If she does, I thought, I’ll be there too.
It was still on the right side of seven o’clock when I finished up at headquarters. I was wired to the gills and ready to make something happen. I drove out to Stan Ballard’s house, more on a whim than anything else. A sign on the door said offered by john bailey assoc., and under that was a phone number for an agent named Douglas Barton. There was a lockbox on the door: the place had a sad look about it, as if it had just lost its best friend. It was one of those fine old houses, vintage World War I, that still had a lot of life in it. They built houses to last then, not the prefab cardboard they use today. There was a time in Denver, not so long ago, when a house like this wouldn’t last a day on the open market. The oil business was booming and shale was the coming thing, and there was an economic excitement in the Rocky Mountains that hasn’t been here since. But the bottom fell out of the oil bucket, they never did figure how to suck the shale dry, and then HUD got into the real estate business and started giving houses away. The Ballard place lay fallow. There were simply more houses than people.
I walked up the steps and peeped through the window. Light fell in from old Mr. Greenwald’s place next door and I could see most of the front room. It looked different with everything stripped away. The Ballards had left nothing but the walls and the carpet and, yes, the bookshelves. It was a house made to order for a bookscout, big and solid and already shelved. I wondered what they were asking for it. I went around back and tried to peep in, but visibility was poor: I could see just enough to know that the shelves back there were still intact. I walked across the lawn and tried the garage. It was locked, but I could see that it was a big one, made for two cars and a small workshop. A man could park his car and still have room for five thousand books out here.
I saw a shadow pass the window next door: Mr. Greenwald was watching. There wasn’t anything to watch, but old habits die hard. I gave him a wave and walked into his yard. His porch light came on and he stood for a moment watching me through the door glass. He didn’t seem to recognize me, but he opened the door anyway.
“I’m surprised it’s still available,” I said, gesturing to the house.
“If they don’t sell it soon it’ll start falling apart,” he said.
“Are they not taking care of it?”
He made a sour face and waved me away with his hand. “They take care of nothing. They care about nothing. All they want is money. And to play their silly games.”
“What games?”
‘The game of hating each other. Of beating each other. You never saw anything like it. They act like a pair of dogs with a scrap of meat thrown between them. It’s the worst case of jealousy I’ve ever seen. They don’t care anything about the house: they just want to make sure that if there’s one dollar left over, the other one doesn’t get it.“
“Do you know what they’re asking for it?”
“Are you interested?”
“I don’t know, I might be.”
“Come on inside; it’s too cold to stand talking like this.”
Inside, he offered me coffee, which I was happy to accept. We sat in friendly territory—in his kitchen, surrounded by books—and talked.
“They started at eighty,” he said. “That’s very reasonable for this place, even in these times, don’t you think?”
I did think, and I said so.
“When it didn’t sell, they came way down. I hear it’s sixty-five now and still no takers. I can’t understand that. I’d buy it myself if I had money to burn. I don’t know real estate but I know sixty-five for a place like this is nothing. Ten years ago Stan turned down an offer of a hundred and ten. But those were better times.”
“There are people who think better times are coming back.”
“Then those people could find worse things to do with their money. It’s what I’d do, if I were a young man like yourself. I’d buy it strictly as an investment. I’d make them an offer of forty-eight five.”
“They’d never take it.”
“They’ll take it. They just want to get rid of it. They’ve sold everything but the house and it’s hanging around their necks like a millstone. Those two never want to lay eyes on each other again, and this house is the only thing that ties them together. They’ll take it, Mr. Janeway. In fact, I think they’ll take less than that.”
“I didn’t think you remembered me.”
“I’ve got a good set of eyes and a good memory for a face.”
“If they’d take fifty I’d buy it in a heartbeat.”
“Try it on them. They’ll fall all over themselves taking it. You see if I’m not right. I’ve never seen anything like it. Such hate… such pure venom. So much energy wasted, just burnt up, on hate.”
“Where’d it get started?”
We looked at each other and I knew what I had begun to suspect: this old man had secrets that he hadn’t yet told anyone.
“Where’d it get started, Mr. Greenwald?”
“There are things I can’t talk about… matters of honor.”
“There are also three dead people. I understand about honor, sir, but somebody out there is killing people and I’m trying to stop them. It’s pretty hard if I’m only playing with half a deck.”
