“I know. Listen, I can’t let this hick get away from me.”
“He’s willing to sell. What makes you think he’ll try to get away?”
“That’s just it. If these pearls are genuine Oriental, he’s sitting on a fortune. I’ve got to buy them before he has them x-rayed himself.”
“I see what you mean,” the young man said.
“The trouble is, I live in the next state. By the time I got to my bank, it’d be closed. This fellow isn’t going to wait until tomorrow, that’s for sure.”
“I guess not,” the young man said.
“Do you live in the city?”
“Yes.”
“Do you bank here?”
“Yes.”
“Have you got a thousand dollars in the bank?”
“Yes.”
“I hate to do this,” Parsons said.
“Hate to do what?”
Parsons smiled. “I hate to cut you in on such a sweet deal.”
“Would you?” the young man asked, interest showing in his eyes.
“What choice do I have? If I asked our hick to wait until tomorrow, I’d lose him.”
“Fifty-fifty split?” the young man asked.
“Now, wait a minute,” Parsons said.
“Why not? I’ll be putting up the money.”
“Only until tomorrow. Besides, he’s my hick. You wouldn’t have known anything about this if I hadn’t stopped you.”
“Sure, but you can’t buy those pearls if I don’t go to the bank.”
“That’s true.” Parsons’ eyes narrowed. “How do I know you won’t take the pearls and then refuse to sell me my half tomorrow?”
“I wouldn’t do a thing like that,” the young man said.
“I want your address and telephone number,” Parsons said.
“All right,” the young man said. He gave them to Parsons, and Parsons wrote them down.
“How do I know these are legitimate?” Parsons asked. “Let me see your driver’s license.”
“I don’t drive. You can check it in the phone book.” He turned to the jeweler. “Have you got an Isola directory?”
“Never mind,” Parsons said. “I trust you. But I’ll be at your apartment first thing tomorrow morning to give you my five hundred dollars and to get my share of the pearls.”
“All right,” the young man said. “I’ll be there.”
“God, this is a great deal, isn’t it? If they’re genuine, we’ll be rich. And if they’re cultured, we break even. We can’t lose.”
“It’s a good deal,” the young man agreed.
“Let’s get to the bank before he changes his mind.”
O’Neill was waiting for them outside. “Well?” he asked.
“He said they’re not paste,” Parsons told him.
“See? What’d I tell you? Did he say they’re worth a thousand?”
“He said they might be worth about that.”
“Well, do we have a deal, or don’t we?”
“I’ll have to go home for my passbook,” the young man said.
“All right. We’ll go with you.”
The three men hailed a cab, and the cab took them uptown. The young man got out, and the cab waited. When he came down again, he had his bankbook with him. He gave the cabbie instructions, and the three men drove to the bank. They all got out then, and Parsons paid the cabbie. The young man went into the bank, and when he came out, he had a thousand dollars in cash with him.
“Here’s the money,” he said.
Parsons grinned happily.
The young man handed the thousand dollars to O’Neill.
“And here’re the pearls,” O’Neill said, reaching into his pocket and handing the young man a leather sack. “I’m certainly much obliged to you fellows. This means I’ll be able to go home.”
“Not for a long while,” the young man said.
O’Neill looked up. He was staring into the open end of a .38 Detective’s Special. “What?” he said.
The young man grinned. “The old diamond switch,” he said, “only with pearls. You’ve got my thousand, and the pearls in this sack you gave me are undoubtedly paste. Where are the real ones the jeweler appraised?”
“Listen,” Parsons said, “you’re making a mistake, Mac. You’re—”
“Am I?” The young man was already frisking O’Neill. In two seconds, he located the sack of real pearls. “Tomorrow morning, I’d be sitting around in my apartment waiting for my partner to arrive with his five hundred dollars. Only, my partner would never show up. My partner would be out spending his share of the thousand dollars he conned from me.”
“This is the first time we ever done anything like this,” O’Neill said, beginning to panic.
“Is it? I’ve got a few other people who may be willing to identify you,” the young man said. “Come on, we’re taking a little ride.”
“Where to?” Parsons asked.
“To the 87th Precinct,” the young man said.
The young man’s name was Arthur Brown.
Fifteen
The tattoo parlor was near the Navy yards, and so the specialties of the house were anchors, mermaids, and fish. There were also dagger designs, and ship designs, and mothers in hearts.
The man who ran the place was called “Popeye.” He was called Popeye because a drunken sailor had once jabbed out his left eye with his own tattooing needle. Judging from Popeye’s present condition, he may very well have been drunk himself when he’d lost his eye. He was certainly ossified now. Carella reflected upon the man’s profession and concluded that he wouldn’t trust him to remove a small splinter with a heated needle, no less decorate his flesh with a tattooing tool.
“Come and go, come and go,” Popeye said. “All th’ time. In an’ out, in an’ out. From all ov’ the worl’. I decorate ’em. Me. I color their fleshes.”
Carella was not interested in those who came and went from all over the world. He was interested in what Popeye had told him just a few minutes before.
“This couple,” he said, “tell me more about them.”
“Han’some guy,” Popeye said. “Ver’ han’some. Big, tall, blond feller. Walk like a king. Rish. You can tell when they rish. He had money, this feller.”
“You tattooed the girl?”
“Nancy. Tha’ was her name. Nancy.”
“How do you know?”
“He called her that. I heard him.”
“Tell me exactly what happened?”
“She in trouble? Nancy in trouble?”
“She’s in the biggest kind of trouble,” Carella said. “She’s dead.”
“Oh.” Popeye squinched up his face and looked at Carella with his good eye. “Tha’s a shame,” he said. “Li’l Nancy’s dead. Automobile accident?”
“No,” Carella said. “Arsenic.”
“Wha’s that?” Popeye asked.
“A deadly poison.”
“Too bad. Li’l girls should’n take poison. She cried, you know? When I was doin’ the job. Bawled like a baby. Big han’some bassard jus’ stood there an’ grinned. Like as if I was brandin’ her for him. Like as if I was puttin’ a trademark or somethin’ on her. Sick as a dog, poor li’l Nancy.”
“What do you mean, sick?”
“Sick, sick.”
“How?”
“Pukin’,” Popeye said.
“The girl vomited?” Carella asked.
“Right here in th’ shop,” Popeye said. “Got th’ can all slobbed up.”
“When was this?”
“They’d jus’ come from lunch,” Popeye said. “She was talkin’ about it when they come in th’ shop. Said they didn’t have no Chinese res’rants in her hometown.”
“Is there a Chinese restaurant in the neighborhood?”
“One aroun’ th’ corner. Looks like a dump, but has real good food. Cantonese. You dig Cantonese?”
“What else did she say?”
“Said th’ food was ver’ spicy. Tha’ figgers, don’t it?”