by Kit Frazier
There was an area cordoned off for media, where a posse of reporters from the tri-county area were enjoying overstuffed Thundercloud subs and chocolate brownies so good they made your eyes water. I smiled. I’d told Cantu the way to get the Fourth Estate interested in a press outing was free food.
Behind the lines, camera crews were setting up, and Mia, who’d been chatting up the guy from Live at Five, caught my eye and waved both hands, fingers crossed. I smiled and nodded.
Cantu was giving Miranda the short explanation of Team Six Search and Rescue for the enquiring minds of Miranda’s viewing audience. For the most part, I doubted anyone in TV Land was listening. Most of Miranda’s core viewership was simply waiting for her cleavage to pop out of her low-cut Versace blouse again.
Miranda seemed captivated with Cantu, which wasn’t surprising. Women often had that reaction to Cantu.
I watched as he charmed her, and I remembered why I’d had a crush on him when I was a kid. The years had sharpened his features and defined his body. He was a couple inches taller than me just under six feet with skin the color of a double latte and the body of a runner, probably from chasing around the three small reprobates he calls his children.
He was wearing his black SAR gear, neatly accessorized with a silver whistle on a lanyard around his neck. On him, the getup looked dangerously appealing. On me, it looked like I was early for Halloween.
John Moreno and his black Shiloh, Tahoe, were already there, demonstrating a perfectly executed climbing rescue on a portable rockwall.
Meanwhile, the cameras rolled as Cantu spoke. “Team Six is a team of volunteers with specially trained dogs who search for missing people and evidence,” Cantu said in his trademark laid-back style. I watched, wondering when the guy who used to be a beat cop when my dad was a detective had become so cool. “The team is partially funded by a grant from Homeland Security, but the volunteers provide their own dogs, their own training, their own uniforms and gear. Team members and their dogs are available 24/7 to respond to missing persons cases.”
Cantu motioned for me and Marlowe to come closer.
“Cauley MacKinnon and her dog Marlowe are a prime example of how to become a search and rescue team member. Cauley has a day job, but she regularly trains with her dog to become part of the team.”
I smiled weakly. Marlowe practically took a bow.
And it was at that moment that Marlowe decided there was something to search and rescue. He jerked his leash out of my hand and leapt over the park’s cross-tie fence, taking off for the wooded area behind the park.
I stood there, dumbfounded, while Miranda had her cameras rolling. Climbing the fence, I scrambled through the woods, listening for sounds in the brush.
I was pretty sure this wasn’t the best way to represent the SAR team. To my surprise and consternation, I found bent twigs and dog prints in the sun-scorched foliage and over another fence, one of barbed wire.
“Marlowe!” I shouted. “Get back here! Marlowe!” I waited, listening for him.
“Great,” I grumbled. I followed the fence line for about sixty feet, but there was no end in sight. I was going to have to climb that sucker. The barbwire fence was an old model from back when they knew how to build fences, with mean-looking, rusty, jagged points every five inches. Five strands of wire were evenly spaced on thick cedar poles, stretched tight and about six feet apart. One of the big no-nos in SAR, or anything else for that matter, is cutting fences. There was a time in Texas when the cattle kings ruled the range and you could be horse-whipped for cutting a fence. Now it’s just illegal and not very nice.
Sighing, I sidled in as close to the rough cedar pole as I could get and stepped on the third rung of wire with my left foot, holding tightly to the top of the fence post so I could get some leverage. I swung my right leg over the top of the fence and pivoted so I could replace my right foot with my left on the rung of wire when the pole cracked. I slipped and fell hard on the wire, twisting as I dropped, and the prongs of the barbed wire caught me squarely in the crotch. I did the only thing a sane person would do: I screamed bloody murder.
“Ow, ow, ow!” I yelled.
While yelling didn’t help, it did make me feel marginally better. I took a deep breath and rotated carefully back the direction I’d fallen to try to pry the barb out of my inner thigh and yelled again as the barb dug past the seam of my jeans and into flesh, tearing it as it went. The hot sting of blood trickled along the inside of my thigh.
