Half Court Press

by A. J. Stewart

  “So, the girl who brought these items in,” I said. “Big girl, prefers midriff tops, Dolphin’s fanny pack. Ring a bell?”

  “I don’t got a photographic memory,” said the guy, shifting to shield the jewels on the counter.

  “Me, either, but I can remember yesterday.”

  “Like I say, I don’t remember every person who comes in here. I get a lot of customers.”

  I looked around the empty store for effect and then raised my eyebrows.

  “It’s early,” he said.

  I shrugged. “So what do you think we should do with this stolen property?”

  “Hold on, mister. I verified ownership.”

  “Let me guess, you asked a thief to confirm their bona fides as they pertained to the stewardship of these items.”

  “What?”

  “They signed a piece of paper saying the goods weren’t stolen.”

  The guy nodded like his life depended on it. “You betcha. I follow the rules. This is an honest establishment.”

  Honest was a hell of a word. If asking the questions that would save you trouble was honest, was failing to ask the questions that would cause you trouble dishonest? I wasn’t going to hold it against the guy or even delve too far into that train of thought. I had tiptoed along the legal lines a few times myself. Laws were black and white, morality wasn’t. But the rub was, laws were often faulty, because they were the construct of mankind.

  “Can I see the paperwork?”

  He looked me up and down. “You’re not a cop.” Finally someone who realized that cops didn’t wander around the Palm Beaches in Florida shirts and khaki shorts.

  “No, I’m not a cop.”

  “Then you can’t see a damned thing.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  The guy frowned, like he was surprised that I was done.

  Except I wasn’t done. I pulled out my phone, hit the screen, and held it to my ear. I waited a few seconds, and then I spoke into the silent phone that actually hadn’t dialed anybody.

  “Detective Ronzoni,” I said. “It’s Miami Jones. I’m helping him with a case.”

  I glanced at the guy behind the counter. He was trying to assess how far up the BS meter all this was, and he was sweating the answer. I turned my back on him.

  “Hey, Ronzoni, it’s Jones,” I said to no one, hoping my phone wouldn’t actually ring while I was pretending to make the call.

  “Those stolen goods from Palm Beach Gardens? Yeah, I’m looking at them. Nup, he won’t play. You’ll need to play it all official-like.” I glanced at the owner. “And I mean real official-like. Full-court press.”

  “Wait,” said the guy, putting up his palms. “You can see the paperwork.”

  “Hold on, detective,” I said. “What’s that?”

  “I’ve got the paperwork here.” He started fumbling through a file folder that looked like a ledger from The Sting. I wondered if this guy had ever used one of the laptops he sold.

  “Give me five, Ronzoni,” I said to my phone. “I’ll call you back.”

  I pretended to end the call and then pocketed my phone. The guy dropped his folder onto the cabinet top and flipped back several pages. It seemed he really did do most of his work later in the day. He found the page he wanted and spun the folder around so I could read it.

  It was a standard declaration form, confirming the legal rights of the seller to actually sell the stuff, and confirming that the pawnshop was not responsible if that declaration indeed turned out to be false.

  The form had been completed by the store owner—the handwriting matched all the previous pages—and then signed by the seller. In this case, it was an unintelligible scribble, but the written name was clear enough.

  Rami Channing, of the Sebring, Florida, Channings.

  “You recall the girl?” I asked.

  “Like you say, big girl, fanny pack. She didn’t sweat, wasn’t shifty with her eyes or nothing. I see a lot of folks trying to pass off stolen goods, you know? I try to do the right thing, I say no to a lot of stuff.”

  I didn’t want to bust the guy’s chops. I had no idea how he could verify ownership of any of the stuff in his store, beyond asking the questions he was already asking.

  “You give her a receipt?” I asked.

  “Of course.” He went to a desk behind the counter and pulled a book from a drawer. It was one of those carbon copy receipt books. I had no idea they even made those anymore. I thought everything had become cashless this and emailed receipt that, and I was comforted by the notion that some of the old ways were still clinging to life.

  The guy opened his book and handed it to me. The receipt was made out in the name of Rami Channing, and the total was an even nine hundred dollars.

  “The owner says this stuff is worth over five thousand,” I said.

  “Not here.”

  I shrugged. Value was always relative.

  “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to take these stolen goods back to the owner.”

  “Like hell you are.”

  “You need to learn to shut up,” I said. “Because talking is just going to end up making things worse for you. See, option B is me calling back my colleague at the police and having his team crawl all over your business.”

  “I paid fair and square for this stuff.”

  “No, you handled stolen goods is what you did. You can show all the documents you like, but the goods are still stolen. Even if you don’t get charged with handling stolen property, you’ll still be ordered to give back the goods when the court is through with you. Now, in the meantime, who knows what the cops will find in your books? Possibly a lot more stolen property that you have no right to hold, and money you paid out that is long gone. See? Option B is bad for you.”

  “What’s option C?”

  “Keep up, pal, we’re at option A. My preferred choice. And option A says I’m going to take these goods back to their rightful owner, and I’m not going to bust your chops and call the cops.” I pulled out another of my business cards and marveled at Lizzy’s foresight in having them made; I wondered how I’d ever gotten by without them. I handed it to the owner. He looked at the card and then at me.

