Nine, the Tale of Kevin Clearwater Page 6

  “Here we go. Come on. Say something, anything I can use,” I whisper, raising the volume.

  “No, the flowers should be white, not purple, it’s summer for fuck sake!” Lori shouts to someone in the background. She sighs deeply. “I swear these charity events never gets easier, and the help gets worse with each one. Speaking of the charity event, will you be coming Saturday? Jared never prepaid for your tickets, so you’ll have to bring a check, but personally, I think it might be better if you let things die down a bit before you re-enter social circles, don’t you?”

  “Lori, I’m not coming. I can’t. I don’t have the money. It’s all gone. I really need you to think. Jared and Pen are best friends. Pen didn’t tell you anything about where he could be? Has he spoken to him?”

  “No, I said in the center of the table! Does that look like the center to you?” Lori scolds again before coming back on the line.

  “Lori!” Lenny shouts to get her friends attention. But is this really her friend? Shit, I hate to hear how her enemies talk to her. I’ve been spoken to with more respect from someone I’d just stabbed in County.

  Lori huffs in frustration. “No, Lenny. When I asked Pen, he said he didn’t know where Jared might have went, and when he tried to call him, the line was disconnected, just as you said. Pen needs to talk to him, too. You’re not the only one he walked out on. Pen and Jared have been best friends for over twenty years, and they’re invested in the club’s membership together. I mean to not even show up to the meetings? Can you believe it?” There’s a pause. “But I’m sure he’ll turn up, sweetie. He probably just wanted to get away for a while. Men do that. Sometimes, they need a vacay from life. It’s not easy being a successful man these days.”

  “Men don’t empty their closets when they’re going on vacay or turn off their phones,” I argue. “He left me. I’m okay with that, or at least, I will be. I just need to find him so I can talk to him.”

  “Lenny, I don’t know what to tell you. Jared left you. I’m sorry, but I have important things going on over here, too,” Lori scoffs.

  What a fucking bitch. I almost feel bad for her. Almost.

  “I know you’re busy, but he didn’t just leave, Lori. He stole every penny I had. Emptied out my bank account. I don’t know what bills he’s paid or hasn’t paid. I don’t have the passwords to get into the mortgage or any of the other bills because I’ve always just put my share of the money into our account. I’ve got nothing left.” There is a despair in her voice that wouldn’t be there if she had wads of cash laying around, but she could just be an incredible actor.

  “I tried Lenny. I did. But I don’t know anything, and neither does Pen.” Someone drops a plate in the background, and it sounds like Lori attempts to cover the phone, but it does nothing to conceal her rant of wrath. “What the fuck did I just…No, the outside tables. God damn it!”

  Lenny sighs, and there’s pain in her every word although she’s trying to conceal it. “Lori, I hate to even ask you this, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay here. If Jared hasn’t been paying the mortgage, and I can’t continue to pay it. I don’t know how long I have left here until I can get to the bank when it reopens on Monday. So…do you think that maybe I could stay in your guest house for a while if that happens? Just until I figure things out? I’ve literally got fourteen bucks in my wallet and…”

  “Sorry, Lenny. No can do. I’ve got new tile going into the bathroom in there on Monday, and I can’t reschedule because I flew the workers in from Italy and they are very selective about what jobs they take. You know how it is. If I pass this up now, their schedule will fill up, and I’ll have to wait until Christmas to get it done. I’d help if I could, but as you can see, my hands are tied. Have you asked Yuli?”

  Lenny groans. “You know I can’t do that. She’s leaving for Africa in a week.”

  “Oh, that’s right, that nurses without personal space thingy.”

  “Nurses without Borders,” Lenny corrects her. “And you know that if I tell Yuli what’s going on, she’ll stay, and she’s already given up her lease and packed her stuff in storage. I can’t do that to her. It’s her dream.”

  “But you can do that to me?” Lori asks, sounding shocked. “I have to say, that’s awfully selfish of you, Lenny.”

  “How is me asking you for a place to stay in any way selfish?”

