Best Cash Pawn Shop is in one of the sketchier parts of town, just on the outskirts of DC. The drive had taken nearly 35 minutes and I’d eaten my breakfast in the car.

I turn around and look at Murdock and Lassie in the back seat. They hadn’t gotten off to a great start. According to my father — who had driven to my house around midnight — when he and Murdock had entered my apartment, Lassie had come out from the bedroom to investigate. Murdock — big, sweet, dumb, Murdock — had never seen a cat before and went berserk, barking his head off and chasing the cat all over the condo to the point where the couch was overturned and the downstairs neighbors were banging on the walls. My dad was trying to harangue the giant pooch when Murdock suddenly stopped barking. My dad looked down and couldn’t believe his eyes. Lassie had somehow found the bag of treats I’d brought home the night before, opened it, and had dropped a treat at the feet of the enraged canine. Murdock ate the treat and Lassie set another peace offering at his feet.

When I woke up a couple hours later and walked into the living room, the two were asleep next to one another, Murdock’s huge paw cradled around the small cat.

“Don’t forget who feeds you,” I tell Lassie, who is lying on Murdock’s back, gently rocking with each of the mastiff’s breaths.

Meow.

“You can’t have two BFFs.”

“Are you okay?” my dad asks.

I ignore him and point to a place across the street and tell him to park.

“You sure this place is open?” he asks.

“It said it was open twenty-four hours.”

There is a group of unsavory characters standing just outside the entrance and my dad says, “You want me to come with you?”

“No, better you stay with the car.”

I hop out and walk past three leering gangsters, trying not to look like I’m carrying five thousand in cash in my right front pocket. I push through the barred door and the chiming of bells alerts someone to my presence.

The man behind the counter is a white guy with a ponytail. He is wearing a jean jacket and fingerless gloves. He looks like what a guy who is working at a pawnshop at three in the morning is supposed to look like.

“What can I do for ya?” he inquires as I approach.

I pull the receipt from my pocket and hand it to him. “My girlfriend sold this and I’d like to buy it back.”

He scrunches his face at me, then pulls up glasses attached to a chain around his neck and peers down at the receipt. There is a code on the receipt that reads 2F49.