Evan pointed to the code.
“I want to know who bought that block.”
“Why?”
“My company handed twelve of these to me this morning instead of $4,860 in wages.”
Leonard’s glasses came down.
He examined Evan more carefully.
“Instead of wages?”
“Yes.”
“Not a bonus?”
“No.”
“Not an extra gift?”
“No.”
“Your pay?”
“Yes.”
Leonard’s expression lost all casualness.
“Sit down.”
He brought out an old laptop.
The machine took almost a minute to load.
Leonard opened a database from the years before Becket’s restructuring.
“BM19.”
He typed.
“Corporate block.”
Another search.
The record appeared.
Leonard stopped.
Evan watched him read.
Then Leonard rotated the laptop.
Printed face value:
$310,000.
Purchase price:
$88,400.
Purchaser:
BLACKIDGE SYSTEMS INCORPORATED.
Issue date:
Three years earlier.
Evan read it three times.
Twenty-eight and a half cents paid for every printed dollar.
Roughly.
Leonard scrolled.
“I remember this program.”
“Why?”
“Because we hated it.”
Evan looked up.
“Why sell it?”
“We were closing fourteen stores.”
Leonard sat back.