Free Finders Keepers by Stephen King

nice madras shirt in his closet, slicked back his hair, and peeked briefly into the garage to make sure all was well there. He gave Mrs. Muller (once more looking out through the curtains) what he hoped was a jaunty wave as he headed down the street to the bus stop. He arrived downtown just before ten, walked a block, and peered down Ellis Avenue to the Happy Cup, where the outside tables sat under pink umbrellas. Sure enough, Andy was on his coffee break. Better yet, his back was turned, so Morris could approach undetected.
    â€œBooga-booga!” he cried, grabbing the shoulder of Andy’s old corduroy sportcoat.
    His old friend—really his only friend in this benighted joke of a city—jumped and wheeled around. His coffee overturned and spilled. Morris stepped back. He had meant to startle Andy, but not that much.
    â€œHey, sor—”
    â€œWhat did you do ?” Andy asked in a low, grinding whisper. His eyes were blazing behind his glasses—hornrims Morris hadalways thought of as sort of an affectation. “What the fuck did you do ?”
    This was not the welcome Morris had anticipated. He sat down. “What we talked about.” He studied Andy’s face and saw none of the amused intellectual superiority his friend usually affected. Andy looked scared. Of Morris? Maybe. For himself? Almost certainly.
    â€œI shouldn’t be seen with y—”
    Morris was carrying a brown paper bag he’d grabbed from the kitchen. From it he took one of Rothstein’s notebooks and put it on the table, being careful to avoid the puddle of spilled coffee. “A sample. One of a great many. At least a hundred and fifty. I haven’t had a chance to do a count yet, but it’s the total jackpot.”
    â€œPut that away!” Andy was still whispering like a character in a bad spy movie. His eyes shifted from side to side, always returning to the notebook. “Rothstein’s murder is on the front page of the New York Times and all over the TV, you idiot!”
    This news came as a shock. It was supposed to be at least three days before anyone found the writer’s body, maybe as long as six. Andy’s reaction was even more of a shock. He looked like a cornered rat.
    Morris flashed what he hoped was a fair approximation of Andy’s I’m-so-smart-I-bore-myself smile. “Calm down. In this part of town there are kids carrying notebooks everywhere.” He pointed across the street toward Government Square. “There goes one now.”
    â€œNot Moleskines, though! Jesus! The housekeeper knew the kind Rothstein used to write in, and the paper says the safe in his bedroom was open and empty! Put . . . it . . . away !”
    Morrie pushed it toward Andy instead, still being careful to avoid the coffee stain. He was growing increasingly irritated with Andy—PO’d, as Jimmy Gold would have said—but he also felt aperverse sort of pleasure at watching the man cringe in his seat, as if the notebook were a vial filled with plague germs.
    â€œGo on, have a look. This one’s mostly poetry. I was paging through it on the bus—”
    â€œOn the bus ? Are you insane ?”
    â€œâ€”and it’s not very good,” Morris went on as if he hadn’t heard, “but it’s his, all right. A holograph manuscript. Extremely valuable. We talked about that. Several times. We talked about how—”
    â€œPut it away !”
    Morris didn’t like to admit that Andy’s paranoia was catching, but it sort of was. He returned the notebook to the bag and looked at his old friend (his one friend) sulkily. “It’s not like I was suggesting we have a sidewalk sale, or anything.”
    â€œWhere are the rest?” And before Morris could answer: “Never mind. I don’t want to know. Don’t you understand how hot those things are? How hot you are?”
    â€œI’m not hot,” Morris said, but he