“Ahhh!” I winced, and then I heard a familiar woofing noise. Marlowe bounded out of the underbrush and stood beneath me at the bottom of the fence. He turned twice and woofed again his “alert” signal his sign he’d made a find.
I grimaced. The find was me.
“I know, you big jerk, and now I’m stuck and it’s all your fault for taking off.”
He woofed again and leapt over the fence with ease, and then back again, as if to show me what a piece of cake it was. All it did was piss me off.
“Just give me a minute,” I said, trying to steady myself to get a look at my watch.
“We’re supposed to meet Dan Soliz and try to get some information on El Patron and the Syndicate tonight, which is going to be hard to do if I’m stuck on a fence,” I growled at the dog.
And then I saw it.
Marlowe dropped an old red bandanna beneath me.
“Holy hell,” I said, glancing around in the woods, panic bubbling up inside me.
“He’s here?” I whispered. Marlowe woofed twice.
Marlowe sat, ears pricked, waiting. I tried to balance so I could use both hands to free my jeans from the barbs that stabbed near my panty line when my foot slipped off the wire and I fell, twisting sharply. My head swooped as I plunged downward and the wire gouged deeper into my jeans and caught me.
And there I was. Suspended upside down, trapped on the fence. Marlowe woofed at me and glanced back over his shoulder toward base camp.
“Oh, now you want to play Lassie,” I said, and Marlowe woofed again.
He barked twice, turned tail and galloped back to base. “Marlowe,” I screamed. “No!”
But he was already gone.
The blood was rushing to my head as I hung upside down, wildly grabbing for the fence post so I could get some leverage, but each move I made dug the barbs deeper into my leg until I thought I was going to gouge my initials into my own thigh bone.
Within moments, I heard the sound of woofing and branches cracking, and Marlowe came crashing through the mesquite thicket, Cantu,
Moreno and Tahoe hot on his heels.
“Jesus, Cauley, are you okay?” Cantu said. “Yeah, I’m just…stuck.”
And humiliated.
He chuckled then, the traitor.
A commotion crashed behind him, and from out of the bushes came Miranda with her camera crew.
“Great,” I growled, but beggars can’t be choosers, especially when they are hanging upside down by their ass, impaled on a barbwire fence.
Cantu slipped a knife from an ankle holster and sliced the barbed wire out of my jeans, then extracted the razor-sharp spikes from my now-bare upper thigh.
I winced as he righted me, and I tried not whine about the stinging pain from the barbs that ran from my butt to my inner thigh. I had a distinct jolt of deja vu,
I reached down for the handkerchief, which sent Marlowe into a woofy frenzy.
Cantu’s eyes narrowed. “Where’d you get that?” “Ask Marlowe the Wonder Dog.
He tucked the handkerchief into his back pocket as news crews stormed the scene.
Miranda cleared her throat. “We’re here live at the Police Roundup, where they have just rescued a search and rescue team member,” Miranda was saying as she rushed toward me. Mia skipped ahead of her, Nikon bouncing, where she settled between me and Miranda’s cameraman.
“You’re in my shot!” Miranda shrilled, and Mia said, “Oh, gee, I’m sorry,” and then Mia stuck her foot out and tripped Miranda, who tumble
d head over high heels, landing right in front of Cantu, skirt yanked up, exposing her Gut Buster figure-correcting undergarments. Well, who knew Ms. Perfect and her tiny little butt had a little help from her friends at the Lycra factory?
Flash! Mia snapped a picture.
Miranda made a bleating sound worthy of the goats that were wandering up to the fence to get a look at the commotion. At that moment, Dan Soliz and some of Austin’s finest were crashing through the bushes.
“Jeez,” he said with his million-watt grin as he stared at me and my bloody, torn jeans and then over to Miranda, who was yanking her skirt down over her undies. He shook his head. “I hope to God you and that mutt never have to rescue me.”
