The Girl at the Deep End of the Lake

by Sam Lee Jackson

  “That’s them,” Yoon groaned.

  “Which is Cisneros?” Blackhawk asked.

  “He’s the big dude on the couch in the checkered shirt, oh shit.” He slid down to the floorboard.

  “Go on by normal speed,” I said to Nacho.

  Blackhawk slumped down and I turned my head, not looking at them.

  As we went by Nacho said, “Man, they’re giving us the skank eye.”

  “Go on a couple blocks, then turn back toward Encanto,” I said.

  He drove two blocks, then turned.

  “Go a couple more blocks, then pull over,” I said.

  “You think he saw me?” Yoon asked.

  “Your nose was buried in the floorboard, he might have seen your ass,” Blackhawk said.

  Nacho pulled to the curb at an empty lot. Blackhawk looked at me and I nodded. He shrugged, then opened the door and stepped out.

  “Come on,” he said.

  Yoon hesitated, looking out the back window.

  “Get the fuck out of my car,” Nacho said.

  “Here?”

  Blackhawk leaned down to look at him, “Now.”

  Yoon scrambled out, “Hey, can’t you at least drop me at a bus stop?”

  Blackhawk slid back into the backseat and Nacho pulled away. I watched Yoon watch us until we were a couple blocks away, then he pulled out a cell phone and made a call.

  “He’s ratting us out,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Blackhawk said. “Too bad it isn’t Mogadishu.”

  “What’s Mogadishu?” Nacho said.

  “That’s where you could put two in the back of the head of a rat and dump them behind a dumpster,” Blackhawk said, watching Yoon grow smaller out the back window.

  32

  I had Nacho circle back. From a block away we could see the porch was empty.

  “Check the alley,” Blackhawk said.

  Nacho twisted the wheel and we shot down the side street. He slowed at the alley, but it was empty both ways. Nacho sped up, then turned right on the next street. At the next intersection, Blackhawk said, “There.”

  Cisneros in his plaid shirt and two others were nonchalantly moving down the street.

  “Give him space,” I said. Nacho sped up. “Go three blocks, then circle back to be in front.”

  “Cisneros know you?” I asked Blackhawk.

  “Don’t know why he would.”

  “He knows you,” Nacho said. “Everybody knows Blackhawk.”

  I leaned down and unfastened my foot. “You still got that ball bat I saw in the back?”

  “Yeah, under the blanket,” Nacho answered. “I always have it there.”

  “Never know when a baseball game will break out,” Blackhawk grinned.

  “Get ahead of them, then drop me around the corner so they don’t see your car. After you drop me, back up so they can’t see you from the corner.”

  He sped down the street until I said, “Should be far enough. Let me out here.”

  He pulled to the curb and I swung the door open and hopped out. Holding the roof I hopped around to the back and opened the deck lid. I got the bat out and shut the lid.

  “Okay,” I said moving out of the way. Nacho backed the car up. Using the bat like a cane, I hobbled onto the sidewalk and toward the corner. At the corner, I could see Cisneros and his two buddies still a half block away. Cisneros was on his phone. The other two were laughing. I hobbled on a few feet and they hesitated when they saw me. I sat on the curb and lifted my stub and pretended to adjust the sock I had covering it, giving them a good look at the gimp. Then I struggled to my feet, and again using the bat as a cane, started slowly hobbling toward them. They were moving toward me again and I slowed, wanting them to reach me while I was still close to the corner.

  They came sauntering up to me and Cisneros said “Hey bro, what did you do to your foot?”

  I hit him in the crotch with the ball bat. He screamed and went to his knees, hands on his crotch. I pulled the Kahr and pointed it in the general direction of the other two. They were too shocked to react. Then Nacho pulled to the curb and Blackhawk was out of the backseat, a pistol in his hand. The two took a step back, holding their hands out as if to fend off the trouble.

  Nacho came around from the driver’s side and shook them down, taking the automatics they had tucked in the back of their belts. He tossed the guns onto the floorboard of the front passenger seat.

  Blackhawk looked down at the groaning Cisneros. “You’ve been kicked in the balls before. You know the pain will pass.”

