Mojo - 9. Chapter 8: Rose Bowl Flea

*warning* The following chapter has been reviewed
by counsel from the firm of
Hapus-Capus, Shark, and Needlenose LLC.
They have deemed it unsuitable reading material.
Proceed with due legal caution
_

.

Part Three – Passion in Pasadena

Chapter 8: Rose Bowl Flea

"So what?” I chuckled, unpacking a pair of Imperial Japanese rising-sun chopsticks from the captain’s collection. “We steal from the rich to give to ourselves. That makes us honest thieves, unlike those politicians who get working-class schlubs to vote for them, then rob those very same people to pad the lifestyles of the money-fat and flabby-famous.”

Gordon laughed. He was next to me, unpacking a few of Lloyd’s silver chess pieces from Trọng’s bag.

People passed, slowing to look, on this Sunday one week and a day after the Laguna Beach Fair.

As Gordon laid the stuff out on the table, he said low, under his breath, “I wish Assauer had brought that stupid pistol to dump here as well.”

I was amazed. “We couldn’t sell it out in the open.”

“So? Half the sales at flea markets like this are done round the side of the car, out of busybodies’ eyesight.”

“True…. But, why are you so nervous around guns anyway?”

My boy stopped laying out things. “Why aren’t you? They’re dangerous fucking things.”

I shrugged; that answer didn’t satisfy me. “You Americans, you grow up with guns on the brain, seeing and talking about them all the time, so I thought you’d…. Well, at least in Germany we don’t think about guns, and don’t see them around, other than a few hunting rifles in the country. To me, they’re interesting, mysterious, powerful—”

“Damn it, Kohl.”

He’d said this so calmly, I paused and reflected a moment on his withdrawn attitude.

“So,” I eventually repeated, “why is it you’re this nervous around guns again?”

“Let’s just say, you know better than most what a hothead my father can be. Anywho, let’s finish unpacking so we can get the hell out of here as soon as possible.”

I did know, from firsthand experience, what type of man the senior Sanchez was, but my boy was withholding details. However, as it was, now was not the time to get the truth out of him; eventually, I would. My memory was Mastodon-like, unfortunately.

Ignoring the moody atmosphere as a passing fancy, I reached in my paper bag and pulled out a bunch of captured mini flags from the Far East – thank goodness Hojax labeled everything. But these particular items were individually ‘graded’ by some collectors’ authority, and permanently slapped inside a clear plastic case like a comic book. Seemed an odd thing to collect, but then again, the whole area of collectable Militaria just leaves me scratching my head and thinking it’s macabre. Celebrate war…? Ugh.

Assauer came around from the side of the car with his duffle bag of loot. The Pasadena Rose Bowl Flea Market was as good as any to ‘fence’ our ‘gifts,’ stolen or otherwise. We’d arrived late – at about noon – so had to take a parking space and set up near the end, which was okay. We were here to get some much-needed liquid assets, dump the evidence, and continue to enjoy our time in this sleepy, leafy burb of Tinseltown. Hard to believe it now, but Pasadena got its launch more than a century ago by – wait for it – yes, its very own cult leader! A man who just like Joseph Smith had been driven out of Missouri by those hard-hearted, rational-only people of the Show Me State.

Anyway, the day was gorgeous, the crowds milling, and we were planning on being out of there by three. Fingers crossed.

Assauer had more of Hojax’s blood-and-guts knickknacks, and laid out helmet badges from ruthless empires past, including British ones, next to the Japanese booty.

“Hope somebody buys this shit.”

“You and me both, brother,” my ex said, then suddenly grinned. It was his signal that I was in for my own round of shit-taking. “Of course, we don’t need to sell anything now, do we?”

I scowled for a second, puzzled. “Well, we pawned my iPad, that jewelry phone case—”

“Not what I meant.”

Gordon sidled up to us. “He means the fortune we’ll get from your girlfriend, the soon-to-be-single Mrs. Doris.”

“Oh. That.”

“Yep,” Assauer laughed with a backslap for me. “On easy street any day now. Right…?”

