The Con Man

by Ed McBain

  The young man shrugged. “Well, I’m in sort of a hurry,” he said.

  “It’ll only take a minute, and I’d certainly appreciate it.”

  “Well,” the young man said, “where’s the coin?”

  The redhead produced a large gold coin. “Picked it up in Japan,” he said. “I just got back from there. I was in the Army until last week. Just got discharged.” The redhead grinned disarmingly. He seemed like a simple country boy. “My name’s Frank O’Neill.”

  The young man simply nodded and took the coin. “What am I supposed to look for?” he asked.

  “The date,” Parsons told him. “Should be on the bottom there someplace.”

  “On the bott…Oh yes, here it is. 1801.”

  “1801?” Parsons said. “Are you sure?”

  “That’s what it says. 1801.”

  “Why, that’s…” Parsons stopped himself.

  O’Neill was looking at him. “That makes it pretty old, don’t it?” he asked innocently.

  Parsons cleared his throat. Obviously, he had stumbled upon something of real value and was now trying to hide his find. “No, that’s not very old at all. In fact, I’d say that’s a pretty common coin. The only surprising thing about it is that you were able to find a Russian coin in Japan.”

  The young man looked at Parsons and then at O’Neill. “Russia once had a war with Japan, you know,” he said.

  “Say, that’s right,” O’Neill said. “Bet that’s how the coin happened to be there. Damn, if you can’t pick up all kinds of junk in the interior of that country.”

  “I might still be interested in buying the coin,” Parsons said guardedly. “Just as a curiosity piece, you understand. You know, a Russian coin that found its way to Japan.”

  “Well,” O’Neill said, “I got it for a pack of cigarettes.” His candid naïveté was remarkable. “That’s all it cost me.”

  “I couldn’t let you have more than ten dollars for it,” Parsons said judiciously. In an aside, he winked at the young man.

  The young man stared at him, a puzzled expression on his face.

  “I’d say you just bought yourself a gold coin,” O’Neill said, grinning.

  Parsons reached into his wallet, trying to hide his haste. He pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to O’Neill. “Do you have any change?” he asked.

  “No, I don’t,” O’Neill said. “Let me have the bill, and I’ll cash it in that cigar store.”

  Parsons gave him the bill, and O’Neill went into the cigar store on the corner. As soon as he was gone, Parsons turned to the young man.

  “Jesus,” he said, “do you know what that coin is worth?”

  “No,” the young man said.

  “At least two hundred dollars! And he’s letting me have it for ten!”

  “You’re pretty lucky,” the young man said.

  “Lucky, hell. I spotted him for a hick from the minute I saw him. I’m just wondering what else he’s got to sell.”

  “I doubt if he’s got anything else,” the young man said.

  “I don’t. He’s just back from Japan. Who knows what else he may have picked up? I’m going to pump him when he gets back.”

  “Well, I’ll be running along,” the young man said.

  “No, stick around, will you? I may need your eyesight. What a time to forget my glasses, huh?”

  O’Neill was coming out of the cigar store. He had got two tens for the twenty, and he handed one of the tens and the gold coin to Parsons. The other ten he put into his pocket. “Well,” he said, “much obliged.” He started to go, and Parsons laid a hand on his arm.

  “You said…uh…that you could get all kinds of junk in the interior. What…uh…did you have in mind?”

  “Oh, all kinds of junk,” O’Neill said.

  “Like what?”

  “Well, I picked up some pearls,” O’Neill said. “As a matter of fact, I’m sorry I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Damn things cost me a fortune, and I could use some money right now.”

  “How much did they cost you?” Parsons asked.

  “Five hundred dollars,” O’Neill said, as if that were all the money in the world.

  “Real pearls?”

  “Sure. Black ones.”

  “Black pearls?” Parsons asked.

  “Yeah. Here, you want to see them?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a leather bag. He unloosened the drawstrings on the bag and poured some of its contents into the palm of his hand. The pearls were not exactly black. They glowed with gray luminescence.

  “There they are,” O’Neill said.

  “That bag is full of them?” Parsons asked, taking one of the pearls and studying it.

  “Yeah. Got about a hundred of them in there. Fellow I bought them from was an old Jap.”

  “Are you sure they’re genuine?”

  “Oh, sure,” O’Neill said.

  “They’re not paste?”

  “Would I pay five hundred dollars for paste?”

  “Well, no. No, I guess not.” Parsons looked hastily to the young man. Then he turned to O’Neill. “Are you…are you…Did you want to sell these?”

