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Keller drew his pair of tongs frolassine envelope It was one of Norway’s endless Posthorn series, worth less than a dollar, but curiously elusive, andfroht to e had once secured it to an albu it aside for purchase

The dealer, a tall and gaunt gentleman whose face was frozen on one side by what he had explained was Bell’s palsy, gave a one-side-of-the-face chuckle "One thing I like to see," he said, "is a s with hiot a serious collector in s with him and sometimes didn’t, felt it was more a question of ht along his copy of the Scott catalog, a large 1,100-page volume that listed and illustrated the stamps of the world from the very first issue (Great Britain’s Penny Black, 1840) through the initial century of philately and, in the case of the British Ee VI issues in 1952 These were the sta not only for its infor each stamp’s number in red when he added it to his collection

The catalog always traveled with him, because there was no way he could shop for stas were useful, but not indispensable; he could always borrow a pair froet to pack tongs, and you couldn’t just tuck a pair in your pocket at the lastto get on an airplane, because soine a terrorist with a pair of staht attendant and threaten to pluck her eyebrows…

It was surprising he’d brought the tongs this ti He’d worked for this particular client once before, on a job that took him to Albuquerque, and he’d never even had time to unpack In an uncharacteristic excess of caution, he’d booked three different motel roo the job on an i back to New York the sa in any of them If this job went as quickly and smoothly he wouldn’t have time to buy stamps, and who even knew if there were any dealers in Des Moines?

Years ago, when Keller’s boyhood stamp collection rarely set him back more than a dollar or teek, there would have been plenty of dealers in Des Moines, as there were just about everywhere The hobby was as strong as ever these days, but the street-level retail staered species list, and conservation was unlikely to save it The business nowadays was all online or mail order, and the few dealers who still operated stores did so more to attract potential sellers than buyers People with no knowledge of or interest in stamps would pass their shop every day, and when Uncle Fred died and there was a collection to sell, they’d knohere to bring it

This dealer, Jaround-floor front of his holas Avenue in Urbandale, a suburb whose name struck Keller as oxymoronic An urban dale? It seeured it was probably a nice enough place to live McCue’s house was around seventy years old, a frame structure with a bayand an upstairs porch The dealer sat at a coreater portion of his business, and a radio played elevator eable clutter soh the rest of the Norway issues and found a couple ested "I got so on Sweden," Keller said "At this point the only ones I need are the ones I can’t afford"

"I knohat that’s like How about nuh, I don’t have thee, either" That stae instead of blue green, and was presuo for three million dollars Or maybe it was euros, Keller couldn’t reot that fellow," McCue said, "but I’ve got one through five, and the price is right" And, when Keller raised his eyebrows, he added, "The official reprints Mint, decent centering, and lightly hinged Book says they’re worth 375 apiece Want to have a look?"

He didn’t wait for an answer but sorted through a file box and ca the five stamps behind a protective sheet of clear plastic

"Take your time, look ’em over carefully Nice, aren’t they?"

"Very nice"

"You could fill those blank spaces with these and never need to apologize for theinals, which seemed unlikely, the set of reprints would still deserve a place in his collection He asked the price

"Well, I wanted seven-fifty for the set, but I guess I’ll take six hundred Save’em"

"If it was five," Keller said, "I wouldn’t have to think about it"

"Go ahead and think it through," McCue said "I wouldn’t really care to go lower than six I can take a credit card, if that ht, but Keller wasn’t sure he wanted to take that route He had an American Express card in his own naured he’d just as soon keep it that way And he had a Visa card he’d used to rent the Nissan Sentra froister at the Days Inn, and the name on it was Holden Blankenship, which matched the Connecticut driver’s license in his wallet, on which Blankenship’s ured would help to distinguish him from all the other Holden Blankenships in the world

According to Dot, who had a source for credit cards and driver’s licenses, the license would pass a security check, and the cards would be good for at least a couple of weeks But sooner or later all the charges would bounce when nobody paid them, and that didn’t bother Keller as far as Hertz and Days Inn and A he wanted to do was screw a stahtfully his He had a feeling that wouldn’t happen, that the credit card company would be the one to eat the loss, but even so he didn’t like the idea His hobby was the one area of his life where he got to be coht the sta the them from James McCue or Visa He was perfectly co official reprints on the first page of his Swedish issues, but not stolen reprints, or even stolen originals If he couldn’t co without them

Dot would have a snappy comeback for that one, he supposed, or at the very least roll her eyes But he figured et the point

But did he have enough cash?