  I pulled Roland’s picture from my pocket and showed it to Cisneros’s friends. “You know this guy?”

  Both of them shook their heads.

  “We find out you’re lying we’ll be back,” Blackhawk said.

  The taller of the two shook his head, “I ain’t never seen that dude.”

  “Me neither,” said the other one.

  Blackhawk looked at them for a long moment.

  “Get out of here,” he said.

  It was hard to retreat with dignity and they tried at first, but after a few feet, the shorter one took off running and the taller one hesitated, then followed.

  Cisneros was taking long deep breaths.

  “See, it’s getting better,” Blackhawk said to him.

  I sat on the passenger seat and refastened my foot. Blackhawk and Nacho helped Cisneros up and got him into the back seat. I turned in the seat and put the Kahr on Cisneros. Blackhawk remained outside the car.

  After a while I said, “You better now? You can talk?”

  Cisneros was gathering some of his old self. “Fuck you,” he said.

  Blackhawk reached in and grabbed his ankle and suddenly and viciously pulled Cisneros until he was lying across the backseat. I put the Kahr on his nose.

  “This is a .45 caliber Kahr with hollow point rounds in it,” I said. “Kahrs don’t have safeties. There is a round in the chamber. The slightest pressure and this gun will go off and the back of your head will make an expensive mess in Nacho’s car.”

  “Ah, man, don’t do that,” Nacho said. “Pull him out to shoot him.”

  Blackhawk put the barrel of his Sig Sauer in Cisneros’s crotch.

  “Take his shoe off,” he said to Nacho.

  Cisneros was wearing expensive basketball shoes. Nacho didn’t bother untying them. He yanked on one till it and his sock came off. Every time he yanked, Cisneros tried to hold his head perfectly still. He was sweating.

  Blackhawk took his pistol away from Cisneros’s crotch and placed it on his little toe.

  “I’m going to ask you a question,” Blackhawk said softly. “If I don’t like the answer, or I think you are lying, I will shoot your toe off. Then we go to the next toe. Comprender?”

  I let up on the pressure of the Kahr. “Answer him.”

  He nodded.

  “My friend here is going to show you a picture so there can be no mistake,” Blackhawk said.

  I showed him the picture of Roland.

  “This is Roland Gomez,” Blackhawk continued. “I know you know him and I know you know how to find him. Now you have to ask yourself, is this piece of shit worth one of your toes? So, where do we find him?”

  Cisneros looked at me as I leaned over the backseat.

  “Hey, man, I don’t know….”

  Blackhawk blew his toe off, the sound deafening in the car. Cisneros screamed and I shoved the Kahr into his opened mouth.

  I leaned over, my ears ringing, my face inches from his, “I will give you a few seconds to compose yourself, then Blackhawk will ask you again.”

  Cisneros’s eye were wide with fear and pain. I held the photo in front of him again. I shook it.

  Blackhawk leaned in, “Where is he?”

  Cisneros tried to say something, so I took the barrel of the pistol out of his mouth.

  He swallowed hard. “Fuck,” he said. He swallowed again.

  “Where is he?” Blackhawk asked again.

  “H
e has a sister,” Cisneros gasped. “Somebody lit up his gang so he’s laying low there.”

  “Where is there,” Blackhawk asked.

  “Up north, Bell Road.”

  “Give me his sock,” Blackhawk said to Nacho. Nacho handed it to him.

  “Sit up,” Blackhawk said to Cisneros. Cisneros struggled up. Blackhawk handed him the sock. “Hold this tight on the toe, it’ll stem the bleeding."

  Nacho went to the back and collected the blanket. He brought it around to Cisneros’s side and opened the door. He tossed the shoe on the floor. He handed Cisneros the blanket.

  “Wrap your foot in this. Don’t get your fuckin’ blood on my car.”

  Nacho got behind the wheel and Blackhawk slid in beside Cisneros. It’s hard to guard someone sitting next to them in the backseat. In the movies, the one being guarded is so afraid of being shot that he does nothing. In reality, the gun is so close that it just takes the slightest inattention and a quick move and gun can change hands. I scooted around with my left arm along the top of the seat, the Kahr in my right hand. Now he was covered.

