She held out a case, maybe a yard long, made of wood, stained dark, rich mohagony-black. Red flecks of light glimmered through the glassy polish. It was maybe half as wide as it was long, about as thick as a large-print Bible--or Webster's Dictionary, the FULL dictonary--and she handled it as if it were horrifically heavy. Yet at the same time, she seemed lothe to touch it, almost afraid to.
"This is my problem" She said, balancing the case across her knees. I had to wonder how she had managed to get it into my office...it was such an awkward thing.
"I bought it at a rummage sale, an annual one in our neighborhood--"
"And where is that?" I asked.
She didn't seem to mind the interruption. "Olympia Hills, out by Ten Forks and the Boardwalk."
Which meant the woman sitting in front of me lived in one of the better neighborhoods in the city, if not the best, then the second runner up by perhaps three votes. Oddly, I'd only had two cases out there...rich people are notorious as collectors of the bizzare, but here, not so much. They seem to sate themselves with nightclubs and drugs.
"Go on" I said, and I didn't have to add that I found this interesting.
"The man running it was old. Maybe fifty. Maybe sixty. The booth, running the booth. I knew him, of course, old Harry. Not very nice...a treasure hunter, if you can be such a thing in this day and age...but he seemed extreamly...lucky, I think is the word. Because he is a millionare, otherwise he couldn't afford a house on Genovia Lane, certainly he couldn't."
She paused for a breath. I paused to examine what might be a world-record for most words said without a pause for more oxygen. Soical politics mixed among the more salient facts. My my, what an interesting customer this was.
"He was selling a lot of his old stuff...he tried to get me to buy most of it, he knows I just got divorced, and my husband, the bastard, took most of our furnature, so much of our savings--I only have five hundred thousand dollars in savings, can you imagine?--and, the double bastard...all my jewelry..." She paused, and five tears fell down on the black-and-red-fire case in her lap. They glittered, little jewels themselves.
"And the children. Of course. The bastard got the kids. One little affair...he had one, too, you know."
I nodded, as if I really did. "What was your problem, Catherine?"
She seemed to have run out of words. Instead of saying anything, she opened the box.
Damn. Just...Damn.