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"He’s just as dead"

"Well, I guess that’s true"

"And if I did it myself at least I’d make it as painless as I could But I wouldn’t do it at all, and neither would you, Pablo, and the kind of person ould, well, maybe he’s the type who enjoys it There are people like that in the world, you know"

"Lots of theet the occasional nut job"

He nodded "By and large," he said, "they don’t last long"

"But they get a lot done in their brief careers, don’t they? That type of person enjoys his work, takes his tih with any target, but when it’s a kid--"

He got the point He said, "What was it that general said? Or maybe it was somebody in the Defense Departe in order to save it’"

"Rings a muted bell But we don’t have to kill the kid in order to save him All we have to do is take the job"

"And not carry it out"

"Have to be a little more proactive than that, don’t you think?"

"Carry it out," he said, "but not on the kid"

"Right On the person who ordered the hit"

"Do we knoho that is?"

"No"

"Do we kno to find out?"

"Saet somebody else?"

"The others," she said, "are just voices on the phone, as far as I’m concerned, and that’s all I aure I was going soft in the head ‘Somebody wants a kid hit? So I’ll hit him, ma’am What’s the problehed "What you probably ought to do," she said, "is turn o play with your stamps and I can send theIsn’t that hatsisnauy ashed his hands He was famous for it Never mind Did I mention where the boy lives? Well, it’s Buffalo I don’t even know if you’ve been there"

"Not in years I can’t reara Falls"

"You went to Niagara Falls?"

"No," he said "But I could have"

Fifty-One

You know," Keller said, "I own a couple of the unissued overprints, though I couldn’t tell you offhand if I’ve got the five-pfennig brown or the twenty-pfennig green Those were the ones you mentioned, weren’t they?"

The boy nodded "Some of the issued sta price difference A dollar for the common shade and twenty or thirty dollars for the variety And in both sets, for the two-and-a-half-uess that enta as well, like the German stamp, and that they’re all equally common and low-priced"

Keller said that struck hiuess "You know a lot about Allenstein," he said

"Not that hts, which is kind of interesting, but I’m not too clear on who they were"

"I never even heard of them Was that in Scott?"

"Wikipedia I actually own one of the minor varieties, Scott 11a, the one-and-a-quarter-reen It’s nine dollars, which is no fortune, but it’s scarcer than the coh you specialize in Allenstein"

"More like the whole German area," the boy said, and talked about the albums that housed his collection, and how they’d been a present--"Several presents, really"--frouess you know that, because Mr Hasselbend said my name when he called on me Not that you’d necessarily remember that"

Keller remembered, and hadn’t needed to hear Hasselbend, either "I’m Nick Edwards," he said

"And what do you collect, Mr Edwards?"

"You can call me Nick," Keller said, and told him what he collected, and about his Martinique specialty

"That’s one you’ll never complete," Mark said "There are a couple of super-expensive rarities, aren’t there? Or a of Guadeloupe?"

"Either one," Keller said "There’s a Guadeloupe postage-due that’s unknown in mint condition, and extreot Scott 11 and 17, both with five-figure price tags, and that’s if you can find them"

Keller could find theht both at the same auction, after a nice windfall But that didn’t strike hi he needed to share with Mark

They chatted, and then Mark excused himself to trade duplicates with a le fan on the desk downstairs Each had brought a ss, and they sat side by side at a table and haggled ao," Dot said "Last I heard, the Falls was still up and running If you fly up to Buffalo on Sunday, you could fit in a day at the Falls"

"I think I’ll stay houred you’d say that And I can’t say I blame you"

"Why would anyone want to kill a kid? To go and pay money to have him killed?"