Striking A Deal
Who: Hanna and Frankie What: Doing Business When: Noon Where: Gold Mine Pawn & Guns Rating: Mild embarrassment
Even though Hanna had only had the courier’s job for four months, she was one of the top workers at Sin City Portage. She’d learned to ride a bike in her own neighborhood before branching out to ride to school and back, to the movies with friends, when her family went on vacation. Some things you never forgot, though she’d signed the agreement about protective gear because her boss insisted.
When she got the slip for Gold Mine Pawn & Guns, she picked up the mid-sized box from the office and dropped it into the storage area on her bike. Helmet, gloves, name tag attached to her shirt. It was closing in on noon when she moved the bicycle into traffic, not quite time for lunch, too late for breakfast.
The ride was brisk as she pedaled, moving in the direction of the cars as the sun sat warm on her shoulders. She wondered if the clean up guys from the other night had had questions, decided probably not. When your job involved disposing of unnatural bodies, it was best to be circumspect.
Good policy.
There was a sidewalk but no bike rack outside of the pawn shop, and Hanna looked from right to left before chaining the Ventura to the dented Las Vegas Sun box. She doubted meter maids were overzealous about the sidewalks, and she didn’t want to leave the bike unsecured for too long.
Inside, there were glassed-in cases and shelves lining the walls. Musical instruments. Televisions. A group of smaller cases containing rings, watches, coins in individual slots. Guns, which she paused at. She wasn’t licensed to carry a gun in Nevada, but there were always rumors of how to get a sidearm if you really needed one.
“Frank Lawson?”
Frankie had been dozing and he jerked awake at the sound of a new voice in the pawn shop; even the bells over the door hadn’t been enough to rouse him, but an unfamiliar tone did the trick. He took a deep sniffing breath to clear his sinuses and sat up a little straighter on his stool. Good thing, the new arrival -- he’d probably have hit the floor in a moment or two otherwise. The heat of the day combined with the plate windows tended to fight the air conditioner’s potential in the main store during the day, leaving him warm, bored, and prone to sleepiness.
He’d been taking more day shifts as of late; it made it a little easier to avoid any potential customers who typically shunned the sunlight. Not the greatest trick to pull on his coworkers, but no one had complained yet and there had been no messages left behind from a foxy brunette with a killer grin. He assumed he was in the safe zone, for the most part, but had decided he couldn’t really risk it, at least not now.
Not until he figured out just how to play things out.
Not until after the next moon, either. That shit was exhausting.
“Yeah? What’s up?” he asked.
“Whoa, sorry.”
Hanna put the box down on the counter next to the register, unfastened the strap of her helmet. The weather was gradually turning cooler as fall edged closer, but it was still in the high seventies outside. There was one other customer, a guy in his mid-twenties inspecting the watches with his nose almost pressed to the glass of the case.
“I’m from Sin City Portage,” she said, indicating the plastic name tag she sported. It had been misspelled at first, and she’d had to scratch off the second H before wearing it in public. “It’s marked special delivery, so you’ll have to sign for it.”
Frankie grinned. He couldn’t remember offhand if he had anything coming his way, but he still retained an almost childlike sense of glee in receiving packages, in the mail or otherwise. He perked up immediately, straightening in his seat.
“Sure thing,” he declared cheerfully. “Just so long as it ain’t anything that bites. Where do I sign?”
“Far as I can tell, it’s not alive. Though I did have to deliver a stuffed monkey to a guy at the Bellagio. One of those taxidermied things? Creepy.”
Hanna put her electronic clipboard on the glassed-in counter, fished a stylus out of the bottom of her belt pouch. The window facing the street was freshly washed, offering a view of the bright, clear day outside. The front wheel of her bike was just barely visible.
“You don’t get a lot of deliveries that do bite, do you?”
Frankie chuckled at the thought of a taxidermied monkey being delivered to a high end casino; thankfully, his laughter was subdued enough not so sound like a full-on pachyderm, just a relatively small seal. He scribbled his signature -- which was really little more than an actual scribble, owing to the frequency with which he received goods of perhaps sketchy origins -- and then offered the stylus back to the courier.
