Authors: Duncan Ralston
3
They met again in the parking lot, a mess of weeds and crumbled paving blocks. Two rat-shit pickups were already parked, one with a Union Jack covering its back windows. Howie got away from him on one of the residential streets, but once Owen found King Street it wasn't difficult to find the Red Pony, as it appeared to be the only bar in town. At four in the afternoon, it had already gathered a decent crowd on the front patio. A neon sign advertised Labatt Ice on tap; a handwritten sign announced Karaoke Thursdays.
"You caught up," Howie said, pulling off his gloves and tossing them into the open passenger window.
"Yeah, sorry. Didn't want to speed in a school zone."
"Kids are in class," Howie said dismissively.
"So, let's see what you got."
Howie grinned wide and dug into his big grimy pockets. He held the shiny trinket out between them. A single word cried out in Owen's mind—
Lori!
—and he grabbed at it. Howie closed and retracted his hand, looking wounded. "
Hey
, now. Haven't you ever heard of finders keepers?"
"That belongs to my sister," Owen said, certain it was the crucifix from her necklace. It had been at the house—and in the trash, of all places.
What was it doing in the garbage?
he wondered.
Maybe seeing her ghost again turned her off religion for good
, he answered, aware that a man so worried about late-onset schizophrenia should be careful how he talked to himself.
Howie gave Owen a suspicious glare from behind his tinted glasses. "Are you pulling my leg?"
Owen heaved a sigh. "My sister Lori stayed at Fisherman's Wharf for a while. She must have swept it into the trash before she—what?" Reacting to Howie's vacant stare, he corrected himself, "
Refuse
, sorry."
"That girl was
your sister
? The one that…" He nodded in a vague direction. "In the lake?"
Owen nodded.
Howie looked hangdog down at his dirty boots. "Sorry for what I said about ghosts in the house. I didn't know she was your sister."
"It's all right," he said, remembering the woman who'd saved his life this morning. As far as callous comments went, hers would be hard to top.
"Here," Howie said, holding out the necklace. "Take it."
"You sure? What about finders keepers?"
"You want me to change my mind, or what? Finders keepers is a buncha bullcwap, anyhow."
Owen took the crucifix, surprised—and glad—Howie had managed to find the missing piece of her necklace.
She could've easily snapped the chain with her camera strap around her neck, but why would she throw it out? That's what I need to figure out.
Another mystery
, he thought miserably.
Wouldn't
Brother Woodrow be glad
.
"Thanks for finding it," he said to Howie, tucking it into the watch slot in his right pocket. He brought out the Jamaican coin he'd found for Howie to see. "I found this under the dock, if you want it."
Howie glanced at it. He rolled his eyes. "Oh, big whoop. I've got hundreds of quarters in a jar at home."
"Look closer," Owen said with a sly grin.
Howie did. He blinked comically at it, then raised his glasses from his nose to get a good close look. "Holy jeez! Lemme look at that thing."
"How 'bout I give it to you instead?"
Howie looked up from the coin, uncertain whether Owen was "pulling his leg" or not. "
Give
it to me?"
"Yup."
Howie gave him another suspicious look. "Are you
sure
?" When Owen nodded, Howie said, "Well, okay then!" He took the coin and brought it very close to his face. Then his lips peeled back in a big goofy grin. "Let's go show my dad!" he said cheerily.
Just as Howie had said, a sign by the door of the Red Pony proclaimed: TRY THE BEST DAMN HOT WINGS IN TOWN! The tavern had been named after the miniature dive tank, Howie said on their way to the front door, not the miniature horse, and it wasn't just a literal dive bar, it was also a place where likeminded men and women got together to get blitzed to the gills and shoot the shit about their favorite pastime.
Stained glass lampshades threw multicolored light on what was basically a long room with a bar and tables along either side, and with the typical product signage along the walls: the Bud, the Keith's, the Johnnie Walker Red. The air had a smoky quality to it, despite no one smoking. A jukebox stood near the doors, illuminated with bright colors, with an ancient cigarette machine beside it, empty and dark.
