Bluff City Pawn (24 page)

“We gamble different. The waiting-period law is a local law, and not federal. I’m choosing what’s less wrong. I ain’t messing with federal. Any of these guns were stolen, they ain’t off-the-street stolen. They thirty-years-ago stolen. Police won’t care about that, they just wanna catch crooks
now
. And they ain’t gonna check my book, because that’s federal. Bookkeeping is federal. So I’m keeping my book straight. Yewell—was almost a dealer himself. Like buying from a wholesaler. He ain’t some unknown on the street. Hurrying these sales won’t look as bad, ’cause it’s like I was just buying from Sears.”

Harlan doesn’t understand. Is time against Huddy or not? “How’s that dealer get to know so much?”

“You hear me ask him?” Huddy says, still annoyed that Harlan agreed with Joe. “Only thing he tells me about is his money.”

“I bet his daddy got him started.”

“Or maybe,” Huddy says, “it’s something he learns himself. He buys a gun for forty-five bucks, takes it to a gun shop, sells it for fifty. Now he’s hooked. That was fun.”

“When you talking about, this fifty?”

“Forty years ago. First gun—I don’t know, I’m not counting years. Saying, he makes five bucks, so then he’s nosing around garage sales, reading every manual and magazine. Homes in on Winchesters. You can make a lot of money specializing in one thing, if you pick the right thing.”

“Or maybe he was just too stupid to learn more than one.”

“They have a crazy interest in it, Harlan. The Western lore, and the mechanics. They study every rare feature. It’s money, but—”

“Why couldn’t
I
have an interest in guns?”

“I’m talking about them.”

“Dad liked Westerns.”

Huddy shrugs. “So did everyone.”

“He knew guns, but he didn’t stick around long enough to tell it. At least, not to me.”

“Can you talk about something that hasn’t happened yet? Where are you, 1926?”

“I’m asking about this dealer. Today. Maybe he takes some rifle that’s been in the family. So that’s his running start. He sells it, and that’s how he makes his first dollars. Some hand-me-down that however you sell it is money. Your own flesh and blood saying go ahead, take your cut. Blood money.”

“That ain’t what blood money means.”

“Means to me,” Harlan says.

And the next day, when another dealer comes in asking where these guns came from, Harlan says again, “Me,” like he’s spent all night alone in a room, waiting to repeat the word. Huddy skips the lie and the crack, but the dealer turns to it.

“Nah,” Harlan says, “I don’t collect guns. I collect bullets. All kinds of bullets. Every round.”

The dealer turns back to the Model 92, eyes the beautiful peep sight on the rear. “Most of these Trappers went to Alaska.”

And now one made it here, Huddy thinks.

The dealer names a price, shrugs, if it works, it works, and after a quick back-and-forth, it does. Next pocket of cash comes out, another roll of hundreds Harlan sees pass into Huddy’s hand without profit sharing. Dollars ringing, and the phone, too—but Joe’s gonna have to drive here to get into Huddy’s business.

“You must’ve got to something first,” another caller says. “You got Yewell’s collection, didn’t you? I called about that, but I never heard back.” The following days, the phone rings more, not just Joe, but the word spreading around town and beyond, a network of collectors, a caller from Texas wanting to know how many are left, how many people have seen them, and has Huddy been allowing these folks to pick and choose?

The phone again and Huddy answers, and it’s Mister Keller saying, “I heard what you got.”

What I got is for getting yours. “I hope you ain’t changed that marquee yet.”

“Lemme take a look outside, make sure my wife ain’t set up the ladder.” Keller pauses—Huddy has a strange feeling of being seen from his Sonic stop before—and then says, “Nope, ladder ain’t up.”

Huddy laughs with relief. It’s nice hearing Keller in here, even if it’s just a voice through a line. If Keller’s voice is coming to him, then Huddy must be that much closer to moving there. He can’t wait to switch that Liberty sign over. “Just give me a bit of time on this collection. You ain’t getting any other offers?”

“Just you. Of course, I can’t stop others from asking, but no one has. It’s just us.”

Which sounds good, until Huddy recalls Joe and him saying the same thing, before Huddy brought in Harlan.

“I hear you got Yewell,” the next visitor says. He picks up an ’86 and starts picking it to death. “Looks good on one side,” he says.

