Pawnbroker: A Thriller

by Jerry Hatchett

  Three or four of the other units acknowledged her request. I held the pedal down until we cleared Montello County, then backed it down to sixty and set the cruise. Five minutes later, I saw the first vehicle headed our way, meeting us, a black SUV. When we were a quarter-mile apart, our radar gun beeped and clocked him at 92 MPH. He didn’t seem concerned, since he never slowed down as it went by in a blur.

  “Hey, did you—” Penny said.

  “Yeah, I saw him.” It was Docker. I checked the mirror; he was still shagging in the other direction. He hadn’t seen us. But I was sick of this running.

  “Call Jimmy,” I said. “See if we can safely use the redline phone again.”

  “For what?”

  “I’m going to propose a deal.”

  “You think maybe we should discuss this first?”

  “No, I’m tired of running. I’m going to set up a deal.”

  “A deal? They can’t be trusted, Gray.”

  “I know.”

  Chapter 101

  I called Docker and told him I wanted to talk to Ballard. He must’ve covered the phone, because I could hear him saying something to someone but it was muffled.

  “I think we’ve played enough games,” RoboVoice said. “I want my property back.”

  “Why are we playing the voice disguise game again, Ballard?” I said.

  A pause. Something was wrong.

  I said, “Put Ballard on the line or this conversation is over.”

  “You want to talk to Ballard, or you want to talk to the man in charge?”

  This changed everything, but I could worry about that later. I was ready to move forward. “What’s it worth to you?” I said.

  “I have the power to make your life go back to the way it was.”

  “You can get the charges against me dropped, all of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “And me and my family are left alone, forever.”

  “Keep your mouth shut and you’ll never hear from me or my people again.”

  “What proof do I have that you’ll keep your word?”

  “As a show of good faith, all the ancillary charges—fleeing the jurisdiction, assault, manslaughter—all these will be gone by noon tomorrow. Only the murder charge will remain. After we meet and you deliver the item, that one will be taken care of as well.”

  “And how am I to be compensated for the vast inconvenience I’ve already suffered?”

  Silence.

  “Still there?” I said.

  “I presume you’re now wanting money, Mr. Bolton?”

  “You’re sharp.”

  “Do you have a figure in mind?”

  “Yes, a million.”

  A sigh. “Very well, Mr. Bolton. Is there anything else? And before you answer, let me offer a bit of advice: Greed is a dangerous thing.”

  “Nothing else.”

  “When would you like to meet?”

  “Tomorrow night, ten o’clock.”

  “Where?”

  “Give me your direct number and I’ll call you.”

  He hesitated for a moment, then called out a number. Penny wrote it down. I hung up.

  “If that wasn’t Ballard,” she said, “who was it?”

  I thought it over. “This is obviously bigger than Ballard.”

  “But who?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”

  “Speaking of a million bucks, where did that demand come from?”

  “I just wanted to see how he’d react.”

  “And what’s your reaction to his reaction?”

  “He intends to kill us.”

  I handed her the phone. “We need to check on Doc and Angie.”

  “Oh my gosh, I’d forgotten all about them,” she said. “They should’ve been to Jimmy’s long ago, and I know he would’ve mentioned it if a crazy pair of seniors showed up to check on him.”

  I hadn’t forgotten at all; we just hadn’t had time to deal with it. I was worried sick about them. They were feisty, but they were also vulnerable and I was feeling guiltier all the time for involving them. “I know. See if you can reach them.”

  She dialed. Over and over, she dialed. The call wouldn’t go through. Not good. “What now?” she said.

  “Call Jimmy and ask him to call us if they show. In the meantime, we need to figure out where we’re going ourselves. Any ideas?”

  She chewed her lip for a bit and dialed another number. “Penny Lane for Lucas, please.” After a few seconds’ wait, a brief conversation ensued, and she ended the call and turned to me. “You know where Pickwick is?”

  “Sure.”

  “Head that way. We’ll use Lucas’s cabin.”