  “Bell Road and what?” I asked

  Cisneros was struggling with the blanket.

  “Bell Road between Cave Creek and 32nd Street.” He was flushed and panting.

  “How long did it take you to rehabilitate your foot?” Blackhawk asked me, not taking his eyes from Cisneros.

  “Six months.”

  “Six months,” Blackhawk said to Cisneros. “See, he loses his whole foot and six months later he’s up and around.” He pointed the Sig Sauer at Cisneros, “That’s good news for you because if we get up to where you are telling us and Roland ain’t there, I am going to shoot your whole foot off.”

  Everyone in the Jeep believed him.

  33

  Nacho took us up to I-10, then jockeyed across six lanes to catch the SR51 north. Cisneros was holding his foot, rocking back and forth and moaning. Blackhawk never took his eyes off of him. It took a good half hour before Bell Road started showing up on the exit signs. Finally Nacho took the Bell Road exit.

  A large black pick-up, jacked up five feet off the ground, came swinging onto the exit in front of us. Nacho had to brake.

  “Assholes,” Nacho said. “Drive like assholes.”

  We caught the green at the top of the ramp and went west across the freeway bridge.

  “Where to?” I asked.

  “Man, my foot hurts like hell. You gotta take me to an emergency room. I’ll tell them I did it myself.”

  “Where to?” Blackhawk asked softly.

  “Shit,” Cisneros groaned. “Go on past 32nd to, I don’t know, a couple blocks maybe. I only been there a couple of times. His sister’s a bitch. She don’t like nobody hanging around.”

  “You know the house number?”

  “Fuck no. It ain’t a house, it’s an apartment kinda thing.”

  “Kinda thing,” I said.

  “Cheap-ass place. One story about eight, ten units in a row. She’s near the end.”

  We came up on 27th street and Nacho said, “Turn here?”

  “Yeah,” Cisneros said. When Nacho turned he said, “Go on down a couple blocks.”

  Nacho slowed down, and as we crept through the intersections, Cisneros would peer down the street to the right.

  Finally he said, “There!”

  Nacho had already gone too far to make the turn, so he went down to the next street and turned right. We went around the block and came at the apartments from the other direction. This put them on our left. As described, they were one story high, dirty yellow units, one after the other. There were ten doors, each having a slab of concrete in front that served as a porch. Most of the slabs had cheap lawn chairs on them. The height of urban living. The ground was bare dirt with patches of scrub winter grass. A couple of the units had rusty cars with flat tires pulled up on the dirt.

  “Which one?” I asked. Cisneros didn’t answer, so I rapped his shin with the Khar.

  “Next to last,” he said hurriedly. “With the open door.”

  Connected to the wall of the last unit was a seven-foot concrete block wall that went to the curb. Somebody’s spite fence that blocked this property from the next one.

  “Door open, they’ll see us,” Nacho said.

  “Bitch don’t pay her electric,” Cisneros said.

  “Pull up short on that side of the street,” I said. “So they don’t see us.”

  Nacho pulled to the curb facing the wrong way. I stepped out of the car, followed by Blackhawk and Nacho. Cisneros huddled in the back.

  Blackhawk went around and opened his door. “Get out.”

  Cisneros reluctantly climbed out. I had the Kahr in my hand. Nacho had one of the confiscated pistols in his back pocket and was carrying the ball bat. Blackhawk put the Sig Sauer on Cisneros.

  “You lead,” he said.

  Blackhawk walked Cisneros ahead of him, between him and the door. I went to the front wall next to a door three down from the open one and moved along the wall, the Kahr pointed at the empty space. Nacho came along behind me. We got to the door at the same time, and without hesitation Blackhawk shoved Cisneros through the opened door and I went in low and moved left. Blackhawk came in to the right. Nacho stayed outside.