The bartender, a plump woman with a perpetual smile, her dark eyebrows drawn or tattooed on her brow beneath a mound of dyed-blonde hair and dark roots, was chatting up a couple of scruffy-looking trucker types at the far end of the bar when Owen stepped in behind Howie. The guy sitting beside them looked out of place, a man with mussed gray hair and a wildly colored cravat under a tweed jacket, his suede elbows resting on the bar in front of an amber liquid on ice, probably scotch. He looked to Owen like a scotch man.
"Heya, Howie!" the bartender called out. Her belly, under a tight-fitting black T-shirt, had folded over her money belt, and she had to shift it out of the way to get change for one of the guys in a trucker hat and plaid jacket.
"What's shakin', Tina?"
"Just my ass," Tina said, and jiggled a little. This made Howie and the trucker fellas laugh raucously. Professor Scotch only glowered over his drink. The guy looked pretty plastered. "Who's your friend?" Tina asked.
"This is Owen. Fancies himself a tweasure hunter."
The woman sized Owen up, seemed to see something worth a second look around the back of him. "Don't they all?" she said suggestively. "Well, what can I get ya, Indiana?"
Howie said, "That's what I called him," as he slipped by behind Owen.
Owen shrugged. "What's on tap?"
Tina nodded at the row of taps directly in front of Owen. Feeling a bit stupid, Owen called out a random beer. He'd never been much of a drinker, let alone a connoisseur; had always felt that the choice of poison didn't so much matter as the company. The occupants of the Red Pony had a sort of small town repartee he took to immediately, like a small town
Cheers
, where everybody knew everyone's name. And though the diver from this morning had said everyone already knew his, these people didn't seem to have gotten the memo.
Howie plopped down beside the professor. "Heya, Pops," Howie said, laying a hand on the old man's shoulder. The professor's head rose waveringly. His eyes twinkled when he saw his son sitting next to him.
"Howie!" he said, pasting on a crooked smile and kissing Howie on the forehead. Howie pretended to wipe it off as the old man seemed to grow confused, his bushy gray eyebrows knitting together. "What time is it?"
One of the truckers, the one wearing blue plaid, as opposed to his friend who wore the standard red, smiled and said, "Happy hour. Drink up, Lansall!" Howie's Dad looked surprised. "You're early," he said.
"Got a fwiend here I want you to meet," Howie said by way of explaining.
Owen guessed that was his cue to come over. He'd gotten his beer and paid for it, and sipped it through the foam as he approached father and son.
"Owen, this is my dad."
The old man swallowed an apparently bitter sip of scotch before offering a hand that trembled in Owen's grip. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance," he said with a British burr. Whether it was authentic or a put-on, Owen couldn't tell, but it explained Howie's use of the word
refuse
for trash. "Howard James Lansall, the Second," the old man said, which would make
Howie
Howard Lansall, the Third—a pretty highfalutin name for a refuse collector, in Owen's opinion.
"Good to meet ya," Owen said, suppressing a grin. "Owen Saddler."
Howie's father perked up at this. "
Saddler
, hmm?" He gave Owen a brief inquisitive look, and then seemed undecided whether to glower or smile. His face settled somewhere between an awkward grin and sympathy, but the expression looked as phony as his accent, as if he were trying to mask an altogether different emotion.
Pretty awful poker face
, Owen thought. Whatever Howie's father did for a living, the man had all the characteristics of a career alcoholic: palsy, halitosis, bloodshot eyes, ruddy complexion. "Howie said you pay top dollar for salvage," Owen told the man.
Now the smile looked genuine. Howard draped an arm over his son's shoulders, startling Howie as he gulped the Caesar he'd ordered. "The boy makes quite an advertisement."
"And you never considered diving yourself?" Owen said, remembering as he asked that Howie had mentioned his father was afraid of the water.
Howard gave him a distrustful glance. "One doesn't buy a dog only to bark himself, does one? Anyhow, it's all about the breathing, isn't it, and alas, I'm quite apneic." He let Howie go, leaning in toward Owen with a faux-conspiratorial air. "There are those on the town council who would have you believe it's because I'm full of hot air, but I assure you, Mr. Saddler, the sentiment is quite mutual."
"Tell him about the watch," Howie said, pushing aside the celery to get a mouthful of the blood-red concoction.
"Watch?" The old man's bushy eyebrows rose to the middle of his forehead.
