Page 41 of The Furies

“Egon made a mistake,” she said.

“What kind of mistake?”

“He took something from the wrong man,” she said, “and now that man wants it back.”

CHAPTER XLVIII

Bobby Wadlin did something he very rarely did: he turned off his TV, leaving Johnny Ringo and Boone Hackett in limbo. He then made a call to Raum Buker’s room and ordered the maid to leave everything as she’d found it, because they wouldn’t be renting the space to someone new after all, not yet.

“But room all clean now, with fresh sheets on bed,” said the maid, who was Chinese, or Vietnamese—some form of Asian, anyway. Wadlin liked to boast that he didn’t see the color of a person’s skin, which was only partly true: for him, there were just Whites, Blacks, Asians, and Everyone Else, and as long as they paid their bills and obeyed the rules, he had no quarrel with any of them.

“So?” said Wadlin. “That’s what you’re paid to do: clean, and make beds.”

But he knew what the maid meant. The rooms were serviced twice weekly, unless they were being made ready for new guests, and unnecessary housekeeping impacted on her other duties. Also, she was a creature of routine, and disdained deviation. She and Wadlin had that much in common.

“Mr. Buker return?” she said.

“Damned if I know,” he said. “Damned if he does, probably.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just put his stuff back where you found it.”

Wadlin hung up. He wasn’t exactly regretting accepting the money for permitting access to Buker’s room to the sickly guy in brown, because making money was never to be regretted, but Wadlin wished the stranger had crawled off and died immediately after. It was troubling that he was aware of the attempt to clear out Buker’s possessions, meager though they were. Wadlin supposed that someone must have told him, which meant he had eyes in the Braycott. Wadlin didn’t like this one little bit. Trust, honesty, and discretion were required for the successful running of a rooming house for criminals, and any lapses depressed him. Wadlin went into his little apartment, lay down on his bed, and despaired of humanity.

CHAPTER XLIX

The story Eleanor Towle shared with me went like this:

Egon, her brother, was not a typical thief but a species of magpie, lured by shiny things, and coins in particular. Where this fascination had originated, she could not say. Their father, who had died when she and Egon were children, never had more than a couple of spare quarters to rub together, and the only items her mother collected were thrift-store knickknacks and the associated dust. Yet from an early age Egon had immersed himself in numismatics, driving Miss Dinah, the librarian at the public library in Center Ossipee, close to crazy with requests for books that would have been regarded as obscure at the New York Public Library, let alone her little athenaeum. Nevertheless, she had done her best for him, because she liked to encourage reading in the young.

It was probably for the best that Miss Dinah died before it became apparent that Egon’s childhood hobby had developed into a full-blown adult criminal enterprise, but even in youth the first signs of it were apparent. Egon would check his mother’s purse and change drawer for coins of interest, because he had memorized the Washington quarters that were worth more than their face value, and could identify a silver one by sight. If he discovered any such coins, he pocketed them, despite his mother’s working two jobs to keep her children clothed and fed. Once that source had been exhausted, Egon convinced local businesses—diners, gas stations, candy stores—to permit him to sort through their quarters, informing them that he wished to assemble the best coin collection in the state. Because he was just a kid, they humored him, and in the beginning he would set aside the coins that interested him before diligently exchanging them for quarters of his own under the eye of the business owner. Gradually, he began to make a small profit from his efforts, then a larger one. One day, at Minty’s Garage, he found two 1932-D Washington quarters in a jar of old loose change and Canadian coins that Minty kept on a shelf beside his containers of orphaned nuts and bolts. Egon used some of the money he made from selling the quarters to buy dinner for his mom and sister, but one way or another Minty got wind of what happened and came over to the house, where he raged on the doorstep about how the boy had cheated him, and demanded a cut of the proceeds. Mrs. Towle sent him on his way with a flea in his ear, noting that her son had exchanged like for like, just as he always did, and it wasn’t Egon’s fault if Minty didn’t know the true value of whatever was sitting under his own nose.

But after that, word got around, and businesses in Ossipee weren’t quite so willing to allow Egon access to their registers. Meanwhile a steady stream of locals began to make their way to the Towles’ door, bringing with them bags of dusty coins in the hope that among them might be a Barber or Draped Bust quarter, something apparent only to the expert eye of young Egon Towle. Egon managed to bilk a few of these supplicants, although not for very much, while he traded more scrupulously with the brighter ones. Most, though, left disappointed, cursing grandparents and great-grandparents for bequeathing their descendants only small change.

