Lawrence Block - Hit Parade

“And that was the end of your retirement fund.”

“It cut into it,” he agreed. “And it’s kept me from saving money ever since then, because any extra money just goes into stamps.”

She frowned. “I think I see where this is going,” she said. “You can’t keep on doing what you’ve been doing, but you can’t retire, either.”

“So I tried to think what else I could do,” he said. “Emmett Dalton wound up in Hollywood, writing movies and dealing in real estate.”

“You working on a script, Keller? Boning up for the realtor’s exam?”

“I couldn’t think of a single thing I could do,” he said. “Oh, I suppose I could get some kind of minimum-wage job. But I’m used to living a certain way, and I’m used to not having to work many hours. Can you see me clerking in a 7-Eleven?”

“I couldn’t even see you sticking up a 7-Eleven, Keller.”

“It might be different if I were younger.”

“I guess armed robbery is a young man’s job.”

“If I were just starting out,” he said, “I could take some entry-level job and work my way up. But I’m too old for that now. Nobody would hire me in the first place, and the jobs I’m qualified for, well, I wouldn’t want them.”

“‘Do you want fries with that?’ You’re right, Keller. Somehow it just doesn’t sound like you.”

“I started at the bottom once. I started coming around, and the old man found things for me to do. ‘Richie’s gotta see a man, so why don’t you ride along with him, keep him company.’ Or go see this guy, tell him we’re not happy with the way he’s been acting. Or he used to send me to the store to pick up candy bars for him. What was that candy bar he used to like?”

“Mars bars.”

“No, he switched to those, but early on it was something else. They were hard to find, only a few stores had them. I think he was the only person I ever met who liked them. What the hell was the name of them? It’s on the tip of my tongue.”

“Hell of a place for a candy bar.”

“Powerhouse,” he said. “Powerhouse candy bars.”

“The dentist’s best friend,” she said. “I remember them now. I wonder if they still make them.”

“‘Do me a favor, kid, see if they got any of my candy bars downtown.’ Then one day it was do me a favor, here’s a gun, go see this guy and give him two in the head. Out of the blue, more or less, except by then he probably knew I’d do it. And you know something? It never occurred to me not to. ‘Here’s a gun, do me a favor.’ So I took the gun and did him a favor.”

“Just like that?”

“Pretty much. I was used to doing what he told me, and I just did. And that let him know I was somebody who could do that kind of thing. Because not everybody can.”

“But it didn’t bother you.”

“I’ve been thinking about this,” he said. “Reflecting, I guess you’d call it. I didn’t let it bother me.”

“That thing you do, fading the color out of the image and pushing it off in the distance…”

“It was later that I taught myself to do that,” he said. “Earlier, well, I guess you’d just call it denial. I told myself it didn’t bother me and made myself believe it. And then there was this sense of accomplishment. Look what I did, see what a man I am. Bang, and he’s dead and you’re not, there’s a certain amount of exhilaration that comes with it.”

“Still?”

He shook his head. “There’s the feeling that you’ve got the job done, that’s all. If it was difficult, well, you’ve accomplished something. If there are other things you’d rather be doing, well, now you can go home and do them.”

“Buy stamps, see a movie.”

“Right.”

“You just pretended it didn’t bother you,” she said, “and then one day it didn’t.”

“And it was easy to pretend, because it never bothered me all that much. But yes, I just kept on doing it, and then I didn’t have to pretend. This place where I stayed in Scottsdale, there were all these masks on the walls. Tribal stuff, I guess they were. And I thought about how I started out wearing a mask, and before long it wasn’t a mask, it was my own face.”

“I guess I follow you.”

“It’s just a way of looking at it,” he said. “Anyway, how I got here’s not the point. Where do I go from here? That’s the question.”

“You had a lot of time to think up an answer.”

“Too much time.”

“I guess, with all the stops in Nashville and Coffee Pot.”

“ Coffeyville.”

“Whatever. What did you come up with, Keller?”

“Well,” he said, and drew a breath. “One, I’m ready to stop doing this. The business is different, with the airline security and people living behind stockade fences. And I’m different. I’m older, and I’ve been doing this for too many years.”

“Okay.”

“Two, I can’t retire. I need the money, and I don’t have any other way to earn what I need to live on.”

“I hope there’s a three, Keller, because one and two don’t leave you much room to swing.”

“What I had to do,” he said, “was figure out how much money I need.”

“To retire on.”

He nodded. “The figure I came up with,” he said, “is a million dollars.”

“A nice round sum.”

“That’s more than I had when I was thinking about retirement the last time. I think this is a more realistic figure. Invested right, I could probably get a return of around fifty thousand dollars a year.”

“And you can live on that?”

“I don’t want that much,” he said. “I’m not thinking in terms of around-the-world cruises and expensive restaurants. I don’t spend a lot on clothes, and when I buy something I wear it until it’s worn out.”

“Or even longer.”

“If I had a million in cash,” he said, “plus what I could get for the apartment, which is probably another half million.”

“Where would you move?”

“I don’t know. Someplace warm, I suppose.”

“Sundowner Estates?”

“Too expensive. And I wouldn’t care to be walled in, and I don’t play golf.”

“You might, just to have something to do.”

He shook his head. “Some of those guys loved golf,” he said, “but others, you had the feeling they had to keep selling themselves on the idea, telling one another how crazy they were about the game. ‘What time?’”

“How’s that?”

“It’s the punch line of a joke. It’s not important. No, I wouldn’t want to live there. But there are these little towns in New Mexico north of Albuquerque, up in the high desert, and you could buy a shack there or just pick up a mobile home and find a place to park it.”

“And you think you could stand it? Out in the boonies like that?”

“I don’t know. The thing is, say I netted half a million from the apartment, plus the million I saved. Say five percent, comes to seventy-five thousand a year, and yes, I could live fine on that.”

“And your apartment’s worth half a million?”

“Something like that.”

“So all you need is a million dollars, Keller. Now I’d lend it to you myself, but I’m a little short this month. What are you going to do, sell your stamps?”

“They’re not worth anything like that. I don’t know what I’ve spent on the collection, but it certainly doesn’t come to a million dollars, and you can’t get back what you put into them, anyway.”

“I thought they were supposed to be a good investment.”

“They’re better than spending the money on caviar and champagne,” he said, “because you get something back when you sell them, but dealers have to make a profit, too, and if you get half your money back you’re doing well. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to sell them.”