Chapter 24
24
6:58 p.m. Saturday, November 2
N ick opened the door to Peabody Jewelry.
“I’m afraid we’re closing, probably permanently,” Wilfred said defeated without looking up from the cash register.
“I come bearing good tidings,” Nick said, waving the rest of his party inside. Gabe, Weber, and Griffin filed inside. They were all moving a little slowly after Lily and Fred’s early-bird meatloaf-with-four-kinds-of-potatoes dinner.
“Nicholas, how nice to see”—Wilfred’s eyes narrowed when he spotted Griffin—“ you .”
“This place looks vaguely familiar,” Griffin said, pausing to admire himself in a mirror above a nearly empty display of earrings.
“Ignore him,” Nick insisted. He pointed at Griffin. “You, go sit in the corner over there, and don’t say anything. If you’re good, we’ll get you a fucking ice cream cone on the way home.”
“I do not wish to have this man in my store,” Wilfred said. His mustache twitched indignantly.
Weber wandered over to the watch case and began a perusal of the paltry selection.
“Do not be concerned. Mr. Gentry has that effect on most people,” Gabe said amicably as he sank to the floor to pet Elizabeth Taylor the cat.
“Did someone say they want my autograph?” Griffin piped up from the chair in the corner.
“No!” they all snapped.
“As I was saying, I’ve got something for you you’re going to want,” Nick said, reaching into his jacket pocket.
“Unless it’s a winning lottery ticket, I’m not interested,” Wilfred said morosely.
Nick tossed the cuff links on the counter like they were dice. “How about now?”
“My cuff links! How did you…?”
Nick chanced a glance at Weber. “It’s probably best if you don’t know. I hope this helps you out and irons out any grudges you may be carrying.”
Wilfred went back to looking morose. “Thank you for returning these. It means the world to me. It really does. But unless I can find a buyer in the next three days, I’ll still have to close.”
“Funny you say that, because I happen to know someone with questionable taste and a credit limit higher than the Empire State Building,” Nick said, sliding a phone number across the counter. “I made a call and sent some pictures. My friend Beth wants the cuff links to surprise her husband with before they start shooting their reality show this week. You’ll be credited in the show as the jewelry designer.”
“My sister? Seriously, Nicky?” Weber muttered.
“Zip it,” Nick told him before turning back to Wilfred. “She also said she’s interested in a bunch of other stuff, but I stopped listening, so that’s on you now.”
“Hey! Those look like my cuff links,” Griffin noted, craning his neck from his chair. “I had a jeweler design them, and then he didn’t make me pay for them. Isn’t that great?”
“What did I say about ice cream?” Nick snarled.
“Oops. Sorry! I forgot,” Griffin said. He took out his phone, opened the camera app, and began entertaining himself with selfies.
“I–I can’t thank you enough,” Wilfred said. “This is an answer to our prayers, isn’t it, Elizabeth Taylor? Goodness. I might need to sit down.”
“Mind if we take a look around?” Nick asked with his eye on a case of sparkle.
“Mind? You can play beer pong on top of the Rolexes,” Wilfred said, sounding dazed.
Nick sidled over to the case and eyeballed the engagement rings. The ring was still there. His fingers itched to handle it.
“You can’t be serious, Nicky,” Weber said, looking over Nick’s shoulder.
“Serious about what?”
“You’re looking at engagement rings. Are you actually thinking about proposing?”
“I would be, but my girlfriend is a psychic, and Muscle Milk over there refuses to tell me how to hide it from her.”
Gabe joined them at the case. “This is what you wished to hide? I naturally assumed it was a gambling debt or a bed-wetting problem.”
“You know, the more time you spend with us, the meaner you get. And the meaner you get, the less I hate you,” Nick said.
“I believe you just complimented me,” Gabe said.
“Maybe I’ll be more complimentary if you help me figure out how to surprise Riley.”
“It would be my great honor,” Gabe said.
“What makes you think she’ll say yes? You’re not exactly an easy sell,” Weber pointed out.
“I was thinking about asking her during sex. You know, when she’s more inclined to say yes a dozen times in a row. Hey, Wilfred. What the hell is a karat?”
Wilfred’s response was cut off by the crash of the glass door flying open and hitting an empty sunglasses display. Three men wearing ski masks and carrying guns stormed inside.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Weber muttered.
“Hands up!” shouted the first guy. He was wearing a buttercup-yellow ski mask that looked like he’d gotten it in the children’s section. Nick was ninety percent sure the gun in his gloved hand was a toy with the orange tip painted black.
“Everybody on the ground,” insisted the second, who waved a definitely real twelve-gauge shotgun with cobwebs on the barrel at them. A neck tattoo of a spider peeked out of the neckline of his sweatshirt.
The third was a head shorter than his buddies. He and his Ruger semiautomatic with the safety still on hung back closer to the door.
Amateurs.
“Hey, mustache man. Open that register,” the one with the toy gun said to Wilfred.
