Plus Huddy wanted to leave, too. Not the business, but the location. Because he saw how for the past year his shop was dying. When he started, the pickup rate on the loans was sixty percent—and he used to listen to Mister Jenks talk about the good old days when the rate was as high as eighty, when running a pawnshop was just turning a key in the morning and letting the interest pile up. But now the rate’s nearing thirty, two thirds of the customers forfeiting their loans. And the average loan keeps dropping, too. Instead of seventy-dollar loans, Huddy’s averaging forty, so the interest is smaller. Last month, Huddy started driving, scouting locations, looking at traffic flows—although he hadn’t told Joe about his plan, about bankrolling him one more time. But then Huddy scored a big hit here. A guy came in with a corroded ring, saying, “I know the stone’s not real, but the gold’s real and I’ll take what you can scrap it for.” And Huddy took his word on the diamond, because he was eyeing another customer snaking around the tool shelves looking for blind spots. Plus the diamond was rough, no sparkle, looking like a lump of coal. Huddy gave the man a hundred for the gold, and it wasn’t until the end of the day that he put the diamond in the cooker and got surprised. Weighed it. Over a carat. One hundred dollars making twenty-five hundred. Huddy knew the ring was a blip. But it made staying easier. Might as well wait through Christmas, and then Valentine’s for jewelry. Now, with Mister Barnes leaving, Huddy’s waited too long. It’s gonna be harder to leave, and harder to stay.
A hollow boom outside—Huddy jumps, the shop rattles—then screeching metal. The two sounds, explosion and collision, confuse, and Huddy waits for more noises to point it somewhere, screams or curses, horns or sirens, and when he hears nothing he rushes out to see what accident or mess. He looks to his left past the grocery that’s gone, and instead of chaos and flames there’s a semi in the driveway, hydraulics raised, the offloaded Dumpster behind it.
Three Mexican laborers sitting on a truck bed, a contractor at the storefront. About time, Huddy thinks. The building’s been abandoned for over a year, so at least it’s activity. Maybe they’re putting in something helpful, like an auto-parts store, which always works perfect with a pawnshop, brings in the working man. Or maybe some neutral business, insurance, whatever, neither help nor hurt. But don’t let it be public assistance—or some nightmare like a methadone clinic, addicts hanging around pissing and crapping over everything. Once that scenario pops up, Huddy finds himself walking over there just to confirm what’s not going in. He goes straight to the contractor, who’s posting a permit on the wall, and then he sees another worker appear in the middle doorway, a set of plans tucked under his arm, looking like the superintendent, so he slides over. “What you putting in here?” Huddy asks.
The man untucks the plans, squeezes his hands over them. “XGC Services.”
“What’s that?”
The man squints. “Blood bank.”
Huddy’s face smacked with the news. “Blood bank?” he says, just sick to repeat it. This building, long and low, same size as his own, but now it’s a tower, grown colossal.
“Manny!” the man shouts, decisive. “Wreck out the front room!” He jerks his thumb behind him and Huddy watches the lead guy turn and translate instructions to the other two, who climb back to the toolbox. “Who you?” the man says, chin up-twitched, eyes fixed and narrowed.
“I run a shop next door.”
The man glances to his right, eyes passing around, then back at Huddy, annoyed to have searched. “Well, I guess you’re getting a neighbor.”
Huddy’s lips pinch together. He scans the building’s three doorways, the work crew going in to start the demo. “Where’s it going?”
“Everywhere,” Huddy hears back. “It’s the whole place.” And when he looks over, the man’s eyes are wide.
“We already got a blood bank downtown.”
The man shrugs. “Got another one now.”
Huddy thinks, Blood bank. A bunch of people with nothing. They’ll hang around and harass—need a drink of water, need the bathroom, need the phone. “When’s it going in?”
“Three months,” the man says casually, but to Huddy it comes out like a warning. “Gut it out, frame it. Could be six.”
Huddy winces, like he’s a donor getting his arm pricked without payment.
He hears the sledgehammer knocking down a partition wall.
The man’s teeth flash as he watches Huddy leave. “Guess you ain’t giving any blood.”
