Pawnbroker: A Thriller by Jerry Hatchett Page B

them were from someone named Lula Rogers.
    “Who is she?” I said.
    “Works at the courthouse,” Penny said, and only then did I notice the worried look on her face. “You better call.”

 
    Chapter 39
     
     
     
    “Well?” Penny said when I hung up the phone.
    “I have three days to come up with the hundred grand, or I wait for trial from jail.”
    I filled her in on the credit report, on seeing Ballard.
    “Not good timing,” she said.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Lucas called this morning. He’s pushing for the retainer, and I’m afraid he might call my hand over a hundred grand.”
    The door chimed and an elderly lady I didn’t recognize walked in. She was carrying a Crock-Pot, moving in tiny little steps. Her clothes were dated, as were her glasses—black, pointed outer edges—but there was something about the way she carried herself that held my attention. Her back was stooped, but her chin was high. Her hair white, thin, but meticulously neat. As she drew closer, I saw a multitude of lines on her face, but her makeup had been applied with care and time.
    LungFao started toward her, but I raised a hand, palm toward him. “Can I help you today, ma’am?” I said.
    “Oh, I hope so, young man. I surely hope so. You wouldn’t believe the week I’ve had.”
    Her name was Lucille Boggs. She was eighty-four, a widow, and lived alone in an efficiency apartment at Montello Manor, a depressingly generic retirement village on the edge of town. Her Social Security check had been lost in the mail and she was desperate.
    “Let’s see what we have here, Ms. Boggs,” I said.
    “Oh dear, do call me Lucille, young man. ‘Ms. Boggs’ sounds so, so...stiff.”
    She raised the lid from the Crock-Pot and took out a small package wrapped in a faded velvet cloth. After putting the package on the counter, she pulled back the velvet one corner at a time. Inside was a small, gold cardboard box. She removed the lid and set it aside with the care one might show when disarming a nuclear weapon. In the early days, this kind of ceremony would have had me wondering what precious artifacts lay inside. Thousands of little boxes later, I wasn’t in the least surprised to see a couple of small gold rings and a smattering of costume jewelry. Between the Crock-Pot and the jewelry, she had twenty bucks’ worth. Tops. Maybe.
    “How much do you need, Lucille?”
    “Are you the ‘Gray’ in ‘Gray’s Green Cash,’ young man?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Gray, I have to have a hundred and twenty-five dollars, and I want to tell you why.”
    Someone asking over a hundred dollars on something worth twenty used to shock me. Not now. People have no concept of how business works. To Lucille Boggs, the contents of that box were priceless. She had no understanding of the fact that I’d do well to get thirty bucks from her collection if she didn’t pick it up. But for some reason, on that day, as I looked into her eyes, it didn’t matter. I could see the years in those eyes, along with something fresh, a pain, a quiet desperation. Even more important, though, was the determination that still shone through. Whatever her crisis was, Lucille Boggs intended to meet it head on.

 
    Chapter 40
     
     
     
    L ungFao walked back in the door with an armload of lunch. “Boss, guess who’s dead.”
    “Who?”
    “Guess.”
    “LungFao, I’m not in the mood.”
    “Well, excuse the crap out of me,” he said, a pouting look on his face.
    “LungFao,” I warned.
    “Mitchell.”
    “Tommy Mitchell?”
    “You got it.”
    “How? Where? When?”
    “You ain’t gonna be—”
    “Fao.”
    “Sorry, boss,” he said. “Guess you’re a little edgy, huh?”
    I closed my eyes, drew a long deep breath, and counted to ten. When I opened them, I fired him a look that made it clear the next thing out of his mouth better be a straightforward explanation.
    Finally, he got the message. “He got in a shootout with Leroy Huddleston,” he