“If it was that way on both,” Huddy says, “I’d have to ask for twelve.”The dealer nods but he keeps finding flaws, blemish here and bluing’s missing there, and Huddy knows he likes it, so he says, “I wouldn’t buy it then.”

The dealer wants the gun, Huddy thinks, but he wants Huddy to know his interest is complicated. “What’s a gun worth if people are squirreling their cash away? And all the guys who want these guns are my age, and we’re dropping like flies. The younger ones aren’t collecting Winchesters. What are they doing? Paragliding, dope, girls, cars. Most of the guys I know that’d want this gun, they’re six feet under.”

Sure, Huddy’ll listen to a bullshit story about a soft economy. It’s a true story, but it’s still bullshit. And he’ll feel sorry for all the belowground collectors who wish they could come up for one more Winchester. He’ll even feel sorry for this dealer as soon as he stops hoping for a deep discount and comes up to the ticket price.

“You know,” Huddy says, “I hear what you’re saying, but it’s always happened before. Always somebody driving the price up. Those software kids, whatever, they’ll be there. There’s always gonna be extra money, and people gotta collect something.”

Huddy gives him quiet. And it’s quiet from next door, too. No material banging in the Dumpster, no demoing devices, no compressor firing up—all of which means the bank is phasing to completion.

“My first bullet was a BB,” Harlan says. “A BB that Huddy here shot into my leg. I dug it out and kept it and I’ve been collecting ever since.”

And on top of Harlan’s noise, here comes Del sticking his nose in. “I hear you hooked into some Winchesters.”

“Don’t have anything,” Huddy says.

“That’s not what I heard.”

“Don’t care what you heard.”

“Huddy’s been to grandma’s house,” Harlan says. “This ain’t no bargain-basement stuff. Can you go top-of-the-line?”

“Will you shut yer mouth,” Huddy says. Del interfering, Harlan encouraging. The two of them would make great decoys, if they weren’t distracting the sale.

“I’m asking if Del’s got real dollars.”

“You know I do,” Del says, “that’s how I been buying my gold.” Huddy watches his face whip around, his nose sniff like a bloodhound.

“This is appointment-only. Ain’t public viewing,” Huddy says, and he gestures at the dealer who’s still having his doubts, and Huddy’s about to ask him why he’s here if he’s just degrading.

“Come on, Huddy, I ain’t public.”

“Call me later, come back, then you private.” And Huddy’ll arrange a fake showing. Show Del a bunch of used and abused rifles, and when he starts begging to attach his hands to others, Huddy’ll say, “Buy these first.”

“Well, I guess you can ask anything you want for this,” the dealer says.

The negotiation started bad, but Del and Harlan teamed up to destroy it, so when the dealer leaves—fine, Huddy thinks, you leaving with a hole in your collection—and then Del, to make his private call, Huddy tells Harlan, “You talk like that again, I’m tossing you.”

And later, when the next dealer comes in, Harlan walks to switch places.

“Where you going?” Huddy says, Harlan at the door, hurrying, jacket bunched in his arm.

“KayKay,” he says.

“I need you to close.”

“Just bark and I’ll come,” Harlan says, and he opens the door like a breakout.

Huddy wants to think more about Summer Avenue, but for some reason, his vision failing, he can’t see all the way to his prospects with Liberty, but instead only to the progress and timeline of next door. Done with demo, the work crews are probably re­arranging walls, patching concrete, redoing or adding bathrooms, putting up utilities. One day, a big crane will slide in the drywall, but not before Huddy’s sliding out. When the painters and carpeting and furnishings arrive, he’ll be gone. Huddy nods at the finished project, as if he were the health department confirming everything’s up to code and been given the final seal of approval.

At closing, Harlan’s still bailed, and a cop car appears, eases up, parks, and it can’t be about some stolen chain, because the jewelry’s gone. Maybe a tool or part. Huddy doesn’t recognize the cop stepping out, unless it’s a new face from pawn detail. Or maybe he’s just another Winchester collector, hearing about Huddy’s new guns, and Huddy’ll have to go low on the price, keep the police happy. But pawn detail almost always calls first, and if it’s not a collector, maybe it’s just some information Huddy needs to give. He braces for what else.