Half of his meal uneaten, but Huddy can’t touch it. It’ll take less than a week after the bank’s opened before it’s wall to wall in there. And then they’ll be here. On a rainy day, a crowd’s gonna be all up under his canopy. Two hookers stroll by, one in red spandex, bright and tight; the other in jeans, whale-tail underwear peeking out the back. A car honks, hips sway and turn, but the driver doesn’t stop, was only teasing.
He calls home again.
“Huddy, what you doing? It’s naptime.” Christie whispering mad.
But the clock says earlier. “I thought I was calling before that.”
“I put him down an hour ago. The time change.”
He shakes his head, forgot. “Why didn’t you turn the ringer off?”
“I left it on, in case Harlan called. Was he in Florida last night or did he call you from the road?”
“They’re putting a blood bank in the next building.”
“Damn, he’s getting up. He’s always up.”
Customer comes in. “I gotta go,” Huddy says.
The man dragging his way over to the counter. He holds out a necklace that’s all kinked and damaged.
Huddy gets the scale, weighs it. Six pennyweights. “I can give you forty bucks.”
“Forty?”
“This has no value as a necklace. I can only sell its weight. It’s not a necklace anymore.”
“Come on now.” The man flings out a hand and glares. Points at the necklace like it was fine jewelry until Huddy smashed it and cheated with the scale. “That’s more than forty.”
“Not from this side of the counter,” Huddy says and he pushes the scrap back. “Thanks for stopping in.” The man’s anger spreads to confusion, then grief. “Maybe you got something else you can bring me,” Huddy says, and the man nods, slips inside himself, “Yeah, okay, might.”
Huddy wants to shut the door and unplug the phone and think about his worries—Barnes plus blood bank—figure out how to tell them both to Joe. He calls Joe, gets the voice mail, hangs up, tries the office, gets the secretary: “Do you want his voice mail?”
“Just tell him … not to forget about my lights.” But that’s not enough of his worry anymore. Tell him I’m tired of him getting his rent but me not getting my living. Joe with his monthly rent and his weekly cash. And his shopping sprees, cherry-picking the best jewelry from the showcases, only paying cost so Huddy can’t make a profit. Just saying, “Book it,” then stepping to the back to tape his name on sale items that haven’t cleared thirty days.
Huddy frowns at the bulky analog TVs on the shelf. He’s in no man’s land with televisions; the flats ain’t coming in yet, and he’s stuck with those.
Then a lever-action collector comes in, mentioning the L.C. Smith double-barrel he’s just seen at Liberty Pawn, over on Summer, a gun he knows Huddy would want for himself. “Your eyeballs gonna jump when you see it. Man named Keller—he’s got it locked away ’cause he ain’t letting the yahoos play with it. It’s so clean and smooth, you gonna think it’s a reproduction.” Huddy decides to close up and chase down a special gun.
Two
Liberty is old and tired, but the building is freestanding, the neighbors far off, and the driveway is big. When Huddy parks, he sees good bars on the windows. Inside, the lighting is poor, but a quick peek tells him the guy is killing him on merchandise. Like a fine catalogue of secondhand everything. Better saws, DeWalt drills, the tools mostly Black & Decker, Rockwell, Milwaukee, and not all used up. Huddy scans the guitar wall, picking out
the Americans. One Martin, two Gibsons. And the handful of customers—busy for early afternoon—are nice working people. At the jewelry counter, a well-dressed black couple is picking out a ring, the woman in a sleeveless blouse, designer pants and sandals, hoop earrings and a purse on her shoulder; the man in a short-sleeved button-up. The white customer at the tools is wearing a tie! Huddy thinking, A guy comes in my shop with that, it’s the taxman come to audit. Huddy walks behind the couple and glimpses the filled trays. Bigger stones. A two-carat, a couple larger than a carat. One Rolex with the watches.
“Can I help you with anything?” Huddy hears from the loan counter. Must be Mister Keller, since the employee at the guns is Huddy’s age. Combover hair and a smile like a piano. Huddy points at the guns and Keller nods and goes back to his customer. Forty bucks on the counter. No merchandise, so the cash must be interest on a two-hundred-dollar loan. Huddy looks past Keller, at the solid double-door safe.
