The Bag Lady, the Boat Bum and the West Side King

by Sam Lee Jackson

  “Probably not,” Pike said.

  “I could just kill you all now. Nobody would find you for a week.”

  Pike shrugged. “If you were going to kill me, I would be dead by now.” He looked at Luz. “You in on this?”

  Luz shook his head, but he did it with a certain amount of resignation, like he didn’t think it would help much.

  “I put a gun to his head,” Paz said. “He didn’t have a choice.”

  Pike took a drag on his cigarette, then waved it around the room. “Why go through all this?”

  “So, you see I can take you anytime I want.”

  “So why not just take me?”

  “I probably should, but you’re a smart kid. I figure you can be more valuable alive instead of dead.”

  Pike dropped the cigarette on the floor and ground it out with a shiny, pointed boot. “So, you want me to work for you?”

  Paz smiled. “No, that ain’t your style. Not that you couldn’t make a ton of money doing it. A helluva lot more than you are making now, but I figure you aren’t a work for someone else kinda guy.”

  “You figure right,” Pike said. “So, what’s left?”

  “I say a truce. A partnership, if you will.”

  Pike looked at him, the question in his eyes, “How does that work?”

  “So, say we don’t. We go to war instead. I blow the shit out of your places. You blow the shit out of my places. We start killing each other. We have to watch our back every living moment. My dealers get scared, your dealers get scared. Nobody wins. Nobody makes money.”

  “What’s the answer?” Pike said.

  “I’ve got an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to go big. Really big. So big, I need to expand, and expand fast. I need more guys. More dealers, more soldiers. And, I need them now. So, I say we go partners,” Pike started to say something, Paz held up his hand to stop him. “You keep your territory. You keep what you’ve got. You run it the way you want. I keep mine. But, we work together on this new stuff. We’ll be twice as big, twice as strong. And, twice as big means quadruple the money. We can go further south, maybe even into Casa Grande and Florence. East into Mesa and Scottsdale. Maybe, even think about Tucson and Flag.”

  “What about Jose Flores and the Mexican’s? Dione Lytel and his darkies, shit like that?”

  Paz smiled. “They won’t mess with us. Especially, us combined. They sell to their own people, mostly down the south part of town. That’s the beauty of it. This new thing is all upper scale, Scottsdale, Mesa shit. Those dirt-bags won’t mess with it.”

  Pike turned and looked at Pony Boy without seeing him. He was thinking about it. “How long to decide?” he finally said.

  “Saturday,” Paz said. “You got till Saturday, sundown. I don’t hear from you by then, or you make any kind of move I don’t like, I’ll burn you down by Sunday morning.” He looked at Little Joe and indicated the door with a cock of his head. Little Joe opened the door and Paz left. We all filed out, including Diego Luz. Guess he felt safer on this side than that. Peggy and Wally Chen were last. Peggy took their weapons and opened the inside door and threw them into the dark room. They hit the floor with a clatter. Wally Chen followed Peggy out, his AR-15 covering Pike and his men. Pike was lighting another cigarette. He was deep in thought. He didn’t even glance up as we left.

  37

  I was trying to decide between Mendoza and Emil when Mendoza made my decision for me. I was sitting at the stop light where 7th Street, Cave Creek Road and Dunlap all converge when a patrol car came up behind me and lit up the lights. It gave the siren a short honk.

  Looking in the rearview mirror I didn’t recognize the patrol officer. I rolled the window down, put the car in park, and assumed the position. Hands at ten and two with my fingers spread. I waited. He took his time. Finally, he stepped out of the patrol car and came to my window, staying just far enough back to be safe.

  “License and registration, Sir,” he said.

  I slowly pulled my wallet and slipped my license out. I handed him the license, lay the wallet in my lap and leaned forward to open the glove box. I was glad I didn’t have anything in there but paperwork. I shuffled through the papers and found the registration. I handed it to him.

