Ken's Tale & the Peterson Dilemma - Desperate Prequels



  Ken’s Tale

  &

  The Peterson Dilemma

  -------------------------------

  Desperate Prequels

  by

  Nicholas Antinozzi

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Nicholas Antinozzi

  Copyright (c) 2010 by Nicholas Antinozzi

  Edited by Coleta Wright

  Cover Design by Steve Peterson

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Ken’s Tale

  The odyssey had begun at a gun show in Minneapolis and was about to play out three weeks later in the back of a Saint Paul pawnshop. Ken Dahlgren was sweating. The sixty year old business owner was way out of his league and he knew it. He was tall, trim and handsome for a man of his years. Ken wore his hair in a military cut over ice blue eyes and a square jaw. He had dressed in jeans and a Vikings sweatshirt and the room was too warm. The dusty storage room was long and narrow and smelled of mildew. Two bare bulbs hanging from wires lit the room, forty watt, Ken guessed. He sat in one of the soiled wingback chairs, and waited in this shabby room to close the deal. Or: if things continued to go wrong; as they had been all day, to be murdered.

  This just wasn’t worth the risk and Ken wanted to scream at himself for acting so foolish. He had been told to trust the fat man with the tattoos, which he had done, and found himself at the point of no return. How he had trusted a stranger with five thousand dollars and the keys to his pickup, Ken couldn’t explain. Real smart, Ken thought. I’m sorry, Patty, you married an idiot.

  He checked his watch again for the third time in ten minutes and shook his head. Ken remembered what he was thinking about as he prepared to leave that evening, wondering if he should carry a gun. Practical Ken had won that argument, the Ken who trusted in God and that people were good for their word. He now wished he had listened to cynical Ken.

  The room was as silent as an empty church and against one of the long walls were shelves crammed with the spoils of the terrible business of pawn-broking. Ken’s eyes were drawn there as the other walls of the room were decorated in cobwebs. The valuables were stacked like cordwood; power tools, electronics, antiques, musical instruments of all makes and sizes, and sporting goods, all jumbled together on the long rows of the three-tiered shelving. Ken wondered what had caused the people to part with each of the pieces, and also wondered how many of the items were stolen.

  As the minutes passed he began to retrace his steps, the ones that had led him to this dank, depressing room. Ken attended the gun show with his old friend, Doug Porter. Doug knew his way around and was helping Ken prepare for what both men felt was the inevitable. Doug had been relentless, hammering it into Ken that he needed to be prepared for the worst. They were going to need guns, and not just any guns, but the finest weapons that he could get his hands on, fully automatic and highly illegal.

  Ken held his cell phone at the ready, as if he’d have enough time to call the police if something went wrong. He sat tall and erect, just as he always did. At the gun show Doug had introduced him to a man named Mac, and the two chatted in an empty corridor for nearly ten minutes. Mac asked a lot of questions, something for which Ken had been prepared for. He was younger than Ken had expected, perhaps not even thirty, and his eyes never left Ken’s own for a moment. Satisfied that Ken was on the level the man took Ken’s cell number, gave him a set price to be paid in cash, and told him to wait for a call. That phone call had come this afternoon and it was now just after eight.

  The inevitable was that Ken believed the dollar was about to crash. Doug Porter, a man whom he trusted with his life, had given him the dire warning a few months earlier. Porter had spoken with such conviction that he’d caused Ken to prepare his lake home for an economic holocaust. He and Patty had shopped wholesale, making the four hour drive to Ely, more times than he cared to remember.

  Patty, Ken’s wife of forty years, had no idea where he was or what he was up to. They’d discussed firearms and Patty had put her foot down, quite dramatically, Ken thought to himself. They were church-going, business owners, preparing for an extended stay at their lake home, not gun-toting mercenaries preparing for war against their fellow man.

  If what Porter envisioned was about to come true, their fellow man would certainly become their enemy. The math to calculate this scenario was simple enough; all Ken had to do was subtract goods and services from the world around them. People would want what they had; he and Patty would desperately need what they’d stocked away and Ken would fight if it came to that. Ken needed to be prepared for that day, with or without Patty’s blessings.

  The door suddenly opened and Ken nearly jumped out of his chair. The bald man had returned. “I’m afraid we have a small problem,” he said, scratching his chin as he sat across from Ken. “I’m going to need another grand.”

  “We had a deal,” Ken replied in a hiss. “Five thousand, do you think I brought along another thousand dollars?”

  “No, I was thinking that you have an ATM card. Come on, I don’t got all night.”

  Ken’s eyes narrowed and he gritted his teeth. “No deal, give me my money back.”

  The man glared back at him, the vein in his neck throbbing behind the black ink of a prison tattoo. He was thirty years younger than Ken, well-muscled and scarred from battle. He wore a leather vest, covered in motorcycle club patches, over a sleeveless denim shirt. He was missing one of his front teeth and two gold earrings dangled from his misshapen lobes. “Five hundred bucks or you walk away with nothing.”

  “Four,” countered Ken. “That’s all I can pull out at a time. I only carry one card, you can see for yourself.”

  The bald man scowled and his eyes bored into Ken’s. Ken returned the stare, not giving an inch. The two men sat like that for a long moment, before the bald man nodded. “You’re a lucky son-of-a-bitch,” he said. “I’m in a good mood tonight. Okay, four hundred. Let’s go.”

  Ken expected that they’d leave the building, but he was led to the front of the shuttered pawn shop and they did the transaction at the register. This was a good sign, Ken thought to himself. This tied him to a time and a place and made it unlikely that he’d be murdered. At least, that was what he hoped.

  “You’ve got to understand something,” the bald man said in his gruff voice as Ken signed the card receipt. “I’m not making much on these deals and I’m taking a huge risk. I don’t want you walking away thinking that I’m ripping you off. I know people out there who would pay twice what you’re paying. I won’t sell to them, do you understand me?”

  Ken nodded.

  “So, me and a few of the guys have a place of our own. We’re ready to fight this out. It ain’t much, but it’s out of town and off the beaten trail. You see, you and me aren’t really all that different. I’m going to take this cash and buy a water purifier. You got one of those?”

  Ken nodded again, even though he hadn’t thought of a water purifier. “We bought one last month.”

  The bald man nodded and took the receipt from Ken. He then waved Ken back in the direction they’d come. Ken followed him through the maze of little rooms to the back door. The door opened up into the alley where Ken’s pickup was parked. The bald man flipped Ken the keys. “Go ahead, check it out. Just be quick about it, I’ve got shit to do.”

  Ken caught the keys and walked over to the back of his Ford. He reached under the tarp and felt for the heavy crates of guns and ammunition. He didn’t bother to open them and they could have been filled with stones,
Ken had seen enough. Whatever was in those crates he had paid fifty-four hundred dollars for, which was good enough for now. Ken nodded in approval and stuck his hand out to the man.

  “Ain’t you going to open them up?”

  “No reason to, unless you think I need to?”

  “Nope, it’s all there,” he said, taking Ken’s hand and shaking it. “Good luck, man.”

  “Good luck to you, too,” said Ken, who had already turned and was heading to the driver’s door. He got inside and took a deep breath, trying to slow the beating of his pounding heart. He pushed the key into the ignition and fired up the engine. He turned and gave the tattooed man a nod of his head, shifted into drive and began to creep out of the dark alley.

  The red lights exploded from