Pawnbroker: A Thriller (11 page)

Chapter 41

G
ray was a good man, a good lover, but over time that had proven to be not enough for Abby. She didn’t set out to be a bad wife, certainly not an unfaithful one. It just happened. Bored with a comfortable but routine middle-class existence, she began to crave more. More excitement, more passion than the routine of marriage could offer.

Her evolution occurred in several stages. For many years she ignored all the flirtatious and suggestive comments that came her way. Tuned them out. A couple years ago, she started listening, but forgetting them as soon as the moment had passed. Then came the dwelling on, the fantasizing, the flushed face, the other anatomical responses. And finally, a year and a half or so ago, she decided to give it a whirl.

She didn’t have a partner in mind. Nor did she go in search of one. She simply decided one morning that she would more openly evaluate any “offers” that arose in the future. That afternoon in the pediatrician’s office, where the girls were getting medicated for a round of runny noses and low-grade fevers, the good doctor smiled a lot at Abby, and eventually leaned over and whispered in her ear the most incredibly direct come-on she had ever heard or dreamed of hearing. “I desperately want to fuck you.”

For ten seconds that felt like centuries, she said nothing, flabbergasted. By the end of the ten seconds, her body was on fire, her nipples rock hard, her panties drenched. Without considering the precipice she was stepping off and the consequences that would follow, she quietly said, “I’ll leave a message for you at the front desk of the Courtyard Marriott. Eight o’clock.”

When Gray got home from work that evening and planted himself in the family room with the girls, as he always did, she made up a story about going out to eat with some girlfriends, and went to the Courtyard. She sat in the parking lot for fifteen minutes, deciding whether she could really do it, then went inside and registered for a room under the name Dixie Duncan.

She was in the room by 7:10, having left a note for “the handsome gentleman with blond hair and a tiny mole on his left cheek” who would show up at the desk around 8:00. The note said simply “148,” her room number. In room 148, the indecision resumed, so she drank two tiny bottles of vodka from the mini-bar. As the tingle of the alcohol made its way through her body, her inhibitions melted. Yes, she would do it. In fact, she would not only do it; she would do the hell out of it.

Dr. Mark Craig knocked on the door at 8:02. She opened the door and he stepped inside. As he was pushing the door closed with his foot, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately. Her senses exploded. It felt like the first time, which had been with Gray in the back seat of his car on a dirt road outside town.

They made their way to the bed, pawing at each other’s clothes in a fit of lust. Mark was five-ten-ish, broad, firm. He shoved her backward onto the bed and straddled her, then grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her head up to his. With his other hand, he reached down and slid the crotch of her panties aside, ran three fingers roughly inside her while massaging a bit higher with his thumb.

Her first climax came within a minute, her screaming at the top of her lungs. Many more followed over the next hour. She sent Mark Craig away after that and lay in bed by herself for a few more minutes, coming to terms with what she had done. She showered, dressed, went home, professed fatigue from a long day, and went to bed.

When Gray came to bed and kissed her goodnight, she pretended to be asleep. As soon as he was asleep, she opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling for the next six hours. At five o’clock, she went to the girls’ room and stood looking at them for an hour. When the alarm clock back in the master bedroom sounded at six, she went to the kitchen and cooked breakfast.

Gray left for work at seven-fifteen, as he did most days. Abby sat at the dining room table, sipping coffee, wondering which was worse, the guilt she had felt since walking out of the hotel room the night before, or the excruciatingly boring, predictable monotony of being Mrs. Good Wife to Mr. Good Husband.

Later that day, she dialed Mark Craig’s office and made another appointment for room 148. He would be the first of three regular lovers over the next eighteen months. Bobby Knight was number three. And Bobby was also the one who presented a couple of unexpected issues to deal with. First, he turned her on to impossible pleasures, pleasures that were causing her to spin completely out of control. Second, she fell in love with him. And now, Gray knew. What else would he figure out?

Chapter 42

“I
know this is the key to something, something big, and we’re missing it,” Penny said. She was sitting at my desk behind the counter, holding up the piece of pawn ticket I’d found in Homestead’s things, rubbing it between her thumb and index finger.

Aside from the initial onslaught of the curious, shop business had been slow since the shooting. I’ve heard it’s a natural reaction after a robbery, or any other event that involves shooting. People figure if it happened once, it could happen again, and they stay away. Not all of them, but enough to put a serious dent in my business. And it was even worse this day. We had only had a handful of customers all morning.

