Badass and the Beast: 10
Page 3
My words rang cold through the cavern. Even the fox remained still as a statue, watching me.
Landry just stared, confused. “That’s not like them. They—they’re bluffing. They wouldn’t bother.”
She said it to herself, I think. “They want two grand by Friday and they left the diner in tatters to make their point.”
She dropped to her knees. “They weren’t supposed to do that.”
“Yeah, well, a bee dies when it stings, but it still does,” I replied. “You knew they were coming. I want to know how.”
Okay. I drew in a shaky breath and stepped through the door. Here we go.
Striding past rows of fine china, antique pistols, and beautifully ornate telephones with rotary dials, I made my way to the clerk at the back. He looked down at me from his high desk, one eye freakishly enlarged by an appraisal lens.
“Can I help you?”
I felt like I was at the bench of a judge. I heaved my patchwork guitar up onto his desk. “How much can I get for this?”
The pawnbroker scrunched his nose. He hefted the guitar, rattling the loose pieces of its innards. “It’s awfully beat up.”
“Please,” I warbled. “I’ll take anything.”
He scrutinized me up and down. “Why would you want to sell this, dear?”
The tears welled in my eyes, tracing trails in the dirt on my cheeks. I’d slept in a cave the night before, and it certainly showed. Hopefully it garnered some sympathy.
“It’s for my friend,” I began. “She needs money something awful. This horrible woman robbed her!”
“Oh dear,” the shopkeeper sighed.
“It gets worse,” I sniveled. “I tracked her down, the thief. Told her she’d got my friend in a heap of trouble. She told me she was sorry—can you believe that? Actually sorry. And that she’d help me get the money back—even invited me inside for the night.”
“How’s that worse exactly?”
I wiped at my cheeks. “After I fell asleep, she took everything. Every cent. Just left me my guitar. Suppose she thought that was real noble.”
“That’s awful,” the old man said, shaking his head.
I slammed a hand on the desk. “She’s the devil, ain’t she! A truer demon I never heard of!”
“Just dreadful.”
“Yes. Dreadful,” I agreed. “And now all I can do is sell the guitar. It was my dad’s—s’all I got left of him, actually. But, Mister, if I can’t help my friend get the money she needs—Mister, you just gotta take the guitar. Please.”
“You can’t part with this…lovely instrument,” he said, trying to be polite. “It was your father’s—”
“And my father always said to do what’s right,” I shot back. “And what’s right is to help my friend. Whatever it takes. Now, please. I’ve been to three other places. I’m running out of time.”
The man cleared his throat. “Do you know how pawnbrokers work, dear?”
I nodded, sniffling. “You buy people’s things, then you sell it for double.”
The man’s lips ticked at the corners. “That’s…not exactly right. It’s more like a loan, see? You have the chance to buy your things back if they don’t sell. But…maybe I don’t put this on the market right away. What do you think about that?”
“I…I don’t understand.”
He tapped away at the register until the drawer slid out. It dinged just like Lois’s. He took out a few bills and handed them to me. “I’ll keep your daddy’s guitar in back. I have a special room where it’ll be safe. If you can get the money back soon, or—or if your friend doesn’t need it, then I’ll let you buy it back, okay? No extra charge.”
I licked salty tears from my lips, staring at the meager wad of cash. “Thank you, Mister. You have no idea what this means.”
He smiled. “You run along now.”
I shot him one last grateful gaze, then I hightailed it out of the shop and into the street. The sun was out, but it didn’t feel any warmer than the day before. In fact, it felt colder. I felt naked without my guitar.
But you know what they say about desperate times.
I looked up and down the block. Nothing but the usual people out doing their holiday shopping. On my second sweep, I saw what I was looking for.
A silver fox.
I tightened my coat at the collar and chased after him without running. The Greyhair led me into an alley, back beyond a couple buildings, up a staircase, down a fire escape, then into another alley.
