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The one whose name was Morrie leaned toward him, greenish-gray eyes peering through the holes in the yellow mask. ‘I want to know something. If you’re honest, maybe we’ll leave the notebooks. Will you be honest with me, genius?’
‘I’ll try,’ Rothstein said. ‘And I never called myself that, you know. It was Time magazine that called me a genius.’
‘But I bet you never wrote a letter of protest.’
Rothstein said nothing. Sonofabitch, he was thinking. Smartass sonofabitch. You won’t leave anything, will you? It doesn’t matter what I say.
‘Here’s what I want to know – why in God’s name couldn’t you leave Jimmy Gold alone? Why did you have to push his face down in the dirt like you did?’
The question was so unexpected that at first Rothstein had no idea what Morrie was talking about, even though Jimmy Gold was his most famous character, the one he would be remembered for (assuming he was remembered for anything). The same Time cover story that had referred to Rothstein as a genius had called Jimmy Gold ‘an American icon of despair in a land of plenty.’ Pretty much horseshit, but it had sold books.
‘If you mean I should have stopped with The Ru
‘I’m not saying you should have stopped with The Ru
Mr Yellow then did something that tightened Rothstein’s throat and turned his belly to lead. Slowly, almost reflectively, he stripped off his yellow balaclava, revealing a young man of classic Boston Irish countenance: red hair, greenish eyes, pasty-white skin that would always burn and never tan. Plus those weird red lips.
‘House in the suburbs? Ford sedan in the driveway? Wife and two little kiddies? Everybody sells out, is that what you were trying to say? Everybody eats the poison?’
‘In the notebooks …’
There were two more Jimmy Gold novels in the notebooks, that was what he wanted to say, ones that completed the circle. In the first of them, Jimmy comes to see the hollowness of his suburban life and leaves his family, his job, and his comfy Co
‘In the notebooks what?’ Morrie asked. ‘Come on, genius, speak. Tell me why you had to knock him down and step on the back of his head.’
In The Ru
‘You created one of the greatest characters in American literature, then shit on him,’ Morrie said. ‘A man who could do that doesn’t deserve to live.’
The anger roared back like a sweet surprise. ‘If you think that,’ John Rothstein said, ‘you never understood a word I wrote.’
Morrie pointed the pistol. The muzzle was a black eye.
Rothstein pointed an arthritis-gnarled finger back, as if it were his own gun, and felt satisfaction when he saw Morrie blink and flinch a little. ‘Don’t give me your dumbass literary criticism. I got a bellyful of that long before you were born. What are you, anyway, twenty-two? Twenty-three? What do you know about life, let alone literature?’
‘Enough to know not everyone sells out.’ Rothstein was astounded to see tears swimming in those Irish eyes. ‘Don’t lecture me about life, not after spending the last twenty years hiding away from the world like a rat in a hole.’
This old criticism – how dare you leave the Fame Table? – sparked Rothstein’s anger into full-blown rage – the sort of glass-throwing, furniture-smashing rage both Peggy and Yolande would have recognized – and he was glad. Better to die raging than to do so cringing and begging.
‘How will you turn my work into cash? Have you thought of that? I assume you have. I assume you know that you might as well try to sell a stolen Hemingway notebook, or a Picasso painting. But your friends aren’t as educated as you are, are they? I can tell by the way they speak. Do they know what you know? I’m sure they don’t. But you sold them a bill of goods. You showed them a large pie in the sky and told them they could each have a slice. I think you’re capable of that. I think you have a lake of words at your disposal. But I believe it’s a shallow lake.’
‘Shut up. You sound like my mother.’
‘You’re a common thief, my friend. And how stupid to steal what you can never sell.’
‘Shut up, genius, I’m warning you.’
Rothstein thought, And if he pulls the trigger? No more pills. No more regrets about the past, and the litter of broken relationships along the way like so many cracked-up cars. No more obsessive writing, either, accumulating notebook after notebook like little piles of rabbit turds scattered along a woodland trail. A bullet in the head would not be so bad, maybe. Better than cancer or Alzheimer’s, that prime horror of anyone who has spent his life making a living by his wits. Of course there would be headlines, and I’d gotten plenty of those even before that damned Time story … but if he pulls the trigger, I won’t have to read them.
‘You’re stupid,’ Rothstein said. All at once he was in a kind of ecstasy. ‘You think you’re smarter than those other two, but you’re not. At least they understand that cash can be spent.’ He leaned forward, staring at that pale, freckle-spattered face. ‘You know what, kid? It’s guys like you who give reading a bad name.’
‘Last warning,’ Morrie said.
‘Fuck your warning. And fuck your mother. Either shoot me or get out of my house.’
Morris Bellamy shot him.
2009
The first argument about money in the Saubers household – the first one the kids overheard, at least – happened on an evening in April. It wasn’t a big argument, but even the greatest storms begin as gentle breezes. Peter and Tina Saubers were in the living room, Pete doing homework and Tina watching a SpongeBob DVD. It was one she’d seen before, many times, but she never seemed to tire of it. This was fortunate, because these days there was no access to the Cartoon Network in the Saubers household. Tom Saubers had canceled the cable service two months ago.
Tom and Linda Saubers were in the kitchen, where Tom was cinching his old pack shut after loading it up with PowerBars, a Tupperware filled with cut veggies, two bottles of water, and a can of Coke.
‘You’re nuts,’ Linda said. ‘I mean, I’ve always known you were a Type A personality, but this takes it to a whole new level. If you want to set the alarm for five, fine. You can pick up Todd, be at City Center by six, and you’ll still be first in line.’
‘I wish,’ Tom said. ‘Todd says there was one of these job fairs in Brook Park last month, and people started lining up the day before. The day before, Lin!’
‘Todd says a lot of things. And you listen. Remember when Todd said Pete and Tina would just love that Monster Truck Jam thingie—’