Maggie Lyons

You don’t run a pawn shop within the city limits of Boston without weathering the occasional incident here and there, but holy fuck almighty, Mack had not seen this one coming. The girl wasn’t much over five feet tall and she was skinny, but not drug-strung-skinny. She didn’t look nervous or too confident. She didn’t look a whole lot of anything at all, really, other than damn good in an interesting and off-setting sort of a way.

The long blond curls that fell alongside her face and danced above the glass of his display case had been something of a distraction. She looked, kinda bored, down into the rows of jewelry and keepsakes precious to people other than those who’d sold them to him, and her dark lashes brushed lightly across her pale cheeks. Those details had been mitigating factors as well, so it was what it was.

His appreciation for the kind of girl Mack’s Pawn saw far too few of was interrupted when she turned her clear blue eyes up to his and asked if he had any antique thimbles for sale. Who the hell comes in to rob a pawn shop in the heart of Allston Center looking for antique thimbles?

Mack leaned forward against the counter and told her not at the present moment. She asked him if he knew of anyone who might, because her grandmother collected antique thimbles. He explained an item like that was bound to be luck of the draw at any given time, but he did have a pair of one-of-a-kind button hole scissors—solid gold, not plate—in the back that once belonged to a personal seamstress to Queen Victoria. The seller had been a great- or a great- great-grandniece of the seamstress and had fallen on hard times recently, so he could probably let them go for two hundred fifty.

She said her grandmother didn’t sew.

She looked the regular kind of frustrated. It’s really not a good idea to rely on the pawns if you’re looking for something that specific, he advised her, so she shrugged and slipped her arm through the window in his shield.

She had the cutest little Ruger .38 caliber pistol he’d ever seen duct-taped to her hand.

“Aw, what the fuck, honey? Are you kidding me?”

She suggested, earnest and trying to be helpful, that he keep his hands above the counter and come out to the front by her. She was clear that he should use the knob to release the door, and not the buzzer.

“You don’t really seem like the kind of guy who needs killing,” she said. “You’d probably feel obligated to hit the alarm button you’ve got hidden under there, and I’d prefer not to shoot you if it isn’t absolutely necessary. I’m generally a pretty safety-conscious person.”

Mack shook his head and turned away from her. No ninety-pound twitch with her goddamn gun taped to her hand was going to rob his pawn at two-thirty in the afternoon on a Wednesday. He kept a loaded Glock G31 .357 stashed in the cage as a precaution against precisely this sort of thing. It was kind of a shame this kid—who was a really interesting looking girl and who, discounting the gun, hadn’t been at all unpleasant during their exchange—was going to get an ear full of lead, but what the fuck, man?

He ignored her when she told him to turn his ass back around, and it was as he reached across the counter for his Glock that he heard the hammer cock. He froze, deciding she might be a little more sincere than he’d initially surmised, and turned back to face her—loused up as hell and still goddamn gunless.

He knew then—the way he knew gold from plate at a glance—that this kid didn’t have the desperation or the desire, to kill a man, but she’d probably be okay with shooting a guy in the ass if the occasion called for it. She reached through the window and took him by the hand, pulling it not un-gently back to her side of the shield.

“Hang on to that pole there, okay?”

She drew a half-spent roll of duct tape from the pocket of her pink down vest and pulled a strip free with her teeth. “Little lower… lower… okay, perfect.” She nodded when he was stretched long and kissing the Plexiglas. She wrapped the tape around his wrist, binding it to the counter pole, and then motioned for his other hand.

Mack felt like an asshole hanging over the counter of his own pawn with his cheek pressed up against the bulletproof shield like a fifth grader making faces for the traffic on the school bus heading home. He caught an eyeful of her chest as she rose again, and raised an eyebrow at the t-shirt she was wearing with her name spelled out across the front in letters formed by yogic kittens.

“So you’re Jane, I presume?”

“I’m Jane,” she nodded. “And I presume you’re Mack?”