Despite or maybe because of the demonstration catastrophe, Dan Soliz bought me dinner at Sandy’s Hamburger Hut off Ranch Road 620, west of Austin and just south of the dam. We sat outside on the small, grassy lawn under a sprawling live oak. We had monster-sized hamburgers and fried jalapenos on a picnic table, with Marlowe standing guard lest any food be wasted.
The EMTs at the demonstration had made good use of their Bactine and bandages, which itched and burned as I sat on the old wooden bench.
“Thanks for meeting with me,” I said, cutting my burger in half and slipping the larger portion to Marlowe, who’d repositioned himself under the table for maximum begging capacity.
I took a big, unladylike bite of burger.
Soliz grinned at me. “Looks like you had a tough day.”
“Yeah, bleeding always makes me hungry.”
The smell of the freshly watered lawn mingled with the scents of good hamburgers and engine exhaust from passing traffic still winding down from rush hour.
I shook my head. “I think maybe I’m not cut out for this stuff.”
“Give yourself a chance. You’ll get the hang of it.” He tore off a big bite of burger and ate it ravenously. “So what is it you been dyin’ to talk to me about?”
We both had to talk a little louder than usual because of the steady stream of traffic muttering by.
“You know the Journal’s making a big deal out of El Patron and the Syndicate and some kind of looming gang war.”
Soliz took a long draw on his beer and looked at me with dark eyes that were charming, bordering on dangerous.
“Organized crime isn’t what people think it is here,” he said. “Or at least it wasn’t. For a long time, Austin was a free city. In the seventies, a couple of gangs came in and tried to get organized, but the silicone city’s like Teflon they all failed to stick.”
He looked out over the traffic clogging 620, moving and stopping for no apparent reason. “Remember when this road used to be two lanes and you actually had to drive over the dam?”
I nodded. “I was a little girl, but yes, I remember.”
“Things change. Now there’s a couple of gangs dividing up the city Northside Posse’s got Rundberg through Cameron, Brotherhood of the Cross’s got the south end, and Texas Syndicate takes up most of the East Side. There’s a white-collar crew running out of Lakeway, and a few others, but those are the big three. Syndicate’s the most organized.”
“So how does this happen?” I said.
“Syndicate started as a prison gang back in the seventies at Folsom ‘
“California?” I said around a bite of burger.
“Yeah. Tejano prisoners formed the gang to protect themselves from California Mexicans called the Mexican Mafia.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Racial unrest among Mexican Americans?” I said. “I thought prison gangs broke off by race Mexican against black, black against white…”
Soliz smiled. “That’s what a lot of white people think. But there’s all kinds of Mexicans, so the government or whoever the hell it is that labels stuff came up with Hispanic.
“But most Hispanics don’t see themselves that way. You got Hispanics from Mexico, Guatemala, Columbia, Peru, all over the damn place. And we don’t lump ourselves into one category any more than white people in the United States would lump themselves in with Canadians or Brits.”
I nodded. “My friend Mia has mentioned this to me before,” I said.
“Well, makes it hard to get organized,” he said. “Different nationalities, different dialects in some cases, different languages.”
Soliz took another bite of hamburger, chewed, and swallowed. “Until about eight years ago, when Texas Syndicate opened up and started street recruiting. Now their population isn’t just inmates.”
“I didn’t know that.”
He shrugged. “Most people don’t. But they also did something else. The Syndicate used to be Tejano Mexican Texans. Now they’ve opened the ranks to all so-called Hispanics, and they’ve even moved outside Texas, like Florida and California.”
I frowned. “So how do you tell one gang from another?”
“At first glance you can tell by tattoos. Most Syndicate members ink University of Texas insignia somewhere usually upper arm, sometimes on the bulge of the calf. They’re getting clever about it hidden in some sort of intricate tattoo. The more brazen have something like a cross with a ribbon or a sword with a snake, that sort of thing. And they have colors and sign.”
I raised a brow. “Colors?”
“Yeah,” Soliz said. “Syndicate is burnt orange.”
“Like the University of Texas?”
