The Pawnbroker Read online

  "What did Jake think of Baza?"

  "I didn't press him on that, thinking if he got the job he'd open up and we'd get more out of him in time," Gordon said, reaching for another chicken leg.

  "Yeah, but. . ."

  "I showed Jake that photo you sent over today, and Jake ID'd the woman as Ruth Adams, his coworker here. Jake said that Baza had a crush on her. Said she played it cool, not really pushing him away, just behaving professionally, like anyone should toward their boss. Friendly, cooperative, respectful, but careful to not get personal. She never flirted back—just smiled, Jake said."

  "Hmmm. In control, or being careful. Private, Melissa at the laundry said. Anything else about the woman?"

  "Jake said she was quiet, and had a kid, he thought, a young boy. She only spoke about the boy once or twice, when she had to miss work or come in late. Ruth wasn't married, or at least she didn't wear a wedding ring. That's all I got," Gordon said.

  "She was definitely on Baza's mind—hers was the only photo I saw over at his place. We need to track her down."

  "Being rejected by someone you care about might make you fall apart and stop caring about your life—or your business," Gordon suggested.

  "Naw, I'm guessing he never lost her. He kissed off the business to raise some quick cash, and clearly had plans to leave the country soon. He wasn't going alone, either, based upon his ticket searches for two adults and a child. We should pass this by Nancy and see if she can use APD resources to help us find Ruth Adams—and maybe her child."

  Charlie brought out his cell phone, checked for the photos, then shook his head. "I forgot I sent them all here. Remind me to make a printout of her photo before we leave tonight."

  "We'll print several. But tomorrow, I'm sticking close to you. What's the plan?"

  "First let's see if Jake Salazar ever saw Eddie Henderson or heard of him. Then we'll hunt Eddie down and see how he reacts. I don't recall him having any gang tats, but this time, keep that in mind. We know that he lied his way out of here last night, and there's that gold Mustang I saw today."

  "I like Jake already," Charlie said, looking over at his pal and partner. Gordon was driving—it was his pickup.

  "He's going to be a real asset. Already checking the shop records for Eddie and those two gangsters."

  Gordon nodded, then reached over and called up the address he'd entered for Eddie Henderson on his GPS. "What do you know about the West Mesa?"

  "Well, most of the east side close to the mountains is called the Heights, and the Valley is in the middle. What's left but Westside?"

  "Okay, clearly you don't know squat about Albuquerque."

  "We've only lived here for five months. Actually, I remember reading something in the paper not long ago about an outbreak of burglaries in some West Mesa neighborhoods. So, if Eddie still lives there, and he's a burglar . . ."

  "Well, it'll take us fifteen, twenty minutes, so crank up your Droid and kick back to some tunes."

  "Better than that, I'll call Jake and see how things are going this morning at Three Balls," Charlie said.

  Two minutes later, Charlie put away the phone. "Jake says he's already had a dozen people stop in, five for pawn, two to pay on their loans, and three who bought jewelry or electronics. And Roger sent over a crew from the Old Desert Inn and they picked up the safe. Five hundred cash, though Jake says they tried to talk him down to $450. Sounds like we have a winner with our new old guy."

  "Well, that's good to know, since I'm still getting a feel for pawn pricing and I'm always having to check the price guides and bring out the pocket calculator. Jake has experience, and I noticed this morning how carefully he looks over a pawn for quality before making an offer. I guess I'm not picky enough."

  "Hey, we've spent nearly the last decade in villages where anything that works at all is priceless. That's over and done with, bro," Charlie said. One thing he knew for sure, unlike some old Vietnam vets, he'd never go back to where he'd served.

  Ten minutes later, as they approached the street where Henderson's apartment was supposed to be, Charlie checked for his pistol. He patted his pocket, then remembered this new weapon—new to him at least—had no spare magazine, though at least it had been sold with a well-fitted holster. It was a Beretta 84 .380, smaller caliber than he was comfortable with, but at least it was light and carried fourteen rounds—one in the chamber. Nancy said he should get his first 9 mm back in a few days, though the one from yesterday, which had taken down his attacker, might be in evidence for months.

