got wasted and started bragging how he offed some rich bitch on the island. He told me he hid her body in concrete at a construction site near a golf course on south A1A. Maybe it was all bullshit, but I’m putting it out there, anyway, in case it was actually him that did it. I’m sure the old lady’s family would feel better to get her back, no matter what.
When Uric placed the call, he was assigned a number-and-letter code as identification. Confident of claiming the huge reward, he wrote out the sequence on his left wrist using a black Sharpie.
Although he was demonstrably smarter than Prince Paladin, Uric still wasn’t bright enough to see that pinning a front-page murder on a soon-to-be-deceased partner wouldn’t cause the police to stop investigating. Likewise he failed to realize that mentioning the titty bar on the tip-line recording was both unnecessary and problematic.
Cops enjoy interviewing strippers, who are often funnier and more forthcoming than fully dressed witnesses. Eleven nude dance clubs were licensed in the county, and Prime Vegas Showgirls happened to be first on the list compiled by the two detectives assigned to check out Uric’s tip. Inevitably, they were drawn to the six-foot Russian dancer with matching Jiminy Cricket tats. Without hesitation she identified a mug shot of Prince Paladin—whose real name was Keever Bracco—as one of two white customers that had blown all their cash at the club on a recent night.
One detective said, “Tell us about the other guy.”
“Black hair, brown eyes,” the dancer recalled. “He was the man that paid for champagne. He really liked me.” She pointed with a jade mica fingernail to the center of her forehead. “Was dimple right here.”
“A dimple?” the other detective said. “You mean a scar.”
“Did not feel to me like scar. More like hole.”
“Was the man tall or short?”
“Yes, tall,” she said.
“American or Latino?”
“Yes, American.”
“Did either of them say their names?”
“I don’t remember names,” the dancer lied.
By then, Uric—whose forehead indeed bore a noticeable divot—had already strangled Prince Paladin, chained fifty-five pounds of barbells to the corpse and sunk it in the same canal where he’d dumped the stolen Malibu, another move no master criminal would make.
Now Uric needed some cash to tide him over until he collected the Fitzsimmons reward, so he drove his van to a safe pawn shop in West Palm. The owner was a misshapen cretin named Giardia, who habitually wore a cranberry tuxedo jacket to conceal his shoulder holster.
When Uric placed the dead woman’s diamond earrings on the counter top, Giardia scooped them up and humped like a badger toward his vile-smelling office in the rear of the store.
“What the fuck, bro? You tryin’ to get me busted?” he whinnied at Uric, who’d followed him into the room. “Shut the goddamn door.”
Uric said, “Chill your fat ass. Those earrings were my mom’s. I mean before she died.”
“Right. And your mom, she was Jackie Onassis?”
“Her name was Inga, and she was a goddamn saint.”
Giardia held the diamonds up to the bulb of a gooseneck lamp, salaciously turning them with his fingers, marveling at the rich sparkle. “Don’t tell me how you got hold a these. It doesn’t matter,” he said, “because I cannot move ’em. Whoever they belong to, she’s already called the cops.”
Uric smiled. “No, she hasn’t.”
“I’d have to be insane to do this,” said the pawnbroker, though he seemed in no hurry to hand back the earrings.
“How many carats?” Uric asked.
“Don’t even go there. I’ll give you five grand for the pair. Take or leave. And use the back door, bro.”
“Wait. I got more.”
Uric removed the snake lady’s pearls from his pocket and lined them up like rosy marbles on the pawnbroker’s desk.
“Also your mom’s?” Giardia needled.
“From her favorite necklace. The chain got broke, I’m sad to say.”
“Only thing is, they’re, like, all different kinds a pink. What is that one—magenta? And half of ’em, they ain’t even round.”
What a scammer, Uric thought.
He said, “Those are conch pearls. They’re s’posed to look that way, and you know it. Want ’em, or not? I went online and did the research, my man. They’re super rare—guess how much Carter’s sells a conch-pearl ring for?”
“Who?”
“Carter’s. It’s only the most famous jewelry store in all New York.”
Giardia chuckled acidly and clicked his brown teeth. “You mean Cartier’s.”
“Fuck you.”
“I’ll give you eight hundred for all of ’em.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”
“I only count eighteen,” Giardia said, rolling the pearls into his right palm. “That’s a queer number for