“And that affects my client how?”
“I’ll lay it out, then you can draw your own conclusions. True enough, we were dogging Sikes’s steps. He was on our witness list and about to leave his cheating wife to flip on that dirty partner of his when he was wounded.” The crafty agent let the last comment float in the air trusting that Vera had the wherewithal to take it and run. She grinned when Vera did exactly that.
“Wounded?” Vera queried, with her brow furrowed. “You said wounded, not killed.” That was the first time she’d heard anyone say without one-hundred-percent certainty that Sikes was dead, real dead.
“Yes, I did,” Yogi acknowledged. “We tried to stay close to Sikes, knowing there was a leak in our department. Guzman had deep pockets, deep enough to get at one of our own. There was a hit out on Sikes, a big one. We were set to grab him ourselves and stash him in a safe house until the trial, then he went down.” Vera’s mind was working overtime. She closed her eyes to get a clearer picture.
“Are you saying that Sikes didn’t die and that you still have him? With Bolda Guzman off the chopping block, he’s not worth much anymore. Hmmm, at least that gets my client off the hook.”
“Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that,” Agent Eastland said matter-of-factly. “This is where things get tricky.” Yogi fixed her eyes onto Vera’s like a snake charmer, with a straightforward and compelling gaze. “Not long after Sikes’s body was taken to the hospital, we located him, mainly to check his clothing for vital information, mind you, then I saw his eyelids flutter faintly. There were so many automobile accident victims needing attention that no one noticed me and my partner wheeling him to the back freight elevator. I made a call, had Sikes transported to another hospital and operated on as a John Doe.”
“So that nobody would know if he survived?” Vera concluded correctly.
“Now you’re catching on. Miraculously, Warren Sikes pulled through by the skin of his teeth. Because we didn’t know who to trust, after the life-saving surgery, I had him transported to a hideaway in the country for safekeeping. There’re a lot of people capable of murder when the price is high. We even went to great lengths to conceal his identity. It was my idea to requisition plastic surgery on Sikes’s face. He wasn’t a bad looking guy but we couldn’t take any chances.”
“So what did you do with Sikes once Guzman got clipped?” Vera asked, following the story as best she could.
“Someone must have discovered where he was. We had two agents babysitting him when they were lured back to the city with manufactured orders. They left him in the safe house alone for five hours before learning they were duped. When they returned, Sikes was a ghost. No one’s seen him since.”
The smile on Vera’s face ached it was so big. “Thanks, Yogi. Now there are two people I know who’re going to sleep a lot easier tonight. I owe you even though I was never here.”
“I’ll remember that,” Yogi replied softly. “It’s funny how the police never caught on to our little ruse with Warren Sikes. You must be one heck of a P.I. to get this far.”
“I try,” answered Vera. “Lawd knows I do try.”
“It’s a shame about Warren Sikes though. He was very good with his hands,” the agent added, as she thought back on a time past. When she caught Vera looking at her sideways, she backpedaled quickly. “Oh, not like that, Vera. While his face and wounds were healing, he made these intricate origami animals out of one-dollar bills, even with his entire face bandaged. It was the most peculiar thing.”
Vera thanked her newest associate, then caught the elevator going down alone. She grinned again thinking, how Yogi would have been thoroughly impressed with what Sikes could do with one-hundred-dollar bills. Telling Rags that he hadn’t killed anyone didn’t come close to the kick she planned on getting when sharing what she didn’t go to FBI headquarters for and didn’t hear first hand from Yogi Easterland. It was almost laughable the way Vera had been chasing her tail when the answers to Rags’s nightmares had always been right in front of him. The laughing stopped immediately once Vera had settled into her car, shoved her gun back in her purse, and put on the turn signal to exit the deserted downtown parking lot.
The thunderous sound of glass shattering from her front passenger window nearly caused her heart to seize. Instinctively, she threw her arm up as tiny fragments of glass flew her way. Vera grunted with her other hand clutching the steering wheel. “Ehhhh, get out! Ggget Ouuut!” she screamed, clawing at Frank Draper’s arm.
He tossed Vera’s purse on the floor board then shoved his pistol against her temple. “Shut up and drive, bitch!” he growled. “All of your goddamned snooping around ends tonight. I’d just as soon put a bullet in your head right here but you’re gonna take me to the man who hired you.”
