Bluff City Pawn

by Stephen Schottenfeld

  Her eyes jump, and Huddy feels like he’s just brought unnumbered presents. He stares hard at her, keeps looking, as if to tell her that she doesn’t need to miss or even think about that sorry ring, when he’s about to redeem it a hundred times over. That old ring got lost but their lives are offsetting, their future is getting raised. He sees both her faces at once, the younger one who pawned and defaulted, and the older one with this big win just up ahead with his expenditure and investment return. He watches her remember—but then she blinks, fast as if to forget the memory, and smiles, dimly but then brightening, so that maybe all of her just came back here.

  He wonders, when he dreams tonight, if he’ll see an elephant, this decked-out elephant carrying a monkey, and the monkey sparkling, too. Maybe they’re part of a parade or celebration. And then he’ll probably picture Harlan. Harlan’s come from no direction, not approaching but appearing all at once, as if he’d crawled out from the elephant’s underbelly, to flank these bejeweled animals. Huddy watches the three of them move altogether, and Harlan sees the shiny rings on the riding monkey’s fingers, and Huddy waits to see if Harlan will reach up high to try to slip one off. There he goes, up close against the elephant—a little person next to this immensity—one hand palming the elephant’s side, readying himself for an opening, the right unsuspecting moment, some coming commotion or activity elsewhere in the procession, or the sun a blinding shimmer on the headdress, or the sun low and a concealing shadow thrown. But if Christie changed, why can’t Harlan? Except, when Huddy met Christie, she’d already become another, already stopped what she was one time. “Did Harlan ask where the ring went?” Wouldn’t it have been great if Huddy had found that ring and brought it back to Christie on their engagement? He can’t tell this final thought’s origins, if it came from himself, or if he was imagining Harlan saying it first to Christie earlier in the night. And since he can’t distinguish which speaker in his head, he decides it’s both.

  “No. He said, figured it was gone. Why you asking so much what Harlan did and didn’t do?” And she laughs again, this monkey ring still tickling. Huddy’s got her on some safari, where people take down elephants and monkeys, and then wear rings as souvenirs mounted on their fingers.

  But he’s gone from the safari plunder. Huddy’s in the gun room checking the guns off a list. And Joe’s in the truck laying the blankets. But you still need a third body, someone in the middle to walk the guns out.

  Eight

  Sell his gold. Sell his gems. Sell his guns. Instant selling that he’ll combine with Joe’s bankroll to buy up the guns to sell them and swap out his Lamar life for the richer gutter of Summer Avenue. Huddy phones the buyers, tells them he wants money today. He knows he won’t get full price—the cost of unloading is leaving money on the table—but right now he’s a discount house that can never go negative.

  He starts with gold, but here comes the diamonds with his old car to not draw attention, a hopped-up engine to drive away fast and a henchman stepping out the passenger side to guard the car during the interval between drive-up and getaway.

  “That’s some firepower,” Harlan says, then returns his eyes to the movie below the loan counter.

  The buyer walks inside the store swinging his beat-up attaché case. “What you got for me, Mister Huddy?”

  “What I always got, reduced prices.” Huddy pulls the bigger diamonds from the safe, a half-dozen higher-grade stones inside envelopes inside a cigar box, and he carries the box back to the showcase, which he unlocks to retrieve the smaller ones. The mounted diamonds sliding out of the envelopes and Huddy reading the price codes to see what years ago he paid and make sure he’s not giving them now away. “Steam-cleaned ’em so you can get a fresh look.”

  “Appreciate that,” the buyer says, the loupe and the Leveridge gauge tapping down on the glass of the showcase, and Huddy watches him lift a marquise and loupe it, his eyes strengthening ten-power. He sets the stone between the arms of the gauge to measure out width and depth. “Nice. Too bad these marquise ain’t selling.”

  “Same with pear-shaped,” Huddy says. “Emerald cut, too.” He figures why not talk about two others falling out of fashion, when they aren’t sitting here.