  “Because Italian tile in the guest house bathroom is my dream,” Lori argues, as if she truly believes that her tile and Yuli’s helping kids in Africa measure equally.

  I can practically hear her face fall with disappointment.

  Lori obviously doesn’t hear the same thing and starts complaining about the charity dinner she’s putting on that night, but Lenny stops listening. Without saying another word, she hangs up the phone. I click back to her computer mic just in time to hear her shout, “I hope all of your fucking tile is crooked and falls off the god damned wall!” Followed by the sound of a glass shattering.

  I chuckle because her rant isn’t like Lori’s. It’s kind of…adorable in a way.

  Whether Lenny is involved in Jared’s scheme or not, her friend is a fucking cunt. I make a mental note to hack her computer and fill it with illegal pictures of a serious nature from the dark web, followed by an anonymous alert to our friendly, neighborhood FBI agents regarding Lori’s child porn problem.

  I pick up the phone and dial Bear. He answers on the first ring with a “Yeah.”

  “Jared’s girl is losing the house to the bank. He emptied their accounts before he planned to skip town.”

  “That’s not good, brother. It means she’s got to go somewhere else. It’ll be hard to keep an eye on her if she skips town.”

  “I’ll handle it,” I assure him as an idea unfolds in my brain.

  “Good, keep me posted. I’ll be back up and mobile, but I’m not sure if I’ll make it to the party tonight. Oh, and if you see your brother, tell that motherfucker to stop sending me the fuckin’ balloon bouquets. I was shot; I’m not a fuckin’ kid having a tenth birthday. The last one was a mix of Spiderman balloons and Tonka trucks, and my kids keep beatin’ the shit out of each other with ‘em.”

  I laugh because that’s so my brother.

  “I’ll try, but you know Preppy,” I tell him. “It’s hard to make him stop doing anything, especially if he knows it’s irritating you. That’s how he gets his rocks off. You should know this by now.”

  I hear a doorbell ring on Bear’s side, and then his wife, Thia’s voice in the background, sounding very amused. “Babe, you got another one.”

  “Quinceañera? Are you fuckin’ serious?” Bear shouts.

  Thia answers. “Oh, it’s all in good fun. Don’t be so serious,”

  “Darlin’, if you lean over the couch with them things on display to your man one more time, bullet wounds or not, I’m gonna—”

  The line, thankfully, goes dead.

  I go back to Lenny’s computer and check her recent search history. The last one was only a few minutes prior to her call to Lori. PAWN SHOPS NEAR ME HOURS OF OPERATION TODAY.

  The one she clicked on is Pike’s Pawn.

  Perfect, since I know the owner and all.

  I look at the clock. It’s already six-thirty. They close at eight on Saturdays.

  I close my laptop.

  With her having to find a new place and me having to keep her close, it’s time for me to step out from behind the computer and do some field work.

  If Lenny’s hiding the money, I’m going to find it.

  And when I do, she won’t have to worry about where Jared is anymore.

  I check my gun to make sure it’s loaded.

  Because she’ll be seeing him again real soon.

  Chapter Eight

  LENNY

  I’m being followed. At least, I feel like I’m being followed.

  There’s an eerie sense of awareness traveling down my spine like I’m being watched. I’ve felt it a few times over the last week, but right no
w it’s crawling all over my back like a thousand tiny spiders.

  I glance in my rearview mirror for the thousandth time and just like the other nine hundred and ninety-nine times I’ve looked in the last few minutes, there’s no one there.

  You’re being stupid, Lenny. There’s no one there. It’s your stupid anxiety and the fact that you’re somewhat sober because you have to drive. Concentrate on the task at hand. Pawning everything of value to scrape a few bucks together so you don’t have to break into the hurricane supplies like a rat scurrying for food until you can find a new job.

  Anxiety is here. Maybe, that’s who's following me. Although, when is she not following me?

  I do understand her presence, though, because going somewhere new is always a trigger for me, but I’m discovering that desperation has a way of keeping the full-on panic attacks at bay.

  However, I seriously doubt that long-term poverty and homelessness is any sort of miracle cure.