With her gun inside the bag on the floor beneath Draper’s legs and his revolver pointed at her, Vera had to think fast. She couldn’t lead him to Rags even if she wanted to because she had no idea where he was. If there was going to be any bullets flying, Vera wanted a shot at leveling the odds. She clenched her teeth and pretended to do as instructed. “Okay, just keep that cannon out of my face. I’ll take you where I’m supposed to meet with him. It’s a little ways but he’ll be there, at a bar called The 3rd Round.”
Seventeen
On the way to Bullet’s restaurant, Vera pondered several ideas to get Draper out of her vehicle and warn Rags about him. Since none of them included getting shot while trying to escape, she held her mind in check and a watchful eye on a loose cannon. The parking lot was stacked with patrons there to watch the college football special pitting two highly ranked teams. Somehow a busy collection of strangers made Vera feel safer. Perhaps they could have caught a bullet or two meant for her. At least Draper wasn’t as likely to pull the kind of stunt that resulted in getting his own partner gunned down in the streets. Vera was counting on that when the dirty cop escorted her through the front door, with his gun hidden under his jacket.
“Get cute and get dead,” he barked venomously.
“I’m not stupid and neither are you,” was her answer to his callous threat. Draper was filled with desperation and Vera prayed it hadn’t poisoned his brain. Going off half-cocked with beer-guzzling bystanders looking on was almost inconceivable, almost.
Vera took the last available seat at the crowded bar area among scores of football fans adorned in Texas Longhorn burnt orange paraphernalia, locked onto the big screen televisions and cheered an early touchdown against the rival team. The detective stood behind her, on the lookout for anyone who appeared out of place.
“Where is he?” Draper whispered in Vera’s ear, just as Bullet returned from the storeroom with a stack of beer mugs. He paused. Seeing his woman all cozied up in his bar with a strange white man practically body-checking her was anything short of believable.
“Hey, Vera,” he said cautiously, after setting the extra mugs aside.
“Bertram,” she answered sharply. No “Bullet” or “baby,” but Bertram. The restaurant owner and former boxing champion was thrown for another loop. The only time Vera had called him by his given name happened when she thought they were going to be parents. Come to think of it, Bullet surmised, she was scared then, too. He tossed a quick glance at Draper and considered beating him to a bloody pulp on the spot. Vera saw the rage of emotion building inside of Bullet.
“Hey, Bertram, it’s kinda tight in here tonight. Can you get me my usual, two fingers of Jack Black with a coke back.” Now Bullet was extremely concerned. Vera’s usual was cranberry juice on ice or a glass of wine if she really wanted to let her hair down. Hard liquor had ruined too many lives too close to her. She’d never go for it. Not in a million years. If Vera was making sure he got the message she was in trouble, message received.
“Yeah, I got that,” Bullet said with a hitch in his voice. “You want me to break out the old stuff. I know you like a stiff drink with some age on it.”
“No, thanks,” Vera replied, calmly chewi
ng on her bottom lip. She’d read his every thought and warned against his reaching across the bar to break Draper’s neck. “That’ll be good enough for me. Want to see what my friend is having?”
Bullet stared at Vera’s menacing white shadow then forced a smile. “And what can I get for you, sir?”
“I’ll have what the lady’s having,” Draper ordered. “Double down on the Jack Daniels, neat.”
Noise in the bar ebbed and flowed with the activity on the tube. Each time the customers roared with exhilaration or groaned disappointedly, Draper’s anxiety rose. “I thought you said he would be here. If this is your idea of a joke, I’m not the humorous type.”
“You don’t see me laughing either. He’ll show. Look, I need to use the restroom,” Vera informed him just as their drinks hit the bar. She reached for her purse while stepping off the bar stool. Draper opposed her leaving his sight. He rested one hand on her bag then grabbed her by the arm. Vera snatched her arm from his grasp. “I wasn’t asking your permission. I said I’ve got to use it.”
“Go on then, but hurry back. I’ll stay here and watch your purse.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Oh, I insist,” he snarled politely.
