Lawrence Block - Hit Parade

“And then, inside my house, they got into an argument and…killed each other?”

“That’s close enough,” Keller said.

Grondahl thought about it. “I think I get the picture,” he said.

“You probably get as much of the picture as you need to get.”

“That’s what it sounds like. Why did they come here in the first place?”

“They were going to leave an envelope.”

“An envelope.”

“In a desk drawer.”

“And the envelope contained…”

“A motive for a murder.”

“My murder?”

Keller nodded.

“They were going to kill me?”

“Their employer,” Keller said, “had already hired someone else for that job.”

“Who?”

“Some stranger,” Keller said. “Some faceless assassin flown in from out of town.”

Grondahl looked thoughtfully at him, the way one might look at a putative faceless assassin. “But he’s not going to do it,” he said. “At least I don’t think he is.”

“He’s not.”

“Why?”

“Because he happened to learn that once his job was done, they were planning to kill him.”

“And pin everything on the Indy Fi management,” Grondahl said. “Making it look like I was killed to keep me from giving testimony I never had any thought of giving in the first place. Jesus, it might have worked. I can imagine what must have been in the envelope. Is it still around? The envelope? Or did it disappear along with the two men?”

“The men will turn up eventually,” Keller said. “The envelope is gone forever.”

Grondahl nodded, retrieved the basketball, bounced it a few times. Keller could almost see the wheels turning in the man’s head. He was bright, Keller was pleased to note. You didn’t have to spell things out for him, you gave him the first paragraph and he got the rest of the page on his own.

“I owe you,” Grondahl said.

Keller shrugged.

“I mean it. You saved my life.”

“I was saving my own at the time,” Keller pointed out.

“When the two of them, uh, had their accident, I’ll concede that was in your own self-interest. But you could have just walked away. And you certainly didn’t have to show up here and fill me in. Which leads to a question.”

“Why am I here?”

“If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I don’t mind,” Keller said. “As a matter of fact, I’ve got a couple of questions of my own.”

“I think I get it,”Dot said. “This is a new thing for me, Keller. I wrote it down, and I’m going to read it back to you, to make sure I’ve got it all straight.”

She did, and he told her she had it right.

“That’s a miracle,” she said, “because it was a little like taking dictation in a foreign language. I’ll take care of it tomorrow. Can I do it all in a day?”

“Probably.”

“Then I will. And you’ll be…”

“Biding my time in Indianapolis. I switched motels, by the way.”

“Good.”

“And found the bug they put on my bumper, and switched it to the bumper of another Ford the same color as mine.”

“That should muddy the waters nicely.”

“I thought so. So I’ll do what I have to do, and then I’ll be a couple of days driving home.”

“Not to worry,” she said. “I’ll leave the porch light on for you.”

It was a full week laterwhen Keller drove his rented Toyota through the Lincoln Tunnel and found his way to the National garage, where he turned it in. He went home, unpacked his bag, and spent two full hours working on his stamp collection before he picked up the phone and called White Plains.

“Come right on up,” Dot said, “so I can turn the light off. It’s attracting moths.”

In the kitchen of the house on Taunton Place, Dot poured him a big glass of iced tea and told him they’d done very well indeed. “I was wondering at first,” she said, “because I bought a big chunk of Indy Fi, and the first thing it did was go down a couple of points. But then it turned around and went back up again, and the last I checked it’s up better than ten points from when I bought it. I bought options, too, for increased leverage. I don’t understand how they work exactly, but I was able to buy them, and this morning I sold them, and do you want to know exactly how much we made on them?”

“It doesn’t have to be exact.”

She told him, down to the last decimal point, and it was a satisfying number.

“We’re about that much ahead on the actual stock we bought,” she said, “but I haven’t sold that yet, because I kind of like owning it, especially the way it’s going up. Maybe we can sell half and let the rest ride, something like that, but I figured I’d wait and see what you want to do.”

“We’ll work it out.”

“My thought exactly.” She sat forward, rubbed her hands together. “What really kick-started things,” she said, “was when Clocker killed himself. His hedge fund had been shorting Indy Fi’s stock all along, and he was behind the lawsuit they were going through, and when he was out of the picture, and in a way that put the cloud right over his own head, well, the price of Indy Fi’s stock could go back where it belonged. And the price of his hedge fund…”

“Sank?”

“Like a stone,” she said. “And we sold it short, and covered our shorts very cheaply, and made a killing. It’s nice to make a killing without having to drive anywhere. How did you know how to do all this?”

“I had advice,” he said. “From a fellow who couldn’t do any of this himself, because it would be insider trading. But you and I aren’t insiders, so there’s no problem.”

“Well, I’ve got no problem with it myself, Keller. That’s for sure. You know, this isn’t the first time you’ve wound up killing a client of ours.”

“I know.”

“This one brought it on himself, no question. But usually it costs us money, and this time we came out way ahead. You’re going to be able to buy a veritable shitload of stamps.”

“I was thinking about that.”

“And we’re a giant stride closer to being able to retire, when the time comes.”

“I was thinking about that, too.”

“And you bonded with What’s-his-name.”

“Meredith Grondahl.”

“What do his friends call him, did you happen to find out?”

“It never came up. I’m not sure he’s got any friends.”

“Oh.”

“I was thinking I ought to send him something, Dot. I had an idea of how to make money in the market, but he spelled the whole thing out for me. I didn’t know a thing about options, and I never would have thought of shorting the hedge fund.”

“How big a share do you want to send him?”

“Not a share. He’s pretty straight-arrow, and even if he weren’t, the last thing he wants is cash he can’t explain. No, I was thinking more of a present. A token, really, but something he’d like to have and probably wouldn’t ever buy for himself.”

“Like?”

“Season tickets to the Pacers’ home games. He loves basketball, and a pair of courtside season tickets should really do it for the guy.”

“What’s it cost?” Before he could answer she waved the question away. “Not enough to matter, not the way we just made out. That’s a great idea, Keller. And who knows? Next time you’re in Indianapolis, maybe the two of you can take in a game.”

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “Leave me out of it. I hate basketball.”

“Will you look at that?”Dot said.

Keller looked, but all he could see was a chart of the price of some stock and, across the bottom of the screen, a crawl of stock symbols and numbers. The sound was off, as usual. Dot seemed to prefer TV with the sound off. Keller figured that worked okay with Animal Planet or the National Geographic channel, but it seemed less effective with CNBC. What good was a talking head if you couldn’t tell what it was talking about?