N9ne: The Tale of Kevin Clearwater (King, #9)(20)

“What’s got you all twisted up?” Pike asks, looking concerned. “You look like you’ve got something sour in your mouth or like someone skinned your cat and tacked his hide to your door.”

“The only taste I have in my mouth is the taste of my life in shambles,” I reply. I grab the bag and start shoving things in. “I’m sorry for wasting your time.”

“Well, now hang on a second there. Let me see if Trina can help you. She sells a lot of her shit online and she ain’t doing nothing back there but painting her nails and getting high so put the brakes on for just a second, all right?”

I nod.

“Trina!” Pike shouts.

A woman steps out from the back. She’s in her twenties with long curly brown hair shaved on one side. She’s holding one arm across her bare midriff, the other is holding a cigarette. She shoots Pike an annoyed look, tapping her foot on the linoleum. “What?”

“The what is that I’d actually like you to work today. So, can the ‘tude, Trina. This is Lenny. Please take her to the back room and sort through her stuff with her. Make an itemized list of what it’s all worth and give a holding slip if you think we can help her get rid of it.”

Trina looks at me with no emotion in her face. “Follow me,” she says flatly.

“I thought you said you couldn’t help me?” I ask Pike, confused.

“I can’t, but Trina can. She’ll put your stuff on one of those vintage sites for high-end used goods. We don’t do it for everyone because we don’t make shit from it, but you look like you could use a win today.”

“Thank you.”

I follow Trina into the back room where she takes pictures of everything I have. She writes it all down on a pad that looks to be the same kind waitresses have at diners. She tears off the top and hands it to me. “I’ll call you at the number you provided when the items sell. Should only take a few weeks to a month for the entire lot.”

“A month?” I close my hand around the receipt, crumbling it as I dig my nails into my palms.

Trina yawns. “After the items sell, they have to be shipped to the websites warehouse for to be authenticated before shipping them to the buyers. Once the items are shipped they’ll send the money. As I said, I’ll call you when they’re sold.”

I open my mouth to argue, to say something that would turn that two weeks into two minutes, but I’ve already exhausted all of my other options, and I don’t want to sound ungrateful for the favor. “Thank you,” I finally manage to say.

“Whatevs.” Trina turns back to the computer where she clicks on a minimized screen and resumes the very explicit hardcore porn she was watching as if she were catching up on the home shopping network or an episode of Friends.

“Thanks again,” I call to Pike on the way out, but before I hit the door, I look down at my hand and stop. I turn back around and walk up to the counter. I pry the sapphire ring off my finger that Jared gave me for my birthday last year and hand it over to Pike. “What can you give me for this?”

Pike’s forehead wrinkles as he inspects the ring. He takes out a monocle looking thing and holds it over one eye, closing the other. He turns over the ring over to inspect it. “A sapphire this size?” He looks up at me. “Quite a lot,” he hands the ring back to me. “If it were real.”

My heart sinks.

“Sorry about that. He ain’t worth your time if he’s giving you a fake ring and passing it off as real. A real man gives a fake ring and tells his woman it’s fake and he would buy her better if he could and she loves him more for it. I have a feeling this man ain’t worth his weight in shit.

“I’m learning that. With each passing hour more and more.”

I nod my thanks to Pike once again and head out of the shop to my car.

Which isn’t where I left it.

I glance around the parking lot to where the group of bikers from the bar is staring at a large truck that’s turning from the parking lot onto the main road. The decal the back reads ROB THE REPO MAN.

It’s also got my car in tow.





Hansen’s isn’t like any other bar I’ve ever been to before, but it’s a bar, and it’s got booze, and I no longer have wheels, so that’s where I’m headed.

The inside is small and crowded. It smells like sweat and pickles.

I spot the bar lined with bottles with varying shades of alcohol inside.

It’ll do just fine.

A woman in her mid-fifties wearing a tight hot pink tank top and a bright blue bow in her flame red hair approaches me from the other side of the bar. “I’m Becky, and I’m the owner here. I hate to say this, but I don’t think this place is for you, sweetheart.”

“Listen, I just want a drink, just like everyone else here,” I reply as politely as I can manage given my circumstances.

Becky isn’t convinced. “Pretty girl like you from the other side don’t need nothin’ this place can offer. Why don’t you get on out of here and get home to whoever is waiting for you, because I wasn’t lying when I said this place ain’t for you.”

There is no one waiting for me.

Growing frustrated, I raise my ass from the stool and lean over the bar. I look Becky dead in her blue eyeshadow. I feel my eyebrows furrow I’m glaring at her so hard. “Look, Becky, woman to woman? A week ago, my boyfriend left me without warning. I came home to find all of his shit was gone, and I haven’t heard from him since. I just got my car repoed about three-seconds ago in this very parking lot while inside the pawn shop next door trying to pawn everything I own that might still hold some value because I’m broke. Beyond broke. Like I’m not even going to be able to pay for the drink I’m arguing with you over even if you do serve me kind of broke. And do you want to know why I don’t have a penny to my name? Because that boyfriend I mentioned earlier? He didn’t just leave. He drained my bank account on the way out and left me with nothing but unpaid bills, questions, and a goddamned fake sapphire.” I take a deep breath. “So, belong here or not, if anyone in this bar deserves a fucking drink right now, can we at least agree that person is me?”