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Bad Boy Billy was the three Bs in the name, and about three hundred pounds of man you didn’t want to mess with. One look at him, and you’d think twice about skipping out on your court appearance.
Celia handed him the paperwork. “Do you think we could give Nicole here a break? She’s a repeat customer.”
“We’re running a business,” he responded gruffly. “Not a charity.”
“Please, Billy,” she added.
He sighed. “What’s nine percent?”
That was a percent less than the standard bail bond rate and would save me almost two thousand dollars.
Celia’s fingernails clacked on her calculator. “Seventeen-five-fifty.”
“Are drugs involved?”
“No,” Celia assured him.
Billy ran his hand through his thinning hair. “How’s seventeen?” He looked at me for a response.
“Thanks,” I answered with my biggest smile. It would max out my credit cards, but I thought I had enough left on my limits for that.
He pointed a finger at me. “Just see that she shows.”
“She will.” That I could be positive about, because I’d make it happen, no matter what.
Billy leaned down and kissed his wife. “How is it I can never say no to you?” He returned to his glass cage.
Celia didn’t respond to that, and I didn’t hazard a guess. She had him wrapped around her little finger.
“How do you want to handle that?” she asked.
I dug out my wallet. “Can I split it across two cards?”
“Up to you. How much on the first?”
“Ten.”
She typed on her keyboard, and the credit card machine facing me lit up.
I slid my MasterCard in. When the tiny screen changed to sayauthorizing, I mentally crossed my fingers that I’d remembered correctly how much the card had left on it.
A ding and a green light let me remove it.
We repeated the procedure for my Visa card, and Lara had successfully torpedoed my chance at replacing my car in the foreseeable future.
“And what are we doing for the collateral?” Celia asked. She typed on the computer again. “Last time we used the house. Have you added any financing on it since then?”
“Yeah, the house,” I said wearily. A hundred and ninety-five K lien on Casa di Rossi was a painful step. “I mean no. I haven’t done a mortgage or anything.”
A minute later she pulled several sheets of paper from her printer and walked them in to Billy for a signature.
When it was my turn to sign, the pen felt like a lead weight.
Billy emerged again while Celia was taking down my info for her notary book. “See that she shows. I’m not shy about taking people’s houses if they skip, but it’s a part of the job I don’t like.”
“She will,” I assured him again.
If that was something he didn’t like about the business, what was the part he did like? I didn’t ask.
