Pawnbroker: A Thriller (20 page)

Chapter 90

COURTYARD MARRIOTT, SUITE 135

MONTELLO, MISSISSIPPI

B
allard strode down the corridor toward the room, Docker on his right and Wainwright on his left. He didn’t like the way this thing was going, but he should’ve known better. You put rednecks in charge of sophisticated operations and this is what you got: horse shit. Piles and piles of horse fucking shit. Knight and Mitchell, two-bit clowns. Wainwright, well hell, what could you say about that weird sonofabitch? Smart fucker, but how the hell do you get so stupid as to bang a fucking old woman you’re supposed to be taking care of? While she’s in a fucking coma. Then again, reputable doctors weren’t exactly lining up for this job, now were they? Besides, Wainwright was one sonofabitch who at least shared his disgust for Mississippi. He couldn’t help but like the guy a little. Oh, and Homestead. Sure wouldn’t want to leave that fucker out of the mix. Started the whole ball of trouble on its downhill roll.

“Let me go in first,” Docker said, plugging a keycard into the lock.

Docker, Forrest Fucking Gump on steroids is what he was. Dumb bastard.

The lock’s LED glowed green and Docker opened the door and stepped inside. Ballard followed, followed by Wainwright, and walked through the small foyer and into the suite’s central room. On the left was a small bar and dining area. Straight ahead, a door opened into the bedroom. To his right were a pair of easy chairs, both empty, and a sofa. A man sat waiting on the sofa, causing Docker to pull to a halt and reach for his gun until he recognized him.

Ballard saw him and pulled up short, a look of bewilderment on his face. “What the he—”

“Sit down, Ballard,” the man said. “Now.”

Ballard’s lips drew into a tight, angry line as he sat in one of the chairs.

“I’m concerned, Ballard. You know why?”

“Look, I—”

“I’ll tell you why. I have a fortune tied up in this venture, and I’m sitting back and waiting for my investment to mature, but what I’m seeing is everything coming apart at the seams. In case you didn’t know it, you incompetent hack, it attracts attention when people die unnatural deaths in small towns. Did you know that?”

Ballard glared but didn’t answer.

“Under your leadership, we have people falling dead all over the place. Homestead, Knight, Mitchell. Then there’s Abby Bolton, freaked out and saying God knows what to God knows who.”

“Oh, she’s being taken care of, don’t you worry about that,” Ballard said.

“Then I find out you broke Bowser’s jaw? Are you out of your mind? Do you know who funds him? Do you?”

“Funds him? How would—”

“The ma-fi-a, you idiot. The Dixie freaking mafia!”

That surprised Ballard, and unsettled him a bit. Maybe he should’ve held his temper in check with that sonofabitch.

“There’s also Mexican girl running around looking for her missing brother or boyfriend or some such.”

Ballard drew a quick breath. “Oh shit,” he said softly.

“I’ve saved the best for last. You know Ray Earl Higgins, Beatrice’s not-quite-right boy?”

“Sure, h—”

“He filed a police report about a building full of dead Mexicans.”

Ballard’s face blanched. “Jesus Christ almighty.”

“I don’t even want to imagine the screw-up behind that, but you hear me and believe me, Ballard. If you don’t get this thing under control, and I mean soon, you will be held accountable. You. And Jesus Himself won’t be able to save your ass. We clear on that?”

Ballard nodded, stood, and motioned with his head for Docker and Wainwright to follow. They fell in tow.

“Hold up,” the man said. All three lurched to a stop. “The good doctor stays with me.”

“Why’s that?” Ballard said.

“Because he’s vital to the final research, Sheriff, and your subordinates haven’t fared well over the past few days. He’ll be safe with me.”

Ballard raised a finger and drew a breath to respond but the man cut him off with a raised hand.

“Get out of my sight.”

Chapter 91

B
allard felt the fire start in his ears and spread as his fury swelled. He strode hard and fast, leaving Docker trying to keep up. When he turned the corner from the corridor into the lobby, he collided with a housekeeper and her cleaning cart. As she fought to keep her balance, Ballard reached out and shoved her hard, causing her to fall backward onto the polished tile floor. The crack of her tailbone giving way was vivid in the quiet lobby.

“Get the fuck out of my way, you wetback cunt,” he said in a low and feral growl as he kept walking.

On her back, the lady immediately started screaming as she reached for her hips. Her mouth was open, her eyes wide with pain. “O Dios mio!” she wailed, again and again. Oh my God.