“You know,” I said, “We checked the computer the first day to see if he had ever pawned or sold anything in here himself, and he hadn’t. But what if he used an alias? If he was some kind of undercover guy, couldn’t he have gotten a fake I.D. good enough to fool us?”

“Maybe,” LungFao said, “but I don’t remember ever seeing him before. Do you?”

“No, but we see a lot of people come through here. I sure don’t remember every one of them.”

“Hey, your computer takes a picture of each person when they pawn something, right?” Penny said.

I nodded.

“Can you set it up so I can scroll through the customer records? I believe I’d recognize him, even in disguise.”

“You bet. I can even narrow it down for you.” I did a search and pulled up a list of all black male customers. “Here you go.”

She pulled a stool up to the terminal and started clicking her way through the customer screens. After a couple of hours she was rubbing her eyes. “We need a faster way to do this. You have six thousand black males in this system.”

I shrugged. “I can narrow it down some more, by age.”

“No, if he’s using a fake identity, who knows what age it or the disguise for it would be. I undercovered a deal as a sixty-year-old woman one time.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “A grandma dealing crack?”

“You’d be surprised,” she said, not laughing.

“Hey, I just thought of something,” I said, heading for the bathroom, digging through a stack of magazines once I got there.

“What?”

“Hang on.” I held up a finger.

She walked in and stood behind me while I looked.

“This is it.” I thumbed through an issue of Computer Power User and found the article I wanted, then held it up for Penny to see. “Can we do this?”

“Face recognition software...works even with disguises.” She skimmed the article for a couple of minutes and handed it back to me. “First, you’d have to have a good picture of Johnny. I could probably get that. Then you’d have to have the software.”

“Where do we get it?”

“We can download it from the internet if you have a credit card. Looks like we can get a package that will work for a couple hundred bucks.”

I pulled out my Visa. “Let’s do it.”

Unfortunately, my card didn’t work. The monkeying with my finances and electronic existence obviously ran deep. Penny used her American Express to do the deed. By closing time we had the software downloaded and installed, and Penny had a police ID photo of Homestead. We started the process running, timed it, and calculated that it should be finished by around four A.M.

Penny wanted to go have dinner somewhere, but I didn’t have the energy. So she headed to her room at the Courtyard, the only decent hotel in town, and I made tracks for home.

Chapter 43

The tension between me and Abby at the dinner table was palpable, hanging in the air like a malignant fume. The longer we sat there picking at our food, the worse it got.

“So, are you and the investigator making any progress?” Abby said.

“Some.”

“Like what?”

“Little things, nothing major.”

“Such as?”

“Not worth talking about, Abby.”

“Fine.”

“Yeah, fine is right.”

Other than chatter between me and Julie and Mandy, or between the girls themselves, that was the extent of dinnertime dialogue at the Bolton household that fine evening.

I was teaching the girls to play Uno when a knock sounded at the door. It was Teddy. “Hey man, come on in,” I said.

He stepped inside, stopped, looked me in the eye. “I heard about your bail problem.”

“Somebody’s screwing with me bigtime, Teddy.”

“I heard about the bank. That’s some shit, Gray, but all this might not be the angle you’re thinking.”

“Meaning what?”

“Charlie Langford’s got one hell of a hard-on for you.” He gave a low whistle. “Pissing on you all over town.”

“I know, but sabotage my credit, Charlie?”

“Don’t put it past the old bastard, is all I’m saying. That old-country-lawyer crap is just that. Crap. He’s slick, and he’s mean as hell when somebody crosses him.”

“Anyway, you have one less problem on your mind, buddy.” He handed me a piece of paper. I stared down at it, unable to believe my eyes.

“I can’t let you do this,” I said.

“It’s already done. Listen, I’d like to stay and chat, but the wife’s dragging me to some idiot party out at the country club. Keep me posted.”

He clapped me on the shoulder, turned, and left. I stared at the receipt in my hand, the one showing a paid cash bond in the amount of $100,000, paid by Theodore Abraham on behalf of Grayson Bolton.

Abby walked up. “What’d he want?”

I showed her the receipt. She stared at it for a moment, rolled her eyes, and walked away.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I said. “This keeps me out of jail, in case you care.”

She stopped, turned back toward me. “Gray, I—” She froze, looked at me for a moment. “Never mind.” She walked away again, and I didn’t try to stop her.

*          *          *

A little after nine, I dialed Penny’s room.

“Hello?” she answered.

“I’m going to the shop to check the computer’s progress. Want to meet me there?”

“Sure.”

“See you in fifteen minutes.”