Right behind the pawnbroker’s shop.
“Did he go for it?” a voice asked.
I held up my hands. “Do you see a guitar?”
Landry strode into the light. I couldn’t bury my grin.
She frowned. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Did you leave out that ‘truer demon’ stuff this time?”
I smiled wider. “Maybe.”
She groaned. “You know, one of these times you’re gonna find out the hard way that the biblical stuff doesn’t mean much to these guys.”
“It’s worked so far, hasn’t it?” I countered.
“You’re getting cocky,” she warned. “What’s rule number one?”
“Don’t get cocky,” I repeated, tiredly. “Speaking of, isn’t this getting a little risky? Shouldn’t we wait until dark?”
“That’s a great idea!” Landry said, overly sincere. “We should come back under the cover of night, when the streets are so empty you can hear a pin drop. Hopefully the guard dogs will be in place by then.”
“Geez, I was just asking,” I said. “We’re supposed to be teaching each other, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember,” she muttered.
Landry went for a pocket and retrieved the speaker from an old phone. Its counterpart mouthpiece was inside my guitar. She said it acted like a microphone. That was just one of the many modifications she’d added to the instrument. Tools, she’d called them. To me, they looked like random trinkets. Knickknacks and scrap iron.
She pressed the speaker to her ear. “Go keep a lookout.”
I didn’t move.
“What’s the problem?”
“Can’t I watch this time?”
Landry sighed, shaking her head. “Stay back with Bomber and try to keep quiet, okay?”
“Okay!” I said eagerly. “Who’s Bomber?”
She nodded at the fox. “He’s Bomber.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course he is.” Bomber’s ears flattened.
Landry closed her eyes, listening intently to the earpiece. She reminded me of one of those crazy bag ladies down at the pier talking into their shoe.
After a moment, her eyes shot open. “It’s in.”
“My guitar?”
“Obviously.” She pressed her free hand against the wall. Her brow furrowed. Her neck craned. She traced the masonry methodically.
“Are you doing it?” I whispered. “Are you Scrapping?”
“Are you going to keep asking that?”
“Sorry. I just want to know when it starts.”
“It doesn’t just—” she began, then sighed. “When it looks like I’m concentrating really, really hard, that’s when it starts. Okay?”
“Okay, okay.” I looked at Bomber. “She’s touchy.”
Landry clenched her jaw and went back to work on the wall, both hands. The speaker stayed in place at her ear. She felt her way across the surface. Her movements were almost spiritual. Meditative.
“I don’t get how you can Scrap my guitar?” I asked. She winced at my voice. “Doesn’t it only work on metal?”
Landry shook her head. “Anything technology. Any device. The minute it becomes even the most basic machine, I can take it apart. Manipulate it.”
“So why not just take the whole shop apart?” I asked. “I saw plenty of machines in there.”
“Not the machines I need,” she said, quietly. “Plus, leveling a building isn’t exactly subtle.”
“So then—”
“What’s happening?”
“Shopkeep’s getting cozy,” she sighed, dropping to her haunches. “I’ll have to wait.”
“Can I ask another question then?”
“As if anything could stop you.”
“Why does my guitar need to be inside the safe?”
“It’s not a safe,” Landry answered, defensively. “I crack safes in my sleep. It’s a saferoom. Business owners use them to store valuables. Just a solid cement room, no locks, no latches. The door doesn’t even have hinges. I’m totally blind to it.”
I snickered. “So wait…you’re telling me all I need to stop a Scrapper from stealing my stuff is a simpler lock?”
Landry breathed hot steam through her nose. “I found a way to crack it, didn’t I?”
“With my guitar,” I said, proudly.
“With sonic vibration,” she corrected. “Any wall can be demolished with the proper wavelength.”
“Proper wavelengths played by my guitar.”
Landry rolled her eyes. “Is that what you were getting at? Tell you what, why don’t we make sure you’re right about your chords before you start patting yourself on the back.”
