I said, 'I mentioned a name before. Michael Litvak.'
'I don't know the name.'
'Then I'll mention another. Jacob Jablon.'
'I don't know that name, either.'
'Don't you? Mr. Jablon was an associate of mine. We did some business together.'
'What kind of business would that be?'
'Oh, a little of this, a little of that. Nothing as successful as your line of work, I'm afraid. You're an architectural consultant?'
'That's correct.'
'Large-scale projects. Housing developments, office buildings, that sort of thing.'
'That's hardly classified information, Mr. Scudder.'
'It must pay well.'
He looked at me.
'Actually, the phrase you just used. 'Classified information.' That's what I really wanted to talk to you about.'
'Oh?'
'My associate Mr. Jablon had to leave town abruptly.'
'I don't see how—'
'He retired,' I said. 'He was a man who worked hard all his life, Mr. Prager, and he came into a sum of money, you see, and he retired.'
'Perhaps you could come to the point.'
I took a silver dollar out of my pocket and gave it a spin, but, unlike Spinner, I kept my eyes on Prager's face instead of on the coin. He could have taken that face to any poker game in town and done just fine with it. Assuming he played his cards right.
'You don't see many of these,' I said. 'I went into a bank a couple of hours ago and tried to buy one.
They just stared at me and then told me to go see a coin dealer. I thought a dollar was a dollar, you know? That's the way it used to be. It seems the silver content alone in these things is worth two or three bucks, and the collector value is even higher. I had to pay seven dollars for this thing, believe it or not.'
'Why did you want it?'
'Just for luck. Mr. Jablon has a coin just like this one. Or at least it looked the same to me. I'm not a numismatist. That's a coin expert.'
'I know what a numismatist is.'
'Well, I only found that out today, while I was finding out that a dollar's not a dollar any more. Mr.
Jablon could have saved me seven bucks if he'd left his dollar with me when he went out of town. But he left me something else that's probably worth a little more than seven dollars. See, he gave me this envelope full of papers and things.
Some of them have your name on them. And your daughter's name, and some other names I mentioned. Michael Litvak, for example, but that's not a name you recognize, is it?'
The dollar had stopped spinning. Spinner had always snatched it up when it started to wobble, but I just let it drop. It landed heads.
'I thought since those papers had your name on them, along with those other names, I thought you might like to own them.'
He didn't say anything, and I couldn't think of anything else to say. I picked up the silver dollar and gave it another spin. This time we both watched it. It stayed spinning for quite a while on the leather desk top.
Then it glanced off a photograph in a silver frame, wobbled uncertainly, and landed heads again.
Prager picked up his desk phone and pushed a buzzer. He said, 'That's all for today,Shari . Just put the machine on and go ahead home.' Then, after a pause:
'No, they can wait, I'll sign them tomorrow. You can head along home now. Fine.'
Neither of us spoke until the door of the outer office opened and closed.
Then Prager leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on his shirt front. He was a rather plump man, but there was no spare flesh on his hands. They were slender, with long fingers.
He said, 'I gather you want to take up where—what was his name?'
'Jablon.'
'Where Jablon took off.'
'Something like that.'
'I'm not a rich man, Mr. Scudder.'
'You're not starving.'
