Blackhawk nodded at me, then opened the shipping trunk. He handed the Mossberg to Nacho along with a box of shells. Nacho shook them out and filled his pockets. Blackhawk gave Indigo her Berretta. I had my .45 Kahr in a hip holster and the Ruger LCP in an ankle holster. Pete stood aside, watching.
We had all dressed alike. Blue jeans, black tee shirts, running shoes. I reached to the back and pulled out a stack of broad brimmed straw hats I gave one to each of us except Pete. These hats were common in Phoenix. Especially in the summer. Anybody working out in the Arizona sun wore them. Of course, strip joints don’t let hats inside. So ordinarily the hats wouldn’t make it past the two bouncers.
“Never could understand why they don’t let you wear a hat into a strip joint.” Pete said reading my mind.
“Assholes go in there and put their hats on their laps and,” he paused, looking at Indigo, “uh, abuse themselves.”
Indigo laughed. “Jesus. Guys are just creeps.”
I had cut a hole in the crown of each hat. I handed cans of black spray paint to everyone. “Let’s do it,” I said.
“What about me?” Pete said.
“You stay here and facilitate our tactical retreat,” I said, without smiling.
“Facilitate? Tactical?” Indigo said. “You’re a hoot.”
“Come on,” Blackhawk said and started toward the club. Halfway there he let Nacho take the lead. Nacho moved easily, carrying the shotgun close to his side, away from the street. I know we looked goofy in the hats, but hey, no one would remember anything but the hats.
Nacho marched straight up to the bouncers. He pulled up the brim of his hat, so they could see his face. He brought the shotgun around. They saw his face and they saw the shotgun.
“I’m suggesting you boys take a walk,” he said softly.
The guy to my left was big and muscular, just the type to scare the average joe. As he recognized Nacho, his eyes grew wide. The other guy was big enough, but not as muscular. He started to say something, but muscles took him by the arm.
“Hey Nacho,” he said quickly. “Hey no problem.” He pulled on the other guy, “Dude, we gotta go,” he said. The other guy looked confused, but he went.
Blackhawk and I stepped under the cameras, lifting the hats. Keeping them between the camera lenses and our faces. We sprayed through the hole in the hats, coating the lenses with black paint. We went inside.
17
We went in fast. The door opened to a landing with four steps leading up to the main floor. On the same initial level, to the right was an opening that led to the steps to the lower level. The stairs curved downward, disappearing before they reached the bottom. We spread as we went in. A big burly customer with a long bushy beard stood up and said, “What the hell?” Nacho hit him with a short chop of the shotgun butt. The guy went backwards and fell flat. That was enough for the rest. They sat still.
Indigo and Blackhawk moved quickly to each corner of the room. Using the hats and the spray paint, they coated each camera. I watched the stairs to my right. I didn’t worry about the downstairs hearing us; the music was so loud you could feel it like an overcoat. Not sure why it was so loud. Guess it made the girls look better. There were two girls dancing topless, one at each end of the long bar. Two other girls were serving drinks, working through the tables. They were topless also. They stood rooted, staring at Nacho. Nacho is a big and scary looking guy. Everyone was looking at him.
The thing about topless women is, if your mind isn’t on sex, they just look like women. Profound, huh? Blackhawk probably didn’t notice they were topless. I’ll bet Nacho did.
When the cameras were disabled, Blackhawk motioned at the two bartenders to sit on the floor behind the bar. They slowly complied. Nacho backed up, filling the door. It was psychological. You want to leave, you have to go through me. No one wanted to leave. No one was moving. It wasn’t just Nacho. It was also the shotgun. Shotguns make an awful mess.
There is a great gun debate in this country. My opinion is simple. Hunting and sport shooting aside, there is no need for a civilian to have an AR-15, or anything like it. It is of no purpose. It is designed to kill men. Not big game. Not rabbits. Men. I think that most men that insist on owning one are only trying for a bigger dick. You want home protection, get a shotgun. Nothing like it.