  “Guess I’ll have to wait and see on that one,” I say to myself.

  Pike’s Pawn is in a seedy little strip mall next to a one-pump gas station and a dive bar called Hansen’s. The parking lot of the bar is full of shiny black motorcycles and custom choppers that overflow to the pawn shop. I park in the grass at the end because it’s the only space available. It’s not even seven p.m. and the music and laughter are already loud enough to hear before I’ve even opened my car door. I sigh, and with nothing left to lose I start my count. When I get to nine, I open the door and retrieve the garbage bag of my belongings from the trunk containing everything of value (I hope) I’ve ever owned.

  Several bikers dressed in leather cuts leer at me as I enter the pawn shop. My skin breaks out in a sheen of nerves and sweat. The door closes on their gazes and a few whistles. I take a deep breath to calm myself, but I’m losing my nerve. I’m about to turn back around when a young blonde man appears behind the glass display case.

  My nerves and my sanity don’t matter. Right now, only money does.

  “What can I do you for?” The man asks, appraising me with bright golden eyes. He cracks his knuckles, and the rippling muscles underneath his tight black tank top ripple. He pushes his shoulder-length hair behind his ear and moves the toothpick in his mouth from one side to the other. His smile is crooked and cocky, but it suits him. He leans his elbows on the counter. “You gonna show me what you got in that bag, or you just looking for the nearest dumpster? ‘Cause there’s one out back of Hansen’s, but if I were you, I’d steer clear of that place. Not the classiest of joints.” He scratches his scruffy jaw, and I realize I haven’t said a word.

  Slowly, I take a few steps toward the counter. On my way, I take in an aisle of musical instruments, a few lamps on a high shelf, a display case filled to the brim with gold and silver belt buckles, and hanging on the back wall, an arsenal of firearms. “No, I don’t need the nearest dumpster. I have some things to sell. Thought you could take a look for me and see if you’re interested.”

  “Let me see what you got here…” He pauses and waits for me to introduce myself.

  “Lenny, my name is Lenny.”

  “They call me Pike. Very nice to meet you,” he says, taking my garbage bag and dumping the contents between us on the counter. He whistles. “You got a lot of nice stuff here, Lenny. Expensive shit, too.” He opens a few of the handbags and checks the linings. “Authentic, too. Don’t see a lot of that around here. Someone’s always trying to pawn off their fake shit. Pun intended.”

  He said expensive. A wave of relief washes over me. “So, how much are you thinking?” I ask. “For all of it?”

  He looks at my belongings on counter and tilts his head from one side to the other. “Unfortunately, not a damn thing.”

  “What?” I ask, confused. “I thought you said—”

  “What you got here is valuable, sure, but not to the people of Logan’s Beach. Frankly, people on the other side of the causeway don’t buy used shit, no matter how high-end. They buy new, but something tells me from your fancy outfit and pretty-smelling perfume that you already know that.”

  He’s right, I do know that. Shit.

  He continues, “And the people on this side are just struggling to make ends meet.” There is a crashing sound from the bar next door, followed by a roar of raucous laughter. Pike chuckles. “Well, and trying to have a good time, of course. Most people in these parts got cars that cost less than…” he sorts through the pile and lifts up one of my most expensive bags. It’s vintage. A gift from my mother. “This one bag.”

  “You know your stuff,” I say, trying to hide my disappointment with words. It doesn’t work.

  “Enough to know that I can’t help you. But if you’ve got any gold, silver, diamonds, guns, instruments or blow? I’m your man.”

  My thoughts go to my jewelry box. My empty jewelry box that I just discovered this morning. Jared had stolen my diamond tennis bracelet and my mother’s silver rosary. Suddenly, I feel sick all over again. “I don’t have any of that. At least, I don’t anymore.”

  “What’s got you all twisted up?” Pike asks, looking concerned. “You look like you’ve got something sour in your mouth or like someone skinned your cat and tacked his hide to your door.”

  “The only taste I have in my mouth is the taste of my life in shambles,” I reply. I grab the bag and start shoving things in. “I’m sorry for wasting your time.”

