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 Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2016 1:52 pm
As the most commercialized holiday in the calendar, Christmas brought about enough monetary influx that many small businesses through the strip spent the year preparing for it. Pawnography knew no exception - with equal parts care and quietude, Isaiah arranged for his contracted runners to meet with and deliver from many other business owners, private collectors, creators, liquidators and more. He even worked with the police on release of certain, deemed unworthy evidence collections that no longer had a home to go back to, and brought them into his fold. Sometimes Vargas, his GM, chipped in with his own connections from back in New York. Isaiah worked Chicago and Wisconsin when he could.
By the time the season drew upon them, Ice grew nauseated at the sound of Silver Bells, and tinsel gave him hives. He wanted nothing more to do with the scent of cinnamon pine cones. He thought Christmas cookies and cakes might give him diabetes. Only one item of the overwrought red-and-green color scheme still caught his eye, and it often found a home in his cash registers. The revolving door of business increased the volume of the greenest poison in America, and he held no complaints about it. Due to its lucrative influence, Isaiah wore a careful smile while indoor carolers sang along to the radio broadcast of Silent Night.
Kill me, he asked of the gods above.
They neglected to answer.
In the months prior, Isaiah Zähne Varney and Enrique Vargas employed dependable tactics to ensure a solid Christmas season. They narrowed the aisles by bringing in more shelving units, rearranged displays so that knickknacks and other cheap novelties interspersed with the more expensive and desirable items for the hope of frivolous purchases. Candies and baubles surrounded the pair of registers they kept. A notable arsenal of handguns, crossbows, bows, and other personal protection items spanned an entire wall behind the glass displays of jewelry and delicate antiques. Pop culture paraphernalia, Vargas' specialty, earned a wall of its own, and he hovered about it expertly. Isaiah remained behind the counter with his known spread of jewels and weaponry. Between them, they covered some of the more historical pieces kept in shop.
And somehow, within the narrow spaces provided, the customers sandwiched themselves around displays and aisles and rounders until Isaiah could seldom see the floor. As he looked out to the distracted faces, he considered their net worths. Anyone can buy my real smile for $20,000 in profit. Any takers? No? s**t.
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Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2016 3:32 pm
It was the night before the night before Christmas, and all through the house, Jada was stirring, and freaking the heck out. She still had no presents for Lucas and Dad But for Giuli and Aidan she'd gone spending mad. Michael wasn't even going to be able to make it for more than the day; the shipping side of the business was running into some faceless customs trouble with one of their recent expansions, and he'd been working constantly to try and get it handled. He'd be flying in late on Christmas eve, and flying out first thing in the morning on the 26th back to New York. Zora would be here longer, but she was constantly on her phone sending emails related to some tech interest. Lucas, who was going to be a doctor, would be here the longest, and even he was only in town for a week more. But regardless of how long they were here for-- she still needed presents. She hadn't found much at the last antique store she had been to (having been attacked by rabbits), she no longer had time to buy offline, even if she had wanted to, and all she knew about her father's Christmas desires was that he didn't want another Géricault. So she had wandered around, looking for something unique she would be able to give. Christmas needed something better than socks. When she found Pawnography, it took her a moment to realize it wasn't actually a pornography store. Standing outside, hands buried in her trench coat, she peered inside curiously. It was quite busy, but there did seem to be some interesting things in there... So she pushed the door open, bright violet eyes taking in the assortment of weaponry, novelties, fan paraphernalia- and antiques. Jewelry. Ooo, shinies. She crossed over to the cases with purpose, taking in the delicate items and the faint shimmers with interest, black hair pulled up into a knot at the nape of her neck, and not likely to get in her face. "Happy Holidays," she greeted the man behind the counter with a sunny smile.
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Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2016 7:18 pm
Before Isaiah could finish readjusting some of the display jewelry in his cases, someone cussed at him. That someone, he found as he looked upward through the case at her, appeared well-dressed and saturated in money. He looked to her boots next - a couple thousand dollars strapped to each shin, at least - and he decided that he could forgive the cursed phrase. Carefully he withdrew, rolled the display case shut, and left the key in the lock as he stood over it.
