Everyone but Frank and Paz turned out for it. Even Vanilla came along. The house was in an ordinary neighborhood, for that area. Run down, no landscaping. Three older model sedans and two pickup trucks were parked in the drive and along the front. It faced south. The house on the west side looked empty. There were broken children’s toys in the dirt yard of the house to the east. No one was on the street.
Little Joe had briefed us on the way over. The house was used for manufacturing, but Pike also had his people sell out of it. It would be an easy hit Little Joe said. Peggy was driving, with Little Joe in the passenger side and the rest of us crammed into the back. Little Joe had given me a Smith and Wesson .38 with a three-inch barrel. I had crammed it into my back pocket and now was sitting on it. Like sitting on a rock. We were at 38th Avenue and Peggy was hot dogging. He came around the corner by the house fast enough to throw us on top of each other. Wally Chen was next to the door, so he bore the brunt of it.
“Jesus, Peggy. Take it easy,” he growled.
Peggy turned the wheel and hopped the curb, pulling to a dusty stop in the yard. Little Joe gave him a hard look, but Peggy was grinning. He was enjoying himself. We all piled out. For a brief moment we stood looking around. Peggy turned and bounded up the steps onto the faded porch. He kicked the door in and went through it. We followed, Vanilla taking up the rear.
The room was a small living room. It had two really worn couches and some folding chairs. Two people sat on one of the couches. A man and a woman. They both looked strung out. Gaunt, emaciated, skin and bones. Covered in tattoo’s. They didn’t even react when we burst through the door. The place had the unmistakable odor of meth. Little Joe moved through the room to the back of the house. I followed him. We heard a back door slam as we moved into the kitchen. Bottles, tubes, a propane bottle and several boxes of matches were scattered about. I moved to a window just in time to see a guy going over the slat fence at the back of the scrub yard.
There were cans of brake cleaner and engine starter next to bottles of rubbing alcohol. The stove burners were still on. I absently turned them off.
“Turn them back on,” Little Joe said. I looked at him. He was looking at the propane bottle.
“Hey,” I said. “There are kids next door.”
“Get everyone out of here,” he said, like he hadn’t heard me. He reached over and turned the burners back on, then moved to the propane bottle.
“Shit,” I said under my breath. I went back into the living room. Peggy was rousting the guy. He had him up and was shoving him against the wall. Wally Chen was watching me.
“We have to get out. Little Joe’s going to blow this place up.”
Peggy was slapping the guy, backhand, forehand, like a punching bag. I reached down and grabbed the skinny arm of the girl. “Come on,” I said. “We have to get out of here.”
I shoved the girl toward the front door and turned and grabbed Peggy’s arm. He spun, his eyes narrowed, his blood up. He reached for me. I turned his grasp aside and stepped back. “We have to get out!” I said. “Joe’s got the propane open and the burner is on.” He hesitated, staring at me, then turned and went out the door. Wally Chen pushed the druggie out after him. Vanilla was already standing out in the street. Little Joe came rushing out the door behind us. Peggy had jumped into the car and was backing into the street, tires spinning, throwing dirt up in clouds. We all started running. The girl was just standing there, so I grabbed her arm and pulled her along.
“My purse,” she wailed. I drug her along. A half a block down, I let go and she staggered over and sat hard on a patch of grass. The guy had disappeared.
We stood watching the house. It took longer than you would think. Just when we were thinking that something had gone wrong the explosion took the back wall out. The concussion washed over us, then black smoke began billowing out of the back of the house. Peggy came screeching up to us in reverse. We piled in. The woman had disappeared. Peggy peeled away and even Wally Chen was grinning.
Little Joe pulled his phone and dialed 911. “I’d like to report a house fire,” he said. Peggy laughed so hard he snorted.
31
Two days later Little Joe paid me my weekly grand. Two days after that I started driving the Mustang. Frank and Little Joe came out and admired it.
Little Joe slowly walked around it. Frank slowly pushed on the fender like he was checking the suspension. It must be a guy thing.
“So, you make a little money you get spick rich,” Little Joe said. “Can’t wait to spend it.”
“Tired of walking,” I said. “Makes my stub hurt.”
“Nothing worse than a hurting stub,” Little Joe said. Frank grinned.
“Har, har,” I said.
One interesting thing was that Paz didn’t expect me to hang out with the guys all day and all night. So, I didn’t alter my routine that much. I came in and hung out till they closed up. I took to parking in the back. Since the firebombing, Frank had finally replaced the lights on the roof corners in the back. They didn’t last long. One had already been blown out by a kid with a BB gun. I began parking the Mustang in the corner next to the row of oleanders. This is where Boyce startled me when she stepped out of the dark bushes.
“They found a body,” she said.
“Well, hell,” I said, stepping back. “Hello to you too. How you doing. How’s the bag lady gig going?”
“That burned out house down off of Baseline. That was you guys.” It didn’t sound like a question.
“Paz sending a message. What body?”
“A woman. Not much left.”
I looked off at the street, then around the area. It was dark and the street lights were lonely. I felt tired. I looked back at Boyce. The last remaining corner light threw a shadow of an oleander branch across her face. The shadow moved slowly in the light breeze.
