Warriors (Gutter Dogs Book 5)

by Carey Lewis

  LaGarrett snubbed the joint out in the ashtray and sprayed some air freshener. He rolled down the window half an inch, grabbed the gym bag from the seat beside him, and got out of the car. Walked across the street, making sure to look both ways, waited for a staggering man to make his way into the convenience store, then grabbed the handle and went inside Savory Trade.

  It was bigger than it looked from outside. There were the usual guitars hung in the windows, some TV’s under them, the old tube kind. He walked in and saw the glass counter that ran along the right side wall of the store, more expensive guitars on the walls behind the register on the counter, jewelry and video game stuff behind the glass. On the far left were all the appliances, stoves and freezers, some portable AC units. The shelves in the middle had a bunch of other small things, like toasters, microwaves, picture frames and whatnot. In the back there was some furniture and clothes.

  There was a bell that jingled when he walked in so he waited for someone to come out. After a few moments, the curtain in the back of the room moved and he saw a nice looking woman come out. She looked familiar, but he couldn’t place her.

  “Ya’ll got stoves and shit in here?”

  “Against the wall,” the lady said, making her way behind the glass counter.

  “Ain’t that shit come with the place you getting? You go renting a joint, normally come with a stove don’t it?”

  “Haven’t rented in awhile.”

  “This is what I’m saying, who the motherfucker taking a stove out the ground? Even so, most places coming with a stove like they do, who the motherfucker coming here with a need for one?”

  “We don’t sell many of them,” she said.

  “Imagine not. Like me trying on selling you what you already got. You hearing about those folk bottling air, sending that shit to Japan?”

  “It’s China.”

  “It’s a racket what it is. Makes one want to get into a bottled air business. All you got to do is finish a soda and put the lid back on and be shipping that shit right out.”

  “Maybe I’ll take out my stoves and do that instead.”

  LaGarrett looked over and smiled. He didn’t pay much thought to her until now, her wry sense of humor catching his attention. She wore a black T-shirt that said ‘Savory Trade’ over one of her breasts in small white lettering. Her red hair in loose curls dangling on her shoulders. She was an older woman but still very attractive.

  “Late night?” he asked her.

  “What every woman wants to hear.”

  “Like when people coming up to you saying you looking tired they basically saying you looking like shit.”

  “There anything I can help you with?”

  LaGarrett smiled again, walked over to the counter and put the gym bag on top. “Some things you might be finding an interest in.” He pulled out the football and handed it to her.

  She looked it over, looking at the white marker writing on it, “is it say Steve Young?”

  “Hall of Fame Forty-Niner Steve motherfucking Young. How about this?” he reached into the bag and pulled out the baseball, “signed by future hall of famer Toronto Blue Jays star Jose Bautista,” and handed it to her, watched her look at the handwriting.

  “Who’s Hugh?” she asked.

  “You know I’m thinking you looking familiar. We met before?”

  “Maybe you came in some time. Had to let the other girl go so I’m here more than I’d like.”

  “You owning the joint?”

  “Ask me if I have an opinion on it.”

  “Nah baby, it being some place else.” Now he watched her go into the gym bag, started pulling out some of the trading cards. He said, “got me a rookie Cam Newton in there. Signed.”

  She pulled out a card, a signed Ben Roethlisberger, said “this one says Hugh too.”

  “My uncle was the type big on sports, spending most his money getting this shit. His name Hugh. He done gone passed away now, leaving it to me.”

  “That so?” she asked. He saw something behind those green eyes. Almost like anger.

  “That’s the way it be. People up and die on you.”

  “You know you can take this shit to an auction. You’d get more for it than I can afford.”

  “I ain’t be going to no auctions baby, I be going to you.”

  “You mind if I go in the back? Make some calls, see what I should offer? Take a minute.”

  “Take all the time you need. What I got is more of this stuff here, you finding an interest in it.”

