Cut-Up (The Stolen Scroll) - Page 2

By coincidence, Jim's father was the detective who got the call from a scuba diver who actually did find the gun. The weapon would have never been found if Randy Paquinn hadn't hired the scuba diver to look for it. Since Paquinn thought the bullet clip had been found, he had become paranoid and wanted the gun recovered before the police found it, too.

"Oooo," said Max later. "A bad move."

Even though they paid the diver well and made him swear to tell no one, he decided to squeal on them. He gave three reasons for contacting the police about the gun: (1) He didn't want to be an accomplice to a crime, (2) It was the moral thing to do, and (3) Maybe there was a reward.

In fact, there was a reward, but the diver couldn't collect until someone had been arrested. So he took the money Randy Paquinn had paid him and went to the Bahamas to teach scuba lessons for a while.

Jim walked up to Lilac's table, pulled back a chair, and sat down.

"Hey," he said. "How's it going?"

"Alright, I guess,' she answered.

She was thinking, all these guys come up and talk to me because I pose nude, but they are stupid with it. This guy seems kind of nice. But I'm probably wrong.

Jim said, "A friend of mine has a problem."

"What?" she asked, not sure if she heard correctly.

"Uh, a friend of mine? He...look, my dad's a cop, too. There are certain things he would...I can't...you probably know what I mean..."

Lilac was a little taken aback that Jim thought her dad was a cop.

During one of Jim's pauses, Lilac said matter-of-factly, "A cop. And you are telling me this, why?"

Lilac and Jim just looked in each others' eyes for a moment and they both recognized something in each others' face. Both physical and emotional. Some kind of trust, enhanced by the shared universal pull away from parents and toward each other. Understanding.

Elsewhere in the city, Jim Senior was running ballistic tests on the gun. The gun was linked to a murder that had nothing to do with Paquinn and Max. But then someone confessed that he had later sold the gun to Max.

Jim explained to Lilac about the scroll.

She said, "Just give the thing back. Tell them you found it at Books-A-Million. Deny any wrongdoing."

"What about fingerprints," he asked.

"Jeez," she said. "Wear gloves. Tear off a couple of feet of the stupid thing and put the rest back in the briefcase without touching it! Or, put the whole thing into a shredder."

"God's sake," said Jim. "You sound like a pro at this."

She was a daddy's girl.

Jim went and got the briefcase with the scroll in it, the day after he left it at Books-A-Million. He didn't tear it or shred it. He brought it to the college, still in the briefcase, and met Lilac there.

The plan was that Jim's friend Rodney would pull the fire alarm and when everyone was rushing out, he would just drop the scroll on the front desk and walk out. Let the library people figure out what to do with it. Screw it. He wanted Jack Kerouac's ghost off of him.

Lilac made the plan both easier and more exciting.

Max was talking to Paquinn.

"Lilac thought I left the library," Max said, "But I walked around the corner and watched them through an opening in a bookshelf. The boy's talk was suspicious. He's all worried about cops and something he hid."

"It's him," hissed Paquinn. "And he's talking to Lilac, that little bastard! He's dead."

Back at the library Jim and Lilac were drinking coffee and waiting with some enjoyment, sharing the intrigue, waiting for Rodney to pull the fire alarm. They reveled in their secrecy and camaraderie.

Lilac followed the plan; she walked to the elevator and went up to the second floor (periodicals), while Jim stayed on the first floor. The plan was, when the alarm went off, Jim would dump the scroll, walk up the steps, meet Lilac, and sneak out another exit.

Jim didn't see Max approaching from behind. Big Max had a large folding knife with a serrated blade that could cut bone. When the knife was opened, it looked more like a hunter's tool than a pocket knife. He fondled the closed knife in his deep pocket, anticipating the quickest, cleanest way to bleed young Jim of his life. No one must see it happen.

The fire alarm wailed loudly. Students lazily looked around to see if anyone was going to move. Some of them slowly started gathering their books, in no hurry.

A librarian spoke up calmly, "Well, I suppose we've all got to leave."

This wasn't going the way Jim expected. People were taking too long. Impatiently, he went over the door to the stairs and walked into the stairwell. Max waited for the librarian to leave and followed Jim.

Jim was almost at the top of the first flight of stairs, ready to turn the corner. Max quickly brought the knife out of his pocket, extended the silver blade, and held it level with Jim's neck to reach around and cut his throat.

Jim heard the click of the blade locking into place and turned around, instinctively holding the briefcase up for protection.

Max didn't just accidentally stab the briefcase. He thrust the blade into the briefcase on purpose. A strong upward motion of the gangster's arm sliced a long gash in the side of the briefcase and then yanked it roughly out of Jim's hand. The case hit the wall with a loud crack and broke open, spilling the scroll out, followed by a narrow wisp of paper that fluttered down after the briefcase and scroll hit the floor.

Both men watched as the scroll of teletype paper began unrolling, from the top step down like a regal carpet unfurling in a long, straight line, bumping on each step -- bump, roll, bump, roll, trailing down the length of the stairs. A clean, papyrus-colored stripe.

Max and Jim looked at the rolling scroll and then at each other. Just then, Lilac walked around the corner.

"Uncle Max!" she said.

Max stood frozen. He knew she liked this kid but he thought, "I've got to kill him, anyway."

But then Max relaxed his shoulders. He lowered the knife and let it drop onto the step in front of him. He turned away from Jim and Lilac and sat down clumsily on a step, leaned forward, and put his face down in his hands.

Lilac had suspected that Max and her dad were criminals for so long, she wasn't all that surprised. She was now seriously thinking of moving in with her mother in upstate New York.

Jim and Lilac ran up to the second floor and took an elevator on the far side of the building back down. They walked past the firemen and fire truck without any hassle.

Jack Kerouac's immortal book, On The Road, begins, "I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up."

Conversely, Lilac and Jim were just getting together.

Lilac said, "This is like taping the beginning of one book to the ending of another book!"

Jim didn't know if that made any sense but he agreed with it, anyway.

Randy Paquinn and Max didn't totally get away. None of us do. Years later in a hospital bed somewhere, Max said, "Karma gets ya even if the law don't."

The scroll was eventually returned to its owner, minus the first third of an inch.