by Boyd Craven
“The only thing I can think of,” he said, “is what you do if you catch something bigger than you can pull into your boat. Might want a small lift crane with a winch, block and tackle, things like that.”
“Those expensive?” I asked him.
“Naw, not really,” he told me. “But something to think about.”
“I will, thanks.” We shook and exchanged numbers.
As I was punching his in on my phone, he asked if I was looking for odd jobs now and then. I told him I might be if work slowed down and the fishing bit didn’t work out. He saved my number as well, and I got on my bike, feeling hopeful for the first time in a long time. I breezed through the grocery store and headed back to the pawn shop.
It had gotten late in the day, and I was going to check the time, but I saw the light was on inside the pawn shop. The bikes were still out, so I stopped and chained mine to the front tires of the others that were parked outside. I debated leaving my heavy pack, but wasn’t sure. If the lady of the premises locked everything up and wore a gun, I probably should take it with me. The door didn’t make any noise, and I didn’t see anybody.
“Hello?” I called softly.
Must be in the bathroom. I walked over to the sporting goods section. I had gotten some good ideas from Greg, the charter captain. I pulled down a heavy rod from a shelf and checked it out. It was unlike any kind of freshwater fishing rod I had ever seen. It was twice as heavy as a rod you would use for steelhead fishing, and the reel on it was the size of my fists with braided line. I set that one down and picked up a rod that had a brass reel on it that looked straight out of Jaws.
What sounded like a loud slap echoed in the air, and I heard an angry voice snarl something. It wasn’t loud, but it had come from the doorway behind the glass counter. I put the rod down softly and, as quietly as I could, I walked in that direction.
“…Open the safe,” a man’s voice said.
“I don’t have the combination. I just work here.” I heard Carly’s voice, but it sounded muffled, thick?
“One last time,” then I heard another slapping sound, and Carly cried out in pain.
I wasn’t a super soldier, a cop, or anybody who was trained to do much more than look ugly and fix things, but I was pretty good in a scrap, having to fight quite a bit growing up. I put my pack on the ground as quietly as I could and then turned the handle quietly. It turned all the way without a click, and I gave it a gentle push, praying for quiet hinges.
The door opened to the left, but as soon as the door cracked open, I could see straight ahead of me three figures looming over Carly who was holding her hand to the side of her face. Blood trickled from the edge of her mouth, and the parts her hand wasn’t covering were red and puffy; evidence they had worked her over some. I could see her holster was empty, and that was when I saw the man on the far left. He held her gun in an uneasy grip while the one in the far right had what looked like a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun.
“Last chance, or we close your store for good.”
“Or not,” I said, kicking the door open so hard it crashed against the left wall, the handle sticking in the sheetrock.
It startled everyone, but I was already moving. I knew this was the dumbest thing ever, but I bum-rushed them as a group before they could turn and mow me down. I hit the guy with the shotgun about mid waist, like I would tackle somebody back in the days I’d played high school football, and kept powering with my legs.
Carly moved to the side as I crashed into them, bowling all of us over. The man with the shotgun tried to raise it up to hit me with the barrel as both hands pushed like he was benching, but I grabbed it in the middle, yanking. He must not have been holding onto it tightly because my arm flew back, and I elbowed the second man who had started getting to his feet right away. The air left him as he held his balls. I turned the shotgun around and saw the third man fumbling with the pistol that he had dropped.
“I’d stop that if I were you,” I told him, thumbing back the hammers on the double barrel.
The double clicks did what my words alone didn’t. The man turned, the pistol in his hand by the grip only, and when he saw the twin bores pointed his way, he froze. Carly walked over and snatched it out of his grip, then held him at gunpoint. I started to push myself up when the man I had grabbed the shotgun from kicked me in the nuts. Pain exploded, and he started fighting me for the scattergun again. I laid down flat, knowing if I puked, I would cover him first, but I had my hand over the trigger guard, and I had made sure the gun was pointed at the wall and not people.
I headbutted him once, and he went semi still. I headbutted him again, seeing stars, and he went limp. I staggered to my feet to see the man I had elbowed earlier standing up, his hands in the air.
“Don’t shoot?” he urged.
I punched him square in the chin and threatened to shove the shotgun up his ass and pull both triggers if he even so much as twitched.
Chapter Eight
It had been a week and a half, and I was still getting phone calls from reporters. Stop an armed robbery and somebody wants to make you two or three inches of column in their newspaper or a soundbite for TV. I tried to avoid it, but when the police released my name it wasn’t long until my record was tied to my name on the first day. After that, I figured anything I didn’t say could be used against me, so I started doing some phone interviews, and a couple reporters came out to the warehouse to record one while I worked on things.
Franklin thought it was hilarious, and though he hadn’t done so before, he had started getting on me now.
“You gotta come to church now; you ain’t got no choice.”
“I would probably have before now, but… I mean, my record is out there now. Scary ex-felon stops robbery by scary ex-felons.”
“So you’re a former bad guy who did bad things to bad guys who deserved bad things?”