No one but Bullet seemed to notice what could have been an everyday lover’s spat. He was fuming. “Is there a problem?” he shouted pointedly, above the noise. Vera slid something from the leather bag into her pocket when Bullet added the diversion she needed.
“No,” Draper replied, realizing his tiff with Vera was causing a scene. “Just a misunderstanding is all.” He forced a smile then motioned for her to go ahead. Vera cast a scowl in Draper’s direction as if he’d outsmarted her. He settled down on the stool she vacated and raised his glass. “I’ll be waiting right here.”
“I’m sure you will,” Vera hissed before winking at Bullet to put him at ease. She headed down the stairs then disappeared in the hallway toward the restrooms. When Vendetta passed her, with tray in hand, she stopped to give Vera a piece of her mind. Before she had the chance, Vera had sprinted off toward the exit.
Draper sipped on his drink for a few minutes longer than he should have. When it occurred to him that Vera had been gone a while, be became fidgety. After looking over his shoulder then at his watch repeatedly, he leapt off the barstool then headed in the same direction Vera did several minutes before. He stuck his head into the ladies room but a frightened woman screamed at him to leave. Draper saw Vendetta on her way into the kitchen. “Hey, do me a favor. I came in with a lady but she hasn’t come out of the restroom. Can you check for me?”
“Unh-unh, I’ve got tables and people waiting on me,” she refused. “Maybe your date wants some private time.”
Draper pulled a twenty-dollar bill from his pocket. “Here, take this. I just want to make sure she’s still in there. She’s a tall black lady named Vera.”
Vendetta tucked the money into her apron before handing out the bad news. “Sorry, mister, but Vera ain’t in there. She hustled her fat butt out the back door about two minutes ago. She’s in the wind by now.”
The detective’s mouth was wide open when he returned from the alley empty. Draper bolted back to the bar area to find Vera’s purse gone. He ranted loudly while racing through the front door in time to see the SUV he arrived in speeding out of the parking lot. Vera had left the vehicle idling by the front door where she waited patiently for Draper to strike out searching for her. Once he did, she ducked in to seize her handbag then tore out to make a swift getaway. She left him standing at the vacant taxi stand waving his hands in the air erratically. “That’s what you get for calling me a bitch,” she spat angrily. “Think about that while you’re walking home, punk!”
Vera hit the Interstate interested to know how long Draper had been tailing her and what he’d learned about her investigation. It was obvious that he knew something, although it wasn’t nearly as apparent what. He’d risked his career coming after her and his health when marching her into Bullet’s bar the way he did. He couldn’t have known about Rags or who he was because he would have come out before now, she reasoned. Speaking of Rags, she had to find him immediately and convince him to blow town just as he arrived, very quietly.
Vera called Glow’s home and cell numbers but no one answered, so she decided to cruise over to her apartment building and wait. She was relieved when she parked at the curb. Glow’s lights were on inside her apartment. Vera jogged up the stairs to bypass the elevator. Huffing and puffing, she knocked at the door, then even louder when it seemed that Glow would rather not tend to it.
“Open this door, girl!” Vera shouted. “I’m standing out here about to pass out.”
When the door opened, Glow fastened her silk housecoat with a pink belt. She cleared her throat before welcoming Vera in. “Uh-hmmm, why didn’t you call first?”
“You cannot be serious. I called until my fingers went numb but you didn’t pick up once, heffa.” Vera peered over her shoulder to see if anyone were lurking about. She entered the den yapping about business until she recognized business and pleasure had been intermingled to suit Glow’s taste. “I thought I told you to sit on Rags. How in the hell . . .” she fussed, as Rags exited the bedroom stripped down to his underwear. Vera’s eyes flitted back and forth from his cotton boxers to her girlfriend’s skimpy negligee. “What the hell,” she reiterated disappointedly. “I know I said to sit on him, but damn. I’m out there ditching bad guys and you’re popping off a freak fest with my client.”
“Hey, Vera,” Rags spoke eventually, slightly embarrassed. He would have been considerably more self-conscious had Glow not spent a few hours loosening him up.
“You shut up,” she told him, “and Glow, me and you, we’ll deal with this later.”
Glow folded her arms defiantly. “Whatever. You did say sit on him and I had to make sure he wouldn’t try to leave. Well, he ain’t trying to go nowhere now.”