  “Private investigator?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Are you one of them consulting detectives?”

  “A what?”

  “Consulting detectives. You know, what help the police when they can’t figure it out for themselves. Like Sherlock Holmes.”

  I did like the sound of being a consulting detective, but Sherlock Holmes was a fiddle-playing heroin fiend, and that didn’t float my boat at all.

  “Something like that,” I said. “I’m on to the girl who took this stuff and sold it to you. If she still has the cash, I’ll get it back.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  “That’s the business you’ve chosen, pal.”

  “How you gonna get the money back? She didn’t exactly grab me as the sharing kind. You gonna pickpocket her?”

  “You leave that to me.”

  I picked up Camille’s stolen jewelry and then realized I was light in the pocket department.

  “You got a bag?” I asked.

  He shook his head like this was all too much, and handed me a used Publix shopping bag. I dropped the jewels inside, and for a moment I felt like George Clooney in some kind of heist movie. The moment lasted until I glanced in the mirror behind the counter and saw my messy blond hair and stubble that was more beach bum than Hollywood heartthrob.

  “I’ll be in touch,” I said to the pawnshop owner, and I walked out—a good day’s work done before lunchtime.

  I got into my car and tossed the bag onto the passenger seat. I was thinking about the idea of a pickpocket as I looked at the store in front of me, my black Cadillac SUV reflected in the glass, a nice functional vehicle like a hundred other nice functional vehicles. Not your father’s Cadillac. I glanced at the car in the parking spot next to me. It was a T-bir
d, long and lean and low, built like a cruise liner but not as good in the handling. The top was down and the vinyl bench seat glistened in the spring sunshine. It was a hell of a car, and without request the Beach Boys started playing in my head.

  It was the kind of car I could see a pawnshop guy owning. For a moment I enjoyed the idea that he was in the business not because he was a crook, but because he loved breathing new life into old things. In a world where everything was built to throw away, the old stuff lived on and on.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I drove up to Palm Beach Gardens, back to where the malls grew in a forest of retail like redwoods. I cut off PGA Boulevard and into a mall parking lot that looked like all the others. I got the sense that finding the store you needed in Palm Beach Gardens was the reason GPS had been invented.

  The mall was large and anchored by a grocery store selling organic produce to people who thought potatoes were as valuable as opals. Every other place I saw was a chain outlet. From hipster jeans to preppy sweaters, shrimp restaurants and Mexican cantinas, phone stores and coffee outlets, I could have been in New Haven or Long Beach or probably even Manchester, England, if it hadn’t been for the sunshine.

  I found Draymond Bryson’s joint at the end of a court that featured a water fountain and a French patisserie that would have been as foreign to a Frenchman as it was to a Connecticut Yankee. The windows of Draymond’s place were papered with messages telling me that the best chicken my grandmama never cooked was coming soon. Both my grandmothers had favored chicken boiled in a pot, so the bar was set pretty low. The name of the restaurant was up and ready to be lit, and looked to have been designed to within an inch of its life by some Madison Avenue advertising agency:

  Low and Slow.

  I wasn’t sure if it was a double entendre, a cooking technique, or a description of the likely clientele. I found the front door locked, so I walked out of the mall and around a delivery lane to the rear of the restaurant. It was like sneaking in backstage at Disney. There were no fountains or faux sandstone façades, no neon or inviting chairs. There wasn’t even a parking lot, just a small loading dock and a single door propped open with a plastic chair. Thick vines grew along hurricane-wire fencing to shield the sun or maybe the view of backstage from the passing road.

  “Anyone home?” I called as I walked inside.

  “In front,” was the reply.

  I walked through a small storeroom filled with napkins and paper bibs and past a set of stairs that led up into darkness. A tight corridor led past the bathrooms on one side and the kitchen on the other, into a dining room that was a lot classier than I was expecting. There were red faux-leather booths and brass fittings, and bronze lights that hung low from the blackened ceiling high above. The space was both airy and cozy at the same time. I liked it.

  I found Draymond stocking soda bottles into a glass-fronted refrigerator.

  “Nice place,” I said.

  Draymond turned and smiled. “Ain’t it?”

  “Low and Slow?” I said. “What’s the deal?”

  “I know, you’re thinking a black man opening a chicken joint. Original, huh?”

  “It’s a chicken joint?”

  “Mississippi slow-cooked chicken is our speciality. Lightly smoked and fall-off-the-bone good.”

  “That does sound good. You look close to opening.”

  “Final fittings and fixtures went in a month ago.”

  “So what’s the hold up?”

  He frowned. “Money.”

  “What money?”

  “Franchise fee. Can’t open until it’s paid in full.”

  “Franchise fee? So this isn’t your joint?”

  “Oh, it’s my joint, but I didn’t think it up.”

  “I’ve never seen it before.”

  “You spend much time in Mississippi?”

  “Not much.”

  “There’s a half-dozen there and a couple more in Louisiana. Mine’s the first in Florida.”