  And then he watched her walk along the wall, out from behind the counter, and through the curtain in the back. He couldn’t place where he had seen her before. It’s not like she was the type he’d forget.

  FUCKING HUGH, SHE THOUGHT. All that time they spent working, him in the sky washing windows and her down here on the ground selling used shit. It all amounted to his sports collectibles. The very same sports collectibles this stupid fuck was trying to sell back to her.

  Denise grabbed her pack of cigarettes from the desk, took one out, lit it, leaned back in her chair, exhaled slowly. She stared at her computer in front of her, at the blinking cursor sitting in the Google search bar. She never thought of it before, how much the shit was worth. She just knew she wanted it out of her sight. Packed it up and put it in the basement, didn’t give it another thought.

  The guy out there, when did he break in and take Hugh’s shit? She was up late with Dutch, having another go at it after awhile of talking about Hugh. Seemed all he wanted to talk about. Fucking Hugh.

  Then he left when they were done, said he had things to do today. It’s not that he used her, if anything she used him. She had an itch that needed to be scratched and what better way to get back at your ex than to fuck his best friend? Twice.

  Thing was, that guy could’ve broke in at any time. It’s not like she went down to the basement, made sure everything was still there. She wouldn’t even know the shit was gone if this guy that looked like a linebacker didn’t come in to sell it to her. Fucking Hugh, the only reason she even knew what a linebacker was.

  She put the cigarette in her mouth and searched for a Steve Young autographed football. They seemed to run about three hundred. The baseball went for around the same. Then there were the trading cards. All that shit in the basement Hugh wasn’t in a hurry to get back. It could be worth something. But someone else had it.

  If the football went for about three hundred, some of the others would go for a bit more or less, she could get about twenty grand for all of it maybe? That would mean her going to the auctions, the conventions, wherever these brain dead jocks with money hung out. It would take a lot of time and it wouldn’t amount to her being able to shut down the pawn shop.

  Fucking Hugh. The reason she got the pawn shop to begin with. He hoped people would bring in these collectibles that she could put aside for him. Anything that was worth anything would go to his shrine. He didn’t quite seem to understand how difficult it was turning a profit by not being able to sell the most valuable things they had. If she could’ve sold them, maybe she wouldn’t have had to lay off the girl that normally works the counter and she wouldn’t have this piece of shit out front trying to sell them back to her.

  Denise didn’t know why she hadn’t called the cops yet. The guy was pedaling stolen merchandise, stolen from her, so why hadn’t she called the law? Well, what would happen to all the stuff, she thought. He didn’t have all of it with him, and you could bet what he had in the bag wasn’t all he took.

  The football’s worth three, she could offer him one and then take it to an auction, maybe sell it on-line, hope to get a buyer. Do that with all the items, offer to buy it for a third of what it’s worth and try to get the money back. But she didn’t have the money, or the time, for that. Why should she pay for things that were hers? Even if she wasn’t hanging on by a thread financially and could afford to buy everything back, her pride alone wouldn’t allow it.

  Let’s say he broke in awhile ag
o, she thought. He decides to sell it now? Why didn’t he take more? How would he even know what was in the basement? The furnace guy maybe. Dutch said he looked shifty to him. So the furnace guy spots all the stuff while he’s down there fixing the heat, tells this guy what’s there, he grabs it when she’s with Dutch, let’s say, but why try to sell it back to her, that part didn’t make sense. Unless they wanted her to know they had it, trying to make a point she wasn’t getting.

  Denise snubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray on the scarred wooden desk, stood up from the chair that squeaked, walked around her boxes of inventory (things she didn’t have room to put out into the store yet), and made her way through the curtain to see the big black man wearing sunglasses smiling ear to ear right where she left him.

  “You Mrs. Miracle ain’t you?” he asked.

  “WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO want to do now is be flipping that sign there to the other side, saying we all closed up so we not getting interrupted in our chat.”

  “You’re closer,” Denise said.

  “You don’t mind? Don’t want to go acting like I got a run of the joint.”

