Hit List

the business of looking at stamps.
    He had collected as a boy, and had scarcely thought of his collection until one day when he found himself considering retirement. The old man in White Plains was still alive then, but he was clearly losing his grip, and Keller had wondered if it might be time to pack it in. He tried to imagine how he’d pass the hours, and he thought of hobbies, and that got him thinking about stamps.
    His boyhood collection was long gone, of course, with the rest of his youth. But the hobby was still there, and it was remarkable how much he remembered. It struck him, too, that most of the miscellaneous information in his head had got there via stamp collecting.
    So he’d gone around and talked to dealers and looked at some magazines, dipping a toe in the waters of philately, then held his breath and plunged right in. He bought a collection and remounted it in fancy new albums, which took hours each day for months on end. And he bought stamps over the counter from dealers in New York, and ordered them from ads other dealers placed in Linn’s Stamp News . Other dealers sent him price lists, or selections on approval. He went to stamp shows, where dozens of dealers offered their wares at bourse tables, and he bid in stamp auctions, by mail or in person.
    It was funny how it worked out. Stamp collecting was supposed to give him something to do in retirement, but he’d embraced it with such enthusiasm and put so much money into it that retirement had ceased to be an option. Then the old man had died while Keller was at a stamp auction in Kansas City, and Dot had decided to stay on and run the operation out of the big house on Taunton Place. Keller took the jobs she found for him and spent a healthy share of the proceeds on stamps.
    The philatelic winds blew hot and cold. There were weeks when he read every article in Linn’s, others when he barely scanned the front page. But he never lost interest, and the pursuit—he no longer thought of it as a hobby—never failed to divert him.
    Today was no exception. He went through the three notebooks of Portugal and colonies, then looked at some British Commonwealth issues, then moved on to Latin America. Whenever he found a stamp that was missing from his collection he noted the centering, examined the gum on the reverse, held it to the light to check for thins. He deliberated as intensely over a thirty-five-cent stamp as over one priced at thirty-five dollars. Should he buy this used specimen or wait for a more costly mint one? Should he buy this complete set, even though he already had the two low values? He didn’t have this stamp, but it was a minor variety, and his album didn’t have a place for it. Should he buy it anyway?
    Hours went by.
    After he left Hy’s Stamp Shoppe, Keller spent another couple of hours driving aimlessly around Greater Louisville. He thought about heading downtown for a look at Hirschhorn’s office, but he decided he didn’t feel like it. Why bother? Hirschhorn could wait.
    Besides, he’d have to leave the car in a parking lot, and he’d have to make sure it was the kind where you parked it and locked it yourself. Otherwise the attendant would have the key, and suppose he opened the glove compartment just to see what it held? He might not be looking for a gun, but that’s what he’d find, and Keller didn’t figure that was the best thing that could happen.
    It was a great comfort, having a gun. Took your mind off your troubles. You spent all your time trying to figure out where to keep it.
    He’d missed lunch, so he had an early dinner and went back to his room at the Super 8. He watched the news, then sat down at the desk with his catalog and the stamps he’d bought. He went through the book, circling the number of each stamp he’d acquired that day, keeping his inventory up-to-date.
    He could have done this at home, at the same time that he mounted the stamps in his albums, but suppose he dropped in on another stamp dealer between now and then? If your records weren’t right, it was all too easy to buy the same stamp twice.
    Anyway, he welcomed the task, and took his time with it. There was something almost meditative about the process, and it wasn’t as though he had anything better to do.
    He was almost finished when the noise started overhead. God, who could it be, carrying on like that? And what could they be doing up there?
    He stood it for a while, then reached for the phone, then changed his mind. He