*          *          *

NUMBER OF MATCHES: 0 was the disappointing message found when I powered up the computer monitor. The progress bar for the search was at 48%, the machine still grinding relentlessly away at the problem. I told her what Teddy had done.

“Now, that calls for a celebration!” she said. “How about a drink?” Penny said. She was close enough for me to smell her breath; she’d already had a glass or two of wine. She had also changed clothes, replacing the smart business suit with a clingy sleeveless white shirt and snug black jeans. She looked good. It suddenly felt warm in the shop.

“Better not,” I said.

“Come on, it’ll do you good. You need to unwind.”

Really good. Really warm. “What the hell.”

*          *          *

Six beers later for me and four glasses of wine for her, we were leaving Bartholomew’s Grotto, a dark little Bohemianesque bar on the town square. We were at the silly stage, both giggling as we walked down the side of the building toward the parking lot in the rear. Also half leaning on each other. By the time we made it to my car, my arm was around her.

The giggling was over and I had a feeling the trouble phase was cranking up. I fumbled with my keys, trying to push the button on the remote to unlock the doors. Penny started trying to help and somehow we wound up nose to nose, with some serious eye contact going on. Trouble was cranked and revving her engine.

I glanced down and saw her chest rising and falling in sharp, quick breaths. Hot breaths that I could feel on my face. What the hell would it hurt? Abby had already blown the vows when she started fucking Bobby Knight. I drew a deep breath.

“Penny,” I said.

“Yes?” It was a gentle whisper.

“I can’t do this.”

“I know.” She squeezed my hand, arched on to her tiptoes, kissed me on the cheek. “You’re a good man, Gray Bolton. Go home.”

Chapter 44

A
bby lay on the bed and wailed, clutching the sides of her head with both hands as searing pain ripped through her skull. It started in the center and shot outward to her ears, cycling over and over and over.

“Mommy’s crying,” Julie said from the doorway. Mandy stood beside her, now bawling in terror herself as she stared at her mother.

“Go play!” Abby said between screams. “Go on! Get out of here!” She grabbed a pillow and threw it at them, hitting Julie and knocking her down.

Julie joined Mandy in crying as she got to her feet and the girls backed out of the room, still staring. Abby jumped up, ran to the door, and slammed it.

Back on the bed, she rolled back and forth, pressing on her ears. She looked at the clock on the nightstand. Eight minutes. Three or four more to go before it started to fade. At first the pains had been only a flash. Then a minute, then two. Each round hurt worse and lasted longer. Damn that sonofabitch Bobby Knight! Breaking her heart by dying was bad enough. Putting her through this was unforgivable.

*          *          *

I heard a commotion from the front yard, threw open the door, and ran inside. The master bedroom was at the back of the house and it all seemed to be coming from that direction. When I got there, I found Mandy and Julie standing in the hallway, crying. The noise coming from behind the closed door to the bedroom was far worse, but I first made sure the girls weren’t hurt. That done, I said, “Okay, I want you girls to go to your room. Daddy will be there in a few minutes, okay?”

“Mommy threw the pillow at me,” Julie said.

I drew a breath through clenched teeth and softly said, “You’re okay, just go to your room.”

“Okay.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Good girls.” They pattered away, and I tried the doorknob. Locked. I rapped on the door.

“Abby, open the door.”

“Go the fuck away!” Then the horrible moaning resumed.

“Open it or I’ll kick it down.”

More moans came from inside but the door remained locked. I stepped back and planted a firm foot just below the doorknob. The jamb splintered and the door swung open. Abby was on the bed, shrieking like a wild animal, squeezing her head so hard that the muscles in her forearm were bulging, trembling.

I rushed to the bed, sat down, and pulled her hands away from her head. “Abby, what’s wrong?”

“My head, you dumb bastard, my fucking head is about to explode!”

“When did this start?”

Abby suddenly started to relax, the wail tapering off into nothing. She sniffed a couple of times and said, “I’m better now.”

“Come on, let’s get you to a doctor.”

“I’m fine. I don’t need a doctor.”

“Like hell you don’t! Something’s obviously bad wrong with you. Did you throw something at the kids?”

“It was a damned pillow, and I’m not going to a doctor, you imbecile. Now please leave me the hell alone!”

The tone in her voice scared me. She looked like a stranger. Then, just as suddenly as the screaming had subsided, the worst of the animosity seemed to melt away.

“I’ve been having migraines lately, that’s all. I’m sorry for the language, but I don’t need a doctor.”

“All right, Abby. Whatever you say.” I left the room, checked on the girls, then walked outside and dialed a number on my cell phone that I hadn’t dialed in a long time.