The L.C. Smith isn’t on the racks, but there are others to admire: two Weatherbys, a Browning Citori over-and-under. The rest are Remingtons and Mossbergs and Marlins. Even a couple Sears. But three high-end shotguns, plus the hidden L.C. Smith, when Huddy is lucky to have one in six months. And the handguns are just as good. Not just the regulars like Taurus and Ruger, and a notch up with Smith & Wesson, but a Colt Python in its original box, and a Kimber. Huddy feels like he’s browsing the Guns & Ammo store down the street. Doesn’t even see the cheapies, Hi-Point and Jennings and Bryco, Huddy’s bread-and-butter.
A customer grips a Ruger. “My brother, he been enjoying the Bearcat he got from you last month.” The employee and the buyer walk over to the loan counter, and Huddy thinks, This place is hooked in with families. Got brothers bringing each other here.
“How about I help you now?” Mister Keller says, same wide smile at the gun counter.
“Bill Mowry comes into my shop talking about an L.C. Smith, because he knows I like doubles.” Huddy hands him his FFL and watches Keller read it.
“Bluff City Pawn. That’s where Nat Jenks was.”
Huddy nods. “I’ve been running it six years.”
“How’s Lamar?”
“Terrible. But if I could see that L.C. Smith, I’d be happier.”
Mister Keller steps over to the gun safe and pulls out the shotgun, and Huddy leans in, ready to grade. Case colors swirl the receiver, the bluing on the barrel is barely faded. When Keller breaks it open, Huddy hears the automatic ejectors click. Add five hundred.
The gun right there in front of him and Huddy’s hand upon it. He shines his LED light on the chamber. No rust or dings or pitting. He closes the barrel gently, turns the gun over and back. The stock is triple-A fancy wood, French walnut.
Keller’s eyes move up the frame. “Hand-engraved. No machine doing that. Guy with a little bitty tool going tick tick tick.” His finger notch up and down.
Huddy wiggles the gun, no play in the metal. He scans the wood-to-metal fit, everything flush and continuous, nothing proud. “You mind if I take the barrels off?”
“Not if you’re serious about the gun.”
Huddy scans the steel for blemishes, studies every line and crease and edge, every number and proofmark. A Premier Skeet Grade. The gun needs to come home with him and he’ll sell three, maybe four, from his collection to make it happen. “Little defect under the hand guard,” he says, and Mister Keller’s eyes twitch up, “Okay.” Huddy reassembles the barrels, hands the gun back. “How’s a pawnshop get a gun like this?”
“I got forty years in this shop. This is the only one I’ve ever seen come in.”
Huddy nods at the racks. “You got other stuff, too. You got some primo guns.”
“Some plain-Jane, too,” Mister Keller shrugs. “A little bit of everything.”
Huddy glances down at the case. “Python NIB. Wish I was selling this everything.”
The front door dings open. A customer with tattoos, long hair, face grimed, looking like Huddy’s clientele, but at the loan counter, he changes to here. “I come for my trailer,” he says.
Huddy didn’t see a trailer in the driveway, which means there must be a lot behind the building. Which means Keller is doing title loans. Huddy searches around for other secrets. Like maybe he’s missed the platinum mine in the corner. “You say you been here forty?”
“My daddy did forty-four. And granddad did a stretch, when we were down on Beale.”
Huddy imagines the green-visored father running the shop—maybe generations of Kellers going all the way back to year one, to the customer in a toga pawning his oil lamp.
“I’d like not to go as far as daddy,” Keller says, “but my kids don’t want to fool with it.”
All the scouting that Huddy did—he never thought about moving his pawnshop into another pawnshop. “You thinking of retiring?”
“I ain’t put a sign on the marquee yet, but my wife keeps telling me to climb up there.”
“I wish I was off Lamar.” Huddy scans the floor. Two new customers. A scummy, low-end guy at the tools, but also a father and son at the guitars. “I wish I was here.”
“Yeah? Well. We should talk. I should listen. You want the book, the inventory, the building? If I talk too much, tell me to stop. We talking about the gun anymore?”
“Hell, yeah. But I don’t see no sticker price.”
“Price is up here,” Mister Keller says, tapping his head. “I figure, we both know ballpark. We both know book.” His hand opens in a giveaway. “I’ll let you have it for five.”
