“God have mercy,” he said and crossed himself. Blood had leaked from under the Kevlar vest and soaked the top of my jeans.
“Get out!” I yelled. I didn’t want him there if I passed out.
Leo got out of the Lexus, and I climbed behind the wheel. He walked slowly toward the mission.
“Leo,” I said.
He turned, expecting a bullet.
I tossed him his cell phone.
Leo caught the phone and let out a loud nervous sigh.
I drove north on Presa Street. I wanted to ditch the Lexus and get my old pickup. I’d left extra weapons and ammo in the back seat, and I would need them before this was over. The traffic was light. I passed the turn for Mission San José and Mission Concepción. Maybe Texas history didn’t stretch as far back as the Greeks, but everyone should know something about the place where they lived.
I negotiated the traffic back to Leo’s pawnshop on Culebra where I’d left my pickup, then stopped down the street and studied the front of the store. The open sign was on, but no one was going in or out. There were two police cars parked across the street. The officers were probably inside. I drove into the parking lot of the minimart next door and saw two more officers searching my pickup. The black duffle bag with my extra weapons and ammo was on the pavement. So much for my extra fire power.
I called Skeeter and told him what happened. I expected the police would send an officer to my house very soon. I told him to get the weapons and ammo out of the safe and take them to Rose’s house. I wanted Sarge and Lucky to stay with Rose, so they weren’t on the police radar.
“You don’t sound good, man,” Skeeter said.
“I’ll be all right.” I disconnected. It wouldn’t be long before the cops or Russell’s gang started looking for Leo’s Lexus, so I got out, left the keys in the console, and began walking toward the corner convenience store. I needed water and something to eat. When I reached the parking lot, I hit the Uber app on my phone. With any luck, I could get a ride out of here in a few minutes. I took another step toward the store and blacked out.
Chapter Forty-Four
The explosion lifted the Humvee into the air and turned the blue sky white. The windshield fractured into a thousand tiny pins that stabbed my face. The vehicle came to rest upside down. My legs wouldn’t move, pinned to the seat by the crushed dashboard. To my left, Corporal Lorenzo bled through the mouth and ears. His arms hung down lifelessly toward the roof of the cab. Rifle bullets ripped into the metal frame. A dozen legs clad in desert boots appeared in the swirling dust and circled the vehicle.
“Get down!” I shouted. I pounded on the door and the dashboard. I was trapped.
The men stood their ground. Protecting me.
One of the men dropped to the ground, shot through the head. He was a giant of a man with a metal hook for a hand. Skeeter. He opened his mouth. Shouted:
“Mr. Fischer, wake up!”
I opened my eyes and saw Leo’s jowly face staring down at me. The dream was back. For months after my last deployment, the nightmare of those final moments kept me up at night. The names and faces of my brothers were seared in my memory.
“You were screaming. You okay?” Leo asked.
I waited for my head to clear. There was pain in my chest, but it was manageable. I was lying on a bed with a clean sheet in a sparsely furnished room. I was naked down to my skivvies, and there was a fresh bandage over my wound. The Saint Jude medallion hung around my neck.
“What’s this,” I asked, holding up the necklace.
“Saint Jude. In my orthodox church he is Thaddaeus. The patron saint of lost causes. You will need his help fighting the devil.”
“Where am I?” I asked.
“My house. I took a cab back to the pawnshop. When it dropped me off, I looked across the street and saw you lying face down beside my Lexus. A homeless guy was trying to use your phone to call 911.”
“How long have I been here?”
He looked at his watch. “Four hours. You were out of it. Don’t worry, no one knows you’re here.”
I found my phone and checked for messages. Two texts from Skeeter and a missed call from Detective Ochoa. I called Skeeter and let him know I was all right.
“Where are we?” I asked Leo.
“Ogden Lane in the Heights,” he said.
The Alamo Heights was an upscale neighborhood north of downtown. There was old money there—businessmen who owned buildings and worked downtown. The perfect place for a mob accountant to hide in plain sight.
