The Pawnbroker (28 page)

Charlie looked over at Gordon, who nodded and made a slicing motion across his throat with two fingers.

The sound of the fire engine came closer, then wound down to a stop. They could hear big engine sounds and more shouts.

Gordon just a few steps behind him, Charlie moved for the door, hoping it hadn't been locked by the guy now sleeping outside the gate. Otherwise, he'd have to stop and pick it. It was now or never.

 

Chapter Nineteen

The door, thankfully, was still unlocked and they both slipped in easily, taking positions on either side of the hall. Charlie had an image of the layout in his mind, and knew the hall was the center line of a sideways H, splitting left and right to back rooms on either side. There were two smaller rooms halfway down the hall, one an exercise room, the other a big bathroom, then the hall ended farther east, splitting again left and right. The hall on the left led to another bedroom and the four-car garage. The right hall led to more bedrooms farther south, splitting halfway south back to the east into an enormous front room running the entire length of the house.

According to intel via Nancy, Rene was probably in the southwesternmost bedroom, the first passage to the right. Charlie inched around the corner, pistol aimed down the hall, then hugged the wall. He ducked low and went around the corner. The hall was empty except for several generic southwestern landscapes along both walls. They reminded him of those at a bank or in a dentist's waiting room. Inoffensive and boring. He inched farther down, sensing that Gordon was right behind him.

With a hand signal, he told Gordon to cover their butts. Charlie continued down the hall alone, moving quickly now. He came across an open door and took a quick look inside. It was a bedroom, as expected. The bed was unmade, a suitcase sat on a chair beside a nice-looking dresser. He listened for a moment, then stepped inside. A quick search verified that the room and the small adjoining bathroom were empty.

Charlie came back out, looked over at Gordon and shook his head, then moved to the far southern end of the hall. This bedroom door was closed and padlocked from the outside. The installation was crude but effective, and would have really pissed off the landlord.

Gordon stayed at the opposite end of the hall, waiting in ambush for anyone venturing to the back of the house. Charlie picked the lock. He removed it, then turned the knob, crouching low and leading with his pistol.

Charlie stepped inside and smelled pizza. A box lay atop the dresser, containing two untouched slices and a third with several bites in it. There was a half-full bottle of Coke beside it.

“Rene? It's Charlie,” he whispered. The bathroom door was open but he couldn't see anyone on the throne or in the shower. The room window had been blocked by a storage cabinet with louvered doors which reached almost to the ceiling.

He heard an electronic voice, the sound of a crash, and realized it was coming from down low. Charlie lowered himself to the hardwood floor and looked under the bed.

Rene was lying there, his game clutched to his chest, frozen in fear. Then he recognized Charlie. “You here to get me?” he said, his voice trembling.

“Yeah, to take you back to your mom,” Charlie whispered. “But don't talk or make any noise. We're going to sneak out of here, if that's okay with you.”

Rene didn't move except to nod.

Charlie set his weapon down, then reached out a hand. Rene took it, and Charlie pulled gently.

Rene slid out from under the bed, still hugging his game to his chest with his other arm.

“Shut the sound off for now, Rene,” Charlie whispered.

Rene stood, with Charlie's help, then let go of his hand long enough to turn off the audio.

“Where's Gordon?” Rene whispered, looking toward the door.

“Down the hall, guarding us.” Charlie looked at the boy's bare feet. He had no socks or shoes, probably to slow him down if he somehow got outside. At least he could move quietly.

“Take my hand and don't make a sound,” Charlie said, leading Rene to the door. “Outside, I may want to carry you a ways. That okay?”

Rene nodded.

When they stepped out into the hall, Gordon looked over and smiled, giving a thumbs-up. Then he motioned for them to approach.

When they got to the center hall, Gordon held up his hand. They stopped and listened. They could hear a conversation in the front room. One person was Eddie, and the other, presumably, Lawrence Brooks. It was time to leave.

