The Girl at the Deep End of the Lake Read online

  “I don’t have a watch,” I said.

  She shook her head. “You know what I mean.”

  “You sound like you know these people.”

  “Not really, but I know they exist.”

  “And you say your husband isn’t around dirt bags like these.”

  “Frank tries to be what he isn’t. But he came from a background like theirs. Some of it had to rub off.”

  “Why did you marry him?”

  “He was exciting and completely different from anyone I knew. He too had a very self-confident air, and you can’t move his center with a bulldozer.”

  She stood and moved to me. She straddled the chair and sat on my lap. She put her arms around my neck and kissed me lightly on the lips.

  “In fact he’s the reason I came to see you tonight.”

  “Your husband?”

  She kissed me again, this time a little longer. She put her forehead against mine.

  “He’s been making noises about wanting me to come back to live in his house. Not be married, but be where he can control me. That’s why he sent Diego to see me.”

  “Ah, Diego?”

  “You remember, the guy whose finger you dislocated.”

  “I remember, so how is the finger?”

  “Up his ass probably.”

  “So, are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Are you going back to Frank?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No, but I did come to say goodbye. At least for a while.”

  “You just can’t tell him no?”

  She smiled, “Nobody tells Frank Bavaro no. It’s inconceivable to him. An invitation from Frank is a command.”

  “Are you afraid of him?”

  “You have to be seriously stupid not to be afraid of Frank.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “Away. I just have to be away for a while, until he has other things to think about.”

  “Other things?”

  “Diego says there is trouble coming. Okay by me. Let him think of something else. Anything but me. I don’t know if I will ever be free of Frank.”

  “Maybe I can help.”

  She kissed me longer.

  “That kind of thinking can get you killed. I can handle Frank, but if he finds out about you then you become leverage. He says do what I want, or Jackson gets killed. Then what do I do?”

  She began to unbutton my shirt.

  “Probably should be my decision.”

  She pulled my shirt off then began kissing my chest.

  “I don’t like this,” I said.

  “You don’t like this,” she said kissing my chest again.

  “No, I like that a lot. I don’t like you going.”

  “Shush,” she said.

  She slid back and worked her way down, kissing my nipples, then my stomach. When she got to the navel, she unbuckled my belt and unzipped my pants. She pulled my underwear and trousers down to my ankles. She began kissing my thighs and then I felt her mouth on me. I don’t know how you do back flips while lying on your back, but I did. There was a huzzah in there someplace.

  37

  At daybreak, she quietly slid out of my bed and put on her clothes. She leaned down and kissed me, then was gone. I had been right. I didn’t like that much. I rolled over and tried not to think. I dozed off.

  When I awoke I put on trunks and my foot and padded down to the Moneypenny. It was battened up and deserted.

  I came back to the Tiger Lily and ground some Columbian coffee. I filled the reservoir with filtered water, put in the coffee and turned it on. While it was perking, I put on my swimming foot and swam out to the far buoy and back. The water was cold but I’d been trained to ignore it. I started for the buoy again. Once into my rhythm, the muscles began to stretch and I felt good. I poured it on coming back, and when I reached the ladder I was taking in great gulps of oxygen.

  Back on board, I poured a cup of coffee and carried it into the oversized shower. I took a long shower, brushed my teeth and dressed as I sipped the coffee.

  I put a small skillet on the burner and turned the heat to medium. I poured some olive oil in and let it heat. While it heated, I chopped a fresh mushroom, a small vine-ripened tomato and a piece of white onion. I separated the meat of the tomato from the juicy part, then put the tomato meat, the mushroom and onion in the skillet to cook. Leaving in the juicy part of the tomato makes the whole thing too soggy. I took two extra-large eggs out of the egg tray in the refrigerator and cracked them into a small metal bowl. I took some shredded cheddar and put it in the bowl, then poured a dollop of half and half in. I whisked it all together, then when the mixture of vegetables was mostly cooked I turned the heat down and scraped in the eggs with a spatula. I put a slice of whole wheat bread in the toaster. When it popped up, I buttered it with real butter and the eggs were done. I had breakfast.

