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I’d gotten that one call right after trying to figure out the thing with this Jane. Or was it? I didn’t know, couldn’t tell. I rolled over on the couch to stare at the ceiling. What was I, a PI from one of Brooks’ novels? If I’d learned anything, it was that there was never a pattern, a hidden thing, contrary to whatever it was that airport literature told us. I rubbed my eyes hard enough to see spots for a brief minute, and sat up.

  Fuck it.

  I grabbed the slip out of the shirt’s pocket from the box, stuffed it into my pocket, and put on a jacket. I poured water in the cat’s bowl, grabbed my keys, and headed out the door.

  -

  04

  I didn’t know what I was thinking. I thought somewhere between my Queens apartment and the subway, I’d change my mind and stop myself. Then as I sat on the train, I thought somewhere between there and the midtown address, I’d stop myself and change my route, go downtown for a drink or something.

  Then I found myself a block away, hands in my jacket pockets holding the slip, walking slowly but steadily towards the pawn shop.

  I didn’t know what I was doing, nor why I’d spontaneously decided to do thi. For all I knew, they wouldn’t let me in, wouldn’t let me use the ticket since it wasn’t me on it. Honestly, it wasn’t any of my fucking business. Clearly, the universe didn’t want me to get back in touch with this girl.

  Before I could stop myself, I was pushing the buzzer to get let into the store. Despite the midtown address, it was still that kind of place apparently.

  “Yeah?” the girl behind the counter ask as I slid the slip towards her. I’d pretty much only seen pawn shops on reality TV and in movies about gangsters, so what did I know about how it worked. “You want your item back?” she asked, smacking gum like so many stereotypes rolled into one.

  “Yeah, hum, yes, thanks.” I’d assumed there would be more ceremony, someone would ask for ID or something, but I guess not. “Your girlfriend’s stuff?” the girl asked, returning from the back with a small cloth sack she dumped onto the counter.

  I tried to laugh and play along, hoping my nerves wouldn’t show. “Yeah, just picking it up.” I looked at my wallet. “You have an ATM here?”

  -

  05

  I was curious how I was going to explain this to my accountant, three hundred buck blown. I hadn’t even looked a the sack yet.

  I threw myself into some client work instead when I got home, made a few deadlines a couple of hours early, paid some bills, and then walked into my kitchen to make some dinner. The apartment’s kitchen was small but still spacious, worked well, was mostly attached to the rest of the apartment, separated from the living room by a breakfast bar. The realtor had been big on selling that to me, and well, it’d worked.

  I diced up some spicy greet and sweet red peppers, toss them with some olive oil, salt, and pepper. I’d had a chicken breast marinating in barbaque sauce a client’s daughter gave me in appreciation for helping her old man with a book of his. It was potent stuff, so I usually had to dilute it down a touch.

  The chicken breast, after a daylong cool and soak in the sauce, got diced up and tossed into a pan with the peppers and half an onion. Took me forty minutes, tops, to make, and it also left me with leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

  I’d been doing the freelance thing from home for a little while before my current proofreading agency hired me, so at this point I did almost all of my work at home in my dinky little Queens apartment. Cooking was what I’d started to keep the monotony at bay, trying new things I’d see on TV or read about. It helped make my days more interesting.

  I put the radio on my laptop, listening to some yuck-yuck duo talk about movies, and sat down at the desk to eat. It was something basic, but it was good, and I jotted it down in the little notebook marked “Food” on my  I still hadn’t looked in the bag I’d gotten from the pawn shop, it was just sitting there next to me.

  “Been here a while,” the girl behind the counter had said, spitting her gum out and replacing it with a fresh piece. “Most times after ninety days it’s ours unless it’s something big, ‘cause then the owner and the person leaving it work it out personally. This had a note to hold it indefinitely. Whatever, glad you got it back for her.”

  “Yeah.”

  Why the hell did I do that? That was strange, and it hadn’t even occurs to me that Why did I take it from the store? Something had possessed me to care about this Jane Kimball girl and the receipt, go to the store, see what it was, this girl that clearly either didn’t want ‘em to find her…or that my friends didn’t want me to talk to.