“Make up your mind, boys. Hands up, on the ground, or open the cash drawer,” Nick said, gauging the distance between the gunmen and Griffin, who was cowering in his chair behind a jewelry insurance brochure.
“I don’t think they’re here for him, Nicky,” Weber said quietly as he put his hands in the air and stepped behind Nick, probably to hide the shiny badge on his belt.
Nick agreed. It was just his luck that buying an engagement ring would be interrupted by a couple of local boys who probably got tuned up at the fire hall and decided it was a nice night for an armed robbery.
The first gunman sneered through the mouth hole of his too-tight ski mask. “I told you to let me do the talking, DeWayne.”
“And I told you not to use my name, Virgil!” the rifle guy said.
“Both of you shut the fuck up. We want the cash and diamonds and a couple of them there fancy watches in this here bag,” the third guy said, tossing a paper shopping bag at Wilfred, who was clutching the feline Elizabeth Taylor in his hands over his head. Gabe was still sitting on the floor in lotus position with his hands up.
The door jingled open, and a man sporting a deep tan, a goatee, and fedora took one step inside. All the gun barrels in the store swiveled in the newcomer’s direction.
“I like your hat. Get out,” Nick said over the din.
The man took a sweeping glance around the store, then pulled his hands out of his pockets and held them aloft. “I’ll just come back…never,” he said, flashing a nervous smile in Griffin’s direction before backing out the way he’d come.
“Gentlemen, let’s talk this out,” Weber said, drawing the attention of the bad guys.
“These guns speak for themselves. Put the shinies—startin’ with them earrings or cuff links or whatever the hell they are—in the bag or Imma start puttin’ holes in big dude over there,” the third guy said, pointing his Ruger at Gabe.
“Hey, Gabe, you remember that hilarious joke you made in the kitchen?” Nick said, holding his hands at ear level and inching toward the third gun.
“I do,” Gabe said solemnly.
“Great. Practice makes perfect,” Nick said.
“Enough talking! Get on the goddamn floor,” the shotgun-wielding guy bellowed at Nick.
“Weber, you remember that time in that bar on Second Street?” Nick said, chancing another step forward.
“With the bachelorette party or the motorcycle club?”
“Motorcycle club.”
The third guy had had enough. He stepped forward and pressed the barrel of the Ruger against Nick’s sternum.
Nick grinned. “Now!”
With his left hand, he swept the gun to the floor while his right hand plowed into the man’s face, snapping his head back.
Gabe flowed to his feet, grabbed the yellow ski mask guy’s arm, and tossed him over his shoulder, sending him flying behind the counter before anyone could blink. Weber stepped into shotgun guy’s personal space with a spinning elbow that caught the bad guy square in the jaw.
Nick’s guy recovered first and charged. He was wiry but quick with his hands and feet, Nick realized with an oath when he caught the toe of a cowboy boot to the midthigh.
Gabe’s quarry crawled out from behind the jewelry case and started throwing office supplies at Gabe, who batted them away.
Weber was wrestling shotgun guy on the floor, their limbs flailing. Wilfred was frantically pawing under the register. It took him a minute, but he stood back up, holding his nonfunctioning revolver in shaking hands.
“Everybody, freeze,” he squeaked. But no one paid him any attention.
“I don’t like this,” Griffin wailed from his hiding place behind the brochure.
Wiry Guy got a lucky punch past Nick’s defenses, which only served to infuriate him. “You don’t. Get. To steal. Shit. From other. People,” Nick said, punctuating his sage advice with swift punches.
Gabe dodged the chest of a mannequin wearing a heavy necklace and grabbed his guy by the front of his shirt. “You will stop misbehaving now,” Gabe said, giving him a shake. The man’s feet dangled helplessly six inches off the ground.
The door burst open again, and a bleached-blonde woman with a too-dark tan and a Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt that had seen one too many decades stomped inside. She was smoking a cigarette and waving a cowboy-style six-shooter. “What in the hell is takin’ so damn long? You morons told me five minutes! I got the El Camino parked at the curb, drawin’ attention.”
Griffin, startled by the woman’s sudden appearance, flinched in his chair. She tripped over his feet and went sprawling.
Wilfred hurled the gun at the woman, hitting her in the crispy hair. “Ow! You son of a bitch!”
Taking advantage of the distraction, Weber jumped to his feet and drew his weapon. Nick yanked his Sig Sauer out of the back of his jeans and kicked both revolvers away from the woman on the floor.
“Harrisburg PD. Get on the floor! Hands behind your head!” Weber barked.
“A dang cop? Ah, shit. Why didn’t you say so?” Virgil grumbled.
“Hang on. This here is Lemoyne. Yer outta yer jurisdiction. You can’t do jack shit to us,” insisted Gabe’s still-dangling opponent.
“I suggest you find a new source for legal advice,” Weber said. “Wilfred, call 911.”
“Anybody got any zip ties?” Nick asked.
“Is it over? Did I save the day?” Griffin asked, peeking out between his fingers.