“What the… Franklin—”
His laughter cut me off, and when he stopped, he told me that Carly had asked him to make sure I came. I had skipped the first Sunday after the incident, and the next service was two days away.
“If I go, will you tell me about how things might be slowing down?” I asked him.
“I… sure,” he said, taking his hat off.
We sat down, and he told me that he had been putting off going on vacation and had been saving to go on a longer trip to South America for a month and a half. He was going to be doing some missionary work. It all sounded wonderful actually. Not my ideal vacation, but then again, I had never been strong in my religious convictions, not enough to take on something major like that.
“That sounds fantastic,” I told him.
“I mean, I can cover the bills while I’m gone. I have captains ready to take over any business that comes in, and have the big boat rented out to them. I know you’re not ready for all of that; it’s not that I don’t trust you—”
“No, I totally understand,” I told him. “You’ve given me work to do, a way to make, money, a place to stay—”
“By the way, you’re more than welcome to stay if I go—”
“Thank you, but if you need me to move on, I can.”
He took a deep breath, and I thought ‘here it comes’. “Actually, having you here has helped out a ton. Living here, I mean. We haven’t had any break-ins, because you’re here. Now after this news thing? Nobody is gonna mess with you. You’re one bad pendejo nobody wants to mess with. Nearly killed a man in a bar fight when he tried to knife you, then stopped an armed robbery bare handed when there were three men and two guns?”
“I…”
That was actually me. I was there, but when he put it like that… “You don’t need me to move on?”
“Actually, I’d appreciate it if you’d stick around while I’m gone and keep an eye on Irish John for me,” he said.
“Oh, I don’t mind that at all. I was hoping he’d show me the good fishing spots at least once.”
“Thinking about getting
your commercial license after all?” he asked, knowing he’d changed the subject.
“Yeah, and heck, I might as well use what little name recognition I can get, right?” I asked him.
“Yes, and speaking of which… You’ve been avoiding Carly calling you, on top of not going to church.”
Dammit, another subject change.
“I talked to her the day after the robbery,” I told him. “My new phone is ringing off the hook. I haven’t checked it too much,” I admitted, half telling the truth.
“I got no dog in this race,” he said, “but I think that woman’s taken a shine to you.”
“She’s something,” I told him and gave him a toothy smile.
“Yeah, her parents are good people too.”
“Okay, okay, no more hard sell. I’ll call her back, and I’ll see you at church. Mind if I knock off early? I want to go buy some tackle, electronics for the boat, and some gear.”
“What kind of electronics?” Franklin asked.
“Well, I was hoping for one of those portable GPS things so I could mark fishing grounds and a fish finder—”
“You know that bin of gear we’ve been piling up, stripping out hulls?”
“Yeah?” I asked, knowing he had been selling stuff from there on eBay.
“Go pick out whatever you need, but remember, you’re going to have to figure out a way to power it, keep it powered, and keep it dry. Most of it came from old cabin cruisers and small houseboats.”
That was news to me. The stuff I had been stripping had been from smaller hulled boats. Then again, I never dug in his piles of electronics much. He made decent money selling used parts and electronics on eBay. Now that I was fixing mechanical stuff for him, he was doing bigger projects.
“That’s going to save me a ton.”
“And whatever else you need out here. Dang, I thought you would be disappointed for being benched a month. You’re already kinda bouncing back.”
“Yeah,” I admitted, “I am. I’ve saved almost everything I’ve made money wise, and I don’t spend much. Other than that drink with Irish, I stay out of that kind of trouble for the most part. I spend my nights fishing or watching the sunset.”
“Too many of them alone! Go ahead, knock off for the day then, and go see Carly.”
Busted, I gave him a wave and washed my hands and got my bike out. The ride over took me an easy twenty minutes and, without my backpack, the wind was easily keeping my back cool despite working up a nice sweat. When I got there, I locked my bike up with the others like I had done a week and a half ago and walked in. This time, there was a loud door alarm that made a doorbell sound. I stopped and looked and noticed there had been other changes too. A metal curtain had been installed over the doorway, so at the end of business, it could be closed and locked.
“Can I help … oh.”
“Hi, Carly,” I said sheepishly.
The side of her face was a rainbow of colors, and her lips had been split before, but were mostly healed now. The cut by the side of her eye was almost as healed. I hadn’t been sure if she needed stitches, but by the time I’d knocked out the last guy, she’d turned into a raging, curse-slinging angry monster right up until the police had shown up.
She saw me and turned her head away, almost as if to hide her face. I walked forward and took her chin in my hands and gently made her turn her head. A tear welled up in one eye.
“How are you doing?” I asked her quietly.
“I’m good,” she said, wiping her eye and stepping out of my reach.
“You look good,” I told her.
“I look like I got worked over with a lead pipe,” she shot back.
“Getting slapped around and hit by a shotgun to the noggin will do that. You’re too pretty to be upset by that, though. It takes a lot more than that to make you as ugly as me.”
She cracked a smile then punched me in the shoulder. “You big asshole.”
I laughed and rubbed my arm. For being half my body mass or less, she sure could pack a punch. I hadn’t meant to make her upset or uncomfortable, so it was good to see her bouncing back so quick.