“That’s me.”

“Nice to meet you, Mack. What’s the best way for me to get back there now?”

Mack considered her question for a moment. “I believe you’re going to have to break the handle of the door,” he sighed. “I could probably reach the buzzer with my knee, but I’m not sure I can avoid hitting the alarm at the same time, and trust me when I tell you that neither one of us wants that to happen now. Just hurry up though, would ya, darlin’? This is fucking uncomfortable.”

Jane looked around the shop for something heavy and Mack directed her to a brass urn at the far end of the counter.

“And would you shut those blinds and tape the ‘back in five’ sign up into the window? If the cops show up now you’ll pull sixty months’ free accommodations and I’ll be the laughing stock of Boston. Every wasted fuck with a jones or a grudge will line right up to knock me over if word about this fiasco ever finds its way around the neighborhood.”

“I told you to open that door,” Jane reminded him. It was awkward work, trying to smash the heavy knob with a pistol taped to her hand. “What did you have to make this so complicated for? I was being pretty nice about it, considering.”

Mack grimaced and flinched, watching her, until he simply couldn’t take the stress of it any longer.

“Jesus Christ, Jane! Would you take that gun off your hand? Even if you don’t shoot one of us dead by accident, the cops will drop you in an instant when they catch you in here with a weapon you can’t lay down. And darlin’, I can’t duck at the moment. What the hell did you tape the thing to yourself for?”

“Don’t you read the papers, Mack?” She hit the doorknob with the urn a few more times and then set it down on the floor and started pulling at the duct tape. “The majority of inexperienced gun owners shot during a highly charged situation are shot with their own weapon. I figured a guy who owns a pawn shop is likely to be pretty handy with a gun, so I’d better make it extra hard for you to disarm me.”

Mack looked at Jane and Jane looked back at him as she worked the gun free at last and tucked it into the waist band of her little skirt.

“You’re trying to get at the strongest part of the knob,” he said. “Hit it at the base so you can knock the spindle off its alignment. All you really need to do is get the spindle free of the pins.”

Jane nodded and picked up the urn again. She followed Mack’s advice and had the base dislodged in no time. Then she rattled the knob and the door swung free of its frame.

“That was a messed up story about Queen Victoria,” she said. “But I understand you’ve gotta make a living.” She opened the drawers below the counter and found the envelopes where Mack kept his working cash stashed. She smiled at the bills and slid them into her pocket, then rested her elbows on the counter and looked down him.

“What about the safe?”

Mack’s nose dragged against the Plexiglas as he shook his head at her.

“I’ve got a box in back with the cash I keep for changing out money in it. It’s in the metal cabinet in the corner, and should be easy enough to break into for an inspired girl like you. Go ahead and make yourself at home back there, darlin’. But I’m not giving you the combo to the safe.”

“I will shoot you in the ass, Mack.”

“You’ll have to. I can’t absorb the cost of what’s in there, and there’s no way I’m explaining to the police or to some pointy-headed suit at my insurance company that I handed the combination over to a little girl. I’ll take that shot in the ass now and be done with it, thanks.”

“Can’t you tell the cops and the insurance people you were jacked by a gang or something?”

“You’re on video, kid. Your prints are all over the shop, and you’re wearing a t-shirt with your goddamn name on it. So, no darlin’, I can’t tell them I was jacked by a gang or something.”

Jane laughed.

“I guess that’s all true,” she said. “Alright, Mack, you can win that one. You’ve got an ass that’s pretty cute for shooting at, and I like you alright besides. Looks like you’re lucky that way. The metal cabinet?”

“Second case on the left, kid. You’ll be in gumballs for the rest of your life.”

***

Jane had just about had it with Mack calling her kid. The way she saw it, she had him bent ass-end-over his own counter, and that alone should be enough to spare her the dismissive attitude. She pulled her State Liquor ID from her pocket and held it up to his face.

