Read Keller 05 - Hit Me for Free Online Page A

able to sleep on an empty stomach. The next thing he knew it was morning, and one of the first things that came to mind was an expression his mother had used now and then: My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut. Keller was shaving when the line came to him, which might have given him a turn, but he used a twin-blade safety razor, hardly something you’d use to cut a throat, your own or anybody else’s.
    He piled his plate high and looked around for an empty table, and there was his friend of yesterday morning, mustachioed Michael, wielding a fork with one hand and beckoning to Keller with the other. Keller, glad for the company, went over and joined him.
    “Saw you yesterday morning,” Michael said. “If I remember correctly, you were in the room when that big block got away from me.”
    “Quite a price it brought.”
    “Way more than my maximum, so I wisely sat back and let it go. And guess what?”
    “You’ve been kicking yourself ever since.”
    “Around the block and back again. Oh, I know I was right to let it go, but when am I gonna get a shot at a piece like that again? Not until they auction off the collection of the sonofabitch who bought it, and by then it’ll probably go for three times what it brought yesterday. Nick, I’ve bought some things I shouldn’t have over the years, and I’ve paid too much for some of them, but that sort of thing never bothers me for more than a minute or two. It’s the ones that get away that drive you crazy.”
    Obock J1, Keller thought.
    He worked on his breakfast while Michael told him about the afternoon session, where he’d made up for the loss of the block by picking up all the covers he’d had his eye on, most of them at good prices. “But I wanted that block,” he told Keller, “and I still want it. How about yourself? What are you looking to buy today?”
      
    Keller had a seat in the auction room and was studying his catalog when he realized he’d forgotten to call Dot. He hadn’t called Julia, either, to wish her a good morning. Should he duck out and make the calls? He thought about it, and then they started the sale and called the first lot, and he decided to stay where he was.
    By the time they got to France and French Colonies, Keller had bid on ten lots and acquired six of them, letting the others go when the bidding climbed out of his range. As Michael had observed, a general collector always has plenty of things to buy, and Keller spent a few dollars and added a few stamps to his collection, issues from Albania and the Dominican Republic and Eastern Rumelia and Ecuador, none of them bringing more than a few hundred dollars. Then they got to the French section, where Keller’s collection was strongest and where the lots he needed were higher in price, and harder to find. He sat calmly in his chair, but he felt anticipation and excitement coursing through him like an electric current.
    The Obock stamp was valued at $7500 in Keller’s Scott catalog, while his Yvert et Tellier specialized catalog of France and its colonies listed the stamp at €12,000, or almost double the price in Scott.
    Both Scott and Y&T mentioned the reprint, Scott pegging it at $200, Y&T at €350. Keller couldn’t remember what he’d paid, but thought it was around $150. Now he’d have the chance to bid on the original, and had a feeling it was going to bring a high price.
    Back in New Orleans, before Dot’s phone call, Keller had already had his eye on the stamp. At the time he’d decided the stamp was worth $10,000 to him, but wasn’t sure he could rationalize spending that much money. Now, with his business on Caruth Boulevard successfully concluded, the money was there to be spent. He picked up a couple of lots—an early stamp from Diego-Suárez, an inverted overprint from Martinique—and when Obock J1 came up, he was ready.
    Moments later, the stamp was his.
      
    There were other lots that he’d marked in his catalog, but he was no longer interested in