Lawrence Block - The Devil Knows You’re Dead

Saturday afternoon I got a call from T J. He said, “You know the bagel shop in the bus station?”

“Like the back of my hand.”

“You ask me, they better at doughnuts than bagels. You want to meet me there?”

“What time?”

“You say. Won’t take me five minutes.”

I said it would take me a little longer than that, and it was closer to half an hour before I was seated next to him at the counter of Lite Bite Bagels on the ground floor of the Port Authority Bus Terminal. He had a doughnut and a Coke. I ordered a cup of coffee.

“They got good doughnuts,” he said. “Sure you don’t want one?”

“Not right now.”

“The bagels is mushy. You eatin’ a bagel, you ‘spect it to fight back some. Doughnuts, you don’t mind if they’s mushy. Weird, huh?”

“The world’s a mysterious place.”

“And that’s the truth, Ruth. Almost called you last night, woulda been real late. Dude had a Uzi he lookin’ to sell.”

“That’s not what I was looking for.”

“Yeah, I know. It was pretty slick, though. Had an extra clip, had this case to carry it in, all fitted an’ all. Cheap, too, ’cause all he wanted was to get high.”

I pictured Jan trying to kill herself firing at full automatic. “I don’t think so,” I said.

“Oh, must be he sold it by now. Else he used it to hold somebody up. Anyway, I got what you want.”

“Where?”

He patted the blue canvas Kangaroo pouch he was wearing around his waist. “Right in here,” he said softly. “Thirty-eight revolver, three bullets for it. Holds five, but he didn’t have but three. Maybe he went an’ shot two people. Three bullets be enough?”

I nodded. One was enough.

“Know the men’s room around to the right? I’ll catch you there in a minute or two.”

He slipped off his stool and left the bagel shop. I finished my coffee and paid for both of us. I found him in the men’s room, leaning over a sink, checking his hair in the mirror. I moved to the sink beside him and washed my hands while the fellow at the urinal finished up and left. When he was out the door T J unclasped the pouch from around his waist and handed it to me. “Check it out,” he said.

I went into one of the stalls. The gun was a Dienstag five-shot revolver with checkered grips and a two-inch barrel. It smelled as though it hadn’t been cleaned since it was last fired. The front sight had been filed down. The cylinder was empty. The pouch held three bullets, each individually wrapped in tissue paper. I unwrapped one and made sure it fit the cylinder, then took it out and wrapped it back in the tissue paper. I put the three bullets in my pocket and tucked the gun under my belt in the small of my back. My jacket concealed it well enough, as long as it didn’t slip.

I left the stall and handed the blue pouch to T J. He started to ask what was wrong, then felt the weight of the pouch and realized that it was empty. He said, “Man, don’t you want the Kangaroo? To carry it.”

“I thought it was yours.”

“It came with the goods. Here.”

I returned to the stall and put the gun and the bullets into the pouch and adjusted the strap so that it would fit around my waist. The gun felt a lot more secure there than wedged under my belt. Outside, T J explained that the pouches had become the holster of choice on both sides of the law.

“I believe it was cops started it,” he said. “You know how they got to carry a gun when they off duty? Only they don’t want no gun weighin’ down their pocket or spoilin’ the lines of their suit. Then a lot of the players, they was usin’ these shoulder bags, but that’s a little too much like a purse, you know? ‘Sides, anything you carry like that, there be times you put it down an’ forget to pick it back up again. The Kangaroos, they sell ’em everywhere, you don’t even know you wearin’ one. Leave the zipper open, you ready to quick-draw. An’ they cheap. Ten, twelve dollars. ’Course you can buy one in leather an’ spend more. I seen a dope dealer has one in eelskin. That be a fish or a snake?”

“A fish.”

“Didn’t know you could make leather out of no fish. Charge a lot for it, too. I guess you could get a Kangaroo made out of alligator if you was fool enough to want it.”

“I guess.”

I asked about Julia. “She a strange one,” he said. “How old you think she is?”

“How old?”

“Take a guess, Les. How old you think?”

“I don’t know. Nineteen or twenty.”

“Twenty-two.”

I shrugged. “Well, I was close.”

“She seem younger,” he said. “An’ she seem older. One minute she this little girl an’ you want to keep her safe. Next minute she your teacher, gone keep you after school. She know a whole lot of things, you know?”

“I’ll bet she does.”

“Not just what you thinkin’. She knows all kind of shit. She made those pajamas she was wearin’. You believe that? Designed ’em herself, too. Lotta ways she could make money. She don’t have to be gettin’ in cars on Eleventh Avenue. ’Course, right now she need the money.”

“What about you?”

His eyes turned wary. “What about me?”

“I just wondered how we stand as far as money is concerned. Did you make out all right on the gun?”

“Yeah, we cool. Got a good deal on the gun. Only real expenses I had was all the dope I had to buy.”

“What dope?”

“Well, hangin’ out by the Captain an’ all. You want to start askin’ a bunch of questions, people got to know you all right. Best way is buy some drugs. They makin’ money off you, they got a reason to like you.”

“Did you have to spend very much? Because it’s only right for me to reimburse you.”

“No need, Reed. I made out fine.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mean I took what I bought and sold it right here on the Deuce. Lost money on one deal but made some on another one. All said an’ done, I come out a few dollars ahead.”

“You sold drugs.”

“Well, shit, man, what else was I gonna do? I don’t use none of that shit. I wasn’t gonna throw the shit away. That’s bread, Ed. I ain’t in the business, not any more’n I’m in the gun business. Only business I want to be in is the detectin’ business, but if I has to buy the shit I might as well get my money back. There be anything wrong with that?”

“I guess not,” I said. “Not when you explain it like that.”

In my room I took the gun apart and cleaned it. I didn’t have the right tools, but Q-tips and Three-in-One oil were better than nothing. When I was done I put the gun in the drawer with the five thousand dollars. I’d been meaning to put the cash in my safe-deposit box, but I had missed my chance. I’d have to wait until Monday.

I turned the TV on and off, then picked up the phone and called Jan. “I think I’m going to be able to get that item we discussed,” I told her. “Before I follow through, I just wanted to make sure you were still in the market.” She assured me that she was. “Well, I should have something by the end of next week,” I said.

I hung up and checked the dresser drawer, as if the gun might have magically dematerialized while I was on the phone. No such luck.

That night I reprised most of my conversation with T J for Elaine, of course leaving out the part about the gun. I told her how he’d bought and sold dope on my behalf, and how he seemed to be getting involved with a pre-op transsexual.

“Entranced by a transsexual,” she said. “Or transfixed. Just how fascinated is he, do you know? What do we do if he shows up with tits?”

“That’s a stretch. He’s just experimenting.”

“That’s all they were doing at the Manhattan Project, and look what happened to Hiroshima. What’s the story? Are they an item?”