Hidden Riches

crate, to open a trunk and to sell whathe took. By his thirtieth year he had amassed enough capital to start his own company, enough savvy to play heavily on the dark side and win and enough contacts to ensure a steady flow of merchandise.
    Now he was a wealthy man who preferred Italian suits, French women and Swiss francs. He could, after decades of transactions, afford to keep what appealed most to him. What appealed most was the old, the priceless.
    “You’re all done, Mr. Finley.” The manicurist placed Finley’s hand gently on the spotless blotter on his desk. She knew he would check her work carefully while she packed up her tools and lotions. Once he had raged at her for ten minutes for missing a minute speck of cuticle on his thumb. But this time, when she dared to glance up, he was smiling down at his buffed nails.
    “Excellent work.” Pleased, he rubbed his thumbs and fingertips together. Taking a gold money clip from his pocket, Finley peeled off a fifty. Then with one of his rare and disarming smiles, he added another hundred. “Merry Christmas, dear.”
    “Oh—thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Finley. Merry Christmas to you, too.”
    Still smiling, he dismissed her with a wave of his buffed fingertips. His sporadic generosity came as naturally as his constant greed. He relished both. Before the door had closed behind her, he had swiveled in his chair, folded his hands over his silk vest. Through the stream of sunlight he studied his view of Los Angeles.
    Christmas, he thought. What a lovely time of year. One of goodwill toward men, ringing bells and colored lights. Of course, it was also the time of desperate loneliness, despair and suicide. But those small human tragedies didn’t touch or concern him. Money had catapulted him above those fragile needs for companionship and family. He could buy companionship. He had chosen one of the richest cities in the world, where anything could be bought, sold, possessed. Here youth, wealth and power were admired above all else.During this brightest of holiday seasons, he had wealth, and he had power. As for youth, money could buy the illusion.
    Finley scanned the buildings and sun-glinted windows with his bright green eyes. He realized with a vague sense of surprise that he was happy.
    The knock on his office door made him turn as he called out, “Enter.”
    “Sir.” Abel Winesap, a small, stoop-shouldered man with the heavy title of “Executive Assistant to the President,” cleared his throat. “Mr. Finley.”
    “Do you know the true meaning of Christmas, Abel?” Finley’s voice was warm, like mulled brandy poured over cream.
    “Ah . . .” Winesap fiddled with the knot of his tie. “Sir?”
    “Acquisition. A lovely word, Abel. And the truest meaning of this delightful holiday, don’t you agree?”
    “Yes, sir.” Winesap felt a shiver whisper down his spine. What he had come to report was difficult enough. Finley’s happy mood made the difficult more dangerous. “I’m afraid we have a problem, Mr. Finley.”
    “Oh?” Finley’s smile remained, but his eyes frosted. “And what might that be?”
    Winesap gulped in fear. He knew that Finley’s frigid anger was more lethal than another man’s rage. It had been Winesap who had been chosen to witness Finley’s termination of an employee who had been embezzling. And he remembered how calmly Finley had slit the man’s throat with a sixteenth-century jeweled dagger.
    Betrayal, Finley believed, deserved quick punishment, and some ceremony.
    Winesap also remembered, to his dismay, that it had been he who had been delegated to dispose of the body.
    Nervously, he continued with his story. “The shipment from New York. The merchandise you were expecting.”
    “Has there been a delay?”
    “No—that is, in a manner of speaking. The shipmentarrived today as expected, but the merchandise . . .” He moistened his thin, nervous lips. “It isn’t what you ordered, sir.”
    Finley placed his pampered hands on the edge of the desk and the knuckles turned bone white. “I beg your pardon?”
    “The merchandise, sir. It isn’t what was ordered. Apparently there was a mix-up somewhere.” Winesap’s voice petered out to a whimper. “I thought it best to report it to you at once.”
    “Where is it?” Finley’s voice had lost its jovial warmth. It was a chilly hiss.
    “In Receiving, sir. I thought—”
    “Bring it up. Immediately.”
    “Yes, sir. Right away.” Winesap escaped,