  I was in the galley washing the dishes when I felt the small thud as a boat bumped into my stern.

  “Hello, the Lily,” Eddie called.

  I dried my hands and went to the back. I pulled the curtains back and stepped out on the stern.

  “Morning,” I said. He was in his old skiff, holding on to the boat with one hand. The day was a bright one; it would be warm.

  “Stripers are hitting anchovies thirty to fifty by the dam.”

  “I’m in,” I said. “Give me a second, I’ll grab my pole and tackle. I have a fresh pot of coffee. Want a go cup?”

  “Boy howdy,” he said with his crooked, semi-toothless smile.

  I grabbed my gear and put on a worn ball cap. I grabbed my sunglasses. I handed the tackle down to him.

  “I’ll get the coffee,” I said.

  I poured the coffee into two plastic cups with screw on lids and carried them back. I handed them down, then swung over the rail onto the ladder and stepped onto his skiff.

  The boat was an eighteen-foot by four-foot wide aluminum Arkansas Traveler with a 35 horse Johnson pull start motor attached to the back. There was a foot operated trolling motor attached to the bow and a depth finder attached to the side where he could watch it while he fished. He claimed the skiff would float on a heavy dew and I believed him. He had extracted the middle bench and had a five-gallon bucket there he used as a live well. He called the boat Lucille. Named it after the line by George Kennedy in Cool Hand Luke where when asked how he knew the buxom girl washing her car was named Lucille he replied, “Anything looks that good gotta be named Lucille”. It had been owned by a kid who got drunk and pushed it into the rocks at the mouth of Bartlett Lake, busting the prop and the lower shaft. The Sheriff’s office had impounded it and the kid never claimed it. When the obligatory waiting time had passed, a friend had told Eddy about it and he bought it at auction. He fixed it up and has used it ever since. The only time I get nervous with it is in the middle of the lake in a high wind. It’s a great fishing boat but not so much for ocean going.

  I pushed us off. He pulled the rope on the motor one time and it roared to life. He grinned at me, proud of that motor. He swung us around and headed for the dam.

  The water was still glassy and we skimmed along with less than a foot of the boat in the water. I let my hand trail along and the water seemed warmer. It would get windy later, as it did almost every afternoon, but now it was calm and flat.

  He got to where we were going and cut the motor. Pulling the release rope, he dropped the trolling motor into the water. I stood and pulled the swivel seat from its fitting, put the extension pole in, placed the seat on top and now, setting up, I was ready. I had grabbed the pole I had rigged for drop shot and I baited it with the anchovies Eddie had brought in a large coffee can. I had two hooks, three feet apart with the weight five feet below them. I had marked the line with a knotted piece of heavy line every ten feet, so once I was baited I dropped the line over and counted the knots until I was thirty feet deep.

  Eddie was studying the depth finder.

  “
Thirty feet, maybe forty,” he said. “See a lot of activity.”

  He dropped his line over and immediately had a hit. Some guys are like that. You can sit right next to them with the same rig and the same bait and they’ll pull five to your one.

  “Whoa,” he yelped. “I think I got a twofer.” And he did. He pulled his line up and had a nice striper on each hook.

  Then I got a hit.

  It went like that for another hour, then as it happens, it stopped. Eddie trolled around trying to pick them up again. A large cigarette boat came roaring by with a twenty foot plume of water shooting straight up in its wake. Cigarette boats are long and loud and the cockpit seats two. It is made for speed and that is all it is made for. They got the name by smuggling cigarettes and other contraband from Cuba. They were low and fast and really hard for the Coast Guard to catch.

  At least those in Florida had a purpose. This one was just going fast with a stereo system cranked as loud as it could get.

