The Pawnbroker Read online

  "If not, then Eddie was lying. He sure gathered a lot of intelligence on Baza and this place, more than necessary for a burglary," Gordon said, opening a drawer containing current paper invoices on pawned goods.

  "Yeah, and I'm getting some bad vibes on Eddie's background. If he went to school here, there should have been a record, even if he was homeschooled. We're new at this investigation crap, but we should have at least yanked off his gloves and gotten some prints. And checked out his car," Charlie lamented, looking through the rings for something like Eddie had described.

  "Too late now. It still leads back to the original question, what was he doing here? If he'd wanted to rob the place, why not go straight to the jewelry and electronics, or the guns? Why bother searching in file cabinets?" Gordon said. "He hasn't gone through anything here, at least that I can tell."

  Charlie locked the ring drawer and came out from behind the counter. "He may have been trying to find keys to the displays, or something in one of the folders. We need to know for sure. You think he's going to stick around his old address and call on Saturday? If he does, that'll at least tell us something. You notice how his mood kept changing, from terrified to dead calm, then attitude? He's either mostly telling us the truth, or trying to play us, making up a story as he goes along."

  Charlie walked over to the office door next and looked inside at the stacks of folders, now scattered randomly across the joined desks.

  "He's playing with the wrong guys, then. Hey, now that you're in the office, you wanna start on the transaction records? I'll take a quick look through the watches in the drawers and under the glass."

  "First, Gordo, why don't you try that combination on the Detroit safe?" Charlie suggested, coming back out front.

  Getting the combination to Baza's safe was the reason Gina had met with Baza, and that had almost gotten her killed. Charlie was still trying to deal with the baggage of combat—of torture and death—but this was the first time he'd gotten a friend shot. This wasn't supposed to happen—not on his watch, anyway.

  "Damn, I forgot all about that."

  "It's written down, right?"

  "Yeah, I meant forgetting about the safe—not the combination. If there's anything inside besides stale air, I'll let you know in just a few minutes," Gordon said, stepping out of the small office.

  Charlie decided to follow and see for himself.

  Gordon crouched down in front of the waist-high, five-hundred-pound-plus, black Detroit Safe Company safe. A piece of blue plastic label tape that read "Computer Backups" was stuck on the frame just above the center of the door. He twisted to the first number Baza had given Gina, then turned the center wheel and stopped at the next number. He continued the process two more times.

  "I think I heard a click," Gordon said, turning his head and nodding to Charlie. "Got your fingers crossed?"

  "Just open the damned thing."

  Gordon reached to his left and turned the big steel lever. The heavy door moved easily, all the way open. The interior was stacked with labeled manila folders bulging with papers. On top of the stack were several plastic containers with old floppy disks and CDs, along with business software for long-obsolete operating systems.

  "Crap. Windows 95? This stuff is ancient. These are records from the owner before last," Gordon said, rummaging through the boxes. "Baza ripped us off."

  "Yeah, well, karma evened things out for him today, I guess. Check out that locked compartment," Charlie suggested.

  Gordon brought out the key and unlocked the interior door. On a shelf were four flash drives sitting atop two familiar-looking magazines.

  "Finally! Treasure!" Gordon yelled, setting the flash drives on top of the safe and bringing out the Playboys. "March and April, 1967. Hell, these are older than me."

  "I was hoping for gold coins and maybe emeralds, but we can put these jewels in our collectors section. They're in mint condition. I bet they'll sell within the week."

  "Don't you think we need to check them out first, page by page? Maybe there are secret documents inside," Gordo said.

  "Carefully folded, in the center?"

  "Right," Gordon said, placing them atop the safe, beside the flash drives.

  "Now let's see what's stored in the memories of those things. Maybe we'll finally get lucky," Charlie said.

  Five minutes later, Gordon looked up from the laptop he'd used to read the flash drive files. "We're still missing the last six months of Three Balls, and the file labeled 'Personnel' is empty, probably deleted. So all we have is inventory and business current to May. Not a total loss, I guess, but there's still that big hole in the records we need to plug."