  “You sure we can trust him, Penny?”

  “Yes. He’s a prick but he also knows I have too much on him.”

  “He might decide it’s too risky to have you holding that knowledge over his head.”

  “What’s he going to do, kill me?”

  She laughed. I didn’t. A couple of weeks ago, maybe. Now, no way. Any notions I’d had about the basic goodness of man were long gone.

  * * *

  When I think “cabin,” I think small, rustic, basic. Lucas Benton obviously thought differently. Tucked away in the woods at the end of an offshoot of Pickwick Lake, the place was visible only from the water, and it was incredible. At least ten thousand square feet, and there was nothing rustic or basic about it. It was a luxurious spread fit for royalty, which Lucas probably considered himself to be.

  “Now this is my kind of hideout,” I said as I walked around inside and gawked.

  “Nice, huh?”

  “You’ve been here before?”

  “Yeah, he throws a big shindig up here every year. Spends some ludicrous amount of money, has a guest list that’d blow your mind.”

  “And you’re invited?”

  “Not as a guest. I’ve been in charge of security the past two years. Last year, three governors were here, Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana. Several U.S. senators, too many congressmen to count.”

  “Unreal.”

  “Real sickening is what it is.”

  “How so?”

  “You see things like this, you find out the Good Old Boy culture is still alive and well. Follow me.”

  She headed up a spiral staircase that wound its way up through the middle of the house, past three floors, and ended at a huge redwood deck on top of the house. The vista was breathtaking, the blue water of the lake spread out in front, lush hardwoods nestled up against the other three sides.

  She tried to reach Doc and Angie again. No luck.

  “Tell me more about the good old boys.”

  “You know who Senator Metcalf is?”

  “Why, of course I do, my dear,” I said in my grandest Southern accent.

  She smiled. “Not bad. When you think of him, what do you think of?”

  “Family values, that’s what I’m about, honey. F-A-M-I-L-Y is one thing Thurston Metcalf will never abandon!” I finished the famous sound byte by sticking out my chin in a pompous pose.

  “Right. I’m all for the message, even believed the guy, voted for him twice,” she said. “Then he and his wife show up here. She dives into the sauce and within two hours she’s so wasted that they carry her upstairs and put her to bed. Ten minutes later, the good senator comes back down. He walks right by me, and Gray, he has cocaine still in his moustache.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Oh, that’s nothing. He backs me into a corner and tells me how he’d like to work personally with me on improving race relations, and then the old bastard runs his hand down my pants, forcibly holds me against the wall and tries to feel me up. I finally push him off, and he calls me a nigger bitch and storms off. Within an hour he’s walking around with a woman on each arm.”

  “Good grief. What’d you do about it?”

  “Nothing. I like my job, I wasn’t hurt, so I forgot it and moved on. That’s reality.”

  �
��Shouldn’t be.”

  “Maybe not, but it is.”

  “And he just did all this in front of the other guests?”

  She laughed. “Believe me, the good senator fit right in with the rest of the guests. What happens among this circle, stays in this circle. Democrat. Republican. Black. White. Doesn’t matter. Like I already told you, it’s the haves and the have-nots, and you can bank that, Mr. Bolton.”

  I was about to answer when the redline phone rang.

  Chapter 102

  Away from the light pollution, the sky was a gorgeous indigo canvas pricked with a million points of light. The view was to the east, and a full moon was just beginning its climb into the sky.

  If Abby recovered, what of our marriage? I tried to imagine sitting in some counselor’s office, describing our problems. Well, Doc, she liked to go to motels and be gang-banged, and I have a problem with that. How does it make me feel, you say? Hmmm. Can I get back to you on that?

  If she didn’t, where would she stay, in some nursing home where I’d go visit her once a week? Brush her hair, shave her legs. Maybe there’d be a roommate who wasn’t comatose but should be, some three-hundred-year-old woman who pissed the bed and rubbed shit on the walls and thought I was the ghost of her dearly departed husband, Abner. Maybe I’d take Julie and Mandy with me, and for the first few years they’d want to know when Mommy was waking up, and then they’d want to know why Mommy’s room smelled so bad, and what was that brown stuff on the walls. Maybe not.

