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

by Sam Lee Jackson

  We’d been there an hour when Blackhawk said, “Head’s up.”

  I looked to where he was looking. A block away a group of boys came into sight, sauntering down the sidewalk, coming toward Boyce. They were young. Too old to just go out and play, too young to drive.

  When they reached the corner, they surrounded Boyce’s shopping cart and began to rummage through it. We could hear her screeching at them.

  “We gonna just sit here?” Nacho said.

  I nodded, “Yeah.” He shrugged.

  “Boyce is okay,” Blackhawk said. “She can handle this.”

  One of them found her stash. She tried to grab it out of his hand, and he shoved her down. She stayed down. She did this to stay out of their way. No sense getting punched for someone else’s money. She was screaming a string of invectives at them that would blister a wart hog.

  Once they had her money, they lost interest in her. We watched them move on down the street. Boyce dusted herself off, and offered her cardboard sign to the current string of cars. Two drivers, who had witnessed her being bullied, offered her money.

  The boys were a couple of blocks away when they turned a corner and moved out of sight.

  “Follow them,” I said to Nacho. He fired up the Jeep and pulled out into the street. He took his time getting to the corner. He pulled around it, and the boys were only a half block up. They were acting like young boys everywhere. Silly.

  “I want to know where they go,” I said.

  Nacho pulled into the parking of a small furniture store. We sat and watched. Three blocks up they turned another corner. Nacho started the Jeep and we moved again. By the time we made the turn, they were half a block down. This time they turned into an auto repair shop. The asphalt parking lot was filled with older cars. The building was big enough to have two bays. They skirted the shop and went to a free-standing building that was a hundred feet behind the repair shop. They went inside. The building was small, maybe 600 square feet. It had a door with windows on each side. The windows were opaque, with years of grime. You couldn’t see inside.

  Nacho pulled into a vacant parking slot and looked at me.

  “Let’s go talk to them,” I said.

  “Kinda young to beat up,” Blackhawk said.

  “We just want to scare them off Boyce.”

  We started to get out, when we heard the thumping bass. Then we saw the SUV. It pulled into the lot behind us, passed us and parked by the building the boys had gone into. The speakers were pegged to the point of distorting. Heavy rap filled the air. Why is it that the people that like the worst music have to play it the loudest? Then, it abruptly stopped, and three men got out. They all were dressed gangster style. Ball caps on sideways, Cleveland Cavalier and L.A. Clipper jerseys and fluorescent bright basketball shoes. They were all big, one was huge. So huge the shocks on the car sang a chorus of Hallelujah when he got out.

  “Jesus,” Nacho muttered. We watched them go into the building.

  “Those aren’t boys,” Blackhawk said.

  “We gonna scare them off?” Nacho said.

  “Nah,” I said. “Not you and me.”

  He looked at me.

  “Blackhawk will.”

  “You’re hilarious,” Blackhawk said.

  I got out. I waited beside the Jeep. Waiting to hear doors open and close. Finally, I heard one. I waited, then I heard the other. Whew.

  “Theirs not to make reply,” I said. “Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do or die. Into the valley of death, rode the six hundred.”

  “You are truly weird,” Blackhawk said.

  “I got a bad feeling about this,” Nacho said, coming up beside me.

  “Piece of cake,” I said. I went to the rear of the Jeep and lifted the hatch. Inside was a sawed-off 12-gauge Mossberg. I handed it to Nacho. He pumped in a round. I took the .45 caliber Kahr from my back pocket and racked a round into the chamber. Blackhawk was holding a .357 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver next to his leg. He was watching me.

  I nodded and we walked to the door. Without hesitation, I turned the knob and opened it. We went in, me moving left, Blackhawk moving right, Nacho right behind. It was all one big room, furnished for recreation. A huge flat screen TV at one end. A pool table in the middle, dart board on the side, and several easy chairs and couches. The guys were all sprawled around. Nacho blew the TV into pieces.

  The great big guy was sunk into a couch. He jumped when the shotgun went off, then he began struggling up. Blackhawk took a step and smacked him upside the head with his pistol. He fell back, his weight almost tipping the couch. I had the room covered. Everyone froze.

