Christmas in Puyallup
Page 2
broke in one night, spray painted things like Death to the gooks on the walls. That was the beginning, I guess. He more or less has been in trouble ever since.”
He finished my haircut, and I handed him a twenty as I headed for the door. “It’s only 12 bucks,” he said.
I kept going and said, “Keep the change. I’m a big tipper when I get information.”
I hung around the downtown for awhile, taking in what sights there were, thinking about my next move. People came together, chatted and went their own ways again. I felt at home. I watched a small speck in the distance grow into a person. Mrs. Jacobs, as it turned out. She walked at a pretty good clip for someone her age. She passed the barber’s and entered the pawn shop. I don’t know why, but I stepped behind a tree trunk and waited.
Five minutes later Mrs. Jacobs came out and walked back up the street. She passed a couple of ladies going the other way and I saw her head nod but she didn’t slow down. When I was sure she was out of sight I walked into the pawn shop. The owner greeted me from the rear of the store. Furniture and other difficult to move items crowded the front. Watches, jewelry and firearms were all in the rear, just in front of electronics.
“Help you, sir?”
“How’s business?” I said.
“Not so good,” the pawnbroker said. “Hard times, you know.” Worry sat on his forehead below thinning hair. He kept his sleeves rolled above his elbows, displaying a blurry tattoo that might have been a naked lady at one time.
“People need loans but nobody buys anything,” I said.
“You got it.”
“What did that lady pawn?”
“Nothing. Not today anyway,” he said. He moved to one side and pointed down through the glass counter. “Two weeks ago. Now she just comes around to check if it’s still here. Says she’ll have the money to buy it back any day.”
I saw it right away. Diamonds that bright are easy to find because of the sparkle. You don’t have to be a jeweler to tell when one is next to a replica. I asked, “How much?”
He hesitated. There wasn’t a tag on it, unlike the zirconium fakes on either side. “Two thousand.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “The setting is way out of style. I just want the rock. I’m proposing next month and this will look nice on my girl friend. I’ll give you a thousand.”
The bargaining continued for a few more minutes. From his counters I could tell he knew I was serious. He also knew his chances of finding a buyer at his price in this town, this economy, were zilch. A bird in hand, so to speak. We settled on fourteen hundred and I let him gift wrap it for me. Nice small box that went in my pocket easily. “That will look fantastic in a contemporary setting,” he said.
On Monday I met with my boss, Rocco DiAngelis. Everybody calls him Angel. He had just returned from Vegas on a case and been up all night. It showed. He wanted results. When he heard I hadn’t collared Warren Jacobs Jr. yet he gave me a pretty hard time. In the bail recovery business, you don’t get paid if you don’t capture people. After he got down with his harangue, he settled down and we had a nice talk. He asked about my father and I told him Dad was continuing to decline but the new facility was working out fine. Dad, who was an engineer for an oil company in real life, now thought he was somewhere in Saudi Arabia and kept demanding to be taken to Riyadh to the only place you could buy a drink with alcohol. His doctor prescribed one weak Tom Collins a night for him, which he always grudgingly accepted in the end.
When I had spare time, which was pretty often, I’d make the drive over to Puyallup along the river. It never failed to relax me. I dropped by the pawn shop once or twice. The owner told me after I gave him a twenty that Mrs. Jacobs had stopped coming by.
December dragged along but Warren Jacobs, Jr. hadn’t turned up. Two days before Christmas I drove to the Jacobs house and parked in front of the oak tree. Anybody who believes trees aren’t living, sentient beings ought to spend a few hours next to a specimen like this. It gives you something to think about.
I got out of the car but didn’t lock it. Puyallup seemed like the kind of place a person could do that. I believe Mrs. Jacobs had been watching me because she opened the door when I was halfway up the walk. For once I wished I’d been wearing a cap so I could tip it and take it off inside. It seemed like the right thing to do. I sat on the same neat, uncomfortable sofa again and she stood by the kitchen, just like before. The door was open this time and I could see it wasn’t a closet, but a staircase leading down to the basement.
I took the gift wrapped package out of my coat pocket. I hadn’t done anything with it, just kept it my desk drawer. I handed it to Mrs. Jacobs. “It’s not quite Christmas yet,” I said, “but early gifts are the best, sometimes.”
She looked at it for a minute before she spoke. “He won a lot of money at a poker game; otherwise he couldn’t have afforded it. Warren Jr. is a lot like him. With the gambling, I mean. Only he was never as lucky.”
“He can get help,” I said. “I talked to the DA’s office and they want to make a deal.”
Mrs. Jacobs stood up and walked to the front door. “He’s up in the tree house. He used to spend hours there, waiting for his father to come home.” She went up the walk and stopped under the tree. I couldn’t make out what she said. In a minute Warren climbed down and his mother put her arm around him. After all these years, it still provided a refuge.