The Librarian Her Daughter and the Man Who Lost His Head

by Sam Lee Jackson

“Pretty much. Got no way to prove it.”

  We sat in silence some more. The afternoon breeze was building and the chop in the lake had started.

  “How’s Elena’s cousin, Diaz?” I said.

  “Nacho says he’s gone.”

  “Take the money and run?”

  “If he has the money. If that’s what he’s doing, he better run hard, run long, and run low to the ground.”

  I studied him.

  “You don’t think so?”

  “Nacho doesn’t think so. He thinks he’s out scoring one of the ladies that work the streets in that area.”

  “So he’ll be back?”

  “If he’s smart. If he isn’t smart or he did take the money, he’s a dead man and Elena will mourn for her aunt, but she’ll get over it.”

  “Nacho looking for him?”

  He took a drink. Out across the water Eddie caught a fish.

  “There you go,” Blackhawk said, watching Eddie. “Nacho has better things to do. I’ve asked him to check again tonight. If he’s still gone then we talk to Elena and find out where he might hole up. Diaz isn’t smart enough to hatch some elaborate plan.”

  “And we go get him.”

  “And we go get him.”

  He finished his beer and set the bottle aside.

  “Another one?”

  He shook his head. “How’s the bomb thing going?”

  I told him about Father Correa and the mullah.

  “So the asshole is probably Shia?”

  “Probably. The mullah suggested I check a strip mall mosque on the west side. Says he doesn’t really know many of the Shiite rank and file.”

  “You know where it is?

  I nodded.

  “So you are going to go check it out?”

  I nodded again.

  “When you going to do that?”

  “No time like the present.”

  Across the water, Eddie had pulled up anchor and was moving.

  Blackhawk shook his head. “All that for one fish.”

  “Fishing by definition is an end unto itself. People don’t go catching, they go fishing.”

  He was looking at me. He smiled. “You are one strange white man, kemosabe.”

  34

  Blackhawk decided to go with me. This time of day, Danny was running the shuttle. We hopped into the golf cart and he took us up the hill to the parking. Blackhawk’s sleek, black Jaguar was parked in a reserved spot. It wasn’t reserved for him. Except for the Mustang, the other cars and trucks parked there seemed to be faded and lacking.

  “They will tow you,” I said.

  He shrugged, “Special modification. All the wheels lock. They’d have to get a crane and pick it up to move it.”

  I looked at him. “You park illegally a lot?”

  “Did a favor for a guy once and got towed in the process. He owned a Jaguar dealership. He did it pro bono.” He pulled the remote control from his pocket and pushed the button. The car unlocked but no beeping and no flashing lights.

  “Sometimes it’s better to unlock at night without advertisement.” He smiled at me. “Same guy.”

  “You drive,” I said. I popped the Mustang trunk and snagged the gun case that held the Kahr 45 and two clips. We took the Hawkmobile.

  Driving with Blackhawk was like driving with Jeff Gordon. Everything was smooth, economic and fast. He glided through the traffic like a trout headed upstream. He could anticipate an opening in the traffic before it happened. If he couldn’t avoid stopping at a light he would always pull up behind the line of cars that ultimately would be away faster than the other lane. Sometimes that is easy. You pull up behind the Corvette instead of the old sedan with Wisconsin plates. With him it was effortless.

  I directed him to the 101 and we headed west. Ghazi had said we would find the place in a strip mall on Avondale Ave. If I remembered correctly that was how you got to Phoenix International Raceway. Where they had Nascar races. It shouldn’t be too hard to check out the strip malls along the way. Blackhawk and I had the same smartphone so I plugged into his car charger. Since it was completely dead it took a moment for it to initialize. When it came awake, I looked at the map. Avondale Boulevard wasn’t very long. How many strip malls could there be?