  I put my plates in the sink to get to later, fed the cat, and came back to the desk. The velvet bag was staring at me. I undid the drawstring, and dumped a bracelet out onto the surface of the desk next to the computer.

  -

  06

  It was silver, broad, a plain band with a big rock on one side, something like jade a grey-green smooth stone.

  I was drinking a beer and tossing a little fish toy around with the cat, a day later after I’d picked up the bracelet. I wanted to give myself some time to think about what the hell I had done, looking at the piece of jewelry I’d basically lied to get my hands on since it belonged to a girl I’d met and slept with exactly once.

  Sounded insane.

  Kath had called me to ask again about Thanksgiving, and didn’t say anything about Jane.

  I didn’t ask, and vaguely assured her I’d be at Thanksgiving dinner and bring something besides booze. The cat was trying to bypass the toy and nipped at my hand, making me almost drop my beer. She’d started this once I’d finally changed the litter in the letterbox. Her move from shitting on the floor to constantly trying to bite had me convinced that she was somehow punishment from my mother for something I had done as a small and stupid child.

  Brooks still hadn’t gotten back to me about that weird yelling phone call from the guy trying to be a client, so when the phone rang i snatched it up I was a little disappointed to see it was a number I didn’t recognize. While I was swiping the touchscreen the cat got into my feet and she got a good chomp through my socks.

  “Fucking shit!”

  “…OK, cool, I guess?”

  I’d been acquaintances with Steve on and off for a decade. Once upon a time, my friends and I had been running round, young kids in New York City going to and putting on punk rock and heavy metal concerts, little club shows and park shows and house parties. Steve was younger and on the far tail end of it. Somehow incredibly annoying, he’d made himself appear helpful to various people around, and last I heard he had a real job as someone’s personal assistant.

  “Hi Steve.”

  “Hey man, what’s up?”

  “Well, you called me? Also, how did you get my number?”

  “Oh, Kath gave it to me. Listen, I was wondering…” I sighed, knowing what was coming.

  “So I’ve got this idea for a book? I was wondering if…”

  “Sure, yeah.” I picked the cat up off the desk chair and plopped down. “Hit me up later when actually have something, and I’ll tell you my rates.” Harsh, but if there was one really good thing about Steve, it was that he was sort of oblivious to when he was being insulted.

  “Awww come on,” he said, “no discount for Metal Underground buddy?”

  “Metal Underground” was a name none besides Steve used to describe our little scene of friends, and he was hell-bent on trying hard, still, to make it a thing. “Man, I got bills to pay,” I said, at this pony only half-paying attention to the phone. I was playing with the bracelet, scrolling mindlessly through the Internet on my computer.

  “Alright man, it’s cool, I feel you.”

  Whatever that meant. “Yeah.” I was pretty sure I’d never hear about this book idea ever again, Steve tended to go from project to project a lot, and I was fairly certain the vinyl-only record label he’d wanted to do had never happened.

  “So uh, how are things with you and that Jane girl?”


  “What? You know her?” I’d been rocking back and forht in my chair, and as I slammed back down, I think the cat had been asleep at my feet. The THUMP made her leap up, hiss, and take off across the apartment, smashing into the beer I’d left on the coffee table.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing, attack of the Lilliputians. So wait, you know her? Jane?”

  “Yeah, that you left with from Kathy’s party. At the last sow, she was there, I met her there.” I strained to think back to the last “Metal Underground” show that my book agent friends threw, it had to have been at least four months ago. “Yeah, she was selling a ton of band gear, asking around if anyone wanted any of it,” Steve said. “I took if off her hands. Then I saw her at the party and I thanked her, because I just used some of it with a band for my label…”

  Well, there was that. “Do you know where she is these days? I gotta return something she left at my place and my phone wiped a ton of numbers, including hers.” The lie slipped real easy out, something I was vaguely aware of.

  “You, uh, just want her number? I still have it, though I know she was living in Brooklyn back when I bought the gear.”

  “Yeah