by Alyssa Day
"Jack?"
"I didn't want to alarm Eleanor, Tess, but just because Dave got lucky doesn’t mean this isn't serious." He took my hand and pulled me away from the crowd, over toward the window. "Someone shot my friend. Someone is going to pay for that."
"Dave could have been killed," I said, the full impact hitting me now that I wasn't in comforting mode. "Jack, why would someone shoot Dave? Everybody loves Dave!"
My hands started shaking with reaction, and Jack pulled me in for a hug. I rested my forehead on his chest for a moment, trying to think clearly, trying not to waste time wondering why anybody would shoot Dave, because I had no idea, and instead thinking of what I should do next.
"I need to call Aunt Ruby and Uncle Mike. They'll want to come out and be here for Eleanor." I dug for my phone and called Uncle Mike's phone, because he'd be easier to explain this to, not that I knew much, yet. A minute or two later, I'd filled him in, and he'd promised he and Aunt Ruby would be out as soon as he fed the animals.
The doors opened again, and this time a short, blonde, pretty nurse came out and beckoned to Jack. "Mr. Wolf would like to see you now," she said, giving him an admiring glance. "If you'll follow me?"
He looked at me, and I nodded, and I even managed not to glare at the nurse, who kept smiling at Jack like she was starving and he was strawberry cheesecake.
"I'll be back in a few, and then I want to head out to Dave's place and see what I can see," he said, his face grim.
"I'll probably go with you. There are plenty of people here who want to see Dave, and I don't need to add to the crowd. He's probably tired and woozy now, anyway, and just wants to sleep."
He touched my arm and then followed the nurse out of the room. I sat down on a hideously uncomfortable orange chair and prepared to wait, but just then the elevator doors opened. I blew out a sigh of relief at the familiar uniform.
The sheriff of Dead End, Susan Gonzalez, was here now. She'd figure this out.
She scanned the room, nodded to the group still clustered by the vending machine, and then caught sight of me and started across the room. I stood and waited, silently offering up thanks, yet again, that our previous sheriff was long gone and probably locked up in a hole in the ground, never to be seen in Dead End again.
Susan was a friend. A couple of years older than me, she was a little shorter, but had an air of absolute authority and competence which went a long way to making her great at her new job. She had long, silky black hair that she always wore up in a tight bun for work, and her golden eyes and golden-brown skin combined to make her a true beauty in a way most of us could only dream of.
And she was tough as nails.
"Tess, what do you know?"
She was also a "skip the small talk, get straight to the point" person.
"Not much, to be honest. Somebody shot Dave. A man at his company office. Nobody seems to know who or why. Dave jumped out the window, head first, according to the doctor, which is why he only got shot in the … um … behind."
Susan blinked. "Is he okay? I mean, clearly he isn't okay, but how bad is it?"
"Not bad, Dr. Boston said. Evidently they only had to clean and suture it, and they're keeping him overnight for observation, but he can go home tomorrow. He'll probably need a pillow or bag of frozen peas, though." I grimaced at the thought of sitting down after you'd been shot in the butt.
Susan wrote something down on the small pad of paper she'd pulled out of a pocket, and then she looked up at me. "Getting shot is no fun, even if it doesn’t hit anything vital," she said flatly, and I wondered how she knew—if she'd been shot—but before I could reply, she nodded. "He's probably going to be the butt of a lot of jokes, though."
I groaned. "That was bad. Really, really bad."
She grinned at me. "Yeah, but I almost had to say it." She put her notebook back in her pocket, her smile fading. "I need to talk to Dave. Can he have visitors yet?"
"Yeah, Jack and Eleanor are back there with him. If you go up to that desk, somebody will take you back, I'm sure, although they said only two visitors at a time."
"They'll let me in. Thanks, Tess."
When the nurse opened the doors for Susan, Jack walked out, and they stopped in the doorway to talk, but by the time I crossed the room, they'd finished their conversation.
Jack still looked angry, but his eyes had gone back to green. "Are you ready to go?"
