Lawrence Block - Hit Parade

“I recognized the picture,” he said. “Bingham’s a stamp collector.”

Keller changed his mindseveral times over the next week, but in the end he flew to San Francisco as originally scheduled, on a nonstop American Airlines flight that got him there early Thursday afternoon. He flew under his own name, used his own driver’s license as ID, and charged the ticket to his own credit card.

All this resulted from the fact that the weekend had started out as a pleasure trip. If it had been a business trip from the outset, he’d probably be in the front of the plane, but he’d decided to economize so he’d have more money to spend on stamps. The plane was half empty, and American gave you adequate legroom in coach, so he was comfortable enough. But he felt oddly exposed, and somehow conspicuous. He was wearing a suit and tie, he looked for all the world like any other business traveler, but he felt as though the nature of his real business was somehow evident, and that anyone who glanced in his direction would know all about him.

They used to feed you a full meal on a transcontinental flight, even though it was never very good, but this time all he got was a cup of weak coffee and a bag of pretzels. No peanuts, the flight attendant told him, because some people were allergic. He must have made a face, because the fellow nodded in sympathy. “I know,” he said. “Some people are allergic to coffee, too, and probably to pretzels, but the peanut people have a good lobby. But don’t get me started.”

Keller ate the pretzels and drank the coffee, and when the plane landed he got a cab to his hotel. He was staying at the Cumberford, where the stamp show was being held, and his room was on a high floor with a good view. He’d checked a bag, because he’d brought his Scott catalog and a few other reference books, along with a couple of changes of clothing, and he had a pair of tongs and a magnifier, and you never knew what some security person might decide was a deadly weapon. According to a sign he’d seen at the airport, you couldn’t go through security with a cigarette lighter or a book of matches, nor could you transport either in your checked luggage. Keller, who had never smoked, wondered what a smoker could do these days. You couldn’t smoke on the plane, or anywhere in the airport, and now you couldn’t even light up after you got off, unless you managed to find somebody with a match.

He unpacked, took a shower, stretched out on the bed. And studied the newspaper photo of Sheridan Bingham.

“I’ll call Horvath,”Dot had said. “I’ll tell him it’s a scheduling problem, that we have to turn it down. I hate to give back money, especially once I’ve actually got it in my hand, but I don’t see what choice we’ve got.”

“I’ll go to San Francisco,” he said, “and do the job.”

“I thought you just said you knew the guy.”

“I know who he is.”

“You’re not friends?”

“I don’t think we’ve ever spoken,” he said, “and if we did, it would have been about the weather. I know I’ve been in the same room with him a couple of times. But I’ve seen his photo more than I’ve seen him in person.”

“On America’s Most Wanted ?”

“In Linn’s Stamp News . He’s an exhibitor, he enters frames from his collection in stamp shows and wins prizes, or tries to. His specialty is German states.”

“You mean like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania?”

“Like Hanover and Lubeck,” he said. “And the Mecklenburgs.”

“The Mecklenburgs? Would that be Ralph and Sheila Mecklenburg?”

“Mecklenburg-Schwerin,” he said, “and Mecklenburg-Strelitz. There were all these different states and provinces during the nineteenth century, before they united to form modern Germany.”

“And they all had stamps.”

“Well, a lot of them did. Thurn and Taxis, that was one of the first postal systems.”

“There’s nothing certain except Thurn and Taxis. Isn’t that what they say?”

“I never thought of that,” he said, “and now I’ll never be able to get it out of my head. Anyway, that’s his specialty, German states. Plus Germany, and the German colonies, but-”

“ Germany has colonies?”

“Nobody has colonies,” he said. “Not anymore. Germany had colonies up until the end of the First World War. There was German East Africa, which the British wound up with, and German Southwest Africa, which is Namibia now, and Togo and Cameroon, which the French took, and…”

He told her more than she may have needed to know about Germany ’s long-lost empire, and when he stopped she looked at him and shook her head. “It’s really educational,” she said. “Stamp collecting.”

“Well, that’s not the point, but you do wind up picking up a lot of stuff. Useless information, I guess.”

“All information’s useless,” she said. “You collect German states yourself?”

“It’s not a major interest of mine.”

“So the two of you haven’t bumped heads when some particularly desirable stamp comes up.”

“No.”

“And you haven’t sat up together drinking mai tais and telling old stamp stories.”

“I’d be surprised if I’m even a familiar face to him.”

“And the fact that you’re both stamp collectors wouldn’t keep you from punching his ticket?”

“Do you think it should?”

“Well, I don’t know, Keller. Horvath used to be a stamp collector, and it’s not stopping him from putting out the contract. It all comes down to how you feel about it.”

He thought it over. “It’s not as though he was a friend,” he said, “or even an acquaintance. It’s something in common, but so’s wearing the same brand of sneakers. You know how you’ll be riding the subway, and you’re wearing New Balance sneakers, and the guy across from you is wearing New Balance, too, and you feel a sort of kinship?”

“I never ride the subway,” she pointed out, “because it doesn’t reach all the way to White Plains. And I never wear sneakers. But I guess I know what you mean.”

“Well,” he said, “just because some guy happens to be wearing the same brand of sneakers, I don’t see why that should give him a free pass.”

Keller had attendedstamp shows at the Javits Center that had it all over this one in terms of size. The dealers’ bourse fit neatly into the main ballroom at the Cumberford, and the exhibits were housed in a smaller room on the mezzanine. It was quality that had drawn him here, the quality of the material in the exhibits, the quality of the dealers in the bourse room, and especially the quality of the lots offered at the three-day auction, which was run by the white-shoe firm of Halliday amp; Okun.

Of course you didn’t have to show up at an auction in order to bid. You could bid by mail, and the auction house would bid on your behalf, going no higher than your maximum figure for each lot. Or you could bid over the phone, saying yea or nay in real time and having the option of getting carried away and spending more than you’d intended, just as if you were there in person.

But it was more exciting to be there, no question. And, sitting on your folding chair, waiting for your lot to come up, you were able to find out just how much you really wanted a particular stamp. Sometimes you wound up sitting there, never even raising your numbered bidder’s paddle, letting the lot go to somebody else for far less than you’d been willing to pay for it. Other times you sailed recklessly past your maximum bid, discovering that you wanted the material more than you’d anticipated.

Another advantage to being there was you got to see the auction lots up close and personal. The auction catalog featured photos of the more important items, but you couldn’t pick up a photo with your stamp tongs and determine just how much you liked the looks of it. Keller, taking advantage of his early arrival, went to the auction room as soon as he’d unpacked, signed in and got his bidder’s number-304-and sat down with his catalog. He went through it and called for the lots he was sufficiently interested in to examine, and one of the Halliday amp; Okun minions brought them to him for his inspection.