by Colin Meloy
“It’s my job, I can’t help it.”
Charlie walked back to Amir and reached out his hand. “Just give it back, please.”
“No, no. This is a good lesson. No one keeps a watch in their britch kick anyway. I’ll teach you the easiest ticker score in the books.”
With the elegant Rolex strapped to his wrist, Amir reached out for a handshake. Charlie took his hand.
“Again,” said Amir, “imagine the chump’s eyes are like spotlights, yeah? Always work in the dark around that light.”
“Sure, but what if he looks down?”
“Don’t let him look down. Steer his attention. It’s a push and pull, yeah? You have to ease into any touch. It’s like . . . it’s like . . .” Here Amir was searching for an apt metaphor. “It’s like when you’re trying to make it, you know, with a girl.”
Charlie blushed. “I wouldn’t know much about that,” he admitted.
“What, you never kissed a girl, Charlie?”
“I gave Alice Grundel a peck on the cheek at her coming-out party.”
“That don’t count.” Amir took an exasperated breath before continuing, “But you got an imagination. So imagine you’re going to make a move on old Alice Grundel, yeah?”
“Okay,” replied Charlie sheepishly. He’d always had a thing for Alice.
“And all the while, you’re, like, measuring your chances, yeah? Gauging her response. Waiting for the moment. Stepping back when she’s giving you the cold shoulder. Warming her up again. And then when you get the green light, you go for it. No hesitation, yeah?”
“Maybe there’s another analogy that might apply?”
Amir glared at Charlie. “Seems like pickpocketing ain’t the only lesson you need. But okay, here goes. Like, you’re sneaking up on someone. You watch them, you wait till they ain’t looking, yeah? You move closer. Patience is key. Always patience. And watching. So here.” His hand still gripped in Charlie’s, he twisted his wrist so that the clasp of the watch was visible. “Pinch the band so that it stays tight against my wrist. Always keep the pressure, so I won’t feel it coming loose. Now, with the two fingers, quickly undo the clasp.”
Charlie did this; the silver band clicked open. With his thumb and his ring finger, he managed to keep the heavy watch face pressed to Amir’s skin.
“Now,” continued Amir, “misdirect.”
Thinking spontaneously, Charlie reached with his left hand and tugged at the lapel of Amir’s shirt. The boy took the bait and glanced down at Charlie’s fingers. While Amir’s attention was thus diverted, Charlie nimbly flipped the unclasped watch over into his hand and stepped back, shoving the timepiece into his pants pocket. Amir smiled. “Well done,” he said.
“That felt good,” said Charlie.
Amir put his arm around Charlie’s shoulder. “That ain’t the half of it, my flash companion. Wait till you’re on a big score, working three- or four-handed with a real class cannon and a proper tool running duke. Pulling in the fattest marks this city’ll give you. That, my friend, is living.”
“So, let’s do it,” said Charlie.
“Let’s do what?”
“Let’s do a real ‘score.’” He waved to his surroundings. “You didn’t bring me all the way down here just to have me steal my own watch from you.”
“Maybe I was just seeing how you’d fare first.”
“And . . . ?”
“C’mon, Charlie. I taught you a couple easy touches. You ain’t ready for the big time.”
“How did you learn, huh? I bet there was a time when you were just thrown out there. A fellow has to start somewhere, right?”
Amir stared at Charlie for a moment before replying, “Okay. Say I let you play center field a bit. Turn you out as a stall man. You won’t mess that up too much.”
“Oh, this is grand. Real grand!” Charlie exclaimed, and he clapped his hands enthusiastically.
“Besides, you might be the perfect stall. No one’s gonna suspect a well-dressed American kid.” Amir winked gamely at his new friend. “This might be a gas, after all.”
Chapter
FIVE
The two boys made their way up La Canebière, that wide boulevard where the action of the quay funneled eastward and which the American soldiers, during World War II, affectionately renamed “The Can o’ Beer.” The shop fronts were open from their shuttered afternoon siestas and the cafés began to overflow with locals enjoying their post-work pastis and glasses of rosé wine, fogged by condensate and rimmed with lipstick marks. The smell of tobacco smoke and freshly brewed coffee was everywhere. Amir had slowed his pace to a casual stroll, his hands in his pockets, and this time Charlie had no trouble keeping up. The flood of pedestrians on the crowded sidewalk sometimes felt like a rushing river current, which the two boys were either swimming against or being carried along by.