"Yeah. Mike and Ruby are on their way. I should get back to the shop. They'll let me know what's going on and take care of Eleanor."
Jack stopped to tell Julio that Dave would like to see him next.
"He's really going to be okay?" Julio's normally cheerful expression was gone, replaced with a fierce wariness.
"Yeah. He's doped up now, but not too bad. He's still making sense, but a little woozy. I think he wants to talk to you about handling things at work."
"Of course. He knows he doesn't need to worry about that." He started toward the nurse who was patiently waiting next to the open doors and then turned back to Jack. "You're going to find the son of a bitch who did this?"
"Count on it." The ice in Jack's voice must have reassured Julio, who nodded. "Let me know if you need any help."
Jack nodded, and then he headed for the exit marked STAIRS. I could tell without asking that he was too on edge to want to be trapped in an elevator, and I couldn’t blame him.
When we started down, the stairwell empty but for us, I touched Jack's shoulder. "What did he say?"
"Not here."
I waited until we were back in the truck, heading out of the parking lot, before I asked again. "What did he say?"
Jack shot me a narrow-eyed glance that promised pain and vengeance. "He didn't know."
"What do you mean, he didn't know? He at least saw him, so he can do a sketch with a police artist, right?"
Jack laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Sure, but he won't tell me anything. Well, almost nothing."
I waited, but he didn't elaborate.
"Okay, enough with the mysterious. Who was it, and why did he shoot Dave? Is it some big misunderstanding? A meth head? An unsatisfied construction customer? Although Dave does such good work, I can't imagine it's that."
Jack said nothing.
I narrowed my eyes and pulled out the big guns. "Fine, if you don't want to talk. We're only thirty miles from home. I guess I'll sing."
I snapped on the radio.
Jack turned pale.
And then he talked.
3
Here's the thing about my singing.
It's … not great.
I've been told that small children have run screaming just from hearing it. This is somewhat hurtful, but possibly true.
Hence, the threat to Mr. Superior Tiger Hearing.
"He sounds like hired muscle," he said quickly, glancing at me and snapping off the radio. "Talked about moving into town. Starting partnerships. Dave said he didn't need a partner, and the guy pulled out a gun."
"Really?" I rolled my eyes. "Why would anybody try that here? If they do any research at all, they'd know Dead Enders would never work with outsiders who pulled crap like that."
"Maybe it's gang stuff."
"Gangs? Really? We're not exactly a hotbed of crime and money. Even the Dead End Senior Bingo night's biggest haul is two hundred dollars and a case of Granny Josephine's pickled green tomatoes."
Jack whistled. "A whole case? That's almost enough to make me take up bingo. I love those tomatoes."
"That's right, you played football with her grandson in high school, didn't you?"
He grinned and took the exit to Dead End. "Yes, and when we knew Granny Josephine would be cooking dinner for the team, we played our hearts out."
"Did you eat as much then as you do now?"
"I don’t eat that much now."
"Ha! You eat as much as a small country! Speaking of which, can we have lunch now? It's almost twelve. We can let everybody at Beau's know Dave is going to be al
l right."
For maybe the first time since I'd known him, Jack turned down food. "No. I want to get over to Dave's now and find out what's going on."
"Then I'm going with you."
He shot me a raised-eyebrow glance. "Like hell you are. Who knows what may be waiting for me there?"
"Then you shouldn't go there, either! Let Susan and her deputies handle it," I tried, knowing even as the words came out of my mouth that he wouldn't.
Jack said nothing, just shook his head slightly, and we drove the rest of the way to the pawnshop in silence. Before I got out of the truck, though, I paused and put a hand on his arm.
"I know you feel like you have to do this yourself, because you were a soldier, rebel commander, and the biggest, baddest in every situation, but …" I took a deep, shaky breath. "Just remember that you matter to me. And don’t get yourself shot, in the butt or anywhere else."
"That's a clown," he said, staring straight ahead and turning off the ignition.
