“So, Dot had this letter in her writing desk, tucked inside her address book. And, I mean, I have no idea what to think, but it said it was from…someone kind of important.”
His eyes were greedy, right away. “Oh yeah?”
She smiled a little and nodded. “Yeah. It said it was from Andrew Wyeth.” Earlier in the day, unsure whom the letter should be from, Laurie had googled “famous people from Maine” and chosen the painter, who had lived until 1985 and could theoretically have written to Dot. She had read that there weren’t that many letters from him available, and that they were potentially valuable if they mentioned any of his paintings. “The letter talks about all these doubts that he had about his ability. How he wasn’t really sure his landscapes were that good.”
Matt nodded. “Interesting.”
He needed more. “So I kept looking, and I found all these other letters. They were friends, I guess. They had a correspondence.”
“Huh.” He paused. She watched. He leaned over. He unbuckled the bag. Yes! He pulled out the iPad. Yes! He woke it up and punched in a code to unlock it, so quickly that she couldn’t catch it. Blergh. Even if he walked away and left it on the coffee table, if it locked, she was toast.
“What magic are you doing over there?” she asked.
“Just a little quick peek at a couple of things, hang on,” he said, tapping away at the tablet.
“Can I look?”
“Of course.”
She came over to the couch and sat next to him, carefully setting her drink on the coffee table. He had pulled up the same memorabilia auction site she’d checked out herself earlier in the day. It was the same place she’d learned about the rarity of his letters. “How the hell did you find this?” she asked, leaning over slightly. “I can never figure out what I’m even looking for. I don’t understand this stuff at all.” She was a journalist. He could not possibly believe that this portrait of incompetence as to first-grade-level research was true—but he did. She had found the weakness in him that she needed, which was that she had inadvertently lulled him into thinking she was comically, persistently, and thoroughly dumb.
“You just need to have a little experience,” said the guy who probably was one of those “why isn’t there a Netflix for books?” people right up until he read about the fortunes available to a young man willing to rip off tourists and the recently bereaved. “So, as you can see here, it’s certainly possible it could be valuable. Can we take a look at the letters?”
“Well,” she said, scrunching up her face in an imitation of what she assumed all his girlfriends had done when he tried to kiss them in public, “I kind of don’t have them here. I took them and put them in a safe deposit box at the bank, because I was afraid I’d start a fire or something.”
“Ah, that’s smart.” He nodded. He turned toward her, and their faces were very close, and she blinked like she was nervous instead of kind of repulsed. He would definitely expect her to be made nervous by his grimy mug—spiritually grimy, emotionally grimy—invading her personal space. She picked up her drink and, as faux-flustered as she could manage, she poured some of it on the knee of his jeans.
“Oh no!” she said. “I’m so sorry!”
Through gritted teeth, he said, “Oh, don’t worry, don’t worry.”
“The bathroom right down the hall has clean towels if you want to wash it out before it stains.” She crossed her fingers that these casual jeans cost at least a hundred dollars. She should have added more cranberry juice.
“I’ll be right back,” he said with that little demon smile. “Don’t go anywhere.” But where a normal human being would set down his iPad instead of toting it to the freaking restroom where he was going to get a stain off his pants, he tucked it under his arm and took it with him. DAMMIT.
She’d listed the options earlier in the day in order of preference: 1. He leaves it on the table and I look at it while he’s gone by using the code. 2. He leaves it on the table and I look at it while he’s gone by getting to it before it locks. She had now reached 3, which was He hands it to me and lets me look at it. But why? Why would he do that? What would be so important to him that he would just hand over his most important possession—his most personal item—just because? What could he possibly care about that much?
Remembering that one of her bosses had once told her that the email signature was the window to the soul—back when email was more widely used—she picked up her phone. She pulled up an email he had sent her right before she figured out he was a snake. At the bottom was his name, and his business information, and then this: “？‘An entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables—slaves with white collars.’—Tyler Durden.” A Fight Club quote? On a business letter? Quoting a vengeful, violent weirdo? Oh, you clichéd little creep, she thought.