“Yeah.” Gordon joined my ex in playing the shit. “Now that Lloyd’s had ‘his truth’ revealed, when’s our check arrive?”

“Doris—” I started.

“Yes…?” They both knew better.

“—Hasn’t returned my texts.”

My boy laid out a pair of cufflinks he’d lifted from Trọng’s dresser drawer. “Typical. The old saying goes ‘When you got it, flaunt it,’ but nowadays it should be updated to ‘When you got it, keep it!’ Just because the rich have everyone else’s money again, they don’t want to share because they know it’s not theirs. Greedy fucks.”

“It’s a shame.” Assauer shook his head in genuine disgust. “There are dishonest people everywhere you go these days. Even our betters are beneath us.”

“True. But it still stings,” I said, setting out more Nazi crap – like a set of little swastika butter dishes. “I thought better of Doris, but turns out she’s just like the usual politician’s wife: as dishonest as her husband dictating women’s health policy from behind a desk in Washington. Sad.”

“Well, cheer up.” Gordon zipped Trọng’s precious Gucci bag and placed it proudly front-and-center for sale. “We still have Lloyd’s little statue.”

“What’d the pawnbroker say about it again?” Assauer asked.

“I showed it to him the same day I got the ‘back-room price’ for the watch and Cartier phone cover. He drooled, turned it over in his hands, but then dished it, saying it was 1960s Italian tourist-trade schlock.”

“But,” scoffed my boy, “why’d he offer you $5,000 for it then?”

“Don’t know. Must be hot schlock, but I followed your advice, Gordon, and Neil Campbell’s already lined up a buyer for twice that amount. The client’s a real ‘kind of sewer,’ he says.”

“A connoisseur?” asked my boy, puzzled.

“Yeah,” I confirmed, smiling. “One of them, but filtered through an Aussie guttersnipe drawl.”

The two of us laughed.

“Idioten,” muttered my ex under his breath.

“You know, I like Pasadena,” my boyfriend stretched his arms up into the sunshine.

“A bit quiet,” I said, arranging the last of the fascist collectibles from my satchel.

“That’s why I like it.” Gordon smiled, and I kissed him quick; he was irresistible.

“But here’s the piece of resistance,” Assauer announced, slowly withdrawing a sword from his duffel bag. It was black, looked to be plastic, but had some scrawl in silver marker across the scabbard.

I wondered out loud: “What’s that?”

“Some TV-used Kung Fu prop, signed by Keith Carradine himself.”

“The Kill Bill guy?” Gordon asked.

“No…I think that was his brother, David Carradine.”

“Ohhh.”

“Yeah,” Assauer affirmed. “And that’s the same guy who had too much fun in a Bangkok hotel room one night.”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “Fun’ed to death – but what a way to go.”

The three of us nodded with reverence and matching sighs of admiration.

A couple, a man and woman in their 30s, began looking over our products. Even though the female tossed me a grin, there was something about their demeanor that put me on guard. Maybe it was the man’s beefy size, or the sideway glances he shed on me.

The lady swept her long brunette hair aside and bent at the waist to inspect Trọng’s cufflinks.

“Ah, yes,” Assauer chimed, sounding hollow. “Excellent taste.” He scooped them up and placed them in her hand. “They’re Hermes, brand new, and on sale today.”

The woman showed them to her strong-silent-type of a man.

She inquired casually of Assauer, “Set up here often?”

“No, our first—”

“What about Olvera Street, in L.A.?” the man asked.

“Um. No, never set up – never been – there.”

The woman bounced them in her hand. “How much?”

I sprang into action. “Oh, those! You couldn’t expect to get them for less than—”

“Twenty and they’re yours,” said Assauer, jumping the gun.

Gordon suppressed a guffaw at my amazement.

“No, no. My friend here misspoke,” I told the mark – I mean, woman. “We’d have to have at least a hundred.”

“No, no, no…” Assauer schooled me with a painted-on grin. “Twenty will be fine.”

“But—”

“Take it to the sides, boys,” Gordon said, stepping up to the table and getting between us and the clients.