  “Goddam idiots!” Eddie shouted, shaking his fist at them. “Goddam fuckers, don’t they know that’s the kind of shit a man is trying to get away from out here.”

  “I don’t think they care,” I said.

  “Hell no, they don’t care. You ever seen a stupider boat in your life? Go fast! Now turn around and go fast back where you started. Yahoo, what fun! A hundred dollars in gas later, you put in on the trailer and go back to bein’ a stupid rich guy.”

  I agreed with him but he made me laugh.

  Eddie trolled around for a while before he gave it up. We headed into the camping area where there was a fish cleaning station. In another hour I was back to the Lily wrapping some nice fillets and putting them in the freezer.

  I took another shower to get rid of the fish smell, put on a black tee shirt with an old worn cotton shirt over it and a pair of clean jeans. I slipped the Ruger LCP into my hip pocket and battened down the Tiger Lily and walked up to the Mustang.

  Forty minutes later I was sitting two houses down from Melinda’s house. The brown and white truck wasn’t there. I had brought an old Elmore Leonard western and I slouched down in the seat and read with one eye on her house.

  Two hours later, I was getting hungry and I was starting to feel cramped when there was movement behind the house.

  I started the motor and slowly cruised by, leaning down to look out the passenger window. Melinda was in the backyard hanging some clothes from a makeshift clothesline. She looked okay.

  I went around the corner, did a U-turn and went by again. Now she had the baby on her hip and was picking at some tall weeds in the dirt yard. I pulled away and drove downtown.

  38

  Boyce wasn’t at her desk but Mendoza was. Downstairs there had been no one at the front desk so I just kept moving like I belonged and went up the staircase.

  I walked into Mendoza’s office and sat down. He looked up from a report and frowned.

  “Make yourself to home,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He looked at me steadily for a moment.

  “Can I get you some coffee or maybe a scone?”

  I chose to ignore the sarcasm.

  “Coffee would be good.”

  He looked at me another long moment, then cocked his head toward the coffee pot on top of the file cabinet. It was half full and the light was on. I got up and filled a Styrofoam cup, added some dry creamer and a packet of Sweet and Low that was beside the pot. I indicated his cup with the pot in my hand.

  He nodded and I filled his cup.

  I replaced the pot and sat down, gently sipping the hot coffee.

  He sipped his.

  “You are becoming a pain in the ass,” he said.

  “One of my finer qualities.”

  “You here just for the coffee?

  I set my cup on the edge of his desk and he opened a drawer and took out a napkin and handed it to me. I took it and put it under the coffee cup.

  “Where are Frick and Frack the junior G-men?

  “You want to be careful with them,” he said. “They’re a little thin-skinned and if you push them too far they can make trouble for you.”

  “Yikes.”

  “But luckily for you they’ve been pulled back to do other things. Your friend Santiago Escalona, who speaks for the ambassador, insists the girl is not missing. Without something official they have nothing to do.”

  “You believe him?”

  “No, for some damned reason I find myself believing you.”

  “Can you help me?”

  “I still don’t like the idea of you meddling, but no one else is doing anything, so I guess I’ll do what I can."

  “Can you help me find Roland Gomez?”

  “You still think he has the girl?”

  “For lack of anything else to believe, I guess so. I know for a fact the ambassador’s granddaughter is missing. I can’t think of anywhere she would be but with her family or on the streets with Roland or someone like him.”

  “Punks like Roland will surface eventually,” Mendoza said. “The girl on the other hand, I don’t know. Depends on what she is to him. If she is somebody to him then maybe he’ll keep her. If she isn’t, then he’ll use her till she’s too strung out to produce and he’ll dump her.”

  “Think he’d kill her?”

  He shook his head, “Can’t think of why. Hundreds of girls on the streets. Dump her and find another.”

  “If you really wanted to find Gomez, what would you do?”

  “Well, I really do want to find Gomez. I still have four bodies in the morgue. Murders that he could be a material witness to.”

  “Any line on the shooter?”

