Pawnbroker: A Thriller

by Jerry Hatchett

  “Quit whining and eat,” I said.

  After consuming a couple pounds of grease and cholesterol, I told Teddy about RoboVoice.

  “Bizarre,” he said over and over again. “Bizarre.”

  “I know it’s bizarre, Teddy. Any other ideas?” I said.

  “You told the police?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Why would I be kidding? Speaking of comedy, have I—”

  All at once, his cavalier attitude rubbed me raw. “Yes, you’ve told me about the plan for stand-up comedians in the hotel lounge. If you don’t mind, my situation is a little more important to me than ice cream and hucksters at the moment. More important than worms and crickets and fish and rednecks and whatever other bullshit you seem determined to talk about instead of the fact that I’m in trouble.”

  This loss of patience rarely happens, because after being around Teddy for decades, I understand how his mind works, the way it hops from topic to topic. He always has a number of projects underway, and any one of them may be the topic of his next sentence. Until you know him, it’s easy to think he’s a nutcase dreamer. In reality, he’s brilliant, a dreamer who makes those dreams come true. And he really is a good friend.

  Right now he looked like a kid who just got scolded, head sagging, staring at his coffee. “Sorry, Gray. I get carried away. Didn’t mean to.”

  It was impossible to stay angry at him. “It’s okay. I shouldn’t have snapped like that. Truth? I’m worried, Teddy.”

  “Don’t be. I don’t know why Bobby Knight and Tommy Mitchell have their panties in a wad, but they’ll get over it. Trouble came calling and you kicked its ass, plain and simple. Nothing to worry about.”

  Chapter 6

  Carmen Rodriguez took one last look at the bathroom mirror in Room 211, checking for streaks, missed corners, or lint left behind from her cleaning towel. The other girls in housekeeping didn’t take such pains—the mirrors were lucky if they were touched at all—but to Carmen, this was more than a job. It was a lifeline, an answered prayer that was to be cherished and guarded.

  Two months earlier, Carmen had come north and east, leaving behind the squalor of her life in rural Mexico. The trip itself was horrible: forty-eight people in a cargo trailer lightly converted to haul people. By the fifth day, the stench was all but unbearable, but then her sense of smell seemed to adapt. Though the heat still grew stifling during the day, the March weather was mercifully mild enough that there were no heat strokes. (Carmen had heard the tales of people dying from the heat.) There were other ways to enter the United States, of course. One could always sneak across alone or in a small group, but without stateside friends, you were a fugitive from the first day. There were also the paid trips. Come up with two thousand American dollars and you got passage and a place to stay for a month or so while you found work and permanent housing.

  Carmen chose the newest and most popular means of getting here. The ride cost nothing, and housing and a job were waiting when you arrived. The catch was that you had no choice about either. It was completely pre-arranged and mandatory, and you were obligated to stay at that job for at least three years. Sixty hours a week. $100. You also had to stay in the crowded living quarters with too many other people—fourteen others shared a two-bedroom, one-bath house with Carmen—for at least a year. Easy to keep tabs on should anyone decide to cut out for a better deal. A teenage boy had done just that. He was gone for four days. Now he walked like a crippled old man.

  The deal would sound horrible to most Americans, but Carmen knew they couldn’t possibly understand what she had left behind. A shack built from cardboard. No running water. Less than one American dollar per day, if you could find work at all.

  Her job here with a small company that provided housekeeping workers to hotels was a dream. The Courtyard Marriott was the nicest hotel she had ever seen. (Of course, it was the only hotel she had ever been inside in all her seventeen years.) She worked with several other Mexicans who got here the same way, but none from her house and none from the group she came with.

  She didn’t know why they did it that way, and didn’t really care. Only one other person here really concerned her: Emilio. His transport should’ve arrived a month ago. They carefully arranged their trips to be sure they came to the same town, and she had sent a letter that explained exactly where she worked and what to do.