“Not too often but I don’t take unnecessary chances,” he replied with another grin. “Doesn’t shock me someone has a sudden need for a stuffed monkey in this city. Lotta money in that taxidermy shit, you know, ‘specially if it’s an endangered species. Couldn’t tell you why anybody would want some poor dead critter hanging on their wall, but it takes all types I guess.”
Movement at the corner of his eye caught his attention and he glanced towards the younger man drooling over the watch case.
“Hey buddy, you fog up that glass, you get to clean it before you leave!” he called.
Hanna looked too, because vigilance was a habit when you were making your way through heavy traffic. Not just cars and trucks, but every now and then someone on foot would step out between two parked vehicles and right into your path. The guy at the watch case took a quarter-step backwards, but he craned his neck downwards to compensate.
She dropped the stylus back into her pouch, tucked the clipboard in beside it. Her watch said it was seven past noon. She usually got an hour for lunch, liked to hit the food trucks that circled through the city. But while she was here, there’d be no harm in doing some browsing.
“Could you unlock one of those cases? I’m in the market for a handgun.”
“Sure thing,” Frankie said, casting a longing look at the package on the counter before digging around in his pocket for the keys to the display case. He found them just beneath the lighter he carried strictly for emergencies -- never a smoker but an occasional trash fire was a good escape hatch when he didn’t feel like going cat -- and moved towards the case holding handguns.
“Ready for the spiel?” Frankie asked, then cleared his throat. “Pursuant to Nevada state law, the open carry of firearms is legal in this state without the need of a license or registration. However, you are required to obtain a Nevada CCW permit in order to carry a concealed weapon, because that makes sense. Legally we can sell to you so long as you provide proof you’re over 21, so… go nuts.”
Hanna looked down at the collection of guns with the semi-experienced eye of the civilian. Her pop had carried a .22 on the weekends when he was moonlighting as a cab driver, but Ma wouldn’t let him bring it in the house, even unloaded. She carefully picked an H & K out by the butt, studied the matte black finish. Medium weight, might be a touch heavier with a full magazine. She’d gone through small arms training in Basic, though just as a formality.
The price tag said six hundred and fifty dollars, which gave her some pause. Enough pause to put it back, at least. She could tell Lawson wanted to get back to his delivery, whatever it was.
“Guess you wouldn’t have a layaway plan or anything, would you?” Because she had some money socked away, but not that much.
“Uhh…” Frankie hedged, scratching the back of his head. As a rule, he didn’t like guns; most of his under the table dealings consisted of jewelry and other high-end goods. Guns were never his forte. Many of the people he dealt with tended to keep a strong side business, running guns and drugs and god knew what else, but Frankie couldn’t touch it often. Growing up in New York in the 80s had shown him some of the worst of the worst when it came to firearms, and he wanted no part of it.
But Vegas was different; Nevada was different. People there thought differently, walked around with their guns proudly displayed, like they were waiting for the resurgence of the Wild West and ready to meet in the streets at high noon. It was difficult to keep up with the rest of his competitors if he didn’t dabble now and again.
“So, store rules don’t allow for putting anything on time,” he explained, frowning a little to himself. “But, uh… say, maybe I got the same, uh, model, and we arrange a personal deal? I can cut the price by a third and sell it on time, maybe two payments, if you leave something with me for collateral. But we do it through the shop… no skipping out on the background check.”
“That’s fine with me. I’ve never even had a speeding ticket.”
She could think of it as her own form of moonlighting. She’d seen the name of the shop often enough in the office that she knew he got lots of deliveries. Some that bit, some that didn’t. It couldn’t be any weirder than schlepping monkeys with glass eyes across town. Hanna dug back into her belt pouch, found a pen and a wrinkled business card.
“Do I need to sign anything?”
“Uh… hang on a sec,” Frankie said, digging into a file cabinet behind the gun case. There were an array of forms held there, primarily debtor agreements for those who sought to pawn rather than outright sell their valuables, but there were background check forms hidden away somewhere amongst the mess. “You can take this and fill it out while I get the, uh, merchandise in stock.”
He brought the form to the counter and straightened it as best as he could; it had been wrinkled, stuffed in the back of the drawer. He had also snagged a debtor’s agreement, just in case.