“Thanks,” Huddy says before he can stop his voice, but he doesn’t need to, ’cause eight would have been a steal.
“I’ll take my five and you’ll get your ten.”
Huddy pays cash and wants Keller to think he can pay for the store, too. He drives east out of the driveway to survey the storage lot, and there are two, the front one a chain-link fence for trailers, and then another behind it, with wooden privacy fencing inside the chain. He hooks right at the side street, drives past the first lot and parks. From his car, Huddy peers through the gaps in the slats. A boat, a car. He sees a trenching machine. A stump grinder. A riding mower. Big tickets, quality loans. Keller is a pawnbroker, a repo man, and a high-dollar merchant, and Huddy wants to be all of them, instead of feeling like a small-time clerk. It takes half the drive home before the two deals—buying the gun and buying the shop—separate, the consolation being that Huddy is still holding his finest double. But he needs to figure how he can dig a couple hundred thousand out from his brother Joe.
The phone rings. Lost his pawn ticket, the caller says, and Huddy searches the computer, tells him the payment date.
He wants to hear from Joe, wants to see Harlan—Huddy’s thoughts falling in a brotherly line, been awhile since that happened. Is Harlan showing today? He was first popping in on some buddy in Knoxville, just a quick hi.
Mister Ramirez comes up to the counter to purchase a caulk gun, a blaster, two scrapers; must’ve switched from carpets to painting. “You done with carpets?” Huddy says, and Mister Ramirez nods uneasily, so Huddy shows the price with fingers.
The phone rings again and Huddy answers.
“Sergeant Bell here, down at pawn detail.”
“Hello, Sergeant Bell,” Huddy says, taking a deep breath as he hears the damage, some jewelry coming up on the database. He copies down the tag numbers, and could Huddy have the stuff ready tomorrow morning for pickup?
“Sure thing,” Huddy says, blood vessels about to pop.
The phone again—better not be pawn detail grabbing more merchandise. “Bluff City.”
“Huddy, how many times you gonna call me about this nonproblem?”
“Joe, don’t yell at me. It’s not a—”
“Your lights will come on. I got a buyer here who’s messing with the layout, wants to flip the design so the kitchen’s where the living room is. She’s moving things upside down and backwards.”
“Listen, I wanna talk to you about more
than lights.”
“More than lights? You’re calling me twenty times about lights and you want to talk about something else?”
“It’s about the neighborhood.”
“What about it?”
“It’s picked clean. There ain’t no money to squeeze from it. Guy came in yesterday asking if I bought towels. And it’s bad. Bad dangerous.”
“You’re a pawnshop, Huddy. You’re supposed to be in a bad area.”
“Pawnshop should be close to bad. Right on the edge of bad. Just a little ahead of bad.”
“Thanks for educating,” Joe says. “You’re fine, Huddy. Gold prices are through the roof.”
“’Cept everyone and their brother’s buying it.” Huddy saying it soft, not to argue, fingers tapping air. “Furniture store down the street’s got a sign in the window: We Buy Gold.”
A black man in a hooded jacket.
“I’ll call you back,” Huddy says. He needs time to develop his pitch. He’ll have to make Liberty Pawn sound like First Tennessee and make the blood bank sound like a contagion. “How you doing?” The man doesn’t answer, so Huddy tries again. “How you doing today?”
“Fell through the floor,” the guy mumbles. He smiles and shakes like he’s being tickled. More muffled words, some sound thrown out, shifting. He’s at the sockets bin, rolling his hand through them like he’s combing seashells. Sockets spill over the sides, but the man doesn’t react, as if the ocean were loud in his ears. Huddy looks at the nearby fishtank—this guy’s making the whole shop feel underwater—then returns to the man. His hands are busy, but the rest of him is dead. The noise to Huddy is the sound of knuckles cracking. The sockets clicking together is the clock ticking wrong.
“Can I help you?” Huddy says.
There’s no answer, every question needs to be doubled. “Hey.”
“Couldn’t find the right sizes,” the man says, the sockets on three fingers like rings or brass knuckles.
Huddy eyes the bin and what’s been spilled. “Dollar.”
Bluff City Pawn Page 2