Pawnbroker: A Thriller (4 page)

Chapter 8

As I browsed the search hits on John Patrick Homestead, the police’s attitude with me started to make sense. Mr. Homestead was far from a street thug. He worked for the state police. I had killed a cop.

All at once I felt guilty as hell. Way more than I did when I thought he was a thug. Then I felt guilty about the disproportion in the two levels of guilt. I was pondering the ramifications of being labeled a cop-killer when the mother of all questions slammed into my mind: Why was a cop trying to rob a pawn shop in Montello, Mississippi?

At 10:00, I switched on the neon OPEN sign and unlocked the front doors. Traffic was high that morning, and every soul who walked in wanted to talk about the robbery. Was I okay? What did it feel like? Was that carpet spot where he bled? Sheesh, what was wrong with these people? Most of them acted like I had won the lottery. One asked if I was going to write a book about it. I pointed out that it was a small Mississippi pawn shop that the guy had tried to hold up, not the presidential motorcade. He seemed disappointed and left. Maybe he had hoped to be my agent.

Most of them were supportive. About time somebody made a stand. Hell yes. Damn right. Just let them know if I needed any help. Yessiree. It’s been my experience that such promises are made quickly, but it still felt good to have so many townspeople make a show of concern.

Our pastor, Richard Bowman, known affectionately around town as Brother Rick, showed up. He gave me a warm hug and told me he was praying for me. Hugh Simmons, a perennial mayoral candidate who always came up short, put in an appearance that seemed sincere enough but, ever the campaigner, Hugh pointed out that a Simmons-led Montello would be a safer place, a place where robbers and thugs would dare not tread.

Teddy popped in and out, and was there, along with a shop full of other folks, when Mitchell, Knight, and two uniformed officers showed up with the arrest warrant. As RoboVoice had predicted, it was for first-degree murder. And while they surely had it within their discretion to handle it in low-key fashion, they chose not to. They played the drama up for all it was worth, reading me my rights, cuffing my hands behind my back while my customers gawked.

The handcuffs infuriated Teddy. He got in Mitchell’s face. “What the hell’s the point in that? He’s not resisting you, asshole!”

“Step out of the way, Mister Abraham,” Mitchell said, “unless you want to take a ride yourself.”

“You’re a jack-booted, lard-ass thug, Mitchell, and I’ll see to it that you pay for this!”

“It’s okay, Teddy,” I said. Mitchell’s face had gone blood red and it was obvious that he was a breath away from arresting Teddy, too.

Teddy stared at him, eyes burning, but finally backed off. As they were leading me out, Teddy said, “I’m right behind you, Gray.”

Chapter 9

Abby sat on the other side of the thick Plexiglas, holding the visitor phone with tears pouring off her face. “Teddy’s in the lobby,” she said.

“Thank him for coming, but there’s nothing he can do. He needs to leave before he gets thrown in here himself.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“This is out of Charlie Langford’s league. What we need is a real lawyer.”

“Who do I call?”

“What was that lawyer’s name in that big murder trial a few months ago, the one where the kid killed the football coach? It was on the news for weeks.”

“Benley, Benson, something like that,” she said.

“Benton. Lucas Benton. Call him.”

“Okay.” She pulled out a pen and pad and started taking notes. “Then what?”

I leaned back in my chair and thought about it. I looked up and saw the video camera pointing down at me from the corner, and it hit me. “As soon as you leave here, before you even call Benton, go to the shop. We need yesterday’s surveillance tape. It’ll show the robbery and blow this crap out of the water.”

“Where do I find it?”

“Look in the little closet off the gun room. You’ll see the recorder on the top shelf, and all the tapes underneath, labeled by date.”

“Got it.”

“That tape is priority one, Abby.”

I watched through the glass as she stood and left the room. Watched as she passed by the window between the outer room and the hallway. I felt so incredibly alone.

A guard tapped me on the shoulder. “Time to go,” he said.

Through the window where I had just watched Abby pass, I noticed a large convex security mirror mounted high on the wall. It provided a fisheye view of the hallway in both directions. To the left, I watched Abby continue down the corridor, then stop when she met a man coming toward her.

“C’mon, buddy,” the guard said, impatience in his voice.

I stood slowly, my eyes still on the mirror, and watched my wife fall into the arms of Bobby Knight.

Chapter 10

I fought desperately to forget what I had seen in the mirror, to keep my mind on more immediate problems. Lucas Benton’s arrival helped, gave me a new focus point.

He reeked of wealth. Silk suit that hung perfectly on his lean frame. Short gray hair, probably cut by a hairdresser with a one-word name. Skin tan but not too tan. Omega watch.

“My retainer is a hundred thousand for a murder case, and additional funds may be required. Any problem there?” he said.

“No,” I lied.

“Good. Let’s get out of this phone booth and into a proper room.”

