Final Option

everything.”
    “Is that bad?”
    “It’s inconvenient. Police or no police, I still have to have Hexter Commodities’ answer to the CFTC on Friday. Is there any way you could duplicate the material you gave to Mr. Hexter? Are there file copies or any kind of backups?”
    “I gave Mr. Hexter the original files,” answered Mrs. Titlebaum dubiously. “We don’t keep backups of many things. The trading records are on computer disk. I could have a clerk run you off another set.”
    “I’d appreciate that,” I said. “Especially anything you have on Deodar Commodities, like a phone number or a mailing address. Do you have any idea who they are?”
    “No. All I know is that it was a discretionary account. You know, Mr. Hexter didn’t have to consult anyone about the trades he made. I don’t think the customer ever called him. Still, I’ll see what I can find.”
    “One more thing, Mrs. Titlebaum. Do you know what Mr. Hexter wanted to discuss with Ken Kurlander? Ken told me that your boss called his secretary Friday afternoon and made an appointment for Monday morning.”
    “He did?” replied the secretary, obviously surprised. “Well, this is the first I’ve heard about it.”
     
    I found Tim Hexter in a tiny office wedged between Bart Hexter’s and Carl Savage’s. I suspected that it had once been a storage closet but that Bart, wanting his assistant within earshot at all times, had had it converted into an office. What was surprising was not its size— though the contrast with Tim’s bulk made it almost comical—but that its occupant had, for all intents and purposes, turned it into a shrine to the Chicago Cubs.
    Every conceivable inch of space was filled with Cubs memorabilia, lovingly displayed. Wrigley’s finest were all represented: photos of Ferguson Jenkins on the mound, Andre Dawson at the plate, even autographed pictures of famed Cubs announcers Harry Carey and Jack Brickhouse. On the wall behind the desk, extending from the ceiling to the floor, were game bats hung on racks, autographed by players like Ryne Sandberg, Mark Grace, even hall-of-famer Hank Wilson, whose bat smoked for the Cubs in the ’30s. The ceiling was ringed with Cubs hats, signed on the bill by the players who had worn them. On his desk was an Ernie Banks autographed ball, entombed in Lucite.
    The overall effect was extraordinary, and I said as much to Tim as I took a few minutes to take it all in. Tim pointed out the highlights of his collection and for a few minutes the usual dimness of his countenance was lit up by his love of baseball.
    I found myself wondering what it must be like to love something as impersonal, something as intangible, as a baseball team. What great vistas of inner emptiness such an avocation could fill. It was, I realized, the perfect counterpoint to Bart Hexter—his obsession with the markets and his rages—another way for Tim to escape his exacting and temperamental master. If he wasn’t physically unreachable on his bicycle, he could at least build a comforting cocoon of baseball memorabilia— physical reminders of the sport, and the team, that existed in a world completely untouched by the markets.
    I wondered what would become of Tim now that his uncle was dead. In his brief stab at trading, Tim had crashed and burned in spectacular fashion. He had spent the last ten years as Bart Hexter’s whipping boy. With Bart gone, I could imagine few skills he could parlay into another job—short of his ability to absorb abuse. Perhaps Barton Jr. would keep him on, out of family loyalty. Either way it was clear that Tim was yet another innocent casualty of Hexter’s murder.
    When I was done admiring Tim’s collection I squeezed into the chair reserved for visitors and got down to business.
    “Do you know anything about some documents that Bart had pulled together for the meeting he was supposed to have had with me Sunday morning? They were account files and trading records for his personal soybean account and for a client called Deodar Commodities.”
    “What about them?” Tim’s voice was deep, but contained an empty ring, a slowness, that immediately made you realize he must be short quite a bit of candle power.
    “Do you know where they are?”
    “Nope. Did you ask Mrs. Titlebaum?”
    “She said she gave them to Bart Thursday before your afternoon meeting.”
    “Bart never showed them to me, if that’s what you mean,” he replied defensively. “We just did the usual stuff,