Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 105, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 640 & 641, March 1995

He put the shopping bag on the floor, removed one of the albums, and opened it on his lap under the table. Then he looked up at me and smiled. “Good,” he said. “Have any problems?”

I folded my arms and said nothing.

He shrugged, reached inside his jacket, and pulled out a small manila envelope. He put it on the table.

I picked up the envelope and shoved it inside my jacket. Then I turned to go.

“Wait a minute,” said Troutman. “You got a problem?”

“No problem. I just don’t like you. But don’t take it personally. I don’t like anyone.”

He shrugged. “Hey,” he said. “Business is business, huh? You’re a crook. You ought to understand.”

“Sure I understand,” I said. Then I left.

I waited across the street, and ten minutes later Troutman came out of Vincent’s. He was carrying the shopping bag. He looked up and down the street, then set off at a fast walk toward the Common. I fell in fifty feet behind him and followed him across town to a fancy office building on State Street. I gave him a few minutes, then went in. I found Troutman and Berman, Attorneys at Law, listed on the directory. Seventh floor. Information I might be able to use sometime.

Then I went home.

I was back on my bench the next afternoon, feeding the pigeons and skimming through the paper and wondering if any business would come my way when a small headline caught my eye. “Harlow Boy Still in Coma,” it read.

The facts jumped at me: Billy Bascomb... eleven years old... freak skateboarding accident... Children’s Hospital...

I stood up, dumped the bag of popcorn on the ground, and walked over to the lot by the Greyhound station. I took the manila envelope from the trunk of my Escort, then headed to State Street.

The reception area of Troutman and Berman featured Danish modern furniture and Chagall prints and ficus plants and a brunette with a short skirt and long fingernails. Her smile seemed genuine. “Help you, sir?” she said.

“Mr. Troutman, please.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No. But he’ll see me.”

She shrugged. “Who shall. I tell him?”

“Tell him it’s Manny.”

“Manny...?”

“Just Manny,” I said.

She picked up the phone and spoke softly into it. When she hung up, she gave me another smile, this one a shade less genuine. “He’ll see you now, sir. This way.”

I followed her down a short corridor. She opened a door that was labeled John A. Troutman and held it for me.

I walked past her. Troutman was behind a desk the size of a banquet table. He was leaning back in his swivel chair with his hands laced behind his head, grinning at me. “Sit,” he said.

I remained standing.

“Okay,” he said, “don’t sit.” He glanced over my shoulder and said, “We’re fine, honey. Shut the door.”

He waited until the door latched, then leaned forward and stuck his chin at me. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I understand you have a collection of baseball cards for sale.”

“I’ll give you one minute to get out of here. Then I call security.”

“No you won’t. Because if you do that, then I talk.”

He stared at me for a moment, then nodded and smiled. “Good point. So what do you want?”

“The albums.” I put the manila envelope on his desk. “I keep the two hundred. It’s nonrefundable.”

“Why should I do this?”

“Because otherwise the police will receive an anonymous tip, and the Bascombs will verify that their boy’s albums are missing, and the cops’ll get a warrant, and even if you manage to hide the albums, you’ll never be able to sell them, and your name will be pasted on the front page of the Globe. Good enough?”

He squinted at me, as if trying to figure out if I was serious. I guess he decided I was, because he said, “What’s to stop me from making an anonymous phone call?”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“Yeah, I get it,” he said after a minute. “You heard about the kid, then, huh?”

“It was in the paper.”

“I was told you were a tough guy,” he said. “I didn’t figure you for a bleeding heart.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t figure you were that much of a bastard, either.”

“Well, live and learn,” he said. “It was a perfect setup, though, wasn’t it?”

“Perfect,” I said. “Those poor parents are so worried about their little boy in the hospital they wouldn’t notice the missing albums until long after you sold the cards.”

“So what’s your problem?”

“I don’t have a problem anymore,” I said. “So did the Bascombs have the boss over to dinner? That how you knew about it?”

He nodded. “The kid took me to his room, showed me his basketball posters and his Roger Clemens autographed baseball. The albums came from some uncle who died. The kid had no conception of their value. He didn’t even care about them.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It was a perfect setup. Let’s have the albums.”

He slid open a drawer in his desk and lifted out the three albums one at a time. He piled them in front of him. “It’s an incredible collection,” he said softly. “There’s a Mickey Mantle in there that’s worth—”

“Good,” I said, picking them up. “I know just what to do with them.”

As I turned to the door, he said, “Maybe we can do business again.”

“You never can tell,” I said.