“Hey,” hissed Charlie. “What about him?”
He was pointing to a young man, aged about twenty-five, standing alone by a newspaper box. The man was counting out change in the palm of his hand, his brow furrowed. He was so distracted by this task that he seemed to Charlie to be the ideal mark.
“That egg? No way,” replied Amir. “Prat diggers looking for smash, maybe. But that is no job for a class mob.”
“You’ll have to translate,” said Charlie.
“There are three kinds of marks, Charlie. Eggs, bateses, and pappies. An egg is a younger guy. Probably not carrying much of interest. Starting out in life, yeah? Like that guy, counting his ridge, his smash—his change. He’s down on the knuckle, that one. Poor. A fat mark never counts his smash. Wouldn’t want to deprive this one of his life savings, know what I mean? So that is off-limits. Then there’s a pappy. Your typical elderly gentleman. A pensioner. Someone’s grandpapa, no doubt. A class cannon don’t go in for that. What we want is a good, solid bates. A well-off guy in his forties. Thinks he’s the cock of the walk, yeah? He could lose a leather full of dough and he wouldn’t care one way or the other.”
“Got it,” said Charlie, renewing his search.
“Way I see it, we’re evening the score a bit, yeah?” said Amir. “Bringing folks down a peg or two. You find a real loaded mark with an okus the size of St. Peter’s, and you trim the fat a bit. Give some other guy or gal a chance in life. Like these chumps over here.”
Charlie’s eyes followed Amir’s nod toward a group of men in well-pressed black suits standing in front of the colonnaded entrance to what looked to be a law office. “Lawyers. Parasites on society. In fact . . .” Here Amir ran over to a nearby waste bin and returned with a half-crumpled sheet from the morning’s newspaper. “Why don’t you put your hump up for me, Charlie?”
“Pardon?”
Amir shoved the newspaper in Charlie’s hands. “I’m gonna lighten their load a bit. And I need you to shade the duke. Go on and ask ’em if they can read this blute for you. Really get it in their faces.”
Charlie’s heart started racing. “What if they—”
“There’s no what if. Just believe in yourself.” Amir gave Charlie a reassuring slap on the shoulder. “I’ll be right behind you.”
The men were smoking cigars, holding them out at arm’s length and then bringing them back to their mouths as if they were playing imaginary trombones, and a perpetual cloud of smoke overcast their heads. They were indeed affluent; they reeked of wealth and privilege. Charlie immediately recognized them as the types one might see at the gala fund-raisers his father sometimes made him attend, the ones who sat smugly at their tables while neighbors glad-handed them at frequent intervals. Surely, as Amir had said, they wouldn’t miss a few francs.
“Excusez-moi,” said Charlie. “Parlez-vous anglais?” Charlie’s French was awfully rudimentary, but he was mostly certain he’d asked them if they spoke English.
“Hrrm,” began one of the men, “Yes, I do.”
“Oh, good,” said Charlie. “Do you mind telling me what this says?” He then unfurled the newspaper and brought it up
in front of the men in such a way that the ground below them was completely covered. It was a little awkward but didn’t seem to invite immediate suspicion.
“Why, it says a Russian man has been launched into space,” said one of the men, his English smooth but heavily accented. He wore thick black glasses and a short-shorn beard. He spoke around the stalk of his cigar. “Un homme dans l’espace. Man in space. What do you say to that?” He then turned to his compatriots and began speaking in French; the men all expressed wonder and craned in to look at the photo of the cosmonaut that was printed below the headline. Charlie himself was won over to this remarkable news and began to decipher the lede of the article when he felt a sharp tug on his shirt, just at the waist, and was reminded of his task.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” he said. “Merci.”
“De rien,” responded the men.