"Happy holidays," he cussed back. "Doing some last minute shopping?" He looked at her fingers. No wedding ring. No husband - maybe she was looking to buy herself a gift on her boyfriend's card. She looked well-kept, even Melissa could tell from her post at the cash register, so the girl had money.
And money bought his attention.
"Melissa, go to the floor please." He didn't want his pharmaceutically-stoned cashier springing any awkward conversations on this one. She complied monotonously, then stepped down through the hinged door and onto the sales floor. She walked in short, shuffling steps, as if she very nearly tripped on the carpet every time. But she looked happy enough, Christmas hat deflated on her head and all. Isaiah wasn't sorry to watch her go.
He decided to commit his attention to this customer, and he greeted her smile with a practiced one of his own. "Is there anything I can help you find?"
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Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2016 7:42 pm
The man who closed the case and smiled his carefully-practiced retail smile was tall and lean, with dark hair and golden (bronzed?) eyes. It was the very slimness of him that caught her attention first, something almost emaciated in the lines of his face that spoke of certainly not enough to eat. It could have been how tall he was, it could be something else, but Jada leaned in, considering him. "Still haven't found anything appropriate for some of my family members," she told him with a smile. "Father and sister. I'm a bad gift-giver, but gift cards aren't exactly the kind of things we give out." She watched 'Melissa' drift away on the man's request, something distant and achingly familiar in the way the girl moved. Jada had spent time moving not differently to that, and when she turned her attention back to the man at the counter, her smile had dimmed, faintly. Not much she would be able to do about it. There could be any reason for it- medication, drugs- Jada took a breath, closed her eyes, cleared her throat, and turned up the wattage on her 'camera' smile. "A miracle?" she asked, trying to tease. "I've never been this late on presents before, and I'm in a bit of a panic. My father hates my taste in art, and my sister is into electronics. The thing is that they buy everything, and then say they don't need anything for Christmas." Oops, she was sounding frustrated. "So I need something unique for both of them. I'd get my father cufflinks, but he's going on about forty pairs he never wears."
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Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2016 8:21 pm
Excellent. I've got a bad gift-giver on my hands with two family members to shop for and T-minus-forty-eight-hours until Christmas Day. And she's got an electronics fiend on her hands. Get ready to pay out the nose, girl, because making moves doesn't come cheap this late in the game.
She looked practiced, however. Something caught her attention - did Melissa knock something over again? - and that smile faltered, but it returned in a flash. Her teeth looked white, straight. Her complexion the perfect kind of tan that never came from cheap tanning beds and spray-ons. Her few stray bangs sported boisterous curls. She also had the type of vivid purple in her eyes that Audrey Helpburn only dreamed of - so he assumed model for her wealth. If not model, then one of those Perez Hilton types with the hotel chain or some inanity where they never had to lift a finger in their lives.
The insipid tagline slunk into his head first. 'Sounds like you've got yourself a Christmas Conundrum!'
No. I can't. Just no. "That's a complicated case. Sister likes electronics, father hates your art tastes." So much for fobbing off any old paintings on this one. "Let's start with the father. Is he the traditional type? Of a particular age? Do you know the types of items he buys for himself? Apart from the necessities, of course."
He always warned his employees away from leaning against the countertop, but after hours on his feet, his hip demanded it. So, as subtly as he could, he leaned against the gold frame of the glass and hoped the customer paid little attention; usually when saturated with eye contact, the customers knew not to break it. The unspoken rule of attention given begets attention paid, he supposed.
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Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2016 9:25 pm
"I live to be trouble," she told the salesman brightly. "Next year I'll insist on a list, so you won't have to deal with me." she sighed, wrinkling up her nose. "My father is... older? He spends most of his time working, and sees more of his business partners than his family. I would say more traditional, but not traditional art. I'm not sure he comprehends walls as being of more importance than keeping him from falling to his death. He's 50, fairly relaxed? Likes music. Likes bourbon. Used to collect autographed guitars, when I was much, much younger." But what else did she know about him? Her brow furrowed, troubled. Since her parents had divorced, what did her father even do? He'd helped with caring for Giulia and Aidan, even though they were children born of his wife's affair with another man. He didn't date. He attended a Yoga class to help stay limber. He'd bought a boat last summer. Looking up at the salesman, she huffed out a sigh- looking away and at the items in the case. "He's a desk job- suit and tie most of the time." she gnawed on her plump, red lower lip, considering.