  “Yeah, funny thing about womenfolk. They all want something special, ’cept they all want the same ring.” And he picks up the round to show what that one brilliance is. Huddy watches him go piece by piece, a European cut and then another round. “Nice detail here,” he says, a finger tracing the diamond-set shank. “Diamonds in a loop is classy.” He sorts it with the pile he wants and Huddy’ll wait to tell him he’s taking all sorts. Mark it down, and down again, but it’s still going out with you. “Kind of a hit-and-miss on this one,” the buyer says after zooming in on a princess. Huddy nods. “Cut’s real nice, but you got some real bad flaws.”

  “Flaws is such a mean word,” Huddy says. “Especially when you talking about what she’s born with.”

  “Well, I hate to be mean. Give me another way of saying.”

  “It’s about seeing. Maybe you got an angel inside, sitting on a cloud.”

  “Ha! Well, that sounds pretty. But I ain’t much for imagination. I just like clear stones.”

  “This clown sleeps here,” Harlan says, and Huddy shoots a look at Harlan, who’s up from the chair eyeing the parking lot and Del, who’s eyeing the guardsman before turning toward Huddy’s door and inching in. Sleeps here, crawls all over the merchandise like some insect you can’t kill—you spray and think you stopped it but it comes back through the keyhole, some water bug you can’t eradicate because now he’s a goldbug, too. Del’s arms stuck up high, except he’s the one hijacking the day. Huddy sees the new hardware slung on his hip.

  “My happy hunting ground,” Del says to everyone and all the inventory. Huddy deciding whether his job right now is a juggler or a bouncer, and then his right arm goes sideways to pawn Del off on Harlan, but Del ignores the handoff. “Huddy, you gonna go with me on gold? I told you, I’m paying ninety-one percent of spot. Come on now, you gotta leave something on the bone. Just a little bit, so I can move it. Don’t make me pay more or I’ll never get to be a millionaire.”

  Huddy aiming for the correct incentive, some hush money, a kickback to kick him out.

  “I figured that was your answer,” Del says. “Which is why I’m asking today for silver. Silver coins. I’m hunting ’em cause I got the buyers lined up. These survivalists in Arkansas. Man, they buying up silver. And gold. They think Armageddon is right around the corner. They paying twelve and a half times the face value. Saying to me, What you gonna do when Armageddon comes, and I’m telling them, I’m gonna get my gun and get your shit! Gold and silver and hellfire. Man oh man, they scared about the third thing so they hoarding the first two!”

  Get him to a corner, Huddy thinks, so I can go private in mine. “See you wearing something new. Let’s put you a notch better. Let me talk to Harlan here about a setup.”

  “Good deal,” Del says, hyped about the gift certificate he’s gaining. “I seen you busy with the gem man.” But Del doesn’t distract him; he might be inside the store with the buyer, but the buyer’s also inside the stones, and Huddy’ll go internal, too. Del turns his back and Huddy’s eyes keep on the diamonds and not on Harlan moving within earshot.

  “He points, you say twenty percent off,” Huddy says, without looking. Paying Del to leave and not jeopardize the deal that Huddy jumps back to.

  “This one’s beautifully cut,” the diamond buyer says. “Not seeing no funny birthmarks neither.”

  The last stone, the measuring and assessing finished, Huddy stares at the two piles, uneven in the wrong way, but he’ll call out these judgments. “What’s your offer?”

  “For these, I can—”

  “Nope,” Huddy says. “The whole lot.”

  The buyer shrugs. “That’s a big commitment here.”

  Not really, Huddy thinks, adding the multi-values. I double my money and you double yours. And tha
t gets me a quarter ways there. “Today, it’s the wheat with the chaff.” Huddy’s hands point at both sets of kernels.

  “I’m just telling you what the traffic will bear. These here,” he says, at the pile of have-nots. “You got one that’s drilled and filled. Another one, a purple rainbow shooting out at me. They gonna have to be dirt-cheap. I’ll take ’em, but it’s a giveaway.”

  “I understand. But what I’m seeing, it’s all resalable.”

  “Then why can’t you sell it?”

  “I am. To you. Or someone else. I’m tired of looking at ’em. Gonna put this money all back in the business.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “’Course. Going all in on furs. Three-quarter-length coats. By the time I’m done, there won’t be an animal left in the forest.”

  A smile, and then Huddy smiles when he sees Del going away. Not a word of jawing before, and Huddy looks at Harlan, who shrugs about his language, his mind blank about threats or insults over how Del got kicked.

