“A person can’t collect everything.”
“See? There’s a reason right there.”
“And I may not collect US, but I read Linn’s every week, and they report on new stamps and first day ceremonies, and this just happened to stick in my mind.”
“But the point is you’ve never been there.”
“Why would I go?”
“In a minute or two,” she said, “you’ll still be asking yourself the same question. Okay, there’s a fellow in Baker’s Bluff who’s got a lot of money, which is always a desirable quality in a client. He’s also got a beautiful trophy wife, and she’s got a boyfriend. Does a subtle pattern begin to emerge?”
“It does have a familiar ring to it. I don’t suppose he’s got an iron-clad prenuptial agreement.”
“He may,” she said, “or he may not. But it doesn’t matter, because he wants to keep her.”
“He wants something to happen to the boyfriend.”
“God, you’re quick on the uptake. That’s one thing I’ve always loved about you, Pablo.”
He frowned. “You said this was something only I could handle,” he said, “but it sounds pretty ordinary. Client has a wife, wife has a lover, client wants the lover out of the picture. I must be missing something. The last time there was a job that only I could be trusted with, the target was a young boy.”
“And a stamp collector in the bargain, if I remember correctly.”
“A very nice kid,” Keller remembered. “First-rate collection of post-World War I German plebiscite issues. Allenstein.”
“That was his name? Allen Stein?”
“It was one of the plebiscite regions. In 1920, the citizens of Allenstein voted overwhelmingly to remain part of Germany. Anyway, I got a card from him at Christmas.”
“Did it have a nice stamp on it? Never mind, you don’t have to answer that. I don’t know how kinky the trophy wife may be, but I think we can take it as a given that her boyfriend’s over eighteen.”
“Then what’s the problem? You’ve got other people you could call.”
“Two or three,” she said, “and I’m not crazy about any of them, but when something’s simple and straightforward I can work with them.”
“But taking out a boyfriend in Illinois is too much for them? What am I missing here?”
“Nothing that I’m not missing myself, Pablo.”
He was forming a question when she dropped the rest of the shoe.
“The son of a bitch knows she’s got a lover,” she said. “What he doesn’t know is who it is.”
“So there you go,” she said. “I know what you’re thinking, and it’s something he thought of himself. What he needs is a private detective. But fortunately he stopped right there.”
“Fortunately?”
“If he hires a private eye, and if the private eye brings him a name and a photograph, and if a week or two later the guy in the photograph turns up dead, then what happens?”
“Oh, right.”
“The private eye’s a problem,” she said, “because if he was bright enough to find the boyfriend in the first place, he’s certainly bright enough to figure out what happened to him. And either he turns up with his hand out or he goes straight to the cops but either way it’s bad news for the client.”
He saw where this was going.
“So it has to be the same person for both parts of the job,” he said.
“There you go.”
“First to identify the boyfriend, and then to do something about him.”
“Something permanent.”
“Dot, I’m not a private detective.”
“Who said you were? Pablo, you’re a stamp guy and a construction guy. When you pick up a magnifying glass, it’s not to look for clues. It’s to check perficulations.”
“Perforations,” he said. “And for that you use a perforation gauge.”
“My life is richer for knowing that. But think back to Buffalo, will you? That kid you saved?”
“I don’t know that I saved him. I didn’t kill him. That’s not the same thing as saving him.”
“What happened to his uncle?”
“No more than he deserved.”
“The uncle was our client,” she reminded him. “But we didn’t know that. He worked through a cutout, so all you knew was that there were at least three people who had a reason to want the boy dead. And you investigated, the same way a private detective would do.”
“I just poked around a little. Kept my eyes and ears open, talked to people, worked it out.”
“Right.”
“You think I could do this,” he said. “Go to Baker’s Bluff, play Sherlock Holmes—”
“More like Sam Spade, I’d think. Or Philip Marlowe. When they make the movie, Humphrey Bogart can play you.”
“Isn’t it a little late for that?”
“They’ll make an old movie,” she said. “Black and white, with men in hats. And I don’t know if you could do it, Pablo, or why you’d even consider it, to tell you the truth. All I know is I don’t know anybody else I’d even suggest it to, and there was a time when I’d have handed it to you right away, and you’d have been on it like a mongoose on a cobra. But you’re pretty much retired, and I’d be retired if I weren’t such a greedy old lady, and you’ve got stamps and houses to keep you busy, so tell me to forget it and I’ll let my phone go dead again.”
Baker’s Bluff, Illinois. How would he even get there?
“Pablo? Don’t tell me you hung up.”
“No, I’m here,” he said. “Look, don’t put the phone away, all right? Give me an hour and I’ll call you back.”
“It’s crazy,” he told Julia. “In the first place I’ve got other things to do. And it’s not as though we need the money.”
“That’s true.”
“And it’s complicated. First I’d have to figure out who the target should be, before I even do anything.”
“That doesn’t make it simple.”
“And he could be an easy target or a hard one,” he said. “There’s no way to know.”
“You want another cup of coffee?”
“Sure, but sit there, I’ll get it. Another thing, I might have to have contact with the client. I’d try to run everything through Dot, because it’s never a good idea for the client to be able to identify you. The cops pick him up, he falls apart under questioning, and there you are.”
“But if all the contact is through Dot—”
“That’s better. And if I absolutely had to talk to him, it’d be on a burner.”
“The Pablo phone.”
“No, but one like it. Buy it, talk to him, toss it in the river. If there’s a river near Baker’s Bluff.”
“I suppose a lake would do in a pinch.”
“Or a storm drain. Donny could get along without me for a week or two. There’s stuff that needs doing, but I don’t have to be there when it gets done. And all I have to do is mention the stamp business, and that’s as much of a reason for my absence as he’d need.”
‘Well, that’s good.”
“I’d miss you and Jenny.”
“And we’d miss you. But it’s the same when you go on a buying trip. You’re away for a few days, and then you come back, and we’re happy to see you.”
“I suppose an occasional break is good.”
“They say it makes the heart grow fonder,” she said, “although I can’t imagine being any fonder of you than I already am. You know, it comes down to one thing, really. Do you want to go? And the answer seems to be that you do.”
“Why? It’s not as though I enjoy killing. As soon as it’s done, I do everything I can to put it out of my mind.”
“Erasing the memory.”
“As well as I can. But—”