  “Is everything in Florida a chain?”

  “Everything in a mall. Almost impossible to get a mall landlord to agree to a stand-alone restaurant. Chains are more financially stable and pay better rents. Lots of stand-alone restaurants fail and leave the landlords holding the can.”

  “I remember when stand-alone restaurants were just called restaurants.”

  Draymond shrugged. “Times have changed.”

  I looked around the space that reminded me of a New York steakhouse. Times had indeed changed.

  “Must be hard to raise a franchise fee if you’re not open and making money,” I said.

  “Chicken and egg. You need money to open a business, but a successful business record to get a loan.”

  “Does Tania know about the money?”

  “Hell no. She needs to focus on her own thing.”

  “But the threats must have raised some questions.”

  “She’s asked how I’m doing, of course. She’s a great girl—excuse me, woman.” He smiled at the correction. “I told her I’m doing just fine, and it’s true.”

  “Dray, did they say when the wine was coming in?” I heard a woman ask from inside the kitchen. The owner of the voice stepped out into the space behind the register and saw me and then glanced at Draymond.

  “Oh, Rochelle, this is Miami Jones. He’s looking out for Tania.”

  The woman gave me a polite smile. She was thin and wore her hair tied back and a Low and Slow ball cap on her head.

  “Mr. Jones,” she said.

  “Ma’am.”

  “I ain’t that old. You can call me Rochelle.”

  “Rochelle,” I said. “You work here?”

  She looked at Draymond.

  “Rochelle is my partner,” he said.

  “In the business?” I said.

  “And in life.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t always so quick on the uptake. “Well, pleased to meet you.”

  “And you,” said Rochelle. “There sure seem to be a lot of folks concerned with Tania’s welfare these days.”

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

  “Is she in danger?”

  “Not while I’m around, no.”

  “So how long will you be around?”

  “No longer than is necessary, if that.”

  She nodded and then looked at Draymond. “So, the wine?”

  “This afternoon,” he said. “You’ll take care of it?”

  “Of course,” she said with a knowing look, which she then turned on me. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  “Of course,” I said. She slipped back into the kitchen, and I looked at Draymond, who was watching the space where Rochelle had been.

  “She’s an angel,” he said, although I wasn’t completely sure he was saying it to me. “Wouldn’t have this place if not for her. Hell, I wouldn’t have a life.”

  He glanced at me. “Let’s go chat in the office.”

  He led me back down the corridor toward the rear, past the kitchen and the bathrooms and up the dark stairs. At the top, he pushed through a door into a small office. It was bright inside, a small window overlooking the loading area letting in just enough sunshine.

  He sat behind a neat desk, and I took the solitary seat on the other side.

  “Soda?” he asked.

  “Sure, why not.”

  He opened a small bar fridge and took out two Cokes and passed me one.

  “So, you’re not here on a social call, and you don’t look like the health inspector.”

  “Did you hear about Camille’s car?”

  “No, what about it?”

  “Someone threw a chunk of concrete through the windshield.”

  “She okay?”

  “It was in the driveway at the time, so yeah, she’s okay.”

  “You think it’s something to do with Tania?”

  “Maybe. Can I ask you a blunt question?”

  “You wanna know if I smashed Camille’s windshield?”

  “No, I did
n’t, but since you asked.”

  “I was here. Rochelle can vouch for that.”

  “Okay.”

  “So what was your blunt question?”

  “Did you tell Tania’s agent that if she got picked number one she could invest in your restaurant?”

  “No. I mean, yes, I said something like that, but I didn’t mean here, this place. I meant one day, in the future, when she was settled. Maybe the next place.”

  “There’s going to be a next place already?”

  “That’s one of the beauties of a franchise. I can own territory up and down the coast.”

  “So you don’t need her to sign up for an international contract in order to pay your franchise fee?”

  “No.”

  “So how do you open without the money?”

  Draymond frowned and put his soda down. “I got the money. I open next week, pending health inspection. That’s who I thought you were when you came in. We’re slated to open next Friday. I was planning on a soft launch for family and friends tomorrow night.”

  “How’d you do it?”

  “Hard work.”

  “No, I mean the money. How did you get the money?”

  His frown deepened. “He didn’t tell you?”

  “Who? Tell me what?”

  “Detective Ronzoni. He’s investing. He gave me the money.”

  I sat back in my chair. Ronzoni was one sly dog. It didn’t matter how I tried, I could never quite pin him down. He was usually on my case about keeping out of his cases, except when out of the blue he was hiring me to look into threats to a girl he wasn’t related to in any way, and now I find out he’s bankrolling her father’s restaurant, despite the man having what could only be described as a checkered past.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything,” said Draymond. “He might not want people to know. Maybe it’s a professional thing.”

  “His secret’s safe with me,” I said. “So, if you’ve got your money, you don’t have a motive.”

  “A motive for what?”

  “For threatening Tania.”

  “Are you kidding me? You think I could threaten my own daughter?”

  “People who need money do desperate things.”

  “She means everything to me. I’d do anything for her.”