thing, Dunk. I know you’ve been put on unpaid leave of absence—which was entirely unfair and unwarranted in my opinion—and you’ll want to clear your name. So maybe if the two of us can put our great brains together on this, you’ll be back to work before you know it.”
He smiled winsomely. A hard guy to resist. Al Georgio was charming, too, but Jack Smack was charming consciously. Every woman over the age of four is able to spot the difference. Which doesn’t mean we’re able to resist the deliberate charmer.
He got up to go, then paused for a moment. Dramatic effect.
“By the way,” he said casually, “no one lifted a single coin from a sealed display case within a taped container. I think the container itself was switched.”
After he was gone, I reflected that I had met two tall, handsome men in the last few hours—so the day wasn’t a total loss. But I recognized angrily my own stupidity at not seeing that stealing container thirteen and substituting a similar box (sans Demaretion) in its stead was the only way the robbery could have gone down.
Two male investigators, Georgio and Smack, had seen it at once. And I, witness and participant, had been racking my poor, feeble brain trying to imagine how it had been done. It was humiliating.
I have always been a competitive type; I suppose those driveway basketball games with my brothers contributed to that. Anyway, I was determined to show Georgio and Smack that I wasn’t just another pretty face; I had brains. Feminism had nothing to do with it; it was personal.
I reasoned this way:
I accepted their theory that container thirteen had been switched. It was the only way the Demaretion could have been stolen. But when I exhibited the empty display case to Hobie in Grandby’s vault, it was absolutely identical to all the other teakwood cases with glass lids that housed the Havistock Collection. I was willing to swear to that.
Which meant there had to be at least fourteen display cases—right? And an empty extra, sealed, was substituted for the one containing the Demaretion.
Now then…what was the name of the guy Archibald Havistock said had made the cases? “The best man for that kind of work in the city,” he had told me. First name Nate—that I remembered. But the last name? Calesque? Colliski? Callico?—something like that. And he worked in Greenwich Village. I grabbed up the Manhattan telephone directory and Yellow Pages, and started searching.
It took me about fifteen minutes, but I found him: Nathaniel Colescui, custom carpentry, with a shop on Carmine Street. I pulled on beret, suede jacket, shoulder bag, and rushed out. Practically sprinted over to 86th Street and Broadway. Took the downtown IRT. All the short people in the subway car stared at me, but I was used to that.
I got off at Houston Street and walked back to Carmine. Colescui’s shop wasn’t hard to find. It was right next to a pub-type restaurant that had a legend gold-leafed on its window: FOUNDED IN 1984. That tickled me—but I guess when a restaurant lasts two years in Manhattan, it’s something to brag about.
Colescui’s window didn’t brag, it just said: CUSTOM CARPENTRY, EVERYTHING TO ORDER . Inside, it smelled pleasantly of freshly sawed wood, and there was a fine mist of sawdust in the air. The middle-aged black woman pounding away at an ancient typewriter at the front desk was wearing a hat, and I could understand why.
She stopped her typing when I came in. “Hep you?” she asked.
“I’d like to inquire about having a display case made,” I said. “For coins.”
She swung around on her swivel chair and yelled into the back room. “Nate!” she screamed. “Customer!”
I heard the diminishing whine of a power saw switched off. Then a twinkly gnome of a man came out of the back, pushing goggles up onto his bald skull. He was wearing a leather apron over what looked like a conservative, three-piece business suit, plus white shirt and jacquard tie. And
He smiled winsomely. A hard guy to resist. Al Georgio was charming, too, but Jack Smack was charming consciously. Every woman over the age of four is able to spot the difference. Which doesn’t mean we’re able to resist the deliberate charmer.
He got up to go, then paused for a moment. Dramatic effect.
“By the way,” he said casually, “no one lifted a single coin from a sealed display case within a taped container. I think the container itself was switched.”
After he was gone, I reflected that I had met two tall, handsome men in the last few hours—so the day wasn’t a total loss. But I recognized angrily my own stupidity at not seeing that stealing container thirteen and substituting a similar box (sans Demaretion) in its stead was the only way the robbery could have gone down.
Two male investigators, Georgio and Smack, had seen it at once. And I, witness and participant, had been racking my poor, feeble brain trying to imagine how it had been done. It was humiliating.
I have always been a competitive type; I suppose those driveway basketball games with my brothers contributed to that. Anyway, I was determined to show Georgio and Smack that I wasn’t just another pretty face; I had brains. Feminism had nothing to do with it; it was personal.
I reasoned this way:
I accepted their theory that container thirteen had been switched. It was the only way the Demaretion could have been stolen. But when I exhibited the empty display case to Hobie in Grandby’s vault, it was absolutely identical to all the other teakwood cases with glass lids that housed the Havistock Collection. I was willing to swear to that.
Which meant there had to be at least fourteen display cases—right? And an empty extra, sealed, was substituted for the one containing the Demaretion.
Now then…what was the name of the guy Archibald Havistock said had made the cases? “The best man for that kind of work in the city,” he had told me. First name Nate—that I remembered. But the last name? Calesque? Colliski? Callico?—something like that. And he worked in Greenwich Village. I grabbed up the Manhattan telephone directory and Yellow Pages, and started searching.
It took me about fifteen minutes, but I found him: Nathaniel Colescui, custom carpentry, with a shop on Carmine Street. I pulled on beret, suede jacket, shoulder bag, and rushed out. Practically sprinted over to 86th Street and Broadway. Took the downtown IRT. All the short people in the subway car stared at me, but I was used to that.
I got off at Houston Street and walked back to Carmine. Colescui’s shop wasn’t hard to find. It was right next to a pub-type restaurant that had a legend gold-leafed on its window: FOUNDED IN 1984. That tickled me—but I guess when a restaurant lasts two years in Manhattan, it’s something to brag about.
Colescui’s window didn’t brag, it just said: CUSTOM CARPENTRY, EVERYTHING TO ORDER . Inside, it smelled pleasantly of freshly sawed wood, and there was a fine mist of sawdust in the air. The middle-aged black woman pounding away at an ancient typewriter at the front desk was wearing a hat, and I could understand why.
She stopped her typing when I came in. “Hep you?” she asked.
“I’d like to inquire about having a display case made,” I said. “For coins.”
She swung around on her swivel chair and yelled into the back room. “Nate!” she screamed. “Customer!”
I heard the diminishing whine of a power saw switched off. Then a twinkly gnome of a man came out of the back, pushing goggles up onto his bald skull. He was wearing a leather apron over what looked like a conservative, three-piece business suit, plus white shirt and jacquard tie. And
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