EDDIE
Thebangwas so loud my ears were ringing. Warm blood dripped down my face while the scent of copper choked me. In disbelief, I bounced my attention from the gun on the floor to Mike.
The gun.
Mike.
Ah, hell, then to the gun one more time. Why not? Guilt immediately began to hammer me, even though I hadn’t really done anything.
“What the hell happened? A guy is dead, that’s what happened. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” I spit as the tang of blood hit my tongue. “Ew!”
The door opened and my gut dropped all the way to Antarctica. Tyler took a few steps forward, then stood there gaping. His bags fell to the floor with a loudclunk. My heart did weird arial acrobatics where it soared, then splatted near my toes. A tremor racked my body.
I couldn’t breathe. This couldn’t be happening.
“Oh my fuck. What happened?” Tyler shuffled farther inside, unsteady on his feet, but who could blame him? He goggled at the carnage for a few seconds, then closed the door with abangthat made me flinch. He had more common sense than I did because he quickly flipped the sign on the door to Closed. It took him two tries to pull down the cheap old roller blind. Seconds later, the lockclicked.
This wasn’t how I’d expected my day to go. Not by a longshot.
I’d tried to come here this morning, but believe it or not, apparently a pawnshop didn’t keep regular hours.
There had been a note.
Mike will be back around three, motherfuckers! He has shit to do!
I’d attempted to find the other people on Tyler’s list to ask how they knew him, how his life had been while I was safe in California, but the only one I could locate for certain was Dad. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in a hot blue hell I wanted to tangle with him today.
Screw that.
Holidays were bad enough. I didn’t need to add extra days I saw the asshole. I couldn’t believe I’d eaten Chinese food at Thanksgiving with someone who’d done that to Tyler.
So, I’d run some errands while checking my phone repeatedly, killing time till three.
A stupid, ridiculous part of me hoped Tyler would simply call me and I could ask him about the list. No such luck.
When I arrived back at the pawnshop, the lights were on and the Open sign was facing front, so I went in.
Biggest mistake ever. The heat was cranked too high and a smell like someone’s moth-ball infested closet mixed with a gut-wrenching Eau de Cat Piss slapped me in the face. “Wonderful. Just what I wanted to do with my Saturday.”
There were too many shelves packed into the small space. The aisle through the middle made me feel the need to suck in my gut to walk through. Each shelf was jam-packed with random crap. A pile of fur coats took up the bottom of one shelf, and I tried not to get too close. I swore I saw a flea jump off it.
“Hello?” an irritated male voice called from farther back in the shop.
I made my way through the shelves until I was in a holding cell in front of a long case smudged with fingerprints. Jewelry, cell phones, and other electronics were behind the sturdy glass, apparently too expensive to float free with the rest of the trash.
“Who are you?” The man came through a door and stopped behind the counter with his nose wrinkled. He was about my height and had a button nose and blond curls, which should’ve softened his face, but the multitude of divots from what appeared to be a lifelong acne problem didn’t allow that to happen. Of course, his harsh scowl didn’t improve the situation.
“Uh, hi. I’m here because I’m looking for someone.” I fished in my pocket for the list, but the man, presumably one of the Shanahan brothers, pulled a gun from inside the glass case and shoved it in my face. It was big. Gray. Shiny. And I was sure it was going to be the last thing I saw on this stupid earth.
I gasped and my hands flew in the air without directions from my body. Points to me. I knew how to be held at gunpoint without anyone explaining the rules.
“I’m not in the business of handing out names.” Shanahan gestured at himself, then the junk on the shelves. “You a cop?”
I shook my head so fast I was a little dizzy when I stopped. “Who would be a cop? Not me, that’s who. Fuck the police, that’s what I always say!” My nervous laughter made me feel a bit sick.
He cocked his head and wriggled the gun at me. “What’s your name?”
“Eddie!”
