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

by Sam Lee Jackson

  “I have my phone,” Wally Chen said.

  “Whatever,” Paz said. “Just take the video.”

  Paz pulled his phone and hit a number. He waited a second. When it was answered, he said, “We’re here.” He disconnected and climbed out. I went out my side. Little Joe cut the motor and hit the trunk release, then stepped out. I glanced at Wally Chen. He had taken his phone from his back pocket and was fiddling with it. I noticed Little Joe took his pistol out of his shoulder holster and put it in his belt.

  Paz pulled the carry-on from the trunk. We stood there long enough for me to begin to doubt. But, greed won. The smaller door opened, and Walter Tillburg stepped out. Kaplan was right behind. Paz carried the bag up the concrete steps and Kaplan shook his hand. That was a good sign.

  “I don’t see why this is necessary,” I could hear Kaplan say.

  “Think about it,” Paz said. “It’ll come to you. Have you got the stuff?”

  Kaplan looked at Tillburg. Tillburg stepped back into the building and brought out a large cardboard box. Little Joe looked at me and cocked his head toward Paz and Kaplan. I went up the concrete stairs two at a time, and took the box. It was heavier than I expected. It was taped shut. I set it down. With my pocketknife I slit the tape and opened it. It was stuffed to the top with gallon baggies of pills. I held one up, and held it out to show Paz, but really to make sure Wally Chen could get a good shot of it. While I did this, Kaplan unzipped the bag. I was happy. He picked out a bundle of bills, looked at it, front and back, and replaced it. I put the baggie back, and carried the box to the car. I put the box inside the open trunk.

  I heard Kaplan say, “Don’t expect this to happen every time.”

  “I don’t,” Paz said. “But it needed to happen this time.” He came down the steps and climbed into the back seat.

  Little Joe slid into the driver’s seat. I opened my door and stood watching as Kaplan disappeared inside. Wally got in behind me. I heard Paz’s door shut. Tillburg stood watching me.

  “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” I said in my best Bogart. I shot Tillburg with my forefinger and thumb and slid into the passenger’s seat. Little Joe backed and filled and drove away.

  Back at the boarding house, I called Boyce.

  50

  Paz had the pills counted and bagged. A thousand pills filled a zip-lock baggie to the brim. The next afternoon, as I sat at the bar, Little Joe came up to me. He was carrying a satchel.

  “Paz wants you to come with me,” he said. He moved on past without waiting.

  I slid off the stool and followed him out. We took his BMW. It was really a nice car. Not a Mustang but nice.

  “We making a delivery?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Three of them.” He glanced over at me as he maneuvered through traffic, “You sure came at the right time. This is going to be a gold mine.”

  I stifled a smile. I already had one gold mine thing going.

  “So, you guys already have dealers lined up?”

  “Oh yeah, Paz’s been at this a long time. Before him was Manny Munro. Dealers ain’t hard to come by. Most of them are addicts. They sell to afford their own stuff.” He glanced at me, “They don’t bite the hand that feeds them. They do, they lose the hand. And, worse for them, they lose their supply.”

  “They’ll make a lot of money too.”

  “Oh, yeah. They don’t know it yet but they’re going to be very happy. Once the word hits the street that you can get your opioids at your neighborhood corner dope dealer. Oh, man!”

  “Think they can move a thousand pills in a day or two?”

  “Once the word is out we’ll need more than that. We sell at 30 bucks a pill. Somebody’s gonna get smart and start buying at $30 and start selling at $40. Like the boss said, this is a trial run.”

  “Who buys at $40?”

  “Addicts are everywhere. Say you are someplace remote. If you can’t get it at $30, you’ll pay $40. A smart guy buys five hundred pills at $30. You drive to the Verde Valley, you sell at $40, you make five grand for a day trip.”

  “Ain’t free enterprise a good thing,” I said.

  The first stop was at a small dark bar on Seventh Street called Paddy O’Briens. Walk in the door and you are in 95% of the neighborhood bars in America. If you were blind and deaf, the smell alone would tell you that. I followed Little Joe’s massive shoulders through the door. He carried the satchel. It was mild outside, so the door was open and the inside somewhat illuminated. The bartender looked at Little Joe then nodded toward the back of the room.