Charlie put away his cell phone, having sent a prearranged signal, then nodded to Gordon. Charlie picked up Rene, and moved past Gordon and quickly down the hall toward the back of the house. With the boy under his arm, he hurried through the combination den and kitchen. He kept going, opening the French doors, then stepped outside and turned to his left. Moving past the windows to the wall, he set Rene down behind him, out of sight from the inside, then crouched, watching through the glass into the den.

Gordon moved quickly, joining them.

“Take Rene and get behind the garden wall,” Charlie whispered. “My turn to cover your back.”

“Ready, bro?” Gordon whispered to Rene, who nodded.

“Make a move and the kid's dead,” Eddie yelled. They turned toward the far side of the patio, where a door led to the garage. The door was wide open now. Eddie was standing there, aiming an assault rifle at them from the hip. Behind Eddie was Lawrence Brooks, judging from the Internet photos they'd previewed. He was holding a phone, but no weapon.

Charlie stood and Gordon turned to face Eddie, with Rene behind them both now.

“I can shoot through you and take out the boy,” Eddie said. “Hand him back.”

“You're too late, Eddie. A SWAT team is moving in right now. I've already sent them the signal,” Charlie replied. “Give up or get dead.”

“No way I'm sticking around. Cover me,” Brooks said, striding across the patio toward the garden gate.

“There goes your meal ticket,” Gordon called out. “Better follow your master like a good puppy.”

A loud crash in the house was followed by shouts in the front rooms.

“That would be SWAT. Lay down your weapon, Eddie,” Charlie said. “It's not too late.”

“Like hell,” he said, sidestepping his way across the patio, trying to watch them and the house at the same time, waving the assault weapon back and forth.

“Lay down and close your eyes, Rene,” Gordon whispered, pushing the boy to the tile. He stepped away from Charlie and the boy, then raised his pistol.

“Eddie, stop!” Gordon yelled.

Eddie raised the assault rifle up to his shoulder, swinging it toward Gordon. A shot rang out.

One side of Eddie's head exploded in a mass of blood, bone, and tissue. His forward motion carried him another step and he fell across his rifle as he hit the patio floor, face down.

Brooks, who'd already made it onto the lawn, stopped, finally noticed the prone sniper on the ditch bank, then threw his arms into the air.

“Don't move, Brooks,” DuPree yelled from the fence gate at the far end as he ran into the grass, pistol out. Nancy was right behind him, armed with a shotgun. Two more officers were covering the creeps tied up out there. The sniper remained in position.

Gordon picked up Rene and turned him away from Eddie so he couldn't see the dead man. Four SWAT members came out through the kitchen. That helped to block the view of the carnage scattered across the tile like a thrown dish of pasta.

“Make sure you get the guy on the other side of the wall,” Charlie yelled to the SWAT team, holstering his weapon. “He's probably asleep.”

Charlie turned to Gordon. “Maybe you should have let Eddie get out into the grass. You could be dead right now if the sniper had been two seconds slower…”

“Then you'd inherit my half of Three Balls. You coulda had it all.”

Charlie shook his head as a SWAT guy looked over with furrowed brows. “We've gotta change that name, Gordo. And sometime real soon, you'd better wipe off your lipstick.”

 

Chapter Twenty

“Thanks for saving me all that paperwork,” US Marshal Crowley said, taking the deputy badges back from Charlie and Gordon. “You didn't shoot anyone. Detective DuPree says it was a miracle.”

“Well, now you have your fugitive, Lawrence Brooks, and the evidence Mrs. Brooks handed over that will put him in a federal lockup. How long had he been under house arrest when he took off?” Charlie asked.

“Just a day before he disappeared, which makes it a week ago. Good thing APD put his name up on a bulletin and called into his office. We'd have never thought to look here,” Crowley replied. “If I hadn't deputized you two, we'd have had to send in strangers to get the boy and the child might have freaked out.”

Charlie nodded. “We're used to this kind of work, and Rene has spent time with us. Mrs. Brooks has been hiding out with him for years, apparently, and the boy has learned not to trust strangers.”

“The service thanks you.”

“Glad to help out,” Charlie said, looking over at Gordon, who clearly wasn't ready to leave yet.

“I've got a question, Marshal Crowley,” Gordon asked. “Just what did you find out about the guy we knew as Eddie Henderson? Did you get anything from his prints?”

