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“Also a Sam Lovell of Lovell Magic. Max talked to him yesterday, so he might know where Max is hiding.”
“Got it!” Chu moved to his computer to look up the names on the internet.
Pro didn’t want to admit that, so far, there didn’t seem to be all that much from the transcribed emails. There was one that gave the time and place for a meeting that had been last week, so it wasn’t much help. The rest were discussions of price in the short messages.
She pulled up the next one and started on the subject line.
Chu cleared his throat. “I have a Lovell Magic on West 73rd Street.”
Pro shook her head. “How many freakin’ magic shops are in this town?”
“Never thought about it. By the way, that’s 20th precinct, so I’m going to put in a courtesy call to let them know that we’re in their neck of the woods.”
“Okay,” Pro agreed and moved to the message, turning the words into numbers, the numbers into letters, and finally back into words.
In the meantime, Chu used his desk phone and spoke to a detective he knew in the 20th, asked about family and mutual acquaintances, then explained that he and his partner would be questioning a witness in th
eir jurisdiction. He also made sure to ask if the detective had the APB on Max Martin, aka Marvell.
As he hung up the phone, Pro was finishing up the email.
“Tom,” Pro called out, head still leaned over the paper she was writing on. “Any luck with Adrianna Gray?”
“No, I was about to do a search.”
“Well, do it quickly. She’s mentioned in the message here.”
“What does it say?”
“Best as I’ve done it reads like this: ‘Gray might win by many yards. See who is still in the tip.’”
“What was it, a race? And what tip?”
Pro sat back in her chair and looked at the ceiling. “It sounds like ‘Carny.’”
“What?”
“In the beginning of his career Max worked carnivals—”
“Here we go,” Chu growled.
“Will you listen?” Pro demanded. “Even after I was born, Max would sometimes use Carney lingo, shorthand expressions that carnival workers use, like the ones we use.”
“What’s your point?”
“Well, ‘yard’ is a hundred dollars, so Gray winning by many yards, means she offered more money. ‘Tip’ is carny for a crowd, so ‘See who is still in the tip’ refers to the other buyers.”
Chu folded his arms. “It appears your father was giving you an education without you even knowing it.”
Pro looked down at the marked-up paper. “I guess so.”
“Okay, I found an address for Adrian Novak, and it’s just south of our magic store on 73rd.”
“Let’s hit the store first. So far, our dead magicians had stores.” Pro grabbed her papers, shoved them into her attaché, and headed out right behind Chu.
888
They arrived at Broadway and 73rd Street, and Chu parked in front of a hydrant. In the windshield of the car he put out their cardboard sign that read “POLICE ON DUTY.”
