Keeping The Record. Travis Richardson

the only thing of value in that shithole. Remmy tossed his cigarette. Pawn shop. That’s where he went. Of course, there were around sixty in the East Bay alone. But he’d go to every one from San Pablo to Alameda if it meant finding the asshole and getting his revenge.

      Chapter 3

      Interstate 580

      Roy couldn’t believe how much the bus fare cost. Holy hell, there had to be airline flights around $150 to St. Louis and definitely more direct. Until now, he hadn’t been on a bus since the minor leagues. He sat towards the back as the vehicle puttered through traffic toward Los Angeles, via Fresno and many more places in between. Eventually, two days later, he’d make it to St. Louis.

      A couple of loud ghetto brothers were drawing as much attention to themselves as they could. Laughing at shit that wasn’t funny, playing hardcore hip-hop from a tinny cell phone, and shouting at each other like they were in a packed club instead of sitting next to each other. When Roy turned to look at them, they gave him the hard stare down, daring him say something. So young and insecure, that was an equation that equaled scary. Roy was certain the youngsters were packing heat and traveling down to LA. A good fucking eight hours on the road with these gangbangers. Life was grand.

      There were a dozen or so migrant farm workers crowded around the front, chatting in Spanish. Probably going to do backbreaking work in Fresno, Bakersfield, and the other farm communities in the Central Valley for a few dollars a day. As bad off as Roy was, picking strawberries or green beans or whatever was growing would never be an option, ever. He had thought about trying to talk beisball to them, but he had already seen their frightened looks when he had lumbered between the aisle to find a seat.

      Across the aisle from Roy sat a babbling, possibly schizophrenic, white guy with wild eyes behind thick glasses and crazy gray hair going up in all directions. Of course, he could also be a Berkeley professor deciding to take an alternative route to Los Angeles. The crazies and the elite are so easily interchangeable in the East Bay.

      Roy turned back to the window with a view of the six-thirty Bay traffic. He tried not to drop his eyes, but they went down, like the way a hunk of metal can’t resist the attraction of a magnet. He was staring at his duffle bag on the empty seat beside him. It was unzipped with a huge space between the underwear and T-Shirts – nearly as vast as the universe as far as Roy was concerned. It was the space where his home run trophy had been. His record breaking home run trophy. Everybody had wanted it: the outraged descendants of the bronzed Babe, the asset seizing IRS, his conniving ex-wife, some millionaire who wanted to blow it up on the internet, even that dead bruiser with the dent in his head. Everybody wanted it, but Roy was desperate enough that he had walked into a pawn shop in downtown Oakland and got a measly $300 for it.

      He had claimed he was his own sister and listened to G-Dawg, the pawnbroker, denigrate him while he stood there, arms crossed over his breasts and fists clinched, trying to keep from ripping the old man’s head off. Which Roy was sure he could do, but two murders in a day were enough.

      Roy shook his head in disgust. Three hundred fucking dollars. At least the man promised he wouldn’t sell it for two weeks. Instinctively, Roy’s hand squeezed the receipt ticket inside his bra.

      “What you feelin’ for, pretty mama?” one of the bangers said, leaning over his seat. He flashed a gleaming smile. A literal golden grill. Roy felt the urge to yank those obnoxious teeth out and get 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