  “Funny way of going about it.”

  LaGarrett smiled, that big, bright toothy grin, and backed his way to the door. He flipped the sign over so it said closed to the outside world, then flipped the deadbolt, locking it, said “you having a way about you, you know that?”

  “Which way is that?”

  “A way I ain’t being able put my finger to just yet,” he said as he walked back over to the counter. “You ready to go making an offer on this swag I got up in here?”

  “I’ll give you a hundred each for the balls. The cards I’d have to go through one by one.”

  That smile again, “Now Mrs. Miracle, I think we both aware these balls go for about three.”

  “And I’m in the business of turning a profit. Besides, not my idea of a good time buying my own shit back.”

  “That’s a way I’m talking about. You playing it cool, like you ain’t in on everything then you go laying a bomb down about as subtle as Hiroshima.”

  “You got a gun?”

  “I need one?”

  “Depends where this goes.”

  “You call the police?”

  “Did I need to?”

  “Depends where this goes,” he said, still smiling. “Guess that’s where this leaves us both in the dark staring at each other. You mind I call a friend might be wanting to take a part in this?”

  “The guy that fixed my furnace?”

  “You making me curious how much knowledge you in on,” LaGarrett said as he pulled out a cell phone, hit a few buttons, then put it up to his ear. He said, “yo, you going to want to be taking a trip on over to Savory Trade,” then listened, said “yeah, you got it, that one up over on Mayberry,” listened some more, “oh, you going to find you like what you coming to,” and then he hung up.

  “If I called the cops you’re bringing your partner right to them,” she said.

  “You call the cops I got you all wrong.”

  “How do you got me now?”

  “Too smart for your own good I’d say. You the type wants to know more without letting on it’s a thing for you. Want to ask you something though. You fuck that guy you was with last night?”

  “Twice.”

  “Shit, Bobby ain’t going to like hearing about that.”

  “Had a thing for me did he?”

  “Imagine most fellas do, looking the way you do, acting the way you do. You got this whole gimmick down don’t you? Look at you acting like you don’t know.”

  “Maybe I don’t know. I also don’t know the point you’re trying to make by bringing the shit here.”

  “You believe me I tell you it’s on accident?”

  “Would I have a choice?”

  “It suit you better I say it was some shit like divine intervention? Fate and destiny and the rest of that?”

  “We writing pop songs now?”

  LaGarrett laughed. He had her pegged to a tee. Knew exactly who she was and what she was doing. Knew her better than people that knew her for the better part of thirty years. Maybe she should’ve called someone. Maybe Dutch. She didn’t expect this guy that looked like a thug to pin her down so well. Her own fault for underestimating him, not judging him correctly.

  “If this is going to take awhile you want some coffee?” she asked.

  “Suppose the machine’s in the back right? You finding some excuse on making your way over to your desk where you got a gun stashed in a drawer?”

  Yep.

  She watched him look her up and down, sizing her up, squinting his eyes a little behind the shades. She felt naked, like she should cover up, his gaze moving through her. He said, “it’s vodka ain’t it?”

  “What is?”

  “What you having behind the counter. Probably one of them fruity flavors, maybe the kind you get you supposed to be watching your weight. You the type get bored here staring at the walls forcing you on a look at your life, wonder where it all gone. Yeah, you the classy type wanting a drink no one knows you’re drinking, can’t be smelling it on you.” Then he smiled again. “And you having a piece behind the counter too, don’t you?”

  This guy was good. Eerily good. She thought he might have broken into the store and found all this out before hand. “What flavor?” she asked.

  “You being a strawberry type of gal I’m taking you for. Mind I take a look?”

  She shook her head.

  LaGarrett walked around the glass counter, never taking his eyes off Denise, walked down the narrow gap between the counter and the wall to the register and looked down at the part that wasn’t glass, shielded from the rest of the store. He said “sometimes I done go scaring myself,” as he pulled out a bottle of strawberry flavored vodka and put it on the counter. Then he reached down and grabbed the small drinking glass and the snub nosed thirty-eight.

