Kin

“I have somethin’ that might interest you,” she told the pawnbroker.

“Do you indeed?” He leaned closer, his hands braced on the cabinet, large ring-studded fingers smudging the glass. Evidently all the fingerprints there were his own.

Louise nodded, put her hand in her coat pocket, and then hesitated. Since taking the life of the man in her apartment, it was as if her senses had been enhanced. Her hearing, in particular, seemed to have strained itself, so that now the slightest sounds, once innocuous, registered as potential threats. As she stood there, frozen, fingers pressed against the soft material of the pouch in her pocket, she could hear the whistling of Rag’s breath through his nose, the moist click of his dentures as he poked at them with his tongue. And outside, on the street, every engine sounded menacing as cars carved channels in the slush. She expected sirens at any moment as the police came to take her in. The thought of them rushing at her, guns drawn, broke her paralysis. She withdrew the pouch from her pocket and tossed them onto the cabinet between Rag’s hands.

“And what’s this?” he asked, with a curious smile.

“Open it.”

He did. She expected him to be shocked, to whistle his appreciation, or pale at the sight of the diamonds, but reminded herself that in all his years of business, he’d probably seen more remarkable things. There were no exclamations as he upended the pouch into his palm and peered nearsightedly at the gems. If anything he seemed largely unimpressed, perhaps a trait he had adopted to keep his customers from overestimating the worth of their “treasures.”

“Interesting,” he said, and, spreading the sparkling diamonds out on the back of the pouch, fished beneath the counter and produced a small black loupe, which he screwed against his eye until it appeared affixed to it. Then he plucked a diamond from the pile and brought it close to the lens.

Time seemed to stretch interminably. Beneath her coat and despite the cold, Louise was sweating, could feel it trickling from her armpits, running like spiders down between her breasts. The world outside the shop seemed to be holding its breath, counting the seconds until it could release a scream of sirens. Controlling her breathing was an effort as panic squeezed her lungs.

At length, Rag finished his inspection of each and every one of the gems laid out before him, and he looked no more impressed than he had when he’d first seen them. Maybe they’re fakes. Louise felt her heart skip as she watched him carelessly tug the pouch out from under the diamonds, scattering them across the surface of the cabinet before picking them up one by one and putting them back into the bag.

“I won’t ask where you came by these,” he said calmly, and drew the drawstrings tight before placing the pouch down between them. “Because I already know.”

How? Louise thought in desperation. How could you know?

“There’s much talk on the street about a certain robbery at the LaSalle Bank over in Troy a few months back,” he said, folding his arms. “The cops have already been here three times, inconveniencing me greatly.” He smiled and a gold incisor gleamed. “You see, whomever you acquired these from would not, I suspect, have been foolish enough to try to pawn them. I imagine there would have been some kind of a deal between those who facilitated their removal from the LaSalle vault and someone with enough money to buy them without drawing undue attention to his or herself. This,” he said, with a dismissive gesture of his hand in the air above the pouch, “This would be the last place they’d try to offload them. Too many risks. They would have to be very desperate indeed to even attempt it.”

“So you don’t want them,” Louise said, her attempt at a calm tone falling short. She reached for the pouch, but Rag beat her to it, drawing the small sack toward him and raising a hand, palm out to halt her.

“I didn’t say that, exactly.”

“Then what are you sayin’?”

He sighed dramatically. “If I purchased these from you, it would convert me from a humble pawnbroker to an accessory in the eyes of the authorities. My livelihood would be at stake. In short, I could lose everything just by helping you.”

“So don’t,” she said, but made no move to retrieve the pouch. She simply glared at him, willing him to cut the crap and make his decision so she could be free to make her own.

Then she watched, incredulous as he picked up the pouch and slid them into the pocket of his soiled baggy slacks. “Here’s what I’m going to do,” he told her. “I’m going to hold onto these, for your sake. I’ll give you two thousand dollars—call it a loan, or a late payment on that pretty ring you sold me when you first hit town—to help you on your way, and I’ll turn these over to the police. I’ll fabricate the description of the seller, of course, and make it a very good one. It should give you a considerable head start before they pick up your scent. What do you think?”

“I think you’re a crook,” she replied. “I think you don’t have a goddamn notion of turnin’ those gems over to the cops. You know you have me over a barrel, so you figure there ain’t a goddamn thing I can do about it either, right?”

“I’m offended,” he said, and clearly wasn’t.

She stared at him for a long moment, watching the small smug smile play over his fat lips. She was not entirely surprised at this development, had known there was every chance he was going to rip her off, but with no money and a bag full of diamonds, he had been her only option. Her previous dealings with him—the first to pawn her grandmother’s engagement ring; then later, a brooch her mother had given her—had left her less than satisfied, but with Wayne unemployed and nothing ahead of her at the time but a few interviews for waitress jobs that might come to nothing, she’d had little choice. Now, the avenues available to her were even more limited. But she was not going to stand here and watch what little hope she had left being crushed by a man who, despite his claims, was in all likelihood as shady and crooked as the thugs who provided him his merchandise. She found herself wondering how much of his stock had come with clear evidence of how they’d been acquired. Probably pays less for bloodstained goods, she thought, disgusted.

Resolute, “Let me tell you how this is goin’ to go,” she said, and withdrew from her other pocket the gun Wayne’s cousin had used to keep her docile, and leveled it at him.

“Whoa now,” he said, and yet there was still no change in expression, as if facing a gun was something he endured daily.

She cocked the hammer. Rag didn’t blink.

“You’re goin’ to keep those diamonds,” Louise said. “You’re right about that part. I didn’t come here to rob you, and you need to understand that. So they’re yours. All I want is a fair price, that’s all. I have a boy that needs help and I can’t give it to him here, not with what’s happened, and not without money. Now those gems ain’t mine, but I figure after what I’ve been through today, maybe I deserve them. What I don’t deserve—” she said, stepping closer, so that her hip was pressed against the edge of the counter, the barrel of the gun scant inches from the bare spot between Rag’s tumultuous eyebrows, “—is to have everythin’ go to hell because of some greedy son of a bitch.”

Rag sighed, as he might have over any deal that was not going his way, and narrowed his eyes. “So what do you consider a fair price then?”

She took a moment to consider this. All the way here she’d told herself that ten grand would be a good start. Enough to get them away for a while until she could think things through. Without knowing how much the diamonds were worth, she saw it as a reasonable sum to hope for. Not any more. Rag might have found it disturbing if she told him that instead of disheartening her, his stoicism toward the gems had persuaded her they were worth even more than she’d guessed.

“How much do you think they’re worth?” she asked him. “And before you answer, keep in mind that I might already know. After all, I brought them to you, didn’t I? So if you lie to me, I’ll put a bullet in your skull.”

She had no intention of pulling the trigger, of course, and hadn’t even checked to see if it was loaded. Red had shot a hole in the apartment wall, but for all she knew that might have been his last bullet. The pawnbroker, however, didn’t know that.

“Maybe a million. I’d have to take another look,” he said.

“You don’t need another look. You can fondle them as much as you like once I’m gone.”

“Can you take that gun out of my face?”

“As soon as I have the money.”

“How much money?”