  "Check out the boyz standing around the black Acura on your right, Charles," Gordon said, slowing down.

  The whomp/boom of earthshaking speakers announced the presence of rap fans. Thankfully, unless you were close, the litany of obscenities and trash talk was impossible to follow due to the bass. Charlie didn't mind rap, though—it was his second-most-favorite music. Well, everything else tied for first.

  "Beats a mortar attack," Gordon said.

  "These aren't teenagers, bro," Charlie noticed, nodding to those watching them pass. "And I see a lot of tats and clothes I associate with gangs."

  "Shouldn't stereotype, remember? Or is it profile?"

  "You're right. Just keep in mind they probably have weapons within arm's reach. We're outnumbered and my body armor is at the laundry."

  The GPS lady spoke. "You have reached your destination."

  Gordon stopped the truck in the street, then nodded toward the bronze sign above the main entrance of the apartment building. "Premier Apartments. Here we are."

  "Don't see any gold Mustangs," Charlie said, looking around the lot, "but the vehicles here have the same parking sticker I saw on the car I thought belonged to Eddie."

  Gordon nodded. "The one with the driver talking to the gangsters in the van? Well, maybe Eddie's at work."

  "Yeah. Or he moved on. According to Nancy, the officers who came by spoke to the manager, a new employee who couldn't recall Eddie or find him on the list of residents. Let me check anyway, and see if we can at least get a lead," Charlie said. "Pull into the lot."

  As Charlie got out of the pickup, he noticed six young men strolling toward them with their badass walks. "Wanna come back later?" he asked Gordon, who was checking out the approaching gangbangers in the side mirrors.

  Gordon reached under the seat and brought out the two-foot-long sawed-off baseball bat he kept within reach, then thumped it against the palm of his hand. "Naw, go on in and check. We're good, and I'm still batting a thousand."

  They got out of the truck together.

  Charlie ignored the crushed beer can that whizzed past his head as he walked away from the pickup. There was a thud, two grunts, then a curse. Hopefully, the punks weren't going to get hurt too badly.

  Here in the US, Gordon might end up in jail for what was likely to happen. He was small, so men of all ages usually thought they could take him. Unfortunately for them, Gordon wasn't only the better fighter, he thrived on the exercise.

  Charlie walked to the lobby door, entered a small foyer smelling of cigarette smoke and Pine-Sol. There were mailboxes along the wall to his left, and on the right, a large, pastel watercolor of the Sandia Mountains. Ahead, also on the right, was a door labeled "Manager." There was a small window in the center and as he approached, Charlie saw a red-haired woman sitting at a desk inside. He knocked lightly as he stepped into the office.

  "Hi there, I'm Ruby, the assistant manager. How may I help you, sir?" The woman, in her early twenties with a generous bust in a V-necked green sweater, placed her cell phone on the desk and stood to face him. Her voice was low and sexy, and she was attractive enough, even with too much makeup and scary fire-engine-red hair. The diamond in the nose, though, was a turnoff, at least to a guy who wasn't into face jewelry. Not that it was going to be an issue. He hadn't had much luck with women lately anyway.

  "Hello, Ruby. I'm Charlie, and I'm looking for a guy I met a couple of months ago at Sliders— that bar on North Fourth. Eddie, Eddie Henderson, I think, was his last name. Blond hair, longer than mine, broad face, but slender. Had blue eyes. He was thinking about having the interior of his gold Mustang redone, and I was supposed to call him, but I lost his number. I was passing by, then remembered him saying something about living at the Premier Apartments. Could you tell me what apartment is his? Or maybe I could just leave a note in his mailbox with my number."

  Charlie brought out his business card, but kept his thumb over the Three Balls name.

  Ruby didn't seem to notice. "Sounds like our Eddie. Unfortunately he's moved on. Came into some money and left about four months ago. No forwarding address. He did some business with some of the guys around here—I never asked what—so maybe one of them knows how to reach him. I remember he said something about wanting to find a place with better WiFi."

  "Guys? Like the crew with matching tats hanging outside?"

  "Hey, don't disrespect my friends. Word gets around and you're gonna get a beat down."

