Page 16 of The Furies

“Would you like me to gut one of your cats?” said Kepler.

“No,” said Reuben.

“Then we’ll take my ownership as given, shall we?”

“That,” said Reuben, “will be fine.”

Kepler watched as a drop of fluid from his cut exploded on his trouser leg, there to join other stains, some of them fresh.

“Only an unscrupulous man would agree to sell that coin on another’s behalf,” he said. “Such a man, were he also clever and not too greedy, would have arranged a private sale, so that no one would even have been aware of his involvement beyond the buyer and seller. You, being quite clever but also quite greedy, set up a restricted-access auction site on the dark web, in the hope that the original owner would never come across it. You were in error.”

“I didn’t know the coin had been stolen from you,” said Reuben, which was partly true. He’d been advised by the seller not to delve too deeply into questions of provenance, and had acquiesced, but he had his suspicions, like a handful of others in his line of business. They’d all read of the death of Edwin Ellerkamp, and stories were circulating.

“Would that have made any difference?” said Kepler.

“I might have been more circumspect,” Reuben conceded.

Kepler managed something resembling a grin. It caused another sore to begin weeping, this one close to the left corner of his mouth. He retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket to dab at the seepage. Reuben wondered how old this man might be. Shortly after his father’s entry into the trade, he had dealt with someone who went by the same name, and who had already enjoyed something of the same notoriety. When Reuben took over the store, he had gone back through the old files out of curiosity and noted his grandfather’s dealings with a Kepler, the transactions involving coins of significant rarity. No first name, just a last. For a time, Reuben had assumed that numismatics was an interest that had been passed down the Kepler line, just like his own. Later, as he became privy to the rumors, he grew less certain. Yet how long could one man live? Not much longer, Reuben believed, if the fit of coughing that now overtook his visitor was anything to go by. But the gun never wavered, not that Reuben was even considering trying to rush Kepler. Reuben was not a coward, but neither was he a fool.

“If you don’t mind my observing,” he said, “you appear unwell.”

Kepler removed the handkerchief from his mouth. Reuben saw blood on it, and more: fragments of blackish brown matter like semi-chewed tobacco. He could smell them, too, like bad meat cooked over sulfur.

“I’m dying,” said Kepler. “But thankfully,” he added, “it’s not terminal.”

CHAPTER XVII

As I drove from Twin Lights, I found myself wishing that Will Quinn had found someone else with whom to fall in love over mulch. I could judge Dolors Strange only by the company she kept, but a woman who consented to share her bed with Raum Buker was swimming in deeper, colder waters than a man like Will Quinn should ever have dared to explore. I think a part of Will might have wanted to save her—if not from Raum, then from herself. But by common consent Dolors was no fool, or not beyond the weaknesses of the human heart, so she couldn’t have been blinkered when it came to her choice of lover. It might have been that, like some of those who lead straitened lives, she had elected to flirt with danger in order to bring excitement into her existence, and was, or had been, prepared to accept the consequences for the duration. Her younger sister, though, had been wilder in her youth, and that kind of wildness has a tendency toward dormancy rather than outright elimination.

It was time to play compare and contrast with the Sisters Strange.

CHAPTER XVIII

Reuben Hapgood led Kepler to the closet beside the store’s little kitchenette and bathroom. When opened, the interior revealed only a rack with coat hangers and a couple of spare winter coats, but a catch behind the rail released the rear panel, exposing the Viking Security Safe. The Viking had been designed with gun storage in mind, but suited Reuben’s purposes equally well. It was made from a tamper-resistant steel-and-chrome hybrid, and was both fireproof and waterproof. Access was via fingerprint recognition, but it also had a PIN code alternative.

“Open it,” said Kepler.

Reuben used the PIN code, and didn’t try to hide it. He could always change it later, assuming Kepler didn’t shoot him. Also, he didn’t like the idea of using fingerprint recognition in front of this man, just in case Kepler took it into his head to remove Reuben’s index finger and retain it as some kind of backup. Reuben had heard of a dealer in Albuquerque who’d had his right hand removed by thieves. They’d broken into his home at night and performed the amputation on the kitchen table, although they’d had the decency to kill him first. When they were done, they’d gone to his place of business and used the hand to open the safe. Why they hadn’t simply put the dealer in a car and forced him to cooperate, Reuben didn’t know. He surmised that some people just liked inflicting harm on others.

Inside the safe were four shelves, on which Reuben stored his most valuable merchandise. From the upper shelf he took a black cloth bag and placed it on the table of the kitchenette.

“Show me,” said Kepler.

Carefully, Reuben removed the rigid coin holders, or “slabs,” from the bag. The slabs were sonically sealed to create a virtually airtight environment, with the coins themselves suspended within a second inner shell to prevent movement or vibration. The only way to remove the coins was to break the shell. When Reuben was finished, thirty slabs lay on the table. Kepler examined them without touching, but whatever he was looking for, he did not find. Even the sight of the Two Emperor barely gave him pause.

“Where are the rest?” he said.

“That’s all I have,” said Reuben. “It’s everything he offered.”

Kepler regarded him without speaking.

“I’m not lying,” said Reuben. “I told you: had I known the coins were yours, I would never have agreed to handle them.”

It wasn’t much of a defense, Reuben thought, and hardly counted as a statement of moral probity, but it was all he had.

“I believe you,” said Kepler.

Reuben released a ragged breath, which he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.

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