  I met a guy at El Patron once. A big Nascar fan. He talked about going to the track like a kid would talk about Christmas. He said he would take his woman and pull their RV out to the track. They have a special lot set aside for RVs and he said people would come out and park a week before the race. It was a good quarter mile from the track. He said he had been going for years, and now there was an entire group that all came and parked next to each other, and had their Nascar reunion. They’d set out their camp chairs and grills and coolers of beer. When race day came they’d gather ‘round and someone would fire up a portable TV and they would all watch the race without actually going to the track. He said there was more actual beer drinking than race watching. He asked me why in the hell should he go, pay big money, sit on a hard bleacher, stand in line to take a piss, and pay eight dollars for a measly cup of beer. He had bombastically said he only watched the race at the track once and that was once too many. I asked why he didn’t just stay home and watch it in the comfort of his own home. He looked at me like I was an infidel.

  We merged onto Interstate 10 and within a few minutes we were at the Avondale exit. I had not been out here for a while and it had grown tremendously. All the streets, retail outlets and business complexes looked brand new. There was a sameness that growing cities have, and are proud of. The chamber of commerce takes pictures and puts them in brochures.

  Blackhawk kept to the slow lane and we drove the entire length of the boulevard without seeing a mosque, or anything that resembled it. When we reached the dry Salt River we turned around for another pass.

  It was Blackhawk who spotted the bearded man in the mauve tunic and round Islamic cap. He was leaning against the stucco wall of a shop, smoking a forbidden cigarette. He was shaded by the veranda overhang that was built across the asphalt parking lot. We were already moving past, so we kept moving, staying with the traffic. When he had a chance, Blackhawk turned around and we drove to a gas station and pulled in. We were a half block away. Blackhawk positioned the Jag so we were facing toward the smoking man.

  It was a long single building divided into a number of small businesses. The man was leaning against the wall in the middle, next to a door that had no lettering. A bay window next to the door was covered from the inside by a dark material. This made it a mirror. There was nothing to announce this was a mosque. A dog groomer was on one side and a small Mexican restaurant on the other. The lettering on the restaurant was in Spanish. I usually found this to mean the food would be authentic and good.

  The man flipped his cigarette butt out into the parking lot and disappeared through the door.

  “What’s the plan?” Blackhawk said.

  “Damned if I know,” I said. I looked around at the gas station. It was more convenience store than gas station.

  “I don’t think well on an empty stomach,” I said.

  I got out and went in the store. I let my stomach rule my head and came back with a dozen donuts, two hot dogs, and two large bottles of Gatorade. We ate the hot dogs first, then started on the donuts. Blackhawk had shut the motor off and rolled the windows down. It was warm but not killer.

  One of the things they had taught us was how to wait. An active mind is a killer, so the job is to empty the mind. For the next three hours, the sun got lower and lower in the sky and nothing happened. I completely ignored thinking about Boyce, and her pretty boy news anchor. People carried their little fluffies in and out of the groomers, and the restaurant had a decent flow.

  “We could just go in there,” I finally said.

  “Be going in blind,” Blackhawk said.

  “If Atef is in there, be a chance to get him.”

  “Be a chance for him to get us.”

  “He doesn’t know who w
e are.”

  “I’m not sure I know who he is.”

  “He’s the guy in Boyce’s picture and the video.”

  “Guy in the video had a head scarf and sunglasses.”

  “Scarf was red.”

  “You’re right. Dead giveaway.”

  “Never expected him to be here, anyway.”

  Blackhawk looked at me. “What exactly did you expect?”

  I ignored him. “If these are the bad guys and Atef isn’t here, they won’t tell us anything. If they are the good guys, they don’t know Atef and won’t tell us anything.”

  Blackhawk was still looking at me. “And we’re sitting here, why?”

  I didn’t answer. I had lost track of how many donuts each of us had and there was one left. I took it out of the sack, and took a bite.

  “That was mine,” Blackhawk said. I broke it in half and handed him the part with the bite when Buddy Dwyer walked out of the mosque.

  35

  “Ho, ho,” I said. “The game’s afoot, Watson.”

  Blackhawk disgustedly threw the donut back into the bag. “You are truly weird.”

  He followed my eyes. “You know that guy?”