“Tattoo’s?”
She shrugged. “Don’t know. Haven’t seen the coroner’s report.”
“Where in the house did they find her?”
“She was in the front. Laying on her purse. Purse full of meth. Mendoza’s getting impatient. Can we tag the woman on Paz?”
“Paz is too smart for that. He wasn’t there.”
“Were you there?”
I shook my head. “Nope, I ain’t playing. They put you on the stand, you’re an officer of the law. You are duty bound to spill everything. Nope, ain’t playing.”
She gave me that lopsided grin that looked sinister in the ambient light. “Don’t you trust me?”
“Hell yes. I trust you. I trust you to be you.”
“Everybody has to be somebody. You guys find out where Pike went?”
“Peggy shook it out of one of Pike’s guys.”
“Off of University and 24th.”
I smiled. “Yeah. So, I just could have asked you?”
“We watched them move out of the old place, and we watched them move into the new.”
“New place is like a fortress. Seven-foot block fence with a gate.”
“You must have scared them.”
“Something about Paz scares everyone. Even Peggy’s afraid of him and Peggy’s a psycho.”
“Yes, he is. That’s why Paz hired him. All Paz has to do is point his finger, and Peggy will chop your feet off.”
“I’d like to have known his mother,” I said.
“Probably Lizzy Borden. But none of Paz’s guys are what you would call mentally stable. You look at Little Joe. He seems the most normal of the bunch. You check his rap sheet, you find that he was suspected of busting a guy’s legs up by repeatedly dropping concrete blocks on them.”
“Suspected?”
“Yeah. No arrest made, but he did it. And, he did it because Paz told him too. You can bet he has no regrets about it. Just another day at the office.”
“Gee, and I like him too.”
“Yeah, up till he shoots your balls off.”
“What about Wally Chen?”
“Chen came out of Chinat
own in San Francisco. We think he got sideways with one of the Tongs; found the climate better in Phoenix.”
“You know what’s funny?”
“What?”
“I don’t smell you. You think I’m getting used to it?”
She smiled. “I have. I guess you get used to anything.”
“Mrs. Haggerty at the boarding house has a book of old tin type photos of early Phoenix settlers. Everyone dressed so proper, with hats and coats and some even with those little string ties.”
She shook her head, “I’m sure this is a very important subject of conversation.”
“This was way before air conditioning. Way before most things we take for granted. And, I was thinking about how they must have smelled. Not enough water to bathe every day. Washing clothes was really a chore. The heat was a killer. The body odor had to stink to high heaven, but they must have gotten used to it.”
“Lots of cologne. They used lots of cologne. The only thing fancy about them fancy ladies was four layers of perfume.”
“How long are we pulling this charade?”
“Up to you,” she said. “You’re the tactician.”
“Yeah, well, I thought that if Paz got comfortable with me, we could catch him with his pants down. But, I can’t find him with his pants down. We have to come up with something that will work.”
“What will work?”
“We have to draw him out.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“Hell, Boyce. I don’t know.”
She looked over my shoulder, then abruptly stepped back into the shadows. Then was gone.
I turned as I heard the footsteps in the parking lot. Peggy’s shaved head gleamed in the light. I hit the remote to the car and it beeped as it locked again. I started across the lot toward him.
“Who you talking to?”
I walked past him, “Nobody.”
He turned and fell in beside me, “The hell you say. I heard you.”
I stopped and looked at him, “It was a panhandler, and she has a big crush on you.”
He cocked his head, “Hey, I told you not to fuck with me.”
I shrugged and started toward the door, he grabbed my arm. I stopped and looked at him.
“Paz wants to see us.”
I looked at his hand on my arm. He dropped it.
“Lead the way,” I said. I followed him in.
32
The meeting didn’t last long.
Paz said to Little Joe, “Take Peggy and Jack and go find one of Pike’s guys and take him to the river bottom and cap him.”
“Which guy?” Little Joe asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Paz said. “Just so the guy’s important enough to Pike to matter. You know what I mean? And, leave him where he’ll be found.”
“Gotcha boss,” Little Joe said. He was silent a moment, then “It’s kinda late right now, boss. None of them guys might be out.”
“Hell, yes it’s late,” Paz said. “Do it tomorrow night.” He stood up and began shoving things into his briefcase.” He could have been a mortgage banker. “Close this place up,” he said. Little Joe and Wally Chen followed him out. I looked at Peggy, but he was struggling up out of the deep chair. He went by me without a look. I followed him into the bar. Peggy walked straight across and out the front door.
Frank looked at me, “We closing?”
I nodded, and went out. By the time I was in the Mustang, they were gone.
I didn’t like parking the Mustang in front of the boarding house, so I still parked it in the parking garage and walked the few blocks back to my room. I went up the back stairs and the door to my room was unlocked. I pushed it open with my foot, my hand on the .38 in my back pocket.
Reggie was sitting cross-legged on my bed. She looked like hell, which is to say, I’d never seen her look better. She had gained weight, and while her hair was a mess, she didn’t have that deep-down grime she had before.