“I’m always right about chords.”
“Rule number one?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Landry rose up. “He’s leaving.” Her hands went back to the wall instantly, all business. This job was already taking longer than the last.
We had been to three other places, I hadn’t lied to the pawnbroker about that.
I glanced at Bomber—or rather, where I thought Bomber would be. Of course, he wasn’t. Down at the end of the alley, he was peeking around the corner into the street. Keeping watch.
Landry hadn’t moved. I almost reached out and touched her, but suddenly her trance broke. She pulled her hands from the wall and repositioned her fingers. Her digits twitched in a familiar rhythm, strumming invisible strings.
“I’m through the saferoom,” she told me.
My stomach was a butterfly collection. This was the point of no return. If the shopkeep came back now, the jig was up.
“Okay,” Landry said, nodding at the wall. “How big’s the guitar? Show me.”
I made an L-7 with my thumbs and forefingers, eyeballing the wall like I was shooting a motion picture. I imagined my guitar, its heft, then I placed my fingers on the wall. “About that.”
“About?” Landry asked, unconvinced.
“It’ll fit. I know my guitar,” I told her. I’d held it enough, and lugged it around even more.
“Okay,” she agreed. “Move it up, keep the dimensions.” I slid my finger-square higher on the wall. Her fingers twitched more. I felt a buzzing in my fingertips.
A seam split in between my fingers, letting loose a puff of reddish dust. The fault line continued cracking evenly until a complete rectangle had been cut in the brick.
“It’s perfect,” I said, beaming.
“Demolish walls,” Landry said, pulling back her hood. “Or precision cut them.”
She went for the makeshift bun on her head and pulled out two metal rods—industrial drill bits—causing her hair to tumble down her shoulders. She held the bits to the rectangle cutout and closed her eyes. They started spinning, tunneling into the brick.
My mouth hung slack. “Those count as machines?”
“They’re screws.”
“They’re drill bits.”
“No, I mean, screw. Like the simple machine,” she said as though it were obvious. “Screw, windlass, lever, wheel?”
“Is that kind of like your version of earth, wind, water, fire?”
“Sorta.”
When the drill bits—or screws, or whatever—were sunk deep in the brick, Landry clutched them like handles and teased out the section, setting it down gently. She peered into the space. Her eyes closed and she grinned like she was hearing a song in her head. “Jackpot.”
“You got ‘em?”
She put a palm up to the hole. “I got ‘em.”
I took a few steps back, giving the master her space. Bomber weaved in between my legs eagerly. This was his payday too.
After a second or two, six gold pocket watches floated through the gap, each with a chain worth a year of busking.
Jackpot indeed.
Landry snatched up the watches and buried them in her various pockets and pouches. Never keep all your loot in one spot, she’d said. A good pickpocket could pick one pocket, maybe two, without getting caught. But six? Fat chance.
Next was my guitar. It squeaked through the hole, scraping along the brick tunnel like nails on a chalkboard.
I looked at Landry sheepishly. “Oops.”
The guitar flopped into my arms like it was made of lead, causing me to wrench my back.
Landry smiled innocently. “Oops.”
With a dancer’s grace, she picked up the brick rectangle, plugged it back into its gap, then drilled out the bits without even touching them. She blew them cool before pinning up her hair. “Abracadabra.”
I nearly applauded. “That was amazing. We probably have more than enough money now, right?”
“We don’t have any money yet,” Landry said. “When was the last time you bought a sandwich with a pocket watch?”
“What do you mean?”
“We still have to flip this stuff,” she explained. “And the exchange rate for stolen goods is rather…fluid.”
Bomber dragged the guitar case to my feet. Strong fox. “Okay, so where’s our next hit?”
Landry looked amused. “Hit?”
“Job, con, gig, caper,” I rattled off. “What’s next?”