I dragged my ex around to the car door. “I want top dollar. We can’t give our crap away for free.”

“You always do this! What normal person wouldn’t think about getting rid of”—he paused and said under-breath—“evidence before squeezing out a few extra pennies instead?!”

“Gott im Himmel – I always….” I noticed the couple had left; Gordon hadn’t closed the deal. “You’re a fine one to talk about always—”

“Oh, shut it up, why don’t you.”

We went on like this a bit, my words getting hotter, but my brain got distracted, for my boy had started acting visibly weird. He was craning his neck, scanning down a few tables and into the slow-moving crowd.

“Oh, yeah?” Assauer’s snark brought me back to present with him.

“Yeah!”

Gordon tugged on our sleeves. I ignored him with a “Just a minute, honey.”

The teen socked us both in the gut. When we glanced at him from our slightly stooped position, he said, “Look!”

I did. “O…M…fucking Gott.”

“What?!” Assauer demanded.

“It’s them, right?” Gordon asked me.

“Fuck yeah, it is.”

“Who, goddamn it!” Assauer was mad.

“It’s that Caribbean sailor and his batty-boy,” Gordon said.

And sure enough, that Hesus and his redhead pathick, Tanguay, were strolling around, picking up stuff two tables away from ours, and miracle of miracles, the younger of the two was carrying Gordon’s gym bag!

I explained to my ex: “It’s those two water-on-the-brain sailors who picked a fight and swiped our money!”

“No…shit?”

“It’s them,” Gordon said, pulling us deeper along the side of the car. “They’re coming this way too. What’ll we do?”

“You do it,” I told Assauer. “They don’t know you.”

“Do what?”

“Check the bag to see if the lining is ripped open. If not, it means the bearer bonds are still in there.”

“And if they are still in there?”

“Then get that bag by any means possible,” my smart boy said.

I shoved Assauer forward, to go back to the table, while me and Gordon crouched by the front fender to watch.

“Hi, guys!” The sailors approached, and Assauer was fake-ass friendly to them. “Nice day, huh. Stop and have a look at my merchandise. Lots of good stuff.”

They did, especially the pimply Krazy Kat, whose attention was caught by the shiny helmet badges.

My ex, the well-tutored hustler, started flirting with the boy, licking his lips and leaning one hand on the table to draw his face closer to the lad. “Nice retro bag you’ve got there. May I?”

Without any kind of permission, he reached over, unzipped it, and – before even a word of protest could erupt – was feeling up the inner shell right to left, top to bottom.

“Vhat the…. Hey,” Tanguay said, turning the tote out of my ex’s reach.

Hesus came back to them from the next table. “What’d you playin’ at, mate? You get ya jollies coppin’ feels of young man’s sacks, eh?!”

“No, no,” Assauer laughed brightly. “I just like it, is all. But it is a little worn out.” He picked up Trọng’s Gucci bag and shoved it into the redhead’s arms. “This one is only $10—”

I bit my lip to prevent a monetary scream from escaping.

“—Or, we could do a straight-up trade.” He slid his oily leer on Hesus. “Your boyfriend might like an upgrade; that designer ‘sack’ is worth two grand at least.”

Even from our lowly position by the car, we could tell the men were kind of shocked and silent. They began to move on, after Tanguay put the Gucci bag down in revulsion.

Assauer rushed back to crouch with us. We had a quick and loud conference.

“Well?!” I asked.

“Lining’s intact. Even felt the bonds in there.”

I chuckled from sheer relief, slapping his shoulder. “Don’t you see, brother, our treasure flown the coop, has come home to roost!”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, the wonderful vagaries of fortune.”

“Holy fuck, you fools!” Gordon exclaimed. “We gotta get my bag.”

“No shit, Shylock, but what are we going to do?”

My boy blankly blinked in non-answer to my question, and then, half a second later, took off.

He dashed at the sailors, snagged the ratty old gym bag, and yelled at the top of his lungs: “THIEF!”

Naturally, a crowd assembled like gnats at a picnic, so me and my ex jogged our asses over there.