  I heard footsteps and turned around to see Penny walking up behind me. She was in a white bathrobe, wet hair. She stood beside me and I put my arm around her. Yes, she was beautiful and sexy and there was some dangerous chemistry there, but at that moment, I just needed a friend. Maybe she did, too, because we stood there at least an hour, me holding her tight against me in the cool night breeze.

  Chapter 103

  The redline phone rang at 11:18 P.M. “Hello?” I said.

  “Gray!”

  “Doc?”

  “Who else would it be?”

  “We’ve been trying to call you all day!”

  “You can thank the old battle ax for that. She had our phone stuffed down in that junk heap she calls a purse, and it got turned off. Owww! She punched me, Gray.”

  “Jimmy said you never got there.”

  “Car broke down. We lucked up and found a mechanic who finally got us going. We’re heading on over to West Memphis now.”

  “No, no, don’t do that. Jimmy’s fine. We talked to him.”

  “Well, ain’t that a kick in the head.”

  “You can’t go home either, though. There’s been some trouble and there might be people waiting there. As soon as we hang up, turn your phone off and remove the battery so they can’t track you, and go somewhere and hole up. Don’t tell us where, and don’t try to contact us. Day after tomorrow, turn your phone on at eight in the morning. Hopefully this will all be over by then, and we’ll call you.”

  “Whatever you say, my boy. Sure we can’t help out in the meantime?”

  “Thanks, I’m sure. Talk to you then.” I hung up and turned to Penny. “Let’s get some sleep.”

  Chapter 104

  Ray Earl pointed the remote and pressed PAUSE. His TiVo was the best present he got last Christmas. No. It was the best present he got in his whole life, ever. He should probably call Mama and thank her for it again. He picked up the phone, dialed the first three numbers, then laid it back down. He could do that later. Right now he had a crime to solve, and there was only one way to do it. He had watched twenty-seven episodes of CSI to be sure, and now he was. When Gil Grissom couldn’t figure things out, he went back to the crime scene.

  In the small utility shed that served as Ray Earl’s garage, he meticulously stowed everything he might need in his backpack: flashlight, notebook and two pens, three double packs of Reese’s, a hammer, his cell phone, a half-dozen paper bags (for evidence), and a monstrous roll of duct tape. He checked the air in the tires and backed out. After one last provisions check, Ray Earl straddled his bicycle and pedaled away.

  * * *

  Ballard reached to the driver-side AC control and cranked the Escalade’s temperature setting as low as it would go, then did the same for the passenger and rear controls. Fucking Mississippi. Hicks, heat, and humidity, three things you could always count on in this backward-ass joke of a place. He should’ve stayed the hell in Canada. Better climate. Better people. Maybe he’d go back. He was damn sure fed up with this whole affair. Yeah, some mistakes had been made. Shit happens. But mistakes could be fixed, and if they thought they were going to cut him out of this payday, well, they’d need to think again.

  He killed the lights and turned into the driveway, slowly, to minimize the crunch of tires on gravel. The tiny duplex was dark. A sign in the yard said “Left Side For Rent” and gave a phone number. Perfect. The right side would be available shortly, as well. The driveway ran alongside the right side of the crackerbox and extended all the way back to a small utility shed. A tall, unkept row of hedges walled in the backyard. Perfect again. He turned left and pulled completely behind the house, then switched off the engine, got out, and quietly shut the door. Time to start fixing mistakes.

  The back door was old, wood, with a grid of glass panes up top. Ballard rapped against the glass, quietly at first. Then louder. And louder. Patience expired, he pulled his lead-and-leather sap and gave the lower right glass a controlled jab. It cracked. He worked the pieces out of the old frame, reached in, and unlocked the door.