I passed along the address to Skeeter and told him to sit tight at my place and monitor the GPS signal from the manager’s pickup.
There was a knock on the door. A young female voice said, “Papa?”
“My kids know you’re here. I had to explain why we missed the soccer game. They helped me bring you inside. You’re in my basement.”
A teenage girl entered the room. She was seventeen or eighteen years old. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail. She wore soccer-style shorts and a team T-shirt with her number on the back and socks with athletic sandals.
“This is my daughter, Penelope.”
“The wife of Odysseus. She looks brave enough,” I said.
“I thought you only studied Texas history.”
“It’s not so different than yours.” I sat up in bed and pulled the tangled sheet up around my waist.
“It’s Penny,” the girl said quickly. “Would you like something to eat?” She carried a bowl of stew and a glass of water to the bedside table.
“Thank you, Penny. I’m starving.”
She put a hand on my forehead. “You have a fever. We should take you to the hospital.”
“Penelope wants to be a doctor,” Leo said proudly.
“I’ll be all right after I eat some of that stew. Did you make it?”
“It’s my father’s recipe.”
The bowl contained thick chunks of meat in tomato-based sauce mixed with carrots and potatoes and smelled like heaven.
“Would that be lamb?” I asked, holding up a piece of meat on the spoon.
She laughed a spontaneous, girlish laugh. She wasn’t scared or intimidated in the least by a wounded man lying in the spare bedroom. “It’s venison,” she said.
“One of my clients has a deer lease. He lets me take the kids hunting,” Leo explained.
I took a bite. It tasted as good as it smelled. It reminded me of my grandma’s wild meat stew that always seemed to be cooking on the backburner of the stove during hunting season. Father and daughter watched me devour the stew and use the pita bread to clean the bowl.
When Penny took the empty bowl and left the room, I got out of bed.
“What’re you doing?” Leo asked. “You need to rest.”
“No time for that. You know how Russell operates. Maya’s life is in danger. Now, you and your family are in danger.”
Leo tried to come up with an excuse to keep me in bed, but there wasn’t one that didn’t involve putting him and his kids in more danger. He brought me my clean clothes. He’d had his daughter wash and dry everything. Most of the bloodstains were gone. I got dressed and slipped back on the Kevlar vest. It had already saved my life once. I was sure I would need it again before I found Maya and took her home.
He handed me back my Springfield .45 and my S&W .38. I strapped both in place. I would need more firepower, and I had no idea where I might get it.
“Thank you,” I said. “For saving my life.”
“Before you came, I was willing to follow orders to protect my children. The Dragon killed my wife. My kids are the only thing I have left. But you… You are willing to sacrifice your life to rescue the daughter of a family friend.” He paused and looked at me. I was dressed, my Springfield strapped in a shoulder holster over the Kevlar vest, my ankle bulging with the .38. “I will fight.”
“You sound more like Leonidas,” I said.
He smiled at that. He understood t
he reference.
I was grateful for his help but wasn’t really prepared to offer him absolution. I wasn’t a priest. His hands were bloody. Maybe he still thought I would kill him. He would pay for his crimes one way or another. I had no doubt about that. You don’t profit the way Leo did all these years and get off scot-free.
Leo showed me to a desk by the door where there was an open laptop. Beside it sat the stack of computer disks we’d taken from the pawnshop safe.
“This will help you bring the Dragon down.” He loaded one of the disks.
We watched a video cue up on screen. The picture wasn’t exactly a Hollywood production. The image was grainy, and the room was dark. The camera angle came from the ceiling above a bed in what looked like a cheap motel room. The two people in the frame were clearly visible. One was a naked young woman sprawled on the bed. She had dark hair and a forced smile on her face. The other was an older man with gray hair and a clean-shaven face. He had his shirt off, and his belly hung over the top of his black suit slacks. His face looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“That’s Gordon Lozano,” Leo said.
