Place smelled like mothballs and antiseptic. Racks of worn clothing, kind you'd find in a third rate department store, set up all over the place without any pattern. One woman dragged 2 toddlers behind her, and she had a pile of kids' clothing over her arm, sorting through a cardboard box and pulling out more.
Checked the address. This was it, goodwill store between 17th and 18th. Ramon was getting the money here, stashing it at the station. They'd been saving up a few months, but it didn't explain how this joint could afford to fund that. So, what were they fronting for?
Soon as we stepped in, Dara got hypnotized, wandered off to start walking through the aisles, picking at clothes [I was merely searching for evidence of a money laundering scheme. They may have been sewing excess funds into clothing and transferring clean bills that way. Besides, I found a cute pink top for five dollars. -Dara].
I walked past the trench coats, all fur-lined and shoulder pads. Found the slob just like Ramon described, bent glassses, thinning hair dyed orange, lot of flannel. Luke Wilder, everyone called him Wilder.
Heard him talking to someone, and he peppered his talk with “dude” and “bro”. Kinda like he never grew up, never wanted to grow up. When they finished, he tried one of them crazy 7 part handshakes. Wasn't the kind anyone woulda tried 30 years ago, when he was a kid.
Started talking to him, told him Ramon said hello. He got all excited, clapped me on the back, asked how Ramon was doing. I told him Ramon was fine, had some questions about the last tutoring session. Wilder ran his hand through his thin hair, shook it out like he just pulled off a skateboard helmet. Told me we should talk about it back in the storeroom. Kept calling me “bro”.
In the back, he told a couple high school kids to go out front, man the registers. They ran out, high fived him. Both girls rolled their eyes as they ran past him.
Once the storeroom door closed, he pulled a desert eagle from his waistband, pointed it right at my heart. Slob was so skinny, I figured even if he fired, the gun would just knock him into 1 of the shelves, or onto his can. He was real calm, gun hardly shook.
Wilder said he couldn't believe that “dude played me like that. We was friends, bro, and he played me like that.” I told him to stop embarrassing both of us, and act his age. Smile gone, eyes hard, he stood up straighter. Told me it was good to stretch, and he was tired of having to be the cool guy to get along with the kids. Couldn't figure out if he was serious.
I had my arms above my head, could feel the sweat rolling down my arms, tickling my armpits like a snail was crawling down there. Told him he could tell me who he was working for and I could just walk away.
Slob asked what made me think he wasn't in charge. I told him it was the orange hair. He fell back into his altar ego [Alter ego, not of the priesthood. -Dara]. Slob held his arms up, cried out “Dude”.
I slapped the gun from his hand, slapped the 80s out of his mouth. Emptied the desert eagle of its ammo, then threw the gun back into the clothes bins. Figured they mighta gotten a few bucks for it.
Funny how different someone is when they're holding a gun, versus when you hold a revolver to their temple. He went all dame on me, couldn't shut him up. Told me all about his boss. Didn't try to pretend we were “bros” anymore.
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