  I walked over to the kid that I had seen taking Boyce’s money. I pointed the Kahr at his forehead. His eyes were wide with panic.

  “Give me the bag lady’s money,” I said.

  “Whaa?”

  “You’ve been hassling that bag lady down on her corner. You took her money. It’s in a green bag. Give it to me.”

  “Hey, man, you can have it,” he said reaching under his chair. He handed me the bag. I shoved it into my back pocket. Nacho had the door open. I looked around, making eye contact with everyone in the room.

  “Leave the lady alone,” I said. “Anyone hassles her again, we’ll be back and burn you down.”

  One of the kids said, “Hey, man. What’s it to you? She’s just a bum.”

  I looked at him until he got nervous. I nodded toward Nacho. “She’s his sister. She’s a doper and a bum, and she can’t defend herself. But, she’s still his sister.”

  Blackhawk backed to the door. “Anyone sticks his head out this door for the next five minutes, gets it shot off,” he said. I went out and he followed with Nacho shutting the door behind us. Nacho kept the shotgun aimed at the door until we were in the Jeep. He handed the shotgun, butt first, to Blackhawk in the back seat, got in and started the motor.

  “Why does she have to be my sister?” he asked.

  “Family resemblance,” Blackhawk said.

  40

  Nacho and I were outside the same club in Scottsdale, waiting for Pete to follow Edward/ Grover/Tommy into the place. I guess he would be Tommy tonight. Pete’s job was to place himself where Tommy could see him, hoping Tommy would take the bait and start talking with him.

  I was anxious to get on with this, so the time seemed to crawl. Finally, enough time passed and Nacho and I went into the club. Again, the noise was a wall, a din that seemed almost physical. We stepped to the side of the door and waited for our eyes to adjust. I saw Tommy against the back wall, in the same place as last time. Pete was close by, but they weren’t together. Looks like I needed more bait to catch this fish.

  Pete was watching for us, and waved for our attention. We made our way over. I sat next to Pete while Nacho moved a chair a little bit away from us. Pete and I leaned toward each other to be able to talk above the din.

  “He knows I’m here,” he said. “I caught him looking at me.”

  “I’m going to talk awhile, you act like you don’t like what I’m saying.” He nodded.

  “I’m telling you that I don’t have your money, and you are not happy. Get mad at me. I leaned back to Nacho. “When Pete starts yelling at me, you intervene. Grab his arm, or something.” I leaned back to Pete, and told him again that I didn’t have his money, but I had something better.

  Pete played it well. Must be being around all those actors. He came to his feet and with both hands on the table, leaned into me. “You promised me you would quadruple my money,” he shouted. Nacho stood and came around me, grabbing Pete. Pete tried to shake loose, but Nacho held him tight. Across the room, one of the security guys started toward us, then saw Nacho had Pete under control and stopped. He watched us, then turned and went back to his post.

  I took the bag of gold dust out of my pocket. I held it up for Pete to see, but more importantly, for Tommy to see. Nacho released him and they both sat. I handed Pete the bag. He hefted it, then undid the tie string and looked
inside.

  “I’m told by the assayer that there is north of ten thousand in gold in there,” I said.

  “Ten? You promised me four times the investment,” Pete said loudly. I glanced at Nacho and he greeted it with an imperceptible nod. Tommy was watching, and more importantly, listening.

  “You got four times the first time. Now you get double. There is no guarantee what the machine will pick up on any given run. This time it was ten. You double your money and you bitch.”

  Pete glared at me for a moment, hefting the bag in his hand. I nodded at Nacho, and we stood to leave.

  Pete grabbed my arm. “Hey, what about again?” He proffered the bag to me. “Let’s do it again.”

  I shook my head, shaking loose of him. “My partners are already pissed that I’m not bringing them real money. Even with the ten, that’s not enough. You don’t have enough. We’re done.”

  “Ten’s not enough?”

  “You come back with fifty and we’ll talk.” I nodded at Nacho, and we stood and walked out. As we stepped outside, Nacho said, “He was listening to every word.”

