The Librarian Her Daughter and the Man Who Lost His Head

by Sam Lee Jackson

  “What do you think they are doing?” Blackhawk said in a very low voice.

  “Hatching sinister plots,” I said.

  “I knew that,” he said.

  “Let’s find out,” I said.

  “You know we’re trapped in here.”

  “So are they,” I said.

  “They know how to open the gate,” he said.

  “I didn’t think of that,” I said and looked around the corner.

  There were four of them, including Dwyer. Two were standing to Dwyer’s right and they all were watching another guy welding. It looked like he was welding a lid to a fifty-five gallon drum. They weren’t expecting company. They didn’t notice us until we were at the bay door. Then they saw us. The welder must have sensed something. He stopped welding and raised his protective mask.

  “What the fuck,” Dwyer said.

  “We heard you were hiring,” I said.

  I was to Blackhawk’s left. In front of me was a big guy, but in a sloppy, weightlifter-gone-to-seed way. He had a thick dark beard and sideburns up to the top of his ears. After that, his head was shaved. Next to him, the other guy had a striped shirt and tattoos up to his ears.

  The welder was dark with cropped black hair, a wifebeater shirt with tufts of wiry black hair bursting out the top, with a bushy beard. He was looking hard at Blackhawk. Blackhawk probably looked the way he always did in moments like this. Disinterested and half asleep.

  The big sloppy guy took a half step forward.

  “What you talking about? Ain’t nobody hiring here.”

  “How’d you get in here?” Dwyer said.

  Blackhawk and I stepped in closer, spreading apart.

  “Guy on the roof let us in,” I said.

  Behind them, a corner of the bay had been built out with unfinished drywall and a cheap door. Behind the door, we all heard the sound of a toilet flushing. The door opened and Ali Ibrahim Atef stepped out, buckling his belt. He froze when he saw us.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  “I know you,” Dwyer said, staring at me. He turned to Atef. “Saw this asshole in Cottonwood. He was asking questions about Mooney.”

  Atef finished with his belt. “Get rid of them.”

  The big guy started to reach behind his back and I hit him a straight left in the nose. As he went back I followed, hitting him two rapid rights. One to his jaw and one to his neck. He didn’t go down, but he was stunned. I kicked Striped-shirt in the chest with my prosthetic, and he went down. Blackhawk slapped the welder’s mask down, and kicked the welder in the knee. The welder fell into Dwyer who was struggling with a pistol from his back pocket. Blackhawk ripped the welder’s helmet off and smacked Dwyer across the face with it. Atef had a pistol in his hand and pointed it at me. I grabbed Sloppy by the lapels and swung him around as Atef fired twice. I felt the slugs punch into the big man’s body, and felt a sting in my side. On one knee, the welder grabbed Blackhawk and tried to wrestle him down. With a full arm swing, Blackhawk smacked him with his own helmet, and he fell senseless. Atef took off at a flat run, and Dwyer scrambled behind him. The big man had fallen into me, and I shoved him out of the way. I pulled the Kahr. Atef and Dwyer disappeared around the corner, then Atef leaned back around and fired at us. I dived behind the fifty-five gallon drum. I threw two shots over the top of it in his general direction. Blackhawk had thrown himself against the wall of the bay. I heard someone gagging. It was Striped-shirt. He had caught one in the throat. Atef was on a roll. He kept this up, he’d be out of men.

  We heard the dual sounds of the gate opening and the truck starting.

  Blackhawk said, “Cover me.”

  I came up over the drum and put the sights on the corner of the building. Gun fight, front sight. Blackhawk sprinted to the corner and dropped flat. I could hear the engine racing and the squealing of tires. Pistol extended, Blackhawk looked around the corner at ground level. He came to his feet and waved me forward.

  The gate was open. The only thing left of Atef and Dwyer was dust, and the smell of burning rubber.

  I looked back at the bay. Three men down and two of them looked really dead. The welder was out cold but his foot rocked back and forth.

  I looked at Blackhawk. His beautiful shirt was a mess.

  “You really should get that dry-cleaned,” I said.

  Blackhawk was looking at me.

