Page 42 (1/2)

Hit Me Lawrence Block 23290K 2023-09-02

"His grandmother died," she said, "and left all her ets it when he turns twenty-one"

"If he turns twenty-one"

"There you go So in a sense you’ve got seven years to do the job, but the client doesn’t want to wait that long"

He thought about it "Shouldn’t be too hard to work out who the client is Who gets the ets divided up Three main beneficiaries, so the odds are that one of theether, like so on Masterpiece Theatre Dot, it’s not really my problem"

"I know"

"For all we know, he could be a mean little bastard Starts fires, tortures animals, wets the bed"

"And whoever kills hi the world a favor"

"For all we know Why would I fly up there on a Sunday? What happens on Monday?"

"That’s when he’s easy to find," she said, "because every Monday after dinner he gets on the bus and goes don to his stas of so he could use He fell into a couple of conversations, none of the as the one he’d had with the boy At an adjacent table, he overheard the other lad, taller and heavier than Mark, conte the purchase of a set of World Cup stamps from Transnistria, the breakaway province of Moldova, which itself had broken away fronized only by Russia, didn’t field a World Cup team, and Keller wasn’t sure the inhabitants caredsta ended with an auction--a handful of hest sale price under 10 And then there was a raffle, and Mark’s trading partner won a souvenir sheet from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, donated by one of the dealers

And that was that Keller took his chair to the back of the roo the his hand "I enjoyed talking with you, Nick," he said "Will you be coain next week?"

"I’m afraid not I’ your duplicates Maybe we can trade"

"I’ll do that," Keller said "You spend a lot of time on stamps?"

"As much as I can I do okay in school, so homework doesn’t take much time, and I’m hopeless in sports, so that doesn’t take any time at all"

"I see your friend collects World Cup issues"

"He likes soccer He even likes to play it"

"But you don’t"

"I like to sit at , most people would say"

"Not in this rooreed "When I come here I don’t feel like a rinned "In here," he said, "I’m just another philatelist"

Downstairs, Keller found hi at the desk on his way to the door The sa Mark’s trading partner, shtly Keller said, "Why an A?"

She didn’t hesitate Because she could read his mind? No, more likely he was not the first person to ask Possibly not even the first person that day

"It used to say YMCA," she said

"Before the tornado struck?"

"OnlyMen’s Christian Association"

"And?"