Rarities Unlimited 02 - Running Scared

apartment building that had seen better years—a lot of them—and the kind of single-level, low-rent strip mall that never seemed to go completely bankrupt, probably because there was a liquor store in the center of it.
    Two middle-aged men sat in the apartment parking lot and sucked on bottles wrapped in brown paper. A thin, nervous old lady walked down from the second-story stairway with a mutt on a leash. The way she circled around the drinkers said that she thought alcoholism was contagious.
    Tim looked at the unshaved men and told himself that at least his father wasn’t one of them. Maybe he had never seen his father up close, but he knew who he was. That was more than Socks could say. The only family he ever talked about were some broken-down lowlifes who had worked for the Mob way back when it was big in Vegas.
    “Gimme your stuff,” Socks said as he fished a used-up cigarette pack out of his T-shirt sleeve. He lit the last wrinkled cigarette, tossed the trash out the window, and blew smoke at the dashboard. “I’ll meet you back here after I’ve talked with my fence.”
    “I’ll keep mine until I see what you get for yours.”
    Socks made a disgusted sound. “Pussy-whipped, that’s what you are. Just plain pussy-whipped.”
    “Fuck you.”
    “Like you could. You were the queen of the cell block.”
    Tim grabbed the cigarette and took a quick drag. It tasted as bad as it looked, but the nicotine hit just fine. He wasn’t hooked on it like Socks was, but he enjoyed it from time to time. He sucked hard and deep before surrendering the cigarette to Socks again.
    “Cherelle has more brains than both of us put together,” Tim said, blowing out a long stream of smoke. “If I was you, I’d wait and get more money.”
    “You ain’t me.”
    Tim shrugged.
    “Why’d you let her keep some of your share, too?” Socks asked in a voice that was real close to a whine. “There were three fucking cartons, and all I have is two shitty little pieces.”
    “She’s tired of taking pennies from your fences when the stuff I give you is worth thousands.” It wasn’t quite true, but what the hell. If Cherelle had known about all the fancy electronics he and Socks had stolen for pennies on the dollar, she would have screamed.
    “Price of doing business,” Socks said. That, and a really sweet cut for himself, of course. What Tim didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. What Socks knew pissed him off. He was broke, and whatever he got for the gold likely wouldn’t be enough to change that for long. “Gimme what you have in your backpack.”
    Tim shifted uncomfortably, as though the backpack sitting on his lap had suddenly gotten heavy. He reached for the door handle.
    “Hey, buddy,” Socks said, grabbing Tim’s arm. “Just a piece or two, okay? I’m broke, and even a room a cockroach wouldn’t want costs fifty bucks a night here. I want a good-looking woman and five lines of white and a bottle of bourbon and a steak and a dessert some waiter with an attitude sets on fire, you get it? We been living like burger-flipping, minimum-wage jerks. I wanna rave.”
    Tim thought of what Cherelle would say. But that was in the future, and he might find a way around her. Socks was here and now, and Tim hated fights.
    “Well, shit,” Tim said. He reached into the backpack and dragged out two lumpy socks. He didn’t know which pieces he was handing over. He didn’t care. There was more where it came from, and it would shut Socks up. “Don’t come back with less than four hundred bucks for me.”
    “Four hundred! You crazy?”
    “Four hundred, you hear me?”
    “Yeahyeahyeah.” Socks had heard it all before and hadn’t listened then.
    “I mean it.” Backpack in hand, Tim climbed out of the car. He leaned in the open door and snagged his garbage bag from the backseat. “Cherelle thinks we’re onto something big. I don’t want to screw it up. Woman’s got a mean tongue.”
    Socks held up his hands in surrender and smiled genially. “I hear ya, buddy.”
    “And bring back my socks,” Tim added, straightening. “Nothing wrong with them my mama’s washing machine won’t cure.”
    “What the hell would I do with your socks?”
    Tim laughed. Socks had gotten his street name because he never wore any. If he had a real name, Tim had never heard it. For men like Socks, a street name was the only kind that mattered.
    “When will you have the cash?” Tim asked.
    “I’ll call your mama.”
    It was the