  Seated at a back booth was a skinny guy in a red ball cap and dirty tee shirt. He was reading a newspaper, the pages folded back to the racing pages. Little Joe slid into the booth opposite him. I stood. The guy lowered the paper. He looked a little shocked.

  “You guys already collected,” he said.

  “Not here for that,” Little Joe said. He sat the satchel on the table and opened it. He pulled a baggie of pills out and sat them in front of the guy.

  “There’s 500 oxycodone pills in here. They are all yours”

  The guy shook his head, “I didn’t buy no oxycodone.”

  “Didn’t say you did,” Little Joe said. “It’s a gift from Cicero Paz.”

  The man’s eyes widened.

  “He just wants you to sell them.”

  “Sell them?”

  “Thirty dollars apiece. I’ll be back tomorrow night and collect for what you’ve sold. You get ten percent.” Now he had the man’s attention. “You do good, we’ll get you even more.”

  The man looked at the baggy like a dog looks at a steak. “These real?”

  “They’re real,” Little Joe said.

  The man opened the baggy and took a pill out. He put it in his mouth.

  “You owe us thirty bucks,” Little Joe said sliding out of the booth.

  51

  I was stretched out on the bed at the boarding house, fingers locked behind my head, wondering how I was going to tell Mrs. Haggerty I would be moving. When I had come in, Mrs. Haggerty and Mrs. Eberle had their heads together at the dining room table. I only heard a few words before they heard me and stopped talking. Mrs. Eberle was saying, “He should have called me by now.” Her tone was one of worried anxiety.

  Now, my phone was on the dresser, and it began to vibrate. I rolled off the bed and picked it up.

  “I’m two minutes away,” Blackhawk said and disconnected. Not two and a half minutes. Not one minute fifty seconds. Two minutes.

  I went to the closet and selected a fresh shirt. I slipped it on, sat on the bed and attached my foot, then slipped on my shoes. They were white New Balance’s. They were made by a specialty shop on Bell Road, just to accommodate my prosthetic foot.

  At the top of the stairs I heard Blackhawk’s voice below. It was two minutes. I came down. Mrs. Haggarty and Mrs. Eberle were in the living room. Blackhawk was seated on the old brocaded divan. Next to him was an expensive looking briefcase. A business card was on the coffee table. Mrs. Haggarty was offering him tea.

  “Thank you, Ma’am,” Blackhawk said. “That would be wonderful.”

  With a smile, Mrs. Haggerty hustled to the kitchen, Mrs. Eberle looked up and spotted me coming down the stairs. “Oh, Jack,” she exclaimed. “Come join us. This is Mr. Black from the bank.”

  Blackhawk stood, and I shook his hand, “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Black,” I said.

  “Likewise,” he said. We both sat.

  Mrs. Haggerty stuck her head around the corner, “Would you care for some tea, Jack?”

  “Certainly,” I said.

  I looked at Blackhawk, “What brings you our way, Mr. Black?”

  He cleared his throat, “Well, to be frank, my business here is with Mrs. Eberle.” He looked at her, “It is of a personal matter.”

  “Is this about my husband Elmer’s account?”

  Blackhawk frowned, “I thought his name was Elwood?”

  “Well, that was his give
n name,” Mrs. Eberle said. “But he hated it. He was born with the name Elwood Merle Eberle, but he changed it to Elmer.”

  Mrs. Haggerty came in with a tray of tea service. She sat it on the coffee table, in front of Blackhawk.

  “Do you take sugar or milk, Mr. Black,” she asked.

  “No thank you Ma’am. Plain tea is fine.”

  She poured a cup and set it on a saucer in front of him. She set a dainty napkin next to it. “How about you, Jack? Sugar or milk?”

  “Both,” I said.

  She placed a sugar cube in a cup, poured milk from a small matching pitcher, and then poured the tea. She delicately set it in front of me. She poured a cup for Mrs. Eberle, then herself.

  Once settled, she said to Mrs. Eberle, “Is this about Elmer’s money?”

  Mrs. Eberle said to Blackhawk, “Mr. Black, anything you need to say, you can say in front of Mildred and Jack. They have my complete trust.”

  Blackhawk looked at both of us. “Very well, then,” he said. He shifted to seem a little uncomfortable. “I am from the fraud department of the bank. It is my job to investigate whenever the bank feels that someone is trying to defraud the bank. Or, in this case, one of the bank’s customers.”

