ERQ

3: Pay Day

      Spee-Dee Pawn was about as high class as a pawn shop could get. Each store had a 10,000 square foot lobby crammed with the cleanest, best used merchandise that money could buy. The shelves were color coded -- either neon hot pink, electric blue, lemon yellow or multi-colored burnt orange with teal. Large balloon hangars pointed out great deals at every end cap or corner, informing customers of great bargains on already low prices. The staff was always friendly and courteous, and always willing to do what they could to help a customer. Especially Nathan Harris, one of the better salesmen at the 4th District Store in Fort Hillford.

       Nathan kept an eye on everyone who entered the Spee Dee Pawn where he worked. As a KFI subsidiary, it specialized in stolen goods, which were sold either as retail items or as returned merchandise to a KFI certified Private Investigator.

        When he'd first hired on with KFI, it had been after a 6 month stint in Joliet for having sex with a 16 year old girl who should have never been allowed in a bar in the first place. One Bouncer's inattention got Nathan 6 months in a maximum security hell that had in turn made him into what he was now: smarter, tougher, and meaner than he'd ever imagined he could be. He'd gotten so good at watching his back that he now had a 6th sense when it came to people, which he could read like a cheap comic book. 

          The girl got nothing -- a six week vacation in a minimum security babysitting service run by the State of Illinois. It turned out that  the girl's father had connections. That had taught him about what criminal justice was...a vicious, uncaring bitch.

        At the end of 6 months, he would have sold his own grand daughter to the Antichrist to get out. When one of the scumbags that he'd been forced to service offered to recruit him into KFI as a retailer, he'd signed the employment contract so fast that all the scumbags around him laughed. No longer would he be thier little "BJ Buddy".

         The girl who entered his shop limped noticeably, and looked worse than any Down'Er trash that he'd ever seen, and he'd seen several. They flocked to his store after thier Luna runs, usually  to sell some broken item as scrap. Sometimes they'd have a nice item or 2, but like them were always worth pennies on the dollar. 

        The girl wore a torn up baseball cap that looked like it had been soaked in dog shit. She wore it low, though, so he couldn't see her face. He didn't like that.

        "Take off your hat." He told her.

      She did as she was told. He could see why she wore the cap low. Her face had been cut up something fierce. Under the scars she might have been pretty once. It made him wonder who would do such a thing, and he thought of one of the many men in prison that he'd had to do things for. Remembering that sent an involuntary shiver of disgust down his back.

        "What happened to your face?"

        "I had a run-in with a worm whacker."

        "Don't you mean weed whacker?"

        "That too."

        "Do you need a doctor?"

        "No. I just need to sell some stuff."

        "Okay, so let's see what you've got."

       She took a bunch of small items, mostly metal jewelry out of an old messenger bag. He knew why she was here. He knew by her body language and the fact that there was a Gibson (TM) guitar in the left front corner of the store just before he'd opened shop. The only time a high end item ever sat in that corner was when the store would be willing to take any stolen items that anyone had to offer. Every person who worked for a KFI run business knew better than to get caught selling anything that could get them arrested, because none of them ever wanted to go back to prison. KFI's recruitment always came from those who were already convicted felons, who had done time in one KFI-owned prison or another. It granted the employers of these felons a better level of control over thier employees, allowing said employees to be sent literally anywhere to do anything. And regardless of any ruling by any judge of any country, if what KFI regarded as a crime happened against a Manager, Supervisor, or Company Officer, the person found guilty of said crime always went to prison regardless of what any Judge said. And not just any prison, no, this was always a special hell that thrived on the suffering of it's inmates.