"What? What does that mean? You think it's clownish of me to care about you? I don't—"
He reached out and gently pushed my chin to the side, until I was facing the windshield, too.
"Oh." I blinked. "It's a clown."
Because a clown, in full-on circus attire, was staring into the window of my pawnshop.
And he wasn't alone.
Jack's eyes widened. "It's actually four, no, five, no … six … did seven clowns really just walk out of that VW Bug?"
"There's a VW van behind it. Some came from there," I pointed out.
"Huh."
We sat for a moment, watching, as seven clowns--red noses, giant rubber shoes, and all—gathered on the porch and milled around, chatting amongst themselves.
"This," I finally said, "is a weird damn day."
"You take the clowns, I'll go check out Dave's office?"
I sighed. "Fine. But you call me the second you … well, the second you anything. Okay?"
"Deal. Did you hear about the two cannibals who were eating the clown?"
I stopped, hand on the door handle, and stared at him. "What?"
Jack flashed me a brilliant smile. "One said to the other, 'does this taste funny to you?'"
I groaned all the way up to my porch, where a bunch of clowns turned and looked at me.
The one closest to me, a guy wearing a blue and white suit, blue shoes, and a blue wig, pointed at me. "Do you work here?"
"I do. I'm Tess. Sorry for the delay in opening. Welcome to Dead End Pawn." I unlocked the door, and then the blue clown held it open and waved his hand with a flourish.
"After you, please, Miss."
"I, um, thanks." I was trying to be calm about the fact that seven clowns were trooping into my pawnshop. To be honest, though, after the news about my dad, and then Dave getting shot, the clowns seemed almost anticlimactic.
"What do you call it when a clown holds the door open for you?" A female clown in a mostly orange suit asked me as she filed in.
"Um …"
"A nice jester!" They all called out the answer at the same time, except for a guy in green who rolled his eyes and sneered at the rest of them. (They all had specific colors to their ensembles, except for a little guy at the back who was geared up in a rainbow of hues.)
I smiled politely, but 'nice jester' wasn't nearly as funny as the cannibal joke, not that I'd ever tell Jack that. "How can I help you?"
"We'd like to pawn things," Orange said, shoving her way through the crowd.
The crowd of clowns.
Heh.
Like a pride of lions or a murder of crows? I started to ask but decided against it. Oddly enough, these clowns didn't seem like they had much of a sense of humor.
"Well, you came to the right place," I said as brightly as possible, considering the day I'd had. "We take things in pawn. We're a pawnshop."
I snapped my mouth shut before I said 'yes, indeedy' or something equally stupid and instead just gave them an inquisitive look, simultaneously wondering how Dave was doing, how Eleanor was holding up, if Jack were safe, and why in the world seven clowns in full costume had decided to show up in my shop.
"You can say it, you know," Blue said in a sour tone. "We're used to it."
I looked around, but none of them would meet my gaze. "Ah, I can say what, exactly?"
"What's a clown like you doing in a place like this?" Orange said.
A guy in all red, except for a vividly purple wig, gave me a sad smile. "If you're ever attacked by a gang of clowns, you should go straight for the juggler."
My head started to hurt. "I don't actually—"
"When a clown retires, he leaves some big shoes to fill," Green said glumly.
"OKAY," I said, way too loudly, when I caught Blue opening his mouth, undoubtedly to tell me another teeth-grittingly awful clown joke. "I wasn't going to say any of those things, although of course I'm interested in why you're all here and in costume. But I've had kind of a rough morning, so could we please just skip to what you want to pawn?"
They all gaped at me like I'd stepped on a kitten. By Southern standards, I kind of had. We don't get right to the point in the South as much as we meander around it, until one or the other side caves and asks for a glass of sweet tea.
Aunt Ruby would be so disappointed in me.
Or maybe not. The one time we ran into a clown in public, tying balloon animals at a buffet restaurant, she'd told him to back away from the crying child (me) or she'd tie his ears into a balloon animal.
