“So what’s your idea?” Penny said.
“We let them know we have it.”
“So they’ll be even more eager to kill us?”
“Up until now, they’ve had the element of surprise at every turn. We’re going to take that from them, and hopefully, figure out who the players are in this nightmare.”
“I’m listening.”
“Let’s finish eating first, then I’ll explain. Oh, and Angie, I’m hoping I can impose on you for one more big favor.”
Chapter 82
INTENSIVE CARE UNIT
NORTHEAST MISSISSIPPI HEALTH CENTER
TUPELO, MISSISSIPPI
Dr. Belenchia left strict instructions regarding Abby Bolton. No one other than normal ICU personnel was to be allowed in her room, and to enforce that, he had an armed hospital guard posted beside her door.
He told the staff good-bye and made his way down the polished corridor to the staff elevators. On the trip down, he glanced at his watch. 10:32 A.M. Another fourteen-hour night. He rubbed his eyes and yawned as he stepped out of the elevator, then took a right through the huge revolving exit door, squinting against the sunlight as he stepped outside. He crossed the drive-through lane and stepped down into the cool darkness of the doctors’ parking garage.
He shook his head, marveling at the incredible waste he walked through every time he used this garage, past his colleagues’ Mercedes, BMWs, Porsches, and every other status symbol brand that could be imagined. His mind couldn’t get there—his eighteen-year-old Ford LTD, which he had bought shortly after finishing his internship, propelled him from A to B just fine, thank you very much. Why spend that kind of cash on something you spent an hour a day in?
He was about halfway to his car when a man sprang from behind a support column, perhaps six feet in front of him. He wore a black ski mask and was in an attack crouch, holding a knife. Belenchia had nothing but his doctor’s bag.
“What do you want?” Belenchia said.
The man lunged, but Belenchia sidestepped him and stuck his foot out. The attacker tripped over Belenchia’s foot and fell face forward. When he hit the concrete, Belenchia took a two-hand grip on his bag and swung it as hard as he could. It connected solidly, hammering the thug’s head against the floor.
Belenchia ran for his car, not looking back until he reached it. The guy was no more than ten yards away, coming fast. Just as Belenchia got the driver’s door open, the attacker reached the back of the car. His nose and mouth were pouring blood through the openings in the mask.
“I was only supposed to bang you up a bit. Now I’m gonna kill you, cracker.” He pulled a small pistol from his waistband.
“What do you want?” Belenchia was slowly pushing the door shut so he could get on the front side of it for cover, but the pistol fired before he could get down. The first shot went wild, and the thug moved closer. Belenchia was dropping down when his right shoulder exploded with searing pain. He never even heard the shot. He looked down and saw a tiny hole in the center of a large bloody circle on his lab coat.
He fell to the concrete floor, saw the sneakers coming closer. God, forgive me for my many sins, he began to pray.
Chapter 83
At fifteen past noon, Angie finally turned into the driveway. I paced Doc’s labyrinth in the living room, waiting for her to get inside.
“Did you do it?” I said the moment she stepped through the doorway.
“Of course I did. Now you calm down before you wind up in a hospital yourself.”
Angie had agreed to go into town and call the hospital from a pay phone, pretending to be Abby’s aunt. “Tell me what they said. Did you talk to her doctor?”
“Doctor Belenki, or however you say it, is now in the intensive care himself.”
“I know, he has several patients there, including Abby. What’d he say?”
“No, Gray, he’s a patient.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He was shot this morning by a mugger, in the parking garage right there at the hospital.”
My intestines twisted into knots. I looked over at Penny; she was thinking the same thing. “Angie, please tell me my wife’s still alive.”
“Oh, she is. I talked to the head intensive care nurse.”
“Tell me what she said.”
“Abby is improving. They think she had a reaction to some medicine, but they say she’s stabilizing and looking better, at least physically.”
“Thank God, thank God, thank God. What else?”
“She’s not out of danger, but they upgraded her from critical to stable. She’s still unconscious, but they insisted that this is not unusual in cases like these.”
“Is it a coma?”
“No, I specifically asked them that. They said it wasn’t a coma, and they’re confident she’ll wake up.”
I walked over to Angie and hugged her. “Thanks so much for doing this.”
“Don’t be silly. No thanks needed.”
“Did they say anything else about what happened to the doctor? Were they sure it was a mugging?”
“No, that was the only information they had. He’s in bad shape, though. They’re not sure he’ll make it.”
* * *
“Where’s Gray?” Angie said quietly to Penny.
“In the computer room with Doc. You want me to go get him?”
“No, I just wanted to be sure he doesn’t hear me. I didn’t tell him the whole truth about what I found out. I just couldn’t see upsetting him any more than he already is, poor thing.”
“What didn’t you tell him?”
“It wasn’t an allergic reaction. It was an overdose.”
“She tried to kill herself?”
“No. When she was over in the mental health center, some policeman went in her room to question her, and they think he put truth serum in her IV, so much of it that her heart stopped beating.”
“What are they doing to protect her?”
