While they bought the fedora, the shopkeeper was as silent as ever. Wordlessly, he put the merchandise in a bag, and money changed hands according to the price tag. Even when Maiza gave him a casual, seasonally appropriate greeting, the old man only shot him a cold, silent look.
Still, the two didn’t let it bother them, and they left the shop, chatting about what the menu might be for the party to be held after the ritual, and about picking up some liquor at a speakeasy on their way back.
Exiting the establishment, they passed a couple on their way in.
The man was even taller than Maiza, and he nearly bumped his head on the door’s lintel. The woman was a little shorter than Firo, and she wore jeweled bracelets on both arms and shining silver rings on several fingers.
Both were dressed in very swanky outfits. The man sported a tuxedo with black leather gloves and no tie. The woman wore a black dress with bright red belts wrapped around her waist and arms. It was a rather unusual costume for a woman of the time, and it made her seem like a witch from a musical.
✦ ✦ ✦
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In short, the couple stood out from the rest of the world like a pair of sore thumbs.
“Whoops! Excuse me.”
They’d bumped shoulders, and Maiza apologized immediately.
“Hey now, be careful.”
“Be careful!”
The woman echoed the man’s words immediately after he’d said them.
Nothing else happened just then, but sizing up the couple, who looked like Broadway escapees, Firo thought:
They both look like they’re twenty or so, but… In tough times like these? Are they some rich guy’s kids?
Speculating in a fashion that completely ignored the contents of his own wallet, he left the shop.
✦ ✦ ✦
In the haberdashery, after Firo and Maiza had gone… The man in the tuxedo—Isaac Dian—spoke to the woman—Miria Harvent—who stood next to him.
“Listen, Miria. One more time, just to make sure: No matter what, don’t do anything eye-catching.”
“I know. I just have to be really, really mousy and quiet, right?”
“That’s the ticket. As long as you know.”
After this exchange—which, thanks to their outfits, was fairly unconvincing—the pair looked around at the chapeau-laden walls. The man held a large travel bag in his right hand, but he certainly didn’t seem dressed for travel.
“Egad, they’ve got everything here.”
“It’s all-you-can-buy!”
“I bet we could conquer the world with hats.”
After producing that incomprehensible metaphor, the man picked up a random topper and began spinning it on his finger.
“What sort of hats are we going to get?” Miria asked.
“Well, something normal would be good to start with. …Or, no, something eccentric might make for a better distraction…”
The farther they ventured into the depths of the store, the wider the variety of choices became.
At the end, there were rows of straw hats, even though it was winter, and Indian feather headdresses, and even the tall, round black hats that the guards of the English royal family wore, all on display.
“…Is it all right to sell things like this?”
Isaac was holding a helmet that was part of the gear worn by New York’s uniformed policemen. Meanwhile, Miria had put on a U.S. soldier’s helmet, and her appearance, which had already been eccentric, leveled up to the point where it could be described as downright weird.
“Wow, this is nifty.”
A strikingly brilliant piece of merchandise sat on an upper shelf. The hat was made of metal. Something like stiff cloth adorned its edges, and gold thread had been used in places. And on the forehead, there was a shining golden…
“What’s that? Is it a boomerang?”
“Maybe you’re supposed to head-butt people with it? I bet that would hurt.”
Two objects like oddly shaped knives were affixed to it in a V shape.
Below the strange helmet was a card with the word Japan written on it.
“Aha… Maybe it’s a Japanese crown.”
“I bet it is. It’s sort of shiny, even!”
The shelves below the crown held masks from some civilization or other, silk derby hats for phantom thieves, and other articles that were far beyond questionable.
“……Is this a bit too peculiar?”
Smiling brightly, Miria let something fearsome slip as if it was nothing. “It might not be good for robbing people in!”
“Well, never mind, let’s just buy them all.”
In the end, without paying any particular attention to what Miria had said, Isaac took a black fedora and a woman’s lace hat, plus the Japanese crown and a peculiar wooden mask, up to the register. Quite a lot of paraphernalia was deposited in front of the old shopkeeper.
Even then, the haberdasher was silent. He only glanced at the items, then smoothly wrote down the prices of each and the total on a receipt.
The paper showed a sum equal to two months of a bank clerk’s salary. Casually, the man called Isaac withdrew a bundle of bills from his bag, counted them carelessly, then held them out to the shopkeeper.
He’d given him too much, and a minute later, a dozen or so bills and a few coins were returned to his hand as change.
Then the pair added something entirely unnecessary.
“Listen up, Gramps. You’d better forget the fact that we visited this shop entirely.”
“Better forget it.”
In some cases, doing and saying things like that—compounded by the conspicuous outfits they wore—would have been enough to get these two reported on the spot. Apparently, true to their appearance, they weren’t quite all there.
“If you report us to the police…we’ll, uh… What will we do?”
Even as he admitted to being a criminal, her beau in a tuxedo openly asked Miria for help.
“Umm, why not just say we’ll hit him? If you don’t have anything specific in mind…”
“I see. Well then, Gramps! If you report us…we’ll hit you!”
“Hit you!”
By all indications, the two of them were even worse than they looked. In more ways than one.
Whether or not he’d been listening to their dubious lines, the shopkeeper fixed the pair with a cold scowl, all but his eyes utterly motionless.
Immediately, the man and woman fell silent. Then they hurried out of the shop, hugging to their chests the items they’d set down at the register.
The shopkeeper turned his eyes to his newspaper and forgot all about the customers who’d just visited.