  He looked hard at my license, then leaned down and looked hard at me. He looked at the license again, “Jack Summers?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Not Jackson? I was told your name is Jackson. No first or middle, just Jackson.”

  “Yes sir,” Looking at him. What the hell?

  “How do you explain that?” he said.

  I gave him my most winning smile, “Your folks undoubtedly called you Bubba when you were little. But, it’s probably not your name.” I said.

  He shook his head and handed me back the license and the registration. He hadn’t looked at the registration. “The Captain said you were a smart ass. He wants you to follow me downtown. He wants to see you.”

  “Why didn’t he just call?”

  He turned without a reply, got in the patrol car, and with a wail of the siren pulled around me. I followed.

  Mendoza wasn’t in his office, so I went in and sat in one of the chairs. I put my feet up on the desk with my hands behind my head. Mendoza’s office was three sides of plexiglass. The wall behind his desk was a normal wall with a window to the outside, as was befitting his rank. I could see across the room filled with desks for the detectives. Only three were at desks. I didn’t recognize them. No one paid me any attention. A few minutes later, Mendoza came through the double doors that led down a hall. To where, I didn’t know. He was carrying a folder. He came in and went around the desk, and sat down. He opened the folder and began reading. He hadn’t looked at me. He was as crisp as usual. White, button-down shirt, blue tie. I’d noted the crease in his trousers, and the shine on his shoes when he had come in.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” he said, without looking up.

  I recognize sarcasm when I hear it. I took my feet off of his desk and sat up. His office was spartan. There was a lamp on the desk, along with a computer monitor, keyboard and mouse. His only sign of humanity in the office was a framed picture of his wife, with his two girls, on top of the bookcase that held what looked like procedural binders. There were no papers, stacked or otherwise on the desk. Not a pencil, nor paperclip. His office was like he is. Neat, buttoned down, organized and functional.

  After a long while, he closed the folder. He opened a drawer and searched for the exact spot the folder belonged, and put it away. Only now did he look at me.

  “Any progress?”

  I smiled. “You already know what I know. I think you know it about ten seconds after it happens.”

  “It takes a little longer,” he said. “We had two bugs in Paz’s place, but either someone found them, or they just died. So, we’ve been blacked out for a week.” He turned the monitor so we could both see. He started typing. What looked like a grainy, black and white, video feed came up. “What can you tell me about this?”

  I leaned forward to watch. I recognized Pike’s parking lot. The view was from up high, like the camera was on a light pole, or in a tree. I watched as Diego Luz stepped out of our car. Then Pike and Pony Boy and his guys. Then me and Frank and Vanilla. We walked across the lot to the front door. A moment later we disappeared inside.

  He reached over and fast forward the video. Paz went in that herky, jerky movement that fast forwarding does. We all came back out. Wally Chen had his Ar-15 pointed at the door until we were all in our cars and driving away. Diego Luz walked away until he was out of the picture.

  “Where is he going?” Mendoza asked.

  “Probably far away.” I explained how I had gotten Pike to come out of his lair. Mendoza let me tell it without interruption. I left out how I had threatened to blow Luz’s head off to escape his ranch.

  “Whose idea was it to go back to Pike’s old place?”

  “Pike’s” I said.

  “Smart. I’m glad
we still had the surveillance cameras up.” He looked up at me, “When was the last time you saw Boyce?”

  “The other night.”

  “And, you’re not walking back and forth.”

  “Yeah, that too.”

  “Not so sure that was such a good idea.”

  I shrugged, “Walking got old. You try it with a prosthetic.”

  He leaned back in his chair. It squeaked. I was surprised he would allow it. “Boyce is having some trouble with some street kids.”

  “A gang?”

  “No, not so much. Not like the Crips or Dos Hermanos. Just a bunch of kids that don’t go to school, don’t have jobs, sell a little dope, do a little dope. More of a nuisance than anything.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “They just hassle her every time they see her. Rough her up sometimes.”

  I laughed. “Boyce can handle herself.”

  He nodded, “Bag lady’s aren’t supposed to handle themselves.”

