The Girl at the Deep End of the Lake Read online

  Bobby turned and looked at me. I smiled.

  “What the fuck you think is so funny?”

  “Saturday Night Live,” I said. “Or Jack Benny, or even Robin Williams. I also think Jimmy Fallon is hilarious.”

  “What are you, some kinda smart ass?”

  “Might be, but I’ve never met a smart ass,” I said. “Usually they are just plain asses. However, I have met quite a few dumb asses. Met another one tonight.”

  “You little shit,” he said and reached for me. I brought my opened hand up inside of his and moved his hand to the side. He reached for me again and I moved his hand again.

  Showing off his extensive vocabulary he said “You little fuck,” and came off his stool and I hit him in the throat with a hard, eight-inch punch straight from the shoulder with my body braced against the bar. He fell back, coughing. He shook his head like a big bear, trying to get his breath. I waited until he straightened up, then I hit him in the top of the ear and temple with the shot glass. He went down like a felled tree.

  I put my back to the bar and one of his buddies with long braided, greasy hair started for me, but Blackhawk reached across the bar and grabbed a handful of his hair and slammed his head on the mahogany top. He went to his knees beside his bleeding big buddy. Nacho had materialized behind the rest of them with a ball bat in his hands.

  Blackhawk held up his hand, palm out.

  “No more.”

  The band had stopped in midnote and the dancers and those against the wall were all standing, watching. The girl singer had a broad smile.

  “Your drinks are on me,” Blackhawk said. “And now you will leave.”

  The big guy was trying to sit up. The blood was running out of his ear and onto his shirt, the other one was on his hands and knees, his head moving back and forth like a spavined bull. The other jocks gathered round and helped them up, which took some doing. En masse they moved to the door. As they filed out Bobby turned and yelled hoarsely, “This ain’t over!”

  The girl singer said into the microphone, “Oh yes, I think it is,” and began to applaud. The women dancers began to applaud and then the whole room was applauding.

  Blackhawk was smiling at me.

  I handed him the shot glass.

  “I think I liked that last one the best,” I said.

  14

  It was midnight by the time I stepped on the boat. I turned off the alarm. I had rigged a little laser that tracked across the gangway from the pier to the boat. The light was hidden from view but if the laser had been interrupted by someone coming on board a small LED attached to the lip of the bow would light. The LED was situated so that you had to look for it to see it. The light was green. Once on board, I activated the pressure switch to the gangway from the pier onto the boat. If someone stepped on the gangway a soft gong sound would ring in my stateroom.

  I stripped down and took a quick shower and brushed my teeth to get the stale taste of tequila out of it. I slid under the covers of the oversized bed and willed my mind to empty itself. I fell asleep almost immediately. I awoke almost the next minute. The soft gong was still ringing in my ears. Someone was stepping aboard.

  I swung out of bed my hand grasping the Ruger LCP .380 I keep attached to a magnetic plate behind my bed stand. I slipped on a pair of swim trunks and stuck my stub into a boot I keep next to the bed. It has Velcro straps and I use it for quick use on the boat. I could hear light tapping on the glass door at the bow. I had the curtains pulled and whoever was there couldn’t see in. Moving silently, I went out the back and up the ladder. I moved softly across the top, careful not to rock the boat. As I reached the bow, I saw Romy below turning to walk away.

  “Hey,” I said softly. I held the gun slightly behind me, out of her sight.

  She turned and looked around, then finally up at me.

  “Oh, hey,” she said. “Did I wake you?”

  “No,” I lied. “Hold on, I’ll come down and let you in.”

  I replaced the pistol where I keep it, then moved to the bow. I pulled the blackout curtains and let her in.

  I turned on a lamp and she sat on one end of the couch. I sat on the other.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep and I thought I’d see if you were back.”

  “Just did get in,” I said.

  “Did you find out anything?”

  “Not much,” I said. I told her about the meeting with Mendoza and the warehouse. I didn’t mention Blackhawk, the El Patron or big Bobby.

  “So,” I said, “I didn’t hear from Mendoza, which makes me assume the black and white found nothing at the warehouse.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  I shrugged. “Mendoza’s having one of his people check Missing Persons but he says there is a legion of girls like Lucinda out there. If she doesn’t want to be found and if she doesn’t want to go home, there’s not much we can do.”

  Romy put her face in her hands, elbows on her knees.

  “Can I get you a drink?”

  She shook her head, face still in her hands. Then she stood up and looked at me. I stood. She came to me and put her head against my chest. I put my arms around her and she held me tight. Her voice was muffled, “I just want someone to hold me.”

