Keeping The Record. Travis Richardson

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СКАЧАТЬ his trophy back with some extra change.

      Roy glared at him. “Leave me be. Just get on back there with your friend.”

      “You see, mama, I can’t very well do that ’cause Antoine axed me to come talk to you, and he don’t want me coming back without you with me.”

      “Is that so?”

      Roy glanced back at Antoine in the back row. The punk was no more than seventeen, wearing a Raider’s hat and team jersey surrounded by gold chains and putting a lot of effort into a cold hard stare. His scowl told Roy to come back here because I demand it. Come back here so I can abuse you. The kid saw Roy as a woman, the weaker sex, not the home run pounding All-Star he’d once been. These fools had no idea what trouble they were getting into.

      Roy felt an anger kindle. “Fuck that.”

      “Excuse me?” the Grill said, leaning forward, gold chains swinging from his neck. His breath was as bad as raw sewage.

      “I said, you’d better get your skinny ass back there with your buddy Antoine, and keep your ignorant mouths shut if you wanna make it through this trip alive.”

      The Grill looked astonished, his mouth agape, too flabbergasted to come up with some intimidating line he’d used before on women. Roy could see all this and more. Two boys thinking they were pimps. Hell, they probably were. Some kids start the pimping and hoeing as young as thirteen.

      The Grill grabbed Roy’s shoulder, squeezing like he was trying to get juice from a lemon. “Now, look here bitch—”

      Roy threw his forearm up, connecting with the kid’s ugly face. Simultaneously, the bus accelerated, and he went flailing backward, his long arms and legs swinging wildly until he landed in his buddy’s lap.

      Antoine shoved the Grill away, ass first onto the floor.

      The driver said something over the PA system that was unintelligible, sounding like a mesh of electronic gears, but everybody knew it was about staying seated. Roy didn’t want to look back, but he couldn’t help himself. The hard boys were glaring at him like he was a dead man, or woman as far as they knew.

      “Next stop and you’re gonna get it, bitch,” the Grill said.

      Roy turned away. Shit, he hadn’t planned on getting into any trouble until he was in St. Louis. He racked his brains, wondering how could he take care of this situation without drawing any more attention to himself. He’d like to think an apology would be enough, but not for these playas. Not for boys who believed that to let a woman get the better of you was to lose the game, and that game was their entire pathetic life. Hell, there was a time he had sentiments that were in the same ballpark, and when his value in the world dropped, he actually crashed at a pimp’s house in Oakland. But that modern-day slave owner wouldn’t have anything to do with him today. Shit, things were going to get messy and then some.

      Roy looked over at the crazy white dude, staring at him and giggling, rocking to and fro. His yellowish front teeth hung over his lower lip in a devilish grin.

      “What you looking at! Mind your own business,” Roy said.

      The lunatic guffawed, but turned to look out the window. Great, Roy thought, two dipshits want to beat a lesson into my head and nutjob wants to slobber all over me.

      Chapter 4

      Oakland, CA

      Victor Remmy called every pawn shop in Richmond, El Sobronte, Berkeley, and Emeryville. Nobody had seen a hulking black man come in looking to exchange unique memorabilia for cash. Pawn shop owners are cagey to begin with, but Remmy had a pretty good BS detector, and they had all passed. Not so for the proprietor of G-Dawg Pawn and Loan in downtown Oakland. Something in his voice, that “hell no,” followed by a hang up. That G-Dawg character had lied and was hiding something. Something Remmy was going to find out about. Plus, nobody hangs up on Victor Remmy. Nobody does who doesn’t regret it.

      Remmy threw open the pawn shop door. Two men, both in their sixties, one Hispanic and one black, looked up.

      “Which one of youse is G-Dawg?” Remmy said, slipping into a tough guy Jersey gangster talk, even though he was from San Francisco and only a quarter Italian.

      The men looked at each other and then back to Remmy. They pointed at each other and said simultaneously, “He is.”

      They laughed. That’s another thing. Nobody laughs at Remmy. He brought out his .45. Let’s see if they keep laughing now, fuckheads.

      “Hands up where I can see—”

      The Latino man reached for the side of his belt, and Remmy blew him away. His brains covered a section of samurai swords displayed on the wall. Stupid move, Pancho. He’d never met a greaser named G-Dawg in his life. He turned the gun on the black man, G-Dawg, obviously.

      The Dawg had his hands under the table, and his lined face was hard. “What’d you do that for, shorty?”

      Remmy was hitting 11 on a pissed off scale of 10. His inadequate height was a personal issue not to be discussed with a soon-to-be dead pawnbroker. “Put your hands up where I can see ’em.”

      G-Dawg shook his head slowly. “Best you drop your gun if you wanna keep your head.”

      Remmy didn’t have to have it spelled out for him. G-Dawg had a shotgun underneath the counter.

      “Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot here,” Remmy said.

      “You think so?”

      “Yeah, you see he was reachin’ for—”

      “Hold up now. You come in here askin’ for me, and then you blow Rafael to smithereens, messin’ up my sword collection. And you call that getting off on the wrong foot?”

      “You saw him reaching for a gun or something.”

      “Something like an insulin pump he has on his belt. It helps him regulate his blood sugar. Especially when something crazy happens like you walking in here waving that gun around.”

      Remmy shrugged. What could he say?

      G-Dawg’s nostril’s flared. Looked like he was building up enough anger to pull the trigger and send them both on a one-way ticket to hell.

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