It’s hot out here tonight. The wind is blowing, but it’s no help. Hot wind full of fine grit. Air’s thick with it — got ourselves a haboob. That’s what they used to call a dust storm in the olden days. If you smiled without a bandana on, you’d spit mud. Good thing I got no call to be smilin’. What I got is a call to run out to a warehouse on Alameda, ‘bout halfway down McClintock, make myself known to some shady men who are maybe up to a shady business, step inside and have a look about. Horse don’t like this weather any better than I do. He’s nervous under the saddle. Mite willful. He’ll get me there, but I’d best hitch him on the lee-side, else he’s like to tug off the post and run. Like to turn back myself; this is a bad night for bad business, and what I hear, I don’t see this chore goin’ elsewise. And here we are. The ‘boob’s let off some, but there’s a hiss on those sheet metal walls yet. That could be of use; might keep them who’s inside from hearin’ that nicker Horse just gave off. Might be wise to sit a tick and see if the door gets thrown to. Nary a peep. I think that’s all right. No… no, it ain’t. Nobody came to the door, but my intuition was true — ain’t a sound from inside. No machines, no palaver. Lights are on, and nobody wastes juice like that. That means the place is occupied. No noises means those inside are sittin’. Waitin’. So they know I’m here, or they know I’m comin’. They’re layin’ in ambush. They mean to catch me comin’ through the front doors. Briefing told of six. That’ll be three for the front door, probably behind cover. One man each for the two side doors and the lading bay out back. Wish to God Savvy had sent Big Dick and Susie along for this. Three Deputies are better than one if it comes to gunplay. Savvy said no. Said it wasn’t like to be but a knock-and-look. Savvy ain’t here to see how they just hunkered down. And it’s just me and Miss Cleo out here. Kiss for St. Christopher, and in I go. Dark side of the building blocks the wind. It’s still hot, but at least now my sweat ain’t turnin’ to stew. What was that? Drops. Damn. Now it’s gonna rain, too. Damn it all, even that’s warm. It’s pickin’ up with a will; now fat drops are rollin’ off the brim of my hat, and the wet is getting through my duster. Either I’m almost to the east side door or I just passed it — it’s so dark out here and the rain is thick is fudge. I don’t dare light up my flash, case they got their men standin’ by at the windows. Better to walk through the front doors decked out in neon lights if I want to get myself done for that way. Keepin’ dark and quiet out here means their lights will keep them blind past the windows, long as I don’t go flishin’ and flashin’. Slavers. Had to be this kind of night to reckon with slavers. And the way Savvy told it, this crew is the biggest in the valley. The worst. Fifty man outfit with a reach all the way from Chandler up to Glendale, and all points north and south and in between. Daughters grabbed from markets, young wives grabbed from their very bedrooms, old wives to tend to the young ones grabbed right off street corners in the bright of day, and them as get in the way beaten or stabbed or shot in front of God and everybody. Now it had only ever been suspected that this warehouse is one of their places. Well, it’s more than a suspicion to me as of this minute. Nobody burns juice workin’ an honest trade after midnight and then hunkers down when they think somebody’s come upon ‘em. If they was honest, they’d have thrown a light and a yell to know who was about. I find the east door. The knob is cool and slippery from the rain under my work glove. I hold it still a tick, just listenin’. Not so much as a word from inside, though that might be on account of it’s a big place, and what it’s full of nobody’s said. If it’s panels or pallets, they could be havin’ some lively talk indeed before I’d hear it. Should’ve thought of that. maybe everything is just… No — there we go. Somebody coughed soft and low, and not far off, either. What I suspected is solid now. Time to move. I let loose of the doorknob — it’ll be locked, anyhow — and step into the knob with a full stride, putting the heel of my boot on it dead center. I’m through and inside. “Sheriff’s Department! Show me your —“ Man aims his gun. I turn. Gun blast. White cold feeling, then the left side of my face is numb. Miss Cleo jumps in my hand and he jumps at the same instant as a fine red mist follows the slug out his back. No body armor on that one. No time to think, here comes