The Con Man (87th Precinct #4)

by Ed McBain

Text copyright ©1957 Ed McBain

ISBN-13: 9781612181844

ISBN-10: 1612181848

The city in these pages is imaginary. The people, the places are all fictitious. Only the police routine is based on established investigatory technique.

Everybody has a right to earn a living.

The law doesn’t quarrel with man’s inalienable right to pursue the buck. The law only questions the method and means of acquiring the elusive green.

You can, after all, be a gentleman about all this. You can, if you figure crime is the quickest, safest, most exciting way of making the most money in the shortest time, go about it like a gent. You can fool people.

You can, in short, become a con man.

“My name is Betty,” she said. “Betty Prescott.”

“I live with my cousin here. Isabel Johnson?”

Arthur Brown was a detective/2nd grade and a known tendency toward impatience. He was impatient, perhaps, because his name was Brown and the accidentals of birth had tinted his complexion the same color. He had taken a lot of ribbing from fellow Americans over the years and had once considered changing his name to Lipschitz so that the hate mongers could really have a ball. His impatience, as it related to his chosen profession, was sometimes a hindrance, but it crossed a very subtle line into a second character trait, and that trait was doggedness. Once Brown got his teeth into a case, he wouldn’t unclamp his jaws until the nut was cracked. His impatience was a peculiar thing.

Impatiently, Brown asked, “What happened?”

“Well, when we got here to the city, I got off the train, and I was walking along when this man came up to me.” “Where was this?” Brown asked. “Right in the station,” Betty said. “Go ahead.” “He said hello, and he asked me was I new in the city? I said, no, I’d been up North for two years, but I was working out the state. He seemed like a very nice fellow, dressed nice, you know? Respectable?” “Yes,” Kling said. “Anyway, he said he was a preacher. He looked like a preacher, too. He started blessing me then. He said God bless you and all like that, and he said I should be very careful in the big city because there was all kinds of pitfalls for a young, innocent girl. People who’d want to do me harm?”

“He said I should be especially careful with money, because there was all sorts of people who’d do most anything to get their hands on it. He asked me if I had any money with me.” “Was he white or Negro?” Brown asked. Betty looked at Kling somewhat apologetically. “He was white,” she said. “Go ahead,” Brown told her. “Well, I said I had a little money with me, and he asked me if I’d like him to bless it for me? He said, ‘Do you have a ten-dollar bill,’ and I said no. So he said, ‘Do you have a five-dollar bill,’ and I said yes. Then he took out his own five-dollar bill, and he put it into this little white envelope. With a cross on the front. A crucifix?”

“Then he said something like, ‘God bless this money and keep it safe from those who would…’ Oh, like that. We kept talking, and he put the envelope back in his pocket, and then he said, ‘Here, my child, you take this blessed five dollars and let me have your bill.’ I gave him my five dollars, and he reached into his pocket and gave me the envelope with the cross on it, the envelope with the blessed money.”

“Surprise,” Brown said. “No five dollars.” “Why, no!” Betty said. “There was just a folded paper napkin in the envelope. He must have switched that envelope while he was talking to me, after he’d blessed the money. I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I needed that five dollars. Can’t you catch him?”

“Think we’ll get him?” “I don’t know. Chances are he won’t be working the same place tomorrow. I tell you, Bert, I think there’s an upswing in confidence men these days, you know it?” “I thought they were dying out.” “For a while, yeah. But, all of a sudden, all the old confidence games are reappearing. Games that have beards on them they’re so old. All of a sudden, they start cropping up.” Brown shook his head. “I don’t know.”

The girl in the River Harb had had some real harm done to her. She floated up onto the rocks near the Hamilton Bridge, and three young kids didn’t know what she was at first, and then they realized, and they ran like hell for the nearest cop.

“This is Di Angelo,” the patrolman said. “Yeah?” “I’ve got a floater near the bridge.”

He had healed. Time heals all wounds, the wise men say. Of course, the wise men didn’t know about rain and bullet holes. When it rained, Carella’s healed wounds ached. He always thought that was a bunch of bull, wounds aching when it rained. Well, it was not a bunch of bull. His wounds ached when it rained, and so he was glad the rain had stopped and the sun was shining.