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Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2016 9:47 pm
Isaiah sucked on his tongue rings through her slow pull of information. Your father's old and boring. Really boring. And none of this is useful information. Music's the most promising one yet, but you can't even spare me a genre. Is he a Bob Marley kind of guy, an Elvis Presley collector, a Louis Armstrong lover?
Isaiah used to snap his fingers press the heel of a hand into the other palm while thinking through a customer's dilemma. Now, he struggled against rapping his fingernails on the glass like an impatient socialite waiting for the next martini. "So he's relaxed, he likes bourbon, and he likes music. Right off the top of my head, the best rarity I can track down would be the platinum certification for the Iron Butterfly album, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. It's not exactly the classiest tune, but it's a memorable part of American history - and a difficult acquisition. It's an expensive item, you can imagine, so if you're looking for something with more utility and fewer zeroes, there are some other options.
"We do have a Paul Stanley signed Ibanez on the opposite end of the shop, there." He gestured behind her, where the pop culture area featured a few guitars on rubberized pegs. "It's considerably less expensive and carries a lot more utility if your father knows how to play." If he didn't, or fell out of the habit of playing it, then the guitar became more wall candy. Since she specified that walls only kept him from eating the floor, he questioned the appeal of either gift.
"Otherwise, there's a completed concept album from Nirvana that we don't keep on display here. There's a note written inside the record sleeve by some of the band members. There's only one in existence. Plus, it retains more useability than the other two if your father is more interested in listening to music than making it." And it's a helluva lot less stress for me to procure than, say, the platinum certification.infinities bsed some things but i wasn't certain that using fictional bands would be any better
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Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2016 10:33 pm
Oh god, put that way it just made her feel even more useless about gift shopping this year. "Wow, I'm a useless ********," she muttered, grimacing as she realized she'd actually uttered it aloud. "I probably found 1960's music slightly more entertaining than my father, but he was born 1966, and had to live through it." her eyes quirked at the corners for a moment as she gave him a faint smile. "Does like guitars, does not like Kiss. Did like Jefferson Airplane and the Monkees?" Zora did like Nirvana, however. And Iron Butterfly. Of course, she also called Nirvana oldies, and Iron Butterfly was oldies no matter who you asked. As curiosities they would be effective gifts. Tapping one manicured nail on the counter, she stared into the case, sightless, contemplating the pieces there more from a need to focus her thoughts than an actual interest in the items. "What about antiques? Is it all fairly modern around the rest of the shop except this area over here?" It looked that way, but she'd made her way over to this attendant with little regard for the other items. "Any old comic books, or regular books?" They'd had a small collection of first editions in the library, Since she was stealing most of them to refill the mansion, maybe she could find him something he could keep for his own collection? She shook her head. "Money isn't the problem. I just got so distracted with everything else, they slipped my mind this year. Sorry I don't have more of an idea what I'm looking for. You can leave me alone if you need to focus on yoru other customers. I can figure something out."
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Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2016 10:49 pm
Oh, she's cute. Not only does she have a mouth on her, but she's trying to play bashful. No, my dear, my other customers can bend right over and ******** themselves. If you don't have a ceiling on your wallet then I can squeeze more out of you alone than this whole room of variably lower- to middle-class procrastinators. I think I'll stay right here.
Ice flashed her a genuine smile at her comment about her father living through the sixties. "Did he tell you that? Your old man lied to you. He was four years old at best when the sixties ended. He just wanted to hate on the hippies." The comment of Jefferson Airplane assured Isaiah that he had next to nothing in common with this man musically, but such an ascertation could be made for the general public and he still considered that a safe assumption. Isaiah pushed off from the display case and approached the edge of its span, where the single hinged door prevented entry into the employee-only area of the pawn shop.
Isaiah threw a quick gesture over the top of the crowd, and a hispanic man on the east wall nodded back to him. "I don't often keep antiques on the floor. Most of them are expensive, and there's an unbelievable amount of young kids in the DC area. Here, I'll show you the back room. I have faith that you're mindful of your surroundings." He pulled the door from its magnetic latch and waited in case she agreed.
