The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams - By Lawrence Block Page 0,100

renegotiate my lease,” I said, “or find a place to relocate my store, what I need is cash.”

“I suppose.”

“And it’s not as though baseball cards are hard to move. I offered them to you first because it was a way to save the store, but with you out of the picture I won’t have any trouble finding a buyer.”

“Sell me the mustard set,” he said.

“You just said—”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about the rest of the cards. I’m only really interested in Ted Williams. We’re talking about forty cards. The book value’s what, three grand?”

“Closer to five.”

“Really? That sounds high, but screw it. I’ll give you five thousand cash. Why not?”

“I’d rather move everything at once.”

“Why, for God’s sake? Look, forget five. I’ll pay a premium, because I really want these cards. I’ll give you six thousand dollars.”

“Ten.”

“That’s ridiculous. That’s double what they’re worth. For Christ’s sake, a man buys stolen goods, he expects to get them at a discount. I can’t pay ten, that’s out of the question.”

“Then forget it.”

“Seven. I’ll hate myself tomorrow, but I’ll give you seven.”

“Ten.”

“ ‘Ten, ten, ten.’ Is that all you know how to say?”

“Eleven?”

“Ten, for God’s sake. I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I don’t care. I don’t suppose you want a check, either. I have to go to the bank. I’ll be back in twenty minutes. You’ll have the cards ready?”

What can I say? He talked me into it.

Borden Stoppelgard wasn’t back in twenty minutes, but he was back in twenty-five, and ten minutes later he was on his way, having exchanged a hundred pieces of green paper for forty pieces of cardboard. I went off to flush the toilet—Raffles had used it during our transaction—and I came back to find Wally Hemphill bending over to retie his sneaker. He straightened up, unclasped his briefcase, and handed me an envelope.

“This is what you wanted,” he said, “and it took some doing and cost you a ton of money, so I hope you’re happy. You’re now master of all you survey, and that includes the upstairs and the air rights.”

“This is the deed?”

“Indeed it is. You’re not just a schmuck with a bookstore, Bernie. Now you’re a schmuck with a building.”

“That’s great.”

“Your friend Gilmartin was very helpful. How we worked it, Hearthstone Realty, which is Stoppelgard’s company, sold the land and structure to Poulson, which is a shell we set up. Then the title changed hands three or four times, bang bang bang, just like that. The current owner of record is Winesap Enterprises.”

“And that’s me?”

“It is,” he said, “but the way things are set up, it would be a hell of a job to find that out. The whole thing cost you a hell of a lot of money, my friend. I won’t even ask where it came from.”

“Good.”

“You overpaid for the building. I told you that, but you didn’t want to hear it. At the price you paid, you’d have to raise your own rent through the roof to make the thing pay. The florist next door has ten years to go on his lease, and the residential tenants upstairs are all rent-controlled, so what they pay doesn’t cover what it costs you to heat their apartments for them. So unless you’re planning to try to get some of them to move—”

“I couldn’t do that.”

“I didn’t think so. Bernie, the building won’t even cover expenses. It’s going to cost you money.”

“I know that.”

“If you’d taken the same cash and put it in a good balanced mutual fund, do you know what kind of a yield you’d get?”

“I could have put it in baseball cards,” I said. “Wally, suppose you took the hours you spend running and did billable work instead. Wouldn’t you make more money that way?”

“Well, yeah, I see your point.”

“Money’s not everything. I get to keep the store, and that’s what’s important to me.”

“Still,” he said, “the building is going to lose money, and your store barely breaks even. How are you going to cover the deficit?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’ll think of something.”

When Carolyn came in Raffles was sitting on my lap. “Just an employee,” she said. “Not a pet at all, right, Bern?”

“Stroking a cat’s fur is an aid to thought,” I said. “It’s a well-known relaxation technique. There doesn’t have to be any affection involved.”

“Is that a fact?”

“But here’s the big news,” I said, and I told her about Wally’s delivery of the deed. “So I get to keep the