  “Had to be a pro. Just don’t know why.”

  “Looking for Gabriela.”

  “Could be.”

  “Ambassador Revera has ties to the Valdez Cartel. Could be one of theirs.”

  Mendoza sipped his coffee and studied me over the rim. He studied me for a long time.

  Finally he said, “Who the fuck are you? How do you know that?”

  I shrugged.

  “Don’t give me that interested citizen bullshit. Very few people outside of this squad room know of any connections between the Valdez people and the Ambassador.”

  “I am truly trying to help,” I said. “How can I find Roland?”

  He set his cup down. “Each shift his picture and the girl’s picture are handed out to our patrol officers. I have a black and white check the warehouse twice a day. It looks as if the Diablos have found someplace else to smoke their crack.”

  “Where?”

  “Haven’t found that yet.”

  “Anything else on Cisneros or Bennie Yoon?”

  “Bennie Yoon? I don’t remember disclosing his name to you.”

  I grinned, “Heard his name in the squad room as I came in.”

  He frowned at me, “Don’t try to be too smart, it’ll come back and bite you on the ass.”

  I leaned over and took a pen that was one of many in a coffee cup. He had a pad of post-it notes on his desk. I took one and wrote the Colonel’s phone number on it.

  I stood.

  “I’m going to trust you with this,” I said. I lay the post-it note on his desk. “The man at this number can tell you what you want to know about me. He may choose not to. He probably won’t want to. So, you tell him number ten said you could be trusted.”

  “Number ten?” he said, not picking the note up.

  “Yes. That will tell him that indeed you got his phone number from me. He knows who you are.”

  I turned and walked across the squad room to the stairwell door. When I glanced back he was still watching me. He still hadn’t picked up the post-it note.

  39

  It was mid-afternoon when I parked the Mustang on the far shady side of El Patron. You can tell someone that lives in Phoenix. They’ll park a half block away if it is in the shade. There were a handful of cars in the parking lot, including Blackhawk’s Jaguar and Nacho�
�s Jeep.

  The front doors were open and the cigarette trash can had been emptied. The sounds of Elena and the band filled the hallway. I came into the big room and a Hispanic couple was mopping the floor. I came into the main bar and Jimmy pointed upstairs.

  I moved to the stairs and Elena waved at me, then continued the motion by waving the band to a stop.

  “No, no, no!” she admonished them. “I tell you again. From E minor to D then to the bridge! Now again!” Girl was in charge. No doubt about it.

  The foyer at the top was empty as was Blackhawk’s office. I went back out into the hallway and moved to the first door on the right. I rapped on it and a moment later Blackhawk opened it.

  “Hey,” he said. “Come on in.”

  This was where he lived.

  He was wearing a black tee shirt and jeans. Not just jeans. Probably cost $400. He was barefoot and had a hand towel around his neck. It was a larger room than you would expect. A huge television covered most of one wall and he moved over to an extra-large leather couch and picked up the remote and shut it off. He waved at an overstuffed chair that matched the couch.

  I sat down and unstrapped my foot and began rubbing my stub. Blackhawk had good taste. The walls all held original oil paintings. One was huge, framed with an ornate gilded frame. It depicted a massive mountain range, wild and brutal looking with storm clouds among the mountains and sunlight trying to break through. In the foreground there was a dark, deep lake and on this bank were an Indian mother and child bathing. Two teepees nestled into the woods off to the right. On another wall was a disgruntled ballerina huddled in a front lit rustic corner. She had her hands in her hair on both sides of her head looking very upset.

  “Elena’s favorite,” Blackhawk said.

  “I can see why.”

  “Something to drink?”

  “Later, maybe,” I said. It felt good to massage my leg.

  He went into his oversized kitchen and opened his oversized refrigerator, and took out a normal sized bottle of Amstel. Somehow, I expected it to be a quart. It seemed everything of his was bigger than life.

  “You sure?” he asked, holding the refrigerator door open.