Pawnbroker: A Thriller (29 page)

Chapter 136

I
walked toward the door. As we passed Ballard’s body, I said, “Why’d you shoot your boss?”

“My boss?” he said, a confused look on his face. Then he chuckled, a low sinister sound I’d never heard from Teddy in all our years.

“I’m the boss, Gray. Me. He worked for me. I control the entire Southeast, and before long, I’ll control the nation, old buddy.”

“Why?”

“I’m a businessman, Gray. Any idea how much money we’re talking about here?”

“Obviously enough to sell out a friend.”

“Friend? You, a friend?”

I was genuinely perplexed. The look on his face was one of utter astonishment that I had just framed us as friends. Given that we had been—I thought—close friends for decades, I had no idea how to respond.

“Let’s see.” He looked up, scratched his chin with his free hand. “Where do we begin?” He stroked his chin now, a professorial look of deep pondering. “Oh, I know. How about we start with the quarterback position? I was the quarterback, Gray. Not you. Me. I made you my number one receiver, but that wasn’t good enough for you. Oh hell no, you had to move in and take my position. Friend?”

I was stunned, shaking my head. “You can’t be serious,” I said. “Football? You’re trying to tell me a high school football position warrants this?”

“It’s not the game. It’s the principle. You betrayed me.”

“You need help, Teddy.”

He drew his lips into a narrow line, the way he’s always done when he’s angry, and drew a deep breath.

“Say it again and I’ll kill you right here, right now. So go ahead, say it again, sport.”

How could this be? I’d felt naive where Abby was concerned, but that wasn’t on the same planet with this. Here was a guy I thought I knew, who was really a top-grade psychopath and I hadn’t had a clue.

“Didn’t think so,” he said. “Let’s continue, shall we?”

“By all means, Teddy. What else did I do?”

He snorted. “As if you don’t know. Wasn’t enough for you to make a fool out of me on the team, in front of the whole school. Nope, not enough, old buddy. You had to break my heart, too. My heart.”

“Abby?” I said, trying hard to keep the incredulity out of my voice, lest I push him further into his insanity.

He nodded. “Abby, Abby, Abby. Had to have her too, didn’t you?”

At this point, all I knew to do was try to appease him and look for an opening. “I didn’t know. Honestly, I didn’t.”

“Riiiight,” he said. “You take the love of my life, and you don’t know. You’re a real piece of work, sport.”

My response popped out before I even thought about it. “Teddy, you and Abby never even dated.”

“Oh, I see. You and I were best friends, and just because I didn’t spell it out for you, you didn’t know? Just because I didn’t ask her out soon enough, you had to step in, is that what I’m hearing here?”

I didn’t answer.

“You weren’t as sharp as you thought, though,” he continued. “There was one thing in high school you couldn’t cheat me out of.”

Teddy Abraham got everything in high school. Most popular, most handsome, Mr. This, Mr. That, most likely to succeed. If there was an award, he got it. So, despite the gravity of the situation, I found myself curious as to what that one thing was in his twisted mind.

“Who got the Thespian Award, huh, sport?”

“You did, Teddy.”

“Damned right I did. I was the best actor, and I put my talent to good use. Kept hanging around you, because it kept me close to Abby. I bided my time. Figured I’d get my chance when you went to Ole Miss and she went to State. Those split-college relationships almost never work out, you know. Even after I changed my own college plans, though—”

I couldn’t help myself. I said, “Are you telling me you went to State because Abby was going there?”

“Of course. She was the love of my life. Is the love of my life. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t interrupt me again, Gray.”

I said nothing.

“Even though I hate that little piss-ant town, when she followed you back to it, I followed her. Stayed close. Waited patiently as long as I could, and then I told her how I felt. You know what she did?”

I shook my head.

“She laughed at me. Thought I was testing her fidelity for you. Can you believe that?”

“You got married twice,” I said. “What about them?”

