by Alan Marble
THE SILVER TOKEN
a novel
ALAN R. MARBLE
Copyright © 2012 by Alan R. Marble
The Silver Token
2012
Relic Books
www.relic-books.com
ISBN-13: 978-0-9886239-1-0
All rights reserved
Cover illustration by Maarta Laiho | www.pencilcat.net
The Silver Token is a work of fiction. All characters are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Thank you for taking the time to download a digital copy of The Silver Token. Writing this novel has been a labor of love and there is not hing that pleases me more than knowing there are people out there who want to take the time to read my work. By downloading and reading this novel, you are helping me to reach my goal of sharing my story with as many people as possible. It is my sincere desire that you enjoy reading the story as much as I have enjoyed bringing it to life.
If you do enjoy the novel, then please consider taking a moment to share your thoughts with other potential readers (and myself) by way of leaving a review on either Amazon.com or Goodreads.com. Doing so helps others to find my work, and, more importantly, allows me to know what I am doing right (as well as what I am doing wrong) and helps me to improve my skills in future works.
If you are interested you can also keep up to date with the latest information regarding future works by following me on Twitter (@alanrmarble), on Facebook (as Alan R Marble) or on my personal blog/website, http://www.alanrmarble.com.
Once again, thank you so very much for your interest in my novel, and I hope you enjoy!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Books do not write themselves. They require inspiration, encouragement, long hours at the keyboard, and a whole lot of time and other investments to get off the ground. This is not a task I could have accomplished on my own, and I would be remiss were I to fail to mention their contributions, direct or indirect. I have neither the time nor the ability to mention them all by name, but let me at least offer my profound gratitude to:
Dawn, for getting me off my behind and making me do it;
Mom, for being a fan before I deserved any;
Derek, for showing me that it could be done;
Nathaniel, for cheering me up.
I must also take an opportunity to personally thank the following, whose generous contributions and confidence have made this endeavor a reality:
Greg and Kelly Marble
Cmdr and Mrs Robert C Alexander (USN Retired)
Virginia Brough
Waylon and Erin, the young Marbles
Luke Mezera (Fielious)
Soreth
Justin Freeman (Shadowsedge)
Francis Barbeau
Goldkin
BlackfootFerret
t'sChillin t'soulntai
Jak Forster
Taylor
For all the dragons out there
PROLOGUE
Jonah rolled over reluctantly in his bed at the behest of the alarm clock buzzing angrily at his side, reaching over to smack at the snooze button and silence the unwelcome sound. The big LED digits burned an insistent 6:18 into his retinas. Third time he'd hit the snooze button, he realized. Sighing heavily at the conclusion that he couldn’t put his day off any longer, he finally pushed the blanket off and stumbled out of bed and toward the bathroom.
Sunlight was already filtering in through the heavy blinds over the windows but it was still dark enough in his room that when he turned the lights on he flinched, squinting a bit to adjust. Turning on the faucet and running his hands beneath the cold water, he splashed some on his face and ran his palms back over his brown hair, coaxing the tousled mess into something vaguely resembling order. It’d be sufficient, just as it always had.
Peering back briefly at the reflection of his tired blue-gray eyes in the mirror, he ran a finger along his jawline right down to his chin, frowning at the complete lack of stubble. He had been trying to grow a goatee of late - or, at least, hoping that if he thought about it hard enough at least some facial hair might spring into existence. He’d recently turned 27 but didn’t look a day over 21, and while the good-natured “babyface” jokes he could tolerate, looking like a college student had its disadvantages when he was hoping to be taken more seriously. His utter inability to grow facial hair didn’t help.
Shrugging it off with a slightly disinterested sigh, he turned back to his room and made his way across the landscape of dirty laundry that had failed to make its way to the hamper, pulling open the door to the closet and snagging a pair of blue jeans to pull on. The closest tee-shirt was then grabbed and pulled over his head, once again smoothing his hair down to some extent. He didn’t really care which shirt it was, since no one else seemed to, either.
His bedroom, just as his attire, was the image of consummate bachelorhood. More than just the untidy piles of clothing strewn about was the otherwise generic flavor of the room. A full sized bed with a generic bedspread that was almost never made, a plain looking nightstand that sported only an alarm clock and a fashionable if predictable lamp, and a few posters from bands that had been all the rage just after graduating from college that he had not bothered to replace were the products of his lackluster home decorating skills.
Jonah had lived in the same one bedroom apartment in Fort Lauderdale since graduating from college some five years ago. Before college he had grown up in various cities in Florida, mostly on the Gulf Coast : Pensacola, Tallahassee, Orlando, Tampa, and finally in the relatively sleepy Port Charlotte. His parents had never been the type to feel settled down and connected to one place, much to the chagrin of a growing boy who had to constantly make new friends and bid farewell to old ones. Perhaps it was part of the reason that he’d let himself get so tied down since graduation.