“We can modify the standard debtor paperwork to make it like a layaway deal,” he explained, scribbling in the margins of the page. “So, hey, what’s your name?”
“Hanna Pulaski.”
She expected to have to spell her last name, and she wrote her first name on the back of the card after smoothing it out on the counter next to the paperwork he’d brought out. She could give it to him before she left. It wasn’t unusual for some customers to ask for specific couriers if they were prompt. If Lawson seemed a little goofy around the edges, she was probably making him nervous.
“I have a driver’s licence, though I mostly use the bike to get around, but it still works for ID.”
“Nice to meet ya, Hanna. Just fill out the form there and see if you can get a copy of your license to attach,” Frankie explained, tapping the paper with one finger. “We don’t have a Xerox or a scanner or anything on site -- pretty damn stupid, considering -- so you can just bring a copy in and let me take a look at it now to make sure everything’s kosher.”
He shoved his hands back in his pockets and bounced a little on his heels as he spoke. Frankie was a simple man, with simple joys in life: a good game, good food, and most especially, a good deal.
The lookie-loo at the other case sneezed loudly, and Frankie frowned. “Seriously, man?” he asked. “Get outta here before I need to hand you the Windex.”
The pen made scratching noises on the paper as Hanna filled out her name and mailing address, gave the guy at the watch case a similar stink-eye as he dragged some tissues out of his pocket and blew his nose. He glowered at her over the wad of Kleenex, and she gave him a flat stare until he broke the eye contact. She went back to writing, finished filling in the blanks.
“There’s a FedEx a few blocks down,” she told Frankie as she handed the completed form back. “I only have a few more dropoffs to make today, after my lunch break. I can bring in a copy of my licence before the day’s out, but here’s the real deal if you need it now.”
She slapped her back pockets, sorted through a small stack of plastic squares. Rewards cards for the grocery stores, an expired student ID, her one credit card….there. A decent picture for once, where it didn’t look like a mug shot. And she could be patient if he needed the copy for the form. Better to go through some red tape if it would mean less hassle later.
Frankie squinted at the little plastic card for a moment longer than he would have liked to admit; one of these days, he knew, he’d have to shuffle off to some retail store’s optical center and have a cut-rate doctor tell him he needed reading glasses. It wasn’t like he had insurance to go to one of the fancy places downtown, after all. Pushing forty sure could be a bitch. Thankfully, he wasn’t too far gone and could easily see that the license was valid and had the right photo printed where it should be.
“Hey, nice photo,” he said amiably, then frowned at his own words. “Uh. That sounded creepy. I just mean, y’know. I look like a reject from Area 51 in mine, so… yeah.”
She’d been idly looking at an electric guitar resting on a stand when he said it, and she swung her attention back in his direction, her mouth tucking in at the corners. Chewing it over for a few moments while she really looked at him, the first time she’d made full eye contact since the bell over the door jingled. Nice jawline, blue eyes bordering on gray, and maybe the goofiness was cute rather than annoying.
“Yeah, I can see how the camera wouldn’t do you justice. They should clean their lenses..”
She put the wrinkled business card down on top of the form where it lay on the counter. “If you have more deliveries, you can always ask for me.”
Frankie felt his cheeks heat and sputtered for a moment. It was one thing for Rhiannon to throw a compliment his way now and again -- they were pals. It was something else entirely for a lovely stranger to offer the same sort of kindness. That was something he’d never really learned to accept; most people just assumed he was a loser and moved on.
“I’ll… yeah, I’ll do that,” he agreed with a pleased flush, taking the card and slipping it carefully into his overstuffed Batman wallet. “I should have your, uh, merchandise in a day or two, if you want to check back.”
Yes. Definitely cute.
Hanna snagged her bike helmet by the strap and let it dangle from one hand when she said, “I’ll call you in a few days, maybe by the weekend. I get paid on Friday, so I can bring the first payment in on Monday. I really appreciate your help on this. Bye, Frank.”
Outside, the street had gotten busier, and she unlocked her bike chain to aim the wheels towards a gap in the traffic. It occurred to her once she was half a block away that she’d forgotten to wait around for a tip, but never mind. They’d struck a deal, and he had her card. Sort of.