  I pulled her tight against me and we stood like that for a long moment. Finally she slowly raised her face and we stared at each other for a long moment. Then I slowly lowered my face and kissed her. At first it was just a kiss and then it turned to something else. Her back arched and she pressed herself against me. Her mouth opened and one hand came up to the back of my neck. Still kissing, I reached down and picked her up, my left arm cradling her legs. I carried her down the hallway and sat on my bed, with her on my lap. She pulled her mouth away and again we were looking at each other, scant inches apart. She slipped off my lap and stood. She unbuttoned her blouse and let it drop to the floor. In a uniquely feminine move, she reached her hands behind her and unsnapped her bra. She held it for a moment, watching me, then she let it drop. She stepped out of the flip flops she wore, and hooking her thumbs into her waistband, she slid her shorts and panties down and kicked them off. She stood completely and delightfully naked. I thought this was a little one-sided. I stood and she hooked her thumbs into the waistband of my swim trunks and slid them down. Now we were even. For a second we looked at each other, then she came to me and I fell back and we stretched out on the bed.

  I had not been with a woman in a long time, so the first time was urgent and rough, using all of the big bed, rolling with first me on top, then her, coating us both with a fine sheen of perspiration as we tasted the salty skin and held the slippery bodies. It was the exploring and trying and finding time, and we were soon out of breath and reaching that final peak. She groaned her pleasure and I’m pretty sure I hollered "yippee!" The second time took much longer.

  15

  Father Jorge Correa was round. If Friar Tuck were Mexican this would be the guy. We were sitting in a small cramped office in a non-descript building within a couple miles of El Patron. It had no signage except for a simple sign beside the door that read Safehouse. He had led me to the office after I had introduced myself and had dropped Lieutenant Mendoza’s name.

  He excused himself.

  “I have a new girl coming in, and I want to make sure she’s taken care of. I’ll be right back.” He pointed at a half-full coffee pot. “Help yourself to some coffee. There are cups and Sweet and Low in the top drawer. I’ll be right back.”

  I sat waiting for a while. When he didn’t come back right away, I got up and found the cups and Sweet and Low and some powdered creamer. The cups were small Styrofoam and held about a third of my cup on the boat. I didn’t see any stirrers so I put the sweetener and creamer in first, then poured the coffee. While I stood there with my back to the door, I opened the second file drawer. It was jammed with manila folders, each with a woman’s first name written on the tab. First names only. It was on the bottom drawer that I got to the L�
�s. There was no Lucinda. When he did return I was sitting where I had been, the coffee almost gone.

  “Sorry to keep you,” he said. “I appreciate your patience.” He seemed to be in a constant state of happy. It sure didn’t seem to be the kind of place that induces happy, but maybe that is what it takes to do what he does.

  “I’m interrupting your day,” I said. I had Lucinda’s photo in a manila envelope. I opened it and handed him the photo.

  As he took it, he pulled a pair of reading glasses from his pocket. He was dressed in a blue striped button-down short sleeve shirt and khakis. Well-worn tennis shoes were on his feet. Looked like the average Joe. No way to tell he was a priest.

  He studied the photo, taking his time. Finally he looked back to me.

  “She a relative?”

  I shook my head.

  He handed me the photo, “I don’t recognize her as one of mine. Why are you looking for her?”

  I hadn’t really intended to go into great detail. I knew I’d have to tell him something, but his eyes were so genuine and his interest so palpable I said, “I live on a boat at Lake Pleasant. A couple of days ago two guys that looked like gang dropped her weighted body into the lake beside my boat. I got to her in time and pulled her out. A woman that also lives there took her in. When she recovered, she said her name was Lucinda and she didn’t want the cops and she didn’t want any family. She had been on the streets and had hooked up with a gang called the 7th Avenue Playboy Diablos.”

  “Roland,” he said.

  I nodded, “Yes, Roland. He had her hooking and she lived in some kind of commune deal.”

  “In a warehouse.”

  “You know him. She couldn’t bring herself to believe they were the ones that dumped her. She took off. I’m thinking she got a hold of Roland or someone and they came and got her. I’m not convinced they won’t dump her again.”

  “Why did they try to kill her to begin with?”

  I shrugged. “No idea.”

  He was sitting at his desk in a secretary’s chair. He was swiveling gently back and forth. He was looking out the door and down the hall. I waited.

  He looked back to me. “The Playboys troll the internet for young girls. They reach out with social media, Facebook, Twitter and the like. They become friends. They really are quite sophisticated. They search Facebook for a certain age and certain key words. Looking for the troubled ones. The ones unhappy at home. The abused ones. The majority of them have been abused by then. They start off by meeting up with them at a mall and after a while the girls think they have found their new best friends. From there it’s easy to have the girls run away and join them. That’s when the girls find out they are expected to pay their way by hooking.”

  “They just put them on the street?”

  “Easier than you would think. They all have such low self-esteem and almost all of them have been sexually active, either by choice or not, so sex with a stranger is no big deal.”

  “How do you know Roland?”

  “I don’t really know him. I know of him. I’ve had four girls come here for help that were involved with the Playboys. In the broad scheme of things, the Playboys are small potatoes. They cook crack and have their girls hooking. Not major drugs like some of the others.”

  “What happened to the four girls?”

  “Three went back to the streets, one went to relatives in the Midwest.

  “Not a very good percentage.”

  He shrugged, “I don’t have the money for long-term fixes. We do what we can.”

