The Girl at the Deep End of the Lake

by Sam Lee Jackson

  Blackhawk nodded. He looked at me, at Boyce, then back at me; his look wasn’t a pleasant one. “And you will want the bastard for yourself.”

  I pressed the shirt hard against her, “Oh, yeah.”

  Now the city seemed to be filled with wailing sirens and the squad cars began pouring into the parking lot, followed closely by a fire truck. A screaming ambulance skidded into the lot and the two paramedics ripped open the back doors and pulled the gurney out. The firemen surrounded me. One said, “Are you injured?”

  I shook my head and he gently pulled me aside. Another one knelt beside Boyce; he had a large package in his hand and was ripping it open. He pulled out a pure white gauze pad and pressed it against Boyce’s side. Another took her wrist, checking her pulse, while another thumbed back her eyelids and shined a light, checking her pupils. Now they swarmed her and I was pushed aside by their urgency.

  I moved back and began to shake, and I had been there before. It was the adrenaline. Nacho was beside me now and when I gripped myself, trying to control the spasms, Nacho stripped off his shirt and gave it to me. I slipped it on. Nacho stood with the flashing red, blue and yellow lights bouncing across his bare torso, highlighting the crisscrossing tattoos and scars.

  Quickly and professionally, the paramedic team lifted Boyce onto the gurney and loaded her into the ambulance. Her arm was hanging out and flopping as they moved her. Blackhawk led me away to the Mustang and as I looked back I could see one of them had gathered in her arm and was slapping the inside of it trying to draw a vein. They started an IV.

  Elena jammed herself into the Mustang’s tiny backseat. Blackhawk took the keys from my hand and I didn’t argue.

  Blackhawk expertly followed the screaming ambulance through the deserted downtown streets, and when the ambulance pulled into the emergency room circular drive, he parked in a no parking zone.

  The hospital had been warned, and a half dozen doctors and nurses in their blue and green scrubs were at the back of the ambulance before it stopped.

  This hospital probably sees a half dozen shootings a week, but when it is a police officer it is different. As we walked across the parking lot to the entrance a dozen patrol cars came pulling into the lot. When we went through the automatic sliding doors a dozen patrolmen followed on our heels. They were moving Boyce through another set of automatic doors. We started to follow when a young nurse intercepted us.

  “I’m afraid you can’t go back there,” she said with an authoritative voice.

  “She’s my friend,” I said.

  “Yes sir, she’s in good hands. They are taking her to surgery.” She indicated a room behind glass wall. “Why don’t you all wait in there? I’ll let you know what I can find out.” She looked at me, “Are you hurt, sir?”

  I shook my head.

  “There is a restroom across the lobby, you can clean up.” She looked at me closer, “You are sure you aren’t hurt?”

  I shook my head again, “This is her blood.”

  “Nothing to do now,” Blackhawk said to me. “You need to wash up.”

  Elena took my arm, “Come on, Jackson. We’ll stay too.”

  I went a across to the restroom. It was as sterile as you would expect. I was a mess. It took several minutes for me to look somewhat normal. I was still wearing Nacho’s shirt.

  Blackhawk and Elena were in the waiting room. The lobby was filled with patrolmen.

  A half hour later Mendoza came through the outside doors. He started past the admitting desk when he caught sight of me. He stopped and looked at me for a long moment. He turned and came into the waiting room.

  “Why am I not surprised to see you?”

  I shrugged.

  “What the hell are you doing here? Were you with Detective Boyce?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  He studied me, then turned and signaled to one of the patrolmen through the glass. The patrolman came into the waiting room.

  “Yes sir?”

  Mendoza jabbed a finger at me, “Make sure he doesn’t go anywhere until I talk to him.”

  “Yes sir,” the cop said, eyeing me.

  Mendoza looked at Elena and Blackhawk.

  “You two witnesses?”

  They both shook their heads. “We were inside the club during the shooting,” Blackhawk said. “Didn’t see a thing more than the cops and firemen did.”

  Mendoza studied us another moment, then abruptly turned and left the room. He went through the lobby, then through the inside automatic doors and the nurse didn’t stop him. The cop went back out into the lobby, but positioned himself so he could watch me.

  Blackhawk put his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, his voice was low, “So the brothers have the girl after all.”

  “Apparently. Still can’t figure why Bavaro offered me money to find her.”

  “We know where, now?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Kamex?”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Diego works for Kamex?”

  “Diego works for Bavaro. Bavaro works for Kamex. They all work for Dos Hermanos.”

  “We going after her?”

  I looked at him, “Does the Pope shit in the woods?”

  Elena said, “I think you mean the bear. Does the bear shit in the woods?”

  I smiled, still looking at Blackhawk, “Think you can get the blueprints to those buildings?”

  “It’s the middle of the night. Where would I get them?”

  “The Colonel,” I said.

  “It’s two hours ahead where he is,” he said. “He won’t like being woke up.”

  “Wait a couple more hours, then call. Martha will make him coffee.”

  “What are you talking about?” Elena said. “Who’s the colonel?”

  “The Colonel,” Blackhawk said.

  “What Colonel?”