“They have a guard outside her room. Dr. Belenki gave that order just a little while before he was attacked.”
“What about her condition? Is she really doing better?”
“Oh, yes, that part was all true. Do you think I did right by lying to Gray?”
“Absolutely, Angie. Sometimes we have to lie.”
Chapter 84
COURTYARD MARRIOTT, SUITE 135
MONTELLO, MISSISSIPPI
Jack Docker sat alone in the suite’s outer room, smoking a Camel, waiting for the meeting to end. This whole affair was beginning to make him nervous. He had worked as hired security for various “businessmen” over the past ten years, but he had never seen so many people so wound up and jacked up over a product. Made sense, he supposed, given the dollar amounts they were tossing around, but it still made him uneasy. Docker also knew Ballard wasn’t really the head man; he put on a convincing front, and yeah, he was one mean psycho and he kept order in the ranks, but there was someone else above him. Docker had noticed the quiet phone calls, after which Ballard’s mood often shifted. Before a call, he could be on top of the world, Ricky Bad-Ass Ballard, then afterward get all quiet, with maybe even a touch of fear. Yep, there was somebody else.
For the past two months, Docker had been attending these weekly meetings where he sat in a room with a bunch of “sub-distributors” and “territory managers.” What the hell was the drug business coming to? Docker was old school, a man from a simpler time who felt out of his element. Ballard said he was going to make enough money in one year to retire and live out his life, and he promised to take Docker along for the ride. Sounded nice, but Docker wasn’t holding his breath. Dreaming was fine, but nothing in his life had ever been easy and he didn’t expect that to change anytime soon.
If it happened, it happened, but until then he’d go right on kicking much ass and taking many names. He had one ass in particular on his mind. That hock-shop bastard had made a mess of Docker’s crew in the hospital, a mess that Docker was forced to clean up. Even wo
rse, it embarrassed the hell out of him, and that was not the kind of thing Jack Docker could live with.
Chapter 85
The more we talked, the more involved Doc and Angie insisted on being. Penny and I resisted, but over a period of several hours, they wore us down. I still didn’t like putting them at risk, but there were certainly advantages to having new players, even marginally geriatric ones.
I had finally convinced Penny to give up on the possibility that the people who were after us weren’t related to the drug angle, that they were just after the Discman and its futuristic technology. It was all related.
At my request, Doc kept researching what we were now calling CBS, Cooked Brain Syndrome. He turned up a few more cases, all very recent, and all without explanation as to cause. No mention of a red ring in the victims’ eyes, but then again, all the victims were dead. That ring had a distinctly living look about it and I was sure it faded away when the person died.
After floating different ideas all afternoon, we had a plan that felt good. Angie cooked another big meal and we all gathered round the table.
“Angie, this pot roast is delicious,” I said.
“Ummm-hmmm,” Penny agreed.
“Unique flavor, don’t you think?” Doc said.
Angie smiled, said nothing. Something about that smile gave me pause.
“What do you season it with?” I said.
“Oh, the normal spices. Salt, pepper, a wee sprinkle of garlic, a few other things. I call it Freddy Delight.”
“That’s a weird na—” I froze with my fork halfway to my mouth, and my stomach turned over. Penny had missed the Freezer Freddy discussion earlier, and kept eating.
Doc didn’t seem bothered. I stared at Angie. She stared back, and finally deadpanned, “I hate waste, Gray.” She stabbed a big chunk of meat from her plate and inhaled it in one mighty gulp. I eased my fork back down, fighting the urge to puke all over the table. Suddenly she burst out laughing. “Gotcha!”
Chapter 86
We hatched the plan after I finally looked through the stack of messages I had grabbed from the shop and saw a number of calls from Jack Docker. Each of his slips contained a phone number, and the PLEASE CALL and URGENT boxes were ticked. They were getting antsy.
After going over their instructions one more time, we said good-bye to Doc and Angie, and watched them leave in the pre-dawn darkness. The plan was simple: Drive to Jackson, buy two prepaid cell phones. Call us, give us the number to one of them, designated the redline, and set that phone aside. Cross over into Alabama, call Docker and issue the instructions we gave them, then ditch that phone and head home.
If the enemy had the resources to find out where cellular calls originated, and we had to assume they did, the call-from-the-road approach would provide no trace back to us and our location. More importantly, we were hoping they would call us back, and that this would give us a path back to their location via Jimmy’s wizardry. I was sure Ballard was the ringleader, but I also doubted he was running a high-stakes enterprise like this right from the sheriff’s office.
Angie called mid-morning. As arranged, the conversation was brief: She gave us the number for the redline phone they’d be bringing home and hung up. Penny used the prepaid phone we had bought in Tupelo and gave the redline number to Jimmy.
“Now we wait,” she said.