  Mrs. Eberle looked distressed. “The young man assured me everything we were doing was on the up and up. I never had any intention of doing anything wrong.” She looked at Mrs. Haggerty. “After all, it was my money. Or, at first Elmer’s, but he is deceased. I felt I had a right to it.”

  Blackhawk held his hand up. “I’m not here to cause you a problem, Mrs. Eberle. What was the name of the man that came to visit you, saying he was from the bank?”

  “He wasn’t from the bank?” exclaimed Mrs. Haggerty.

  “No, Ma’am, he wasn’t.”

  “He had a business card,” Mrs. Eberle said. “Just like yours.” She picked up Blackhawks card and studied it. “Just like this one.”

  “What was his name?” Blackhawk repeated.

  “Edward Burns. He said he saw me at the bank. Why was he at the bank if he didn’t work there?”

  “The only Edward Burns employed by the bank is in Oklahoma,” Blackhawk said. “The man that came here to your house was named Grover Hilland. What did he tell you?”

  “Well,” she glanced at Mrs. Haggerty, “he said that he heard my name at the bank, and he was researching old abandoned accounts. And, one of those had the same last name. But, it was in the Elwood Merle name, not Elmer, so that’s why I never knew of it.” She flushed slightly, “Mr. Eberle liked to gamble. Mostly on the horses. He spent a lot of time at Turf Paradise. So, he must have put his winnings in an account with Elwood instead of Elmer.”

  “And, Mr. Hilland said he had a way for you to get it?”

  “He said his name was Mr. Burns,” she said emphatically. “He said it could all get wrapped up in red tape. And I didn’t have a way to prove that my Elmer and Elwood were the same person. I don’t have a birth certificate or anything.”

  “She’s telling you the truth,” Mrs. Haggerty said.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Blackhawk said. “I’m sure she is.” He placed his elbows on his knees and tented his hands. He looked very reflective. Academy award stuff.

  After a long moment, he said, “How much did the man say was in the abandoned account?”

  “Forty thousand dollars.”

  “Did you think about consulting an attorney?”

  She looked like she was about to cry, “No.”

  “How much money did you give him?”

  “I gave him my CD.”

  “How much was that?”

  “Thirty thousand.”

  “And, you haven’t heard from him since?”

  Now she was crying. Mrs. Haggerty came over and put her arms around her, making little cooing noises. I gave Blackhawk a look.

  “I have good news and bad news, Mrs. Eberle.”

  Mrs. Eberle snuffled. “What does that mean.”

  “The bad news,” he continued, “is that your husband never had another bank account in the name of Elwood, or Elmer.”

  “But, that man said he did.”

  “The good news,” Blackhawk continued as he set the briefcase on his knees and snapped it open, “is that we caught up with Mr. Hilland before he got away, and we retrieved your thirty thousand dollars.”

  Mrs. Haggerty’s hands flew to her face, “Oh, my goodness! Oh, my goodness!”

  “Oh, my,” Mrs. Eberle exclaimed. “Is it true? Is it true?”

  “Yes, it’s true,” Blackhawk said. He pulled the packets of one hundred dollar bills out of the briefcase and stacked them on the coffee table. The last thing he pulled from the briefcase was a pink deposit slip.

  “I highly recommend that as soon as possible, you fill out this deposit slip, and take the money to your branch and deposit it.”

  “Can’t you do that?” Mrs. Haggerty said.

  Blackhawk and I just looked at each other.

  Blackhawk stood. “No, Ma’am,” he said. “Trusting strangers is what got you into trouble in the first place. I have to catch a flight back to the home office. Perhaps, Mr. huh, Jack can give you a lift to the bank. I wouldn’t delay.”

  “Happy to,” I said.

  “So pleased to meet you ladies,” Blackhawk said. He squeezed both of their hands, and shook hands with me.

  “So long now,” he said. He went out the screen door, careful not to let it slam.

  Mrs. Eberle was dabbing at her tears with one of the delicate napkins. “Oh, Mildred, can you believe it? What a nice young man,” she said.

  “Yes, he was,” Mrs. Haggerty said. “It is just wonderful.” She looked at me, “But Jack, didn’t you think his hair was a little long for a banker? I guess the world is changing.”

