his best not to ponder why a bishop of the church would be purchasing a twelve-hundred-dollar diamond necklace, nor why he would be paying good cash money for it.
“The bishop bids him a hearty farewell, and walks out on the street, only for a heavy hand to descend on his shoulder. ‘Why, Soapy, yez spalpeen, up to your old tricks are you?’ and a broad beat cop with an honest Irish face walks the bishop back into the jewelry store.
“‘Beggin’ your pardon, but has this man just bought anything from you?’ asks the cop. ‘Certainly not,’ says the bishop. ‘Tell him I have not.’ ‘Indeed he has,’ says the jeweler. ‘He bought a pearl and diamond necklace from me—paid for it in cash as well.’ ‘Would you have the bills available, sir?’ asks the cop.
“So the jeweler takes the twelve hundred-dollar bills from the cash register and hands them to the cop, who holds them up to the light and shakes his head in wonder. ‘Oh, Soapy, Soapy,’ he says, ‘these are the finest that you’ve made yet! You’re a craftsman, that you are!’
“A self-satisfied smile spreads across the bishop’s face. ‘You can’t prove nothing,’ says the bishop. ‘And the bank said that they were on the level. It’s the real green stuff.’ ‘I’m sure they did,’ agrees the cop on the beat, ‘but I doubt that the bank had been warned that Soapy Sylvester was in town, nor of the quality of the hundred-dollar bills he’d been passing in Denver and in St. Louis.’ And with that he reaches into the bishop’s pocket and pulls out the necklace. “Twelve hundred dollars’ worth of diamonds and pearls in exchange for fifty cents’ worth of paper and ink,’ says the policeman, who is obviously a philosopher at heart. ‘And passing yourself off as a man of the church. You should be ashamed,’ he says, as he claps the handcuffs on the bishop, who is obviously no bishop, and he marches him away, but not before he gives the jeweler a receipt for both the necklace and the twelve hundred counterfeit dollars. It’s evidence, after all.”
“Was it really counterfeit?” asked Shadow.
“Of course not! Fresh banknotes, straight from the bank, only with a thumbprint and a smudge of green ink on a couple of them to make them a little more interesting.”
Shadow sipped his coffee. It was worse than prison coffee. “So the cop was obviously no cop. And the necklace?”
“Evidence,” said Wednesday. He unscrewed the top from the salt-shaker, poured a little heap of salt on the table. “But the jeweler gets a receipt, and assurance that he’ll get the necklace straight back as soon as Soapy comes to trial. He is congratulated on being a good citizen, and he watches, proudly, already thinking of the tale he’ll have to tell at the next meeting of the Oddfellows tomorrow night, as the policeman marches the man pretending to be a bishop out of the store, twelve hundred dollars in one pocket, a twelve-hundred-dollar diamond necklace in the other, on their way to a police station that’ll never see hide nor hair of either of them.”
The waitress had returned to clear the table. “Tell me, my dear,” said Wednesday. “Are you married?”
She shook her head.
“Astonishing that a young lady of such loveliness has not yet been snapped up.” He was doodling with his fingernail in the spilled salt, making squat, blocky rune-like shapes. The waitress stood passively beside him, reminding Shadow less of a fawn and more of a young rabbit caught in an eighteen-wheeler’s headlights, frozen in fear and indecision.
Wednesday lowered his voice, so much so that Shadow, only across the table, could barely hear him. “What time do you get off work?”
“Nine,” she said, and swallowed. “Nine thirty latest.”
“And what is the finest motel in this area?”
“There’s a Motel 6,” she said. “It’s not much.”
Wednesday touched the back of her hand, fleetingly, with the tips of his fingers, leaving crumbs of salt on her skin. She made no attempt to wipe them off. “To us,” he said, his voice an almost inaudible rumble, “it shall be a pleasure-palace.”
The waitress looked at him. She bit her thin lips, hesitated, then nodded and fled for the kitchen.
“C’mon,” said Shadow. “She looks barely legal.”
“I’ve never been overly concerned about legality,” Wednesday told him. “Not as long as I get what I want. Sometimes the nights are long and cold. And I need her, not as an end in herself, but to wake me up