  Blackhawk stood and taking Elena’s arm, pulled her up.

  “I’ll explain on the way back.”

  “We should stay here with Jackson.”

  “I’m okay,” I said as the young nurse came through the automatic doors and into the waiting room.

  “She’s in surgery,” she said without preliminaries. “She was shot once in her left side. The bullet exited cleanly, but they’re afraid it may have nicked her intestines.”

  “Peritonitis?”

  “That’s what they are afraid of. But they are in there now and they are very good at what they do.”

  “How long will she be in there?” Elena asked.

  “As long as it takes, hon,” she said. She looked at me. “I’ll let you know when she’s out.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  She turned and went back out and through the doors.

  Blackhawk said, “You have your phone?”

  I nodded.

  “Call me when you hear.”

  “Of course.”

  They left, and I stretched out on two chairs and thought about the fact that I had just done that very same thing way too recently. I closed my eyes.

  I was dozing when Lieutenant Mendoza came in the room. I swung my feet down and he sat beside me.

  “They’re closing her up now. She’s going to be okay.”

  I closed my eyes, feeling the relief wash over me.

  “I am told that you applied a compress to staunch the bleeding.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “They say that may have saved her life.”

  I still didn’t say anything. Wasn’t anything to say.

  He studied me a long moment, then finally he said “Thank you. When she comes around I’ll let her know.”

  I shook my head, “No need.”

  He studied me some more.

  “You know that I’ll need you to come to the station.”

  I nodded again.

  “You need to sleep first?”

  I shook my head.

  “You need a ride?”

  I shook my head again.

  “I’ll meet
you there,” he said standing. “I’ll need a deposition on what happened tonight, and I need to talk to you about another little matter.”

  “Another little matter?”

  “Oh, just a little thing. I need to know if you know anything about the fact that last night a patrolman saw a car with its door open outside a bar called Tilly’s on the west side.”

  I shrugged.

  “Beside the car he found the body of a guy name of Darryl Maupin. It looked like someone had shaken Maupin so hard his neck snapped.”

  56

  Blackhawk laughed when I told him.

  “Jesus, that’s rich,” he said. “That is no mean feat. That was a big boy.”

  We were in his loft above El Patron. I had done my duty downtown, and then I had been at the hospital until Boyce’s brother had flown in from Seattle. The boat was too far away, so I came to Blackhawk’s.

  Blackhawk was fixing two drinks. I had my foot off and was stretched out on one of his comfortable chairs with my foot and my stub on an ottoman. I was barely awake.

  The television was on but muted. As he handed me the drink, Boyce’s picture came on.

  “Turn the sound on,” I said.

  He picked up the remote and pointed it at the TV.

  “… appears,” the voice said, “that Detective Boyce was off duty at the time and the police say that while she is a member of the gangs division of Phoenix PD they have no reason to believe she was the target.”

  A female spokesperson for the police came on. She was standing in the street surrounded by reporters.

  “At this point we have no evidence that points to anything but a random shooting. Witnesses put a dark SUV styled vehicle at the scene. The other wounded man has been identified as Edward Tomes. The police say that Mr. Tomes is employed as a landscaper and has no criminal record. He was treated and released. The investigation is continuing, so anyone with any information about the senseless shooting of an officer of the law should call Silent Witness.”

  She looked at a piece of paper and read the Silent Witness number off.

  The television cut back to the news anchor, “Meanwhile, Detective Boyce remains in critical condition. And now to the weather. The unusually hot temperatures….,”

  Blackhawk muted it.

  There was a dinging noise. Blackhawk dug out his phone and looked at it. “The Colonel,” he said, looking up at me.

  “Fax?” I asked.

  “Faxes are gone,” he said. “The Colonel is texting.”

  “Was the Colonel pissed?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I talked with Martha and she’s never pissed.”

  “You told her what we wanted?”

  He grinned, “Yeah, she said he was in the bathroom and might be a while.” He laughed out loud. “She said that when you get to their age a good bowel movement can’t be rushed.”

  I laughed. “She actually said that?”

  “Old people will tell you anything. He’s downloading something. Let’s go in the office so I can print it.”

  “Like on old fashioned paper?”

  “I’ve given up my papyrus.”

  I followed him.

  His office was down the hall from the apartment. There was a foyer, then a door that opened into his office. It was as finely furnished as the apartment. A desk and chair, and filing cabinets, and another work desk, with a computer and printer on it. He took his phone and attached it with a cord to the computer and started fiddling with it.

  I heard the outer door open and a moment later Nacho stuck his head into the room.

  Blackhawk looked up, “Goddammit, can’t you knock?”

  Nacho looked bewildered, “Elena’s not here,” he said.

  “What the hell has that got to do with anything?”

  “It’s not like you guys are in here doing something.”

  Blackhawk just shook his head.

  “That bald guy’s downstairs,” Nacho said.

  I went down. Emil was sitting at the bar, right hip on the stool, left foot on the floor.

  I moved up to him, “How you doin’?”

  “I followed them to Kamex,” he said.

  I nodded, “I know.”

  “You know I followed them?”

  “No, but I figured it was Kamex.”

  “How’s the cop?”

