Lady Smith Lock and Key Pt. 02

I apologize for the delay. I try to get something out at least once a month. The last few months have been chaotic.

--

When I was a little girl, my dad would let me sit on his lap when he played poker with his friends. That's how I learned how to play cards. I'd sit in a room clouded by a fog of cigar and cigarette smoke, and my father would even let me have a sip of his whiskey. I would wince from the harsh beverage, but I didn't want to appear weak to him, so asked for more even though I hated it. Thankfully, he only ever allowed me to have one sip.

Cards destroyed my father. I remember hearing the fights through the thin walls of our trailer. My dad withdrawing cash for a game and coming home drunk and broke. Winning never made it better, it just encouraged a riskier bet and an eventual worse loss. My mom began to hide cash from him. She'd take her paycheck, withdraw all of it immediately and stuff it away like a squirrel.

Dad figured out she was hiding money and tore the trailer apart one night. He broke the walls, tore up the couch cushions, and threw all the glasses and plates out of the cabinets. I was too scared to ask him what he was doing, so stood petrified in the center of the living room as a tornado of desperation destroyed everything. Mom came home and started screaming, and that was the first time I saw my father strike my mother.

The more she refused to tell him where the money was, the more he hit her. He held her against the wall by her throat, choking her so hard she couldn't tell him even if she wanted to. He let her go, and she took a picture frame off the wall and smashed it against the top of his head. A little piece of wood and glass did nothing more than piss him off.

The entire time I remained frozen in place.

One of the neighbors called the police, and my dad became belligerent with the officers. Even after everything she lied to the police and asked them to leave. The cops weren't stupid and tried to coax my mother to tell them the truth, but just like she wouldn't tell my father were the money was, she wouldn't tell them anything either. They left, and my father started asking nicely. My mother, tired, scared, but more than anything, frustrated, gave him enough to make him go away.

My parents never divorced, but soon after they never lived under the same roof again. I split my time between them, and when I was with my dad, he'd let me play poker with him. Hold'em was always my favorite. My dad let me win, so I let myself believe I was a better player than I actually was. Winning felt amazing. Walking away from a table with more money than I arrived with was exhilarating. In those days I was pocketing five to ten dollars, but to a child, I might as well have won the World Series of Poker.

The last time I saw my father I was twelve. My mother wouldn't let him in her house, so asked me to the door so he could talk to me. He kissed my forehead, and said he might be away for some time. I watched him walk down the porch, and I never saw him again. A year later, his debts caught up to him, and he was found shot dead in a motel room in an apparent robbery. It remains unsolved to this day.

I continued to play poker, but now I didn't have my father to let me win. When I was a teenager, I stole money from my mother for late night games in dark rooms no teenaged girl had any business being in. She started to hide money again, but I always knew where she put it. Her hiding spots had never changed. She saw me becoming my father, so kicked me out when I was seventeen. My grandfather was the only person willing to take me in.

My father's father was a locksmith. I dropped out of high school not long after mom gave me the boot. My grandfather's deal was I work for him, go back to school, or get out. So, I worked for him. I rode along in his van and learned the trade by watching him do it. No door was locked to him. No safe couldn't be cracked. There was nothing that could stand in his way. Like my father, he was a card shark. Unlike my father, he never let me win.

My grandfather would have me disassemble old pocket watches and then reassemble them. It taught me to understand how things work. To make the complicated, simple. To undress problems to their bare parts and examine the pieces independent from the whole. Once I could do it with a watch, I started to do it with locks.

When I was twenty-two, having been under his tutelage for five years, he collapsed on a job. The doctor told us stage IV lung cancer. He opted not to go through treatment and was dead in three months. I didn't cry for my father, nor for myself when my mother removed me from her life as if I was disease. I cried for him.

With no one of support to turn to, I returned to cards.

--

Thursday - April 7, 2021

The sun is high enough in the sky to penetrate my blinds and strike my face. The sudden light stirs me awake, and I lift my hands to shield my eyes. I place my hands on the bed below me, and push myself up, so my back is against the wall. Headboards are expensive. I've never had one.