"Yeah, I uh… I found this pocket watch," Owen said, feeling slightly embarrassed to have been put on the spot, the elder Lansall studying him with bleary-eyed intensity. "I don't know if it's anything. I mean, it's probably not worth much with the face cracked."
Owen's humility seemed to amuse the elder Lansall, but it only seemed to annoy Howie. "Just
show
him alweady."
Shrugging, Owen took the watch from his pocket and laid it face up on the bar. It looked even worse under the bar lighting, the glass not only cracked but scratched, the brass nicked, the hands bent, the three and five unstuck and rattling loose under the crystal.
Howard's father squinted at it, furrowing his brow. "May I hold it?" he asked.
"Be my guest."
Howard plucked it up gingerly, turned it over in his trembling fingers. "The cover is missing," he said.
"Oh?"
"Indeed. See here?"
He held it up for Owen to inspect. Owen caught what he was meant to see immediately. "Broken hinges."
"Sharp eye, son," Howard said.
Owen caught the jealous glance Howie gave his father before gnawing off the end of his celery stalk. "Thanks," he said humbly, not wanting to get between father and son.
The bartender came back from the kitchen and slid a heaping plate of wings and fries in front of Owen, and fish and chips before Howie. The sugary, acidic smell made Owen's stomach rumble. Howie shook malt vinegar onto his food while Owen devoured a drumette. Crispy, juicy, and tender, not too sugary, salty, or tangy. Best damn wings Owen had ever tasted, though he hadn't had much occasion to eat them, since he didn't frequent pubs.
"This is what's known as a hunter-case pocket watch," Howard told him. "Without the lid, it's an open-faced or Lépine pocket watch. He's the Frenchman who invented the slimmer design. In his time, he was renowned as one of the finest craftsmen in the world."
"Wow."
"Yes," Howard agreed. "Unfortunately, this is a worthless hunk of scrap. Even if it weren't in such disrepair, it wouldn't be worth much. If I had to guess, I'd say it's a 1920's design. Nicely made, but American or Canadian, likely, not Swiss or French, or even German."
"That's bad?"
"In the case of stem-wind lever-set watches, I'm afraid so. This was a mandatory design for rail workers. The lever is here, next to where the five would be, if it hadn't come loose. Pull the lever," he demonstrated with the long, neat nails of his palsied fingers, "and twist the stem," which he did, setting the crooked hands to noon. Or midnight. "
Et voila
."
"Oh," Owen said, pleasantly surprised. "I thought it was broken. I was just twisting the top thingy. The stem."
"It
is
broken, dear boy. Quite broken. These hands shan't move again on their own, I'm afraid." He seemed genuinely distressed by this; the compassion of a collector. "A watchmaker could repair it for you, if the inner workings aren't too rusted, but bearing in mind all its other defects, I'd say it's worth neither the expense nor the trouble." He turned it over and pooched out his lower lip. "This engraving might tell you more about its owner—or
legend
, you might call it—but it's too worn to be legible, I'm afraid. One might be able to remove some of the sediment using methylated spirits or acetone. Recover some of its original luster." He smiled, almost wistfully. "One must be prudent with acetone, however, as it is
quite
an aggressive solvent." He gave Owen a serious look. "Under
no
circumstances should one use ammonium hydroxide. Brass is a
porous
metal. At the very least, you will have made it more susceptible to tarnishing. At worst, you will have given the metal an undesirable pink coloration."
Owen finished chewing and then swallowed before saying, "That's not good." The old man had gone off on a bit of a rant, and some of the bar regulars were listening intently. Howie, on the other hand, was absorbed by his fish and chips, having likely heard all of this countless times before. It was a lot for Owen to take in, but the gist of it was clear: he'd found a treasure that had no value in a monetary sense. Someone in town may have been missing it, and might be glad to have it returned to them. But the memory of the watch, as it had been, might be tarnished by what it had become in its current condition.
"What if it was in good condition?" Owen said. "How much would it be worth, do you think?"
Howard grinned. "You've got a touch of the fever, I believe. Got that lusssster in your eye," he said, drawing out the sibilance.
"Maybe a little," Owen admitted, wiping his saucy fingers on a napkin.
"A gold hunter's watch in good condition, as you say, could garner anywhere between fifteen-hundred and sixty-five-hundred dollars at auction, depending on its origins. For this, maybe a few hundred dollars."