  “I tell you,” O’Neill said, “the Army discharged me here, and I live down South. I lost all my money on the boat took us back, and I’ll be damned if I know how I’m going to get home.”

  “I’d be…ah…happy to give you five hundred dollars for these,” Parsons said. Quickly, he licked his lips, as if his mouth had suddenly gone dry. “Provided they’re genuine.”

  “Oh, they’re real, all right. But I couldn’t let you have them for five hundred.”

  “That’s what they cost you,” Parsons pointed out.

  “Sure, but I had the trouble of making the deal and of carting them all the way back to the States. I wouldn’t let them go for less than a thousand.”

  “Well, that’s kind of high,” Parsons said. “We don’t even know they’re genuine. They may be paste.”

  “Hell, I wouldn’t try to stick you,” O’Neill said.

  “I’ve been stuck before,” Parsons said. “After all, I don’t know you from a hole in the wall.”

  “That’s true,” O’Neill said, “but I hope you don’t think I’d let you buy these pearls without having a jeweler look at them first.”

  Parsons looked at him suspiciously. “How do I know the jeweler isn’t a friend of yours?”

  “You can pick any jeweler you like. I won’t even come into the shop with you. I’ll give you the pearls, and I’ll wait outside. Listen, these are the real articles. Only reason I’m letting you have them so cheap is because I don’t want to fool around. I want to go home.”

  “What do you think?” Parsons asked, turning to the young man.

  “I don’t know,” the young man said.

  “Will you come with us to a jeweler?”

  “What for?”

  “Come along,” Parsons said. “Please.”

  The young man shrugged. “Well, all right,” he said.

  They walked up the street until they came to a jewelry shop. The sign outside said: REPAIRS, APPRAISALS.

  “This should do it,” Parsons said. “Let me have the pearls.”

  O’Neill handed him the sack.

  “You coming?” Parsons asked the young man.

  “All right,” the young man said.

  “You’ll see,” O’Neill said. “He’ll tell you they’re worth a thousand dollars.”

  Together, Parsons and the young man went into the shop. O’Neill waited outside on the sidewalk.

  The jeweler was a wizened old man bent over a watch. He did not look up. He kept his brow squeezed tight against the black eyepiece, and he picked at the watch like a man pulling meat from a lobster claw. Parsons cleared his throat. The jeweler did not look up. Together, they waited. A cuckoo clock on the wall chirped the time. It was 2:00 P.M.

  Finally, the jeweler looked up. He opened his eyes wide, and the eyepiece fell into his op
en palm.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “I’d like some pearls appraised,” Parsons said.

  “Where are they?”

  “Right here,” Parsons said, extending the sack.

  The jeweler loosened the drawstrings. He shook a few of the smoky gray globes into the palm of his hand.

  “Nice size,” he said. “Nice sheen. Nice smoothness. What do you want to know?”

  “Are they real?”

  “They’re not paste, I can tell you that immediately.” He nodded. “Impossible to say whether they’re cultured or genuine Oriental without having them x-rayed, though. I’d have to send them out of the shop for that.”

  “How much are they worth?” Parsons asked.

  The jeweler shrugged. “If they’re cultured, you can get between ten and twenty-five dollars for each pearl. If they’re genuine Oriental, the price is much higher.”

  “How much higher?”

  “Judging from the size of these, I’d say between a hundred and two hundred for each pearl. At least a hundred.” He paused. “How much did you want for them?”

  “A thousand,” Parsons said.

  “You’ve got a sale,” the jeweler answered.

  “I’m not selling,” Parsons said. “I’m buying.”

  “How many are in that sack?” the jeweler asked. “About seventy-five pearls?”

  “A hundred,” Parsons said.

  “Then you can’t go wrong. Even if they’re cultured, you’d get at least ten dollars for each pearl—so there’s your thousand right there. And if they’re genuine Oriental, you stand to make a phenomenal profit. If they’re genuine Oriental, you can get back ten times your investment. I’d have them x-rayed at once, if I were you.”

  Parsons grinned. “Thank you,” he said. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Don’t mention it,” the jeweler said. He put his eyepiece back in place and bent over his watch again.

  Parsons took the young man to one side. “What do you think?” he asked.

  “Looks like a good deal,” the young man said.

  “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.

  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 wa
s 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?”

  “Go on.”

  “Han’some said he wanted a tattoo on the li’l girl’s hand. A heart an’ N-A-C.”

  “He said that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why N-A-C?”

  Popeye cocked his head so that his dead socket stared Carella directly in the face. “Why, tha’s their names,” he said.