  Every day at 9:15, she took her morning break and sat beside the service entrance on the back of the hotel. And at 11:45. Then again at 2:15. But Emilio never came. Two weeks ago she mailed a letter to Emilio’s sister back home, but there had been no reply. She kept up the brave face, and she tried to keep believing that it was just some kind of mixup, some kind of delay, but she grew more worried by the day.

  Carmen stepped back from the mirror and looked, not at the glass now—it was immaculate—but at herself. Her black hair was thick and shiny, her eyes a strange light brown color. The other kids back in the village said her eyes made her look loco, but here in Mississippi, men looked at her all the time. Some of them said things, dirty things. She never made trouble, though. She couldn’t. All she could do was smile and leave. She turned sideways, straightened her posture. She rubbed her hand over her stomach, and looked closer. A soft beep sounded and Carmen looked to the plastic digital watch on her wrist. It read 9:13. She wheeled her cleaning cart out of the room, locked the wheels, and walked quickly to the elevator.

  Chapter 7

  We needed to get the blood out of the carpet, so I put a sign on the door saying we’d open at 10:00 instead of the normal 9:00. The spot fought off my and LungFao’s best efforts and left a stain, although it at least wasn’t red, just dark.

  At 9:40, I picked up the phone and dialed Bobby Knight’s office.

  “Detective Knight,” he answered.

  “Bobby, Gray here.”

  “Yeah.”

  “In the excitement yesterday, I forgot to even get this guy’s name.”

  “Excitement? That’s what you call it when someone dies?”

  “Give me a break, will you? You know what I meant.”

  “Right.”

  “What was the guy’s name?”

  “You know damn well who he was.”

  “The hell I do! You people—”

  “I don’t have time for your shit, Gray. The name is John Patrick Homestead.”

  Clueless as to why he was acting this way, I was trying to think of something else to say, when he, in a much lower tone of voice, said, “I know why you killed him, Gray.” Then he hung up.

  I stared at the receiver as if it might contain the answers to this crazy mystery. None came, so I dropped it back into the cradle, fired up my computer, and logged on to the internet. Homestead was an unusual name and I figured I might get lucky and pick up an article that mentioned him in an arrest report or crime story.

  I Googled his name as an exact phrase and got eight hits, but they weren’t arrest reports. Far from it. I heard RoboVoice in my head: You don’t understand what you’ve stepped into. That was an understatement.

  Chapter 8

  As I browsed the search hits on John Patrick Homestead, the police’s attitude with me started to make sense. Mr. Homestead was far from a street thug. He worked for the state police. I had killed a cop.

  All at once I felt guilty as hell. Way more than I did when I thought he was a thug. Then I felt guilty about the disproportion in the two levels of guilt. I was pondering the ramifications of being labeled a cop-killer when the mother of all questions slammed into my mind: Why was a cop trying to rob a pawn shop in Montello, Mississippi?

  At 10:00, I switched on the neon OPEN sign and unlocked the front doors. Traffic was high that morning, and every soul who walked in wanted to talk about the robbery. Was I okay? What did it feel like? Was that carpet spot where he bled? Sheesh, what was wrong with these people? Most of them acted like I had won the lottery. One asked if I was going to write a book about it. I pointed out that it
was a small Mississippi pawn shop that the guy had tried to hold up, not the presidential motorcade. He seemed disappointed and left. Maybe he had hoped to be my agent.

  Most of them were supportive. About time somebody made a stand. Hell yes. Damn right. Just let them know if I needed any help. Yessiree. It’s been my experience that such promises are made quickly, but it still felt good to have so many townspeople make a show of concern.

  Our pastor, Richard Bowman, known affectionately around town as Brother Rick, showed up. He gave me a warm hug and told me he was praying for me. Hugh Simmons, a perennial mayoral candidate who always came up short, put in an appearance that seemed sincere enough but, ever the campaigner, Hugh pointed out that a Simmons-led Montello would be a safer place, a place where robbers and thugs would dare not tread.