  “Well, now hang on a second there. Let me see if Trina can help you. She sells a lot of her shit online and she ain’t doing nothing back there but painting her nails and getting high so put the brakes on for just a second, all right?”

  I nod.

  “Trina!” Pike shouts.

  A woman steps out from the back. She’s in her twenties with long curly brown hair shaved on one side. She’s holding one arm across her bare midriff, the other is holding a cigarette. She shoots Pike an annoyed look, tapping her foot on the linoleum. “What?”

  “The what is that I’d actually like you to work today. So, can the ‘tude, Trina. This is Lenny. Please take her to the back room and sort through her stuff with her. Make an itemized list of what it’s all worth and give a holding slip if you think we can help her get rid of it.”

  Trina looks at me with no emotion in her face. “Follow me,” she says flatly.

  “I thought you said you couldn’t help me?” I ask Pike, confused.

  “I can’t, but Trina can. She’ll put your stuff on one of those vintage sites for high-end used goods. We don’t do it for everyone because we don’t make shit from it, but you look like you could use a win today.”

  “Thank you.”

  I follow Trina into the back room where she takes pictures of everything I have. She writes it all down on a pad that looks to be the same kind waitresses have at diners. She tears off the top and hands it to me. “I’ll call you at the number you provided when the items sell. Should only take a few weeks to a month for the entire lot.”

  “A month?” I close my hand around the receipt, crumbling it as I dig my nails into my palms.

  Trina yawns. “After the items sell, they have to be shipped to the websites warehouse for to be authenticated before shipping them to the buyers. Once the items are shipped they’ll send the money. As I said, I’ll call you when they’re sold.”

  I open my mouth to argue, to say something that would turn that two weeks into two minutes, but I’ve already exhausted all of my other options, and I don’t want to sound ungrateful for the favor. “Thank you,” I finally manage to say.

  “Whatevs.” Trina turns back to the computer where she clicks on a minimized screen and resumes the very explicit hardcore porn she was watching as if she were catching up on the home shopping network or an episode of Friends.

  “Thanks again,” I call to Pike on the way out, but before I hit the door, I look down at my hand and stop. I turn back around and walk up to the counter. I pry the sapphire ring off my finger that Jared gave me for my birthday last year and h
and it over to Pike. “What can you give me for this?”

  Pike’s forehead wrinkles as he inspects the ring. He takes out a monocle looking thing and holds it over one eye, closing the other. He turns over the ring over to inspect it. “A sapphire this size?” He looks up at me. “Quite a lot,” he hands the ring back to me. “If it were real.”

  My heart sinks.

  “Sorry about that. He ain’t worth your time if he’s giving you a fake ring and passing it off as real. A real man gives a fake ring and tells his woman it’s fake and he would buy her better if he could and she loves him more for it. I have a feeling this man ain’t worth his weight in shit.

  “I’m learning that. With each passing hour more and more.”

  I nod my thanks to Pike once again and head out of the shop to my car.

  Which isn’t where I left it.

  I glance around the parking lot to where the group of bikers from the bar is staring at a large truck that’s turning from the parking lot onto the main road. The decal the back reads ROB THE REPO MAN.

  It’s also got my car in tow.

  Hansen’s isn’t like any other bar I’ve ever been to before, but it’s a bar, and it’s got booze, and I no longer have wheels, so that’s where I’m headed.

  The inside is small and crowded. It smells like sweat and pickles.

  I spot the bar lined with bottles with varying shades of alcohol inside.

  It’ll do just fine.

  A woman in her mid-fifties wearing a tight hot pink tank top and a bright blue bow in her flame red hair approaches me from the other side of the bar. “I’m Becky, and I’m the owner here. I hate to say this, but I don’t think this place is for you, sweetheart.”

  “Listen, I just want a drink, just like everyone else here,” I reply as politely as I can manage given my circumstances.

  Becky isn’t convinced. “Pretty girl like you from the other side don’t need nothin’ this place can offer. Why don’t you get on out of here and get home to whoever is waiting for you, because I wasn’t lying when I said this place ain’t for you.”