Claude’s winsome smile could thaw an iceberg. “No, but I wonder what Cosmo would do if I put it on and had a little chat with him about the stunners he keeps selling.”
Cosmo was the surfer-looking guy with dreads who ran the shop.
“April Fools’ Day was weeks ago. He’ll never fall for it.”
Claude raised the sleeve on his shirt and scratched his arm. Wearing clothes that covered his muscular shoulders must have been hard for him. If Claude wasn’t in a tank top, you could usually find him shirtless. All that rope climbing in the gym paid off, and he liked displaying the fruits of his labor. But while on Keystone assignments, Claude dressed as if he was trying to avoid Viktor’s judgmental gaze.
He noticed my empty hands. “Didn’t you find anything?”
I reached in my back pocket and pulled out a long blade. “What do you make of this?”
He studied the gold handle and dull edges. “It looks like a letter opener.”
“I figured as much. Does it feel strange to you?”
His brow furrowed. “How do you mean?”
“I pricked my arm with it, and it’s not a stunner. But it feels weird.”
Claude chuckled. “Is that how you test them? You stab yourself?”
“This one hurt like a bitch. Dull blade and all.” I took back the object and admired the white stone in the handle. “You didn’t notice anything weird while touching it?”
“Perhaps there’s residual energy only a Mage can detect.”
I twirled it between my fingers and passed by him. “I think I should keep it. Better safe than sorry.”
Claude swaggered up beside me. “Careful or you’ll turn into one of those hoarders they show on TV. We’ll have to use a wrecking ball to get inside your room after an avalanche of useless shit buries you alive.”
“I’m not a hoarder.”
He clasped his hands behind his back and fell into an easy stride. “First it’s letter openers. Next it’s three hundred egg cartons.”
I poked his side with the dull blade. “Perish the thought.”
The pawnshop had a lot of tall shelves on the left side of the building. Cosmo spent most of his time at a glass display counter that ran along the right side of the shop and the back wall. Security guards watched for shoplifters, but most of the expensive stuff was beneath the glass or mounted on the wall.
Viktor sealed up a cardboard box on the counter, the tape dispenser loud enough to make heads turn.
Cosmo watched with a look of derision, his arms folded and the lines on his forehead deep. “What happens to all the shit you confiscate? Oh, wait, it gets sold.”
“It is sold to responsible people,” Viktor informed him.
Cosmo snorted. “Yeah, who turn around and sell it for a higher price on the black market.”
“You know the laws. If you choose to make personal transactions out of your home, that is not my concern. But when you store them under this roof or sell more than one or two, that is where I come in.”
I offered the letter opener to Viktor. “I’ve got another one for the pile.”
“I just finished taping the box,” he said. “Add it to Gem’s.”
“Wait a second,” Cosmo sang, reeling in closer to have a look. “That’s not an illegal weapon. You can’t just take whatever you feel like from my store. This isn’t a charity.”
“It looks suspicious.”
He swept his arm to the headsman’s axe on the wall. “Lady, everything I sell looks suspicious. If you want to collect stunners in the name of the law, fine. But you can’t just steal my bread and butter because it suits your fancy.”
Viktor always paid a fair price for anything of historical interest, so I didn’t want to raise a ruckus.
