Hit Man

to stretch out the appeal process for years on end. Revenge, Keller had heard, was a dish best enjoyed cold, but you didn’t want it with mold growing on it. How sweet could it be if your victim outlived you?
    Think of something else, Keller told himself, and let your subconscious take care of it. He picked up the stamp weekly he’d brought along—the current issue, he was a subscriber now—and flipped the pages until a story about precancels caught his eye. He read it, and half of another story. Then he straightened up in his chair and put the paper aside.
    Gotcha, he thought.
    He turned the idea over in his mind, and this time he couldn’t find anything wrong with it. It would take special equipment, but nothing that would be too hard to come by. He’d obtained the same item once before, in a small city in the American heartland, and if you could find it in Muscatine, Iowa, how hard would it be to lay hands on it a few hundred miles downriver?
    He checked the Yellow Pages and found a likely source within walking distance. He called, and they had what he wanted. He broke the connection and looked up motels in the Yellow Pages, then thought of another listing to check.
    The dealer was a pudgy, round-shouldered fellow in his fifties. He wore a pale blue corduroy shirt with a button-down collar he hadn’t troubled to button down. His suspenders had Roman coins on them, but the shop itself was exclusively devoted to stamps; there was a sign in the window, professionally lettered, asserting, WE DO NOT BUY OR SELL COINS .
    “Nothing against them,” said the man, whose name was Hildebrand. “But I don’t happen to buy or sell chewing gum, either. Only difference is I don’t have to put a sign in the window to keep the gum chewers away. I don’t know anything about coins, I don’t understand coins, I don’t have a feel for coins, so why should I presume to traffic in the damned things?”
    Keller’s eyes went involuntarily to the suspenders. Hildebrand noticed, and rolled his eyes. “Women,” he said.
    That seemed to call for a reply, but Keller was stumped.
    “My wife wanted to buy me suspenders,” Hildebrand said, “and she thought suspenders with stamps would be nice, seeing that I’ve been a collector all my life, and a dealer most of my life. She bought me a tie with stamps on it a few years ago—U.S. classics, the Black Jack, the Jenny invert, the one-dollar Trans-Mississippi. Nice stamps, and it’s a nice tie, and I wear it when I have to wear a necktie, which isn’t often.”
    “I see,” Keller said.
    “So she couldn’t find suspenders with stamps,” Hildebrand said, “so she bought these, with coins on them, because according to her they amounted to the same thing. Can you imagine?”
    “Wow,” Keller said.
    “All those years, and she thinks stamps and coins amount to the same thing. Well, what are you going to do, do you know what I mean?”
    “Perfectly.”
    “Other hand, where would we be without ’em? Women, I mean. Or coins, for that matter, but—” He brought himself up short. “Enough of that. What can I do for you?”
    “I’m in town on business,” Keller said, “and I’ve got a little time to spare, and I thought I could look at some stamps.”
    “I’d say you came to the right place. What do you collect, if you don’t mind my asking?”
    “Worldwide. Before 1952.”
    “Oh, the good stuff,” Hildebrand said, with what sounded like appreciation and respect. “The classics. Well, I’ve got plenty of stuff for you to look at. Any particular countries you’d like to see?”
    “How about Austria? That’s one of the checklists I happen to have with me.”
    “Austria,” said Hildebrand. “You have a seat right here, why don’t you? I’ve got a nice stock, mint and used. Including some of those early semipostals that get tougher to find every time you look for them. Do they have to be Never Hinged?”
    “No,” Keller said. “I hinge my stamps.”
    “Man after my own heart. You just make yourself comfortable. Here’s a pair of tongs you can use, unless you brought your own?”
    “I didn’t think to pack them.”
    “What some folks do,” Hildebrand said, “is keep an extra pair in their suitcase, and that way they’ve always got tongs with ’em. Here’s a stock book—Austria—and here’s a box of glassines, also Austria. Enjoy yourself, and just give a holler if I can help you with anything.”
    “Mr. Wickwire? My name is Sue Ellen? Sue