“Four’s plenty for today. More than,” she said. “All that sandwich talk got me hungry. Time to scare up some grub.”
I crossed my arms. “Come on, we’re on a roll here.”
“Exactly. We’re almost a crime wave,” she said. “We gotta let the tide ebb or the neighbors start talking.”
“Okay,” I sighed. “But we’ll have enough by Friday, right?”
Landry pretended she didn’t hear me. “Let’s go, kid. Girl’s gotta eat.”
On a rooftop overlooking Madison Avenue, I munched on a stale hunk of bread paired with some kind of smoked cheese. The pinks of sunset were already starting to tinge the sky. Bomber bounded over my ankles, fixing me with those ever-welling eyes of his. I tossed him a piece of cheese for his trouble.
To my left sat Landry. Between bites of her sandwich, she strummed the strings of my guitar, which rested a bit awkwardly in her lap. She twanged out a B minor, then an F sharp. It sounded ugly.
“You’d think with your intimate knowledge of machines, you’d be better at the guitar,” I told her.
“I’m not trying to be Charley Patton here,” she replied. “Just trying to get a feel for the tones.”
“Try the flats,” I suggested.
“Eat your grub.”
She picked out a few more notes that made my teeth hurt. I tossed another bite to Bomber, which he lapped up eagerly with quick flashes of his tongue. “I kind of regret robbing that guy.”
“Which guy?” Landry asked.
“The last one,” I said. “He was the only one that didn’t want to take my guitar.”
“Funny,” Landry said. “That makes him my least favorite mark.”
“I’m not talking about him like a—a mark. I mean, like a person,” I went on. “He didn’t seem like such a bad guy. It seems like we robbed a friendly grandpa or something.”
The notes stopped. I heard my guitar sink heavily into its case. Landry came around and took me by the shoulders.
“He’s a monster,” she said, sternly. She took a yellowed piece of parchment from a pocket. “Everyone on this list is a monster.”
“Lois isn’t a monster.”
“Not that part of the list,” she huffed, pointing to the paper. “These are the places the mob wants to add to their racket—Mama Louisa’s, Fifth and Venice, for example.” She moved her finger. “These are the business they already own. They’re fronts. Launderers. Trust me, they know where their money’s coming from.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Just as long as we’re hitting the right places.”
“This list is how I knew your friend’s diner was being targeted,” Landry said. “Little late to stop trusting it.”
“Okay, geez,” I sighed. “I was just saying that guy seemed to care is all.”
“Remember?” Landry said, lowering her voice. “Pay ‘em off with their own rotten money? Remember how good that sounded?”
“I said okay—okay?”
“Okay.” Landry went back to her section of rooftop and picked up the guitar. She’d only just begun playing, when she stopped mid-chord. “That line you’ve been using about your dad…is that true?”
I swallowed dryly. “The guitar was his, yeah.”
“Did he busk?”
I whirled on her. “Don’t you mean beg with music?”
“Whatever.”
I sniffed loudly. “He was a great musician. He traveled all over the South, learning from the greats. And when my mom died, I got to go with him.”
“Oh?”
I nodded. “And when he died—well, I didn’t go anywhere after that.”
“Oh.” Landry twanged out a few more notes.
I stared out at the skyline while my eyes dried up. “Can I ask you something?”
Landry sighed. “Sure.”
I turned back to her, smiling. “What the hell’s a windlass?”
She laughed and chucked a bolt lamely at my arm.
We hit a couple more places the next day. Then three more the day after that. For the most part, it was the same routine. A variation in story here, some extra waterworks there. Sometimes the take was different. An antique music box inlaid with pearls, a clock with precious gems in place of numbers. As long as it had cogs or gears or wires, it was ripe for the plucking.
All the shops were chosen for their proximity to each other—or lack thereof. Landry assured me they were all on the list, though she never showed me it again. When I asked her how she got it, she told me she got it from Capone himself, plucked it right from his ledger.