Shirtadelphia was a small store front on South Street crammed between an Irish bar and a tattoo parlor. I found a spot a block over and got out. I walked around to her side and opened the door.
She climbed down without a word.
“Lead the way.”
I watched her ass in her tight dark jeans walk ahead of me back toward the store. Her gray t-shirt was a little baggy for my taste, but even if she was trying to hide her figure, she wasn’t doing a good job. Nothing could keep those curves from me, and the memory of her attacking me this morning only made my blood boil even more.
Sometimes I surprised myself. I should’ve been pissed she ruined a favorite pair of suit pants. Instead, I was overjoyed that she’d shown some backbone.
The sidewalk was damp from the night before and foot traffic was slow. Most shops were closed for the morning. A drycleaner’s neon lights flickered as we walked past. A young couple held hands and carried cardboard coffee cups. I wondered if Leigh secretly wanted to be like them.
I walked behind her and enjoyed the view until we reached her store.
She stared at it then looked back at me. “I don’t have my—”
I took her key from my pocket and held it out.
She took it without comment and unlocked the front.
Shirtadelphia had a hip, bright interior. She flipped the lights on. The floors were polished, bright white tile. Each wall was covered in shirts, their fronts folded to show the graphic. Two long couches with gray, faded cushions sat in the center of the space facing an old mid-century coffee table with magazines on top. A flat screen TV hung in the back-left corner and a door led to the back. The counter looked like a trio of vintage washing machines in green, blue, and pale pink.
She gestured around then turned to face me. “This is it. My whole freaking life.”
“Beautiful.” I beamed at her then ran a hand down along the back of a couch. “Really, you have a great eye for this stuff.”
“I’d say thanks, but also, fuck you.”
I nodded. “You did all this yourself, didn’t you? Built everything? Designed it all?”
“Mostly,” she said. “I had some help building the shelves and the counter. Otherwise it was all me.”
“Very impressive.” I smiled at the shirt designs. Some were goofy, stupid jokey shirts with idiotic slogans like Blonde Gone Wild and U Coming At Me Bro mixed with Philadelphia-centric designs featuring the Liberty Bell and other iconic imagery. Then some were more abstract, a series of geometric shapes and overlapping circles in different colors and patterns.
“I don’t know how you think this is going to work. Most of my clients are young, you know? Teenage kids. And I doubt you’re trying to sell pills to teenagers.”
I shrugged. “Teenagers, preteens, children. Whoever wants it and can afford it, I’ll sell to them.”
She stared at me. “Are you joking?”
“Normally, no. But yes, right now I am joking.”
She looked oddly relieved. “I know you’re an asshole, but I’m trying to decide if you’re a monster or not.”
“Oh, I’m most certainly a monster.” I walked over and fingered a shirt featuring Ben Franklin riding a T-Rex. “But I don’t sell to kids and I don’t take stupid risks. Teenagers are inherently untrustworthy. And I’m not trying to get anyone killed. We’re selling to seasoned addicts with a proven track record of keeping their fucking mouth shut.”
“Sounds great.” She walked over and stood behind the counter, arms crossed. “And meanwhile I’m supposed to run my business as usual?”
“Perhaps not quite as usual, but yes, that’s the idea.”
“Because I think someone’s going to notice a bunch of junkies coming in and out.”
“You’d be surprised. Did you notice it when your brother was spiraling?”
She glared at me and said nothing.
“Truth is, my little diamond, junkies tend to look like normal people. Regular people that got hooked on a drug, but are generally high functioning. Sure, of course there are junkies living on the street, but we’re not looking for them. Pills aren’t cheap. Heroin’s much cheaper. We’re selling to upscale clients.”
“Where’d you even get all the drugs anyway?”
“China.”
“Right. Specific.”
I spread my heads. “I can’t tell you all my secrets yet, even if we are going into business together. Now, show me the back room.”
She made a face and turned. I followed her through the door, down a short hall, past a bathroom and a supply closet, and into the back. She flipped on a light. It was a wide room with several tables and racks of shirts piled high. A small desk sat shoved against the far wall with a computer monitor and a pile of files and folders. I imagined her brother sitting right in that spot, slumped over and dead.
“Not much to see. Computer has all our accounting and stuff. This is where we keep excess stock and pack and ship online orders.” She gestured at a pile of boxes and labels. “A lot of our orders come online. Right now, we’re at fifty-fifty, online and in store, but I’d like to sell more online soon.”
I nodded and looked around. “Makes sense. You set up the online portal?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Good. That might be useful. Could be an easy way to take orders.”
She made a face. “That’s a terrible idea. You want to pay taxes on your drugs?”
“Yes, actually. That’s a problem with drug money. It’s not legit if you can’t pay taxes on it. So you can’t spend it without raising eyebrows. The IRS and the Feds pay attention to shit like that. But if sales came in through your online store, say, for a t-shirt that doesn’t exist, we could pay taxes on that money and make it legitimate. That’s called laundering.”
“Thank you for the lesson on how to be a drug dealer. I really appreciate it.”
I beamed at her. “You’d better learn, because that’s what you are now.”
She threw up her hands. “I don’t understand this at all. Why