  “You hit?” he asked.

  I looked down, and my shirt was covered in blood.

  37

  “Holy crap!” I yelped, as Elena spread the antiseptic on the furrow in my side.

  “Hold still, you big baby,” she said.

  Atef’s bullet had passed through the big guy’s blubber and scorched a furrow in my right side. Most of the blood on my shirt had been the big guy’s.

  We were in Blackhawk’s apartment in the bathroom where he had hustled me so I wouldn’t drip blood on his good carpet. Blackhawk was leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed. He looked amused. Elena began applying butterfly bandages, pulling the skin together. Once that was done, she put on an antiseptic pad and taped it into place. She picked up my shirt from where I had dropped it, and holding it delicately, between forefinger and thumb, she dropped it into the garbage can.

  She wrinkled her nose in disgust and looked at me.

  “Anita will be here Friday night.”

  Now I know Blackhawk was amused.

  I started to say something sarcastic, then thought better of it. I just nodded.

  “Anita is a very nice girl, and she likes you.”

  “That’s nice,” I said humbly.

  “I have told her that you are not normally a drunken maniac.”

  It was all Blackhawk could do to keep from falling down.

  “That’s nice of you.”

  She looked at me hard.

  “Don’t be a smart ass!”

  “But…”

  She waved a dismissive hand at me.

  “Stop! I know what you are doing. You think we don’t know that men are born insincere.” She looked at Blackhawk. He was a stone wall. “Anita is a sweet girl.”

  Blackhawk didn’t blink.

  She turned back to me. “You had better not hurt her.”

  “I don’t….”

  She waved her hand again. “I’m going to rehearsal,” she said and turned and left the bathroom.

  I looked at Blackhawk. I started to speak. He held his hand up, stopping me.

  Elena stepped back into the doorway. She looked at me, then at Blackhawk. She looked at us for a long moment, then turned and left.

  I looked at Blackhawk, and he was smiling.

  “How did you know she was going to do that?”

  He shrugged.

  I shook my head in wonder. “Is this what a long-term relationship looks like?”

  He was still smiling. “I’ve never had so much fun in my life,” he said. “I’ll get you a shirt, then I’m going to clean up.”

  He went to the bedroom, and I went to the living room. He brought me a black tee shirt, and with a grimace I slipped it over my head.

  “Is there a payphone around here?” I asked.

  He looked at me, “Why do you need a payphone? There’s not many of those left.”

  “I want to call Boyce and give her a heads-up, before someone else does. But I don’t want my cell to show up on her phone.”

  “No trace?”

  I nodded.’

  “Follow me,” he said.

  We went out into the hall and down to his office. Inside he moved to his desk and pulled a drawer open. He took out a cell phone and looked at it to check the battery. He handed it to me.

  “Clean?”

  He nodded. “It’s a throwaway I bought for Jimmy. But he’s a kid and now he’s full-time he has to have one of the fancy smartphones. I’m going to clean up.”

  He left and I sat behind his massive desk. I dialed Boyce.

  She answered on the third ring.

  “Boyce.�
�

  “S&K Rigging at 27th Avenue and Mountain View,” I said.

  There was a long pause, then, “Where are you?”

  “El Patron.”

  “S&K Rigging at 27th Ave and Mountain View,” she repeated. “Do I go alone or take help?”

  “Take help. Atef was there. It looks like a bomb factory. You may find some bodies.”

  Another long pause.

  I continued, “Atef is with a guy from Cottonwood named Buddy Dwyer in a white Ford F250. It’s missing a taillight but it’s most likely been ditched by now.”

  “You know this how, and did you mention dead people?”

  “You better hurry,” I said and disconnected.

  I went back over to the apartment. Blackhawk was out of the shower, and putting on another perfect shirt. My turn. I stripped down and washed around the bandages. Dried off and dressed, I found Blackhawk with Nacho at the bar in the living room. Blackhawk fixed me a scotch and soda, and set it up on the bar for me. Behind the bar was an exquisite oil painting of a distressed ballerina bathed in golden light. I’m not sure Nacho knew it was there.