My mind is foggy, and I don't remember much before I went to sleep. There is this nagging feeling I wasn't alone when I closed my eyes. I scan my room and see a suit jacket neatly folded over the side of my dresser. My brain buffers to life, and I remember who is likely still in my apartment.

I'm still wearing the clothes I wore yesterday, so don't need to get dressed to leave my bedroom. The apartment looks the same. My ears pick up the sound of keyboard typing in the kitchen, so I lean out of my room and see Matt at my two-person kitchen table working on something.

"Good morning," he says, without lifting his eyes from the screen. He has placed glasses over his eyes, the refraction making me assume they're to reduce blue light. I don't reply and walking into the kitchen and start making coffee. When I arrive at the pot, it's already brewed, with about one mugs worth missing. I continue saying nothing and pour myself a cup. "Feeling better?"

"I obviously wasn't in the right head space last night. I guess, thanks for not taking advantage of that," I say, taking a sip. I only drink it black.

"I wasn't in a good place when we met either," he says, ceasing typing and removing his glass. I took his money anyway. "You were my therapist, so do you want to talk about it."

"I don't know you," I say. I lean against the counter and hold the cup in both hands.

"I'd imagine you don't know many of your customers."

"That's different," I say. "I don't typically hash out my life with them."

"I don't typically call an escort."

"That's what they all say."

The room is quiet, and we both wash the weird down with coffee.

"I couldn't help but see your name when I needed to find your address," he says, and I groan into the coffee. "Your name is literally Lady Smith?" I nod in embarrassment. "Like, at birth?"

"My mother said it made me sound regal," I say, shaking my head. "She didn't give me a middle name, so I can't even go by that if I wanted to."

"Lady Smith. Figured it was just the company."

"That's what I hope everyone assumes," I say, and finally join him at the table. "What were you working on?"

"An audit," he says. "I'm a forensic finance analyst."

"Forensics? Like with law enforcement?"

"Sometimes. I've contracted with local, state, and federal investigations."

"What does all of that mean?" I ask, genuinely curious.

"If the District Attorney or the police believe this business is a front for money laundering, they call me to run their books. That's it in a nutshell. I look for routine expenses, spikes and dips, shell companies, proxies, and where they file."

"How does one go about laundering money?"

"You take dirty money and run it through a legitimate business as gross profit. You fake receipts, business expenditures, things like that. When the money comes out the other side, it's now clean, taxed, and spendable."

Matt is a math nerd. When he talks numbers or his profession, he lights up, and it's hard to make him stop talking once he starts. He's enthusiastic about his work.

"How'd you start doing this?" I ask. I like when he talks. His excitement makes me excited, and his good mood is infectious.

"By cooking books and getting caught. Five years on probation, but that was ten years ago. Now I help the law catch people like me."

Matt is a reformed felon. I look at him, and think he's never even jaywalked. He has a trustable, boyish appearance that isn't remotely threatening. The kind of guy who calls me after hours then can't do it once I arrive. Then still pays me and returns my wallet.

"How'd you start?" he asks.

"Which one?" I ask.

"Which one?" he replies, then thinks for a moment. "You're actually a lock smith?"

"Last time I checked."

"You have the same phone number, and name, for your illegal side job?" he asks. When you say it like that. "And you use your real name?"

"I get it, I'm not a criminal mastermind. I've only been doing the other thing for six months. I got in a bad way with worse people, and I needed money."

"Want to talk about it?"

"No," I say.

Matt removes his glasses from the keyboard and places it on the laptop after closing the screen. I cross my arms over my chest, displaying my unwillingness to go further into that conversation. My refusal melts just by the way he looks at me.

"I owe money. A lot of money. I owed it to the kind of people who break fingers to get it back. So I borrowed to pay it off, and those guys ended up being worse. They didn't break my fingers, but they have their ways."

"Like the bruise on your face?"

"I ran into my steering wheel," I say.

My phone rings from my bedroom, and I excuse myself to retrieve it. It's a customer who locked themselves out of their car. They just got off a night shift and now can't go home. I ask details and give him an estimate on time and price before hanging up. I'm still in the dress from last night, and the bruise on my face has turned a sickly yellow. I quickly change into something casual, apply a little makeup, and grab sunglasses to obscure most of it.

