Besides, decent philatelic material always increased in value over time. You couldnt buy it one day and sell it the next and expect to come out ahead, but after youd owned it awhile it would have appreciated enough to cover the
dealers markup. And what other pastime worked that way? If you owned a boat, if you raced cars, if you went on safari, how much of what you spent could you expect to get back? What, for that matter, was your net return on bottles of Cristal and lines of cocaine?
And so hed returned to New York for his stamps. There was nothing else to come back for, and ample reason to stay away. If he was a person of interest to the police, in addition to entering his apartment and sealing his bank accounts, they might very well have posted somebody to watch the place on the slim chance that hed be fool enough to return.
If the cops werent waiting for him, what about Call-Me-Al? The people whod pulled the strings in Des Moines werent willing to sit back and let nature take its course. Theyd proved that in White Plains, because it wasnt the old mans chickens that had come home to roost, it was the turkeys on Als team whod shot Dot dead and burned the place down around her.
They might have already known his name, and where he lived. If not, theyd have asked Dot, and he could only hope shed answered right away, and that two quick bullets in the brain were all the punishment shed been forced to endure. Because shed have talked sooner or later, anyone would, and in this case sooner was better than later.
But maybe nobody had the place staked out, not the cops and not Als boys, either. Maybe all he had to do was figure out a way in and out without being spotted by the doorman.
It would probably take more than one trip, though. His collection was housed in ten good-sized albums, and the best plan he could come up with, sitting in the movie house in East Stroudsburg with his eyes on the screen, was to load up the oversize wheeled duffel that hed bought on QVC a few years ago. He had never used it, it held far more stuff than he ever wanted to drag on any trip, business or pleasure, but the pitchman on the shopping channel had caught him at just the right moment, and before he knew what was happening hed picked up the phone and bought the damn thing.
You could get four albums in it for sure, and possibly five, and the handle and wheels would enable him to get it to the car. Dump the albums in the trunk, go back for another load two trips might do it, or three at the most.
There was some cash in the house, too, unless someone had found it by now. Not a fortune, just an emergency fund of somewhere between one and two thousand dollars. If this didnt constitute an emergency he didnt know what did, and he could definitely use the cash, but it wouldnt have been enough to draw him back to the city, not if it had been ten or twenty times as much as it was.
The stamp collection was something else. Hed lost his first collection all those years ago. He didnt want to lose this one.
18
The hell with it. The first thing he did was take off the Homer Simpson cap, which was all wrong for what he had in mind. He might need Homer soon enough, so he didnt just toss the cap but folded it as best he could and put it in his pocket. Then he crossed the street, shoulders back, arms swinging slightly at his sides, and walked right up to the doorman and into the lobby.
Evening, Neil, he said as he entered.
Evening, Mr. Keller, the doorman said, and Keller saw his blue eyes widen.
He gave the fellow a quick smile. Neil, he said, I bet Ive had a few visitors, havent I?
Uh
Nothing to worry about, Keller assured him. Nothing that wont get itself straightened out in a day or two, but right now it adds up to a lot of aggravation for me and a batch of other people. He dipped a hand into his breast pocket, where hed put aside Miller Remsens two fifties. I have to see to a few things, he said, palming the folded bills into Neils hand, and nobody needs to know I was here, if you follow me.
There was nothing like the air of self-assurance, especially when it was coupled with a hundred dollars. Sure, and I never saw you, sir, said Neil, with that slight Irish lilt to his speech that was rarely present outside of moments like this one.
He rode up in the elevator, wondering
if thered be one of those seals on his door, proclaiming it a crime scene. But there was nothing like that, not even a paper band assuring him that the apartment had been sanitized for his protection. Nor had anyone changed the locks; he used his key and the door opened. Things were not as hed left them, he saw that right away, but he didnt waste time on any of the unimportant stuff. He went straight to the bookcase where he kept his stamps.
19
It wasnt as though it took him entirely by surprise. Hed known there was a good possibility hed come home to find his stamps missing, carried away by one or another of his visitors. The cops might very well have confiscated the stamps, but he thought it was more likely that Al, or whoever Al dispatched, had spotted the albums and knew enough about the market in collectibles to recognize their value. Whoever took them would be lucky to realize ten cents on the dollar, but even so he might regard it as worth risking a hernia to haul the ten big books out of there and find a stamp dealer who wasnt too scrupulous to pass up a bargain.