for the morning arraignment. They were the small fry. Afternoon arraignments, Morris knew, were for more serious shit. He had been arraigned in the afternoon after his little adventure in Sugar Heights. Judge Bukowski, that cunt.
    Morris prayed to a God he did not believe in as the door of his holding cell snapped back. Assault, God, okay? Simple, not ag.Just not murder. God, let them know nothing about what went down in New Hampshire, or at a certain rest area in upstate New York, okay? That okay with you?
    â€œStep out, boys,” the guard with the clipboard said. “Step out and face right. Arm’s length from the upstanding American in front of you. No wedgies and no reach-arounds. Don’t fuck with us and we will return the favor.”
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    They went down in an elevator big enough to hold a small herd of cattle, then along another corridor, and then—God knew why, they were wearing sandals and the jumpsuits had no pockets—through a metal detector. Beyond that was a visitor’s room with eight walled booths like library carrels. The guard with the clipboard directed Morris to number 3. Morris sat down and faced his court-appointed through Plexiglas that had been smeared often and wiped seldom. The guy on the freedom side was a nerd with a bad haircut and a dandruff problem. He had a coldsore below one nostril and a scuffed briefcase sitting on his