  52

  I was sitting at my usual stool at El Patron nursing a Dos Equis. Across the rectangular bar from me Elena was deep in quiet conversation with her friend Anita. Anita had come in a few minutes ago sporting a new shiner. Her left eye had a distinctive, puffy, mouse under it which had resulted from a smack administered by her right-handed husband. As Anita snuffled into a napkin, Elena was leaned into her, their heads just inches apart. I couldn’t hear the words, but the tone was fierce. I wouldn’t want to be that poor sap.

  Blackhawk came down the stairs and slid up on the stool next to me. When Anita had come in, Nacho had found something to do at the other end of the bar. Likewise, Jimmy was cleaning glassware feverishly, down there with him.

  Blackhawk wiggled a finger at Jimmy and Jimmy brought him a club soda with lime, then hustled back to the other end.

  I was watching Elena. “So, do you think Elena will have the poor simple bastard killed, or just drawn and quartered.”

  “I think drawing and quartering would probably kill him. But, I don’t think she’ll have him killed. Probably more an eye for an eye.” He took a sip. “Maybe castration, but I doubt Anita would like that. Fate is a fickle thing. Just think. That ignorant bastard is probably sitting in a bar somewhere, happy as a lord, unaware of his own impending doom.”

  “Happy as a lord?”

  “I’m feeling especially poetic today.”

  “What will she do?”

  Blackhawk turned the glass in his hands. “Elena has many friends. She’ll have one of them do her a favor.”

  “Not you?”

  “Oh no, not me. She saves me for heavy work.”

  “Like her cousin, Diaz?”

  “Boyce took care of that for me.”

  “Yes, she did.” I noticed Nacho looking past me, toward the door. I swiveled on my stool.

  “Speak of the devil,” I said. Boyce was coming down the hallway, through the open door into the bar. She spotted Elena and Anita and detoured to them. Elena gave her a hug and I could tell, was explaining the situation, but again, her voice was too low to hear. Boyce was patting Anita on the back.

  “I could take him downtown,” Boyce said. This I heard.

  Anit
a immediately shook her head and began to cry harder. Boyce stood there for a moment, patting Anita on the back. She looked over at me. She walked around the bar and sat next to Blackhawk. She was watching Elena and Anita.

  Jimmy came up to her, “Get you something, Detective?”

  Boyce looked at Blackhawk’s drink. “What’s that?”

  “Club soda and lime,” Blackhawk said.

  “Get me one of those,” she said to Jimmy. “What’s she going to do? You think Elena is going to have the bastard castrated?”

  Blackhawk laughed. I had to smile. “I think, in the long run, Anita wouldn’t want that,” Blackhawk said.

  Jimmy sat Boyce’s drink in front of her.

  “This a social call?” I said.

  “Do you want it to be?”

  “Why do you always have to answer a question with a question?”

  “Why do you have to know.”

  “If you two are going to go on like this, I’m going back upstairs,” Blackhawk said.

  Boyce laughed. “I thought you might like to hear about your boy Grover-Edward-Tommy.”

  “What about him?”

  Nacho and Jimmy must have heard her, they both moved closer.

  “Captain Mendoza was very taken with my tale about the boy. He was especially interested in where you got a bag of gold.” She cocked her head at me. “You didn’t tell me that you had gone to the Captain for a bag of gold.”

  I shrugged, “I thought maybe there was an off chance he might have something like that in the evidence room.”

  “A bag of gold?” she said.

  “It was worth a shot.”

  “You didn’t even tell me where you got it.”

  “You didn’t need to know.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “You still don’t need to know. What about Tommy the grifter?”

  “You’re not going to tell me, are you, you prick.”

  “Tell me about Tommy.”

  “Tell me where you got the gold.”

  “Tell me about Tommy first.”

  She was glaring at me. She’s really cute when she’s mad. She took a drink of the club soda and took a deep breath. “After I told Mendoza the whole story, or at least the parts I knew,” she gave me a look. “Mendoza put a young, college-looking detective into the club under cover. He watched Tommy pick up a young girl and leave with her. Tommy followed the girl to an apartment over by ASU. The Detective ran the girl’s plates and learned the car was registered in a man’s name. The Detective got the information on the man and called him. It was the girl’s father.” She leaned back and looked at me.