  Two hours later Pete came into the main saloon of El Patron. I was at the corner stool and Nacho was across from me, reading a book. An honest to God book. The cover depicted a muscled bare-chested man, and a buxom woman, swooning into each other’s arms. Pete was grinning. He sat next to me. Jimmy brought him a Dos Equis, to match mine.

  “I have a new partner,” he said.

  “Do tell,” I said.

  “Yeah, he came over right after you left. He went straight to it. He said, ‘Is what’s in that bag, what I think it is?’ I made a big show of looking around, like I was afraid of being robbed.”

  “So, you showed it to him?”

  “Not at first. I made him practically beg. He was very charming. Very convincing. I could see why those women just handed their money over.”

  “But, you did show it to him?”

  “Eventually. So, then he says he had overheard our conversation, and he had heard I didn’t have enough money for an investment. He said he was a speculator and that for the right thing he would invest up to a hundred thousand dollars. So, he wanted me to explain what the investment was.”

  “Did he buy it?”

  “Not at first. But, the gold dust was brilliant. I explained how your partners had a machine that dug up the tailings at old gold mines, and through centrifugal force separated out the gold that conventional methods left behind. He didn’t believe it at first. Why hadn’t someone done this before? The same arguments you told me he would have.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “What you told me to tell him. Centrifugal sifters had been around for years, but they all used the same kind of electrical motors, so they were never fast enough to separate the really tiny particles of gold that was left behind. I told him your guy invented a machine utilizing a jet engine motor, and the LI900 Silica Ceramic they use on the Space Shuttle that could withstand the speed and force of a much more powerful engine, and bingo. Out comes the gold. The kicker was when I showed him the gold in the bag.”

  I grinned at him. The Silica Ceramic was his idea, “And, he wanted some to test.”

  “Yep. He went to the bar and got a shot glass. He had me shake out what we thought to be a hundred dollars’ worth. It wasn’t much. He put it in an envelope, and gave me a C note. We agreed to meet in a week.”

  He took the bag from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. It pretty much weighed what it had before.

  “Where’s the C-note?”

  “In the bag,” he said.

  I leaned back, sipping on the beer, looking across the room, thinking.

  Nacho looked up, he had his finger holding his place on the page of his romance novel, “Hey, what does conjugate mean?”

  41

  Paz called a meeting for 6pm, Saturday. I got there early. Paz, Little Joe and Wally Chen were already there. They were in the bar instead of Paz’s office. This was a first for me. Paz never hung out in the bar. There were no customers, Frank must have closed the bar and sent them all away. Peggy and Vanilla followed me in by two minutes. Paz sent Peggy back outside to stand by the door. Peggy checked his piece before he stepped outside.

  “Get’m a drink,” Paz said to Frank. Frank gathered glasses. I went behind the bar and got my own. He topped off everyone else’s with Woodford’s Reserve. The good stuff. There was a dusty bottle of Mr. Boston blended whiskey, I picked it up and poured a shot into my glass. I selected it because it had a screw top, but more importantly it was made of dark brown glass that hid the contents. As I put the lid back on, I dropped the dime sized, water proof, microphone into the bottle. I set the bottle back in its place, and turned, sipping the drink. No one was looking at me. They were used to me being behind the bar.

  The clock behind the bar gave us ten minutes until 6. I didn’t know if the meeting was to announce Pike accepting Paz’s offer or a declaration of war. Either way, Mendoza wanted it recorded. I thought he already had this place wired but he had told me the equipment he had in place had failed. This microphone was, supposedly, state of the art. It insured everyone was heard and everyone was identified.

  We sipped our whiskey and waited. No one else seemed nervous. When the big hand hit 12, Peggy stepped back inside the door.

  “They’re here,” he said, his pistol in his hand.

  “Put your piece away,” Paz said. Peggy did it. He didn’t like it, but he did it.

  A moment later Pike and Pony Boy came in. Through the door I could see more of Pike’s guys outside. They looked tough and competent.

