Page 3 of Concluded (The Bureau #13)
“Fake charms are a good schtick. Tell a schmuck that the tchotchke you sold him will give him good luck, and every time something positive happens to him, he’ll give the charm credit.
If he stops believing in it, he’s not going to run to the cops.
He didn’t lose enough for it to be worth the hassle, and besides, he’s a little embarrassed about being taken in.
” Abe shrugged. “Not much harm done. Back in the day, I used to… well, let’s just say it’s a con I know well. ” He winked.
“Then why are you here?” Dee was thoroughly confused by this encounter. He hated not having his feet firmly beneath him.
“Because from what we hear, with you it’s not always a con.
Sometimes you sell a schmuck a good-luck charm and he wins the lottery five days in a row.
A woman comes to you because she wants a baby and all the doctors have given up on her.
You sell her a charm and nine months later, she’s a mother. Or someone?—”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dee lied. He was caught. If he kept denying what he could do, then he was committing fraud and would get hauled back to jail. If he admitted it, then he was… something else.
“Don’t look so frightened,” Abe said gently. “I’m not here to get you in trouble. Remember what I said before: I’m here because maybe you can help me out. Help us all out.”
“You want to buy a charm?” Dee asked doubtfully.
Abe shook his head. Gently, he asked, “How do you make them work, Dee?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Dee was a big man, a good six inches taller than Abe and heavier, not to mention twenty years or so younger.
Logic said that Dee would have no trouble taking him in a fight.
But Abe showed no sense of fear no matter how heavily Dee glowered, no matter if Dee’s hands were drawn into tight fists.
If anything, he looked slightly disappointed, like a teacher who’d expected more from a student.
After a moment, Abe stood, but he didn’t collect his hat and coat.
He crossed to the dining area, where a window looked out at the puddle-filled parking lot.
It wasn’t a particularly nice view, yet Abe stared for a long time.
When he turned back, his expression was solemn.
“My old boss liked to give cryptic lectures. Rarely to me or Thomas because we were the ones who made him what he was—and nearly the only ones who knew what he truly was. But he lectured everyone else. I think he avoided me and Thomas when he could. And now, the new chief isn’t much of a talker at all.
Which means I have only a sketchy idea of what’s going on.
And to be honest, I know more than I want to. ”
Dee had been uneasy since Abe appeared, but now his fingers tingled and his lungs didn’t want to work right. He was scared shitless and had no clue why, especially since he didn’t understand what the hell this guy was talking about. “What are you?—”
“You can feel it, can’t you? The world trembling on the edge. We’ve been here before. Even though I was in San Francisco in the thirties, I could sense this… this tipping. This sliding. Back near my homeland and creeping ever outward. Couldn’t do much about it, but I knew ?—”
“You’re not old enough to have been alive in the thirties.”
Abe gave a humorless grin. “And you can’t make real magic charms. The point , boychik, is that we’re tipping again.
Most of the time, we hold a delicate, precarious balance.
We’re losing that balance now. And I’m here because we need all the help we can get to stop the tipping, and the chief thinks you can contribute.
” He held his hands palms up, as if he’d explained everything.
He’d explained nothing. Except… Dee knew exactly what Abe was talking about.
And it was the reason why he assiduously avoided listening to or reading the news.
Why he felt so bleak even though he’d been broker than this in the past. Why on some days, getting out of bed didn’t seem worth the effort.
Why he startled awake in the middle of the night, heart pounding and sweat dampening his sheets, quickly repressing memories of dreams about falling.
“A good luck charm isn’t going to bring about world peace,” Dee said.
“No. But this isn’t a game of big plays. Remember what I said: delicate balance. One or two small things can tip it either way.”
“I’m not the kind of guy who can save anything.”
“Then are you the kind of guy who can cause us to lose it all?”
Of course Dee should deny that. He should insist that although he cared more about himself than he did anyone else in the world—and he didn’t care much about himself—he was nothing worse than a selfish asshole.
He wasn’t a real threat. But looking into his own dark heart, he wasn’t sure that was true.
Sometimes indifference had worse consequences than hate.
“I don’t know how I make the charms work. Sometimes they just do.” That, at least, was the truth.
After staring for a long moment, Abe sighed.
“Maybe this is something you need time to think about. So okay, I can give you some of that. But not much, sheifale. Once we tip too far, there’s no going back.
And we’re almost there.” Then he brightened a little.
“But we’ve got some strong people on our side, and we still have hope.
Hope turns tides. And I hope you’ll come around. ”
He slowly put on his coat and buttoned it up, then settled the hat on his head at an angle he must have known made him look dashing.
He pulled a card from his coat pocket and set it on the little table that generally collected keys, mail, and sales circulars.
“Call that number if you do come around.”
Dee didn’t answer.
Abe paused with one hand on the doorknob, then turned to look at Dee. “Your name. Is that your legal name? A nickname?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Just curious.”
“It’s an initial. My birth certificate says Damnation Martell.”
Abe snorted a laugh. “There’s a story there, I bet. And I’m going to give you some homework. Read the poem ‘The Second Coming’ by Yeats. See how that hits you.”
Without another word, Abe left, shutting the door firmly behind him.
Dee remained slumped on the couch, stomach still roiling. Outside, the rain intensified, pounding a beat against the windows. He did not pick up his phone to look up that poem.
But he knew he would, eventually.