“What does that say?”

Mack studied the ID and then looked back up at her, exasperated.

“Well, it says you’re twenty-three years old, dear. It also says your name is Jane Eleanor Damsel and that you live at forty-fucking-seven Dunster Street in Allston. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Jane slid her ID back into her pocket.

“Are you gonna come over for some iced tea, Mack?”

“Get your money and get the hell out of my shop, Jane Damsel.”

Jane smiled at him. She really did like him alright and he was a good looking guy. The money was where he’d said it would be and the lock was indeed easily broken. She pressed the cash flat and zipped it into the lining of her vest with the rest.

The monitors for the security cameras were stacked up on a table in the far corner of the workroom and Jane turned to take a quick look. She stood still for a moment, voyeuristic, transfixed. Watching him in the little black and white televisions—bound up and vulnerable the way he was—made her feel strange in a not-entirely-unpleasant sort of way. It isn’t easy to pull off looking good while duct-taped to a counter, but Mack was sure doing that. He had the kind of body that came from working hard, not working out, and his position gave her a nice view of his ass. A very nice view. Most of all, though, Jane liked his eyes. She wouldn’t have minded hanging around to watch him a little while longer if she’d had the time.

She slid back through the door to the cage and sat down on the floor beside him. He startled when she reached for him, so she smiled and winked as she ran her hands over the curves of his ass. Mack was amusing to her now because he finally looked shocked by something she had done.

She found what she was looking for and pulled the wallet from his back pocket. She removed his driver’s license from its sheath and studied it.

“Hey, we’re neighbors, almost,” she smiled. She looked up into Mack’s face and her expression turned mildly critical. “You look a little older than thirty, Masterson Patrick Chester. You’re probably not getting enough fiber in your diet.”

She replaced his ID and slid the wallet back into the pocket of his jeans for him, and then she grabbed him by the belt loops and used them to pull herself back up to standing. As she passed back through the distressed door to the service area of his shop, Jane held up a tiny pair of gold scissors for his scrutiny.

“Solid gold? Really?”

Mack grimaced a hard grin at her through the Plexiglas.

“They’re gold plate kid, and cheap at that. Try not to be so goddamn gullible.”

“I figured as much.” She considered the scissors for a moment and then smiled. “I like them,” she said. “Add them to my tab, alright Mack?”

“Fuck you, darlin’.”

Jane used the scissors to snip into the duct tape that bound his wrists to the counter poles, trying not to pull too hard on his arms as she worked.

“Do you think you’ll get free okay when I’m gone if I cut this tape half way through?”

“I have no idea, Jane. I lost all feeling in my limbs about five minutes ago. Why don’t you just take my money and get the hell out of here now so I can figure out how to clean up this mess?”

Jane stepped back and narrowed her eyes at him through the shield. “You seem like an okay guy, Mack Chester,” she said. “What the hell do you want to deal in other people’s misery for?”

“Money.”

She cut the tape the rest of the way through and slipped the scissors back into her pocket. Mack’s arms pulled free of the counter poles and dangled there for a moment, then they snaked through the Plexiglas window as his body fell back onto the floor. Jane turned toward the door.

“I’ve enjoyed meeting you,” she said. It appeared to her that Mack was trying to show her his middle finger, but his arms were not yet ready for the job. She smiled down at him. He hadn’t been a bad sport, considering. He was a little bossy maybe—for a guy who didn’t have a gun handy—but as she watched the really alright looking heap squirming on the slate tiles, Jane decided she wouldn’t mind running into him again someday if their fates aligned. She couldn’t stay and chat just then, however, because Mack’s limbs would not stay numb forever. She waved goodbye with a reluctant smile and turned back toward the door.

“Jane Damsel.”

“Yeah, Mack?”

“I am going to kill you dead, kid.”

Jane paused with her hand on the knob, considering his words. “That’s likely to add some stress to our relationship,” she decided.

“Ain’t it?”