His lips pulled back in a smile so thin I waited for it to split open and show all of his teeth and gums. “It’s as simple as you want it to be, Jack. Selling your property to me is much smoother than trying to go on the market. One shady auctioneer, and your home… your mother’s jewelry… well.” His shoulders rocked upwards. “You’d get nothing. Not a dime, not what any of it’s worth.”
What it’s worth, I thought, my fingertips digging into my thighs under the table. Mister Big had listed everything I’d been sent to sell at the bottom of the paperwork: my childhood home, my dead father’s fading farm, and my mother’s most prized possession. The printed words called them jewels, but they were so much more than that. I’d watched from the hallway as my mother sat at her cracked vanity, stroking the necklace with its three kidney-bean sized emeralds. She did it often, she did it without thought—and she’d done it up until she’d handed the necklace to me in a box while her tired eyes turned puffy with tears.
Behind me, there was a noise. It was mild; the slight rustling of the club waking up. Speakers squeaked with feedback. On impulse, I looked up and away from the paperwork that would change my life.
And I saw her.
Dressed in gold sequins that hugged her young, budding curves, she swept across the small stage on the opposite end of the club. Luscious strands of thick hair—thicker than molasses, surely smelling as sweet—framed her face and drew out the rich blue of her eyes.
She was a stranger to me, but low in my gut, I knew her the way only young love knows itself.
“Jack?”
I twisted back to face Mister Big and his associates. His face was placid, his huge hands resting over each other in a sign of immense patience. “Sorry,” I said, scanning the pages again. “This is all new for me.” The men chuckled—my insides twisted. “How long do I have to wait before you sell everything and invest it into your new club?”
“Oh, not long. I’ve got interested buyers already.”
Already? But I’d only spoke with him on the phone yesterday. It had been a chance meeting with one of his representatives who’d put us in touch. Originally, I’d wandered into the town’s marketplace, searching for a local realtor to help me place my home for sale, as my mother had asked. She was too ill to make the trip and we’d been without a car for some time. I was used to walking the five miles, I didn’t even mind.
On the road with the blue sky above, I could forget how fucked up my life was.
Mister Big leaned closer. “You’re not getting nervous, are you?” His thick beard made his frown look even more severe. “I’m sure I can find another man interested in investing with me. Another man who wants to sit as my partner and rake in the passive cash of a hot new club.”
Sweat collected between my shoulder blades. No one had called me a man before. When he did, it skirted the edge of an insult. I was messing up the biggest deal in my life. My mother would be furious, my mother would…
“Silent waters,” a voice crooned through the air. Instantly the club went dead silent.
The woman on the stage was singing.
A pen dropped heavily onto the table, startling me. One of the other men—a lanky guy who still managed to fill out his gray suit—leaned backwards. I realized he’d dropped the pen, reading all the cues from his boss to hurry this forward.
I was hesitating… but why? What was I worried about? If I didn’t sell everything, my mother and I would be out on the street. The bank wanted to foreclose; I’d been unable to find work in this shithole of a town, or at least, nothing that could afford the high-rate escalating payments the bank wanted so suddenly.
My mother had begged me to find an answer.
Wouldn’t I be a fool to walk away from the first sliver of good luck I’d been blessed with?
“Alright,” I said, gripping the pen and scrawling my signature. The ink smeared onto the side of my hand—Mister Big had snatched it up before it had dried. Sitting back, I looked him straight in the face, fighting to breathe. Fighting to get a hold on my emotions. And all the while, just behind me, that beautiful woman sang her song. I ached to look. “Now what?”
“Now?” he chuckled dryly. Lifting his hand, he motioned sharply; from the shadows came a woman with a tray of drinks. Had she been waiting there for our deal to end? “Now we drink!”
Squeezing the glass of whiskey that was poured for me, I joined them in a toast. Their joy should have been contagious. Five glasses later—each more pushed on me than the last—it finally was. Somewhere between my anxiety and my uncertainty, hope had blossomed.
Mom is going to be so happy.
When she heard what I’d done, she’d probably even hug me. How would that feel?
“Silent waters…” that voice again; wobbly this time, struggling to reach me through my alcohol haze. Time had warped, the night eroding away until I only vaguely noticed the club had gone empty. Arms pulled at me, familiar voices laughing as I was pulled out a door and towards the alley.
“Where are we going?” I asked, finding it hard to stand.
The man holding me was the lanky fellow from earlier; a friend of Mister Big. “A smoke, we’re just getting some fresh air and a smoke. Celebrations can’t end without that.”
I didn’t smoke; it was a luxury, but also, I’d never been fond of the stuff. “I’ll just stand and listen,” I said, trying to break free. “If it’s all the same to you gentlemen.”
“Gentlemen,” someone snorted. One man had become two, their bodies crowding me in the low light of the back-alley’s single lamp. The edge in his voice set my brain on fire—my intuition kicking in a second too late. Or maybe it was days late, at this point.
Hard knuckles drove into my gut, forcing out air and whiskey and bile. Coughing, I fell hard enough that my temple thudded on the rough ground. Gravity held me there, disorientation making my mind swim. I was too drunk for a fistfight. Even on my best days, I couldn’t have taken two men at once.
“Can you believe this kid, Hector?” The man who’d hit me did it again. I scrambled to grab his ankles; he just laughed and jammed his heel into my gut, then my spine. My vision was red stars and nothing more.
Tobacco filled the air. I tasted it around the blood in my mouth. “Mister Big knows how to spot a sucker, that’s for fucking sure. Hit him again, Tino. Get his face real good.”
Spitting out whatever was in my mouth, I shielded myself as Hector railed on me. The ringing in my ears got louder, muffling everything until I could have been suffocating under a pile of mattresses. “Why?” I coughed.
“Shit, he speaks.” Gravel scraped by my cheek; Hector had knelt, his fingers knotting in my short hair and ripping me upwards so that I had to face his grim smile. “The answer is obvious, kid. Mister Big wanted your money. But anyone as stupid as you doesn’t deserve to work with him.”
Stupid? I wasn’t stupid.
I was hopeful.
I’d believed, just for a bit, that life couldn’t be cruel 24/7. That somewhere, eventually, a break would come and people like me… people like my mother… would get our due. We’d be given enough room to just take a full breath for once.
Now I knew better.