Charlie left the newspaper blute, as Amir had called it, with the lawyers, who continued to discuss the incredible story long after Charlie had left them. When he saw Amir standing some feet away in the sanctuary of a doorway, he smiled and waved. “Did you see that?” he asked. “The Russians put a man into space.” When he saw that Amir seemed unimpressed, he repeated the most important bit: “Into space!”
“Charlie, you don’t shade yourself,” said Amir. “I could’ve picked your pocket ten times over those fellows.”
Charlie’s heart was racing. “Did you get out okay?”
“Easy queasy,” said Amir.
“It’s easy peasy, actually,” said Charlie. “What’d you get?”
“A handful of cordeens,” said Amir, holding up what appeared to Charlie to be three accordion-folded wallets. He handed one to Charlie and proceeded to dump the contents of the other ill-gotten billfolds into his palm. “Five hundred francs in mine. Very nice haul.”
“I’ve got three fives and a tenner,” said Charlie, displaying his emptied wallet.
“A pocket watch, a handful of ridge, and a pipe,” said Amir, removing more treasures from his pockets. “All in all, not bad.”
“Huh,” said Charlie. He chewed on his lower lip a bit, glancing down the street as he did. “I feel a bit conflicted about all this.”
“That’s natural,” said Amir, putting his arm over Charlie’s shoulder. He had thrust the pipe between his lips and was mouthing it like a real grown-up. “But to men of their means, this is a drop in a very large bucket, yeah? Your first real score, Charlie. Let’s ding the dead ones and go celebrate.” With these words, he grabbed the wallet from Charlie and threw it, along with his, into a nearby waste bin.
Charlie was still mulling over the moral implications of his “stalling” when Amir guided him through the doors of a café.
“I mean,” said Charlie, pushing himself onto one of the stools at the counter, “I didn’t actually do the stealing.”
“Tell yourself whatever you like, Charlie,” said Amir. “What are you drinking?”
“Grenadine,” replied Charlie.
Amir then turned to the young waitress behind the bar and said, “Deux grenadines, s’il vous plaît!” The waitress, her eyes blackened with mascara and her blond hair coiled into a beehive, grumpily acknowledged the order.
Charlie thought for a moment, his fingers making little swirls in the Formica countertop. “They were lawyers, you said?”
“The worst kind,” responded Amir. He chomped comically on his newfound pipe.
“Say they just finished trying some suit,” said Charlie. “Some innocent young man, about to get married. A man who was about to get a promotion over one his coworkers—this coworker was passed over.”
“Good, good,” said Amir.
Charlie continued, “And so the coworker sets up the man, maybe falsely accusing him of some great espionage. And this man is arrested and is tried before the assize court—for which the coworker gives false testimony.”
The story was briefly interrupted as the waitress set down two glasses of atomic-red syrup on the countertop in front of the boys. Two bottles of Lorina soda appeared alongside the glasses and the boys poured them, fizzing, into the grenadine. The waitress eyed the two boys, the way their heads were bent together as if they were crafting some elaborate plot. Rolling her eyes, she walked away.
“The guy is put away for decades,” said Charlie, taking a sip, “and those lawyers, those marks, were out celebrating just another day of settling justice. A bent justice.”
“Well told, Charlie,” said Amir.
“That works, a bit,” said Charlie. “I don’t feel so bad.”
“That’s good, real good,” said Amir. “Storytelling will suit you well in this business. You know, now that I think on it, it occurs to me that the best cannons are the best storytellers. But they’re also good story listeners. They’re always on the lookout for a tale.” He paused and took a slurp off the brim of his glass. “Stories sort of come out at you, yeah? A real good storyteller follows a story like he’s hustling a chump, like he’s on the whiz. He figures out who the bad guy is, who the good guys are. He listens and pieces together the information that he doesn’t have, like Sherlock Holmes. Then he follows those leads. In the pickpocket racket, it’s called the grift know.”
“The grift know,” repeated Charlie, ever the studious learner.