“Glow, please! Rags, we’ve got to go. Get your pants on if you can find them,” ordered Vera. She noted how the nasty looking surgical scars on his chest and back made a lot of sense. She’d seen other dead men who didn’t make it off the operating table with their souls intact, Rags was the first.
While Rags searched for his pants, Vera explained to Glow what she’d gathered over the past four hours and why she felt compelled to get her strange bedfellow off and running. Glow listened attentively, shocked at Vera’s new revelations, the latest on Sinton Johnson and how she cleverly shook the evil Frank Draper at The 3rd Round. Even though Vera made her promise to stay put by the phone, Glow had already started making her own plans. She kissed Rags on the cheek and told him that he was twice the man he thought himself to be. He blushed, turning beet red.
“If y’all are finished playing Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner we should go,” Vera grunted in the doorway. “Remember what I said, Glow. Stay put and answer the damned phone. I might need you later.”
“Girl, I hear you,” she quipped with attitude. “ ’Bye, Rags,” Glow sang like a gluttonous mistress. The tall cowboy tipped his hat and grinned politely.
Vera cocked her head in utter disbelief. Rags acted as if he were stoned. He hadn’t said two words since she showed up. “I see that the cat’s got his tongue, but how long has he been like this?”
Glow was blushing then. She leaned against the door and sighed. “About as long as he’s been here. He doesn’t do his best talking with words necessarily, if you get my point.”
With her eyes locked on Rags’s satisfied grin, Vera recognized it. She sneered at Glow. “Yeah, I get your point all right, trifling cow,” she said jokingly. “Just better hope neither of y’all traded something you can’t get rid of.”
Rags wore that stupid albeit satisfied grin all the way to Vera’s SUV. When he saw the shattered window, he stopped cold. “What happened to your truck?”
“Oh, now you got something to say? Shut up and get in, lover boy,” Vera teased. “There’s a place you need to
revisit.” Vera kept quiet about the news that was busting to get out. Rags knew she was on to something and almost blew a gasket when she not only refused to share it yet, but added insult to injury by demanding he pipe down so she could think. “There are some things you just don’t blurt out,” she told him, in a way he’d understand. “Hold still a while. Trust me, it’ll keep.” Rags chewed on his fingernails until they parked in front of Vera’s office. When he started around the rear of her truck, she stopped him. “Uh-uh, over there,” she uttered, motioning toward the Leftovers diner across the street.
“But I’m not hungry,” he whined, like a cranky child. “Just tell me what you dug up and I’ll be all right.”
“You’ll be more than all right and full off what I’m about to feed you.” Obediently, he followed her. Like a ghostly scene from an old movie, rain began to fall much like it did the night of the shooting. Vera eased further beneath the restaurant awning to stay dry. Instinctively Rags moved in closer to hear her out. “This is going to be a lot to swallow so try and relax until I’m finished.” After he gulped nervously, she started in. “It was a night like this one. You know why rain always comes down by the bucket in your dream? Because that’s the way it happened when a police detective named Warren Sikes was killed, right over there.” Vera pointed at an imaginary spot in the road, unsure exactly where the attempted murder ruse played out, although an educated guess was close enough.
“Linda Klaus was the waitress who called in a holdup. Sikes and his partner Frank Draper responded very quickly to the call—too quickly. They chased the robber on foot, up that away.” Vera studied Rags’s eyes intermittently, waiting on a sign of recognition to show itself in them. “Both cops were dirty. A sizable contract was taken out on Sikes by a very wealthy Mexican drug lord, Bolda Guzman. Sikes’s partner set up the whole show to make it look as if he’d gotten killed in the line of duty.” Rags’s eyes were red and blank. He was listening but none of it registered so Vera continued. “Susie Chow, an emergency medical tech came to help but she figured it was too late. She told me how nobody could have survived the blood loss from the shooting but she was wrong. Sikes’s body was mistakenly taken to the back dock of the county hospital, where they take the Dead on Arrivals. Covered in blood stained sheets, Sikes’s was laid on a gurney waiting for his turn to meet the coroner, until the FBI agents he was plotting with to flip on his partner and Guzman found him, half dead but hanging on by a very thin thread.” Rags gulped again. He was more apprehensive than he could have imagined.
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