The Miscellaneous Writings of Clark Ashton Smith by Clark Ashton Smith

Author:Clark Ashton Smith [Smith, Clark Ashton]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781597802970
Published: 2011-11-17T21:56:18+00:00

THE PARROT

he pawnshop was so crowded with unredeemed articles, that neither electricity nor sunlight could dissipate fully the murk of its doubtful corners. The windows were always unwashed and the cobwebs were unswept. It was even darker and grimier than usual, on this late afternoon of April; and the sea-fog that had inundated San Francisco was visibly mingled with the dust that hovered always in its air. No one who was unfamiliar with the place would have noticed the parrot, which occupied a perch in the corner farthest from the door. The bird was in one of its taciturn moods, and had apparently forgotten its extensive repertoire of thieves’ argot, water-front oaths, and Jewish idioms, for it had not spoken a word since morning.

“Vell, Micky Horgan, vot you vant?” The huge, swarthy, furtive-looking person thus hailed by Jacob Stein, the proprietor, was better known as Black Mike to the local underworld and police circles. He was peering about uncertainly for Stein, who was stooping behind the counter. The Jew was so small and dingy that he blended in with his surroundings as if he had taken on a sort of protective coloration.

“I want one hundred dollars.” Horgan’s voice was a peremptory growl.

“For vot should I gif you so much money?”

“For this.” Horgan took an amber necklace from his coat-pocket and laid it on the counter, where it gleamed like a circle of solidified sun-rays.

Stein peered at the necklace through his heavy-rimmed goggles and shook his head with a vehement grimace.

“I gif you fifteen,” he said dubiously.

“The hell you will. That’s real amber. I didn’t swipe it from any hall-bedroom, either. And I’m offering it mud-cheap because I’ve got to have a hundred bucks to-night.”

Stein came out from behind the counter and began to expostulate.

“For vot you take me? No one buys amber. I’m a poor man, and I haf a family. Fifteen tollars I gif you, but no more.”

Horgan sensed finality in the tones of the Jew. Sinister, desperate thoughts arose in his brain. His need of a hundred dollars was indeed urgent, for the sum had been demanded by a sweetheart whom he loved with ferocious ardor. He knew her coldness and contempt if he should go to her without the money—knew the merciless vituperations with which she would greet him. Also, he thought of all the former occasions on which Stein had defrauded him of his rightful due for some stolen article.

“You rotten Sheeny—I’m damned if you’ll gouge me this time!” Horgan’s desperation was tinged with a stealthy, rat-like anger.

“Fifteen tollars—und I’m robbing myself, Micky.” The Jew rubbed his hands together, turned his head away, and looked indifferently through the smeared windows. He did not seem to notice the ugly and precarious mood of his client.

A murderous calculation crept into Horgan’s thoughts. He peered about. The street outside was very quiet, and the fog was thickening into a drizzle. It was not likely that anyone would come in at the moment. Furtively, with careful slowness, he reached for the revolver in his hip-pocket.

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