“Uh-huh.” Amir wiped a red soda mustache from his upper lip and surveyed the café. In many ways, it was a typical Marseillais café. A bench upholstered in Naugahyde ran the length of the wall opposite the bar, and a generous splay of tables and chairs hosted a healthy post-work crowd. The afternoon being mild, the patrons spilled out into the street-side seating; a multitude of conversations made a pleasant racket between the wood-paneled walls. Several dressed-down waiters (this being a run-of-the-mill café) sauntered disinterestedly among the clientele, neatly defying physics with their overfilled trays of emptied glasses balanced on the palm of one hand. A young man in a brown khaki uniform sat a few stools down from Amir and Charlie, busily tearing his cocktail napkin into little shreds.
“For instance,” said Amir, gesturing to the soldier, “what do you suppose his story is?”
“A soldier, obviously,” responded Charlie, eyeing the man carefully. “Maybe he’s a new recruit. He’s nervous about shipping out. That’s why he’s tearing up the napkin.”
“Good, Charlie. You’re finding the story. Though I don’t think he’s new. I think he’s on leave. That’s a deep tan for a new recruit. Most of those guys are coming from all over the country, and you can’t get a tan like that in March in France. My guess would be Algiers.”
“Oh,” said Charlie, “I’d say you’re right.”
Amir squinted over his glass of grenadine, studying their subject. “He’s definitely worried about something. Anxious. What do you suppose it is, Charlie?”
“Isn’t going to war anxiety-inducing enough?”
“But he’s drinking alone. A guy all broke to pieces about war would be surrounding himself with his brothers-in-arms, yeah? No, something else is up here.”
The man called for the waitress. He spoke a few words to her and she replied shortly, gesturing to the clock behind the bar. He studied the clock and then looked nervously at the front door to the café.
“He’s waiting for someone,” Amir and Charlie said in perfect unison.
Amir then shifted in his seat and watched the bartender as she retrieved a bottle of pastis from the shelf and refilled the soldier’s glass. The man knocked the cloudy yellow liquid back with all the intent of someone who was steeling his nerves against the hardiest of challenges.
“Whoo,” said Charlie, giving an impressed whistle. “So he’s obviously very nervous about meeting this whoever-he-is.”
“Or ‘she is,’ more likely.” Amir had now turned to Charlie and, his back to the soldier, began speaking in a hushed voice. “He’s got something in his pocket.”
“He does?” said Charlie. He must have said it inordinately loudly, because he was immediately shushed by Amir
.
“Yes,” hissed his friend. “Coat pit.”
“How can you tell?”
“It’s pushing out the fabric. You can see the outline. Plus, he keeps touching it. Watch.”
Charlie, half-hidden behind Amir’s shoulder, waited and watched. Sure enough, the soldier reached up to his right breast and patted something that was secured in his inside coat pocket. As if satisfying Charlie’s curiosity, the soldier then slipped his hand into his jacket and pulled out a small black box.
“He’s got it out,” said Charlie.
Amir, his back still to the soldier, said, “What is it?”
“A box of some kind. A clamshell box.”
“I knew it,” said Amir. “He’s going to open it, huh?”
“He is, yes.”
“And it’s a necklace—no, a ring.” Amir smiled cockily.
Charlie craned his neck for a better view. Just as Amir had guessed, the soldier was now holding a small golden ring and studying it like a pawnbroker. Even at Charlie’s distance, he could see a small diamond sparkling on the ring.
“You’re right,” said Charlie. “So that means . . .”
“Our poor soldier is preparing himself for a big moment with his best gal, I’d say. That, precisely, is the grift know, my friend. That is following the story.” Amir sat up straight and looked around the room. “Now let’s have a little fun.”
“You’re not going to . . . ,” began Charlie, before confirming his own suspicions by simply seeing the shifty look on Amir’s face. “Isn’t that against the code? I thought we were looking for a—what do you call it—a bates? An older, richer guy?”
“Oh, come on, Charlie. Just a little harmless fun is all. I’ll be right back.”
Before Charlie could object, Amir had lumped a pile of change—smash—on the counter of the bar, swiveled off his stool, and slipped out the front door. The bartender watched him go and then looked at Charlie, as if for an explanation. Charlie shrugged his shoulders.
“You are finished?” asked the woman, in English.