He looked at the body again, and then because certain police formalities had to be followed whenever an unknown body turned up, he took a small black pad from his back pocket. He opened the pad, slid the pencil out from under its leather loop, and wrote: 1) Place where body found: Washed ashore on rock pile in River Harb. 2) Time when found:

“One-fifteen it is,” Carella said, and he wrote down the information. He then wrote, 3) Cause of death? and 4) Time when death occurred? and left both those items to be filled in by the ME or the coroner. He next wrote: 5) Supposed age: 25-35. 6) Supposed profession: ? 7) Description of body: a) Sex: Female. b) Color: White. c) Nationality: ? d) Height: ? e) Weight: ?

The tattoo was a simple heart, the point of which ran toward the arm. There was a single word within the heart. The tattoo looked like this:

It requires a certain amount of dispassionate, emotionless patience to lift fingerprint impressions from fingers and thumbs that have been cut from a cadaver.

Unfortunately, the girl had not been in the water for a short period of time.

Unfortunately, the unidentified dead girl had been in the water for close to four months, and the laboratory technicians had to turn to more tedious and inventive methods of getting their fingerprints. In the hands of less-skilled operators than Sam Grossman’s men, an attempt at the papillary method may have proved less expedient and less fruitful. But Sam’s men were whizzes, and so they took each finger and each thumb, and they stood over Bunsen burners and slowly, methodically, doggedly dried the fingers, passing them over the flame, their hands moving in short arcs, back and forth, back and forth, until each finger had shrunk and dried.

Their impressions did not tell them who the dead girl was. One copy of her prints was sent to the Bureau of Criminal Identification. One copy was sent to the FBI. A third copy was sent to the Bureau of Missing Persons. A fourth was sent to Homicide North—since all suicides or suspected suicides are treated exactly like homicides. And, finally, a copy was sent to the Detective Division of the 87th Precinct, in which territory the body had been found.

“Anyway, I did the Gettler test. Idea is that if someone drowns, water passes from the lungs into the blood. We can tell pretty well this way whether a person drowned in fresh water or salt water.” “How so?” “If it was fresh water, the blood in the left side of the heart will have a lower-than-normal chloride content. Salt water, the blood in the left side of the heart will have a higher-than-normal amount of chloride.” “This girl was found in the River Harb,” Carella said. “That’s fresh water, isn’t it?” “Sure. But according to Smith—you know, Smith, Glaister, and Von Neureiter…” “Go ahead,” Carella said. “According to Smith, if a person is already dead when he’s thrown into the water, it’s impossible for any water to get into that person’s left heart.” Blaney paused. “In other words, if we find no water in the left heart during autopsy, we can safely assume that person didn’t drown. That person was dead before he hit the water.” “Yes?” Carella said, interested now. “This little girl didn’t have a drop of water there, Carella. This little girl didn’t drown.”

Carella stared deep into Blaney’s violet eyes. “How’d she die?” he asked. “Acute arsenic poisoning,” Blaney said. “Greatest amount of it was found in the stomach and intestines. Indicates oral ingestion. The whole system was not impregnated, so we can chalk off chronic poisoning. This was acute. She may, in fact, have died just a few hours after she swallowed the stuff.”

Life, if you take a somewhat dim and cynical view of it, is something like a big con game. Look around you, friends, and see the confidence men.

It’s the hard sell and the soft sell, anywhere you go, everywhere you go. It comes at you a hundred times a day, and maybe it’s stretching a point to say that every human being has his own confidence game, that every human being has a tiny touch of larceny in his soul, but be careful, friend; the television is on, and that man is pointing at you!

The man in the dark-blue suit was a con man.

He saw Jamison come out of one of the elevators. Quickly, he rose and stood with the guidebook open at the top of the steps leading to the street. He could see Jamison, from the corner of his eye, moving toward the steps. He buried himself in the guidebook, and when Jamison was abreast of him, he moved sharply to the left, colliding with him. Jamison looked startled. He was a stout man with a red face, dressed in a brown pinstripe. The con man fumbled for the fallen guidebook, and then, from his knees, said, “Gosh, I’m sorry. Excuse me, please.” “That’s all right,” Jamison said.

The con man introduced himself as Charlie Parsons. Jamison said his first name was Elliot. Together, they walked up the street, looking at the various bars, deciding against one or another for various reasons—most of which Parsons offered. When they came to a place called The Red Cockatoo, Parsons took Jamison’s arm and said, “Now, this looks like a nice place. How about it?” “Suits me fine,” Jamison said. “One bar’s just about as good as another, the way I look at it.”

