A Killing in Antiques Read Online Free Page B

What an interesting point of view.
    “I buy contents,” he said. “You got a cellar? I buy the contents. You got an attic? I buy the contents. You got a barn? I buy the contents.” He flung his arms around my splendidly crowded little shop. “I, myself, clean out your junk pile. The bitter with the sweet. I’ll even pay you to let me take it away.
    “People love me,” he said with a slight bow of his head and shoulders. He said it often, and it always made me smile. But not everyone smiled at Monty’s diamond-in-the-rough candor. Some found him irritating, and others found him downright rude. That first day he explained in great detail how he purchased various contents, “and in tough times, I, myself, have even been known to buy out garage sales.”
    His practice was then to sift through the contents for the treasures. After all, how did I think that all of those wonderful antiques were found in the first place? It was Monty, he himself, who found them, and sold them to the breathlessly waiting antiques dealers.
    Ah! Monty was a picker. At the time I didn’t even realize that pickers existed. He was a good one. He knew who was selling what. He made it his business to bring exactly the right thing to the right dealer. Monty rarely missed a sale; he delivered the kind of thing that his customers enjoyed handling.
    His day-to-day business occupied a small warehouse from which he sold the rest of the contents as used furniture. Though named Warehouse Used Furniture, it was known unofficially in the trade as Monty’s Contents.
    The warehouse had two particularly interesting features. One was the little workshop in which the repair and restoration work went on, and the other was the room in which he stored antiques not yet passed on to dealers. The used furniture business was open only three days a week, but it was busy and looked to be thriving. The workshop and the antiques rooms were not open to the public; they were entered by invitation only, and Monty was surprisingly selective about invitations.
    I came to understand that he had a system for choosing which dealers were to buy his wares. His system seemed, to me, more selective than his method for acquiring the antiques. I didn’t know the process, exactly, but I did know that when a chosen buyer failed to live up to Monty’s expectations, he was in for a long and complicated procedure before earning his way back.
    The first few times that Monty visited my shop, I couldn’t wait to go home and report his pronouncements to Hamp and the kids. Hamp didn’t find my Monty stories as fascinating as I did, and the kids soon referred to me as being in the junk trade. So I curtailed the stories, but I was overjoyed when I met Natalie and we discovered that we both took great pleasure in knowing him.
    Natalie and I came to view Monty as a stroke of luck. Our early dealings with him had met with his approval, and there was a big payoff for that approval. He took an interest in us, brought us special items, nurtured us. I suspect that my part in all this was to ride Natalie’s coattails. Monty had a soft spot for her. He’d been instrumental in redirecting her efforts toward more profitable ends. Natalie had understood and transformed her odd little business into the success it has become. Monty enjoyed Natalie’s good fortune, and basked in her rapt attention.
    Now he was dead. Brimfield buzzed with the news. He was killed, I supposed, in a robbery. Monty carried a wad of cash with him that he flashed indiscriminately. I think he felt that it impressed people.
    Cash is a useful tool. Buyers at Brimfield this week would be carrying large amounts. Sellers were more apt to sell at a discount, and sell quickly, when they knew that they would walk away with good old unreportable currency. I, and the rest of the antiques world, had often seen Monty pull a roll out of his pocket that he could hardly wrap his hand around.
    I gently patted the wad I carried, and was reassured