another. Repeater in his hand. I drop as it starts talkin’. Miss Cleo says her piece and he drops his gun to favor the new hole in his arm. She has one more thing to say and down he goes with the top of his head off yonder. Now my face is startin’ to howl and throb somethin’ awful. I raise my left hand to it and the glove comes away slick with blood. I’m shot. My vision is all right. I open my mouth and a yell comes out. Jaw’s not busted, nor my cheek. Just a graze, just ripped skin and mayhap some muscle, but oh God, how it rages. Two figures — one to the left, one to the right. Their heads swivel and cant a bit as they try to suss me out from the two bodies at the mouth of this narrow corridor between the shelves crammed full of sage green boxes. Ammunition boxes. Push that aside. Before the first one gets a bead I take the shot. He spins to one side, his gun hand going high. Damn it. Hit him in the left shoulder. I was aimin’ for his head. My ears are startin’ to protest against the gunfire. I ignore them. Try to ignore my screaming face. My hand is moving again, only now, with the ringing in my ears keeping time with my heart pounding there, too, and the left side of my face on fire, I’m not paying attention to what my hands are doing overmuch. Miss Cleo jumps in my hand again — and again, rapid-like — and the man on the left goes down, at first like he’s sitting down because of the hole blasted in his femoral artery and then tumbling backward as the back of his head becomes a crimson fountain. My vision blurs. I take off my bandana and take the sweat out of my eyes. When I take it away, the man on the right has regained a bit of himself and has raised his pistol to his own temple. That’d make him the man worth askin’ questions at. He has to live. His finger draws down on his trigger. So does mine. My feet carry me toward him. I have a fraction of a second. My finger is faster. His gun goes off less than an inch behind the back of his head. The hand that held it is a pulp of shattered bone and torn tissue. He drops. He’ll be needin’ the wagon. My hands move yet — dropping the empty magazine, into the deep pocket with it, out with a fresh one, slap it home. That was five men dealt with. One yet to show himself. Behind a shelf piled high with canned goods from floor to crown — movement. A sound. Quick, shallow breathing. Eyes scanning. Ears keen. Pulse pounding. Face raging and burning. Hands moving. A shape, moving fast. Footsteps racing. Hands move, eyes track, barrel levels. Shape bursts out from behind cover. It’s moving fast. The hammer falls. The face registers. The face is young. Female. Blue eyes wide with terror behind a tangle of blonde curls. The hammer strikes the pin. It’s too late to take it back. A hole as deep as hell and as black as my soul punches through the face, right between those big blue eyes. It was meant for a sixth man, a man with a gun looking to kill me. Doesn’t matter now who it was meant for. She falls so slowly. Her blood spatters the shelf behind her in a terrible kind of slowness, the exit throwing a cascade of blonde curls out and up from the red shower that was the back of her head. Her little body falls to the dirty concrete like a rag doll that’s been carelessly thrown away. My hands are frozen. There were only five men. “The Commission calls Maricopa County Sheriff Nundahar Saviprakesh to the stand.” Where am I? Oh. The wood paneling. The carpeted floor. The fluourescent lights. This is the hearing. I don’t want to be here. I deserve to be here. I should be in shackles and a black coverall, not in my uniform. Savvy looks like he’s going to cry. I wish I could, for him. But I ran out of cryin’. “Would you give your account of what you found when you arrived on scene?” There’s Susie and Big Dick — that is, Deputies Susan Addison and Richard Ruiz. They’ll give their testimony as regards my character and my competence. I probably won’t be charged. I should be. The girl’s daddy paid his due that night. I got a balance owin’. My left index finger rises to the smooth groove of scar on my cheekbone, runs back to the notch a bullet dug out of the cup of my ear. “Reports indicated,” that’s Savvy telling his part, now, “that six members of the criminal organization calling itself “La Mariposa Negro” — the Black Butterfly — had taken possession of a warehouse located at the corner of Alameda Street and McClintock Road, and were using it to organize the abduction and enslavement of women as young as twelve years old throughout the