The sailor produced a wallet.
“This is my sample card, and I don’t usually sell from it, but in your case I’ll make an exception. I can get another card from the factory. Want me to take that off for you?”
“Hell no.” The sailor covered the puzzle with one hand. “I’m gonna do it myself.” He pulled out a crumpled dollar. “Got change?”
Barnes plucked it from his hand. “No, but I’m sure this gentleman does.” He handed the dollar to the wizened man. “Do you have change, sir? Seventy-nine cents for me, twenty-one for this serviceman here.”
“I’m Phil Reeder,” the sailor said, extending his hand.
“Ozzie Barnes,” Barnes said, shaking it.
“I’m from the
“Congratulations,” Barnes said. The wizened man handed him change; Barnes gave the sailor two dimes and a penny and dropped the rest into his pocket. Something that had been coiled tightly inside him seemed to relax slightly.
“Say, what’s that one?”
“This?” It was hard to tell just where Reeder was looking.
“No. Over there.”
“Oh, that? We call it the Houdini Puzzle.” Barnes pulled it free of its cardboard tab. “See, the little man is Houdini, and he’s locked in a cell. The trick is to get him out.” He took one of the toy figure’s hands and pulled; the toy figure wedged between the bars. “Wait a minute. It can be done.” He loosened the figure and twisted it; a tiny bar caught it between the legs.
“Ouch!” Reeder said. He laughed.
“I’ll say. Well, it can be done. I guess I’m out of practice.”
“I want that one too.” Reeder got out his wallet again.
The wizened man glanced at the card. “Eighty-nine cents.”
“Hey, the last one was only seventy-nine.”
“They got all different prices,” the wizened man said. “That last one was only a pencil with a string through it.” He looked at Barnes for confirmation.
“You haven’t bought it yet,” Barnes reminded him.
Reeder thought Barnes was talking to him. “I know. You got change for a five?”
“Sure,” the wizened man said. He rang up eighty-nine on the register and gave Reeder four dollars and a nickel. “Six cents tax,” he explained.
Barnes was making mental calculations. “The board’s usually eleven forty-five,” he said.
“So take off seventy-nine and eighty-nine for the ones that’s sold. Should be about nine fifty.” The wizened man turned aside to wait on a woman buying
“You’ve already got the eighty-nine. Take off the seventy-nine and it comes to eleven thirty.”
“The hell it does.”
“With tax.”
“What the hell do you mean, tax? This ain’t no retail sale, I’m buying them to sell again.”
Barnes said mildly, “You’re not giving me an order, you’re buying my sample.”
“I still don’t pay no tax. You don’t collect sales tax.”
Without looking up from the Houdini Puzzle, Reeder said, “You got tax from me.”
“Okay,” Barnes told the wizened man. “I’ll knock off the tax for a quick sale. Ten sixty-five, cash.”
“Deal.” The wizened man rang No Sale on his register and gave Barnes the money.
Barnes stood the card of puzzles on some magazines. “Now here’s another beauty for a man in your business. It’s a hundred funny bookmarks, all different.”
“Nothing else,” the wizened man said. “I only got so much room for this kinda stuff.”
“I haven’t even showed you my best—”
“No more.”
“Okay. When you see how the puzzles go, you’ll want something else. I’ll see you again in a couple of weeks.”
“Not if I see you first,” the wizened man said; but it was routine bellicosity, without malice.
Reeder asked, “You know where we can get a drink around here, mate? I want to buy you a drink.”
“Not this early.” Barnes glanced at his wrist before he recalled that his watch was gone. “If you want to buy me something, how about a sandwich? There’s a place that looks good right outside the station.”
As they stepped outside, a bus turned a corner two blocks up, maneuvering as ponderously as a warship.