  “I’m sure that you do. You ever hear of Frank Bavaro?”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “I’m told he is an attorney that is hooked up with a drug cartel.”

  “He’s out of my league. Mostly I just get the castoffs here.”

  I had made several copies of Lucinda’s photo, so I said, “Would you keep the picture and if she shows up give me a call?”

  “Certainly,” he said. “What’s your number?”

  I told him and he wrote it on the back of the picture.

  “I’m sorry I’m not much help,” he said. “Would you like to see the facility?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  He led me out of the office and down a small corridor. We passed a room where the smell of cooking wafted through the air. I glanced in and saw a very thin man in a hair net and a soiled apron stirring a very large pot of something.

  “That is our kitchen. All volunteers. Unfortunately, we don’t have the money for a paid staff so we are blessed by volunteers.”

  “How about the food?”

  “There is a local grocery chain here in town and the owner has generously endowed us with food stuffs that have reached a sell-by date.” He smiled at me. “Not to worry, sell-by dates are well before the stuff actually goes bad. It’s funny that as our society has become more politically correct, we have become more concerned with the appearance of things, like the sell-by date, than whether the food is actually bad. Most food is good long after the sell-by date. I think these grocery chains are more afraid of being accused of impropriety instead of actually being improper. I don’t know how my grandmother survived.”

  “Good to know,” I said. “How about the shelter itself? How do you pay for it?”

  “Donations from some of the larger churches and God’s grace. I’m constantly scrambling for money.”

  We moved through a door and now were in a corridor that reminded me of a hospital hallway. Every few feet was a door. Most were open. As we walked along, I noted that most of the rooms were filled with a bed and dresser, a chair and piles of personal belongings. They were mostly empty.

  “Most of the girls and their children are in the community room this time of day.”

  He stopped at one room. Inside was a very young girl with a baby nursing at her breast. She was humming and rocking and had her front and the baby discreetly covered. She looked up smiling. Her hair had been dyed blonde but now the roots were a couple of inches long. It was long and straight but looked clean. She wore no makeup and her eyes had dark circles. She looked like she was twelve years old and couldn’t have weighed ninety pounds.

  “Hello, Melinda,” he said. “How is young Hayden today?”

  She smiled up at him. “He’s hungry, Father.”

  “Meet Mr. Jackson,” he said indicating me.

  “Hi, Mr. Jackson,” she said.

  “Hi Melinda,” I said. “How old is Hayden?”

  “Three months and seventeen days,” she said brightly. “And growing every day.” She pulled the cover away from the baby, exposing the baby suckling at her breast. “Look how big he’s getting.”

  “You make sure you get plenty to eat. You’re eating for two,” Father Correa said. He moved on down the hall.

  “Nice meeting you,” I said but she was humming to the baby. I followed Father Correa.

  The community room was filled with young women and children. There was a television on at one end but no one was watching it. Most of the women were sitting on the floor playing with the kids.

  Father Correa looked at me, “Are you a man of faith, Mr. Jackson?”

  “Depends on ‘in what?'"

  “Faith in a higher power? Faith in the role of God in our lives. Faith in eternal love and eternal life?”

  “Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.”

  “Eric Hoffer, I believe. I see you read, Mr. Jackson.”

  “I also fish,” I said.

  “Some of the Apostles were fishermen. Does that mean you have no faith?”

  “I’m not sure I’m smart enough to figure such things out. But I am a practical and pragmatic man, Father. I think the first time I questioned an adult’s statement of fact was when I was about five years old. I find it difficult to believe any man understands the thinking of a God that made the sun, the moon and the stars. Let alone made this world.”

  He smiled.

&n
bsp; “But Father, I do have faith. In things I can count on. I have no blind faith.”

  “How about in the goodness of men’s souls?”

  I moved my hand to indicate the room before us.

  “Most people, including you, probably think these young women have a bad time of it.”

  “Most come from a bad life,” he agreed.

  “I was once at an orphanage run by nuns in the middle of Africa. It was in the path of rebel forces hellbent on destruction. I arrived too late. The nuns were raped and mutilated. The little boys had their throats slashed. The little girls were taken to be sold into slavery. No, Father, I don’t have any illusions about the goodness of men’s souls.”

  We stood silently for a long moment.

  “Did you ever find the little girls?” he finally asked.

  “How do you know I looked?”

  “You are looking for one now.”

  “My team found them but we lost half of them on the extract.”

  “My God,” he said.

  “Yes, he probably is,” I said.

  We watched the mothers for a moment longer, then I followed him back down the hallway.

  He walked me to the door.

  “Thanks for stopping by, I will keep you and the girl in my prayers,” he said.

  I had nothing to say to that. He watched me walk away.

  16

  I was sliding into the Mustang when the phone in my pocket began to vibrate. It made me jump. I took it out and looked at it. It took me a second to remember how to answer it.

  “Hello,” I said.

  It was a female voice. “Is this Jackson?”

  “It is.”

  “This is Detective Boyce. We met in Lieutenant Mendoza’s office.”

  “I remember. You were the one with the great big badge.”