“You Huddy Marr?”

Huddy nods, his hand waving up in a salute.

“Sergeant Corley, Project Safe Neighborhood.”

He doesn’t know what that is, the officer not holding any claim or report or other bad paper. “What can I do for you, sergeant?” Huddy watches him survey the hardware, the instruments hanging on the wall.

“Picked your brother up.”

“Which one?” Huddy says, but he knows, wonders if it’s some domestic bust-up, or after the quarrel, some stupid brush or accident. Huddy jumps ahead, tries to frame his next answer. Works here, some part-time hours, Huddy’ll vouch that much.

“Harlan,” the sergeant says, and his lawful eyes scan the gun racks. “We get a phone call. Somebody hears gunshots, out by the Wolf River. We drive out there, find your brother stashing an AK-47 in his trunk.”

“Wait . . . wait a minute,” Huddy says, turning to the storeroom where the AK’s supposed to be, even if it shouldn’t, and he knows the sergeant just saw him react. He looks away from the door, outside, sees only a shadow locked up in the caged backseat. No matter how Huddy’s eyes widen, he can’t detect Harlan through the dark windows.

The sergeant says more about Harlan, the weapon was fired within the city limits, and Huddy knows his part’s coming, the sergeant is talking about Harlan and automatic fire only to move upward. The police are here because the subject is him. “You got papers for an AK?” His voice is calm, which means Huddy can’t calm him down. “You got a license for full-auto?”

“Look here,” Huddy says, blurts it, and the cop’s head turns sideways at Huddy’s wrong statement. Every word is wrong, every explanation or apology, every pleading tone. I been meaning to call, I bought that gun and I made an honest mistake, this extra notch, and I didn’t call because if I call, they come in and look everywhere, and I was gonna get rid of it, would’ve thrown it in the river if my other brother didn’t sneak these other guns out that made me think of them. Both my brothers been sneaking out guns. Arrest them, you already got one, get the other, but don’t come between me and what they’ve been taking. Take everything off these shelves, this whole showroom is your buyoff, but let me keep what’s in back. Huddy swallows, breathes. He just needs a month to be left alone, to bank these guns. How does he change the cop’s direction, move him backward and out of his life instead of coming forward to take it away. He shakes his arms, at what clings to him. The gun, he should have dumped it in Joe’s pond. Better than the Mississippi, he should have slipped it right there before they threw the net. Joe wanted guns, Huddy missed a chance to give him one more.

The sergeant looks again at the racks, longer, scrutinizing, his eyes disbelieving. Huddy sees the racks are half empty, and what’s missing somehow incriminates him, the blank spots are spaces where guns should be secured, and instead they’ve been slipped out, used for target practice in deserted city woods bordering the backyard of scared neighbors, near driveways chalked with hopscotch games.

“How do you have access to it?” the sergeant says. Why is a gun in a pawnshop if it’s not gonna be sold? Was Huddy gonna black-market this gun? The sergeant studies him, a guilty offender, which Huddy is because the crime has already been committed, the evidence is the weapon that’s already been collected.

Huddy shakes his head, because this can’t be worked out. The gun isn’t in his book, which is good but bad. Harlan wouldn’t say he took it from here, but that don’t matter. Whatever Harlan said or didn’t, what Huddy says now or doesn’t, it’s ugly every way. Mouth closed or open, the police will pore over his shop, search out violations, try to separate him from his guns. But I won’t roll over and play dead. I’m coming out of this wounded, and I’ll find a way to heal up.

The sergeant waits and Huddy weighs his choice: Confess and get jail or lie and maybe get off. There’s no light punishment, no minor charge. Because of Harlan’s mayhem, Huddy won’t get spared his negligence. They’ll do more to Harlan, but it’s still too great an offense given to him. So Huddy starts backtracking, before he’s admitted possession, his mind reversing, the
not
logging in of the AK didn’t happen, the gun was never at all here. Huddy cannot get hung on a gun that he intended to drop in the river. Harlan took it, to the wrong river, but the gun’s gone, so Huddy’s not involved. The sergeant has apprehended Harlan and now he’ll look to snag
him
—a hook caught in, tugging on, Huddy’s flesh that he needs to remove without the cop detecting a lifted finger or a telling gesture to slip the curve free.