  "At least we can remove these old folders and sell the safe. It'll be good to get this beast out of the display area. Roger, at the Old Desert Inn, left me his card. He wants to put it on display in their lobby. If we give him the combination and key his offer goes up to five hundred instead of one fifty. We'll call him first thing manana," Charlie said, carefully pulling off the plastic "Computer Backups" label.

  Gordon moved the Playboy magazines over to the counter, then locked up the inside compartment and closed the safe. "Until tomorrow. Guess we need to get back to finding whatever Eddie was after."

  "Look out for anything: big transactions, documents, deeds, anything that might have given Baza's killer his or her motive."

  Charlie glanced at the cover of the March Playboy as he passed by. There was a blonde with bunny ears twirling her black bow tie. She had a white collar, and though you couldn't see much, it was obvious she was topless. In those days innuendo was king. Now you could see that much booty in a grocery aisle. Progress.

  A few minutes after seven that evening, Charlie walked into the Saint Mark's hospital lobby. Nancy had called to give him Gina's room number. Nancy was still at work, supervising several patrol officers.

  Gina would probably welcome a friendly face once Detective DuPree was done interviewing her. Looking at the wall signs and trying to locate which hall Gina was in, Charlie saw DuPree and the same patrolman he'd been with earlier. DuPree was talking to a nurse about security, and Charlie passed by without a word, though the officer looked in his direction for a second.

  A uniformed security guard was at a nurses station at the end of the hall, so Charlie walked over and identified himself.

  The tall, middle-aged man, maybe ex-military from his stride, walked to Gina's door, making it clear he was sticking close by, and waved him in.

  Charlie walked in quietly, moving over to the high off-the-floor hospital bed. Gina's eyes were closed. She had an oxygen tube inserted in her nose and an IV was feeding her fluids through a vein in her left arm.

  He watched her for several minutes, whispered an old Navajo prayer, then placed a tiny piece of turquoise in the palm of her left hand—a blessing. He'd carried a similar stone in his pocket for most of his deployments—a token given to him by his grandfather, a hataalii. The old man—he'd always seemed old to Charlie—was a medicine man.

  Charlie was no traditionalist, but the medicine had worked. He'd never been wounded or injured in any measurable way. Only those he'd fought against had suffered. That was the way of a great warrior, his Navajo friends and relatives had said.

  His culture also taught that there needed to be balance. That meant that sooner or later, it would be his turn to pay the price. Maybe that time was now. He prayed that Gina wouldn't be the one who paid for the blood on his hands.

  Gina had been his only real girlfriend back in high school. He'd loved her then, but one evening she'd discovered that friendship was all she could offer him. At first, it had destroyed him, but he eventually got over it and they'd become best friends. Now she was more like a sister, even more so than Arlene, his biological sibling. Even after all these years, his friendship with Gina remained strong.

  He backed away, looking at the medical gear and smelling the disinfectant. Except for the quiet and the near-sterile environment, he was almost back in Afghanistan
. He remembered the dirty, streaked, and pained faces of all the soldiers he'd seen on the ground or upon litters, bleeding, screaming out, or gurgling as the life spirit streamed right out of them.

  But there was much more to remember. How many times had he carried wounded insurgents or village leaders and placed them in Blackhawks or Humvees to be evacuated and interrogated? They were involuntary assets, sources of information, and once they were out of his and Gordon's hands, no longer his concern.

  He and his intelligence team had been trained to seek out and take prisoners based upon whatever information they could provide. Usually their captives, ranging from boys to old men, had been roughed up or injured by the time they were turned over to the civilian spooks. Charlie never knew what happened after that, but he had a good imagination. He'd heard stories, and he didn't want to know the rest.

  Shaking himself from his reverie, not wanting his mind to wander back to those memories, he looked down at his watch. He had to get back and help Gordon block off that hole in the roof, at least 'til morning.

  "Hey, Charles, what did you put in my hand? We engaged or something?" Gina said, her voice a drugged whisper, but quite clear in the silence of the room.