I nodded. He hung up his phone, stood, and walked over to a guard. I couldn’t hear what was said, but the guard listened, then walked away. Benton looked my way and winked. A minute or two later, that same guard appeared in my half of the room.

“Let’s go,” he said.

I followed him out of the room, through a maze of stark white cinder-block corridors and into what looked like a small conference room. One table, three folding metal chairs. Benton was already there and seated, his briefcase open in front of him. He took out a laptop and powered it up.

“Witnesses to the event?”

“LungFao.”

“LungFao?”

“LungFao. Real name is Larry Williamson.”

“I see. And who exactly is this ‘LungFao’?”

“Assistant manager at my shop.”

A small grimace flashed briefly across his face.

“Problem?” I said.

“You’re his boss. They’ll discredit him as a witness, paint him as hopelessly biased. Anyone else?”

I shook my head and then told him about the surveillance video. By then, his laptop was booted up and he was taking notes on it. A real twenty-first century kind of guy. He seemed hopeful about the tape.

“Can your wife bring it here? I’m sure we can arrange to use a TV and VCR for a few minutes.”

“Won’t work. It’s a surveillance tape, recorded on a special VCR, and it’ll only play on that kind of machine.”

He took more notes. “Very well. Can someone take me to your business so I can view it there?”

“Sure thing. Abby should be back up here shortly and she can run you over to the shop.”

I had forced myself to concentrate on the business at hand, not what I had seen in the mirror, but just saying her name brought it all back. Bobby Knight. Supposedly my friend, screwing my wife, and right in the thick of my being in this concrete room. Was this all some ploy to get rid of me so he could have her?

“Are you all right?” Benton said.

I snapped out of the stupor. “Sorry. Go ahead.”

“Just a few more questions.”

“Shoot.”

“Erase that word from your vocabulary until this ordeal is over.” I nodded and he continued. “Had you ever seen this man before?”

“No.”

“Did you ask Ling Foo if he remembered seeing him?”

“LungFao. And yes, I asked him. And no, he doesn’t recall ever seeing him.”

More notes.

“All right. Now I want you to take me through a blow-by-blow account of what happened. Give me every detail, no matter how trivial it may seem to you.”

“There’s this customer named Bill Berner,” I began.

Chapter 11

I knew something was wrong as soon as Abby walked in. Her face was dark, cloudy. She didn’t even acknowledge Benton.

“Please tell me you found the tape,” I said.

“Oh, I found it.”

I blew a long sigh of relief.

“It’s worthless, Gray.”

“What?” This could not be.

“I thought I’d save some time and fast-forward the tape to the right place.”

“And?”

“It wouldn’t play. Just a bunch of wavy lines on the screen and the sound is mostly static.”

“You have to play it on the surveillance VCR, you know.”

“I know. I did.”

I shook my head. Had she sabotaged it? Screwing around is one thing, but would she go that far to get me out of the way?

“What are the odds of that one tape going bad?” I said. “One stinking videotape that cost a dollar, and it’s a dud.”

“None of them play.”

“Come again?”

“They’re all the same way. LungFao said it looked like somebody waved a big magnet around in front of the tapes and ruined them all.”

“But how’d anybody get access to that room? It’s in the pawn room and we never let anybody back there.”

“Maybe they broke in last night?”

I shook my head. “No alarm last night.”

“Got another idea?”

I didn’t. “Abby, this is Lucas Benton. Mr. Benton, my wife, Abby.”

They shook hands and a movie-star smile washed over his face. “So nice to meet you, Abby.”

She smiled back, one of those charming heart-melting, libido-igniting smiles that hooked me so many years ago.

Chapter 12

Since I was arrested on Friday and the judge had left for the weekend by the time they got me processed into the Montello City Jail, I was afraid I’d have to wait until Monday for my arraignment, and my chance at bail. Benton declared that unacceptable and started making phone calls.

When my allotted attorney consultation time expired, a guard escorted me to a cell dubbed “the tank.” Eleven people were in the tank when I arrived, five of whom I recognized as customers. Rasheeda Hobart headed my way as soon as the cell door clanged behind me.

“Well, looky what we done got here, a real live pawn man,” he said, standing directly in my path. I glanced around, nodded in greeting to a couple of the others who were looking our way. Only then did I notice that the only other white man in the room was a shriveled up old man, tucked into the front left corner, snoring. I sniffed the air in that direction and immediately understood why everyone else was clustered across the room.

“How’s it going, Rasheeda?” I said with all the nonchalance I could muster.

“Eight damn dollars,” he said.

I moved right to go around him, but he sidestepped and blocked my path. Not good. Rasheeda was about six-six, near three hundred pounds. Body fat: Zero.

“What do you want?” I said.

“You a big man when a brother’s down on his luck. Brung my VCR in there and all you’d give me was eight damn dollars.”

I took another step to the right. Rasheeda moved again. Now everyone in the tank was looking our way. Except Stinky, who was still snoring away. A guy stretched out on the lone cot in the room, peered over the top of a magazine at me. He shook his head, as if to say “Damn shame, but you’re about to get your ass kicked.” He was Hobart’s physical opposite, a wiry little fellow who might’ve weighed one-forty.