In an instant, the hothead sailor with the freckles assessed the situation – Gordon standing there, clutching his bag – and then recognized me.

Tanguay leapt for and grabbed the Gucci tote as ‘hostage.’ He drew out his sailor’s knife and told my boy with whites-of-the-eyes menace, “Hand it over wery slowly, or the quality stitching gets it!”

I gasped softly: “Two grand….”

Assauer barked at Hesus, “You know you stole that gym bag. Just give it back to the rightful owner.”

“Uh uh, there’s no vay!” Tanguay yelled.

“Why?” I asked.

“It’s da bag,” explained the older sailor, “from which da defilements came.”

Me, my ex and Gordon exchange a WTF look.

The redhead continued yelling. “Vhat he means – the banana, the nail clippers, the hard-boiled eggs – don’t you see? All the things the god of the sea hates, and he’s wiolent.”

Reminded me of the bible-humpers screeching ‘abomo-Nation,’ but wearing cotton-poly blends and going to Red Lobster for shrimp scampi – other things apparently a really PMS’ed ‘god’ hates too with all his pretty-lame might. No difference at all to the nail clippings, if you think about it. Just more human foolishness of a different flavor.

The crowd around us had grown large. Murmurs of ‘call the police’ were heard.

“Okay, okay.” I held up my hands to the younger one. “Let’s say everybody is sorry, everybody did what they thought was best at the time, but now Gordon has his gym bag, and to show there’s no hard feelings, you two can keep the Gucci. Okay…?”

At least the crowd around me agreed, sending up a general chorus of “Yeah.”

“I’m no-so convinced. Sounds pretty cracked in da head,” Hesus said like a conniving bastard. “We got scheduled dis week to go for a disciplinary hearin’ – all because of all your antics.”

My fucking blood boiled; our antics – is he nuts? They assaulted us, their passengers on the boat.

“Take it or leave it,” Gordon suddenly announced, relaxing his stance and shouldering his bag in a natural way.

After a tense moment of silent debate between the seamen, Assauer closed the deal. “Neither party wants to involve the police, so take that bag and be happy you got the sweeter end of the deal.”

While the sailor couple thought about concluding the negotiations, an odd tingle arose on the back of my neck – you know the kind. I glanced around and saw that freaky couple, the ones who’d asked the weird questions, standing out in the open. They were watching our whole little scene. The woman was talking on her cellphone, but by the way she kept glancing up and straight at me, it was obvious, I – or rather, me, Gordon and Assauer – formed the topic of conversation. Goose bumps raised on my skin.

“Take it or leave it,” Gordon repeated himself.

The sailors finally nodded, and just at the point where it appeared the tension was broken, wouldn’t you know it, our luck struck again, and not one but two lawyers stepped in.

A balding man in a cheap suit rushed through the crowd, business card outstretched and leading the vanguard. “Hold on; hold on there, in the name of the law! I’m Seymour F. Stammer-Hanky from the attorneys’ firm of Grubb, Grubb & Grouse, and I demand we take things slowly.”

“Wait a minute; wait a minute.” A second ambulance-chaser emerged from the assembled like a maggot from meat. “I too – William S. Slipcause, firm of Jackleg, Soreback & Piepowder – demand justice be served!”

“What possible business is this to you, or you?” Assauer asked them in turn.

They cried in unison: “What business?!”

“An alleged crime has been alleged.” The man from Grubb, Grubb & Grouse strode up to the expensive piece of luggage, nearly salivating.

“That is most astutely correct, my somewhat-distinguished legal associate,” chimed William S. Slipcause as he formed the other half of the ‘we’ve got you surrounded’ noose around Tanguay.

His boyfriend stepped closer, speaking reason – for once. “Lookie here, you two addle-pates, whoever da hell ya be—”

They were on the verge of repeating both names and titles, but Hesus shut them down with a half-eye glare. “Da parties of da first part in dis here dispute, and da parties of der second part”—he gestured to us—“’ave worked out all our differences. Capeesh? So den what makes ya dink you have da right to step into da middle of dis here settlement not involvin’ you directly?”