  “Tell him,” Blackhawk said to Nacho.

  “I hear you got your ass shot,” Nacho said with a grin.

  “Tell him,” Blackhawk said again, shaking his head impatiently.

  Nacho shrugged. “Diaz is back.”

  “Was he ever gone?”

  He shrugged again. “Not really. Just out getting his pony ridden.”

  I could tell there was more.

  “So we’ve been thinking,” he continued. “The deal with Diaz had to be an inside job. And Diaz ain’t smart enough and ain’t tough enough to do it. He’s just a worker bee.”

  He was drinking a Modelo. He took a drink.

  “So Blackhawk had me pick up Diaz and make him walk me through the whole deal. Like made him show me where they load the trucks and shit. So we parked down the street and watched a while. We saw that asswipe Rojo going in and out, and Diaz kept saying that Rojo had to be in on it. I was just getting tired of sitting there when all of a sudden Diaz got so excited he just about pisses his pants.”

  He was grinning at me now, waiting for me to ask the question, so I did.

  “And?”

  “A guy came out with Rojo, and Diaz thinks it was the same guy that got the door open when he was stuck in the toilet on his way south.”

  38

  “So you’re saying the guy jammed Diaz up until someone got the money out of his truck?”

  “If that’s the guy.”

  I looked at Nacho.

  “Diaz is sure?”

  He shrugged. “As sure as Diaz is about anything. He did get agitated when he saw him. Wanted to confront the guy. Or said he did. Diaz ain’t about confronting anyone, but he talks a good game.”

  “And this guy is part of Garza’s bunch?”

  Nacho’s eyebrows went up.

  “He was there, man. Had to be one of them, or he wouldn’t have been there.”

  “Where’s Diaz?”

  “Back at the motel watching porn.”

  I looked at my watch. “Diaz say when they make their last run of the day?”

  “Hours ago.”

  I finished my drink and looked at Blackhawk.

  “I’m tired. I’m going home. Maybe tomorrow we go see what this guy has to say.”

  “What suits you, tickles me plumb to death,” he said.

  The night was warm and the traffic heavy. The Mustang was hot but the good thing about the Mustang was that the air conditioning was almost immediate. Two blocks down and it was starting to blow cool. By the freeway it was blowing cold. It seemed to take forever to get to the marina. I had time to think. I thought about Elena and how she made Blackhawk happy, and how, if it were her and me, she’d eventually drive me nuts. I thought about Boyce, which led to the pretty TV anchor, which led to me shutting that thought down. Eventually, I thought about the fact that I lived on a boat a long way away. But then, when I reached the gate, I thought that wasn’t too bad.

  Danny was running the shuttle and he dropped me at my gate. The only life in evidence was a few relentless bugs slapping against the dock lights. I unlatched the dock gate and eased it shut behind me. Clanging is rude.

  As I walked down the pier toward Tiger Lily I noted the same thing I always noted. Everyone else’s boat seemed to be bigger and nicer than mine.

  Yeah, but mine was cheap.

  I walked by the 80-foot Stardust that had been the Moneypenny. Eddie had told me it had been bought by a retired television writer. He had named it 13 Episodes. I had not met him yet. I don’t know if he lives on it or not, although it was definitely set up to be lived on.

  I stepped aboard the Tiger Lily and reengaged the alarms. The inside was musty and warm. I kicked the air on, opened the blackout blinds, and opened the bow and stern doors to get a cross breeze. I kicked off my clothes, put on the swim foot, pulled up my trunks and hesitated, thinking about my new bandages. The heck with it; I went over the side.

  The moon was riding high, was huge, and the sky was mostly clear. I swam steadily to the buoy that bobbed gently in the moonlight. My side stung but I ignored it. I rationalized that the high moon offset the pain. When I reached the buoy, I treaded water and took in the view. I was enjoying something that probably no other person had ever been in this exact spot to enjoy. The lake was quiet and beautiful.

  I felt a series of small bumping tickles against my stomach and chest, and a school of tiny shad swarmed around me. Hundreds upon hundreds, splitting behind me, going around, and then reforming the school in front. They quickly disappeared and I entertained long, deep thoughts about the meaning of life, and my place in the cosmos, and swam back to the boat.