  “Let’s say ten,” the buyer says, and Huddy nods, and the diamonds switch owners and the money changes hands, the stones sliding into a new compartment and two packs of cash replacing the diamonds in the cigar box. Harlan sees this exchange, but he already witnessed a difference when he helped carry Huddy’s guns from home, Huddy trying to make it some routine morning movement, a collection that circulates every off-day.

  “What’d you say to him?” Huddy asks, after the buyer’s gone.

  “Thing is,” Harlan says, “guy like that jams up pretty fast. I told him, if he don’t see what he likes, don’t fuck around. I said it polite. Made sure he was near to hear it. Even offered that cut-rate price you said.”

  “This all while he’s wearing a gun.”

  “Well I’m wearing one, too. Push comes to shove, he gonna think about his house and his dog.”

  “That right?”

  “Yep. And that’s why I can help you.”

  “Oh? How’s that? You braver? Or you just a mind reader?”

  “No. I just ain’t got a dog to go home to.”

  Huddy eyes his brother who’s dogless and landless, but at least he’s glad he’s armed.

  And Tom’s armed, too, his next incognito buyer coming in, seems like everyone’s carrying a piece today to the market, or from it, Huddy hopes: the collectors on the other end of the phone that he’s calling on to come get his guns. Four buyers—a shotgun collector, a pistol collector, a big-bore collector, and a collector who’s God-knows-what but has money. Huddy’ll sell fifteen guns and want to make five thousand per buyer.

  “Having a fundraiser?” Tom says, and now it’s Harlan and not Del that Huddy doesn’t want to have hear.

  “Yep,” Huddy says and Harlan’s about to see what’s clearing out of the cases, all the heavy, meaty chains, and even the light merchandise that barely holds weight, and somewhere between KayKay’s necklace getting liquidated. Huddy eyes the parking lot, unlocks the cases, and starts stacking trays. “Grab the rest,” he says to Tom.

  “You cashing out?” Harlan asks, which Huddy ignores. Harlan’s finding a home here, too bad Huddy’s moving. He motions Tom to the office. He’d ask Harlan for help, but he’s got a bigger haul maybe later.

  “You said bring twenty-five,” Tom says, “so I brought thirty. Whatever you’d like to sell, I’ll take.”

  Ten-karat and fourteen-karat and eighteen-karat and some dental gold and a little bit of platinum. More gold to sell than diamonds, but the transaction takes less time; diamonds is an opinion, whereas the gold is on the scale. Huddy wishes he were getting jewelry value and not scrap value, but he’s gonna be a big boy now, just get it over and get the cash and know that gold’s bringing good money. He stares at the monitor, at the empty parking lot save for Tom’s car and inside the store Harlan staring at the empty cases and then out at Tom’s car, the reason for the emptying.

  The gold separated and weighed and traded for cash, an in-and-out deal and the sold gold gets Huddy over halfway, and he can do the rest with guns. He watches Tom leave and then phones Joe.

  “How’s the fire sale?”

  “It’s going,” Huddy says.

  “Well, my funds are ready.”

  Two kinds of financing, Huddy would say, but he’s happy to hear it.

  “How are we with the vehicle?”

  “You offering?”

  “Thing is,” Joe says, which means he isn’t. “They got my name on it. Company logo, and I don’t wanna drive up like that.”

  “You think it’d look better if it said U-Haul?” Huddy saying. Or Wells Fargo, he nearly adds, but not with Harlan in range. Joe asking if they need a truck to say he’s got plenty but can’t be used. “Don’t worry,” Huddy laughs. “I’ll get it.” And when he does, he’ll be driving.

  “What’s this?” Harlan says, gesturing at the door to a black man holding a liquor bottle, which Huddy sees is Barnes.

  “Came by to say bye,” he says, and Huddy saw a truck pull in earlier, which he realizes now was a deliveryman carrying out the merchandise. Barnes approaches and sets the bottle down.“Thought you might like some dessert wine. Taylor’s. The port never rolled out of here fast. I’m getting my percentage on the regular stock, but the sweet stuff’s been sitting, so the distributor says I’m stuck with it.”

  Huddy doesn’t want to hear about getting stuck, about what never got sold, not on a day when he’s unloading.