Matt has packed up by the time I return to the kitchen. His laptop is in a backpack he places over one shoulder. He must have heard the conversation and understood I was about to start working today.

"Duty calls," I say. I double check all the equipment in my bags, and he hovers where the living room and kitchen divide.

"I made a decision about Rose, by the way," he says. I turn my head to him, my expression showing I don't remember who that was. "My daughter."

"Oh, yeah. The one who...yeah," I say. I vaguely remember his wife had affairs and one of those affairs overlaps with a conception. "And?"

"Nothing can erase seven years of unconditional love. She's my daughter, paternity test be damned," he says. I can't help but smile. So many men shirk their duty of fatherhood, it's nice to see one who has good reason to bow out still hold to his responsibility.

"Glad to hear you figured something out. I need to get to work, so grab your jacket from my room so I can leave."

Matt finishes collected his things and we walk across the balcony and down the stairs to the parking lot. He offered to help carry my bags but stops trying when I pull my hand away from his. Morning traffic is bustling by on the overpass above us. Car zips off the exit feet away. It felt like that awkward moment when you say goodbye to someone and start walking in the same direction. He's driving a nicer car than me, but that's not saying much. His car is years old while mine still has windows I crank down by hand.

"You want to talk again some time?" Matt asks.

I don't understand this man.

"Look. Thanks again for last night but trust me, you don't need me in your life. In any capacity. I'm a shit magnet. I owe bad people money, and if they perceive we're friends, founded or not, you become leverage. Treat me like uranium, okay?"

I'm radioactive. Everything around me withers and dies. Nothing around me is safe. Anything that I touch is contaminated for centuries.

"You have money problems, and you happened to meet an auditor. Things happen for a reason." Is he a pastor too?

"I don't need an auditor to tell me I'm broke," I say.

"You owe bad people money, right? Drugs, alcohol, prostitution, none of that is the reason Al Capone was charged. Taxes were. Do what I did," he says, leaning against his car.

"Do what? Turn snitch?" I ask, and he shrugs. I shake my head. "I got in this hole on my own, I'll dig my own way out of it."

"You don't get out of a hole by digging. You get out by putting the shovel down."

I start to say something but freeze when a paranoid thought crosses my mind. At the same time a detective is trying to make me a snitch, a former snitch is saying I should become a snitch. Assuming anything he's told me is true. Does he work for Detective Miles Deacon, and this is his latest attempt to turn me?

"I gotta go," I say, and end the conversation by sitting in my car and immediately driving away.

--

Seven calls before lunch. Four car lock outs, two apartments, and one lock install at a private residence. I didn't see anything worth telling the 9^th Legion about. Around noon, I stop at a diner I frequent for lunch when I'm in the area. My last call put me two blocks away just before noon.

The Queen of Hearts is a quaint diner so old fashion it only has bar seating. It's built from the façade of what used to be a one pump gas station. Thirteen stools with spinning cushions line the bar, each with a different number or face card like suited with hearts. I always sit on the queen of hearts if it's open. Today it is, so I take my favorite seat.

The owner and her daughter are here, filling cups with fresh coffee and taking orders on small note pads. These two women have always been excellent hosts, even when you take Dinah's social awkwardness into consideration. I've never asked, but I have a feeling she was sheltered or abused as a child, and her mother makes her take orders to force her to get over it. Regardless, Dinah is an enviable beautiful. Her hair is dyed dark, but I can see her roots are naturally blonde. Glasses hide how blue her eyes are. The start of a tattoo sleeve is under her long shirt, and her hands are always hidden by thin black fingerless gloves.

"Good to see you again. Whatcha getting?" Dinah asks shortly after I sit down. She's less unusual around me because I'm a regular. If it's a new customer, she stutters and stammers horribly, sometimes even freezing up for ten full seconds. She'll turn beat red in embarrassment until her mother saves her.

"Coffee. Two eggs, make them dippers, bacon, and toast," I say. I always order breakfast. I don't even have to take the menu she was in the process of handing me. She fumbles it a little, not sure what to do now that I don't need it. She places it down and drops her notepad during the transition.

