never missed their auctions, and I’d swear I saw you there a few times. I don’t know if we ever talked, and if I ever heard your name I’ve long since forgotten it, but I’m pretty good with faces. Faces and watermarks, they both tend to stick in my mind.” He stuck out a hand. “Irv,” he said. “Irv Feldspar.”
“Nicholas Edwards.”
“A damn shame Stampazine’s gone,” Feldspar said. “Bert Taub’s health was bad for years, and finally he closed up shop, and then the word got around that he missed the business and wanted to get back into it, and the next thing we knew he was dead.”
“A hell of a thing,” Keller said, figuring something along those lines was expected of him.
“Plenty of other auctions in this city,” Feldspar said, “but you could just show up at Stampazine and there’d be plenty of low-priced material to bid on. No fancy catalogs, no Internet or phone bidders. I don’t think you and I ever bumped heads, did we? I’m strictly U.S. myself.”
“Everything but U.S.,” Keller said. “Worldwide to 1940.”
“So I was never bidding against you, so why would you remember me?”
“I didn’t come all that often,” Keller said. “I live out of town, so—”
“What, Jersey? Connecticut?”
“New Orleans, so—”
“You didn’t come in special for Bert’s auctions.”
“Hardly. I just showed up when I happened to be in town.”
“On business? What kind of business are you in, if I may ask?”
Keller, letting a trace of the South find its way into his speech, explained that he was retired, and then answered the inevitable Katrina questions, until he cleared his throat and said he really wanted to focus on the lots he was examining. And Irv Feldspar apologized, said his wife told him he never knew when he was boring people, and that she was convinced he was suffering from Ass-Backward syndrome.
Keller nodded, concentrated on the stamps.
Julia said, “I knew there was something. Something’s been different ever since you got back from Dallas, and I couldn’t say what it was, so I had to think it was another woman. And you’re a man, for heaven’s sake, and you were on the other side of the state line, and things happen. I know that. And I could stand that, if that’s what it was, and if what happened in Dallas stayed in Dallas. If it was going to be an ongoing thing, if she was important to you, well, maybe I could stand that and maybe I couldn’t.”
“That wasn’t it.”
“No, it wasn’t, was it?” She reached to lay her hand on top of his. “What a relief. My husband wasn’t fooling around with another woman. He was killing her.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Do you remember the night we met?”
“Of course.”
“You saved my life. I was taking a shortcut through the park, and I was about to be raped and killed, and you saved me.”
“I don’t know what got into me.”
“You saved me,” she said, “and you killed that man right in front of me. With your bare hands. You grabbed him and broke his neck.”
“Well.”
“That was how we met. When Jenny’s old enough to want to know how Mommy and Daddy met and fell in love, we may have to give her an edited version. But that’s not for a while yet. How was it? In Dallas? I know it went smoothly enough, and I think it’s pure poetry that the man you framed wound up confessing.”
“Well, he thinks he did it.”
“And in a sense he did, because if he hadn’t made that first phone call you would never have left the hotel.”
“I probably wouldn’t even have gone. I’d have sent in a few mail bids and let it go at that.”
“So he got what was coming to him, and it doesn’t sound as though either of them was a terribly nice person.”
“You wouldn’t want to have them to the house for dinner.”
“I didn’t think so. But what I wanted to know was how was it for you? How did it feel? You hadn’t done anything like this in a long time.”
“A
“Nicholas Edwards.”
“A damn shame Stampazine’s gone,” Feldspar said. “Bert Taub’s health was bad for years, and finally he closed up shop, and then the word got around that he missed the business and wanted to get back into it, and the next thing we knew he was dead.”
“A hell of a thing,” Keller said, figuring something along those lines was expected of him.
“Plenty of other auctions in this city,” Feldspar said, “but you could just show up at Stampazine and there’d be plenty of low-priced material to bid on. No fancy catalogs, no Internet or phone bidders. I don’t think you and I ever bumped heads, did we? I’m strictly U.S. myself.”
“Everything but U.S.,” Keller said. “Worldwide to 1940.”
“So I was never bidding against you, so why would you remember me?”
“I didn’t come all that often,” Keller said. “I live out of town, so—”
“What, Jersey? Connecticut?”
“New Orleans, so—”
“You didn’t come in special for Bert’s auctions.”
“Hardly. I just showed up when I happened to be in town.”
“On business? What kind of business are you in, if I may ask?”
Keller, letting a trace of the South find its way into his speech, explained that he was retired, and then answered the inevitable Katrina questions, until he cleared his throat and said he really wanted to focus on the lots he was examining. And Irv Feldspar apologized, said his wife told him he never knew when he was boring people, and that she was convinced he was suffering from Ass-Backward syndrome.
Keller nodded, concentrated on the stamps.
Julia said, “I knew there was something. Something’s been different ever since you got back from Dallas, and I couldn’t say what it was, so I had to think it was another woman. And you’re a man, for heaven’s sake, and you were on the other side of the state line, and things happen. I know that. And I could stand that, if that’s what it was, and if what happened in Dallas stayed in Dallas. If it was going to be an ongoing thing, if she was important to you, well, maybe I could stand that and maybe I couldn’t.”
“That wasn’t it.”
“No, it wasn’t, was it?” She reached to lay her hand on top of his. “What a relief. My husband wasn’t fooling around with another woman. He was killing her.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Do you remember the night we met?”
“Of course.”
“You saved my life. I was taking a shortcut through the park, and I was about to be raped and killed, and you saved me.”
“I don’t know what got into me.”
“You saved me,” she said, “and you killed that man right in front of me. With your bare hands. You grabbed him and broke his neck.”
“Well.”
“That was how we met. When Jenny’s old enough to want to know how Mommy and Daddy met and fell in love, we may have to give her an edited version. But that’s not for a while yet. How was it? In Dallas? I know it went smoothly enough, and I think it’s pure poetry that the man you framed wound up confessing.”
“Well, he thinks he did it.”
“And in a sense he did, because if he hadn’t made that first phone call you would never have left the hotel.”
“I probably wouldn’t even have gone. I’d have sent in a few mail bids and let it go at that.”
“So he got what was coming to him, and it doesn’t sound as though either of them was a terribly nice person.”
“You wouldn’t want to have them to the house for dinner.”
“I didn’t think so. But what I wanted to know was how was it for you? How did it feel? You hadn’t done anything like this in a long time.”
“A
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