The Night and the Music - Lawrence Block [43]
“Nobody’s taking my gun away from me,” Lee said.
“What everybody says, but look at all the times it happens. Cop gets shot with his own gun, nine times out of ten it’s a revolver.”
“That’s because that’s all they carry,” Lee said.
“Well, there you go.”
Jimmy and I weren’t carrying guns. Wally offered to equip us but we both declined. “Not that anybody’s likely to have to show a piece, let alone use one, God forbid,” Wally said. “But it can get nasty out there and it helps to have the feeling of authority. Well, let’s go get ‘em, huh? The Batmobile’s waiting at the curb.”
We rode down in the elevator, five grown men, three of us armed with handguns. Eddie Rankin had on a plaid sport jacket and khaki trousers. The rest of us wore suits and ties. We went out the Fifth Avenue exit and followed Wally to his car, a five-year-old Fleetwood Cadillac parked next to a hydrant. There were no tickets on the windshield; a PBA courtesy card had kept the traffic cops at bay.
Wally drove and Eddie Rankin sat in front with him. The rest of us rode in back. We cruised up Sixth to Fifty-fourth Street and turned right, and Wally parked next to a hydrant a few doors from Fifth. We walked together to the corner of Fifth and turned downtown. Near the middle of the block a trio of black men had set up shop as sidewalk vendors. One had a display of women’s handbags and silk scarves, all arranged neatly on top of a folding card table. The other two were offering T-shirts and cassette tapes.
In an undertone Wally said, “Here we go. These three were here yesterday. Matt, why don’t you and Lee check down the block, make sure those two down at the corner don’t have what we’re looking for. Then double back and we’ll take these dudes off. Meanwhile I’ll let the man sell me a shirt.”
Lee and I walked down to the corner. The two vendors in question were selling books. We established this and headed back. “Real police work,” I said.
“Be grateful we don’t have to fill out a report, list the titles of the books.”
“The alleged books.”
When we rejoined the others Wally was holding an oversize T-shirt to his chest, modeling it for us. “What do you say?” he demanded. “Is it me? Do you think it’s me?”
“I think it’s the Joker,” Jimmy diSalvo said.
“That’s what I think,” Wally said. He looked at the two Africans, who were smiling uncertainly. “I think it’s a violation, is what I think. I think we got to confiscate all the Batman stuff. It’s unauthorized, it’s an illegal violation of copyright protection, it’s unlicensed, and we got to take it in.”
The two vendors had stopped smiling, but they didn’t seem to have a very clear idea of what was going on. Off to the side, the third man, the fellow with the scarves and purses, was looking wary.
“You speak English?” Wally asked them.
“They speak numbers,” Jimmy said. “ ‘Fi dollah, ten dollah, please, thank you.’ That’s what they speak.”
“Where you from?” Wally demanded. “Senegal, right? Dakar. You from Dakar?”
They nodded, brightening at words they recognized. “Dakar,” one of them echoed. Both of them were wearing Western clothes, but they looked faintly foreign — loose-fitting long-sleeved shirts with long pointed collars and a glossy finish, baggy pleated pants. Loafers with leather mesh tops.
“What do you speak?” Wally asked. “You speak French? Parley-voo Français?”The one who’d spoken before replied now in a torrent of French, and Wally backed away from him and shook his head. “I don’t know why the hell I asked,” he said. “Parley-voo’s all I know of the fucking language.” To the Africans he said, “Police. You parley-voo that? Police. Policia. You capeesh?” He opened his wallet and showed them some sort of badge. “No sell Batman,” he said, waving one of the shirts at them. “Batman no good. It’s unauthorized, it’s not made under a licensing agreement, and you can’t sell it.”
“No