Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
There stood Uncle Herbert, twisting his John Deer cap in his hands with a worried look on his kindly, wrinkled face. He was standing in front of a green, felt covered poker table where a number of men seemed to be in the middle of a card game.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Butcher,” Uncle Herbert was saying to a burly, middle-aged man who had a heavy five o’clock shadow and a cigar stub clenched in his teeth. “But I can’t make the whole payment if you keep raising the interest rate! When I took that loan from you, you said it would be twenty-five percent. Now you say fifty—where am I supposed to get the extra money from?”
“I don’t give a fuck where you get it from,” the man called Butcher snarled. “But you’d better have it soon, old man. I’d hate to have to send some of my boys to teach you a lesson!”
“But that interest rate isn’t what we agreed on!” Uncle Herbert exclaimed.
Butcher had looked up, his squinty eyes gleaming through the haze of cigar smoke.
“The interest rate just went up to seventy-five percent. See that? It is what I say it is. And if you mouth off one more time, I’ll send some of my boys to your house to see about giving you some free knee surgery. How would you like that?”
“But—” Uncle Herbert began.
“Get rid of him!” Butcher made a curt gesture to several of the burly men standing around the room. “He’s interrupting my streak!”
Two of the big bouncer-looking guys had grabbed Uncle Herbert by his arms and physically tossed him down the hallway. He stumbled and might have fallen and really hurt himself if Lexi hadn’t stepped forward and caught him.
“Oh, Lexi-girl!” he exclaimed, when he recognized her. “What are you doing here?”
“I think I’d better ask you the same question, Uncle Herbert,” Lexi told him. “Come on—we need to talk.”
She had gotten her elderly Uncle out of the bar and back to his truck where he confessed something awful—he owed the man named Butcher a huge amount of money.
“Everything’s gotten so high this year and they raised the taxes on the house, you know,” he said to Lexi as they sat in the front seat of his pick-up and stared at the flashing neon signs of the bar they’d just left. “The bank wouldn’t loan me any money—of course they wouldn’t,” he added bitterly. “If we can’t pay the taxes, they’re the ones who get to swoop in and take our house and sell it out from under us! So I went to Butcher, because I heard he made personal loans. Only I never dreamed he’d keep raising the rates on me!” He shook his head, looking defeated. “I only borrowed two thousand dollars, but now I owe him so much more!”
“How much more?” Lexi had asked, determined to know the worst.
Uncle Herbert took a deep breath.
“Twenty thousand,” he admitted in a hoarse whisper. “And he wants it by the end of the month! Lexi-girl—what am I going to do?”
“Oh, Uncle Herbert!” Lexi felt sick with worry for him. He had always been a strong man with an easy, open smile. Now he looked so broken and bent and old. She hated to see the man who was the closest thing she had to a father looking so defeated.
“I don’t know how I’m going to pay.” He shook his head.
“But you shouldn’t have to!” Lexi exclaimed. “Butcher can’t keep raising his rates without telling you! That’s what they call ‘predatory lending practices’. Don’t you have some kind of contract you signed with him telling the original interest rate he quoted you?”
Uncle Herbert shook his head glumly.
“It was a handshake deal,” he said. “Shoulda known better than to trust a fella who looks like him.”
Privately, Lexi thought the same thing, but she didn’t want to make her uncle feel worse.
“Well I’m sure what he’s doing is against the law—especially threatening to send people to come break your legs!” she exclaimed. “We’ll go to the police.”
Uncle Herbert shook his head.
“Did you get a good look at those two who threw me out? They’re both on the Police Force—I don’t dare say a thing or it will get back to him for sure!”
At that, Lexi didn’t know what to say. It seemed like they were stuck—but she had never been a quitter.
“Don’t you worry about this, Uncle Herbert,” she told him, lifting her chin. “I’ll find a way to get that money for you—I promise I will.”
“But how, Lexi-girl?” He shook his graying head. “I don’t see how you could do that.”
“I’ll find a way,” Lexi repeated stubbornly. “Don’t you worry.”
But finding twenty thousand dollars was much easier said than done. Even if she sold her ancient car, she couldn’t get more than five thousand for it and she really didn’t have anything else that was worth selling.