The Collectors

Reuben put a hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “A lot of people would’ve fainted.”

Milton piped in, “The National Psychiatric Foundation reports that finding a dead body ranks as the second most traumatic event a human being can experience.”

Reuben raised his eyebrows at this comment. He said, “What’s the number one traumatic experience? Finding your spouse in bed with a monkey holding a can of expired Cheez Whiz?”

“Did you know DeHaven well?” Stone asked Caleb.

“Yes. It’s tragic, really. He was in excellent shape. He’d just had a complete cardio workup at Hopkins. But I guess anyone can have a heart attack.”

“Is that what it was, a heart attack?” Stone said.

Caleb looked uncertain. “What else could it be? Or a stroke perhaps?”

“Statistically speaking, it was probably a heart attack,” Milton added. “It’s the leading cause of so–called instant death in this country. In fact, any of us could drop at any moment and be dead before we hit the floor.”

“Damn, Milton,” Reuben retorted, “do you have to be so bloody cheerful?”

“Until the autopsy results come back we can only speculate,” Stone pointed out. “But you didn’t see anyone else in the vault area, did you?”

Caleb stared up at his friend. “No.”

“But you passed out pretty quickly, so you wouldn’t have necessarily noticed anyone else around on the fourth floor?”

“Oliver, you can’t get in the vault without using your pass card. And there’s a camera right there at the main door.”

Stone looked thoughtful. “First, the Speaker of the House is murdered, and now the director of the Rare Books Division dies under somewhat mysterious circumstances.”

Reuben eyed him warily. “I doubt terrorists are targeting book peddlers these days, so don’t work this into another grand conspiracy with the fate of the world in the balance. I can only take one Armageddon per month, thank you very much.”

Stone’s eyes twinkled. “We’ll table the issue for now until we know more.”

“I can give you a ride home, Caleb,” Reuben said. “I have my motorcycle.”

Reuben’s pride was his fully restored 1928 Indian motorcycle with the very rare left–hand sidecar.

“I don’t think I’m up to that, Reuben.” Caleb paused and added, “Frankly, that contraption of yours terrifies me.”

A nurse bustled in, took the patient’s vitals and stuck a temperature reader in Caleb’s left ear.

“Can I go home soon?” he asked.

She took the reader out and looked at it. “You’re almost up to normal. And yes, I think the doctor is preparing the discharge orders now.”

As arrangements were made for Caleb’s release, Stone drew Reuben aside.

“Let’s keep an eye on Caleb for a while.”

“Why? You think he’s really hurt?”

“I don’t want him to get hurt.”

“The guy died from a coronary, Oliver. It happens every day.”

“But probably not for someone who’d just been given a clean bill of health by Johns Hopkins.”

“Okay, so he popped a blood vessel or fell and cracked his skull. You heard Caleb: The guy was all alone in there.”

“As far as Caleb knows, he was, but he couldn’t possibly know for sure.”

“But the security camera and the pass card,” Reuben protested.

“All good points, and they may very well confirm that Jonathan DeHaven was alone when he died. But that still doesn’t prove he wasn’t killed.”

“Come on, who’d have a grudge against a librarian?” Reuben asked.

“Everyone has enemies. The only difference is for some people you just have to look harder to find them.”

Chapter 8

“How’s it check out?” Leo Richter said into his phone headset as he punched in some numbers on the keypad. He sat in his car in front of a drive–through ATM in Beverly Hills. In a van parked across the street Tony Wallace, until recently a felonious boutique store clerk, examined the video feed on the screen in front of him. “Sweet. I’ve got a perfect frame of your fingers inputting the PIN. And I’ve got a tight shot of the face of the card going in. With the zoom and the freeze I can read everything on it.”

The night before, they had switched the metal box containing bank brochures that was bolted to the side of the ATM with a box of Tony’s manufacture. He’d earlier stolen a box from another ATM and built an exact replica in the garage of the rental house A

As a backup they’d also placed a skimmer Tony had built over the ATM’s card slot. It was such a perfect replica that not even A

A

“I’ve got a clear shot of the cars and license plates going through,” he reported.

“Okay, Leo,” A

“You know,” Tony said, “we don’t really need the camera at the ATM because we’ve got the card skimmer. It’s redundant.”

“Transmission from the skimmer gets garbled sometimes,” A

Over the next two days they sat in the van as the ATM camera and skimmer captured debit and credit card information. A

She said, “Bugatti Veyrons, Saleens, Paganis, Koenigseggs, Maybachs, Porsche Carrera GTs and Mercedes SLR McLarens get five stars. The Bugatti sells for one and a quarter million, and the others sell for between four and seven hundred thousand. Rolls–Royces, Bentleys and Aston Martins get four stars. Jags, BMWs, regular Mercedes get three stars.”

Leo jokingly said, “What about Saturns, Kias and Yugos?”

At the end of the two days they regrouped at the rental house.

“We go quality over quantity,” A

Leo read through the spreadsheet. “Perfect, because we’ve got twenty–one five stars and nine four stars all matched to their card numbers.”

“Only in L.A. would you see two Bugatti Veyrons going through the same ATM,” Tony commented. “A thousand horsepower, top speed of two–fifty and gas over three bucks a gallon. I mean, where do they get that kind of money?”

“Same way we do, they rip people off,” Leo answered. “Only the law says the way they do it is legal for some reason.”

“I fought the law and the law won,” Tony crooned. He eyed A

Leo started shuffling a deck of cards. “He’s a real fu

“Hey, how come you took down their license plate numbers too?” Tony asked.

“You never know when it might come in handy,” A

She looked at Freddy, who was going over some equipment he’d arranged on a large table in the adjoining room. This included a stack of blank credit cards and a thermal dye printer.

“You have everything you need?” she asked.

He nodded, looking over his tools with satisfaction while ru