  "Sorry, don't want to get on the bad side of a gang. What kind of business did you say they have with Eddie?"

  "I didn't say, and I don't want to know. Are we done here, Charlie?" Ruby said, crossing her arms over her chest, which had the opposite effect of intimidation, if that was her goal.

  Still, it was clearly time to leave. "Well, thanks for your time, anyway. Gotta go. Bye."

  She'd already turned her attention back to her cell phone by the time he reached the door.

  Charlie walked out to the parking lot. Gordon was leaning against the side of his pickup, cracking open roasted pinon nuts with his teeth, spitting out the hulls. The parking lot was empty.

  "Where's our fan club?"

  "They remembered a previous appointment." Gordon pointed with his chin toward
a splatter of blood on the pavement. It was now starting to cake in the noonday sun. "Watch your step."

  "The assistant manager was there, and, unlike her boss, she remembers Eddie. Four months ago he moved out, no forwarding address. Lady said he'd come into some money and was looking for a place with better WiFi."

  Gordon blinked. "Four months? That's after Baza started to let his business go to hell, but before the bank closed him down."

  "So it's possible Eddie had come into the shop and interacted with Baza. Also, the assistant manager said Eddie had dealing with the gang members out here."

  "Dealings? Like drugs, break-ins, car thefts, guns?"

  "She said she not only didn't know—she didn't want to know."

  "That's interesting. Maybe Eddie was selling guns for Baza—to the gangs. That would explain why there were no guns in the shop when we took over. And what if Baza screwed him on a deal?" Gordon offered. "Guess that was Eddie yesterday, talking to the shooters in that van."

  "Looks like. But there's gotta be more to it than just getting even. We've got to find Eddie. If he really came into money, you think he still operates a forklift at GA Foods? Maybe I should give them a call before we go over. The warehouse is close to Central Avenue, a half hour from here this time of day," Charlie added.

  "Do it. I'm hungry for a combo dish at El Pinto and a cold Dos Equis. If I recall, it's on the way."

  " 'On the way' if you make a ten-mile diversion north." "Work with me, Chuck."

  They'd gone a mile, still winding through the eighties-era housing developments full of culs-de-sac and dead ends, when Charlie put away his phone. "Edward Henderson never worked there, and there's no Tim Gallegos. But Eddie got enough attention to be remembered, including his description, which fits our guy. Eddie came by the warehouse a few months ago asking about one of their two women employees, a lady named Ruth. He got real upset when they wouldn't let him speak to her. They had to call a security guard to walk him off the property."

  "That it?" Gordon asked.

  "There's more. Eddie came back later at the change of shift and confronted two women in the parking lot. According to the guy I just spoke to, Eddie was pissed that neither of them were the Ruth he was looking for. He split when the women started yelling for the security guard."

  "Is that all?"

  "That night, one of the vehicles in the employee parking lot got its windshield smashed."

  "The security guard who'd manhandled Eddie?" Gordon said.

  "Exactly, but the outside cameras weren't able to ID the vandal. Wonder if he was looking for the same Ruth who worked for Baza?"

  "Yeah, who else? Too much of a coincidence," Gordon replied. "Her name keeps coming up. I wonder how Ruth figures into all this?" he added.

  "When we finally get a look at these personnel files, maybe we can get an address on her, or at least a lead. Let's check into this—after lunch. For now, punch in the address of El Pinto on the GPS and get us out of this suburban maze."

  Another minute went by, then Charlie spoke again. "What happened to your sense of direction, Gordo? You can't miss the mountains. That's east. We need to go that way, bro." He pointed toward the Sandia Mountains.

  Gordon grinned. "I've been dicking around, hoping those two cars following us will finally catch up."

  Charlie glanced into the side mirror and saw the cars that had been outside Eddie's former crib. "Find a dead-end street. I'm pissed off anyway. Gina's in the hospital, my Charger's on life support, and I had to shoot a guy I don't even know. I could use a good hand-to-face workout to take off the edge."

  "I was hoping you'd say that. But please don't let them goad you into a firelight, Charles. We're running low on guns back at the shop. And let's not get arrested, okay? We could lose our pawnbroker's license."