Blackhawk and Indigo moved over to me. I nodded. I turned and headed for the stairs. They followed. At the bottom, the stairs opened up into a large, wide room, much like the one upstairs. There was a bar, like upstairs, left over from previous times. Two men sat on stools in the middle. They had glasses of beer in front of them. Ten steps away their AR-15’s leaned against the wall. Luis sat at the end of the bar, facing the stairs. He was engrossed in a laptop. He didn’t hear us.
As we moved into the room, the men swiveled. One reached for his waist-band. I pointed the Kahr at him and he stopped. Luis looked up and turned to ice.
Behind, and to the side of Luis, was a door. Blackhawk went to it and opened it. As he did I could see furnishings, like a small apartment. I had Luis on my front sight, and Indigo had the other two. Indigo could shoot ticks off a dog.
Blackhawk stood in the doorway for what seemed like forever, then we heard…
“What the hell took you so long?”
Then Elena was in his arms.
They stood embracing. I finally said, “Reunion later, we gotta go.”
Blackhawk shoved Elena toward me. “Take her, I got something to do.” He turned to look at Luis. “I told you, you are a dead man,” he said coldly.
“No!” Elena said. “No, Blackhawk,” she said emphatically, “he is not worth it.”
Blackhawk looked at her. “No man harms you and lives. He has killed one of the two girls. He sells children for sex. He is not a human.”
“I don’t care,” Elena said. “You won’t do this. He is a pig. No more than a pig. You are a man of substance. He may deserve to die, but I don’t want you to dirty your hands. You kill him, you stoop to his level.”
They stood, looking at each other.
“Take her out,” I said.
Indigo pointed her Berretta at the two men. “You two, go this way,” she waved the gun at the end of the bar opposite Luis; they moved. “Get down behind the bar. If your head pops up, I will blow it off.” They both disappeared behind the bar.
“Go on,” I said to Blackhawk. Elena took his arm and pulled him. He reluctantly followed her up the stairs.
Society has laws. Most laws are black and white. But right and wrong is not black and white. Justice can be blind. That’s why the girl holding the scales has a blindfold. Society’s laws are made to prevent chaos. Most laws are good. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. Thou shalt not steal. And thou shalt not kill. But many a soldier has killed or been killed in the name of a just cause. In the name of liberty. Blackhawk, Indigo and I had been trained to take lives. Quickly, efficiently, ruthlessly. Always, we were told, for the good cause of Mother America. But on the streets, sometimes in society, the situation doesn’t always meet the rule.
Luis was still frozen. I looked at Indigo. She was looking at me. I nodded, then turned and followed Blackhawk up the stairs.
The shot reverberated up the stairway before I reached the top. Then, there was another. Just to make sure.
Indigo had been correct the first time. Leaving Luis alive had been Blackhawk’s mistake. And it had almost cost him Elena. A mistake now corrected.
18
A month had gone by. The heat decided it didn’t care what the past norms had been. It wasn’t ready to go. Some idiots don’t believe man’s actions affect global warming. They also believe the contrails are government poison, and the moon landing was manufactured in a Hollywood soundstage. If you ever meet these people, don’t get into a discussion. You can’t change a brick from being a brick.
Pete had gotten a call from an old friend and had gone to Hollywood to help flesh out a script. He said it was a Western. He didn’t hold o
ut much hope for it. He said to get a Western green-lighted was harder than scratching the middle of your back in church.
Indigo had decided to stick around. She moved in with Nacho. Nacho came to me, all mush mouth and bumbling, asking if she was my girl, because if she was he’d step back. I assured him she was all his. When he told Indigo I’d said it was okay, she hit him in the mouth just for asking me. He told me it hurt and loosened a tooth. He said that’s about as close as he’d ever come to falling in love.
Blackhawk and Elena returned to normal. Somewhat. Elena was more on edge and wouldn’t go out without someone with her. She had to have heard the gunshot reverberating up the staircase at the strip club, but she never mentioned it. Blackhawk increased the surveillance equipment around the El Patron adding cameras on the perimeter of the parking lot. He hired two more bouncers and let Duane go. Or Duane quit. Whatever, I never saw him again. The new guys were retired cops. Both had years of experience working South Phoenix. Elena had called Boyce and Boyce had got their names from Captain Mendoza. They were older, a little paunchy, but they still had that dead-eyed cop look that would freeze the pod on most men. And they both had permits to carry. Which they did. Their names were Ben and Danny. Ben a silver haired guy who looked like he had been desk bound before he retired. Danny was Hispanic with a head full of salt and pepper hair and a perpetual smile. Don’t let the smile fool you.