  I climbed aboard and pulled off my swim foot. I hopped to the head, dripping water all the way. I pulled a towel off the rack. I wiped down the foot, stripped out of the wet trunks and toweled off. I hung the trunks in the oversized shower stall. I stripped off the sodden bandages and took a quick shower. Out of the shower I spread antiseptic across the shallow wound and taped on a new bandage. I hopped, naked, to the front and shut the bow door. The pier was empty, the overhead lights making a soft electrical buzzing sound. I hopped back to the master stateroom and dressed. Dry trunks, a tee shirt and a utility foot.

  In the galley I fixed a drink. Lots of ice, scotch and a splash of water. I held the glass up to the light and admired the color. Just right.

  I took the drink to the stern and slid the door closed behind me to conserve the air conditioning. I settled onto a comfortable deck chair. While a little warm, it wasn’t bad enough to have to give up the drink on the stern deck. I took a drink and admired the full moon. The mountains were awash in its light.

  I thought about Eddie and Billy Bragg. It was obvious Billy was innocent. But there was no empirical proof. Not enough to get Billy out of jail. I began wondering why Atef had not videotaped Mooney.

  I could understand a guy like Atef being radicalized, but I didn’t get Dwyer. A homegrown redneck with a penchant for rebellion, that was probably more suited to white supremacy than radical Islam. But despite my not understanding, they were obviously together. And I’m willing to bet, one of the two, and probably Dwyer, had planted Billy’s bloody knife. Which, I still thought, was too circumstantial to put the guy in jail. But hey, I’m not the county attorney. And it’s a small town and a small county, and it’s better for the county attorney to quickly solve such a gruesome case than have to answer questions every time he goes to the store. Or gets a haircut. Or plays golf at the country club.

  And where is Atef now? By now they have figured out that Dwyer was tailed to S&K Rigging, so their little Avondale mosque is blown. The truck is blown.

  I took another drink and the ice clinked against my teeth.

  Hell, they could be anywhere. I went to bed.

  39

  The sound of a gong entered my dream. When it sounded again I was awake, and it was the a
larm next to the bed. Someone had stepped on board. As I swung my legs over the edge I pulled the Ruger free of the magnet. By feel, I attached my foot. I managed my feet into the trunks and pulled them up one-handed. Outside it was just at the beginnings of sunrise. I pushed the stem of my watch to illuminate the dial and it told me it was four forty-seven in the morning.

  I moved silently through the hall and the galley, and through the lounge. I had not pulled the blinds when I had gone to bed, so there was enough light outside to make out my surroundings. I could see someone sitting on the bow. Someone sitting on the same locker that Eddie and his six-pack had occupied a few days ago.

  It was Boyce.

  She was staring off into the near distance, then she must have sensed that I was there. She turned and looked in. We stared at each other through the glass sliding door. The pier light gave her dark hair an iridescent gleam. Like the wing of a crow. She was smoking. I tossed the Ruger onto the couch, then unlocked and opened the door.

  “I thought you quit.”

  “You’re the only thing I quit,” she said.

  So that was how it was going to be. I studied her, but she gave me nothing. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  She sat quietly. She took a long drag on the cigarette. She sat looking at me for a long time.

  Finally, “Bottle of water would be nice.”

  I turned back to the galley, opened the oversized refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water. I loosened the cap as I came back out. I handed it to her. She took a long swallow, then another one. I leaned against the bulwark and crossed my arms over my chest. She took a last drag and flipped the cigarette overboard.

  “I do wish you wouldn’t do that,” I said.

  “Smoke?”

  “Throw your butts overboard. Me and a half million fish swim there.”

  She looked at me again, studying me. She shook her head and rubbed her hand across her face.

  “I’m tired,” she said, “I’m dirty and I stink. So let’s just get to it. Tell me about what happened tonight.”

  “I took a nice swim.”

  She looked at my bandage. “So, what is that, a fish bite? Let’s quit the games. Tell me what happened tonight.”