“The county commissioner?” I hit pause and studied his face. The bastard was enjoying himself. The girl was skinny. Her ribs were visible. She looked to be no more than sixteen, despite the heavy makeup. “How many of these are on here?”
“A dozen. Probably more.”
I ejected the commissioner’s disk. The date and city were written in black marker on the side. I shuffled through the rest of the disks. Each had a date and location. The last one was from this year. The city was Fredericksburg. I inserted the disk and booted up the video. There was a different girl in the same motel room. She was near the same age, naked and spread-eagle on the queen-sized bed. Thankfully, there was no sound. The girl’s head was turned toward the bathroom.
After a moment, Mike Bauer walked into the frame, a towel wrapped around his round belly. He smiled like a kid at Christmas. I cut the video off. I didn’t need to see any more. I knew why the Dragon was in Fredericksburg and why Mike Bauer had given him a job and an alibi for Lori’s murder.
“I need a car,” I said. “And I need to know where Russell’s hiding.” I took the disk out of the laptop.
“You can take my daughter’s Camry.”
“Where’s the money?”
“Still in the Lexus. My best guess is that Russell went to his warehouse. South Highway 16, but I doubt he will be there long.”
“Where’s he going?”
“I don’t know. I told you. I’m an accountant, nothing more. I hear rumors that he takes girls to Arizona and South Florida. Sometimes different cities in Texas.”
“He’s taking Maya?”
He shrugged. “That’s what he does.”
I gave him my phone, and Leo typed in the address of the warehouse. I followed him up the basement steps and into the kitchen. A boy was sitting at the bar doing homework. He looked like Penny’s twin, only a couple of years younger with chubby cheeks.
“This is Leonidas Junior,” Leo said.
The boy stood up from his textbook. He was built like his dad, already developing a gut. His hair was dark and cut short. He extended his hand and I shook it.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Fischer,” he said politely. There were no secrets it seemed between father and children. They all knew who I was. I glanced at the textbook.
“Math?” I asked.
“Not my favorite subject,” he said.
“Junior is my budding artist,” Leo said. “My daughter’s the scientist.”
“The world needs artists, too,” I said.
The kid smiled.
I followed Leo out the back door to the garage. After he’d given me the keys to his daughter’s red Toyota Camry and helped me load the money bags and the disks into the trunk, he hit the garage door opener.
“You need to leave,” I reminded him. “Take the kids. At least until I take Russell down.”
“I have a gun here. I know how to take care of myself and my family. I won’t run.”
If he wanted to face the music here, there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I got in the Camry and started the engine. Penny’s car smelled like perfume and Skittles. I unrolled all the windows and drove out of his winding driveway and into the quiet residential Alamo Heights neighborhood. The lots were big, and the houses set back off the street. Dense live oak trees gave the area an exclusive feel. It was easy to see why it was so hard for Leo to pack up and leave.
Chapter Forty-Five
By the time I got to I-35 south, a cool city mixture of exhaust fumes and fall cedar pollen had replaced the sweet smell of Penny’s hairspray and Gummi bears. I rolled up the windows and turned on the heat. The last thing I needed was an attack of cedar fever.
My phone rang. Skeeter. I hit accept.
“They’re coming for you,” he said.
“Coming where?”
“Alamo Heights. The GPS signal’s headed east on Hildebrand. I don’t think it’s a social call.”
“What’s their ETA?”
“Fifteen minutes. There’s no traffic. You want some help?” Skeeter asked.
“I left. I’m on the I-35 headed south.”
“Sounds like Leo the Accountant is about to pay the piper.”
“I need fire power,” I told him. “SAPD impounded my pickup and took my bag.”
“You can’t come home. They got the street covered. Cruisers on both ends and an unmarked car out front. Rose has already been out to offer them coffee. You’re hot right now.”
“All right. Keep me posted.” I disconnected.
