Seven
Justice
“Miss my sparkling personality already?”
Devin sat back in his holier-than-thou leather chair wearing a pair of designer sunglasses even though we were inside.
I sat forward and cleared my throat. “So, here’s the deal. How about if I give you ten grand cash now and you give me an extension?”
He slowly removed his shades. “How long of an extension?”
“Sixty days?”
He stood up. “You obviously didn’t go to Stanford business school. Got too much grease under your fingernails or has it gone to your brain?” He placed his palms flat on the desk and leaned forward. “I’m afraid my plans can’t wait that long. No can do.”
I forced myself to take a calming breath. “Forty-five days?”
He shook his head but couldn’t suppress an ugly smirk. Opening his top drawer, he extracted a file and slapped it on the polished wooden desk. “Sorry. I’ve got a contract. I hold the mortgage on the shop. Or did you not understand the first time I told you?”
I exhaled and looked at the ceiling. “Come on, Dev. We used to be friends. Can’t you work with me?”
His mouth formed a firm line. “Old friends? You knew I wanted Lola and you stole her right out from under me.”
This time I was the one to laugh. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.” I threw my hands in the air. “When we were twelve? You’ve been holding a grudge that long?”
He folded his arms, and his face turned the slightest shade of pink. “Okay, maybe it’s not because of Lola. Business is business.” He jabbed a finger at the contract. “A deal’s a deal. If you come up with the fifty grand in thirty days, you’re home free.”
Where the hell was I going to get that kind of money? Devin and I stared at each other for long seconds, the tension in the room thick. Finally, I spoke, feeling like an idiot, like a beggar standing on a street corner with a tin can. “Isn’t there some way we can work this out?”
He sat down in his chair and stared at me, his eyes cold. I watched a redness creep up his neck and make its way to his face. “Why would I want to make things easy for you?” He slammed his fist down on the desk hard, and I flinched, my adrenaline spiking. His voice was so loud I thought the whole office would hear. “Your uncle is the reason my father’s dead!”
“Whoa. Slow down, man.“
His extremities shook, and his skin looked mottled. He pulled his lips back, baring his gleaming white teeth and he stabbed a finger at me. “Your family, the oh-so-righteous Hamilton’s, framed my dad.”
I held up a hand. “That’s not what happened.”
He folded his arms tightly across his chest, his body rigid. “Really? What happened?” He picked up a hand exerciser and squeezed it so tight I thought the thing would break. “Explain it to me, Justice. I’d really like to know the lies you grew up with.”
I covered my eyes with one hand and took a deep calming breath.
Devin’s father had owned the only other competing surf shop in our small town. We all grew up together and my uncle Seth had been friends with Devin’s dad.
Until around the time we were teenagers, and Uncle Seth found out who Devin’s dad really was. “I’m worried, Justice,” he’d told me. “Something’s not right over there. I see kids hanging around the shop who look like they’re high all the time. I don’t mean to judge but some of them kids need to quit wearing those baggy pants that hang down around their butts and cut their hair once in a while. Look like trouble to me is all I’m saying.”
Uncle Seth and Devin’s father used the same glassing shop—the place that covered over the surfboards with fiberglass and resin after they’d been shaped. One day my uncle had been in the bathroom of the glassing shop and overheard a whispered conversation between the glasser and Devin’s dad. They’d been discussing their little scheme—the transporting of cocaine inside surfboards by cutting out a hole in the board, inserting bags of the drugs, and then glassing over the board. They even had some chemicals they used to throw the drug-sniffing dogs off track.
“I do not like this, Justice. Don’t like it at all. I’m going to find out what the hell’s happening and then turn the dude in.”
Uncle Seth went on a recon mission, arriving at the glasser’s early, parking his car around the corner, and eavesdropping. One day he finally saw the operation going down in the wee hours as he hid behind the dumpster while the drugs were hauled out of a van. “Dang, Justice. I had to pee so bad that morning, but I made myself stick it out till I saw what they were doing. Surprised I didn’t get caught. I stood on a crate outside the window and peeked in. What do you know? Sure enough, there was a surfboard all carved out, and damn if they didn’t stuff those bags of coke inside while they were drinking their morning joe just as cool as you please. No way am I letting our town go down with that kind of bad blood.”
Devin and I were seventeen when Uncle Seth blew the whistle, and the shit storm that ensued was enough to make the covers of not only all the local papers, but even USA Today.
Devin’s dad had been sentenced to thirty years in the slammer. But he never made it past the first couple years before he pissed somebody off enough that they took a razor to him.
I said to Devin, “Dude. It’s not my fault your dad was running drugs. He would’ve been out of prison if—”
“He was framed!” Devin stood up fast, his body tense, and I thought he was going to come around the desk and slug me. He snatched the hand exerciser and hurled it against the wall where it thwacked with violence taking a chunk out of the plaster. “It’s your goddamn uncle’s fault!” He looked at me with steely eyes. “You and your family are going down Hamilton. No fucking way am I letting you waltz back into town and ruin my life. I’ve got plans for that shop.” He folded his arms tightly. “And you haven’t got a word to say about it.”
Devin pushed away from his desk and stood by the window, his back to me. All I heard was the sharp inhale and exhale of his breath. Then, he twisted around and took long strides toward me. Spit flew from his mouth as he shouted, “I should’ve strung your uncle up by the balls when I had the chance.” He gave me a rictus smile of repulsion, his voice taunting. “Too bad that snake got to him before I did.”
My jaw clenched so hard that my head hurt. I stood up fast and faced Devin. “If you ever … ever say another word about my uncle, so help me God, I’ll—”
He jerked his sleeves up his arms quickly. “You’ll what?”
Damn him. When I thought of Uncle Seth, I forced myself to slow this scene the fuck down. The last thing I needed was a fistfight with Devin. I’d beat him to a pulp and land myself in jail. My breathing came in long, shallow pulls and my voice was tight when I spoke. “I’ll get you the goddamn money.”
He pointed to the door. His voice shook, and a vein in the middle of his forehead throbbed. “Get the hell out of my office. Old buddy.”