The little fracas at the strip club never came to light. No one had reported men with guns and no gun fire and no dead body was never reported. The female bartender had called the cops, but by the time they got there the place was empty, with even the other bartender gone. She said there had been a fight but when it became known that the cops were on the way, the place cleared out.
Blackhawk and I had watched the news, even Fox, and saw nothing. Jimmy checked the online police reports and arrests. Nothing. After a week I called Detective First Grade Boyce. I asked her to check if there had even been a report at the strip club. I told her Nacho had a problem with one the bouncers and he was worried there might be some push back. She called back. There had been a report of a disturbance but nothing else. No complaint filed. I was in the middle of asking her how she’d been, when she hung up.
Even before running into Indigo at the casino, I’d felt sluggish and a step behind. I’d wake up in the morning and just lie there. I had to kick myself in the ass. I went back to my exercise routine. Mostly swimming. Three times, out and back, to the no-wake buoy that was just shy of three hundred yards from the stern of the Tiger Lily. Then jogging three times up to the Mustang and back down the hill. I pulled two twenty-pound weights out of the storage locker and worked with them until I had a fine sheen of sweat. The weight-lifter guys loved to lie on their backs and hoist hundreds of pounds of dead weight. Great for building the pectoralis major, which you need if you want to pick up a Volkswagen. The resistance of the twenty pounders actually made me stronger while building up my quickness. Snap a jab to the nose of the weight lifter before the guy even knows you moved.
I began to enjoy my down time. A couple of early mornings each week, Old Eddie would bump his skiff against Tiger Lily’s stern, and I would climb aboard and go with him to slay the stripers. I got a case of the domestics and polished all the wood on the boat. I polished the brass and mopped the galley. I vacuumed the black-out curtains. I washed all the bed-clothes in the stack washer and dryer. Even the ones from the guest stateroom, where no one had been in a long while. I brought all the weapons down from the storage locker and cleaned and oiled each piece.
Online, I had found a thick paperback book that had every Western Elmore Leonard had ever written. Score! I spent the sunset hours on top with a flagon of Plymouth, a dash of bitters and Elmore.
But, even with reading the best Westerns ever written, with maybe, just maybe, the exception of Dorothy M. Johnson, I was getting restless. So tonight I put the book aside. I took a shower, put on an old comfortable pair of jeans and a white linen shirt. I slipped on a Teva sandal and fastened a boot onto my stub. The boot looked like one that would be fitted to a broken foot. When asked, that’s what I said it was. A cast for a broken bone. I had a number of stories as to how it became broken.
I combed my hair straight back, and whooee I was ready for the dance. I closed up, set my hidden alarms and walked down to the bar. Going out on the town for me was thirty yards away.
Across the way, on Dock A, I saw a newcomer. A huge seventy-five-foot Bravada. It was a monster. Three decks high. Sleek and new. Had to be over a million for it. I could see people on the fly deck. Looked like the Tiger Lily could fit on the helicopter port. There was no helicopter. I wasn’t that surprised to have such a rig on this lake. I knew there was a dealer for them in Tolleson, and you’d find several on Lake Powell.
I was hoping Eddie would be in the bar. He sometimes bartended when Maureen was short-handed. No such luck. The bartender was new. A funny looking little guy, about five seven, completely bald, with a narrow misshapen head. Like mom had trouble getting him out. He was all in white. He looked like the mini-version of a James Bond villain.
The cavernous bar was empty except for a couple sitting across the room at one of the wide-open windows. A mild breeze came drifting through. I picked a stool in the middle of the bar and ordered a Dewers and soda, tall. I normally drink Ballantine’s but I like Dewers with soda. Some scotches go better with club soda. Some are good by themselves. The guy brought the drink and set it in front of me, snatched up the twenty I had put on the bar, and brought my change. I left it on the bar.