  Dwyer walked across the parking lot to a well-worn white Ford F250.

  “Buddy Dwyer. He was in the militia, up in Cottonwood, with Dick Mooney and Atef. He told me he quit because they weren’t serious enough.”

  “How serious is enough? Take a guy’s head? We following him?”

  “A bird in hand.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  He started the Jaguar.

  Dwyer had to wait to pull out in traffic.

  “Don’t let him spot us. This isn’t exactly a Toyota.”

  Blackhawk shook his head in disgust. “He’s not going to spot us.” When Dwyer pulled out, Blackhawk waited for a few seconds then followed. He was three cars back.

  “Maybe it’s supper time,” he said.

  “Mexican right next door,” I said.

  The light was fading. Dwyer’s truck had a taillight out. It made it easier for us. Blackhawk floated along behind. He judged the lights just right without being obvious. Dwyer stayed in the right-hand lane and drove north. His right turn signal came on. He pulled into another strip of small retail shops. A drive-through liquor store was separated at the end.

  “Out for booze,” I said.

  Blackhawk turned the corner, executed a U-turn, dodged the traffic skillfully, then pulled into a business parking lot across the street. We watched as the liquor store attendant handed a sack and a twelve pack of beer out the drive-up window.

  “I didn’t think Muslims drank,” Blackhawk said.

  “Or smoke,” I said. “Earlier evidence to the contrary. But we don’t know that Dwyer is a Muslim.”

  “Hanging with them.”

  “I’m hanging with you, don’t make me Cochise. Hell, I’m not even sure you are Native American.”

  “Some of us prefer the term Indian. You’d have to ask my mother.”

  I looked at him. “You had a mother?”

  “Rumors to the contrary.”

  We watched the attendant make his change, then Dwyer pulled back out onto Avondale Boulevard. He headed north.

  “Not going back,” Blackhawk said. “Do we stay with him?”

  “When in doubt, do something,” I said.

  Blackhawk slid back out into traffic. Dwyer drove to Interstate 10 and up the eastbound ramp.

  “Stick with him?” Blackhawk asked.

  “Let’s see where he’s going.”

  “Yowzer boss.”

  “That doesn’t sound like an authentic Indian phrase,” I said.

  “Native American to you.”

  “Don’t confuse me,” I said.

  Interstate 10 is an American main artery that goes from the west coast of California across the underbelly of the country all the way to Jacksonville, Florida. No matter what day or time of day, it is loaded with those behemoths of commerce, the 16-wheel monster trucks. Blackhawk nestled in behind one and dogged the white Ford. When Dwyer reached the 101 loop I expected him to take it north, but he didn’t.

  “Interesting,” I said. “Guess we’ll find out where he’s going.”

  “Brilliant,” Blackhawk said. “You just come up with that on the spur of the moment.”

  “Quick,” I said.

  Blackhawk took advantage of the traffic and stayed with him. At the Black Canyon Freeway interchange Dwyer angled onto the northbound exit lane. The exit ramp narrowed to one lane, so Blackhawk dropped back, letting a couple of cars move between us.

  Swinging down and merging with the freeway, Dwyer stayed in the slower, right-hand lane. Blackhawk dropped back a little more.

  “Not going far,” Blackhawk said.

  Sure enough, a few minutes later at Dunlap Avenue, Dwyer’s turn signal came on.

  We got lucky on the light and we followed him east. Now the broken taillight was really handy. The sun was down, the street lights were up, and the late commuters were packing the streets. Still, Blackhawk glided behind the white truck with ease.

  Dwyer stayed in the left lane. He caught us by surprise at 19th Avenue by not using his turn signal. He moved into the left turn lane and took the turn on yellow. Blackhawk cut across the front of a van, and had to stop as the left turn light turned red. He waited for a break in the traffic then ran the light. The Ford was two blocks ahead. Blackhawk made up a block, then eased up. Dwyer pulled into the left turn lane at Mountain View. The left turn was red but the through traffic had a green. Blackhawk had to go through or pull up behind him. We went through. I turned my head to look away from Dwyer as we passed.