Chapter 87
INTENSIVE CARE UNIT
NORTHEAST MISSISSIPPI HEALTH CENTER
TUPELO, MISSISSIPPI
Abby strained to break the gluey crud that held her eyelids shut. One came open, then the other, and she immediately closed them again to blot out the searing white light above her. She turned her head to the side and tried again. Still bright, but bearable. A series of touch switches lined the bedrail beside her and one said “Room Light.” With great effort over what seemed like a long time, she raised her hand and pushed the button. The overhead light went off, leaving the room dark except for some soft indirect lighting in a valance above her bed.
Where was she? How did she get here, and how long had she been here? She fought to remember, came up blank. Her vision was blurry but improving. Among the buttons on the bedrail was one that said “Nurse.” Maybe she should push it. No, not yet. Best to let her head clear some more. She pushed another button and the head of her bed raised with a quiet whir. As the bed came up, so did the level of pain in her head; she lowered it back to a slight incline, then looked down at herself.
Two IV lines ran into her right arm, one on the back of her hand and another near the inside of her elbow. Her left arm was free and she raised her hand to her face, close enough to read the information on the plastic ID wristband. Northeast Mississippi Health Center. She was in Tupelo. It also said ICU. She was in Intensive Care? What had happened to her? Was she dying? Where was Gray? Oh, Gray, Gray, Gray, she needed Gray.
She suddenly felt afraid and terribly alone. Her eyes filled with tears, and through swimmy vision she found and pressed the Nurse button. A starched and pressed woman appeared quickly. “Well well well, look who’s awake! How are you feeling, Ms. Bolton?”
“Why am I here? What’s wrong with me? Where’s—”
“Whoa, one at a time. You’re here because you’ve been quite sick. We’ll wait on the doctor to discuss your different health issues.”
Health issues? She had summoned a walking textbook. “Where’s my husband? I need him. His name’s Gray Bolton. Is he here?”
“Uh, no ma’am, no one’s here right now.”
“Did he say where he was going? How long has he been gone?”
She saw Nurse Happy’s face change from a fleshy ball of cheer to reluctance, the face of a woman who didn’t know quite how to answer a tough question.
“He has been here, right?”
“I need to go notify the doctor that you’re awake, Ms. Bolton. I’m sure he’ll be in to see you shortly, probably early this afternoon.”
“Has my husband been here?”
“I’m sure he’ll be here soon. I really have to go now.” The nurse left.
Gray hadn’t even been here? No, that much was obvious. Where was he? What had happened to her? She turned her head to the side and sobbed into her pillow.
Chapter 88
Jimmy’s call came at nine that evening. The research was done, and Penny took notes as he talked. The work on the redline phone’s number was ready—no calls to it or from it could be traced back to us. It would show up as a phone in a randomly alternating false location comfortably distant from Montello. Even better, he assured us he could trace the phone on the other end of any call made to the redline phone. He reminded us that while he was all for helping the little guy fight The Man, expenses were mounting on his end and would need to be paid. Penny assured him he’d be taken care of, and Jimmy the Geek seemed good with that.
An hour later, Doc and Angie showed up, tired but obviously pleased with themselves. “Mission complete,” Angie said with a quick salute.
“Good job, guys.”
Penny checked her watch. “Little under two hours till midnight.”
“As exciting as all this is,” Angie said, “we old folks are about tuckered out. We’re going to call it a night. You can fill us in at breakfast.”
We hugged both of them, thanked them some more, and said good-night.
“You sure this thing Jimmy did will work?” I said.
“He’s never failed me yet.”
“What does Jimmy look like?”
“Never met him.”
“But you trust him?”
“Nobody sees him, Gray. He’s a phantom, operates either online or via phone, period.”
For some reason, that really bothered me. I loved the internet as much as the next guy, but when it comes to matters of life or death, particularly mine, I much prefer to look my associates in the eye.
“I don’t like that.”
“You know someone else we can call to get these things done, I’m all for it.”
She stuck her tongue out at me, and it reminded me of a time when Abby and I played back and forth like that.
At two minutes past midnight, the redline phone rang. I picked it up from the coffee table, checked the caller ID. Out Of Area. Penny clicked the START button on a digital stopwatch Doc and Angie had picked up in Jackson, and I answered the phone.
“Yes?”
“Bolton?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Bite me, you silly fuck.” Docker.
“Tell you what, Jack, you’re about rude. Put your boss on the line.”
“He ain’t in.”
“Bullshit. The deal was for him to call, not his butt boy. If the boss isn’t talking to me by the count of three, I’m hanging up. One...”
Chapter 89
“Bolton?” RoboVoice said.
“What is it you so urgently need to talk to me about?” I said, assuming all the pink slip messages from Docker were really from this guy, Docker’s boss. If I was right, Ballard was that boss.
“You have something that belongs to me.”
“You know what they say, possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
“Be smart. Give it back.”
“Maybe I’ll just show it to the cops.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure you will.”
“Oh gee,” I said. “I forgot. You are the law. Isn’t that what your badge says, Ballard?” Silence. After a few seconds, I continued. “What I can do, though, is take it to the press. They’d be very interested in this new technology.”
“You’re out of your league.” I thought I could hear the snarling hatred even through the techno-disguise.
Pawnbroker: A Thriller Page 16