his shoulder. “I guess I’m going inside that damn pawnshop.”
AS I followed Matt through the door, a buzzer went off beside my ear. Loud and piercing, the sound startled me. I heard the fat man behind the caged counter chuckle at my reaction.
Inside the pawnshop, the air was warm and close. A radiator hissed somewhere nearby, and the place smelled of mildew and old paper. With each step we took, the warped hardwood floor bumped hollowly.
The shop itself had a strange layout. There was merchandise in the window, but nothing at all in the front of the store, not even shelves. Instead, all the items were piled onto aluminum racks on the other side of the cage. The items were identified by cardboard tickets attached with strings. Prices were scrawled with black magic marker on the tags. The prices seemed absurdly low, but how did one gauge the value of a used and dented microwave oven, anyway?
The wall on the right of the room was the building’s original exposed brick—highly desirable in a SoHo or NoHo loft. Oddly, the wall on the opposite side of the room was covered floor-to-ceiling by sheets of plywood painted a faded and dirty white.
There was a large square hole cut into the wood close to the ornamental tin ceiling. I would have thought it was some kind of ductwork for the heating system, but Matt warned me before we came in here to be careful—there could be a man with a loaded gun watching us through that hole right now.
“Need any help?” asked the fat man behind the cage.
He was either smiling or sneering, I couldn’t tell which. But as Matt approached the steel bars, I could see the man sizing up my ex. From Matt’s wardrobe (he still wore the formalwear from the Beekman party) the clerk could guess Matt wasn’t from the neighborhood.
Matt smiled through the bars at the fat man, who stared with close-set eyes over a pug nose.
“I believe a man came in here a few minutes ago,” Matt began. “Blond guy. Track suit. Sneakers. Yankee cap . . .”
The fat man nodded, bored.
“So you know him?” Matt asked.
“He’s been in and out for the past couple of days,” the fat man replied, regarding Matt with rising interest. “Why do you want to know? Are you a cop or something?”
I sensed no hostility in the man’s response, only wariness.
“Nothing like that,” Matt said quickly. “Van Doorn is a friend of mine, that’s all.”
“That’s his name? Von Doom?”
“Van Doorn,” Matt corrected. “Didn’t you know?”
The clerk shook his bald head. “We don’t ask for names around here. Not his. Not yours. We respect our customer’s privacy.”
“I see. Very commendable,” Matt said, humoring the man. “I appreciate your discretion in this matter, as well. You see, Van Doorn is a friend of mine. Lately I’ve become concerned. He seems to have fallen in with a bad crowd. He’s been gambling, and I’m rather afraid Mr. Van Doorn might have accrued some debt with a local gangster.”
The fat man snorted. “Do tell.”
“If you could answer a few questions, I would be very appreciative.” While Matt spoke, he laid a fifty-dollar bill on the counter. The fat man’s meaty hand slammed down on the bill like he was swatting a fly. When he lifted his hand again the money was gone.
“What sort of business does my friend do here?”
“Look around, pal,” the fat man replied. “This here is a pawnshop, and he ain’t been buying.”
“So he’s pawning things? Valuable items?”
The man behind the counter shrugged. “A cigarette case. A money clip. Cufflinks. A couple of rings. The other day he brought in an Omega watch. Today he brought in a Rolex. Took three hundred bucks for it.”
Matt pursed his lips. “And you say Van Doorn’s been doing this for a week.”
“Maybe longer,” the big man said, showing a bit of sympathy for the first time. “Folks get in trouble—”
“I know. And they have to sell their lives away, piecemeal.” Matt cleared his throat. “Roughly how much money have you paid Mr. Van Doorn for these items?”
The fat man scrunched up his face. “Hard to say, buddy. He didn’t always take money. Sometimes he traded his stuff for other merchandise.”
I was surprised and baffled. In this sea of junk, I could find nothing Neils Van Doorn would need or want. But Matt didn’t miss a beat.
“I see you have a collection of military items in the window,” he said. “Did my friend trade his jewelry for