Pawnbroker: A Thriller (25 page)

Chapter 114

I
woke to the smell of coffee and found Penny in the kitchen. The clock said 8:20. Exhausted though I was, all I could do was stare at the ceiling and dream of those headphones. I fantasized of having two sets, one for me, one for Penny, what sex would be like while under. It was unimaginable. Three sets: Abby, Penny, me. Yes, sir. Gray Bolton, alpha male he-monkey stud.

My rational essence would kick in every now and then and pull me out of the reverie and into horrible guilt for even thinking such thoughts while my wife lay comatose in the hospital, but before long I would inevitably drift right back into the fantasy. The pull, the craving to go back to that wondrous place, was beyond words. If other drugs had this kind of hold over people, God help the junkies of the world.

“You still think about what it was like?” I said.

She poured another cup of coffee, slid it across the granite counter to me.

“Do you?” I asked again.

“Can’t think of anything else. Didn’t sleep. At all.”

“I tried weed years ago, but that’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Does coke and stuff have this kind of hold over you?”

“What makes you think I was a junkie? Think that about all black women?” Her tone was defensive, biting, totally out of character.

“No, Penny, I don’t. You mentioned using before. That’s the only reason I asked. And don’t even start a bunch of black-white nonsense. I’m not a racist and you damn well know it.”

She drew a quick breath, eyes flaring, then put her fingers to her temples and exhaled. “I’m sorry, Gray. Really, I am.” Tears welled in her eyes, her bottom lip quivered.

I took her by the shoulders, looked into her eyes. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. What’s wrong?”

She sobbed, buried her face in my chest, and I held her tight until she stopped. She refilled her coffee, turned back to me. “After Jason died, I did it all. Coke. Heroin. Crack. Crystal. Hit bottom, took two years to straighten myself out and start living again. Hard, hard times.”

“But you made it, Penny. You made it.”

“Yeah, I know. I thank God every day for seeing me through. But doing that last night brought it all back home. It hurts.”

“I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

“Gray, we have to stop this thing before it gets out there. We have to. I have a confession. I did it again last night. Ran the battery down, or the fuel cell or whatever that thing in it is.”

My first reaction was anger, but it faded quickly. I had come close to doing the same thing about a thousand times. Then I wondered if she had another wild sexual ride with herself, and if so, why I hadn’t heard it.

As if she’d read my mind, she said, “Upstairs, other end of the house, the master bedroom.”

I nodded.

“If you think the craving is bad after once, you ought to feel it after the second. Nothing comes close. Not heroin, not crack, nothing. Once somebody uses this thing a few times, they’ll do anything to get more. As bad as other drugs are, they don’t compare. You’ll have doctors and lawyers killing people to get it, cops, whoever. Picture ten million Johnny Homesteads running around. We have to stop it.”

Chapter 115

INTENSIVE CARE UNIT

NORTHEAST MISSISSIPPI HEALTH CENTER

TUPELO, MISSISSIPPI

A
bby’s thinking continued to clear and was approaching normal. With the lucidity, however, had come the realization that something was very wrong. First, there was still no word from Gray. Mad or not, he was the ultimate responsible husband and he would not have abandoned her. Second, this Dr. Satterfeld was acting weird. Wouldn’t let her make phone calls. Every time she tried to walk outside the room, he had her put in restraints.

She had spent the past twenty-four hours trying to convince someone, anyone, to help her. Now she was close, almost certain that the head nurse on the day shift, Margaret Lumford, believed her. Abby had seen the puzzled looks on her face around Satterfeld, when Satterfeld wasn’t looking, that is. And Margaret was coming in the room right now.

“How are you, dear?” Margaret said, a textbook image of a nurse in her crisp whites, warm smile on her face.

“Margaret, you have to help me.”

The smile faded. “I could get in trouble, Ms. Bolton.”

“For what, helping a patient in trouble? Isn’t that what your job’s about?”

“In theory, yes. In reality, piss off a doctor and you’ve pissed off the gods in a hospital.”

“I just want you to make a phone call.”

“To whom?”

“First, my husband, though he probably won’t answer. He would’ve been here if something wasn’t wrong. I’ll give you two numbers, home and work. If you can’t reach him at either, then my father-in-law.”

“What about your own parents?”