  I thought about it. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I send a squad car, they just disappear. I do it too often, they get suspicious. So, I thought maybe you could get them off her back.”

  “Consider it done.”

  He stood.

  “Is that all?” I asked.

  “Unless you have something else.”

  I stood, “Well, there is one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I was wondering if, by chance, you had some gold dust I could borrow for a couple of days. Maybe in the evidence room. Just a small bag would do.”

  “Get out of here.”

  “No, really. I’m serious. Just a couple of days, then I’d bring it back.”

  “Gold dust?”

  “Just a little bag. I don’t need much.”

  “Get the hell out of here.”

  38

  I found a convenient fire hydrant downtown, and parked the Mustang beside it. The Columbian Consul was in the same place, occupying half a floor in the high rise. The receptionist was still Rain. Beautiful girl, crisp white blouse bursting to perfection, short dark skirt. Sitting perkily behind the reception counter. She called herself Rain, but Emil said he thought her name was Gladys or something. I was surprised she was still here. The Ambassador’s Attaché was Santiago Escalona. A good looking, suave and erudite man. While the Ambassador was in California, Escalona ran this office. He was a happily married man, and changed receptionists like other men change socks. It was usually because they began to believe they were special to him.

  The Ambassador was heavily entrenched with the Valdez Cartel. Once upon a time, Blackhawk and I had wrenched the Ambassador’s granddaughter from a bad situation. Emil had helped us. Emil was a huge, light-footed man, with a massive bald head on no neck at all. He was intelligent, educated, well read and well spoken. He was also the second most deadly man I knew. After Blackhawk. That was saying something, because in my former life I had known a lot of deadly men.

  Rain looked up from her computer screen with her beautiful smile. I returned it with all the megawatt charm I could muster. This was the high wattage stuff that usually melted women’s undergarments. She pretended not to recognize me.

  “Hey, Rain,” I said. “How’s it goin’?”

  Her smile didn’t waver, “Do we know each other?”

  “Oh, playing hard to get, huh?”

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “How about you trot back and tell Emil his best friend is out here.”

  Now the smile faded a little, “I do not trot, sir. And, there is no one by that name here.”

  “Okay,” I said. “That’s the way we’ll play it. Tell Emil I’ll just be across the street getting a coffee.” I turned and opened the heavy glass door. I stepped out, but before it shut I stuck my head back in. “We’ll always have Paris.”

  Now, the smile had completely died. “I’ve never been to Paris,” she deadpanned.

  “Oh, how quickly they forget,” I said, letting the door slide shut. She had already dismissed me, and was looking at her computer.

  I had barely gotten set down with my coffee, in the Einstein Brothers across the street, when I saw Emil jaywalking through the traffic. If a car hit him, God help the car. He came in and sat across from me.

  Without preliminaries he said, “All the way down here I wonder why in hell do I come down to see you.”

  “I’d see you up there, but Rain says you don’t exist.”

  “She’s right.” He casually looked around the room, taking everything and everyone in. “I think I come down because you always entertain me.”

  “I aim’s to please.”

  “Rain calls you, ‘that guy that thinks he’s God’s gift to women’. I had to have her describe you before I realized who she was talking about. Do you think you are God’s gift to women?”

  I sipped my coffee. “Only if they are really old, and need help at a crosswalk.”

  “So, how can I help you find free money today?”

  “I didn’t ask the Ambassador for anything. And, your drug dealing friend made his own decision.”

  He smiled, “Yes, he did. It was to his own best interest. And, his excellency is a generous man. A grateful, generous man. And, that is mostly the reason I came down here. So, what brings you to my world today?”

  I leaned back and looked at him. I thought of different ways to say it, but decided straight up was the best. “I need a bag of gold. More specifically, a bag of gold dust. It doesn’t need to be a big bag, just so it is legitimate and the dust can be essayed.”

  Emil started laughing. He made a show of searching his pockets. Still laughing he said, “Wait, wait, I know I had it here someplace.”