If not, then he looked like a fool holding a gate open for a timid mare. "Vargas has some comic books over in the pop culture collection. Most of them are behind a display case. Regular books and miscellaneous antiques are all in the back, where it's climate-controlled and dark and we're using gloves for most of it. You don't need gloves to handle the books, but I'm sure you're aware of that." if she accepted, then racks upon racks of meticulously-catalogued items organized by type and sub-organized by location or history awaited her in the cool back room.
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Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2016 11:23 pm
His smile was startling, and she blinked at the fact it made his gaunt face a little more... not pleasant, but more... real? Was that a correct word for it? The retail expression was gone, if only for a moment. She laughed at his words, bright and a little loud. "He was 3," she confirmed. November 1966 didn't have him survive it, and hating on the hippies... was quite likely. "It's to be determined if it was a lie for a lie's sake, or just bitterness that he missed out." The antiques were kept in the back room, and she followed him with no hesitation. If he wasn't worried about it, then she wouldn't be either. The chance to actually see what she would be getting into without needing him to haul things back and forth just made sense. "Usually mindful," she told him with a teasing, tongue-in-cheek grin. "If it isn't a wall, chances are we'll be fine." The information about the actual books was more tempting than the comic books. If he'd thought she might hesitate, he was terribly wrong; almost the same moment he said the books were in the back, Jada was brushing past him to get into the alternate area. "Good sense to use the gloves though, though," she said wryly. "When I was much, much younger, I didn't have the respect for books I do now, and it didn't turn out pretty for a couple of very old manuscripts." She let him lead her into the back, her eyes widening in delight at the racks of items. Well s**t. "You could just wander through here for hours, couldn't you?" she asked him admiringly. "I won't, of course, I am certain you're busy this time of year, but- this is really impressive,"
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Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2016 9:40 am
"If it were me, I'd be bitter that I missed the sixties. I'd be missing out on all the hippie culture for the Vietnam war and all that unrest. Worst they had was Charles Manson back in the sixties, and I wouldn't have been part of his victim demographic." Another November birthday, hmm? I was a November birthday. Where's my present?
As Isaiah closed the door behind him, the automatic light system kicked on and filled the area in neutral white. Initially they faced boxes, largely demarkated for jewelry products and some small but fanciful fixtures (in which Vargas was proud of his Tiffany lamp collection), and further beyond came the unboxables. As she wandered, she would undoubtedly find the books. The room proved large, rectangular, and painstakingly organized. "The old saying holds true here, you know. You break it, you buy it - with interest. If you still trust yourself, the books are toward the back by the other door there. Most of the boxes of gloves are all over the place - my employees aren't the best at putting those back onto specific racks - and the cloth gloves for photographs and books are mounted on the back door. You'll see a little metal rack with them in it."
Isaiah tried to move and felt a tug against his bicep. Furrowing his brow, he realized he shut his empty sleeve in the door. Again. Quietly he remedied the situation while his customer was distracted by the selection.
"You could wander through here for hours," Isaiah conceded as he made his way into the space. "But you don't really have hours with Christmas breathing down your neck." And neither did he - if she intended to stick around for that long, then he would need to switch with Melissa or one of the other pay-by-hour clerks. "If you father was any older, I would've suggested one of the canes we keep back here. It was made for Frederick William II, one of the old Prussian kings. Unless he doesn't mind tongue-in-cheek gifts that scoff at his age. Though there's not really a great deal of famous antique respirators to give him later…"
Isaiah kept his eye on the customer through the gaps in the racks, and his attention had nothing to do with any potential to steal. He knew the rich shoplifted as much as the poor, often more, but that dress she wore left very little up to the imagination.