  Teddy popped in and out, and was there, along with a shop full of other folks, when Mitchell, Knight, and two uniformed officers showed up with the arrest warrant. As RoboVoice had predicted, it was for first-degree murder. And while they surely had it within their discretion to handle it in low-key fashion, they chose not to. They played the drama up for all it was worth, reading me my rights, cuffing my hands behind my back while my customers gawked.

  The handcuffs infuriated Teddy. He got in Mitchell’s face. “What the hell’s the point in that? He’s not resisting you, asshole!”

  “Step out of the way, Mister Abraham,” Mitchell said, “unless you want to take a ride yourself.”

  “You’re a jack-booted, lard-ass thug, Mitchell, and I’ll see to it that you pay for this!”

  “It’s okay, Teddy,” I said. Mitchell’s face had gone blood red and it was obvious that he was a breath away from arresting Teddy, too.

  Teddy stared at him, eyes burning, but finally backed off. As they were leading me out, Teddy said, “I’m right behind you, Gray.”

  Chapter 9

  Abby sat on the other side of the thick Plexiglas, holding the visitor phone with tears pouring off her face. “Teddy’s in the lobby,” she said.

  “Thank him for coming, but there’s nothing he can do. He needs to leave before he gets thrown in here himself.”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “This is out of Charlie Langford’s league. What we need is a real lawyer.”

  “Who do I call?”

  “What was that lawyer’s name in that big murder trial a few months ago, the one where the kid killed the football coach? It was on the news for weeks.”

  “Benley, Benson, something like that,” she said.

  “Benton. Lucas Benton. Call him.”

  “Okay.” She pulled out a pen and pad and started taking notes. “Then what?”

  I leaned back in my chair and thought about it. I looked up and saw the video camera pointing down at me from the corner, and it hit me. “As soon as you leave here, before you even call Benton, go to the shop. We need yesterday’s surveillance tape. It’ll show the robbery and blow this crap out of the water.”

  “Where do I find it?”

  “Look in the little closet off the gun room. You’ll see the recorder on the top shelf, and all the tapes underneath, labeled by date.”

  “Got it.”

  “That tape is priority one, Abby.”

  I watched through the glass as she stood and left the room. Watched as she passed by the window between the outer room and the hallway. I felt so incredibly alone.

  A guard tapped me on the shoulder. “Time to go,” he said.

  Through the window where I had just watched Abby pass, I noticed a large convex security mirror mounted high on the wall. It provided a fisheye view of the hallway in both directions. To the left, I watched Abby continue down the corridor, then stop when she met a man coming toward her.

  “C’mon, buddy,” the guard said, impatience in his voice.

  I stood slowly, my eyes still on the mirror, and watched my wife fall into the arms of Bobby Knight.

  Chapter 10

  I fought desperately to forget what I had seen in the mirror, to keep my mind on more immediate problems. Lucas Benton’s arrival helped, gave me a new focus point.

  He reeked of wealth. Silk suit that hung perfectly on his lean frame. Short gray hair, probably cut by a hairdresser with a one-word name. Skin tan but not too tan. Omega watch.

  “My retainer is a hundred thousand for a murder case, and additional funds may be required. Any problem there?” he said.

  “No,” I lied.

  “Good. Let’s get out of this phone booth and into a proper room.”

  I nodded. He hung up his phone, stood, and walked over to a guard. I couldn’t hear what was said, but the guard listened, then walked away. Benton looked my way and winked. A minute or two later, that same guard appeared in my half of the room.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  I followed him out of the room, through a maze of stark white cinder-block corridors and into what looked like a small conference room. One table, three folding metal chairs. Benton was already there and seated, his briefcase open in front of him. He took out a laptop and powered it up.

  “Witnesses to the event?”

  “LungFao.”

  “LungFao?”

  “LungFao. Real name is Larry Williamson.”

