Read Finders Keepers for Free Online

quickly. Not an exact quote, maybe, but close enough for government work.
    â€œPull in there,” he told Freddy. “I need to drain the dragon.”
    â€œThey probably got vending machines, too,” said the puker in the backseat. Curtis was sitting up now, his hair crazy around his head. “I could get behind some of those peanut butter crackers.”
    Morris knew he’d have to let it go if there were other cars in the rest area. I-90 had sucked away most of the through traffic that used to travel on this road, but once daybreak arrived, there would be lots of local traffic, pooting along from one Hicksville to the next.
    For now the rest area was deserted, at least in part because of the sign reading OVERNIGHT RVS PROHIBITED. They parked and got out. Birds chirruped in the trees, discussing the night just past and plans for the day. A few leaves—in this part of the world they were just beginning to turn—drifted down and scuttered across the lot.
    Curtis went to inspect the vending machines while Morris and Freddy walked side by side to the men’s half of the restroom facility. Morris didn’t feel particularly nervous. Maybe what they said was true, after the first one it got easier.
    He held the door for Freddy with one hand and took the pistol from his jacket pocket with the other. Freddy said thanks without looking around. Morris let the door swing shut before raising the gun. He placed the muzzle less than an inch from the back of Freddy Dow’s head and pulled the trigger. The gunshot was a flat loud bang in the tiled room, but anyone who heard it from a distance would think it was a motorcycle backfiring on I-90. What he worried about was Curtis.
    He needn’t have. Curtis was still standing in the snack alcove, beneath a wooden eave and a rustic sign reading ROADSIDE OASIS. In one hand he had a package of peanut butter crackers.
    â€œDid you hear that?” he asked Morris. Then, seeing the gun, sounding honestly puzzled: “What’s that for?”
    â€œYou,” Morris said, and shot him in the chest.
    Curtis went down, but—this was a shock—did not die. He didn’t seem even close to dying. He squirmed on the pavement. A fallen leaf cartwheeled in front of his nose. Blood began to seep out from beneath him. He was still clutching his crackers. He looked up, his oily black hair hanging in his eyes. Beyond the screening trees, a truck went past on Route 92, droning east.
    Morris didn’t want to shoot Curtis again, out here a gunshot didn’t have that hollow backfire sound, and besides, someone might pull in at any second. “If it were to be done, then ’twere well it were done quickly,” he said, and dropped to one knee.
    â€œYou shot me,” Curtis said, sounding breathless and amazed. “You fucking shot me, Morrie!”
    Thinking how much he hated that nickname—he’d hated it all his life, and even teachers, who should have known better, used it—he reversed the gun and began to hammer Curtis’s skull with the butt. Three hard blows accomplished very little. It was only a .38, after all, and not heavy enough to do more than minor damage. Blood began to seep through Curtis’s hair and run down his stubbly cheeks. He was groaning, staring up at Morris with desperate blue eyes. He waved one hand weakly.
    â€œStop it, Morrie! Stop it, that hurts !”
    Shit. Shit, shit, shit .
    Morris slid the gun back into his pocket. The butt was now slimy with blood and hair. He went to the Biscayne, wiping his hand on his jacket. He opened the driver’s door, saw the empty ignition, and said fuck under his breath. Whispering it like a prayer.
    On 92, a couple of cars went by, then a brown UPS truck.
    He trotted back to the men’s room, opened the door, knelt down, and began to go through Freddy’s pockets. He found the car keys in the left front. He got to his feet and hurried back tothe snack