“Nice graft these yokels have here,” Bryant murmured confidentially. He moved a step closer to Shayne. “Three ninety-five blankets from Brooklyn marked twenty bucks and stamped genuine Navajo. Maybe you and me could take some lessons.”
Shayne’s nostrils flared. “Is this stuff junk?”
“Nothing but. I saw them unpacking it yesterday out of boxes shipped from New York.”
Shayne saw Phyllis fingering a rug with a garish Indian design. Anger burned in his eyes. He asked, “Any of those packing boxes still around?”
“Sure. In the back.”
Shayne stalked toward his wife. A large man had come up to wait on her and was pointing out the fine workmanship of the blankets. Hulking shoulders dwarfed a lean waist and thin legs. His eyes were black beneath black brows that met across the bridge of his nose. High cheek bones, a beaked nose, and blunt chin looked as though they might have been rudely chiseled with a miner’s drill and single-jack. His shirt sleeves were rolled above the elbows, revealing hairy forearms. There was a dominant air of uncouth strength about him that was out of place behind a store counter.
“Yes, ma’am,” he was assuring Phyllis. “Right off the Navajo Reservation. I make a trip through New Mexico every summer and buy direct from the Indians.” Phyllis’s face glowed with enthusiasm when she looked up at her husband. “Only eighteen dollars, Michael. It’d make a grand lap robe for the car, and I’ve always wanted a real Indian blanket.”
Shayne said, “Nix.”
The big man insisted, “That’s dirt cheap, Mister. I reckon you don’t know anything about Indian stuff.”
Shayne snorted, “An Indian named Moe Ginsberg in the Bronx?”