“Dead. Gray’s dad is like a father to me, too.” Abby thought back however many days it was, and remembered how angry she’d been with him for helping get the order to commit her. Now, with the effects of that thing finally letting go, she understood.

Margaret sighed, and pulled a pen and small notebook from her pocket. “Give me the numbers.”

Abby gave her the information, took Margaret’s hand, squeezed. “Thank you.”

“I’ll make the calls during my lunch break at one o’clock.” She left the room.

Tears welled in Abby’s eyes, blurring the ceiling above her. God, how did she let herself get so screwed up? Good husband. Beautiful kids. A life most women would kill for. And she’d acted like pure trash, in too many ways. Abby Bolton had a lot of atoning to do. She hoped Gray would give her the chance to do it.

Chapter 116

COURTYARD MARRIOTT, SUITE 135

TUPELO, MISSISSIPPI

“Do you realize the gravity of what you’ve done?” said Grayson Bolton, Sr.

“It’s called kidnapping,” the man said. “Any more questions?”

“Why?”

“Your son has something I want. Now I have something he wants.”

“No. Why are you, of all people, involved in something like this, a total abandonment of law and order?”

“Money, your honor. Lots and lots of money.”

Judge Bolton—his courtroom experiences had long since immunized him against being shocked at the things people would do—stared at him in naked disgust.

“What did you think, I’m interested only in the public good, or some other quaint, obsolete notion?” He laughed. “This is the twenty-first century. You’re a dinosaur, Judge.”

“You sicken me.”

“You know, I might have a place in my organization for a man like you. You’re quite influential at the regional level.”

Bolton’s first instinct was to tell him to go straight to hell, but he held short. His granddaughters were in the next room. Whatever game he needed to play for their sake, he would. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t know what it would entail yet. And I think you’re far too intelligent to blindly refuse an offer, your honor.”

Bolton didn’t answer.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to have the money to travel at will during your retirement? To have your granddaughters’ financial futures secured before they reached the age of ten?”

Bolton sat silently, feigning consideration of what was being said.

“I’ll let you talk to Gray in a little while. Tell him to show up tonight, play ball, and go quietly back to his life. In a few days, you and I will talk again.”

*          *          *

The man stood, smiled at Bolton, and left the room. Docker stood in the corridor outside the door. “Jack, if that old man touches the door or the phone, kill him. Quietly, and don’t let the kids know.”

Chapter 117

A
fter a three-hour strategy session, I was as confident in our plan as possible, given that it entailed a pawnbroker and an ex-cop taking on what I assumed to be a drug cartel with a police infrastructure. RoboVoice had insisted on changing the position of the rendezvous a bit, but I couldn’t see how that could affect us and I went along with it.

As bad as I hated to involve anyone else, we needed a fail-safe, someone to call in the cavalry if we didn’t come through as planned. There had to be some good police left, and if we didn’t make it through at all, someone needed to at least tell the press as a last resort.

Teddy listened in stunned silence as I told him the major elements of what we had learned over the past two days. “Where are you?” he said. “I’ll come right now!”

“No. Here’s what I need you to do.” I looked at the navigation charts spread out before me and told him where to meet us that night, and who to call if we didn’t show by eleven o’clock. He offered again to come help—almost pleaded—and once more I declined. “I need you there, Teddy.”

“If you’re sure,” he said. “I’ll go to battle with you all the way. You know that.”

“I’m sure. And yes, I do know that and do appreciate it. See you tonight.” I punched off the call.

I scoured the cabin, hoping to find some ammo, and hit the jackpot. Lawyer Lucas was ready for a young war at his hideaway.

Even Penny hadn’t known about the room I found tucked away in a corner of the basement. Well, to be more accurate, I found the steel door and an electronic keypad. Penny spent ten seconds with the keypad and the door clicked and swung open. “The dummy uses the same code for everything he does,” she’d said, shaking her head. Bad security, perhaps, but it made my day. We dubbed the room “the bunker.”

There were a dozen assorted rifles and shotguns in the room, at least that many handguns, and enough ammo to take France back from whoever they most recently surrendered to. We spent two hours lugging all of it down a small wooded trail that led to Lucas’s boathouse and stowing it there. That done, we boarded a small fishing boat and made for the marina.

We hit the marina’s no-wake zone and I eased the outboard throttle down to an idle. “You know where he keeps it?” I said.

“Nope,” Penny said, looking down the rows of yachts and houseboats as we passed.