Ballard, still at full stride, glanced back and saw that Docker had stopped and was kneeling beside her.

“Leave that bitch alone!”

Docker looked up, said nothing, and returned his attention to the woman. Ballard spun around and stomped back toward them. Three feet away, he pulled the sap from his pocket. At two feet, he cocked his arm. As he closed the final gap, he swung hard, aiming the blow at the back of the big man’s head. Docker’s left hand shot up and caught Ballard’s wrist six inches from his head. The woman had one hand to her mouth now, stifling her own cries.

Holding Ballard’s wrist in a steel grip, Docker stood, looked down at him, and said, “Time to go.”

“Get your hand off me, you dumb fuck.”

Docker cocked his head, drew several breaths, then released him and pointed at the door. “Go.”

“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”

“Sheriff, I don’t want no trouble with you. You go on and get out of here, won’t be none.”

Ballard started backing away, rubbing his wrist. “Too late for that, Jackie boy. You already bought yourself the worst kind of trouble. The worst kind.” He turned around and sauntered toward the exit. Just as he reached the door, he turned, raised his hand in a finger gun, aimed it at Docker, and dropped the hammer.

Chapter 92

JAMES ARLINGTON RESIDENCE

2249 HART ROAD

WEST MEMPHIS, ARKANSAS

Jimmy “the Geek” Arlington glanced at the large digital clock mounted above his four computer monitors. 4:17 and change. Cripes. The sun would be coming up in forty-five minutes. Blow a poxy monkey, he hated the sun. The night was his domain, the time when his brain fired at max capacity.

Twenty-eight years old and living alone, Jimmy had grossed just shy of three hundred large in the last year. Since he paid no taxes, he netted the same amount, but it wasn’t about money. It was about being the best, a maniacal wild man, the go-to guy when a deed needed doing, and there was no turn-on quite like helping a little guy beat the system. Didn’t matter which side of the law that “system” was on. Governments. Corporations. Organized crime. They were one and the same to him, predators who squashed little people and their freedoms like bugs, and from what he had seen, it looked like Little Guy Gray Bolton had all three flavors of the system chasing his narrow ass.

He typed faster, running the race, determined to complete the mission before the first pathetic cracks of gray showed up around the edges of the window blinds. He had made a junior high blunder in setting up that cell phone spoof, and someone had noticed. Now it was all-out war. They had someone in the game, looking, chasing, trying to peek behind his doors and find out where that phone had really been, where it was now. Screw them.

It was a challenge, but while Jimmy blocked their inquiries, he also hacked together a kludge to show him a graphical map of where the enemy was in cyberspace. After that, they never had a chance. Wherever they went, Jimmy was waiting, denying them access, flipping them the old cyber-bird. Eighteen minutes later, he had the whole routine automated. His computer would watch the intruder and block his pitiful efforts from now on if need be. The game was over, and the sun had not yet shown its searing, cankerous self. Chalk one up for the Geek.

He stood and stretched just as the door burst open in a flurry of splintering wood. Two people stepped through the door, a neckless ape of a man holding the biggest criping gun Jimmy had ever seen. A slim, butt-ugly woman holding a notebook computer, open and operating.

The woman smiled and said, “You’re brilliant, Geek, a hero of mine for a long time.”

“Who are you?” Jimmy said.

“Remember the GeoComm hack?”

Jimmy’s eyes grew wide. If this was truly who he thought, she was one of the few hackers out there worthy to even challenge him. Obviously a bit too worthy. “Are you Pandora?”

She curtsied. “At your service.”

“Wow.”

“Too bad you never figured out that I wasn’t tracking the phone. I was tracking you. Now you’re going to tell me everything I want to know about that phone. You want to do it easy or hard?”

Chapter 93

I
had gone to bed without saying another word to any of them. Morning was here and the smells of breakfast filled the house. I got out of bed, stretched, and plodded my way into the kitchen.

“Morning,” Penny said, a bit tentatively.

“Hello, Penny.”

Doc, who was sitting at the table, took a sip of coffee and peered over the top of the newspaper. “You safe to be around?”

Everyone waited for my answer. I still didn’t appreciate the way they’d handled the truth about what happened to Abby in the hospital, but these people were all going light-years beyond the call. For me.

“Sorry, folks,” I said. “I lost it last night and there’s no excuse for the way I behaved. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

“Does that mean it’s safe?” Doc said with a grin.

“Yeah, it’s safe.”

