the hand that gives, gathers
This belong to ya ma? Sam seldom engaged a customer beyond cash, but this brooch, he’d swear, looked familiar. Rose gold and inset diamonds begging for light.
No answer offered; none expected. Sam ham-fisted the vintage register, there for theatrics of showing all he had on him, or at least in the drawer. Like everyone except his customers, he held tender in the cloud. This was business.
The offer was low, but booze hounds rarely haggle. Nobody said booze hound any more. It went with the image Sam had of how the world worked. This kid was a grey area and Sam disdained grey.
A crumpled wad beat a single bill of equal amount. Cash on the table had more gravity than a number spoken. And a fist of bills with little more in the drawer was what his bridge-playing ma called a demand bid.
The kid, not hardly at 30, slid across the brooch. An heirloom worth a bottle for the night, another in the morning. It would keep; the history behind the inset diamonds would not. There was a price to pay karma.
Tell me ya ma’s name. Eyes widened in a moment of thought. He told. Sam scooped out the remaining bills, in truth little more than you’d tip who cuts your hair, and pushed the cash over.
If ya want to redeem her diamonds, have ya ma come down. She can have ’em, on the house, ’cause of my big heart.
In a bus station corner, the booze hound obsessed how to tell her what he hocked. The bottle, though drained, was paid no attention: the debt to karma in full.