  The little apartment was clean and neat. Everything was straight, organized. Ballard figured Ray Earl’s mother came by and kept the place up. Or maybe the weird-ass retard did it himself. Who gave a shit? It took about fifteen seconds to figure out Ray Earl wasn’t home. Where the hell was that goofy bastard at this time of night? He walked out and got back into his vehicle, then cranked up and headed toward Beatrice Higgins’s house.

  “Sonofabitch,” he groused to himself when he turned onto her block and saw a multitude of cars parked along the street. The house across the street was lit up, with people milling around in the front yard. He drove by slowly and saw that the people in the yard were teenagers. Of all the nights for somebody to have a damn party. A couple of the kids waved. He shook his head and hit the gas.

  A block away, he pounded the steering wheel when he remembered that Ray Earl had said somebody was with him when he found the old work camp. Who was that redneck the retard always ran with? He had it on the tip of his tongue. Shelton? Simmons? It hit him: Shackleford. Rocky Damn Shackleford. Dumber than a box of rocks, which is probably why his best friend was a retard. That’s where Ray Earl would be, and Ballard would eliminate two problems at once. Perfect.

  Chapter 105

  I dropped into the sleep zone sometime between my head touching the pillow and drawing my next breath, but the slumber turned fitful, a Pink Floydian collage of crazy dreams that made me twist and turn and sweat in the big comfortable bed. I was back on the deck, looking out at a blue lake from which living funnels reached up, reached out, reaching for me. Somewhere in the distance I heard a woman moaning in what could only be described as orgasmic ecstasy.

  The visuals of the dream shifted, changed channels, but the soundtrack remained the same, until I finally realized the sound wasn’t just in my dream. It was coming from the next room. I got out of bed and headed toward the noise. By the time I made it into the hallway, it was obvious that it was coming from Penny’s room.

  I stepped into the room and shook my head, thinking I must surely still be asleep. She was on the bed, sitting up, back against the headboard. Her head was tilted back, eyes closed, as she screamed in an orgasmic fit. For good reason. Stark naked. Legs spread wide. She was doing herself with a shampoo bottle, a big one, writhing around it as she continued to come.

  Now my own body was heating up. I thought I had gotten beyond this lust issue with Penny, but with this show going on, Harry John
son wanted to come out and play. My intellect was still in control, but the advantage was slipping quickly into Harry’s corner.

  I said, “Penny! What the hell are you doing?”

  Then I noticed that she had headphones on. Maybe she wasn’t aware of how loud she was. If that was the case, she’d freak out when she opened her eyes and saw me standing there gawking at her. Or worse, maybe she wouldn’t.

  I stepped back out of the room and eased the door shut, then started knocking on it. More animal moans. I knocked harder. Harder. I opened the door and stepped back in. No change, and she was starting to scare me. “Penny!” I screamed.

  She kept moving, getting her money’s worth and more out of the shampoo bottle, but she did stop moaning. I walked over to the bed, grabbed her ankle, shook it a little. “Penny!”

  This time she opened her eyes and looked right at me with those light brown beauties. “Oh, dear God,” I said. Each eye had a bright red ring around the iris.

  Chapter 106

  COURTYARD MARRIOTT, SUITE 135

  MONTELLO, MISSISSIPPI

  “I have a very special assignment for you,” the man said to Docker, “and there’s a considerable bonus involved. Interested?”

  “Sure, Boss.”

  “Are you familiar with...” He pulled a slip of paper from his shirt pocket and looked at it. “...a place called Tombigbee State Park?”

  “Yeah, it’s outside Tupelo.”

  “There are apparently a number of rental cabins at this park?”

  “A few, yeah.”

  “I want you to go there, right now.”

  Docker nodded, listening carefully.

  “There are three troublemakers in cabin number four. I want you to bring them to me. Don’t hurt them, just bring them, and be sure they don’t make a fuss. This needs to be handled delicately. Can you handle that?”