The store was a circus during the day but serious and calm late at night, when the real work went down. Time, straight-world rules, what his watch said—it was topsy-turvy now. The temperament and spirit of these hours, what you stuffed into them, mattered more than where they fell on a clock’s face.
Moskowitz’s office overlooked the street, separated by walls of frosted glass that allowed sunlight into the showroom. Given the volume of illicit business that crossed his desk, and the travel agency on the second floor across the street, Moskowitz had to open and close the blinds several times a day. Whenever Carney walked in, Moskowitz rose to perform his robot ritual, even late at night when every building opposite was a dead, scuttled ship.
“I put it to you,” Moskowitz said. An item on his desk was wrapped in a white monogrammed handkerchief.
Their lessons were over, but the jeweler teased and tested Carney from time to time. Carney picked up the loupe and unwrapped the bracelet. It was a nice piece. Pigeon blood rubies and diamonds, alternating, channel-set in platinum. He counted: fifteen oval links. Maybe from the ’40s? Light in his hand, but not too dainty—it’d look swell on a society gal’s wrist and also on a woman who worked for a living and would never touch its likes her whole life.
It was a fine piece, an indictment of the motley stuff Carney brought by. He took the challenge as a chance to appreciate the craftsmanship, rather than disrespect. “American-made,” Carney said. “Raymond Yard? From the design.” Moskowitz was a fan of the man’s work and had shown Carney a magazine article on Yard’s pieces for Rockefeller and Woolworth.
“Don’t rush,” Moskowitz often said. “It took a million years to make it, the least you can do is take your time.” Carney squinted some more, and gave his best guess.
“About right. Ballpark,” the jeweler said. “Platinum market now, maybe more.” Moskowitz was a thin man in his late fifties, with the pinched features of a fox. His hair had gone gray but his thin mustache was glossy and black, out of fashion but religiously dyed and groomed. He was a strange mix—congenial but reserved in a way that told you being friendly was an act of will.
The jeweler kept a jar of hard-boiled eggs in vinegar on a filing cabinet and removed one with a pair of brass calipers. Carney always demurred—it reminded him of drinking holes his father used to drag him to—so Moskowitz didn’t offer him one.
Moskowitz bit the egg and rubbed his front teeth with his tongue. “Got a new fan,” he said. “This heat.”
“Times Square, everybody’s sweating.”
“I bet. What have you got?” Moskowitz said.
The Duke job had kept Carney uptown, so his briefcase was heavier than usual. After the Theresa heist, Chink sent his muscle to collect for operating in his territory, but he also started steering thieves to Carney’s office. For a cut. Over time what Chink threw his way became steady business, and lucrative. Half of tonight’s haul was courtesy of the gangster. Bracelets, some not-too-bad necklaces, and a bunch of men’s chronographs and rings, courtesy of Louie the Turtle, who must have knocked over some Captain of Industry. Or robbed someone who had. Some nice pieces. Tomorrow Carney intended to off-load the lesser stuff on the Hunt’s Point gentleman.
Moskowitz lit a cigarette and got to his appraisal. He was not overfond of chitchat, another reason Carney didn’t miss Buxbaum. Carney disapproved of criminals who bragged about their cleverness, crowed over the stupidity of their marks, whose paranoia stemmed not from caution but from an outsize sense of their importance. “Big mouth, small time,” his father used to say. Buxbaum had ripped him off; Carney’s ignorance about the trade demanded it. When the jeweler shared his tales of hoodwinking this or that associate, Carney knew that he featured in similar stories Buxbaum shared with other shady types.
That was another thing: There were too many shady characters around Top Buy Gold & Jewelry, unshaven pocket-flask white men who smelled like gin, who clammed up when Carney walked in. A store—a jewelry store especially—is made for looking. Characters who studiously looked at nothing at all were conspicuous. Eschewing eye contact, checking the street to see if some mistake was catching up with them. Put on a show, for Christ’s sake. Too many losers, too much loser traffic with easily loosened tongues.
But Carney had been stuck with Buxbaum, and the man knew it. The Canal Street jewelry district kept shrinking—merchants going under or joining the Forty-Seventh Street gang—so when Buxbaum’s store got raided it struck Carney as part of a natural process: This is how the city works. The jeweler ended up in the joint and Carney was shit out of luck. Carney reached out through Buxbaum’s lawyer. The name came back: Moskowitz.