Previously Loved Treasures (Serendipity #2)(53)

No one else said anything.

~

When the stack of lumber Louie ordered arrived in the backyard, Max’s imagination ran wild. Convinced the residents were plotting some sort of revenge, he envisioned the possibility of them boarding his room up; locking him out or, even worse, locking him in. If they did it while he slept, he’d be trapped. Max had heard stories about people being held prisoner in their own houses, and, paranoid as he’d become, such an action seemed possible. If it did happen, there would be no way out. No way of getting food or water.

Max decided to take action. First he went out and bought two crowbars. One he hid under his bed, the other he hid behind the garage. If they boarded up his room, he’d un-board it.

That same day he began to prepare for any and all emergencies. He waited until the house was dark and quiet, then crept into the kitchen and snatched a full pitcher of orange juice along with the remaining half of a roast Caroline had planned to use for sandwiches.

The following day Louie’s Atlanta Braves hat disappeared, along with the radio from the living room end table.

“Blast it,” Louie grumped, “that’s my lucky hat. I need it for building Sara’s playhouse.”

“Maybe it’ll turn up,” Caroline suggested.

Of course it didn’t. Before Louie had the framing of the playhouse in place, he slammed a hammer down on his thumb instead of the nail he’d been aiming for. He gave a loud holler, then let go of a string of expletives that would make a sailor blush. Within minutes the thumb swelled to three times its normal size and turned the color of a storm cloud. Louie blamed the accident on the missing hat, and as he sat at the kitchen table with the damaged thumb submerged in a bowl of ice he warned what he’d do when he found the culprit responsible.

By then Max had already begun to enjoy the thrill of his nightly raids. He would slip through the dark rooms and, like a mischievous ferret, grab whatever treasures he found and carry them back to his lair. Now standing with his ear pressed against the wooden door of his room, Max heard the shouting. He heard Louie’s threats and thought back on the way Wilbur’s watch had mysteriously reappeared after he’d sold it in Harrington.

Although Harriet’s lighter had made no such reappearance, he began to wonder if maybe Harrington was too close. He had a good thing going, so why chance it? Wilbur was a pushover and Harriet was no problem, but Louie could be trouble. Max listened as Louie raged. That’s when he decided to bypass Harrington and sell the latest of his ill-gotten goods to the pawnshop in Blue Neck.

Blue Neck was fifteen miles east of Harrington, twenty-five miles from Rose Hill. It was closer to Route 95, more transients, less questions. Blue Neck was definitely a better choice.

That evening as the residents gathered around the dining room table, Max tiptoed from his room and slipped out the door with a package tucked under his arm. It took a half-hour to drive to Blue Neck and another twenty minutes to find the pawnshop located in an alleyway next to a tattoo parlor.

“Shit,” Max grumbled when he saw the narrow storefront with a display of knives in the window. For a moment he considered going elsewhere, but the only elsewhere was either back to Harrington or on to Mackinaw. “What the hell,” he said and walked in.

With its low-watt light bulbs and dirty windows, Max knew the pawnshop wasn’t a place where questions would be asked. He pulled out the bag and dumped the contents onto the counter: the small radio, a silver-rimmed ashtray, the Atlanta Braves baseball cap, and a tortoise shell comb Laricka had forgotten to put away.

“What’ll you give me?”

A Buddha-shaped man sat behind the counter and moved nothing but his eyes. He glanced down then said, “Six bucks for the lot.”

“Six bucks? This stuff is worth way more than—”

“Six bucks,” Buddha repeated.

Max narrowed his eyes and leaned across the counter. “You can do better than that.”

“Five bucks,” Buddha said, “and you’ve got ten seconds to either take it or get your crap out of my store.”

Max didn’t like being pushed around, but he couldn’t make it to Mackinaw before the pawnshop closed and going back to Harrington was too risky. “I’ll take it.”

Without moving from the stool he sat on, Buddha reached beneath the counter and pulled out a five-dollar bill. He handed it to Max and said, “Now get out of here.”

For a moment Max stood there, on the verge of saying or doing something. It was unlike him to walk away from a fight, but this one did not look promising. Buddha was four hundred pounds if he was an ounce and on home turf. Max turned and walked toward the door. He was just inches from the street when he turned back and said, “Lousy dump you got—”

Before he finished the sentence, Max felt the bullet whiz past his ear.

“Keep going,” Buddha said, “and don’t come back.”





The Maggie Sue Issue





When Max left the pawnshop he sizzled with rage. It was bad enough to be cheated out of a fair price for his goods and worse yet to be told to get out and not come back. Were it not for the gun, Max would have gone back and tossed a brick though Buddha’s front window. Maybe he should do it anyway, he thought. He could drive by, toss a brick from the car window, and keep on moving.

Max climbed into the car and gunned the motor. The problem was he didn’t have a brick. He didn’t have squat. He should have had the house in Rose Hill, but he didn’t. Caroline had cheated him out of the house, just as Buddha had cheated him. The unfairness of such a life roiled through his stomach and rose in his throat. Max slammed his foot on the accelerator and went roaring down the street, heedless of anything or anybody who might be in his way.