  "How you doing, best girl?" he said, stepping up beside the bed. "I didn't mean to wake you."

  "Just resting my eyes. If you hadn't put that rock in my hand I never would have known you were here. How'd you learn to move so quietly? Oh, right, the army."

  "The noisy don't come back, not unless they served in an artillery unit," he joked. "That pebble in your hand is a piece of turquoise. It's part of an old Navajo blessing my grandfather taught me. Keep it close."

  "I will. Have you spoken to Nancy yet?"

  "Yeah, twice. She was here earlier while you were still under, but she had to leave for her shift. She'll be back after midnight. You scared the hell out of her—and me too. Were you able to give anything useful to that detective? He was on his way out when I got here."

  "No, I can't remember much. Baza and I exchanged the money and the envelope, I checked to make sure the key was in there, then heard the vehicle stop right behind me. Some guy said, 'hey Baza,' then the shooting started. It was so loud. Something struck me in the back and I blacked out. Now, I've got a lump on my head and hurt like hell everywhere else."

  "Can you think of anyone who might want you dead? Any enemies?"

  "Except for a bee I killed the other day when it flew into my Passat at the stop sign, no. Baza was clearly the target. The guy who shot us called out his name, not mine."

  "That's what we're thinking—well, Gordon, Nancy, and I. DuPree has other ideas. At least he did a few hours ago."

  "Yeah, he asked me all kinds of crap about my clients, my cases, even my boyfriend. Guess he doesn't know about Nancy yet. When I told him the killer called out Baza by name, I think it just confused him. Is it me, or is DuPree a little— underqualified?"

  "Don't worry, the A team's got your back. The guy who shot you is going down."

  "You've never been subtle, Charlie, and I'm not sure if that's an asset or a curse. You and Gordon, right? You gonna run that pawnshop and still take down the shooter?"

  "We've got help from the inside."

  "Nancy? I hope this doesn't get her into trouble."

  "She'd go to the wall for you. We all would."

  "Don't let anything happen to Nancy, okay? Or Gordon, or you either." She paused for a moment. "You and I were so close back in high school. I can't lose my best friend now."

  "Yeah, you either. Get some sleep, heal, and stay safe. And thanks for getting that combination and key for us, even if it was the hard way."

  "So it was the real deal. Did you find any of the computer backups or papers you were looking for?"

  "Not everything. There are records from before Baza took over, then all but the last six months of his files—minus the employee folder, for some reason. But there was some reading material. I'll let Gordo tell you all about it. Once you're out of here, the four of us can grill some steaks and catch up on everything. Okay?" He reached out and gently closed her delicate fingers around the turquoise.

  "Good night, Charlie. And no guilt, or brooding. What happened today wasn't your fault. It was the guy with the gun."

  "All right. Okay, good night, Gina," Charlie said softly. He turned and was walking toward the door just as a nurse came in. The nurse nodded, then said something softly to Gina he didn't catch.

  Charlie was silent as he walked down the hall and across the lobby, passing people coming in with flowers, or talking quietly in groups.

  Then he started shaking, for no reason at all. Embarrassed, he sped up, looking around to see if anyone else had noticed. It used to happen all the time when deployed "in country," but it was always after a mission, never during. PTSD was a bitch, but it hadn't stopped him yet. Still, he had to get out of the hospital.

  Once he was outside, able to smell the cool November night air, he stopped shaking and looked up at the stars. To the east was Orion, the Hunter, low in the clear desert sky. It had to be a sign.

  "I don't brood," he said aloud to himself. "I feel guilty for a while, maybe, then I get even."

  Charlie was back at the pawnshop by 8:30, parking in one of the alley spaces, then letting himself in through the heavy, metal back door. The lights were off except in the office. Gordon was inside, listening and half watching a football game on the small TV as he searched through stacks of folders.

  "So she never got a look at the shooter?" Gordon asked, continuing the brief conversation they'd had on the phone during Charlie's drive back. "Think she'd recognize a voice?"