  “I see. And who exactly is this ‘LungFao’?”

  “Assistant manager at my shop.”

  A small grimace flashed briefly across his face.

  “Problem?” I said.

  “You’re his boss. They’ll discredit him as a witness, paint him as hopelessly biased. Anyone else?”

  I shook my head and then told him about the surveillance video. By then, his laptop was booted up and he was taking notes on it. A real twenty-first century kind of guy. He seemed hopeful about the tape.

  “Can your wife bring it here? I’m sure we can arrange to use a TV and VCR for a few minutes.”

  “Won’t work. It’s a surveillance tape, recorded on a special VCR, and it’ll only play on that kind of machine.”

  He took more notes. “Very well. Can someone take me to your business so I can view it there?”

  “Sure thing. Abby should be back up here shortly and she can run you over to the shop.”

  I had forced myself to concentrate on the business at hand, not what I had seen in the mirror, but just saying her name brought it all back. Bobby Knight. Supposedly my friend, screwing my wife, and right in the thick of my being in this concrete room. Was this all some ploy to get rid of me so he could have her?

  “Are you all right?” Benton said.

  I snapped out of the stupor. “Sorry. Go ahead.”

  “Just a few more questions.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Erase that word from your vocabulary until this ordeal is over.” I nodded and he continued. “Had you ever seen this man before?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ask Ling Foo if he remembered seeing him?”

  “LungFao. And yes, I asked him. And no, he doesn’t recall ever seeing him.”

  More notes.

  “All right. Now I want you to take me through a blow-by-blow account of what happened. Give me every detail, no matter how trivial it may seem to you.”

  “There’s this customer named Bill Berner,” I began.

  Chapter 11

  I knew something was wrong as soon as Abby walked in. Her face was dark, cloudy. She didn’t even acknowledge Benton.

  “Please tell me you found the tape,” I said.

  “Oh, I found it.”

  I blew a long sigh of relief.

  “It’s worthless, Gray.”

  “What?” This could not be.

  “I thought I’d save some time and fast-forward the tape to the right place.”

  “And?”

  “It wouldn’t play. Just a bunch of wavy lines on the screen and the sound is mostly static.”

  “You have to play it on the surveillance VCR, you know.”

  “I know. I did.”

  I shoo
k my head. Had she sabotaged it? Screwing around is one thing, but would she go that far to get me out of the way?

  “What are the odds of that one tape going bad?” I said. “One stinking videotape that cost a dollar, and it’s a dud.”

  “None of them play.”

  “Come again?”

  “They’re all the same way. LungFao said it looked like somebody waved a big magnet around in front of the tapes and ruined them all.”

  “But how’d anybody get access to that room? It’s in the pawn room and we never let anybody back there.”

  “Maybe they broke in last night?”

  I shook my head. “No alarm last night.”

  “Got another idea?”

  I didn’t. “Abby, this is Lucas Benton. Mr. Benton, my wife, Abby.”

  They shook hands and a movie-star smile washed over his face. “So nice to meet you, Abby.”

  She smiled back, one of those charming heart-melting, libido-igniting smiles that hooked me so many years ago.

  Chapter 12

  Since I was arrested on Friday and the judge had left for the weekend by the time they got me processed into the Montello City Jail, I was afraid I’d have to wait until Monday for my arraignment, and my chance at bail. Benton declared that unacceptable and started making phone calls.

  When my allotted attorney consultation time expired, a guard escorted me to a cell dubbed “the tank.” Eleven people were in the tank when I arrived, five of whom I recognized as customers. Rasheeda Hobart headed my way as soon as the cell door clanged behind me.

  “Well, looky what we done got here, a real live pawn man,” he said, standing directly in my path. I glanced around, nodded in greeting to a couple of the others who were looking our way. Only then did I notice that the only other white man in the room was a shriveled up old man, tucked into the front left corner, snoring. I sniffed the air in that direction and immediately understood why everyone else was clustered across the room.