Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

“Yes,” he said. “Do you play guitar?” I didn’t and told him so. No point in lying all the time. But, I added, I was going to learn.

He picked one off the wall and started plucking the strings. “This is an excellent one, and I can let you have it for only thirty-five dollars. Would you like to pay cash or take it on the installment plan?”

I must have been a good actor, because he was certainly playing me for a mark. The guitar was a Pelton, and it was in good shape, but it never cost more than forty bucks new, and he had a nerve asking more than twenty-five. Any minute now he might tell me that the last owner was an old lady who only played hymns on it. I held back the laugh and plunked the guitar like a nice little customer.

“I like the sound. And the price sounds about right to me.”

“You’ll never find a better bargain.” Now this was laying it on with a trowel.

“Yes, I’ll take it.” He deserved it now. “I was just passing by, and I don’t have much money with me. Could I make a down payment and pay the rest weekly?”

He probably would have skipped the down payment. “Surely,” he said. For some reason I’ve always disliked guys who say “surely.” No reason, really. “How much would you like to pay now?”

I told him I was really short at the moment, but could pay ten dollars a week. Could I just put a dollar down? He said I could, but in that case the price would have to be forty dollars, which is called putting the gouge on.

I hesitated a moment for luck, then agreed. When he asked for identification I pulled out my pride and joy.

In a wallet that I also copped from that drugstore I have the best identification in the world, all phony and all legal. Everything in it swears up and down that my name is Leonard Blake and I live on Riverside Drive. I have a baptismal certificate that I purchased from a sharp little entrepreneur at our high school back in the days when I needed proof of age to buy a drink. I have a Social Security card that can’t be used for identification purposes but always is, and an unapproved application for a driver’s license. To get one of these you just go to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and fill it out. It isn’t stamped, but no pawnbroker ever noticed that. Then there are membership cards in everything from the Captain Marvel Club to the NAACP. Of course he took my buck and I signed some papers.

I made it next to Louie’s shop at Thirty-fifth and Third. Louie and I know each other, so there’s no haggling. He gave me fifteen for the guitar, and I let him know it wouldn’t be hot for at least ten days. That’s the way I like to do business.

Fifteen bucks was a week and a half, and you see how easy it was. And it’s fun to shaft a guy who deserves it, like that sharp clerk did. But when I got back to the pad and read some old magazines, I got another idea before I even had a chance to start spending the fifteen.

I was reading one of those magazines that are filled with really exciting information, like how to build a model of the Great Wall of China around your house, and I was wondering what kind of damn fool would want to build a wall around his house, much less a Great Wall of China type wall, when the idea hit me. Wouldn’t a hell of a lot of the same type of people like a Sheffield steel dagger, twenty-five inches long, an authentic copy of a twelfth-century relic recently discovered in a Bergdorf castle? And all of this for only two bucks post-paid, no CODs? I figured they might.

This was a big idea, and I had to plan it just right. A classified in that type of magazine cost two dollars, a post office box cost about five for three months. I was in a hurry, so I forgot about lunch, and rushed across town to the Chelsea Station on Christopher Street, and Lennie Blake got himself a post office box. Then I fixed up the ad a little, changing “twenty-five inches” to “over two feet.” And customers would please allow three weeks for delivery. I sent ads and money to three magazines, and took a deep breath. I was now president of Cornet Enterprises. Or Lennie Blake was. Who the hell cared?

For the next month and a half I stalled on the rent and ate as little as possible. The magazines hit the stands after two weeks, and I gave people time to send in. Then I went west again and picked up my mail.

A hell of a lot of people wanted swords. There were about two hundred envelopes, and after I finished throwing out the checks and requests for information, I wound up with $196 and sixty-seven three-cent stamps. Anybody want to buy a stamp?

See what I mean? The whole bit couldn’t have been simpler. There’s no way in the world they can trace me, and nobody in the post office could possible remember me. That’s the beauty of New York — so many people. And how much time do you think the cops will waste looking for a two-bit swindler? I could even have made another pick-up at the post office, but greedy guys just don’t last long in this game. And a federal rap I need like a broken ankle.

Right now I’m 100 percent in the clear. I haven’t heard a rumble on the play yet, and already Lennie Blake is dead — burned to ashes and flushed down the toilet. Right now I’m busy establishing Warren Shaw. I sign the name, over and over, so that I’ll never make a mistake and sign the wrong name sometime. One mistake is above par for the course.

Maybe you’re like me. I don’t mean with the same fingerprints and all, but the same general attitudes. Do you fit the following general description: smart, coldly logical, content with coffee and eggs in a cold-water walk-up, and ready to work like hell for an easy couple of bucks? If that’s you, you’re hired. Come right in and get to work. You can even have my room. I’m moving out tomorrow.

It’s been kicks, but too much of the same general pattern and the law of averages gets you. I’ve been going a long time, and one pinch would end everything. Besides, I figure it’s time I took a step or two up the social ladder.

I had a caller yesterday, a guy named Al. He’s an older guy, and hangs with a mob uptown on the West Side. He always has a cigar jammed into the corner of his mouth and he looks like a holdover from the twenties, but Al is a very sharp guy. We gassed around for a while, and then he looked me in the eyes and chewed on his cigar.

“You know,” he said, “we might be able to use you.”

“I always work alone, Al.”

“You’d be working alone. Two hundred a night.”

I whistled. This was sounding good. “What’s the pitch?”

He gave me the look again and chewed his cigar some more. “Kid,” he said, “did you ever kill a man?”

Two hundred bucks for one night’s work! What a perfect racket! Wish me luck, will you? I start tonight.