valley, and their subsequent transportation to prostitution rings in Aztlan, Nevada and Colorado. Deputy Dylan was dispatched to serve a search warrant for the premises.” “That’s all in the initial report we have here, Sheriff Saviprakesh.” the Commissioner sounds like a schoolmarm. I’d like to step up there and bust him one for talking to Savvy like that. I don’t. “What we’re asking for is an account of what you saw after Deputy Dylan called you to the scene.” Savvy sighs. He sounds tired. Looks tired, like he used to when I’d get up to mischief as a youngster. “I saw Deputy Dylan standing over the body of a young female.” He looks away from the Commissioner. Away from me, too. There’s shame on his face. “She was deceased. He admitted to shooting her after mistaking her for a sixth man who I told —“ “Do you mean to say,” the Commissioner interrupts, “that your Deputy mistook an 8 year old girl for a grown man?” Savvy bristles. “His Honor will find out just exactly what I mean to say if His Honor will be good enough to let me finish saying it.” “You are perilously close to being found in contempt, Sheriff.” “You forget yourself, sir.” Savvy shot back. “This is a Sheriff’s Department closed hearing, Commissioner, not your Court. You’re here by Governor Dahl’s request and my sufferance, and not any other way. So you mind your tone, or I will haul you up by those thirty dollar britches and throw you out those doors my own self.” They stare at each other for a spell. The Commissioner resumes, a few degrees more nicely. “You may proceed.” “Our surveillance earlier in the day counted six men in the warehouse. Assorted females, ages ranging from teenage to middle age, were moved into and out of the building from the morning to early afternoon hours. That had been the case for nigh on a week. No signs of manufacture or other production of goods were evident. That gave us to believe that the warehouse was in fact a location tied to the La Mariposa Negro gang. We needed a search warrant to confirm it. We timed the service of the warrant to match the time when only the men working in the warehouse earlier that day could be expected to be there. Our hope was that nobody would be there and Deputy Dylan could execute the search and leave the warrant in evidence. I say again that to the best of our knowledge —” “There were six men, if anybody.” the Commissioner sighs, plainly exasperated if his red face is any tell. The world shifts a bit. It always does in this place. There’s Susie givin’ her testimony. Her answers are as short as her blonde hair. Now Big Dick, fidgeting in a chair too petite for a man who’s 6 foot 6 and built like a bull. His voice is warm enough, but his eyes show he don’t wanna be sittin’ there. I’m a solid Deputy and a man of good character, so say they all. All but the Commissioner. He’s lookin’ at me the way a child killer oughta be looked at. Like filth. Like dirty, wet trash that shouldn’t be livin’ when a beautiful little girl, when somebody’s angel, is in a box somewhere. And now there’s someone standing beside me while I sit here on this cold, hard wooden seat. I don’t want to look. I can’t not look. It’s her. Kellen McPherson was her name. She’s just standin’ there lookin’ at me. There’s a dime sized hole in her forehead. There’s tears on her cheeks. There’s tears on mine, too. I thought I had run out of tears, but I always find more when she comes calling. “I’m sorry, Mister.” she says. “I didn’t mean it. Honest I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.” My heart is clenched as tight as a fist, and there’s another one forming in my throat. I know how this parley goes. It goes the same way every time. I can’t stop it. I don’t want to stop it. I earned it. I have it comin’. “Didn’t mean what, little angel?” I ask. “The bad thing.” she sniffles and wipes her nose on her forearm. “I don’t know what it was, but I musta done a bad thing to make you shoot me like that. I’m sorry. I promise I didn’t mean it.” I can’t hold out any more. I drop my face into my hands, and both those fists knot up until they’re as small and hard as the bullet that took that innocent life. I feel her hand on the back of my head. She’s dead, and I’m the miserable god damned son of a bitch who killed her, and she’s trying to comfort me. She just keeps whispering, “I’m sorry, Mister. I’m sorry.” I’ll never be done bein’ sorry. If you’ve enjoyed this excerpt, please consider making a donation to my GoFundMe campaign. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it!