  “They say she’ll make it okay. Gonna be a while before she’s back on duty."

  “You been to see her?”

  “When I’m not here, I’m there.”

  He nodded.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “About Gabriela?”

  “Yeah, about Gabriela.”

  “Go in and get her.”

  “You know that place is like Fort Knox.”

  I nodded.

  “But you are still going?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m in,” he said.

  57

  Blackhawk had printed out the blueprints to the Kamex buildings and had them spread across his dining table. When Emil and I came in, he was highlighting some points on them. He looked up and nodded to Emil.

  “Emil will be joining us,” I said.

  “Good, it will probably take more than two.”

  He indicated the blueprint he was marking on. “These things I’ve marked are the surveillance cameras. The north side of the compound is the most vulnerable. Only two cameras. We can take the cameras out and go over the fence but –“, he picked up two other blueprints, “these are the two new buildings. They are identical. So, we don’t know which the girl will be in. And worse, the outside doors are metal and double bolted.”

  “So we blow them,” Emil said.

  “Yes, but we don’t know how many men are on the other side and we don’t know how many are armed.” Blackhawk looked at me. “Last thing we want is a firefight in a closed-in space.”

  I shook my head, “We can’t jeopardize the girl, but I don’t want to have to mount a two-week surveillance before we can go in.”

  Blackhawk smiled at me. “Neither did the Colonel, so he had whatever computer pooter that works for him hack Kamex’s own surveillance tapes. He has downloaded the last three full weeks of whatever activity took place there.”

  “24/7?”

  He nodded.

  “So we have to sit and watch three weeks.”

  Blackhawk shrugged, “You can fast forward.”

  “I can fast forward? What about you? What about Nacho, or even Emil here?”

  “I wouldn’t know what to look for,” Emil said.

  “Nacho has a saloon to run.”

  “And you?”

  “I’ll be waiting to jump into action when I hear you yell Eureka!”

  “That’s really funny.” I looked at his computer. “You want to show me how this works?”

  It turned out to be easier than I would have thought. Nothing much showed on the screen as I sped through the first day of the feed, which was a Sunday. The next day, just as the screen display showed 11:52 am, I watched a black Escalade pull up to the west building and I watched Frank Bavaro step out and go inside. It made sense he would have the girl in the same building as him, so that narrowed it down. Now we knew where, the question was how? The Eureka moment came as the display on the screen read Wednesday, 10:32 pm. A large van came through the front gates and pulled around to the same building that Bavaro had come and gone from. Two dozen men, women and children poured out of it carrying bundles of belongings, and three armed men herded them through the raised utility door. Two hours later, a stream of black SUVs came out, each packed with people. I fast forwarded to the next week at the same time and watched it again. Then the third week, just like clockwork

  Blackhawk, Emil, Nacho and Elena were in the room when I played it back.

  “That must be how my cousin got in,” Elena said.

  “We knew about it,” Emil said. “Knew Dos Hermanos was doing it somewhere, we just didn’t figure Kamex would be that foolish.”
r />   “With power comes arrogance,” Blackhawk said. He looked at me, “Got it figured out?”

  I took a pencil as a pointer, “.22 long rifle with silencer takes out the surveillance cameras here and here. Exact same time the van rolls up.” I looked at Emil. “That would be you.” He nodded.

  I looked at Blackhawk, “You and me dressed like the illegals go over the fifteen-foot barbed wire fence with a twenty-foot ladder. We go over as the illegals come piling out of the van. As they come out of the van, they move to the building, so everyone is on the building side of the van leaving them blind to our side. We have less than twenty yards to the van, coming in behind it as they are herding everyone. We have about ten seconds. We carry our bundles just like the rest.”

  “With weapons?”

  “With pistols and flashbangs.”

  “That all?”

  “Should be enough.”

  “What are flashbangs?” Elena said.

  “Stun grenades,” Nacho said. “Like SWAT uses. You seen it on TV. Someone throws it in through the window and Bam! Big flash, big noise, all smoke and confusion. Then they go piling in and get the bad guys.”

  “Oh, yeah, like that show I like, LAPD Confidential,” Elena said.

  “Yeah, like that.” Nacho looked at Blackhawk, “What about me?”

  “And me,” Elena said.

  “You two are here making yourselves very noticeable to the customers,” I said. “So when you testify on a stack of bibles that Blackhawk and I were upstairs here watching TV, you will be believed.”

  Nacho frowned, “That’s no fun.”

  I pointed again at the blueprint of the building, “Because of the shipment coming in, whoever is watching the camera monitors will probably hesitate before they go out to investigate the dead cameras. I don’t know what they will be thinking, but I’m pretty sure they won’t be thinking about us.” I pointed at the interior doors. “Once inside,” I said to Blackhawk, “if necessary, we detonate a flashbang, disable the guards and get through these interior doors. There is a set of stairs that leads,” I pointed at the upper rooms, “to where I think we will find the girl.”

  “What if there are guards with the girl? What if they hear the flashbangs?”

  “They won’t be expecting us. We will just be two idiot illegals trying to escape the chaos. My guess is they’ll keep her doped till they’re ready to sell her.”