Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

feeling worn wooden planks creak beneath my feet. There wasn’t a toy in there made later than 1946. Reminded me of the old five and ten cent stores back in Seattle downtown, the bins on the oak tables full of tiny lead cars and soldiers, sets of jacks and hopfrogs, aggies and shooters and cats-eyes, airplane glue and balsa strips.
    »Psychical research,« he said. »You’re fucking with me, Walter.«
    »No I’m not. Why would I? Look, I don’t know who they are any more than you do. But they’re definitely not ours or anybody else’s, near as I can tell. They’re –«
    »What?«
    »Hard to say. Look, I know they’re not Agency. At first I thought Bennett might be in on it –«
    »Not a chance,« he said, whispering. »They’d have cut off his head first time he tried pinching their ass.« We flipped through a rack of paper dolls, marvelling at how many outfits you could get for Shirley Temple. On the wall to our right was a shelf lined with a row of mechanical banks, reproductions of early twentieth-century toys. Cast-iron Teddy Roosevelts fired pennies into trees, making cast-iron bears pop out the top; Uncle Sam dropped coins into his satchel and waggled his chin whiskers. There were others – »Always Did ’spise A Mule,« where the latter threw a hapless pickaninny and the penny he held onto the ground; »Darktown Battery,« where a pitcher was ready to lob a cent at a gangly, thick-lipped batter. These weren’t entirely accurate reproductions; the once-black figures were all painted white. In the centre of the shelf was a bank I remembered seeing in stores when I was young; a bust of a man with one arm and a giant grinning head. The cast iron hair was curled tight, the nose broad and flat, the lips full, the ears protuberant. You put the coin in the hand and pressed the button; the arm raised to the mouth and the coin fell inside. The ears wiggled. On this model, the hair was blonde, the eyes blue, the face pale as Bennett’s; but along the bottom of the bust the legend still read JOLLY NIGGER. It was the cheapest of the lot, at fourteen ninety-five.
    »What’s the kraut add to this gumbo, anyway?«
    »I’m not absolutely sure,« Martin said. »He’s an associate of Hamilton’s. Since he’s at Justice I have no say-so in the matter.«
    »And if he starts asking the wrong kind of questions about the wrong people?«
    Martin gritted his teeth, and ran his hand over his bald head. He shaved it every morning, so not a trace of a kink might show. Told everyone he’d lost his hair when he had typhoid, as a child. »No. That won’t happen.«
    »You’re sure?«
    The clerk gave us a truant-officer stare, probably beginning to suspect we were waiting to lure away toddlers with candy. »Sirs,« she said, »we’ll be closing momentarily.«
    I nudged Martin and we headed out. »It’s not going to help matters if you keep being seen with those girls,« he said. »The big one is a girl, isn’t she?«
    »And a mile wide,« I said. »They haven’t asked me if they can come around. It’s hard to fight ’em off.«
    »That’s clear,« he said. »What did she cut his hand off for? What did she cut it off with?« He shoved his mitts in his pockets after buttoning his coat. DC boys always cracked under the strain of New York weather. »Look, I’ve got to get to the station.«
    »Stag or drag?«
    »They left on the four-thirty. Good thing for you I had to get a second fitting for a suit up at Brooks Brothers. When the police finally did look at your file they called my number, and luckily my assistant knew where I’d be.«
    »Give her a raise,« I said.
    »I can make the seven-twenty. When are you going record shopping?«
    »Tomorrow,«. I said. »What should I know about this that they’re not telling?«
    »I’m not telling,« Martin said. We grinned, feeling fairly jolly ourselves for the moment.
     
    The West Side Record Store was next to the Wong Kee laundromat on the 82 nd Street side of the Endicott Hotel. Homicide Arms we called it, six people killed there every year on average: autoerotic fatalities, homosexual love stabbings, old drunks poking out each others’ eyes with pocket knifes, horse deals gone ruinously bad. Places like this attract good record stores; something in the air, I suppose. The jingle bells rang when I popped open the door. »Hey there,« the owner called out, seeing me. »Where you been, stranger?« Now that I knew who he actually was, it was impossible to miss. Tucked