Pawnbroker: A Thriller by Jerry Hatchett Read Free Book Online Page A

had a tiny black circle right in the center. A camera lens.
    I turned around to get something to put over it and jumped when I saw Penny Lane standing there.
    “What?” she said.
    Not knowing if the camera had audio capability or not, I whispered, “Camera,” and pointed. She arched her eyebrows. Robo had been on the mark thus far, and he—I assumed it was a man—had said to hurry. I grabbed a cap and tried to hang it over the detector, but the plastic detector had round edges and the cap kept falling off.
    I walked to the tool table, grabbed a hammer, returned to the bathroom, and beat the camera-cum-motion-detector until shards of plastic rained down. I lifted the lid off the toilet tank and set it aside. Submerged in the bottom of the tank was a cube-shaped object. I reached in and pulled it out. It was wrapped in several layers of plastic, secured with duct tape. I ripped the layers off.
    “They’re really out to get you,” Penny said when the last layer of plastic came off and revealed a six-inch cube of densely packed white powder. She stuck her finger in it, then tasted it. “Cocaine. Really good cocaine.”
    “Sonofadamnbitch!” I said, as I started dumping it into the toilet. Penny looked on wistfully. “You use this stuff?” I said.
    “Not anymore.”
    “Good.”
    “Yeah. Good.”

 
    Chapter 17
     
     
     
    Just as I flushed the toilet, a commotion erupted out in the shop. As soon as I was confident the contraband was safely down the hole I stepped out of the bathroom.
    “Hands in the air!” said the leader of a four-man gang of black-clad goons, no doubt Montello’s version of a SWAT team.
    I raised my hands. The leader, who was holding a Glock on me with one hand, shoved a piece of paper at me with the other. Unlike the svelte commandos who populate the special-ops police squads of Hollywood, this guy’s belly was doing its best to escape from the bottom of his flak jacket.
    “That’s a search warrant, asshole,” he said.
    Penny was already on her cell phone. “Put Lucas on right now,” she said.
    “For what?” I said to LeaderMan.
    “The entire premises.”
    “LungFao, get a camcorder and tape every bit of this you can.” His eyes were the size of saucers but he grabbed a camera and had it running within a minute. X-Man was in hasty retreat, headed for the door. Undying loyalty on display.
    “Here,” Penny said, shoving the cell phone my way.
    I took it. “Hello?”
    “Gray, this is Lucas. Stay out of the way and let them do whatever it is they’re going to do. I’ll be there in the morning. Let me speak back to Miss Lane.”
    “Roger that,” I said as I passed the phone back to Penny.
    “Right...right...no, I’m certain of it...okay, bye.” She punched off.
    Not surprisingly, LeaderMan was already in the bathroom, looking in the toilet.
    “Why’d you have the lid off the tank?” he said.
    “Routine maintenance.” I walked back out and noticed that the other three guys were just standing there, doing nothing. No surprise, I guess. Anything they did would be pure theatrics anyway.
    “We’ll be back,” LeaderMan said as he brushed hard against me on the way out of the bathroom.
    “I can’t wait.”
    He leaned in close and gritted his teeth. “You’re going down, asshole.”
    I was nose to nose with him, his breath sour enough to gag a maggot. “If you’re through, get the hell out of my shop, Barney.”
    His eyes flamed.
    “What’d you say to me, prick?”
    “Go polish your bullet, you redneck wannabe.”
    One of his colleagues grabbed him and tugged him away. I gave him a big smile.
    When they were gone, Penny said, “You might not want to antagonize them.”
    “Yeah, the nice-guy approach has worked so well with them.”
    “Don’t be glib.”

 
    Chapter 18
     
     
     
    In no mood to deal with the public, I flipped the sign to CLOSED and locked the door. “LungFao, take the day off.”
    “You sure?” he said.
    “Yeah, get out of here.”
    I let