  The living room was tiny with one chair and one filthy sofa and a small flat screen TV on the otherwise blank wall. It was empty. Cisneros was on his knees, hands covering his head like he was expecting World War Three. With my free hand, I pointed at Blackhawk, then at the kitchen, and pointed at myself, then at the hallway that led to the bedrooms. He nodded, and we moved at the same time. There were two tiny bedrooms and a bathroom. The first bedroom had a bed covered with soiled clothes and blankets. The second was empty except for cardboard boxes filled with various junk. No one was in the bathroom. I don’t think I’ve seen a filthier toilet bowl since the Mideast. It didn’t have a seat.

  I moved back out into the hallway and Blackhawk came out of the kitchen. He shook his head.

  “We have company!” Nacho yelled, stepping inside.

  Blackhawk moved out of my sight toward the front door. I stepped back into the bedroom and looked out the window. To the left I could see the nose of a black Cadillac Escalade peeking out in front of the block fence. Suddenly two men with automatic rifles stepped around the fence and moved out into the middle of the street. They opened fire. I recognized them. They had dumped Gabriela into my lake.

  The assault rifles chattered a fusillade of rounds across the front of the house. I fell back into a corner, getting as low as I could. Thank God the rounds were a light caliber, and though they were chewing the concrete on the outside, they weren’t penetrating. There was enough damage as they ripped the window and windowsill to splinters. It went on for a long time, then abruptly ceased. Their clips were empty. They were reloading. I came up to the window looking for a target. The window was in glass shards and I couldn’t rest my arm without slicing it. I took a bead on the big Mexican when suddenly –Bam! Outside and to my right was the concussive explosion of a high powered rifle. The big Mexican exploded into a mass of blood and flew backwards into the street. The other shooter yelped and dove behind the concrete fence. Bam! A second report and a huge chunk of concrete exploded from the wall, leaving a jagged hole. There was screaming behind the wall, then the sudden squealing of tires as the Escalade yanked backwards out of sight. I could hear it racing off in reverse. It went racing around the corner, then it was silent.

  I moved down the hallway to the living room. Blackhawk and Nacho were rising from the floor, brushing glass and debris from their clothes. I looked into the kitchen and Cisneros was gone.

  “What the hell?” Nacho said.

  I cautiously went to the front door, squatting, I put my eye around the jamb. I couldn’t see anything. I slowly went out the door and onto the slab until I could see down the street. Blackhawk came up beside me.

  A block away a Lincoln Town Car was sitting sideways in the interse
ction. Behind the hood Emil stood, his massive bald head gleaming in the sunlight. The big Mexican lay sprawled in the middle of the road, blood pooling under his body. Emil raised a heavy caliber rifle over his head in salute. I raised my hand. He tossed the rifle in the back seat, then got in the car and drove away.

  “What the fuck was that?” Nacho said.

  Blackhawk and I looked at each other.

  “.50 Cal,” we said simultaneously.

  34

  Nacho parked his Jeep around the side of the El Patron next to where the other employees parked. The sky was still bright and streaked with clouds and contrails. The air was warm. It was still early enough in the day that the bar wasn’t open for business yet, but the double doors were propped open. Next to the entrance, to the side of the doors, there was an ash can the size of a small garbage pail filled with sand and overflowing with cigarette butts. Because of the no smoking ordinance, this is where the smokers came.

  Nacho led us in and we went through the foyer and down the hallway. The doors to the smaller two bars were opened and as I passed each door I could see a bartender inside each room stocking for the evening. I could hear a vacuum cleaner but couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from. The smell of stale beer and humanity was becoming familiar.

  In the big room, Jimmy was readying things for the night. As we came in, he was rolling a keg of beer behind the bar. We sat down and Nacho put the two confiscated pistols on the bar. One was a Smith and Wesson and the other a Glock. They were both worn, with nicks and scratches.

  Jimmy jockeyed a keg into place and quickly hooked it up, then came down to us.

  “Didn’t you read the sign?” he said to Nacho. “No firearms.”

  “Fuck you,” Nacho said.

  “Want something, Boss?” Jimmy asked with a grin, wiping the bar in front of us.

  “Have someone empty that ashcan out front,” Blackhawk said. He looked at me, “You want something?”

  “Beer sounds good,” I said.

  “Three beers,” Blackhawk said. “And three shots of Arta’.”

  Nacho was taking the pistols apart.