  I shook my head, “I’m serious.”

  “I’m sure you are,” he said. “Okay, you have to tell me the story.”

  So, I told him. I told him about Mrs. Eberly and the grifter, but I didn’t tell him I was staying at the same boarding house, or why.

  “So, this guy scams this little old lady out of her savings, and you want to scam him back with a bag of gold dust.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Surely, there are other ways to scam the guy.”

  “Probably, but this one is so improbable I know he will bite.”

  “And, you think I have a bag of gold dust?”

  I shrugged, “I think you know a whole lot of people, and I think you are a very resourceful man. So, I think if anyone I know could come up with a bag of gold, it would be you.”

  He studied me for a very long time. Finally, he shook his head and stood. “You are very entertaining,” he said. He turned and walked out.

  Several hours later, I was on the top deck of Tiger Lily with Pete Dunn. We each had a large rock glass with Plymouth gin and two ice cubes. We were watching the moon rise. Pete had been telling me how hard it was to sit before a blank screen and attempt to write the great American novel. That’s why, I said, I was a reader not a writer. My phone vibrated. I pulled it from my pocket and looked at the screen. It said, “ID blocked”. I started to disconnect, when I thought better of it, so I answered.

  “Hello.”

  “I’m at the top of the hill,” Emil’s voice said. “I don’t want to come all the way down there, so you come up here.” He disconnected.

  I stood.

  “What’s up?” Pete said.

  I took a drink and set my glass aside. “Come with me,” I said. “I want you to meet someone that no writer could make up.”

  It was our bad luck that the shuttle had quit for the night, so we hiked the two hundred yards, straight up, to the parking area. When we reached the top, I could feel the burn in my legs, telling me I had been neglecting my regular swims. Pete was huffing and puffing.

  Emil was leaning, with arms crossed, against the passenger side fender of a dark limousine. The windows were tinted, but I could make out a guy in the driver’s seat. In the moonlight, the light gleamed off of Emil’s mass
ive bald head. In his dark suit, his body looked like a tree in the black forest.

  “Who’s your friend?” Emil said.

  “Pete Dunn,” I said. “His boat is just down from mine. It used to be called the ‘Moneypenny’. You may remember it.”

  Emil nodded. Pete held his hand out, “Nice to meet you,” he said, struggling for breath.

  Emil ignored the hand.

  “Pete’s a writer,” I said.

  “Nothing here to be written about,” Emil said looking at me.

  “Not a thing,” Pete said. “Jackson said I should meet you. Said you were, uh, unusual.”

  Emil looked at me, then back to Pete, “He said I was unusual? The one-footed wrecking ball said I was unusual?”

  Pete laughed. “Wrecking ball?”

  Emil reached into his pocket and took out a small leather pouch. He handed it to me.

  “There’s three ounces of dust in there. You have three days. If I don’t have it all back in three days, the catfish will feast on your toes.”

  “It might work better if you said, liver, or eyeballs,” Pete said.

  Emil looked at him, then back to me.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Emil looked at Pete again. He shook his head and got into the limo. The driver fired the engine, and it pulled away, grinding through the loose gravel.

  We watched it drive away.

  “Wow, you were right,” Pete said. He looked at the pouch in my hand, “Is that it?”

  I hefted it in my hand. It was a sold weight. “That’s it,” I said.

  39

  Blackhawk, Nacho and I were in Nacho’s Jeep parked in the strip mall lot at Dunlap and 35th Avenue. On the corner, Boyce was in her bag lady regalia, holding a cardboard sign that said, homeless hungry anything helps – God Bless.

  She was sitting with her forearms on her knees, her head on her forearms. She didn’t really want anyone to give her anything, but once in a while someone did. We started keeping track. It seemed like it was usually younger women or older men. When they did give her money, she would stash it in a bag in the overloaded shopping cart she had sitting back, away from the street. I had asked her what she did with the money. She said she gave it to the patrolmen that drove her home every night. They dispersed it to other homeless in the area the next day.