“Sorry I didn’t call back,” I told her, “you needed somebody to talk to and I…”
“You don’t even know me, I mean, we’d just met that day…” her voice was frustrated, and she threw her hands in the air.
I saw she had her gun on her hip again, but I followed her when she went behind the counter and pulled up a stool.
“People go through life or death stuff together… I’m sorry, I should have been there for you,” I told her, realizing the depths of how scared she really had been.
I hadn’t been myself. I was probably too slow or too stupid, but not once had the fear affected me, except the fear of maybe somebody getting hurt that needn’t.
“So…” she said blowing out a deep breath, “What can I get you?”
I told her. She pulled out a notebook and started writing, tapping the pencil against her chin and then took that list to her sporting goods section. She right away pulled down a dozen rod and reel combinations, several tackle boxes and then started going through the ones she’d left on the shelf. I was alarmed at the stack of gear she was throwing up. I just told her the kinds of stuff I was thinking about doing… then I began to worry I hadn’t brought enough cash with me.
“Do I really need— “
“Yes,” Carly shot back.
She was emptying her shelves at an alarming rate. I started looking through the pile of lures she had pulled from other tackle boxes, and then opened the ones she had put down for me. The two biggest boxes she had had were on the shelf and I didn’t think I could carry two of them, let alone all of the gear. It was going to be a ton of rides on my bike. I waited and pulled her stool out from behind the counter. I had offered to help, but she had told me no.
When she was done, there was a mountain of stuff. The door alarm went off and we both turned to look. Three kids walked in, maybe aged nineteen-ish. They walked to the counter, eyeballing me on the stool, and then Carly.
“Help you guys find something, or you just looking again?” she asked them.
“We were wondering—” the one guy was pulling on his friend’s arm and whispering into his ear.
“Is that… is he…?” they pointed at me.
“What’s the question?” Carly asked.
“You’re the guy who knocked out Ramon’s dad?” the one asked, addressing me now.
“Who’s Ramon?” I asked him.
“Skinny guy,” they said, pointing the kid out. “His dad got punched in the mouth during the robbery?”
“Yeah, that was me,” I told him, worried now.
As a felon, I wasn’t allowed to own a firearm, and I thought even a knife larger than a few inches was prohibited unless I was cooking or fishing, but I’d never bothered finding out. These two, though, they knew about the robbery…
“That’s him. Told you, he’s as big as a house,” Carly said, smiling.
“Mi madre,” the one boy said softly then marched up to me, his hand out. “Thank you.”
“You’re Ramon?”
“Si,” he said, quietly.
“I’m sorry your dad’s in jail. I—”
“That’s why I’m thanking you,” he said, giving my hand one more squeeze before backing up. “He should have been gone a long time ago. My mother let him move back in, and it’s been hell.”
“I… no problem, kid,” I told him, thinking maybe he was younger than I’d first thought.
“Is he coming to church this Sunday?” the other boy asked suddenly.
Carly looked at me, one eyebrow raised higher than the other. I sighed dramatically and nodded. The boys high fived each other and waved their goodbyes.
“You really are?” Carly asked.
“I really am,” I told her.
“I just needed a little time to see if things were going to blow over and get the reporters to quit calling me,” I admitted.
“Again, Mister Delgado, thank you. My mother and I really appreciate you stopping him. I worry about what kind of trouble he would bring home. He used to be tied up with some bad dudes, you know?”
Gangs? I’d run across them in prison, and growing up in Chicago, you couldn’t swing a dead cat without running into a gangbanger or gangster.
“My pleasure, Ramon,” I told him, patting him on the shoulder.
Carly and I watched them leave, and I couldn’t help feeling a little sad that the kid and his mother were thrilled that his dad was locked up.
“Hey, I might have to make a ton of trips to get this all back to my place. Can I store some of it here until then?” I asked, looking at the ginormous pile of gear.
“You got to pay for it first,” Carly said.
“Sure, how much?” I asked her, pulling my money out.
“I’ve got about a hundred into it. I’ll give it to you at cost, if you’ll do me one favor.”
A hundred dollars? No way, I’d seen the prices on this stuff, then I remembered how much stuff would be marked up, or what happened when somebody hawked their stuff and lost it because they couldn’t get the money back.
“What’s the favor?” I asked.
“Dinner?”
I didn’t have to worry about multiple trips after all. Carly closed a little early and put a note on the door before she locked up. She had me load my bike and the gear in the back of her small Toyota Tundra. The AC was freezing me out, and I had to smile. The last time I had been in a car with AC was when the cop had given me a lift. I directed her to the warehouse, though I was fairly sure she knew where it was already. I got out and opened the gate, locking it behind her once the truck was pulled in, and walked over to the old Chris Craft. She sat there and I pointed at the boat. She rolled her window down, so I walked over to her.
“Where are you staying again?” she asked.
I sheepishly pointed at the boat on blocks, and she grinned.
“She’s not seaworthy, yet you sleep in her?” she asked.
“She keeps me dry, besides, unless water’s coming up from underneath me, it stays out.”