  “You being a good one you know that?” he said, “first thing you saying to me is you giving me a bill for each, saying you got to go through the cards one by one, so I don’t have a suspecting notion when you go behind the counter and pull. You wanted coming back here but not letting it be the obvious thing. Business as usual.”

  “Not as good as you apparently.”

  “I ain’t have no gun if you was curious.”

  “This wouldn’t have went differently if you did,” she said.

  He smiled again, impressed, “goddamn you a cool motherfucker,” and then he poured some of the vodka into the glass and slid it along the counter toward her.

  “I left my cigarettes in the back,” she said, walking along the counter to take the drink.

  “How about one of these?” LaGarrett asked and pulled a joint out of his pocket. He lit it and passed it to her.

  “You even knowing how to use one of these?” he held up the revolver.

  “Was counting on figuring it out when the time came,” she took a hit off the joint and passed it back.

  He held up the bottle and Denise held up the glass and they tapped them together, then both took a drink.

  The door shook from someone outside trying to open it. Then there was a knock against the glass.

  “Thinking maybe you should be letting Bobby in so we can all get started now.”

  BIG STUPID FUCKING GRIN on his face when she opened the door. Said hi like she should’ve been glad to see him. It was the one called LaGarrett that took the two of them to the back room, bringing the vodka and gun with him. He went through the desk and found her other revolver, asked who sold her guns. She told him it was a guy that didn’t have a use for them anymore, let it hang in the air. LaGarrett didn’t bother to ask what she meant.

  He took a seat at the desk, put his feet up on it, gestured for her and the one called Bobby to sit on the couch that she found in front of her store one morning and was too ugly to sell. Bobby was trying to catch up on what brought him here, not understanding that LaGarrett came in trying to sell he
r ex-husbands stuff back to her. It was during this constant Q & A between the two of them that she became satisfied it was just dumb luck, not any point they were trying to get across to her.

  Now that Bobby seemed caught up, they could get to the point of why they were still here.

  “So am I a hostage or something?” she asked. She knew she wasn’t. She knew it was about Hugh as soon as LaGarrett called her Mrs. Miracle. Fucking Hugh.

  “Just because I’m the one having both the guns and don’t want you leaving? In that sense I’d say you is but we ain’t the ones to ask for a ransom. Not from the police anyhow.”

  She could feel Bobby staring at her.

  “If I was going to call the cops, I would’ve done it already.”

  “You saying you ain’t call them?”

  “You told me you didn’t have a gun. Figure that puts us equal on trust now.”

  “Bobby my man, I can tell why you so sweet on this one. She got her way about her that’s for damn sure.”

  “No one’s going to hurt you,” Bobby said. She already knew that.

  “I’m on pins and needles wanting to know what you want.”

  She watched the smile grow on LaGarrett’s mouth, wondered if his cheeks ever got sore.

  “Baby girl, you knowing what business we having here, what we be after.”

  “We know he’s got ten point one,” Bobby said.

  “Probably not unless he won again,” Denise said.

  “Man comes into that windfall, some of it going to be finding it’s way to the divorcee.”

  “Shit, that’s what you’re after?” she really couldn’t believe it. “Wrong tree my friend.”

  “We don’t want to hurt you,” Bobby said.

  She looked right at him, stared right into his eyes and said, “I know.”

  “We’re not even going to take it all,” Bobby tried the sympathy route, “just a chunk. We won’t leave you with nothing.”

  “I’m sorry, were you married to him? Even if I got anything, why do you think you’re entitled to any of it?”

  “Like I said, we being the ones with both guns.”

  “That and a buck will get you a cup of coffee,” she said, bringing her attention back to LaGarrett. “I didn’t get shit from Hugh,” and then she thought for a moment, turned to Bobby, “you took the articles from my nightstand didn’t you? That’s how you guys know about all this?”