Neal Pollack

Kimball had no idea what Gerry was talking about, but he assumed the man in the green car was a drug dealer. What else could he be? On the other hand, what dealer would give a guy like Genuine a line of credit?

“I’m sorry, Gerry. I don’t have any money.” He was still holding the television, waiting for Genuine to take it.

“Maybe I take something from here,” Gerry said. “Something worth hundred-fifty.”

“No. No. No.” Kimball walked toward Gerry and tried to force him, again, to take back his own set. “These things belong to my customers.” Gerry was still studying the merchandise. “Come on,” Kimball said. “You have to get back to work. Back to the club.”

“This is why it’s a good idea, Kimmy,” Gerry said. “These things, they don’t belong to you. I take them, you tell the owner it was stolen. Oops.”

“No. Come on. Leave.” He put his hand lightly on Gerry’s arm and tried to guide him toward the door.

Genuine Gerry spun away from Kimball and when he regained his balance, his right hand was holding a pistol, pointed away, toward the wall.

“What the hell, Gerry?”

“You let me take something. I take something or I shoot it, your choice. You ever fix television full of bullets?”

—Can I get a description? Suspect will try to blend in here.

—White T-shirt. Long black jean shorts. Short afro.

“Genuine, come on. Put the gun away.”

Gerry was leaning over a set of twin turntables Kimball had already repaired and tagged for pickup. “What are these?”

“Turntables,” Kimball said. “Record players. You know, for a DJ.” He made a noise in the back of his throat like a scratching record.

“I should take.”

“No. No, you can’t, Gerry.”

Genuine took one step back, turned his head away, shut his eyes tight, and fired a bullet into the machine.

“Gerry! Shit!”

“I told you. You let me take or I destroy. Either way you lose.”

“No. No. No. Look, settle down.” Kimball studied the situation nervously. Gerry seemed terrified of his own pistol and he held it away from his body the way you would a snake or a lit match. “Gerry, you have things you can sell.” Kimball held up the set. “You have a television. Obviously, you have a gun.”

Genuine shook his head. “Television is crap. Gun is not mine.” He waved at an old Waring blender on the counter. “What is this worth?”

“Not a hundred and fifty bucks.”

With a sharp, stabbing motion, Gerry shot the blender twice at short range. The bullet pierced the glass pitcher and ricocheted off the concrete floor with a ping. Kimball ducked and covered his head, although if the bullet had been coming for him his evasive action would have been far too late. This had to stop.

He took a step forward. Gerry, his back turned, was looking for his next mechanical victim. Kimball put an arm around his shoulder. Gerry twitched but didn'’t move away. Kimball reached slowly for the gun. Genuine began to weep. He surrendered the pistol and put his hands to his eyes. “Please,”

Genuine sobbed. “Ple-ee-ease just give me money.”

“Gerry, no.”

Genuine turned to Kimball. His eyes appeared full of hatred. Because he had seen Gerry crying? Because Kimball had taken the gun? Between tears Genuine yelled, “You goddamn wop! You fecking dago!”

Kimball blinked at him. Wop? Dago? These were slurs from another era. Right street, wrong decade. And Kimball was a mutt bred from many ethnicities, Scotch-Irish, German, even a family rumor that would have made him one-sixteenth Sioux Indian and, if proven true, eligible for a low-interest business loan. But he wasn'’t Italian at all. Genuine Gerry didn'’t know the first thing about him and for some reason that made Kimball angry.

“Relax, Gerry.”

“Give me the money!” Gerry had squared himself with Kimball and was waving his taut arms beside his head. Now that he no longer had the unfamiliar pistol in his hand, he seemed less scared and more agitated. Quietly, Kimball recognized the irony in Gerry’s demands, which had become more confident and assertive now that Kimball had the gun. He also recognized the upside-down logic of his own fear, which had likewise and just as oddly become more intense.

“You’re not gong to shoot me,” Genuine said spitefully. “I know you. You’re not going to shoot me.” After one failed attempt, he lifted himself up on a gray, pain'ted workbench and sat there, feet dangling. His tone was mocking. “Come on, Kimmy. Just a few bucks. A loan. It is nothing. Hundred bucks and I leave. No money, maybe I stay.”