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Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2016 2:55 pm
Bright violet eyes scanned the boxes, taking in what few she could see had images of what may lie within them, but she had little sues for lamps, and her jewelry collection was quite large enough. Zora had taken what she wanted of Szelem's many pieces, and some were earmarked for Giulia, and Jada found that she didn't need much jewelry to display. Her taste in clothing- especially her affection for shoes- more than displayed her wealth without the bulk of diamonds, or risk of losing the precious stones. "I would probably have spent the 60's as high as I could manage and bemoaning the fashion," she mused, "Either that or stalking the Beatles, because wasn't that ' the thing'?" Her heeled boots clicked lightly on the floor as she moved, and after a moment, she pulled off the coat. "I'm going to set this here," she informed him as she draped the turquoise duster over a sturdy box, "I don't want to knock anything over." Her dark sweater-dress would be warm enough in the climate-controlled room, and the duster would just be added danger. Not that she was afraid she'd have to buy something. Heaven forbid she have to pull out the credit card instead of her debit card. "I've never heard the 'with interest' part," she told him, lips quirking in a smile he probably couldn't see. Pausing to do a quick, messy braid of her previously free-falling curls, she moved into the room and started perusing the items. First, with her eyes; slowly reviewing the items available and considering the options, and marking in her mind the location of things she may need to consider in greater detail. "What's the interest?" she asked, bending over to carefully lift one of the items she was looking at, considering it for a moment before setting it back down. Too pastel. Getting to the books, it was like the heavens opened and she could hear the choir. So. Many. Books. She lifted a pair of the cloth gloves, and began shuffling carefully through some of the books, tapping her heel idly on the ground. Some of these... she needed them in the mansion's library. Her father simply wasn't allowing her to steal enough of the ones that had been there previously, it was going to be almost empty. There was a lot of the house that was going to be empty, actually. She needed a desk for her study, and some furnishings for some of the guest rooms. Hadn't she seen a rolling-top desk back there that would look lovely... Christmas. Christmas. If she went with the cane and maybe a nice antique cigar box for her father, that would only leave Zora. And the books. Bending again, she tugged a book from the bottom of the pile carefully, blinking at it. Inferno, leather-bound, in Italian, no English translation. No original copies existed of the poem, but this was certainly an older one. She hummed, considering. "Actually, he may like the cane just for the collector's value. But I'm a bit surprised you'd suggest something like that to me- I haven't even told you about my budget." She'd told him that money wasn't the problem, but beyond that, she could be operating on a teeny budget, like so many others. She wasn't, of course. "A royal antique wouldn't be something cheap. You could probably take it to Sotheby's or Christies and get a better price for it than you would here in Destiny City."
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Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2016 4:50 pm
"You're right." He kept a slow pace in his own perusal on the opposite aisle to her. "'With interest' is new. 'With interest' is what makes my store successful, beyond my charming personality and uncanny ability to put myself on guest lists." The last of his comments came dryly, but he did not allow them to linger. "A lot of my business is built on making connections - with fellow business owners, private collectors, that sort of thing. So, 'with interest' means you spread my interests. Consider it like an open favor for an introduction. That interest is how I'm able to come up with some of my more outlandish goods, like the cane I mentioned." She paused by one of his oldest books and he caught his breath.
"I've spent a lot of time watching people, too. They tend to wear their budgets on their sleeves, or in your case, on their feet. I know those boots aren't cheap, and they don't even play the starring role in your ensemble. You also carry yourself with a lot of practice that most people don't have." She handled the leather-bound tome with her bare hands, but such measures were preferable than the moisture-sucking cloth they often used. It needed oil as far as he was concerned.
His cell buzzed him a message, and he checked it while she examined the books. When he read Vargas' text, he nearly choked on it - already his GM inquired about the status of intimate relations between one Miss Customer and himself, and Isaiah was half-temted to leave it unanswered. Instead, he texted back a thoughtful response: Don't you have anything better to do?
"Besides," he started as he braced a shoulder at the end of the gorilla rack, "if you know anything about history, then you know Frederick William II's cane can't possibly be that expensive. He was a terrible choice of kings that weakened Prussia inside and out, partied all the time and almost never took his job seriously. Maybe that fits with the whole 'silver spoon' argument. But, it's here with me now because of that little catch of 'with interest' because I played poker with the private collector who owned it and happened to win that match." He left out the following details that proved less than store-friendly. His card-playing produced very little sway for that particular piece.
"You're right, though. The cane would fetch a better price in locales less comparable to Detroit. I didn't move here to sell one-of-a-kind collector's items, though - I came here because the handgun sales in Destiny City are absolutely phenomenal." The immensely cheap rent and shady business practices similarly went unmentioned.