  "Don't know, we've got to round up a suspect first. Ready to work on blocking off the skylight until we can call Travis?" Charlie asked, referring to the handyman who'd helped them with repairs when they'd taken over the business.

  "Already taken care of. I wired it shut from the inside, then left a surprise for anyone dumb enough to climb on the roof and cut the wires."

  "Surprise? Not something that'll blow a hole in the roof?"

  "No, I ran out of Claymores. I left something that'll go chomp, not boom."

  "That 1920s-era coyote trap?"

  "It's not just an Old West collector's item anymore. Uh, but remind me to put it on safe and take it down before Travis goes up on the roof," Gordon said.

  Charlie sat down in the swivel chair behind his desk. "Any luck searching through that paperwork?"

  "Couldn't find anything that suggests a motive. These folders are a mess. There are years of transactions here. We've got them arranged by last name, of course, but they're still mixed together regardless of date and type of merchandise. Baza sure wanted to drive the next owner crazy. Interesting thing, though. You know how we figured he sold all of the guns from that gun case and storage cabinet just before he was evicted?"

  "Yeah. Let me guess, you can't find any record whatsoever for any gun transactions?" Charlie said.

  "None, except for those we've done since reopening, and that includes the records we found in the safe. You think maybe he was fencing stolen guns, then reselling them?"

  "Maybe. Until Rick brings back those trashed computer files we won't know what Baza had, or sold. Not unless it's on one of the paper copies we still have, or out in inventory." Charlie waved his hand toward the stacks of transaction forms, still in folders, piled upon his and Gordon's desks.

  "He's required to keep records on every transaction, and if he didn't, that's one more reason we need a lot more background on the asshole," Gordon said. "His recent behavior sounds more and more like a guy about to go on the run. We've seen most of his legal business records, utility bills, and the like. If he kept all the money intended for those instead of paying his creditors, he abandoned his business with a decent amount of cash."

  "Anyone taking several months to amass money like that must have had some idea where to hide. Mexico? Central America?" Charlie suggested.

  "Maybe he did some resea
rch. How about if we add Web searches to Rick's data-recovery efforts? What were his plans, where was he thinking of going? Maybe he had friends or relatives he was going to meet up with. A girlfriend?"

  "Good idea, Gordo. Once we get an address on Baza's last residence, maybe we can find where he shopped, where he hung out, who his neighbors were, and who he met."

  "And who's going to deal with the body and funeral services? We need to know about his family, too. Let's call it a night, and meet back here at 0700 and get started," Gordon suggested.

  Charlie, who was staying in one of his cousin's rental homes in Albuquerque's lower northeast heights, nodded. "Keep one eye open, bro, on the streets and around your apartment. I have serious doubts about our burglar. He's up to something, and just because he doesn't have a record doesn't mean he's clean. He just hasn't got caught lately."

  "Stay alert. It's been a day," Gordon said, checking the pistol in the belt holster just beneath his jacket.

  "I'm gonna go. Lock up good, bro. And don't forget the alarm," Charlie said, heading for the back door.

  "Yes, Mother," Gordon said, reaching for his keys.

  Charlie exited out the back door, locking it behind him, then took a close, careful look around the alley and the Dodge before he unlocked the car door. He thought about checking underneath— being used to car bombs from his army days— then shrugged it off. Paranoia was a hard habit to drop.

  Eddie didn't seem the car-bomb type, and was dumb enough to bring a screwdriver to a gunfight, so he started the engine without a pause and a prayer.

  The Charger started with the low rumble only Detroit could provide, so he let it run a minute, glad it hadn't been shot up like that Taurus. He was surprised to discover where his round had gone, but, then again, he was a little out of practice.

  More tired than he should be, now that the adrenaline rush and the shakes were gone. Charlie headed west to Second, then turned north.

  As he crossed over the railroad tracks, heading east, he passed a big white step van with the familiar "24-Hour Plumber" sign parked just off the road. The driver, wearing a white cap, had a handheld radio to his ear.