“Then how are we supposed to find it?”

“Trust me, it won’t be hard.”

I kept us motoring along and Penny kept scanning. On the last row, she pointed and said, “There she is.”

“That?”

“Told you it wouldn’t be hard to spot.”

The yacht looked like something straight off Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. I expected to see Robin Leach walking the deck with a camera crew in tow. “Sheesh, I wonder how much he paid for that.”

“Fifteen-point-two million.”

The boat was at least a hundred feet of sleek composite and tinted glass. I killed the outboard and moved to the front of the aluminum boat, where I used the trolling motor to pull alongside and then tied off to the dock. I didn’t see a soul in any direction.

We got out, stretched, then walked to the yacht’s stern. An American flag was mounted there, rippling quietly in the breeze. Directly underneath, splayed across the stern in gold leaf, I saw the beauty’s name,
Lady of Justice. The port side was embossed with a silhouette rendition of the blindfolded lady with her scales. We climbed aboard.

“Now that you’ve seen it,” Penny said, “still think you can drive it?”

I stepped into the pilothouse and she followed. It was plush and elegant, but from a functional standpoint, the controls looked the same as the old houseboat I had owned years back. The throttles and wheel did, anyway. Everything else looked to be controlled by touchscreen LCD panels, but I was confident I could figure it out. “I’ll drive her.”

“Okay, let’s get out of here. What do I do?”

“Go out, walk the edge, and untie every rope except the one to the john-boat. That’s it.”

She left the pilothouse and I familiarized myself with the controls and instruments. “All done?” I said when she walked back in.

“Yup.”

“Good. Now let’s hope he used the same code for this thing as he did for everything else. Never saw a vehicle with an electronic keypad for a key, but this one has it. What’s his code?”

“Three-six-nine-nine-two.”

I keyed in the numbers, touched a green button at the bottom of the panel, and screens all over the cockpit came to life. Penny winked. The digital clock read 1:42 P.M. I flipped the switches for the twin engines, pressed the starter buttons. The craft was so well insulated that I could barely hear the engines, but I did feel the faintest vibration as they rumbled into life. I goosed the throttle levers forward the tiniest bit, and
Lady of Justice began inching her way out of the slip.

As soon as we had enough clearance, I pulled the trannies into neutral and walked outside. The yacht had a nice cradle assembly at the stern that was powered by an electric winch. Once the craft came back to a complete stop, we had the aluminum john-boat hung safely off the stern within five minutes.

I heard footsteps and saw a man in a rent-a-cop uniform step onto the wooden platform on our row. “How you folks doing?” he called out. We waved and started back toward the pilothouse. The footsteps turned to a fast walk, then a jog.

We were stepping through the pilothouse door when I felt the craft move ever so slightly. He was coming aboard. Penny turned around, walked back, gave him a hand as he stepped on board.

“I’ll need to see a letter of permission from Mr. Benton before allowing the craft out of the marina,” he said.

Penny turned around, looked at me, rolled her eyes, then turned back around toward the guy and said, “I’m the security chief at Mr. Benton’s firm. I think we met a few months ago, the last party.”

He looked to be deep in thought, searching his memory. “I don’t remember you.”

“How long have you been working here?” she said.

“Six months.”

“That explains it. It was about eight months ago when I was last here.”

“Well, I still—”

“Look, Rusty,” she said, dragging a finger across the name patch on his shirt, “this is Mr. Benton’s new pilot.” She pointed to me. “And I’m Mr. Benton’s, uh, how do I put this? More than a security chief, if you get my drift.”

Rusty’s eyes widened. He looked her up and down, then broke into a sheepish smile.

“Lucas’s, I mean Mr. Benton’s, wife has been acting a bit suspicious anyway, so there’s no way he was going to put it in writing that I was going to be on this boat today. He sent the pilot and me on over to get things ready for a few days of R-and-R. He’ll be here later tonight, and I’ll tell him you’re doing a great job looking after his boat. He’ll probably put in a good word with your boss.”

“You think so?”

“I’ll see to it, Rusty. Gotta go now. Bye.” She turned around, walked back toward the pilothouse, leaving Rusty standing there.

Just before we stepped through the door, she turned around and said, “Uh, Rusty, you’ll have to leave the boat now,” and smiled.

“Oh, yes, ma’am. Sorry.” Rusty clamored back over the side. We left.