The old tailor made miserable noises as he went about his business. I guessed it was all the kneeling and squatting and stooping and having to get back up, or maybe it was his way of humming on the job; but Lyon, who knew him better, noticed it, too, and inquired about his health.
“Fit as fiddles,” the other assured him, and that seemed to end the conversation on the subject. Then he stopped in the middle of measuring for armholes and said, “I am robbed.”
Lyon started, chins quivering. “I was under the impression my account was up to date.”
“Oh, not by you, Mister Clod.” I swear that’s what he called him. I don’t doctor these reports. “Someone in my own shop is the culprit. He — or she — has made off with the rarest coin in my collection.”
That put the kibosh on that fitting. Aida and tomatoes and even the fancy dining, look out! When a mystery reared its big black question-mark-shaped head, everything else was window dressing. As I said, I’m not convinced science would thank Lyon for willing his brain to it, but the only time he didn’t seem like just a cheap knockoff was when he had a Gordian knot to sink his fat little fingers into. We adjourned to the office, where Musty sat in the big orange leather chair reserved for the guest of honor while his host squirmed happily on the other side, gulping cream soda and burping a merry little tune.
The Armenian, we found out, liked to fool around with obsolete hard currency when he wasn’t cutting out suits. He had, he flattered himself, one of the best collections in three counties, exhibited at shows, and two years ago had been named to the Numismatists Hall of Fame by Jingle, the magazine of the trade.
“I must confess,” he confessed, with another little groan, “to carelessness on occasion. Many is the time I’ve neglected to return a coin to its case after taking it out for examination or to show to a colleague, and have panicked upon this discovery until the item resurfaced among a jumble of lesser coins on my work table. I am struggling to eliminate this fault.”
“Phooey.” Try as he had, the little poseur had never been able to duplicate the Master’s Pfui; each attempt peppered his blotter with spit, so he’d given it up as unsightly and unsanitary. “An overmeticulous man is twice as likely as a slovenly one to make a catastrophic mistake. Please continue.”
The coin that had gone astray this time was a doozy: the only known surviving shekel minted in the first century B.C. by one Axolotl II — the Great, was the moniker historians had hung on him. He was a Persian king who had ordered it to be issued to commemorate some great victory or other over a province in China.
“In gold, natch,” I interjected, and got Lyon’s peeved-baby look for the effort. I bent over my scratch pad to record the proceedings.
“Zinc, actually.” Musty kept his gaze on Lyon. “The material is not so important as the historical value. A most unusual design, no larger than a nickel, but pierced above and below and to each side of Axolotl’s embossed profile, representing the four directions of the compass. To the East, the wisdom of the Orient; to the North, the ferocity of the barbarian hordes; to the West, the might of imperial Rome; and to the South, the culture of ancient Greece. Legend says the king was going blind, and decreed the coin contain these tactile features that he might still appreciate its significance by touch. I am myself nearsighted, which may explain my interest.”
“Splendid. Our mints are more concerned with befuddling potential counterfeiters than celebrating man’s accomplishments.”
“What’s this doodad worth?” I asked.
“Thousands. It’s the biggest investment I ever made.”
I checked this notation. I had as good a chance of laying hands on it as anyone, and I knew a fence who dealt in coins.
Musty groaned again. “It is the old story. When I saw the case was empty, I naturally assumed I’d blundered again and that it would resurface. I’d had it out recently for cataloguing, so that appeared probable. Yet a number of thorough searches of the shop have failed to turn it up.”
“Have you consulted the police?” Lyon’s reedy tenor always climbs to a squeak when he refers to the authorities. They represent Captain Stoddard in his mind, and he’s even more afraid of that particular paid-up member of the barbarian hordes than I am; and I’m the expert on life in the cooler.
“I am tom as to whether I should. My people have been with me a long time, and I should not wish to subject them to the humiliation of questioning.”
I made a mental note to remember Krekor Messassarian. If my billet with Lyon ever blew up, I couldn’t think of a better sheep to fleece.
Lyon excavated his diamond-and-platinum watch from its vest pocket and folds of fat; the best dip in the state could lose fingers trying to lift it if the pigeon moved wrong. I’d had my eye on it myself, but I doubted I could fool him with a tin ringer. Anyway, he was a chicken you could pluck from here to Easy Street if you avoided flash.
“It’s late, and I have a morning appointment to show a prime specimen of Eastern Plum to an official with the Knickerbocker Tomato Council, which may name the species in my honor.” This was news to me, and therefore a bald-faced lie, as I was in charge of all communications into and out of the townhouse. Never underestimate the capacity of a little round speck in the firmament to pump himself up into a prize ass. “Please provide Mr. Woodbine with the particulars, including the names of all the members of your staff, and he will conduct a discreet inquiry in the morning.”
He hopped down from his chair and circled the desk to offer a puffy little hand. This was the supreme tribute, as in imitation of his personal deity he seldom made physical contact with others of his genus. Musty’s reaction was transparent and unappreciative; it was like kneading dough. Lyon entered his private elevator, whose gears hawked and spat and started pulling him up hand over hand to his bedroom.
I spent a quarter-hour wheedling the names and known history of the people who worked for him out of the sap — the old tailor, I mean; it doesn’t do to tip one’s mitt in front of a pumpkin ripe for the thumping — at the end of which he fingered his tape measure, adjusted the twin aquariums he wore over his eyes, and said, “You will be discreet? People think tailors are relics nowadays. The men’s store at Skinnerman’s offers better benefits, and doesn’t care whether a seam is stitched by hand or fused with glue. I wouldn’t know how to replace them if they’re offended enough to resign.”
“Trust me, Mus — Mr. Messassarian,” I said. Hadn’t I sold a venture capitalist his own boat, with his bottle of Asti Spumante still chilling in the refrigerator? “They’ll think I’m there to tell ’em they won the Irish Sweepstakes.”
He went out the front door with a puzzled expression on his long weary face. Sometimes I lay it on as thick as a thirty-dollar steak. Lyon is such an easy mark I’m in danger of losing my fine edge. A man needs a challenge if he’s going to hold his own on the pro circuit.
Bright and early the next morning I was in the Brooklyn garment district, which looks a lot like the New York original of times gone by, with workers pushing carts of suits, coats, and dresses hanging from rails across the street any old where in the block and displays of irregulars in front of cut-rate shops and gaggles of colorful characters pretending to chew the fat on the corners while waiting for something to fall off the back of a truck. Very early Runyon. Messassarian & Sons operated out of a walk-up with an open flight of stairs with advertisements stenciled on the risers offering alterations and merchandise. From the age of the layout I figured Krekor Messassarian was one of the original sons.