But by now Egon wanted to leave greasy registers and filthy jars behind. He traded with a vengeance, exchanging a hundred low-value coins for one that might actually be worth retaining; and what he couldn’t acquire honestly, he stole, often from small mom-and-pop dealers who still believed, despite any evidence to the contrary, in the fundamental honesty of people. Egon felt no compunction about plundering them. As far as he was concerned, “In God We Trust” contained an implicit warning about human duplicity. If one chose to ignore it, well, one couldn’t say that one hadn’t been told. By the time the majority of his marks even realized a coin was missing, Egon was long gone, and the coin in question would quickly change hands.

As a sideline, he also monitored obituary columns. Egon kept a record of collectors in the Northeast, and tried to be among the first at the door once the requisite time had passed following the final exhalation, ready to help widows dispose of coin hoards, as the bulk of collectors tended to be male. He would always arrive neatly turned out, under his arm an album containing photographs and cuttings of coins with doctored estimates, and an envelope filled with cash in the inside pocket of his jacket. Ready money helped, he had discovered. He was amazed by the number of men who died intestate, leaving wives and offspring to survive as best they could while lawyers tried to untangle estates. Show some of them a billfold and they’d be willing to sell whatever happened to catch a knowledgeable eye, even if they at first demurred because it had “sentimental value.” From experience, Egon knew that sentiment, like so much else in life, could be valued in percentage increments.

And alongside the swindles, his thefts continued, growing in audacity. Only the most gullible of judicial observers would have read Egon Towle’s criminal record and concluded that he had indulged only twice in acts of larceny. His was an ongoing, persistent endeavor, but one that frequently required long months of research and planning. He haunted coin shows, lurked on Internet forums and chat rooms as the business of collecting moved online, and learned the identities of the hobbyists who were careless about their security, as well as those less conscientious than the norm: the ones who would buy what he had to sell without question, so long as the price was right.

“Egon was good at spotting them,” said his sister. “He had a nose for corruption.”

But for all his efforts, he rarely ended up with very much money of his own. The stock of rare coins with real value was small, and even when he managed to secure a prize, he was frequently forced to sell it for much less than its actual worth because of the way in which it had been acquired. His biggest score was the $250,000 haul that brought him to the attention of the law in Connecticut, and he had been apprehended before he could move any of it. Also, Egon Towle was something of a collector himself, and would use any profits to obtain items for his own stash—but always legally, Egon being too clever to hold on to stolen goods for too long.

During that time, he continued to live with his mother and sister, except for his spell of incarceration in New Jersey. He dated neither women nor men, and spent his evenings at home reading coin books, occult esoterica, and the apocalyptic ramblings of assorted bunker dwellers, all while listening to avant-garde jazz.

“He was open with us about what he did for a living,” said Eleanor. “I mean, it wasn’t as though he could hide it after that business down in Connecticut. My mother was very disappointed in him, and decided the best course of action was to pretend it wasn’t happening. If he gave her money, she thanked him and didn’t mention it again. Egon’s criminality was never a topic for discussion in our home. But he hasn’t been the same since he was released from East Jersey,” she added.

“In what way?” I said.

“He’s sadder, but also harder. I suppose that’s what prison does to some people, right? I thought it might have made him reconsider, but it hasn’t. If anything, it’s made him more committed to thievery. He knew that no one would give him a job because of his record, so what was the point of trying? I think he’s decided he may as well keep going with what he knows. At least he got to spend some time with Mom before she died. He always did try to look out for her.”

“And the occultism?”

“Yeah, we don’t talk about that a whole lot, either,” said Eleanor. “My mother was Episcopalian, so she didn’t hold with the occult. Personally, I regard it as a weird joke. Egon always had funny ideas about the world, and he’s never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like, but the occult thing has become more of a serious interest as the years have gone by. If I said he’s curious about it on an intellectual level, that wouldn’t be too far off the mark. Egon is really intelligent. He taught himself Japanese. He doesn’t even know any Japanese people, doesn’t like flying, and gets seasick in the tub, but still he decided to learn the language, and he only ever uses it when we go to a sushi bar.”

I had my notebook open, but I wasn’t taking notes. What Eleanor Towle had to say was interesting, but no more than that. I was letting her circle, allowing her to get comfortable before she settled. Now it was time for her to focus.

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