  Gordon drove around the neighborhood, pretending to be lost, until he found a dead-end street. He turned down the narrow road, almost an alley, that led to a drainage canal on the flood-prone West Mesa. He stopped about fifty feet from two posts blocking the road, which tapered down steeply into a concrete-lined drainage channel.

  Both late-model import sedans, one the black Acura they'd seen before, the other a gold Subaru, closed in, blocking their exit. The bump-bump of heavy bass from their massive speakers shook the ground.

  Gordon looked over at Charlie. "They've got us trapped, the poor bastards."

  The rap tunes suddenly went silent.

  Charlie and Gordon climbed out of the pickup at the same time and walked back toward the tailgate just as four, five, then a total of seven young men in their late teens to early twenties piled out of the two vehicles.

  "Mommy!" a girl probably no more than five yelled from her plastic playhouse on the lawn of a nearby house. She stood there, pointing toward the cars for about five seconds. A heavy set young woman opened a patio door, ran out and took her daughter inside, never taking a cell phone away from her ear. Charlie knew she'd be calling the cops next.

  "No guns, knives, or shit like that," Charlie yelled to the advancing gangbangers, stopping at the tailgate and pulling out his pistol, setting it in the bed of the truck. "No innocent civilians get hurt today. Just you and your crew."

  "Fuck that. And what is this civilian crap, Indian? You ain't no cops, and if you're military, no wonder we've been fighting a war for ten years. You gotta be major stoopid, fucking with Eddie then wanting to throw blows with my crew. Your friend got lucky before, but now you're gonna pay, both of you."

  The young man with bleached-blond hair wasn't much taller than Gordon. He turned his back on them and said something to the others.

  At least a dozen pistols, knives, and toys of violence were placed on the hoods of their cars.

  "Looks like Baza and Eddie sold them all kinds of firepower. Cocky bunch, laying all that aside to try and take us on up close. Look who's stoopid," Gordon said to Charlie. "At least now you get to hand out some payback to these guys bad-mouthing Indians," Gordon said, placing his own pistol on the truck bed.

  "And you're part of the tribe, Gordo." He turned to the seven guys standing there, fists clenched. "Last man standing," he said, loud enough for them all to hear. "Then we're out of here before the law arrives."

  "Whatever, asshole. Bring it on."

  Charlie walked just a few steps ahead of Gordon as they approached, knowing his partner would be the first target. One of the gangsters in front of the pack had a nasty welt on his forehead, and he hadn't taken his eyes off Gordon since stepping out of his car.

  "They'll go for you first, en masse, not Chuck Norris 'take turns' style."

  Gordon nodded. "I'll probably get at least four. We going back-to-back with a sweep?"

  "Just like last time," Charlie said, noting the group, each one with a black-dog tat on their right forearm, was closing in and spreading out. "Custer's Last Stand," he added in a whisper.

  "Except we're the Indians," Gordon said, chuckling.

  Charlie watched their eyes, anticipating a signal from their leader. Gordon would be doing the same.

  They were about ten feet away when the bleached-blond leader, who'd been watching Gordon, looked at Charlie, then lunged, arm cocked, ready to punch. Charlie, having assumed a fighting stance, kicked up and across with his right foot. His heavy boot struck home, thumping the guy in the side of his knee. The man yelled, stumbling into the path of another attacker. Charlie, who was turning left, now had his right side to a third assailant, whose roundhouse caught air. Charlie countered with a right counterpunch aimed downward. He struck the onrushing man in the groin, which doubled him over.

  Gordo had caught the closest attacker, who'd brushed past Charlie, with a rear, straight kick. He'd launched his left foot, turning right as he made contact with the gut of the attacker. His arms were up, blocking a jab from another guy who'd been forced to shift left to avoid the kick.

  Gordon, also a student of Krav Maga, caught Charlie's reject in the face with a horizontal elbow strike. Blood flew from his attacker's mouth as he went down. Five attackers remained, but Charlie quickly sent another one onto his back with a shuffle front-leg kick to the chest.