He’d gone to the University of Miami to study computer science. Bright but somewhat unmotivated, he’d graduated with good grades and had gotten job offers from companies on the West Coast but turned them down. Most of his classmates and friends had taken the offers and fled the state for newer opportunities but he was satisfied with the offer to work as a junior database administrator for Miami-Dade County.
The brand new apartment complex in nearby Fort Lauderdale promised all the amenities of a cosmopolitan lifestyle at half the price and the commute was something he could live with. Yet in the five years that he’d lived there, Jonah had failed to take much advantage of the promised lifestyle. Nearby clubs advertised heavily, tacking fliers up on the communal noticeboard at the apartment offices, but they’d never really panned out for him. It probably didn’t help that he looked so young, either; he’d grown rather tired of the single women responding to his advances with jokes about an imagined skill in forging identification documents.
With few local friends - all of the acquaintances he had made in school had left the state and he’d lost contact with them soon enough - it didn’t take long for work to become his only real social outlet. He’d made a few decent friends there, though most were older than him. Their invitations to things like sports bars and NASCAR events down in Homestead, while generally accepted, failed to ignite much interest in him. When such invitations didn’t materialize, his weekends were often spent halfheartedly perusing movie channels or plodding his way through the latest video game that he'd picked up.
Even his job itself failed to motivate him. It was a decent place to work and the pay was good, allowing him to outfit his small apartment with all the latest in terms of gadgets and gizmos, but even then he found it less than challenging and motivating. He performed well - the “junior” had been dropped from his title within a year - bu
t it was more out of a sense of duty than any specific desire to excel or make a name for himself. His supervisor had told him that if he showed a little more motivation that he’d be going places. He just wasn’t sure where he wanted to be going – or if he cared to go anywhere, at all.
His life had become routine, predictable, even boring, but Jonah didn’t much care. He had enough money to buy the things that he needed and wanted, he was comfortable in his position, and felt no real ambition to change the status quo. Years on the move had taught him to be self-sufficient, to not have to rely on anyone else to fulfill his needs or make him happy. He didn't need the accolades of others or the promise of charging his way on up the corporate ladder.
Wandering out of the bedroom and into the small living quarters of his apartment, he made his way over to the futon that sat in front of a medium sized plasma television, finding the remote and flicking it on to the morning news. The weatherman was predicting another sunny day, engaging in some useless banter with the anchorman. Not that Jonah really paid attention to what was being said - he had it on more for the background noise, as well as the traffic report whenever it came up.
A detour was made to the kitchen, small but functional. The counter was decorated with a half-finished can of soda and a plastic bag with a few empty Chinese takeout containers, the remnants of kung-pao chicken and fried rice lending their aromas to the slightly stale ambiance of the room. Briefly he considered cleaning them up, but he told himself that he’d have plenty of time to do it later.
Opening the refrigerator, he was a little dismayed - but not surprised - to see it all but devoid of groceries. Some cans of soda and a few bottles of beer rattled on one of the shelves. Jonah reached for a Ziploc bag with half a dozen peeled, hard boiled eggs, which represented the peak of his culinary abilities. Pulling two of them out, he popped one in his mouth and started to chew on it absently, making his way back out into the living room to catch the traffic report.
Instead he caught the tail end of a brief news story on how one of the local police departments or something to that effect was gearing up for a Memorial Day event to take place later that day. It was Memorial Day. He could have been sleeping in, but he had completely forgotten about it when he had set his alarm clock the night before. Now it wasn’t even seven in the morning and he was wide awake.
With a heavy, dejected sigh, Jonah slumped down on the futon and shook his head. Looking down at the egg that he had in his hand, he asked the question aloud : “Well. What am I supposed to do with today, then?”
He had made no plans. His boss had invited him, along with the rest of his department, out for a day of fishing on what he playfully referred to as his “yacht”, but fishing was not the sort of thing that Jonah had cared for. He had politely declined. His parents had also dutifully invited him to their home, as they did every year since he had moved out, to enjoy some barbecue with the rest of the family. While he had not outright declined he had left them with a “we’ll see” sort of answer, as he did every year. He didn’t expect to make it out there, either; the three hour trip across the Everglades didn’t much appeal to him.
Somewhat reflexively he scooped up a video game controller that sat on the futon next to him, sliding his thumb over one of the buttons as he nibbled on the egg in his other hand. He did have a few games that he’d acquired lately and not really played much, some battle simulation game that was supposed to be all the rage that everyone was playing. It’d be a chance to finally pick it up, polish his skills and see what the fuss was all about.
Yet even things like video games had lost their luster over time. Back in his college days, or even shortly thereafter, he would have stayed up an entire night after picking up a hot title like that, fortified with Mountain Dew and Doritos, working to become a veritable guru at the game overnight. Now, in spite of the fact that he’d paid the money for the damned thing, he had barely mustered enough interest to fire the game up and give it a go. It was just hard to care about it.
Jonah let the controller slip from his hand again and tumble forgotten to the floor. He just couldn’t get worked up about spending an entire day in front of the television screen, game or no game.
