The Pawn Ticket

Tucker had just finished picking up his dry cleaning. It was shortly after sunset and the sky was darkening rapidly. He was in a hurry tonight. So he had driven instead of walking.

As he rounds the corner, one block away from his car, he collides with a running man. The impact is forceful enough to send both men reeling. Tucker lands against a store front and manages to keep his feet.

The running man wheels around, barely losing his stride, and continues running. Tucker feels indignified. He wants to shout. However, the running man is already up the block, where he collides with two other dark forms that appear from an alley.

The Pawn Ticket

The running man shouts something. Then there’s a gunshot. The bright muzzle flash continues five more times, until the running man is no longer running.

Now Tucker is the running man, and he is running extremely fast, in the other direction. He is going back to the cleaners to call someone. At this moment he doesn’t remember the number, but he’s working on it, as he runs.

Two hours later, Tucker is signing the police report and thanking the officers for the swift response. One hour more, and he is home at last, but still shaken. The police had found nothing. Not even a shell casing.

Tucker has dinner and prepares for sleep. He has an early day tomorrow and needs his rest. He sets out his clean suit that he picked up from the dry cleaners. It was his only suit, therefore, it was only worn on special occasions.

He notices the outside pocket flap is up and there is something there, so, he pulls it free and examines it.

The Pawn

It is a pawn ticket. A recent one; to a shop just a few blocks away. Now he feels perplexed. As well as confused. Tucker knows the manager of the dry cleaners. Likewise he knows she wouldn’t leave anything in the pockets of garments, before cleaning.

He examines it a little more closely and sees the renew deadline is tomorrow. He feels a tinge of curiosity as he sets the suit on the dressing table. It’s not possible to say how he had come by this ticket, and he suspects it has something to do with the no longer running man. He shudders, remembering the bright flashes of the gun.

Best think about it tomorrow after a good night’s sleep, which he does not get.

All through work the following day Tucker thinks about the pawn ticket. He wonders what is at the pawn shop. He wonders if that’s why the running man was being hunted. If so why transfer the ticket to Tucker?

Ticket

Then a thought that chills him to his core, did the hunters know about Tucker? He is thinking about this so hard that he is startled when Patsy, the floor manager, stops by his cubicle.

She has arrived to alert him that two rather large men in suits were looking for him. They have the credentials of an elite government agency, and Patsy is curious what they want with Tucker.

So is Tucker. Patsy informs him that they are on the elevator coming to this floor. This isn’t what sends Tucker’s pulse into a panic driven overdrive, as much as, what she says next.

“They say they want the pawn ticket.”