“You don’t like the dirty old blind man. He smells bad. Yah, Parker?”
“Maybe I’ll go to Amos Klee.”
“For machine guns? No, Parker. For machine guns, you come to Scofe. You want the burp gun?”
“Let me see it.”
Scofe pointed. “Over there you see a shelf. Long boxes on it, battleship models. Bottom box, second from the left. Bring it here.”
Parker got the box. The ones he had to move were light, but the one he wanted was heavy. He started to open it and Scofe said, “I’ll open it, Parker. Bring it here.”
Parker brought it over to him. Scofe was sitting in a squeaky kitchen chair next to a table, an old scarred worktable with nothing on it. Parker handed him the box and Scofe put it on the table, half-turned to be closer to the table, and took the top off the box. It was full of parts. Scofe’s hands touched the parts, his long fingers moving like worms in a garden. Parker watched him as he put the parts together, feeling in the bottom of the box for screws, using a small metal screwdriver he took from his hip pocket. He put the parts together, and when he was done there was a burp gun on the table. “There,” he said. “You like it?”
Parker picked it up. There was rust on it, a little, not much. It was an old gun, but it looked to be in good shape. The places where it was rusted were where identification marks had been filed away, leaving the metal rough.
“Well?”
“How much?”
“I don’t haggle, Parker, you know I never haggle.”
“How much?”
“One twenty-five.”
Parker put the gun back down on the table. “What else you got?”
Scofe chuckled again. His hands reached out and found the gun and he disassembled it again, putting everything back in the model battleship box. When he was finished, he put the top on the box again and said, “You want to put it back? You’re not interested?”
“Leave it out a while. What else you got?”
“You take the burp, I can let you have two Tommys, a hundred apiece.”
“Where are they?”
“You know me, Parker, they aren’t bad guns. I don’t touch bad guns.”
Parker knew that, but he wanted to see them before making up his mind. He said, “You know me. I always look first.”
“I never look first, Parker. The smelly old blind man never looks at all.” He swiveled around and pointed to a corner. “Road-racer sets there,” he said. “Big square boxes. Fourth and fifth down. They’re all assembled.”
Parker went over. The fourth and fifth boxes were heavier than the first three. Parker felt the sixth box, and it was heavy, too. He carried the fourth and fifth over to the table, opened them, and looked at two Thompson .45 submachine guns, each equipped with a twenty-shot clip. They both looked all right. He put the tops back on the boxes and said, “These are good. I’ll take three of these.”
“Those two are all I got.”
“Then I want a road-racer set. The sixth from the top.”
“You’re a bastard, Parker. You’re a rotten bastard. You’re a filthy rotten son of a bitch. You take advantage of a poor old blind man, you’d spit on your own mother. You’re a cesspool, a walking cesspool, you’re vomit, you’re a cheap two-bit rotten punk.”
“Shut up, Scofe.”
Scofe shut up. He stuck his right hand up to his face and gnawed on a knuckle. He looked like an old squirrel.
Parker said, “One hundred each for three Tommys.”
“Two Tommys. And one twenty-five for the burp.”
“I don’t want the burp.”
“Then one fifty each for the Tommys.”
“Goodbye, Scofe.”
“I don’t haggle, Parker, you know me.”
Parker turned away and started for the front of the store. He opened the door and went through, leaving the door open behind him, and walked down between the display cases. The sullen woman watched him suspiciously.
Parker got halfway to the street door and then Scofe called, “Parker! Hey! Come back here!”
Parker turned around and went back. The woman kept watching him. He went into the back room again and said, “What?”
“Put these boxes away. You can’t leave these boxes out.”
“I’m going to see Amos Klee.”