I drank slowly. I was in no hurry. No place to go, no one to see. Just fine. As the sun went down, the light changed until it was dark out, with only the dock lights outside and the bar lights inside. About the time it got dark I began to hear distinctive party sounds. It seemed to be coming from Dock A.
The bartender, who told me his name was Bernard, brought me my third drink.
“Sounds like a party,” I said, to have something to say.
“Oh, hell yeah,” Bernard said. “Guy brought a brand new Bravada in here yesterday. Seventy-five-foot long. People have been coming all afternoon. They’re just getting started. Have you seen it?”
“Yeah, I noticed it when I was coming in here.”
He looked puzzled. If I’d come in from the front I wouldn’t have been able to see it.
“I’m on the Tiger Lily, at the end of C.”
“Oh, yeah. You’re Eddie’s friend.”
“I like to think so.” He moved down the bar, wiping glasses with a white dish towel. I sipped my drink.
Now it was pitch black out and the party was in full roar, when Bernard brought me my fourth drink. I was just beginning to feel them.
“I have to close soon,” he said, setting the drink in front of me. I nodded. This was to be my last one anyway.
Across the room, two girls came in through the door from the docks. They both wore bikinis. The designer hadn’t wasted much fabric. They were young, blonde and brunette, and immediately reminded me of Simone and Nikki.
They were laughing, and it was apparent they were just a little tipsy.
“Do you have a bottle of Captain Morgan spiced rum?” the blonde called to Bernard.
“Let me check,” he said, looking behind the bar.
“And Mr. Penny wants two cases of Modelo.”
“Here it is,” Bernard turned with the bottle in his hand. He came down to the girls. “But we don’t carry Modelo. I have Corona.”
“Whatever,” the blonde said, taking the bottle.
Bernard went to the back and came back with two cases of Corona, struggling to carry both. He hitched them up on the bar.
“Mr. Penny says to charge it to his bill,” The brunette said. “Can you carry those to the boat for us?”
“I can’t leave the bar, sorry,” Bernard said.
The girls looked at me. “You want to go to a party?”
“Hey, he’s a cutie,” the blonde gi
rl said. “You like Captain Morgan spritzers?”
“Aye matey,” I said sliding off the stool. “I can carry those for you.” I looked at Bernard. “Keep the change.”
“Good luck,” he said.
“Better lucky than good,” I said. I hefted up the two cases of beer and followed two very appealing rumps out the door.
19
I awoke at first light. This was my routine since I’d started the new exercise regime. This time I didn’t want to. My head was a little fuzzy and my mouth was so dry I couldn’t even muster spit. It took a fleet second to remember where I was. On a large air mattress on the top deck of the Caledonia, the triple decker Bravada party barge. Nestled in the crook of my arm was a tousle of dark hair. I remembered now. Sometime after midnight, I had started something with the blonde, Lindy, and now I woke up with the brunette who calls herself Dey. Said she was named after one of the Partridge Family. Both girls were making the best of their youth. Vivacious, happy to party, slender ripe bodies. Young girls are always pretty. But, in the wrong light, sometimes you got a glimpse of what they would look like when middle-aged. Very few women mastered aging. Okay, me too, but it was worse for women.
Except for my boot, we were both naked. She was turned toward me, her mouth open. A crust of something was on the corner of her mouth. The hair was down in front of her eyes. Her breath had a spicy smell.
The taste in my mouth didn’t all come from a night of partying. I just didn’t believe in being that randy lily-pad jumping bullfrog that was only out after the latest conquest. Maybe a remnant of the wisdom left me by my Momma when I was very young. I am not immune to the pleasures of the flesh. I enjoy them as much as the next guy. It is just that the pleasure should come with some responsibility. And the pleasure is always greater when shared with someone special.
On this bleak morning I suffered the old dilemma, how to extricate yourself. The old joke of waking up nestled with someone coyote ugly. So ugly the coyote would gnaw its own leg off so as to not wake them. But, this one was far from ugly. At the same time, I still had a large desire to be elsewhere.
They Called Her Indigo Page 7