He shrugged. “Celibacy’s not my style. Got to have a piece of ass on a regular basis, you know? But I didn’t give a damn about them. I waited for her. Waited for years. Finally, I saw my chance. And I took it.”

Chapter 137

ARLINGTON RESIDENCE

WEST MEMPHIS, ARKANSAS

Jimmy was going nuts. He had lost contact with Gray first, then Penny, and too much time had passed for it to be something minor. Even if they lost their radios, they should have called him via cell phone by now. He knew their phones were still working, because he was tracking them. Penny’s had been in the same place for a long time. Too long. Gray’s moved around a little more, but then it went stationary as well. He zoomed in and checked the grid; they were no more than a hundred yards apart.

He switched the display back to the
Lady’s starboard camera, which still showed a broadside view of about three-quarters of the other yacht. For what felt like the gazillionth time since Gray left the Lady, he scanned the monitor for any sign of activity. Cripes a’mighty! He fired off a series of keystrokes, enlarging the area on the left edge of his monitor, which was toward the rear of the boat. He saw shadows moving!

More keystrokes, and he studied the screen again. Blow a poxy monkey! The action was just beyond the camera’s field of view. He drew a deep slug of Mountain Dew and pounded the desk, then palm-slapped his forehead. Think, Geek, think! Oh what he wouldn’t give for a sweet little PTZ camera about now; he’d be a panning, tilting, zooming fool, he would.

Move the boat! He could move the camera by moving that mama-chicken of a boat! He entered another salvo of keystrokes, readied his joystick, and pressed ENTER. A half-second later, a message scrolled into view on the bottom of his left monitor.

I-Navigator Message: Host Ready. Transfer control to remote bridge? Y/N

Jimmy kissed the tip of his right index finger, reached to the keyboard, and tapped the Y key. Another message appeared.

Warning! You are about to give full control of this craft’s navigation system to an external system. Are you sure? Y/N

He entered another Y. The monitor went blank for a moment, then filled with a graphic rendition of the Lady’s control panel. He tapped in a J and a line of text scrolled across the bottom of the screen.

Joystick Mode Activated—Proceed With Caution

Jimmy nudged the joystick’s control shaft barely forward and the yacht eased forward, bringing the area of interest into the starboard camera’s field of view. He stared at the screen, unable to believe what he saw there, and unable to come up with one of his trademark creative responses. Instead, he said simply, “Oh God.”

Chapter 138

I suppose the appropriate thing to feel toward Teddy was pity. After all, he was obviously sicker than sick. But that’s not what I felt. I wanted to kill the crazy bastard. The thought of him pretending to be my friend while he stalked my wife for twenty years, pretended to love my children—he deserved to die. I had a hunch I understood the “chance” he mentioned, but I wanted to hear him say it.

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“The device. Tommy Mitchell and I had done a lot of business through the years, so when he found out about it, he came to me.

“I was in the Grotto the first time he showed it to me. This dog had been coming on to me all night, and while I love a piece of extracurricular action as much as the next guy, she was so ugly I wouldn’ve done her with your dick, know what I’m saying?”

He roared in laughter, as if he’d just told a joke over the backyard barbeque grill. When I didn’t join in, he continued, “So I put these headphones on, and all at once that ugly bitch was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I took her to the bathroom, banged her in a stall. It was incredible. And I knew right then, without a doubt, that this would be the most profitable ‘drug’ in history.

“I also knew that all I had to do was get Abby to put the headphones on, and I could have her. After waiting twenty years, I’d finally tap that hot ass that you stole from me.”

“And did you?” I said.

His face suddenly flushed crimson and he jerked the gun up into my face. “I asked you,” he hissed, “not to interrupt me, Gray.” His hand was shaking, the barrel just inches away.

“Sorry, Teddy,” I said in a near whisper. “Please continue.”

