Ed McBain: The Con Man

“There isn’t anybody in the goddamn department who does a better job than me. Trouble is, I haven’t got seniority. It’s all politics. Who do you think gets the nice posh jobs? The old fuddies who’ve been cutting up stiffs for forty years. But I do a neat, thorough job. Thorough. I’m thorough. I don’t overlook anything. Not a thing. So I get the floaters!”

“Maybe they figure you’re so expert they wouldn’t trust them to anyone else,” Carella said drily.

“Huh?” Blaney said. “Expert?”

“Certainly. You’re a good man, Blaney. Floaters are tough. You can’t trust them with just any damn butcher.”

Blaney’s violet eyes softened a shade. “I never thought of it that way,” he said. He smiled slightly, and then the smile vanished before a suspicious lowering of his brows as he thought the problem over again.

“What about this one?” Carella asked, not wanting Blaney to start thinking too hard.

“Oh,” Blaney said. “Yeah. Well, I got a report there — all the junk. Been in the water about four months, I would say. I just got done with the heart.”

“And?”

“You know anything about the heart?”

“Not very much, no.”

“Right and left chambers, you see. Blood passes through, gets pumped around the body...Oh hell, I can’t give a layman an anatomy lesson.”

“I didn’t ask for one,” Carella said.

“Anyway, I did the Gettler test. Idea is that if someone drowns, water passes from the lungs into the blood. We can tell pretty well this way whether a person drowned in fresh water or salt water.”

“How so?”

“If it was fresh water, the blood in the left side of the heart will have a lower-than-normal chloride content. Salt water, the blood in the left side of the heart will have a higher-than-normal amount of chloride.”

“This girl was found in the River Harb,” Carella said. “That’s fresh water, isn’t it?”

“Sure. But according to Smith — you know, Smith, Glaister, and Von Neureiter...”

“Go ahead,” Carella said.

“According to Smith, if a person is already dead when he’s thrown into the water, it’s impossible for any water to get into that person’s left heart.” Blaney paused. “In other words, if we find no water in the left heart during autopsy, we can safely assume that person didn’t drown. That person was dead before he hit the water.”

“Yes?” Carella said, interested now.

“This little girl didn’t have a drop of water there, Carella. This little girl didn’t drown.”

Carella stared deep into Blaney’s violet eyes. “How’d she die?” he asked.

“Acute arsenic poisoning,” Blaney said. “Greatest amount of it was found in the stomach and intestines. Indicates oral ingestion. The whole system was not impregnated, so we can chalk off chronic poisoning. This was acute. She may, in fact, have died just a few hours after she swallowed the stuff.”

Blaney scratched the top of his balding head.

“In fact,” he added, “you may even have yourself a homicide here.”

Life, if you take a somewhat dim and cynical view of it, is something like a big con game.

Look around you, friends, and see the confidence men.

“I have in my hand right here, ladies and gentlemen, a bar of So-Soap. This is the only soap on the market that contains neocenephrotaneticin, which we call Neo No. 7. Neo No. 7 puts an invisible film of visible filmy acentodoids on the epidermal glottifram...”

“If I am elected, friends, I can promise you good clean government. And why can I promise you good abusive government? Because I am sincere and untrustworthy. I am honest and selfishly domineering. I am the biggest, the most attentive, the most fastidious violator of the Mann Act, and I can promise...”

“Look, George, where else can you get a deal like this one? We are willing to construct the whole damned thing, take full responsibility for the job, and all it’ll cost you is around two million dollars. And, with that, you get my own personal guarantee. My own personal guarantee.”

“Baby, what I’m trying to tell you is I never felt like this before. I mean, when you walk into a room, Jesus, the room lights up. Do you know what I mean? My heart begins to go up and down like a yo-yo. There’s a light that comes from you, baby, a light that fills up the sky. If that ain’t love, I don’t know what love is. Believe me, baby, I never felt like this. Like walking on air with my head in the clouds, like wanting to sing all the time. I love you, sweetheart. I love you like crazy. So why don’t you be a good girl and take off that dress, huh?”

“I’ll be honest with you. That car had seventy-five thousand miles on it before we turned back the speedometer. Also, that’s a new paint job. We don’t trust new paint jobs. Who knows what’s under that paint, friend. I wouldn’t sell you that dog if you begged me. But step over here a minute and take a look at this lavender-andred convertible that was owned by the maiden aunt of a Protestant minister who used it only once a week to do her marketing around the corner. Now, this car... ”

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“The trouble with this guy’s parties is he doesn’t know how to mix martinis. It takes a certain amount of finesse, you know. Now, here’s my formula. You take a water glass full of gin...”

“Hello, friends, I’m George Grosnick. This is my brother Louie Grosnick. We make Grosnick Beer... all right, Louie, you tell them...”

It’s the hard sell and the soft sell, anywhere you go, everywhere you go. It comes at you a hundred times a day, and maybe it’s stretching a point to say that every human being has his own confidence game, that every human being has a tiny touch of larceny in his soul, but be careful, friend; the television is on, and that man is pointing at you!

The man in the dark-blue suit was a con man.

He sat in the hotel lobby waiting for a man named Jamison. He had first seen Jamison at the railroad station when the train from Boston pulled in. He had followed Jamison to the hotel, and now he sat in the lobby and waited for him to appear because the man in the dark-blue suit had plans for Jamison.

He was a good-looking man, tall, with even features and a friendly mouth and eyes. He dressed immaculately. His white shirt was spotless, and his suit was freshly pressed. His black shoes were highly polished, and amazing in this elastic-top-socked age, his socks were held firmly in place with garters.

He was holding a guidebook to the city in his hand.

He looked at his watch. It was close to 6:30, and Jamison should be down soon if he planned on having dinner at all. The lobby bustled with activity. A beer company was holding eliminations for its yearly glamour girl contest, and models swarmed over the thick rugs, accompanied by press agents and photographers. All of the models looked the same. The hair-coloring varied, but otherwise, they all looked the same. They were, in essence, symbols created by con men. They were, too, in essence, con men themselves.

He saw Jamison come out of one of the elevators. Quickly, he rose and stood with the guidebook open at the top of the steps leading to the street. He could see Jamison, from the corner of his eye, moving toward the steps. He buried himself in the guidebook, and when Jamison was abreast of him, he moved sharply to the left, colliding with him.