I dropped my shirt tail over the handle of the pistol.
“What are you doing here?”
“Ain’t you glad to see me?”
“No Reggie, I’m not.”
I stepped in and closed the door quietly behind me. Habit.
“How’d you get in here?”
She grinned up at me. She seemed sober. “One of those old ladies let me in.”
“They just let you in?”
“Sure.”
“No, they didn’t,” I said. I picked up the bottle of lotion from my dresser and sat on the edge of the bed, as far from her as possible. I took off the prosthetic and began to work the lotion into my stump.
“I told them I had an important message for you, from your boss.”
“What is it?” I asked.
Her grin got bigger, “Jack, there ain’t no message.”
I put the cap on the lotion bottle and set it back on the dresser. “Why are you here? Why did you leave Safehouse?”
“There ain’t no rule I gotta stay there.”
“No there’s not. No rule. But, Christ Reggie. It’s a place to clean yourself up, change your life.”
“I don’t want to change my life.”
“Spoken like a true addict.”
“I ain’t no addict.”
I didn’t have to respond to that. “Why did you leave. Father Correa said you were making great progress.”
“Progress? What the hell is that. You wake up in the morning and that’s the best you will feel all day?”
“He said you did great with the babies.”
She smiled. She almost looked human. “Yeah, there were some cute babies. This one named Raphael was so fat. You poke him with your finger and he would fall over laughing.”
“Why did you leave?”
“Because, I wanted to. What’s the deal with that guy anyway?”
“Father Correa?”
“Yeah father. Why do they call him father? He ain’t nobodys father.”
“He’s a Catholic priest. They call Catholic priests Father.”
She got off the bed and wandered over to the closet. She absently opened the door and looked in. “Why’s that guy doing that anyway? How much money does he make?” She closed the door and looked back at me. “I’d charge a lot of money to put up with some of those bitches. The worse they were, the more time he spent with them. Some of them I’d just kick the hell out.”
I felt this was probably useless, but I said it anyway, “Safehouse is a non-profit organization. Father Correa started it to help young women, especially pregnant young women, or young women with small children, that are being abused or have no place to go. Non-profit means the Father doesn’t get paid. They exist on donations from other people.”
“No shit? People just give him money?”
“Yes.”
She cocked her head, looking at me. “I ain’t pregnant. I don’t have children. Why did he let me in?”
“It was a favor to me,” I said.
“Why does he owe you a favor?”
“It’s a long story. Listen Reggie, I can take you back to Father Correa’s or you can leave, but you aren’t staying here.”
“You got anything to eat, Jack?”
“No, I don’t, and I’m not going to get you anything to eat. You see, you think about it. The last time you ate something was probably out of a dumpster. The last good meal you had was at Safehouse. Life is nothing but a series of choices. We don’t always get what we want to choose from, but we do get to choose. This is my last offer. I take you to Safehouse, or I walk you down the stairs and put you outside like a cat.” While I was talking I slipped my prosthetic back on.
“Fuck you, Jack,” she said, heading for the door.
I caught her by the arm. She started to pull away but realized she couldn’t so she just stood there, her head down.
“You think I’ll just let you leave so you can go downstairs and raid Mrs. Haggerty’s refrigerator and sleep on her couch?”
Now, she tried to pull a
way. I just held her arm, tight. She was so skinny, it almost broke your heart. Almost. I opened the door and pulled her to the stairs and down to the outside door. I levered the dead-bolt open and shoved her out on the landing.
She turned, her face upturned, “Please, Jack.”
I shut the door and locked it. I went up the stairs. She started pounding on the door and wailing. I waited in the hallway outside my door. It was as if everyone in the building knew what the noise was, and why. No one came out to investigate. After a while she was quiet.
I went in, locked the door, stripped down and climbed into bed. After a very long time I fell asleep. It wasn’t just Reggie that had kept me awake, it also was the thought that I was supposed to kill a man tomorrow. And, this time it wasn’t for God and Country.
33
Reggie was gone in the morning. I spent the day in my room reading and listening to NPR radio until I couldn’t take it anymore. I shook my head at the antics of our political leaders. Not one of them would make it in the real world.
Finally, I showered, ate something and drove to the SanDune. When I walked in Frank said, “They’re in the back. They’re waiting for you.”
“I didn’t know I was supposed to be here at a certain time.”
“You weren’t,” Frank said, wiping down a glass. “If you got here an hour ago, or an hour from now, they’d still be waiting for you.”
I went into the back office. Peggy and Wally Chen were sitting on the couch. Little Joe was in the big chair. Vanilla was on a folding chair. Paz was behind his desk.
“Where you been?” Paz said.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and looked at it, “I don’t have any missed calls,” I said.
Paz looked at Vanilla, “Give him the chair,” Paz said.
Vanilla’s hairless eyebrows went up. He started to protest, but Paz’s steady gaze held him. He reluctantly rose to his feet.
“I can stand,” I said.
Vanilla moved to the back wall and leaned against it.
The Bag Lady, the Boat Bum and the West Side King Page 12