“Unfortunately, yeah,” Soliz said. “And their sign is the hook ‘em sign thumb, middle and third finger folded. That way, if they’re caught throwing sign or wearing colors, they can just say they’re students.’
I shook my head and gave Marlowe another bite of burger when he put his head on my lap. “Does it work?”
“No. But it makes them feel smart,” Soliz said.
I thought about Marlowe and his little “gift” at the fence, and about the man who’d broken into my house and the shadowy look Logan had given me when I’d told him about the red bandanna. “So what does a red bandanna mean?”
Soliz stopped chewing and stared at me. “Where did you see a red bandanna?”
“The guy who broke into my house, assaulted me, and left a dead canary. He was wearing a red bandanna over his face. And when Marlowe took off this afternoon, he brought me an old red bandanna.”
Soliz’s eyes got that cop look, like still waters over a riptide. “You tell this to Cantu and your FBI buddy?”
I nodded. “Cantu has the bandanna now.”
“What did he say?”
I shook my head. “Nothing really. Just got the same look you just did.”
Soliz nodded. “You afraid?” he said.
“No. I’m used to having people break into my house. Of course I’m scared.”
Soliz’s dark eyes narrowed. “You should be. Red is El Patron.”
“But they nearly killed me this summer, and I never saw one single red anything except blood.”
“They’re reorganizing,” he said.
I nodded. “And El Patron and the Syndicate they’re all Hispanic, then?” I said, thinking of John Fiennes and his international citizenship.
He shook his head. “Opened the gates. Hell, they’re even recruiting white people.”
“How progressive of them.”
Soliz smiled. “It makes them dangerous. And that’s why Syndicate is so interested in El Patron. El Patron came in from Argentina fully organized when they hit the ground. They had inroads smuggling through legitimate transport so at first, they weren’t stepping on the Syndicate’s boots. That happened when Patron started gobbling up strip clubs.”
“But strip clubs are legal,” I said.
“Yeah, but a lot of the activity that goes with them isn’t,” Soliz said. “And El Patron started specializing in young girls.”
I just about lost my lunch. “But Syndicate does all kinds of illegal stuff, too. Are you telling me they are morally opposed to young girls stripping?”
Soliz laughed a bitter laugh. “No. Syndicate opposes anything that draws the attention of the
police department. El Patron was catching interest into all gang activity every time they hooked a young girl, lopped off some dude’s ear, or set some poor vato ablaze in a burning tire.”
“Syndicate doesn’t like attention,” I said, nodding. “It’s not good for business.”
“I had dinner a few months ago with an old acquaintance from school,” I said, handing Marlowe a fry. “Diego DeLeon. Do you know where he is in all this?”
Soliz grimaced. “Diego is Syndicate. His uncle was what they call a Chairman, or the leader, but he’s been off the radar since El Patron’s leadership got sent to the slammer. My guess is your friend Diego is either a Second or maybe even Chairman in receivership to the Syndicate.”
“Receivership,” I said. “That sounds like a legitimate business.” “Some of it is. Strip clubs, bars, that sort of thing. But the drugs, gambling, whores, and the underage girls are a whole other ballgame.”
I leveled my gaze on his. “Do you think there’s going to be a war?”
Soliz smiled a wry smile. “Word on the street is there ain’t enough El Patron left to start a war. And DeLeon’s a practical character. He’s probably trying to assimilate what’s left.”
“What if they don’t want to assimilate?”
Soliz shrugged. “Blood in, blood out,” he said and took another big bite of burger.
And suddenly, sitting under a shade tree on an August evening,
I wasn’t hungry anymore.
Chapter Eight
I was bruised and scratched from my botched search and rescue presentation, not to mention thoroughly humiliated and totally spooked by the red bandanna. I seriously considered calling in dead the next morning, but there’s a point when your embarrassment level bottoms out and just stays there. I was going to have to face the office some time, and I wanted to get it over with before my pseudo date with Logan at the Pier. As I’d suspected, I’d been plastered all over the five o’clock news, hanging upside down from my undies. Of course, Miranda’s butt shot hadn’t made the cut.