Glancing around, his eyes lit upon his motorcycle helmet resting on the ground near the door, brightly colored with a sort of stylized dragon motif done up in black, vaguely reminiscent of a tribal tattoo design. It was going to be a beautiful, sunny day by all accounts, the perfect sort of weather for a ride. Perhaps he could cruise down the seaside and hit up South Beach.
In what had been a life full of otherwise carefully crafted safety, his motorcycle had been Jonah’s only risk outlet. He’d bought it within a year of his graduation, nearly ten thousand dollars’ worth of shiny green Japanese engineering. It was supposed to have been the embodiment of everything a young guy like himself should embrace : power, speed, recklessness, and a certain carefree disregard for expectations.
Four years later it was still Jonah’s primary mode of transportation and still served as a sort of id to the ego of his life, but otherwise failed to change him on a fundamental level. It had done little to garner attention from the fairer sex, and in the few cases it had, had not been able to overcome his overly youthful looks and reserved, risk-averse nature. Some of the local riders he had come to know still teased him mercilessly about the size of his chicken strips, biker lingo for the unworn outer edges of his tires and proof positive of his unwillingness to lean hard into corners at high speeds.
It reminded him of another invite he had gotten for the holiday. A coworker who was also a sport bike enthusiast had introduced him to a small group in the area who got together for occasional weekend rides or other events. They had all taken off for Key West the day before, where they would be attending some sort of party or other event that was supposed to be rife with single young ladies. They were going to be staying overnight - a fact that was mentioned replete with sly winks and nudges implying ulterior motives - and heading back sometime later that afternoon.
That, too, he had declined. Something about the thought of riding such a long distance and over large stretches of water left him feeling unsettled. He also knew that he’d be ultimately unsuccessful with the single young ladies and be spending the night alone. The fear of being the only one to strike out was enough to get him to pass on the invitation and stay at home.
His inability to drag his knees in corners or entice any buxom passengers aside, he did still enjoy the bike and did enjoy the rides, the sense of freedom that it gave him. He didn’t need the company of others to enjoy a languid ride down the beachfront highway, after all. Finishing off what remained of his egg, he licked his fingers clean and started to pull on his shoes. He’d have something to keep his day from being completely dull, after all.
One
The little chime of the bell that hung over the door was a friendly, pleasant sound, a welcome contrast to the harsh, clattering buzz of the door being unlocked. A simple sign of the times, thought Jonah, no longer the sort of thing that most people would take the time to ponder. It wouldn’t do to have a coin shop loaded with gold and silver coins with the door just hanging open to the public, after all.
Letting the door close behind him, chiming the bell once again, the young man turned his attention briefly to the interior of the coin shop. It was a small, cramped affair, crowded with glass jewelry cases wedged in as tight as they would fit. There was a pervasive musty odor that refused to be overpowered by the fresher air that rushed in from the door, lending the shop an old and slightly dilapidated quality to it. The staticky warble of big band music playing over an old AM radio did nothing to alleviate the sense that the store existed in some kind of time warp, none of which seemed to bother Jonah in the least, and all seemed to suit the owner just fine.
“Ah, Jonah. Good to see you!” The elderly shop owner, offering an amiable wave from behind the counter, was a caricature to match the ambiance: dressed in a tweed jacket with a flat cap to matc
h, gazing out through a thick pair of horn-rimmed glasses with friendly, rheumy eyes. “What can I do for you today, sir?”
“Sammy!” Jonah smiled brightly and stepped up to the counter, reaching over to shake the old man’s hand, surprised as always at the strength that those big old fingers still held. “Can’t I stop by and just check in on a good friend?”
Sam, the shop owner, chuckled heartily. “Ah, a social call is it? Why, that’s all fine and dandy but it’s business hours, and I’ve a business to run, don’t you know? Customers to tend to, money to earn!”
The shop was, in fact, quite abandoned save for the two men, a fact that was punctuated by the brief lull in the conversation. Jonah paused, looking around the shop in an exaggerated fashion, scanning with his dusky blue eyes, listening to the slightly distorted music filtering through the room. “Customers! Looks like it’s just you and Glenn Miller, and I’m not sure he’s interested in buying anything …”
“Psh! Middle of the day and all, you know. I’ll have you know that on weekends there’s a line outside, people just waiting to get in!” Sam smiled crookedly, a set of brilliant white dentures looking a bit out of place on his otherwise well-worn face. “Say, speaking of the middle of the day, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at work, or something?”
“Come on, Sam, it’s Memorial Day. Got the day off. Decided to go for a ride and wouldn’t you know it, I found myself passing right by your place. Figured I’d stop in and see what’s new. What’re you doing open today, anyway? Shouldn’t you have the day off?”
“Day off?” The old man waved his hand around dismissively at the thought. “A day off is a day when I can’t make any money.”
“Right,” Jonah said with a nod, leaning over and peering into one of the display cases while thoughtfully stroking his chin.