Parsons turned, smiling. “Oh?” he said. “Where you from?” “Wilmington,” the redhead said. “We’re out-of-towners, too,” Parsons explained. “Listen, if you haven’t anything else to do, why don’t you join us for a drink?” “Well, gee, that’s awfully kind of you,” the redhead said. “But I wouldn’t want to impose.” “No imposition at all,” Parsons said. He turned to Jamison. “You don’t mind, do you, Elliot?” “Not at all,” Jamison said. “More the merrier.” “Well, in that case, I’d enjoy it a lot,” the redhead said. “I’m Charlie Parsons,” Parsons said, “and this is Elliot Jamison.” “Pleased to know you,” the redhead said. “I’m Frank O’Neill.”

“Drink whatever you like and as much as you like,” O’Neill said, “because this is all on me.” “Oh, no,” Parsons said. “We invited you to join us.” “I don’t care,” O’Neill insisted. “If it wasn’t for you fellows, I’d be on the town alone. Hell, that’s no fun.” “Well,” Jamison said, “I really don’t think it’s fair for you—” “It certainly wouldn’t be fair, Elliot. We’ll each pay for a round, how’s that?” “No, sir!” O’Neill objected.

He flipped and covered his coin. Parsons flipped, covered the coin, and said, “We won’t match this time.” He lifted his hand—tails. O’Neill uncovered his coin. “Heads! I could have told you! I could have told you even before I looked at the damn thing. I never win! Never!” He rose angrily. “Where’s the men’s room? I’m going to the men’s room!” He stalked away from the table, and Parsons watched him. “I’d like to apologize,” Parsons said. “When I invited him, I had no idea he was such a sore loser.” “Hell, the matching was all his idea, anyway,” Jamison said.

Parsons seemed to have a sudden idea. “Listen,” he said, “let’s have some fun with him.” “What kind of fun?” “Well, he’s a sore loser—worst I’ve ever seen.” “Me, too,” Jamison said. “He said he’s got three thousand dollars with him. Let’s take it away from him.” “What?” Jamison said, suddenly righteously indignant. “Not for keeps. We’ll take it away from him and then give it all back later.” “Take it away? But I don’t understand.” “We’ll change the matching rules when he comes back. We’ll make it odd man loses. All right, we’ll make sure that your coin and my coin always match. Nine times out of ten, he’ll be odd man. And loser.” “How we going to do that?” Jamison asked, beginning to get interested in the idea of a little sport. “Simple. Keep your coin on end so you can shove it down to either heads or tails. If I touch my nose with my finger, make your coin show heads. If I don’t touch it, show tails.”

Parsons said. “I’ve got a little money with me. Let’s see how fast you can take it away from me, using my theory.” He paused, then turned to Jamison. “You’ve got some money with you, haven’t you, Elliot?” “About two hundred and fifty dollars,” Jamison said. “I don’t like to carry too much with me. You never know.”

“What’s what?” Parsons asked. “I’ve dropped nearly six hundred dollars so far.” He turned to Jamison. “How much have you lost?” Jamison did a little mental calculation. “Oh, about two hundred thirty-five, something like that.” “And you?” O’Neill said to Parsons. “I’m winning,” Parsons said.

“And crooks are crooks,” O’Neill said. “I’m getting a cop.” He started away from the table. Jamison’s face went white. “Charlie,” he said, “we’ve got to stop him. A joke is a joke, but Jesus—” “I’ll get him,” Parsons said, rising. He chuckled. “God, he’s a weird duck, isn’t he? I’ll bring him right back. You wait here.” O’Neill had already reached the door. As he stepped outside, Parsons called, “Hey, Frank! Wait a minute!” and ran out after him. Jamison sat at the table alone, still frightened, telling himself he would never again be party to a practical joke. It wasn’t until a half hour later that he realized the joke was on him.

He walked around the room until he came to the cabinet containing the file of persons who were reported missing in November of the preceding year. He opened the top drawer of the cabinet, pulled up a straight-back wooden chair upon which to prop his foot, and doggedly began leafing through the folders.

Kling, at the moment, was involved in routine—and routine is the most routine thing in the world.

When you’ve looked at missing person report after missing person report, you begin to wish you were missing yourself. After a while, they all begin to blend together into a big mass of humanity that has formed a conspiracy to bore you to death. After a while, you don’t know who has the birthmark on her left breast or who has the tattoo on his big toe. After a while, you don’t even care. There are amusing breaks in the routine, of course, but these are few and far between.

He lighted another cigarette and continued his search for someone who might possibly resemble the 87th’s floater.

By the end of the day, he had finished the second pack, and he’d also collected a sizable pile of folders that could possibly tie in with the floater.