The legal beagles thought it was obvious. After a momentary consult, they both cheeped in harmony: “The Law!”

“What is it you want, gentlemen?” Assauer was slipping back into the negotiator role.

The schemers fingered the fine Italian leather, growing dreamy as they counted the printed Gucci marks like dollar signs.

The Grubb, Grubb & Grouse man said, “This needs to be collected as evidence of a crime—”

“Alleged theft,” the Jackleg, Soreback & Piepowder doyen corrected his 'colleague' brazenly. He caressed Tanguay’s leather strap.

“I propose, gentlemen,” said Master Stammer-Hanky, Esquire, “that we take this aforesaid-mentioned, and precious, merchandise up to the Rose Bowl Flea’s front office.”

“Yes,” concurred the ‘honorable’ Counselor William S. Slipcause – no doubt his S stood for Scheister. “Take it up, log it in and allow one of us fine officers of the court to hold the item until such time, as warrants, the true ownership of the afore-stated valuable hunk of merch can be positively identified—”

“Assuming it can ever be positively established…” added his lustful associate.

I got inspired. Fast on my feet, I latched onto the strap and shoved Gordon’s smelly old gym bag in their faces. “But this is stolen property too. Don’t you want to confiscate it, take it to the front office, tote it home with you…?”

Sarcasm had dripped from my tone, but the men seemed shocked nonetheless.

“No,” I said in victory. “I didn’t think so. See, it’s an old story – maybe older than your profession itself – but the so-called ‘Law’ is there to advance the agenda of those who already got all the good stuff anyway. Don’t act like anything anyone ever does in the public court of opinion isn’t motivated by what’s in the best, monied interests of the powers that be.”

After my stinging rebuke settled in their heads, the crowd rallied behind me, cheering and saying stuff like “Word!”; “Ain’t that the truth”; “Yes, God”; and “I hear that all right.”

The lawyers got nervous. I guess the public could change things if they spoke with one voice and did the obvious – however, that’s unlikely to happen on a societal scale, so the legal profession is safe for now.

“Kohl’s right,” Assauer said as I gave Gordon his bag back. “You two lawyers scram before we really do call the police. On you!”

That put the fear of God in them and they toddled away, exchanging cards and pleasantries about “client billing” as they went.

After the commotion settled, and both our side and Hesus and Tanguay too, received handshakes and ‘job well done’ backslaps, the people who had been watching us spread out and continued shopping under the bright and cheerful Southern California sun.

This good feeling was not matched by the sailor couple though. The older man glared at us, but put his arm around his partner to reluctantly lead them away. They departed with hostile stares, and the hothead redhead seemed thoroughly disgusted by his new Gucci gym bag. He spat on the ground with daggers in his eyes for Gordon.

Seeing that made me hug my boy, and turn him towards the car.

In a moment or two, the three of us peered into the lining, and sure enough, a loose thread was yanked to reveal the pile of Lloyd’s bearer bonds, safe and sound.

We smiled, and Gordon said, “Fuck yeah.”

“That will make it easier for a while.”

We zipped up and stowed it in the back seat, turning to see our table still full of Hojax’s junk.

“What do you say,” Assauer suggested, “we pack up, get out of here and look for something to eat.”

“Yeah,” my boy sighed. “We don’t need the sunburn and hassle of the Rose Bowl Flea anymore.”

We grabbed boxes and our bags and started to pack. As we did so, that unwanted feeling of a static charge against my skin returned.

I looked around again, and after a minute of searching, found that man and woman watching me from about fifty feet off.

I wondered which route we’d take to drive back to the motel, and knew my ex would believe this tightness in my chest was real. The question was, would my boyfriend believe it too.

As I threw the last of the pro-war crap in a box, I suddenly recognized this particular queasy feeling was identical to the one I’d felt with Doris on Catalina Island. I had experienced it in the dark, foreboding – dare I say, unforgiving – depths of the woods.

_

My dear legal professionals,
You may by rights pillory me for what I wrote,
But I ask in fairness you exhume Petronius
And place him by my side  
_