"Dang it." Dinah is adorable when she's flustered like this. I love how she swears like a Catholic school girl.

She retrieves her notebook and writes my order, rips it out, and puts it on a clip attached to a circular weight connected to wire over her head. In one motion she sends the order to the kitchen like a bullet train. A moment later a clap from two pieces of metal colliding echoes from the back.

Men see a girl like her and think she's naïve and easy. I used to think that too. Until a male customer pinched her butt, and she nearly broke his wrist when she grabbed his hand. She might be naïve, but defenseless she certainly isn't. I really want to ask her where she took her self-defense classes, but I've never found a good way to inquire.

"Coffee?" a voice asks from behind me. I turn over my shoulder, and Dinah's mother is behind me with a pot spewing steam from the spout. I hear a cup land in front of me, Dinah having placed it, and her mother begins to pour.

Carroll is older, but her voluptuousness has not faltered with age. Even smothered by an apron and fully buttoned shirt, her breasts fight their containment. She almost appears like a woman intentionally dulling her attractive qualities. She has very short tomboy hair, but I can tell she swings hard straight. This kind of work is evidently beneath her, but she does it without complaint and a warm smile.

"Pull down the shades," Carroll says to me, and I turn to her again. She must have saw the bruise between the frames and my face when she was standing over me. When I don't move, she places the coffee pot on the bar and sits on the Jack of Hearts next to me. She stares me down until I remove the sunglasses. "You wanna talk about it?"

"No, I don't," I say, and pick up the coffee cup. "It's nothing."

"I know a lot of women who say nothing happened." I look at Dinah for a moment, then back to her.

"I was working on a lock install and the customer forgot I was there and opened the door into my face," I say, and watch her not believe me in real time. She forms a fist with her hand and places it next to my face for comparison.

"Not a fist, at least not one strike. Looks more like you were thrown into something," she says. Carroll relaxes her hand and places it on the bar.

"Or something was opened into my face. Like I said, don't want to talk about it."

Carroll's motherly eyes blink at me. She turns to watch Dinah take an order from a customer, and I lean over to watch as well. Dinah is fidgety, and stutters when she repeats the customer's order. Once written down, she flings the order toward the back and comes for the coffee pot between Carroll and me. Her hand touches the handle, but Carroll places her hand on her daughter's.

"Breathe," Carroll says, and Dinah takes a moment to calm herself. "It's just an order. Smile." Dinah looks at her mother and gives her the most awkward grin I've ever seen. It's exaggerated, like her face will rip if her cheeks stretch any further. "Too much."

"You say smile, and this is smiling," Dinah says, slightly distorted because she didn't relax her expression.

"Little less Cheshire Cat," Carroll says, and Dinah slowly drops her smile into normal parameters. "Remember what I said about thinking of something funny? Or something you like?"

Dinah closes her eyes, and five seconds later snorts while holding back a laugh she didn't intend to be so harsh. Carroll laughs with her, and Dinah opens her eyes with a gorgeously genuine smile.

"There it is. Go to work, love and proud of you," Carroll says, releasing her hand after rubbing her thumb on an exposed finger. Dinah picks up the pot and returns to the customer. "I worry about her."

"What happened to her that makes her like that?" I ask.

"You got some things you don't want to talk about, so does she."

"Fair's far," I say, and sip my coffee. "What about her makes you worry?"

"What happens if I'm not here."

"That someone will hurt her?"

"You were here when someone tried to play grab ass with her. I'm worried about her hurting other people."

I remember almost a year ago when someone put their hands on Dinah. A man, likely still drunk from a night of escapades, reach over the counter to grab Dinah. A moment later he was shouting in pain, because Dinah was strangely efficient at small joint manipulation. She pulled him off his seat and onto the bar, while twisting his wrist until he begged. Carroll ran over, grabbed her, and had to whisper into her ear to make her stop. Other customers saw why it happened, and they told the man to leave before they had their turn with him next.

"I didn't see that coming from her."

"She doesn't like being touched, and for good reason," Carroll says, and I have a feeling she won't elaborate if asked. "When you want to talk about that shiner, you know where I'm at."