Enough was enough. “Yeah, I offered you eight bucks, and you know what? The piece of shit wasn’t even worth that, so next time why don’t you take it somewhere else?” We pawned a hundred VCRs a week, and I of course remembered nothing about his, but I had no intention of going through this nonsense all weekend, or even for the next ten minutes.

“That right?” His faux smile was gone now, replaced by an angry scowl.

“Get the hell out of my way.” I took a big step to the left this time, big enough that he had to take a real step himself to try to block me, instead of just sliding over. When his right foot left the floor, I placed a solid kick to the inside of his left knee. I felt the ligaments and cartilage give way as big Rasheeda Hobart melted into the floor, wailing like a baby.

The sound of hard-soled shoes slapping concrete echoed off the hard surfaces of the jail as a pair of guards approached the tank. They took one look at Hobart and unlocked the cell door.

“What happened here?” one of the guards said, a bored look on his face.

“This craz—” Hobart began, but the wiry fellow on the cot cut him off.

“—Sheeda fell down,” he said. “Bumped his knee.”

Hobart whipped his head around, stared at him as if he had lost his mind. “Look here, Carlos—”

“Ain’t no but, ain’t no nothing. Ain’t shit,” Carlos said to the guards without ever taking his eyes off Hobart. Through the pain on Hobart’s face, something else flashed. Resignation? Fear? The two guards helped him up and led him out, one on each side. A third guard showed up and re-locked the door before the whole party made its way off down the corridor.

I looked at Carlos. “Thanks,” I said, wondering what the dynamic was that made the big man so obviously afraid of diminutive Carlos. Carlos nodded and returned to his magazine.

The rest of my stay was uneventful and, blessedly, brief. Benton managed to get a judge back to the courthouse for a bail hearing. The judge looked like something from a bad B-movie: a big jowly head perched atop an obese mountain of flesh. It was the first time I’d ever seen a judge in a tight robe. His hair was an unruly white mop, wiry and thick, his eyebrows a briar patch covered in snow.

An assistant district attorney was there for the prosecution, and I of course had Lucas Benton at my table, looking like he stepped straight from a GQ cover. Paying him for my defense would put me in the poorhouse, but as addresses go, the poorhouse beats the gas chamber every time. Benton was as good as advertised. The prosecutor tried to paint me as a hardened criminal and a flight risk, but Benton prevailed and got me out on a hundred-thousand-dollar bond. I could pay ten thousand cash, nonrefundable, for a bail bondsman to post the bail, or put up sufficient collateral to cover the hundred grand myself. I put up our house, which we had finished paying for a few months before. I held the pen, looked at the signature line. Just like our pawn tickets, it said PLEDGOR underneath. I signed my name, slid the paper across the counter, and slapped down the pen.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I said.

*          *          *

The three of us sat in a big booth in the back corner at Hatley’s. After the waitress took our orders, Benton said, “Abby has been getting me up to speed on your background, Gray.” He shot her another of those smiles, but it looked different, almost intimate. Abby smiled back and it lasted a few seconds too long to suit me. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was getting ready to bed him, too.

He took a smooth sip from his iced tea and continued. “I also had our firm’s investigator prepare a dossier on you, so I can see what the prosecution sees and hopefully get a glimpse of where they’re going. You realize that they will of course use your background against you.”

“Background?” I glanced at Abby and she shrugged.

“Gray, it’s imperative that you be forthcoming with me. We can’t afford surprises, and everything you tell me is—”

“I have been forthcoming. What background?”

“Twelve years ago, the incident in Arkansas?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I spoke truth.

Benton sighed, reached for his briefcase. Opened it on his lap and pulled out a manila file folder. He pulled out a sheet of paper, handed it across the table to me. Abby and I read it together.

Most of it was mundane: name, date of birth, education, employment history, typical
vitae. It was the paragraph at the bottom that took a rather radical departure.

CRIMINAL ACTIVITY

Arrested 1990 in Little Rock, Arkansas, for aggravated assault and battery of a law enforcement officer. Incident described as Bolton having been stopped for a minor traffic violation, then losing his temper with the police officer, at which time he took the officer’s baton away from him and beat him severely. Left the scene. Subsequently arrested at a state trooper roadblock on I-40. Pled guilty to the charge, received a suspended sentence with five years probation.

*          *          *

“You need a new investigator, because this did not happen.”

Benton steepled his fingers, rested his chin on the spire. “Very well. I’ll have it run again. It’s probably just a computer error, a transposed Social Security number, something like that.”

Dinner arrived and we all ate in silence. The scene in the jailhouse mirror played out over and over in my mind. I excused myself and walked to the pay phone in the restroom corridor. I dialed the police department and asked for Bobby Knight. I got his voice mail, and left a two-word message: I know.