  Paz was sitting at the end stool. He slid off and came forward. He extended his hand to Pike. Pike took it.

  “I’m glad you came to hear us out,” Paz said. “Nobody wants a war.”

  “I’m not saying I’m in till I hear the particulars,” Pike said. “I’m intrigued enough to listen.”

  Paz turned to Frank, “Gett’m a drink, Frank.”

  “What’s your poison?” Frank said.

  Pike looked behind the bar at the bottles. “Turkey on the rocks,” he said. “Make it a double.”

  Frank deftly scooped ice into a rock glass and poured the drink. He looked at Pony Boy. “How about you?”

  Pony Boy shook his head. “Nothing for me,” he said.

  “Maybe he wants a Shirley Temple,” Peggy said.

  Paz turned on him, “Shut your mouth. You open it again, I’ll put my boot in it.”

  I couldn’t help it. I looked down at Paz’s feet. He was wearing shiny, black loafers. It must have been a metaphor.

  Paz turned to Little Joe, “Put some tables together so we can all sit down.” He looked at Pike, “I’d have you back to the office, but we can’t all fit, and I want everyone in on this.”

  Pike raised his glass to show he agreed.

  Little Joe and Peggy started sliding tables, and placing chairs until we had one long table surrounded by the chairs. Paz indicated a spot across from where he stood. “Why don’t you set there,” he said to Pike. Pike did. Paz sat across from him, strangely leaving the chair at the head of the table empty.

  After we all were settled, Paz stood. “In a moment, a guy is going to join us. When he gets here, I will explain the deal.” Pike frowned and glanced at Pony Boy. Pony Boy was watching Peggy.

  The tone of this could have been a sales meeting in a corporate board room. Paz was right, a moment later the door opened, and a tall man stepped in. He was followed by a hawk faced man in an expensive suit. Hawk Face carried a briefcase and pulled a small, carry-on suitcase on rollers. The tall man wore a gray suit and I recognized him. He had been here before. Hawk Face was new.

  The gray man strode across the bar like he owned it. Paz stood, and he and Paz shook hands. Paz indicated the chair at the head of the table and the gray man went to it and sat. Paz sat.

  Paz said to the man, “You have the floor.”

  “The gray man said, “My name does
n’t matter. If you need to have a name to help the discussion along, you can call me Mr. Stein. Before we get started we need to take care of a small formality. My associate,” he turned and indicated Hawk Face, “will need to insure our privacy. This is in no way impugning the character of anyone here, but it will make us able to speak more freely.”

  While he was speaking, Hawk Face was opening the suitcase and extracting a machine. Attached to the machine was what looked like an electric wand. I recognized it immediately. TSA uses them at the airports.

  Mr. Stein continued, “My associate will ask each of you to rise, in turn, and he will use his equipment to insure no one is wired.” He turned and looked at Paz, then at Pike, “I’m afraid this will include you, Mr. Paz, and you, Mr. Pike.”

  Paz waved his hand in dismissal. Hawk Face started at my end and one by one we rose for him to move the wand around and up and down our entire bodies. He watched the monitor closely. I had the .38 special in my back pocket, and my pocket knife in the front. I had to reveal both. Neither seemed to bother him, or the gray man. Everyone had a piece they had to show, except the gray man and Paz, and maybe Hawk Face. He didn’t check himself. Peggy had a problem with the gold chain around his neck. He also had a heavy gold bracelet, but Hawk Face was interested in the necklace. He had to take it off for Hawk Face to examine. Once Hawk Face was satisfied, it was okay.

  Finally, he turned to the gray man and said, “All clear.”

  “You can wait in the car,” the gray man said. Hawk Face packed up his gear and left.

  Now Mr. Stein looked at Paz and said, “Your show.”

  Paz looked around the room. “I’ve asked Mr. Stein here to work out the details of a new business proposition. You all know we are meth and cocaine, uh, advocates. It’s a good business, but times are changing. The big money in American is in opioids. Mr. Stein’s company distributes opioids to pain clinics all over the west.” He turned to Mr. Stein, “How much does an opioid pill cost at a pain clinic?”