"Nobody likes us anymore," Orange said.
"We blame Stephen King," Blue pitched in, his whole face drooping.
Or maybe that was just his makeup.
"I'm … sorry. But—"
"Yeah, yeah. We'd like to pawn our ukuleles. Business is down, bookings are waaaaaay down, especially since that It movie came out—"
"I loved that movie," Purple said.
Everybody else gasped. I think even I gasped. "Really?"
"Traitor!" Orange accused.
Purple narrowed his eyes and glared at us. "Did you even see the movie?"
I held up my hands and shook my head. "Nope. Not me. Way too scary for me. I've only gone to one scary movie in my entire life, and I started shaking and wanting to cover my eyes."
"That's normal enough," Red graciously conceded.
I sighed. "Yeah, but I was still in the popcorn line. I'm just not made for scary stuff."
"So you hate us, too," Blue put in mournfully.
"No! No, I don't hate clowns! I think you're awesome," I said, exaggerating enormously, but the poor clowns just seemed to need some encouragement. "So. You said ukuleles? We don't get much call for ukuleles, actually. More guitars and—"
Blue pulled a case out of what must have been a giant pocket in his clown suit and gently placed it on my counter. The other six followed suit, until I had a line of seven ukulele cases lined up on the shining glass. As one, they all flipped the latches, opened the lids, and stepped back, so I was presented with a line of glowing wooden ukuleles, seemingly all in pristine condition, which meant they were worth …
I didn't have a single clue what they were worth.
"Okay. So, first, I need to establish a value," I began, and Blue put a file folder bulging with papers on the counter.
"Bills of sale, comp sales on eBay, descriptions of each one, etc., etc.," he said. "They're soprano ukuleles made of koa wood, which, as you know, is the best wood for optimal tones."
I did not in fact know this. I didn't even know there was a type of wood called koa, or that there were soprano ukuleles. Surprisingly enough, people who work in pawnshops don't automatically know everything about everything in the world. We just do a lot of rapid-Googling. We also are rock stars at trivia games. (Ask me what year the first grandfather clock was created, I dare you.)
"They're worth five thousand dollars each. We'll take checks, but we prefer cash," Orange said.
I blew out a breath. "Did you know the first grand
father clock was created in 1680?"
They all looked confused.
(A crowd of confused clowns clustering around my counter, all of them wearing red rubber noses, is a sight that will more than likely live on in my nightmares for years to come.)
"Never mind. Okay, let me tell you a bit about how pawn shops work."
They all nodded, and even looked mildly interested, as much as I could tell beneath the makeup. Speaking of the makeup …
"Why are you in full clown costume? I mean, do you walk around like that all the time?"
Blue sighed. "No, Miss—"
"Tess."
"No, Tess, we're on the way to a performance. At a Children's Hospital, in fact."
Now I felt like a terrible person for not being able to give charitable, benevolent clowns top dollar for their ukuleles.
It did not escape my attention that my life was getting weirder by the minute.
"Oh. I'm sorry. I won't hold you up. But here's how the pawn business works: we specialize in short-term loans for people who don't have the kind of collateral that banks demand. You probably know this, right?"
They all nodded. Green shot a stream of water out of a flower on his lapel at Purple, who pulled a rubber bat out of a pocket and bopped Green over the head with it.
I assumed that meant "Yes, we get it, move on, already," so I moved on.
"Most of those people come back for their property, after making the loan plus interest payments. Is that what you want? The other option is maybe I could buy a couple of them outright. The problem is that there's not much of a market in Dead End for used ukuleles, even such fine ones as these." I did not want to buy ukuleles, but these were clowns who were performing at a children's hospital, and what kind of monster wouldn’t help them out?
They stared at each other in silence, a couple of them scuffing their enormous shoes on my floor, and I tried not to think about whether they were leaving marks and how hard it would be to clean them off the floors, but when you are the business owner and the business janitor all rolled up into one person, it's hard not to think about these things sometimes.
