Read Pawnbroker: A Thriller for Free Online

those charming heart-melting, libido-igniting smiles that hooked me so many years ago.

 
     
     
     
    Chapter 12
     
     
     
    Since I was arrested on Friday and the judge had left for the weekend by the time they got me processed into the Montello City Jail, I was afraid I’d have to wait until Monday for my arraignment, and my chance at bail. Benton declared that unacceptable and started making phone calls.
    When my allotted attorney consultation time expired, a guard escorted me to a cell dubbed “the tank.” Eleven people were in the tank when I arrived, five of whom I recognized as customers. Rasheeda Hobart headed my way as soon as the cell door clanged behind me.
    “Well, looky what we done got here, a real live pawn man,” he said, standing directly in my path. I glanced around, nodded in greeting to a couple of the others who were looking our way. Only then did I notice that the only other white man in the room was a shriveled up old man, tucked into the front left corner, snoring. I sniffed the air in that direction and immediately understood why everyone else was clustered across the room.
    “How’s it going, Rasheeda?” I said with all the nonchalance I could muster.
    “Eight damn dollars,” he said.
    I moved right to go around him, but he sidestepped and blocked my path. Not good. Rasheeda was about six-six, near three hundred pounds. Body fat: Zero.
    “What do you want?” I said.
    “You a big man when a brother’s down on his luck. Brung my VCR in there and all you’d give me was eight damn dollars.”
    I took another step to the right. Rasheeda moved again. Now everyone in the tank was looking our way. Except Stinky, who was still snoring away. A guy stretched out on the lone cot in the room, peered over the top of a magazine at me. He shook his head, as if to say “Damn shame, but you’re about to get your ass kicked.” He was Hobart’s physical opposite, a wiry little fellow who might’ve weighed one-forty.
    Enough was enough. “Yeah, I offered you eight bucks, and you know what? The piece of shit wasn’t even worth that, so next time why don’t you take it somewhere else?” We pawned a hundred VCRs a week, and I of course remembered nothing about his, but I had no intention of going through this nonsense all weekend, or even for the next ten minutes.
    “That right?” His faux smile was gone now, replaced by an angry scowl.
    “Get the hell out of my way.” I took a big step to the left this time, big enough that he had to take a real step himself to try to block me, instead of just sliding over. When his right foot left the floor, I placed a solid kick to the inside of his left knee. I felt the ligaments and cartilage give way as big Rasheeda Hobart melted into the floor, wailing like a baby.
    The sound of hard-soled shoes slapping concrete echoed off the hard surfaces of the jail as a pair of guards approached the tank. They took one look at Hobart and unlocked the cell door.
    “What happened here?” one of the guards said, a bored look on his face.
    “This craz—” Hobart began, but the wiry fellow on the cot cut him off.
    “—Sheeda fell down,” he said. “Bumped his knee.”
    Hobart whipped his head around, stared at him as if he had lost his mind. “Look here, Carlos—”
    “Ain’t no but, ain’t no nothing. Ain’t shit,” Carlos said to the guards without ever taking his eyes off Hobart. Through the pain on Hobart’s face, something else flashed. Resignation? Fear? The two guards helped him up and led him out, one on each side. A third guard showed up and re-locked the door before the whole party made its way off down the corridor.
    I looked at Carlos. “Thanks,” I said, wondering what the dynamic was that made the big man so obviously afraid of diminutive Carlos. Carlos nodded and returned to his magazine.
    The rest of my stay was uneventful and, blessedly, brief. Benton managed to get a judge back to the courthouse for a bail hearing. The judge looked