Tricks полностью

"Are you a cop?" he asked without even looking at her.

Mind-reader, she thought.

"Sure," she said. "Are you a cop, too?"

"I used to be," he said.

Oh, shit, she thought. A renegade. Or a malcontent.

"I can always tell a cop," he said.

"You wanna see my badge?" she said.

Deliberately using the word badge. A cop called it a shield.

"Are you with Vice?" he asked.

"Oh, man, am I," she said. "Clear down to my tonsils."

"I used to be with Vice," he said.

"So I'm the one who caught myself a cop, huh?" she said, and smiled. "Well, Howie, that makes no difference to me at all, the past is the past, all water under the bridge. What do you say we take a little stroll up the street, I'll show you a real good…"

"Get lost," he said.

"Let's get lost together, Howie," she said, and put her hand on his thigh.

"You understand English?" he said.

"French, too," she said. "Come on, Howie, give a working girl a…"

"Get lost!" he said.

A command this time.

Eyes blazing, big hands clenched on the bartop.

"Sure," she said. "Relax."

She got off the stool.

"Relax, okay?" she said, and walked down to the other end of the bar.

Inexplicably, her palms were wet.

Guy sitting next to him at the bar was running a tab, twenty-dollar bill tucked under the little bowl of salted peanuts. Big flashy Texan sporting a diamond pinky ring, a shirt as loud as he himself was, and a black string tie held with one of those turquoise-and-silver Indian clasps. He was drinking martinis, and talking about soybeans. Said soybeans were the nation's future. No cholesterol in soybeans.

"So what do you do?" he asked.

"I'm in insurance."

Which wasn't too far from the truth. Soon as Marie made the insurance claim…

"Lots of money in insurance," the Texan said.

"For sure."

At double indemnity, the policy came to two hundred grand. More money than he could make in eight years' time.

"By the way, my name's Abner Phipps," the Texan said, and extended a meaty hand.

He took the hand. "Theo Hardeen," he said.

"Nice to meet you, Theo. You gonna be in town long?"

"Leaving tomorrow."

"I'm stuck here all through next week," Phipps said. "I hate this city, I truly do. There're people who say it's a nice place to visit, but I can't even see it for that. Worth your life just walkin' the streets here. You see that thing on television tonight?"

"What thing is that?"

The black bartender was listening silently, standing some six feet away from them, polishing glasses. The clock on the wall read ten to eleven. Shows'd be breaking soon, he wanted to be ready for the crowd.

"Somebody chopping up a body, leaving pieces of it all over town," Phipps said, and shook his head. "Bad enough you kill somebody, you got to chop him up in pieces afterward? Why you suppose he did that, Theo?"

"Well, I'll tell you, Abner, there're all kinds of nuts in this world."

"I mean, there're two rivers in this city, Theo. Why didn't he just throw the whole damn body in one of them?"

That's where the head is, he thought. And the hands.

"Still," Phipps said, "if you got a body to get rid of, I guess it's easier to dump in sections. I mean, somebody sees you hauling a corpse around, that might raise suspicion, even in this city. An arm, a head, whatever, you can just drop in a garbage can or down the sewer, nobody'll pay any attention to you, am I right, Theo?"

"I guess maybe that's why he did it."

"Well, who can figure the criminal mind?" Phipps said.

"Not me, that's for sure. I have a hard enough time selling insurance."

"Oh, I'll bet," Phipps said. "You know why? Nobody likes to think he's gonna kick off one day. You sit there tellin' him how his wife's gonna be sittin' pretty once he's dead, he don't want to hear that. He wants to think he's gonna live forever. I don't care how responsible a man he is, it makes him uncomfortable talkin' about death benefits."

"You hit it right on the head, Abner. I talk myself blue in the face, and half the time they're not even listening. Explain, explain, explain, they don't know what the hell I'm talking about."

"People just don't listen anymore," Phipps said.

"Or they don't listen carefully enough. They hear only what they want to hear."

"That's for sure, Theo."

"I'll give you an example," he said, and then immediately thought Come on, he's too easy. On the other hand, it might teach him a valuable lesson. Chatting up a stranger in a bar, no real sense of how many con artists were loose and on the prowl in this city. Teach him something he could take back home to Horse's Neck, Texas.

He reached into his pocket, took out a dime and a nickel.

"What have I got here?" he asked.

"Fifteen cents," Phipps said.

"Okay, open your hand."

Phipps opened his hand.

"Now I'm putting this dime and this nickel on the palm of your hand."

"Yep, I see that, Theo."

"And I'm not touching them anymore, they're in your hand now, am I right?"

"Right there on the palm of my hand, Theo."

"Now close your hand on them."

Phipps closed his hand. The bartender was watching now.

"You've got that fifteen cents in your fist now, am I right?"