  “Taking some Burnett’s vodka home with me. You want a bottle?”

  Huddy about to say no when he hears “Sure” beside him. “My brother,” Huddy says.

  Barnes looks over and back. “I’ll get you two.”

  Huddy lifts his arms up, to say he ain’t asking, because today feels all wrong for these gifts.

  “Not supposed to give bottles away,” Barnes says. “The law. Guess I’m breaking it. Don’t tell no one.”

  “Me and him won’t say a thing,” Harlan says. “More you give us, the quieter we be.”

  “You might get some regulars coming around, asking where I at. Gonna send a few of ’em into a panic. But they’ll just migrate over to King’s Liquor. They won’t miss me. Me—I’ma miss the people that paid cash.” Barnes looks around at Huddy’s shelves. He sees the empty cases and he frowns, as if the jewelry got hit; must not have been a smash-and-grab if the glass is still intact. “I’ma miss when it snowed, ’cause the customers always came to me, even before they hit the grocery store. Can’t think what else. Anyway, I’ll get you that Burnett’s.”

  Huddy wants to say don’t worry, that he’ll be gone, too. He’s leaving, Huddy is, and he shakes his head, because he’s got more important things to think of than beverage policies, on liquor that Barnes is giving him illegally to drink.

  Different gun collectors all asking why he’s letting these choice pieces go, and Huddy gives them the same answer with different lines: Just thinning out, just selling down, just thought it time to reduce.

  “You’ve been waiting on this gun for years,” Huddy tells the shotgun collector. “Time for you to buy it.”

  “You never showed me this one,” the big-bore man says. “Never knew it was here.”

  “Well, now you know I had it.”

  “You got any more?” the pistol collector asks.

  “Oh, I’m sure I’ll have something you like.”

  “Well, call me first,” says the buyer who spreads everywhere.

  Huddy puts the guns in cheap sleeves, watches the collectors carry ’em out and load ’em in their trunks. So that’s it. He’s made his bet. “Shop stays closed tomorrow,” he tells Harlan, whose eyes sink. Without the job, he can’t even buy an Egg McMuffin in the morning.

  “Like to keep making money,” Harlan says.

  “How’re your arms feeling?”

  “They’s good. Arms are strong. Legs are hollow.”

  “Got a decent shirt?”

  “Like your outfit last night?” Huddy studies Harlan. Sits in my house watching how I
’m dressed coming home. “Looking like you flunked debonair school,” Harlan says.

  “Yeah, well, the place we’d be going, there’s a dress code. If I was a horse rolled in mud, she wouldn’t care about dirty.”

  “Horse?”

  “We all gotta be somebody else over there. A new look for everyone.”

  “All mean Joe, too?”

  And Huddy doesn’t say no.

  “You tell big brother I’m helping?”

  But Huddy just told himself, how could he have told Joe? This time, his silence won’t mean yes.

  “Yeah, well, he can’t be somebody else when he been somebody else his whole life.” And Huddy watches and knows Harlan can’t help but ask more. “What’s his end?”

  He stares at Harlan, his eyes like flashlights shining out of the dark to search his brother’s face. “You best drop that line. You best drop all of ’em.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means, don’t ask about any deal. Don’t ask what Joe’s getting or got and what you ain’t, and what’s luck or ain’t and how you feel sorry. He went his way and you went yours and I went mine. I got a job for you today. For tomorrow. Hauling. And I need you on this. Let’s keep it simple. You start feeling inferior, I’m asking someone else.”

  “All right,” Harlan says. But his head tilts at his middle brother to ask another question. “How ’bout you tell me what I’m hauling?”

  Huddy shrugs. Just my life, is what you’d be lifting.

  Harlan’s head tilts again, down to the three bottles that Barnes delivered. “Thought he was some derelict, standing there.”

  “Wasn’t.”

  “I seen. Nice what he brought you. Us.”

  Huddy shakes his head. “Barnes had a fire once. Long time ago. Not a big one, but still, he said the alcohol commission told him all the inventory had to go. Strict that way. They took it all to a dump. Crushed it, buried it.”

  “Okay,” Harlan says, but he doesn’t see the point, and he doesn’t see why Huddy’s scowling.

  “You take ’em,” Huddy says.

  “If I take ’em, they getting drunk.”