“Actually, we did. Henderson is actually Viktor Kozhara, twenty-eight. He was adopted from a orphanage in Ukraine at the age of eleven by an American couple in Arlington, Virginia. He had a measured IQ of 140, spoke perfect English, and aced all his classes at school. Unfortunately, he also had a lot of trouble with authority—lying, stealing, and a shitload of petty stuff. Street-smart, he was careful not to get more than a juvenile record. At the age of seventeen, he left for school one morning and just disappeared. Rode off on a bicycle, according to the report.”

“Didn't the cops try to track him down?” Charlie asked, knowing his own parents would have never given up on him.

“There was no AMBER Alert back then, and law enforcement didn't work too hard on it, judging from the reports. It might have been different if he'd been an innocent five-year-old girl instead of a pain-in-the-ass hoodlum wannabe. Anyway, the adopted parents hired a private eye, and the search went on until they ran out of money and gave up. Looks like the kid was smart and covered his tracks,” Crowley added.

“So when did he become Eddie Henderson?” Gordon asked.

“I believe the Henderson identity goes back at least seven years, at least that's when he got his first driver's license under that name,” Crowley added.

Charlie nodded, and Gordon crossed his arms against his chest. “Guess the rest of the story will have to come from Lawrence Brooks or somebody back in Pennsylvania,” Gordon surmised.

“If I get anything else, I'll fill in Detective DuPree and he can pass it along,” Crowley said, standing and shaking their hands. “Thanks, again, guys.”

Three minutes later they were in the parking garage, climbing into Charlie's rental Chevy. “We got lucky, finding a way to do what we did aboveboard,” Charlie said to Gordon as he backed out of the parking slot.

“Yeah, but we'd have done it anyway,” Gordon said, fastening his seat belt. “Makes shopkeeping seem kinda dull, doesn't it?”

Charlie followed the yellow arrows and reached the street exit, stopping for traffic. “Maybe we're not cut out for civilian life—but I don't think it'll hurt to slow down a little. I'm sticking with the pawnshop. You want out?”

“Naw. I'm just being nostalgic for the bad old days.”

“Good. And speaking of the shop, I'm thinking we're going to need to add another full-time employee if business continues to pick up,” Charlie said.

“Meanwhile, I guess it's back to work, after I go home and shower—a lot,” Gordo said. “Drop me off?”

*   *   *

It was three
PM
the next day and Charlie and Gordo were climbing into the rental Chevy parked in the visitor section of the downtown police station.

“Well, that took forever. But maybe we're finally done with Detective Dupree and company—at least until the ADA comes calling,” Charlie said. “I'm looking forward to a regular life for a while.”

“Might be nice. Where to next? We going to Gina and Nancy's for that cookout now? We're still a little early.”

“Why not? Jake's covering the shop and this is Gina's first day back from the hospital. She's gonna be moving around pretty slow, if at all. We'll help Nancy with the company,” Charlie said.

“And you'll get to see Ruth,” Gordon said.

“That too,” Charlie said, then shrugged. “I'm hoping she and Rene will stick around a little longer. The feds like the idea of her staying away from Pittsburgh. It keeps the press focused on Brooks and the indictments regarding his business practices.”

“Better for her and the boy.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said, finding an opening in traffic and pulling out onto the street. “Call though, and see if we can bring anything.”

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later Charlie parked behind Nancy's department vehicle in the driveway of her and Gina's townhouse. He reached for the enormous apple pie they'd picked up at the Smith's. Gordon already had the red wine and two six-packs of Coke.

They'd just stepped onto the porch when the door opened. It was Ruth, casually but elegantly dressed in a soft burgundy shirt and dark blue slacks. For the first time since they'd seen her, she was also wearing lipstick and a trace of makeup.

“You've got a smile on your face,” Gordon said as she opened the door and waved them into the foyer.

“Thanks to you two, Nancy, and the others. We don't have to hide out anymore. Hi, Charlie,” she added, reaching out and squeezing his forearm gently.

“Um, hi. You look really nice, Ruth.”