Leo laundered money for the Dragon and whoever his bosses were. Money that came from drug deals and prostitution. He knew what he was getting into. Once you made a deal with the devil, you had to accept the consequences. The problem was, Leo had two kids that didn’t deserve what was coming. Everybody has a choice. I knew what mine had to be.
I took the next exit ramp and made a U-turn under the interstate. I would never make it back in under fifteen minutes. Leo said he had a weapon. He was going to need it.
I cut through the Olmos Basin park, north of the zoo and the headwaters of the San Antonio River. The neighborhood was quiet. The park was a small piece of wilderness in the middle of the city.
I parked down the street from Leo’s house and walked through the oak trees lining his property. The jacked-up Dodge Ram from the strip club was in the driveway.
The front door was kicked in, and fresh chunks of wood were scattered on the welcome mat. I pulled my Springfield and jogged to the back of the house. The kitchen light was on. I inched to the window and looked inside. Leo was sitting at the kitchen table. Arnold the Manager stood behind him.
“Where the fuck is he?” Arnold shouted.
“Gone. Stole my daughter’s car,” Leo said, not looking up.
“You brought him home last night.”
“It wasn’t my choice.”
The bald-headed bouncer moved into view. He was wearing a Spurs basketball T-shirt and carrying a Glock 9mm. No sign of the other bouncer. I ducked away from the window and put my hand on the back door. Locked.
“You’re lying to me, Leo.” Arnold was angry and hyper-excited like he was tweaking on meth. The only advantage I had was he and his crew didn’t know I was outside the back door.
There was banging on the interior walls.
“Let me go!” a voice screamed. It was Penny.
I slipped back to the kitchen window. The bouncer with the neck tattoo had Penny in one bear claw and Junior in the other. Junior seemed shell-shocked and ready to piss his pants. Penny was a fighter. She pounded Tattoo with her free hand.
“Take your hand off me!” she shouted.
“We can have some fun with this bitch,” Tattoo sneered. He shoved Junior into a kitchen chair and pressed Penny against the counter. In one swift motion, he ripped Penny’s T-shi
rt off, exposing her black sports bra.
“Stay away from her,” Junior yelled, springing from the chair.
Tattoo backhanded him in the face. Junior dropped like a wet towel, blood spraying from his broken nose.
“Junior’s got more fight than his old man.” Tattoo laughed and turned his attention back to Penny.
“Leave them out of this.” Leo started to stand, but the bald bouncer shoved his Glock into Leo’s neck. Things were going downhill fast.
I used my folding knife to pry open the latch bolt. Leo hadn’t locked the deadbolt. This time, it might have saved his life.
“Didn’t you learn your lesson?” Arnold asked. He danced from foot to foot. Sweat rolled down his forehead despite the cool temperature. He wiped his runny nose with his fingers. “Did you tell the kids you watched while we took your wife down?”
“Leave them alone! I told you, I don’t know where Nick Fischer is. He stole the car and took off. He took the money with him.”
“I think you wanted to help him as payback for your wife,” the manager said.
“That’s crazy. How could I do anything? He had a gun.”
“And now I have a gun,” he said. “You can watch while we have a little fun.”
Tattoo lifted Penny to the counter. She kicked and screamed while he yanked her soccer shorts off and tossed them on the kitchen floor.
She screamed and clawed at his face. “Let me go!”
Tattoo hit her in the temple, and Penny slumped back against the countertop. The brute grabbed her black panties.
Boom!
I fired through the opening in the back door.
My .45 slug hit Tattoo in the back of the head. Blood sprayed Penny’s half-naked body. She kicked the dead man to the floor.
I dropped to my knees outside the door and yelled into the room. “Put the guns down!”
They answered with gunfire that ripped through the door and the wall at chest level. I peeked through a bullet hole. The manager grabbed Penny from the counter. He held her from behind with his pistol jammed in her neck.
“Let her go!” I yelled.
“Who’s out there?” he yelled. He was more nervous now than ever. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill her or the whole family.
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