Alibi High

Al looked at Nate. “Thought you said they were serious buyers?”

Nate nodded. “Because they are. I think. Right, guys?”

We didn't say anything. Johnny and I both stayed silent.

“Or maybe you brought me some cops and we're totally screwed,” Al said, frowning at his brother. “I told you, dude. I can't go back to jail, man!”

“They aren't cops!” Nate said. “They told me they weren't!”

They both looked at us.

“We aren't cops,” Johnny finally said.

“Back to jail?” I asked.

Al waved a hand in the air. “Misunderstanding. That's all it was. I didn't mean to take the guy's car.”

“ Oh.”

“We aren't cops,” Johnny repeated. “But we need to know where these computers came from.”

“Why?”

“Because I think they came from my daughter's school I know where they came from ,” I said. Johnny stared at me, wide-eyed, his mouth in the shape of an O. “They were stolen from her school a school .”

Al immediately threw his hands up like he didn't want anything to do with that. “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. I didn't steal anything, alright? I'm just looking to move some merchandise that fell into my lap , alright? . I don't steal.”

“So you didn't take them?”

He looked me dead in the eye. “No. I did not.”

While I thought his whole notion that stealing was different than selling off stolen merchandise was a little murky, I believed him.

“So where did you get them?” I asked.

He cut the flashlight and stuck it back on his belt. “ Look, I can't reveal my sources.”

“You aren't a journalist.”

“I still have sources.”

“Look, man,” Johnny said, taking a step toward Al Nate and pointing at him. “You and I both know that one of the unwritten rules of black market computer reselling is that you don't steal from kids! Everyone knows that, dude! And if you don't tell us where they came from, I'll burn you in every forum I can find and no one will bring you their stuff ever again deal with you again .” He jabbed his finger in the air again toward Al Nate . “I know people, man. People trust me. If I tell them you stole from kids, you're done.”

“ And if he's your connection ,” I said, looking at Al. “If he's your middle man, putting out feelers for things you're selling, then you're done, too.”

Al looked at his brother. Nate shrugged, as if to tell him he was on his own didn't know what to say .

Al sighed. “So you're telling me my merchandise belongs to kids?”

Johnny and I both nodded.

“Well, that's just craptastic,” he said, stubbing his toe against the as hp ph alt. Then he looked at Johnny. “You can't burn me him , man. This job doesn't pay me anything. I need him. Because I need to be a reseller just to make a living, alright?”

“I won't burn you him if you tell me us where you got your stuff,” Johnny said. “That's what we're interested in.”

“So you don't want the computers back?”

“Let's worry about that later,” I said. “After you tell us where you got them.”

He grimaced, like the force of my words had punched him in the stomach. He stubbed his toe on the ground again, clearly thinking about what he wanted to do. Or maybe unsure. Maybe Johnny's rant had gotten to him Or maybe about he was contemplating locking us up in the trailer.

“Okay,” he finally said. “So, like, in this job, I meet a lot of people, right?”

“ Uh, okay,” I said, I nodded uncertainly, not sure of where he was going.

“A lot of people come here on a regular basis,” he said. “Because they like to gamble.”

“Yeah,” Johnny said. “Because it's a casino.”

“Right, right,” Al said, still working his toe into the asphalt. “And sometimes that gets them in trouble.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“They gamble too much,” he said. “Or they wanna gamble more than they have.”

“ Okay,” I said, still not understanding. “But w I still wasn't understanding. “W hat does that have to do with the computers?”

He switched toes, now rubbing the other one against the asphalt. “Well, sometimes people open lines of credit. They usually just end up dig ging bigger holes, you know? And then when the hole gets too big, they gotta do something to get out of it.”

“So you open lines of credit for people here?” Johnny asked, adjusting his glasses, like he was trying to get a better read on him.

Al's mouth twisted a little. “Not officially, no.”

“But unofficially?”

“I can get it done,” he admitted. “I know a couple people in the financial office. Sometimes they need things. We trade favors and stuff like that. It's sort of off the books.”

“If it's off the books, what happens if they keep losing?” Johnny asked.

Al's eyebrows bounced and he glanced toward the trailer.

“They've gotta pay you,” I said, starting to put it together finally. “However they can. You arrange the credit directly with them and the deal is with you, so they've got to pay you back directly. And given that they had to open a credit line, they probably can't do that with cash, can they?”

Al shrugged again.

“So they pay you with what they can,” I said.

“Remember that one dude who had to sign over his Jeep,” Nate said, chuckling. “That was kind of funny.”

Al cut his eyes at his brother and Nate's laugh quickly died.

“Do you tell them what you want?” I asked. “Or do you let them make offers?”

Al cleared his throat. “Some of both, I guess. If we get to that point, then we try to figure something out that will work.”

Al probably had a nice little side business going and it just reinforced my distaste for gambling. The waste of money, the addictive nature and the seediness of it. It made people do bad things. I'd yet to see anything good come from gambling and this whole fiasco was becoming Exhibit A.

“So then you made a deal with somebody who couldn't pay off their line,” Johnny said.

Al hesitated, then nodded.

“And they settled up with you by getting you the computers,” I said.

Al nodded again. “Yeah. Because I get a lot of computers. It's usually the first thing people offer up and they're pretty easy to move, especially with Nate's connections. But I swear . I didn't take them a . A nd I didn't know they came from a school.”

Al had already confessed to enough that I didn't think he'd lie about that part.

“So,” I said, looking at him. “Who'd you get them from?”

Al sighed and put his hands on his hips. He was still staring at the ground, his toe still doing the stubbing thing. Nate stood next to him, silently.

“If I tell you,” Al said. “Are you gonna blow me up here? Report me or something?”

Johnny looked at me.

“Can we have the computers back?” I asked.

Al sighed again, li ke a balloon losing all of it ' s air. He turned and stared at the trailer. Then he turned back to me. “Yeah, okay. Bad karma for me to keep them anyway if they belong to kids.”

“ How are you gonna make the credit line right?” Johnny asked. “Or whatever you wanna call it.”

He frowned, then waved a hand in the air. “I'll figure it out. I'll have to call in a few favors and probably kick in a little of my own cash to cover it since I can't sell the computers. And I'll go to my customer and tell them they brought me bad merch and they're gonna have to make it right somehow. B ut I'll get it worked out. I just don't wanna get blown up here.”