Doug Allyn - The Best American Mystery Stories 2003

On the day to which I refer, my work had gone especially well. It was the height of tourist season. Sidewalks along the Rue de Rivoli were crowded. Wallets leaped from their pockets. My fingers had never felt so nimble. Near the Louvre, I went from one mark to another. It was like picking grapes. At one point I went home and emptied my pockets, then returned to the street.

In the mid-afternoon I passed an hour in a café. Things were going so well, I had become nervous and needed to calm my nerves. I went back to work and found nothing had changed. I was at the top of my game. Nothing was safe. My fingertips had eyes.

Normally I keep a sharp watch for undercover cops. They are easy enough to spot, like unmarked police cars. Still, one must look for them. Some are cagey and hide behind posts or doorways. That day I felt so confident that when I saw one standing near the Hotel Meurice, I passed behind him and took his wallet.

Such insolence! How audacious! I never would have dared but was possessed by a kind of euphoria, like a golfer who follows one hole-in-one with another. My only regret was that I could not loiter to watch him discover the casualty. I felt tempted to approach him and ask for change just to see his face. But I showed some common sense and resisted. I had had my pleasure. Why tempt fate?

At the intersection of Rue de Rivoli and Place des Pyramides I saw a young man bungle a pick. The pigeon was a stout German tourist wearing loose trousers and a Hawaiian shirt. He started across the street when the signal was still red and jerked the young man’s hand. That sort of mistake denotes a novice at work. Never depend on a mark to behave predictably. The German jumped back to the curb and yelled, pointing into the crowd.

But the young man had disappeared. On that score, he performed admirably. I followed him along the sidewalk for several blocks. He turned right onto Rue d’Alger, leaned against a plastered wall, and lit a cigarette. His hands were shaking.

When I approached him he almost bolted. He thought I was an undercover flic. He denied the entire affair, claimed he hadn’t been near the Place des Pyramides all day. He was adamant. In that way, at least, he showed good judgment. He had reason to be afraid. He easily could have ended up in jail.

I smoked a cigarette with him. He calmed down. We talked. He was a handsome kid, dark hair and blue eyes with long lashes. He had the angular and delicate boyish features so many women seem to favor in men. At the same time, his bearing exuded a certain brazen confidence that appealed to me. He wore a gold earring in his left ear.

It turned out the young man was from Lyon, had recently arrived in Paris, was determined not to work in a deadly nine-to-five job. I took him over to the Au Chien Qui Fume on the Rue du Pont Neuf and bought him dinner. He evidently had not eaten in some time.

Afterward we walked in the Jardin des Tuileries and I gave him some pointers. It was basic information: how to recognize an undercover cop, not to try anything on an elevator where there’s no escape route, never work the same place two days in a row. These I had learned from Moses Marchant long ago. For me they had become second nature. Repeating them brought back fond memories of Moses, and I began to consider taking on the young man — his name was Sebastien — as an apprentice, much as Moses had done for me.

But something Sebastien said turned me against the idea. He said he intended to get rich quick and retire to Corsica. Before the age of thirty, he said. He was quite serious. He wanted to live on a boat and lie in the sun all day sipping pastis.

If there is a single greatest danger in my trade, it is greed. A greedy person takes absurd risks, puts himself in peril too often. Inevitably, he gets caught. Before that happens, he is apt to hurt someone. He is in too much of a hurry. Usually such impatience results from ambition and youth. But ambition can be too large and youth can fail to mature. That dangerous mixture was the weakness I detected in Sebastien. In the end, I kept my thoughts to myself and wished him luck. We parted by the garden gate at Place de la Concorde and I walked home.

The day had passed magnificendy. Never had I worked with such precision or felt so much the master of my craft. As for Sebastien, I had not let nostalgic sentiment carry me away. I had made a wise decision. I whistled all the way home. There I put Bach’s Violin Concerto in A Minor on the stereo, opened a bottle of La Bacholle Camay, lit a cigarette, and stretched out on the sofa.

As soon as I relaxed, the most unusual feeling came over me. I sat up and went to my coat, which lay draped over the back of a chair. I reached into the pocket where I had put my afternoon earnings. The pocket was empty.

At first you could have tipped me over with a feather. I felt dizzy, forgot to breathe, took one step sideways, staggered, caught myself. Once I found my breath, I fell into a rage. I paced up and down swearing. I pounded my fist and slapped my thighs furiously. Such an outrage! I cursed Sebastien, then cursed myself. I kicked the door, the sofa, the chairs. I even bit my fist like a madman. It was quite a scene, with no one to see it.

Finally, I settled down. For a while I stood by the window shaking my head with disbelief. I watched the passersby below on the street. I smoked a cigarette. I smoked another.

Then I began to laugh. It was marvelous. He had really fooled me, that young man, a remarkable performance.

In the end, I lay back on the sofa, finished my wine, and listened to Bach.

I had lost half a day’s take. But what can you do? The world is full of thieves.

From Stranger

I loved it so much I was cradling it in my hands, fondling its stock, bracing its chamber between my thumbs, staring into its barrel like you’d look into a lover’s eyes, in search of some kind of truth. It stared back at me deeply and gave me the ultimate truth: Yeah, you got it right, Grant. I’m your trusty Glock. You can count on me. I’m going to kill you.

I kissed its muzzle. My tongue tasted oil; and I could smell powder traces on my fingers. I’d cleaned it out after being down at the firing range all afternoon, blasting at all those black hanging targets, trying to get rid of all my black thoughts but only making them blacker. It was all I could do to keep from turning my Glock on myself then and there.

I didn’t want to go out that way, in front of everybody. I wanted to have some privacy and leave a note — three notes, maybe, addressed to different people and taped up on my bathroom mirror. One to my landlord, saying sorry about the mess and take what you want. Another to Captain Feliciano, telling him thanks for your support when the going got tough, but face the facts, guy, I’m a screwup. The last to Mom, saying love you lots and none of this is your fault, even if you did put Poncho to sleep.

I loved my Glock so much I was laying four of its six inches on my tongue, forming my lips around it, hooking my thumbs around its safe-action trigger. There’s no such thing as a safety catch on a Glock — you have to apply direct pressure in the right spot, or the trigger acts like a safety and refuses to fire.

My thumb was in the right spot. The rest ought to be cake.

I was telling myself that if I was a real man, I’d do it.

I was sweating bullets, staring down at the trigger cross-eyed. The last thing I’d see would be the knuckly creases on my thumb parting ever so slightly.

I depressed the safe action so it wouldn’t be safe anymore — and I wouldn’t be depressed anymore.

I did it. I squeezed the trigger.

It should have fired. But it didn’t. It jammed on me.