Dancing With Bears - Michael Swanwick [57]
But the urchin skittered back from him, eyes glittering with alarm. “Hey, what’re you trying to pull? I’m not stupid. If I give you the necklace, that’s the last I’ll ever see of you. I made you a good offer. You ain’t got no reason to rip me off.”
Affronted, the merchant said, “I was merely trying to help.”
“Yeah, right!” the boy sneered. “Trying to help yourself. I know your kind.” With each retort, he moved a little further away. His body was so tense it quivered. At any moment he would break and run, and the merchant would never see the necklace again.
“Wait, wait, wait a moment,” the merchant said soothingly. “Let’s see if we can’t settle this contretemps amicably.” He thought furiously. “Suppose I were to give you your half of the reward in exchange for the necklace up front? Then you wouldn’t have to trust me. I’ll bring the necklace to its owner and collect the full reward, and we’ll both be ahead by two and a half thousand rubles. Twenty-five ‘katies,’ as you called them.”
The boy’s face worked suspiciously. “Let’s see the color of your money.”
The merchant positioned himself with his back to the nearest building and looked around carefully before withdrawing his billfold from an inner pocket of his coat. Then he counted out two thousand-ruble notes and five hundreds. “Here.” He extended the bills, then pulled them back as the child made a grab for them. “We’ll exchange the money and the necklace simultaneously, if you please.”
Warily, the boy held out the diamond necklace in one hand and reached for the money with the other. Each of the two moved suddenly, hands striking like snakes, and when they stepped apart, the merchant held the necklace and the boy the banknotes. Both grinned with relief.
“You treated me square, mister,” the urchin said. “I guess you ain’t such a bad sort after all.” Then, shoving the money deep into his pocket, he turned and ran. Within seconds he was nowhere to be seen.
His good mood restored, the merchant headed toward the New Metropol. But as he did, he could not help reflecting on the original owner’s carelessness. Five thousand rubles was surely a mere fraction of the necklace’s value—so the greatest profit today would be made by the man who cared so little for his valuables that he flung them into the streets of Moscow without a second thought. The more consideration he gave the matter, the more monstrous this fellow became. Such a man’s wealth was surely inherited, for one who had earned it himself would, as the merchant knew from experience, keep the tightest of grips upon it. So. This self-centered profligate, this despoiler of his father’s hard-earned fortune, sauntered about Moscow, doubtless drunk (for otherwise he would not have been so haphazard with a possession worth so much), simply flinging his property away. Did such a man deserve such riches?
The question answered itself.
Thus, when he came to the hotel, the merchant kept right on walking. He was not far from the jeweler’s district. There would be pawn shops there that would offer him a better percentage of the thing’s value than he was likely to get from its former owner.
“He did everything like you said he would,” Oleg, the smallest of Kyril’s gang of bandits, said. “As soon as Kyril’s out of sight, he goes straight to a pawnshop.”
“Then he comes out cursing and calling the pawnbroker a crook,” Lev interjected.
Stephan shoved Lev aside. “And, and, and then he goes into a second pawnshop. And, and then a third.”
“So finally he goes back to the New Metropol and when he comes out, he’s so mad he rips one of the posters off the lantern-post and throws it on the ground and stomps on it,” finished Dmitri.
“Did he throw away the necklace?” Darger asked. “Did you pick it up?”
“Naw,” Oleg said. “He just goes back into the hotel and don’t come back out.”
“A pity.” Darger put down the book he’d been reading and without rising from his chair said, “All right, Kyril, it’s reckoning