The Night and the Music - Lawrence Block [46]
“This is the man’s store. This is the man’s place of business.”
“And what’s this?” Eddie demanded. He walked over to the right, where the man with the dreadlocks had stick incense displayed for sale on a pair of upended orange crates. “This your store?”
“That’s right. It’s my store.”
“You know what it looks like to me? It looks like you’re selling drug paraphernalia. That’s what it looks like.”
“It’s incense,” the Rasta said. “For bad smells.”
“Bad smells,” Eddie said. One of the sticks of incense was smoldering, and Eddie picked it up and sniffed at it. “Whew,” he said. “That’s a bad smell, I’ll give you that. Smells like the catbox caught on fire.”
The Rasta snatched the incense from him. “It’s a good smell,” he said. “Smells like your mama.”
Eddie smiled at him, his red lips parting to show stained teeth. He looked happy, and very dangerous. “Say I kick your store into the middle of the street,” he said, “and you with it. How’s that sound to you?”
Smoothly, easily, Wally Witt moved between them. “Eddie,” he said softly, and Eddie backed off and let the smile fade on his lips. To the incense seller Wally said, “Look, you and I got no quarrel with each other. I got a job to do and you got your own business to run.”
“The brother here’s got a business to run, too.”
“Well, he’s gonna have to run it without Batman, because that’s how the law reads. But if you want to be Batman, playing the dozens with my man here and pushing into what doesn’t concern you, then I got no choice. You follow me?”
“All I’m saying, I’m saying you want to confiscate the man’s merchandise, you need you a policeman and a court order, something to make it official.”
“Fine,” Wally said. “You’re saying it and I hear you saying it, but what I’m saying is all I need to do it is to do it, official or not. Now if you want to get a cop to stop me, fine, go ahead and do it, but as soon as you do I’m going to press charges for selling drug paraphernalia and operating without a peddler’s license — ”
“This here ain’t drug paraphernalia, man. We both know that.”
“We both know you’re just trying to be a hard-on, and we both know what it’ll get you. That what you want?”
The incense seller stood there for a moment, then dropped his eyes. “Don’t matter what I want,” he said.
“Well, you got that right,” Wally told him. “It don’t matter what you want.”
We tossed the shirts and visors into the trunk and got out of there. On the way over to Astor Place Eddie said, “You didn’t have to jump in there. I wasn’t about to lose it.”
“Never said you were.”
“That mama stuff doesn’t bother me. It’s just nigger talk, they all talk that shit.”
“I know.”
“They’d talk about their fathers, but they don’t know who the fuck they are, so they’re stuck with their mothers. Bad smells, I shoulda stuck that shit up his ass, get right where the bad smells are. I hate a guy sticks his nose in like that.”
“Your basic sidewalk lawyer.”
“Basic asshole’s what he is. Maybe I’ll go back, talk with him later.”
“On your own time.”
“On my own time is right.”
Astor Place hosts a more freewheeling street market, with a lot of Bowery types offering a mix of salvaged trash and stolen goods. There was something especially curious about our role, as we passed over hot radios and typewriters and jewelry and sought only merchandise that had been legitimately purchased, albeit from illegitimate manufacturers. We didn’t find much Batman ware on display, although a lot of people, buyers and sellers alike, were wearing the Caped Crusader. We weren’t about to strip the shirt off anybody’s person, nor did we look too hard for contraband merchandise; the place was teeming with crackheads and crazies, and it was no time to push our luck.
“Let’s get out of here,” Wally said. “I hate to leave the car in this neighborhood. We already gave the client his money’s worth.”
By four we were back in Wally’s office and his desk was heaped high with the fruits