  Blackhawk slowed and watched his mirror until Dwyer got his light and turned. He twisted the wheel and we did a sharp U-turn. Again, we caught him with a couple of blocks between us. Dwyer turned right on a side street and Blackhawk hung back to put more distance between us. We made the turn and dropped further back.

  The white Ford turned off the street and into a business driveway. He pulled up to a black wrought-iron gate. There was a block building, on his right, attached to the gate. Behind the gate, the fenced lot went back a long way. He honked. As we went by, the gate opened and he drove forward. I could see a number of bays behind the building. Some were open with the lights on.

  As soon as Blackhawk felt we were out of view, he pulled to the curb. He touched a button on the dash and when I opened the door, the light didn’t come on. I opened the gun case and took the Kahr. I snapped one clip in the pistol and put another in my pocket. I ratcheted a shell into the chamber and stuck the Kahr into my back pocket.

  The building was down the street and hidden by two huge Eucalyptus trees. I crossed the street and took to the shadows. I moved cautiously. There was a parking lot across the street from the building. It had two tall lights. This type of light spilled a cone of light around the base which illuminated what it was pointed at, but made the shadows darker. I found a dark spot where I could see the front of the building, and through the gate into the back lot. There was a medium-sized white sign by the front door that sported black letters that read S&K Rigging.

  I sensed movement behind me and I turned, my hand going to the pistol. It was Blackhawk.

  “Now what?” he said.

  “Hell if I know,” I said.

  “Maybe he works here,” Blackhawk said with a low tone. “Maybe he has a friend that works here. Maybe there’s a poker game going on. Maybe he’s a customer. Maybe it’s where they hatch their sinister plots.”

  He was amusing himself. I was studying the building and the back lot. The parking and drive area behind the gate had pallets, loaded with materials, spaced down the length of the fence.

  “Yeah, I know,” Blackhawk said.

  “Know what?”

  “When in doubt, do something.”

  “Damn straight,” I said and started to move.

  “But,” he said, t
aking my arm to stop me.

  “But what?”

  “We should look before we leap.”

  I looked at him.

  “What do you know that I don’t?”

  “Well, now that you ask, I know they have a guy on the roof.”

  36

  “Up next to the air conditioning unit,” he said.

  I could see the dark rectangle of the unit against the slightly lighter sky. Then the guy moved and I saw him.

  “Sho ‘nuff,” I said.

  “Now that’s pure Native American speak,” Blackhawk said. “I saw him moving while you were moving.”

  “Think he made me?”

  “Nope.”

  “Think you can take him out?”

  “Yep.”

  “Brevity is all.”

  “Sho ‘nuff,” Blackhawk said and moved back further into the shadows. He moved away to my right and disappeared.

  I squatted down, halfway into a bush, and waited. If you are wearing dark clothes, like I was, and you remain immobile inside a shadow, you can be invisible. I didn’t have to wait long. Across the street there was shadow and dim light, and then there was Blackhawk climbing a fence and up on the roof like a cat. I waited. There was no sound, no sign of a struggle, no nothing. Then Blackhawk stood beside the air conditioning unit and waved, the streetlight gleaming against his white shirt.

  I sprinted across the street. Following Blackhawk’s lead I went up the fence and onto the roof. The man was face-down and out cold. Blackhawk held up an AR-15. He pulled the clip and jacked the shell out of the chamber. He walked silently to where we had come up and dropped both pieces off the side. They landed with a soft thud.

  I silently moved to the edge of the building that was attached to the long, covered roof of the bays. I could hear muffled voices. The roof over the bays was corrugated tin and I knew we couldn’t walk on it without noise. I felt Blackhawk move up beside me.

  I went to the corner of the building where the gate was attached. Below me was Dwyer’s truck. I dropped silently to the ground, inside the gate, behind the truck. The bays were around the corner. A second later, Blackhawk joined me. I could see light flickering off the fence and could hear the hissing, burning sound of someone welding.