Angie walked over, looked me in the eye. “Gray, I’m sorry I lied to you. I was trying to help, but I had no right to do that.” I hugged her. Penny walked over and it turned into a group hug. Doc looked up, winked, kept reading his paper.

After breakfast, we talked about how to proceed. The redline phone didn’t work after being pulled from the wall, so the final step of the prior plan never took place. Penny did, however, call Jimmy on her own phone after I stomped off. Jimmy had busted the protections they had in place and confirmed what I thought. Ballard’s call came from a cell phone that Jimmy triangulated to the Courtyard Marriott in Montello. He and his cronies obviously had a room or suite there.

“There’s something else,” Penny said. “I tried to call Jimmy this morning and couldn’t get him. I’m worried.”

“Maybe he went out.”

“Jimmy doesn’t go out.”

“Ever?”

“I’ve used him on several cases, each of which involved talking to him many times. He has never failed to answer this number. Something’s wrong.”

“What can we do? Do you even know where he lives?”

“He likes to stay anonymous, and manages to pull it off with most of his clients, but finding information is my business. I’ve never met him, but yes, I know who he is and where he lives.”

“And you want us to do what?”

“Maybe we can send Doc and Angie to check on him.”

“They might need a day or two of rest, Penny, don’t you think?”

“You calling me old?” Angie shouted from the kitchen.

“No, ma’am.”

“Then don’t worry about us,” she said, marching into the room with hands on hips.

I looked at Penny and shrugged.

“Frankie!” Angie bellowed. A minute later, he came up the hallway from his workshop.

“What are you hollering about, you old battle ax?”

She shook a fist at him. “We have another mission, old man.”

He rubbed his hands together. “Ready for briefing.”

Penny gave them his name, James Arlington, and an address in West Memphis, Arkansas, just across the Mississippi River from Memphis. A few minutes later, they were heading out the door when Doc turned around and came back in.

“I almost forgot,” he said, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out the redline phone. “Took a while, but I cobbled it back together. It works again.”

“Thanks, Doc.” I took it from him. “Sorry for the trouble.”

“No problem, my boy.” And then he was gone.

Chapter 94

D
oc and Angie had gone in her car, and Doc made it clear that we were welcome to use his truck. We got in and headed to town, where we stuck to the secondary streets until we found an unused pay phone outside a convenience store that had no customers and no clear view of the phone from inside. It was one of the new phones that accepted dollar bills, so we didn’t even have to go inside for quarters.

After a couple of minutes, Penny had the ICU nursing station on the line. She angled the handset so I could crowd in and listen. “Yes, I’m calling to check on Abby Bolton.”

“Are you a family member?”

She spoke without a hint of ethnic accent. “Yes, I’m her sister.”

“Hold, please.”

“Who’s speaking?” a new voice said, male, thick and southern.

“Ruth Sebastian. I’m Abby Bolton’s sister. Who is this?”

“This is Dr. Satterfeld, her primary in-house physician.”

“Can you tell me how she’s doing?”

“She’s stable, but she hasn’t regained consciousness yet.”

“Have you figured out exactly what’s wrong with her?”

“In cases like these, we may never know a precise cause. All we can do is wait.”

Penny covered the handset. “Anything else you want me to ask?”

“No,” I said.

“Thank you, doctor.”

*          *          *

Satterfeld hung up the phone and walked quickly away from the nurses’ station. The head nurse followed. “Doctor, may I ask—”

“No, you may not,” he snapped, and kept walking. He stepped into the restroom, splashed cold water on his face, looked in the mirror. He pulled the lever on the paper towel dispenser several times, tore off a length of brown paper towel, and dried his hands and face. He pulled a cell phone from his pocket. Dialed. Someone answered and Satterfeld said, “Okay. Last call that came into the ICU station, about three minutes ago, claimed to be her sister.”

“Very good, doctor,” came the reply. “You keep doing good, and your grandchildren will keep being okay. Got it?”

“How long is this going to go on?”

“Until I say it ain’t.”

*          *          *

Docker pressed END and dropped his phone back into his pocket. “Somebody just called and asked about the Bolton woman. Claimed to be her sister, but she ain’t got no sister.”

“I like you, Jack. You’re smart where it counts,” the man said.

Docker beamed with pride. Nobody had ever called him smart. Nobody. It felt good. “Thank you, sir.” Going to work straight for the man, and getting the hell away from Ballard, had been a good idea.

The man stood, smiled, and squeezed Docker on the shoulder as he walked by, like a proud father might do to his son. Then he pulled out his own phone and made a call.