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Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2016 6:15 pm
"You sound almost like a businessman," she told him, and passed the lanky proprietor a briefly sharp look, quickly fading into her usual mask of doe-eyed socialite. "I'll have to be sure I don't break anything. I don't really have many favors to spare." excepting, of course, a connection to her father's company and the board of directors at the one she had inherited from her grandfather. Setting the copy of Inferno aside, she turned to keep her back to him, so he couldn't see the amused little quirk to her mouth. "A charming personality, then, and an amazing capacity to gatecrash?" she might not be able to disguise the humor in her voice, though. He had a valid point about her budget, and hr method of dress. Some people wore jewelry. She wore very expensive shoes. "I'm impressed you read that much into a pair of boots," she said lightly. "There are a lot of knock-offs. I can get a really nice knock-off purse for twenty bucks down the street. And this dress could be $50 on zulily, or whatever." Well, hers wasn't the $50 version, but her phrasing had a point. Tapping her heels on the floor again, she pursed her lips, catching sight of a few other books. "And I'm a model, so that could explain why I carry myself with practice." She rolled her neck and shoulders, still stopped by the books, debating. "But he was an excellent patron of the arts, for all he was an awful king. Beethoven and Mozart used the patronage well, anyways. You could always try and sell the cane that way." she turned to give him a toothy grin, eyes catching on something away from the books- a very lovely little box, but she couldn't tell if it was a jewelry box or a music box. Deep brown wood, jewel-toned overlays, a little sass to the stylization of it that said it might not be old, so it meant the wood and overlays were expensive. "Everyone thinks that a gun will protect them from what's out there," violet eyes rolled, "I suppose getting shot is a great deterrent, but..." she shrugged, leaving the books behind to go and peer with interest at the box. "Do you have anyone available to deliver any larger purchases?"
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Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2016 7:06 pm
Isaiah knew little about the customer beyond her sense of dress; if she used sarcasm in demeaning him, he could not say. He considered it safer to avoid the subject, especially with how she treated the prospect of favors. I'm out of practice. Looks like I'll be taking Vargas up on his offer to buy the business if I can't hit this mark. "Yes," he answered modestly, "a charming personality and an amazing capacity to gatecrash."
Isaiah straightened up after a time, as the rack cut into a sore muscle. "You're right. You could be wearing a fifty-dollar ensemble and if the maker was clever enough, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference without digging into the product seams and doing a whole lot of Google searches. But what benefit would there be in assuming you're wearing knock-offs? Say you're right and you're walking around in twenty-dollar heels. I guess otherwise, and then you go home feeling proud of yourself for picking the best fakes on the market. What's the inverse of that? You're walking on my rent check and I tell you that you can't afford that book in your hand, and tell you about this cheap signed copy of Palahniuk's Haunted instead. You might laugh it off, or you might use my face for a doormat and leave." Playing the guessing game on her personality sounded unwise. Isaiah parted from the company of the aisle to circle back around to the next one.
This time, Isaiah looked into the tagged bags of jewelry assorted by box. He rifled through a few older necklaces - pearl, opal, amber - and set them aside for later display. Beyond the storeroom door, his employees worked for their extra commissions on top of their base pay. Inside the storeroom, Isaiah shot himself in the foot - usually repeatedly.
That was the trend he deduced, at least.
He looked to her when she mentioned the patronage of the Prussian king, and their line of sight remained uncluttered by the previous racks. "I might," he conceded. Destiny City still held art shows, despite its crumbling infrastructure, and the old money sunk into the area loathed to dismiss such a tried custom. He knew of various antiques dealers in the area, too, who might have some connections beyond his own private collection of private collectors. Isaiah assumed that she still considered him, and chose to busy himself with more pulled product. The jewelry box sat unacknowledged over his shoulder.
Isaiah plucked a pair of petrified wood earrings from the very back of the box. "Yes, I can send my GM out provided you're within a reasonable distance." Most of our items are small enough to fit in the back of an SUV, and she looks like the Lexus type. Maybe she's afraid of scratching up the rubberized mat.
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