“I knew she was screwing Bobby Knight, but I forgave her even for that. But get this: We had a meeting scheduled one night at the Courtyard—owning a hotel comes in handy. Supposed to be me, Homestead, Mitchell, and Bobby. Mitchell gets tied up, can’t come. Homestead and I are there waiting, and Bobby shows up, has Abby in the car with him. You believe that? Tells her it’s some kind of business meeting, that he’ll just be a minute.”

All the time Teddy’s talking, he still has his gun right in my face. It’s a Smith & Wesson .357 revolver with a 6” barrel. It’s cocked and ready, his finger on the trigger. I’m not scared anymore, though. My heart has slowed down to a quasi-normal rate. My breathing has leveled out. I’m just listening, hating him for what he’s done to my wife, to my life. And waiting for him to give me the slimmest crevice of opportunity.

“Bobby leaves his sample device in the car, Abby decides to listen to it. Next thing we know, she walks into the room, she’s fired, I’m talking eyes fully ringed. Homestead has his sample and puts it on, and next thing I know, they’re going at it like animals. Bobby, the kinky bastard, gets the police department’s video camera out of his car. I shoot the action, both of ’em doing her, then when it’s my turn, the battery thing in her unit’s all spent. She comes down and she’s bawling and screaming, wanting to know where the hell she is. She grabs her clothes and runs out.”

He finally stops talking, and stands there shaking his head as if the memory still hurts him oh so bad. His arm is tiring and he’s lowered the gun. It’s pointed at my chest now.

“So you see, sport, old Teddy got left out one more time. It’s addictive as all hell, so I could no doubt work out a way to get her on it again, but there’s also a problem.”

“It cooks brains,” I said.

He looked surprised. “Not sure how you figured that out, but yeah, that’s right. Use it too much and...” He wiggled his fingers and made a sound like eggs frying.

I wondered how much damage had been done to Abby’s brain.

“Here’s where it gets good,” he continued. “The people who’d been working on it couldn’t figure out the problem because, let’s face it, you don’t just set up clinical trials in the nearest research hospital with something like this, right?”

I assumed the question was rhetorical, but he was waiting, apparently wanting me to answer it anyway. “Right,” I said.

“As it turns out, my dear cousin Ian had a couple indiscretions with female patients and lost his license. Bastard was broke as shit, so I flew him over and put him to work. Had a hellacious facility right here. We brought in the original electronics guys who invented the thing. They tweaked and Ian monitored the medical results.”

“And where did you get volunteers for this testing?”

“Well...I wouldn’t exactly call them volunteers.”

“Meaning what?”

“You’ll love this, Gray. I bought a whole damn truckload of Mexicans, eight dozen! At a bargain, too!”

I felt sick. “Where are they, Teddy?”

He spread his arms in a wide flourish. “All around you.”

I hung my head, utterly unable to believe I had loved this monster a few minutes before.

“Don’t look so glum, buddy. When we were done with them, we just cranked up the juice and sent them out on the Happy Express. No
problemo!” He laughed at his own sick humor.

“Teddy, where are my kids?”

His smile disappeared. “You interrupted m—”

“Kiss my ass, Teddy. I’ve heard enough. If you’re going to shoot me, just get it over with.”

I looked him in the eye and he gave a facial shrug and raised the gun. No filmstrip of memories flashed through my mind, but an overwhelming sense of failure flooded every crevice of my soul. I would die without seeing my children, without even knowing they were alive. And there was Abby. What would happen to her? Would Teddy get away with this and ride in on a white horse to rescue her from her grief?

My reverie was cracked by the sound of someone talking, someone other than Teddy. I pulled myself back into the tangible world and saw movement behind him. It was the girl, coming out the door. She was holding Ballard’s gun, stretched out in front of her.

“Hombre mal,” she said. “Emilio muerto.” I was pretty sure that meant “Emilio dead.” She kept coming, kept talking. Her finger was on the trigger, her brown eyes wide and liquid. Teddy rolled his eyes in annoyance, cocked the revolver, and turned toward her.