The story so far......
I.
The grass had been allowed to grow longer than usual, meandering into cracks between the bricks that lined the walkway to the garden shed. A volunteer Oak sapling, having taken root months before, spreads its leaves to catch the sun, fearless of being plucked from the lawn.
Just beyond the garden shed sat the trashcans. Since the murder of the old man who owns the house, nobody had taken the trashcans to the street so the true contents have yet to become known. As Monday morning is upon us - The sounds of working men and machines can be heard in the slight distance………
Detective Jakowski was tired, hung over from the night before and searching his pockets for the chance of a cigarette. Comes walking a creature unlike any he's seen in the past.
She stops and asks him "do you have a light?" -
“Why, yes I do.” he says.
Then he proceeds to ask her if she knows anything about the old man that used to live in the house.
"You could say I knew him well," she quietly replied.
“Please elaborate as this is an investigation to a murder. Shall we get a cup of coffee or you want to go downtown?”
“You got nothing on me copper. Get a warrant.”
“You know, if something was to happen to you - No one would know, so why don't you tell me..”. Jakowski quipped
“Ok, so how about that light? I first met him about 6 years ago. I was only 19 and hungry, he got me off the streets and into a job. I remember he would always take me to this Chinese restaurant over there on 5th and 73rd. He was a very interesting Fellow,” She replied. “Very quiet yet eccentric, peculiar and mysterious, I never did understood him"...
“Tell me - Did he ever hit you?”
“Never!” Starting to show tears welting up in her eyes, “he was like a father to me. He was truly a gentleman of high standards. However, this made him less than popular in some of the nightclubs near downtown.”
“I noticed the cigars in your handbag - Are those his?”
“I know the cigars are Cuban and not legal...but yes, they were his.
He was involved with many different people...including smugglers.”
The detectives mind was wandering. He knew he had to investigate the scene of the murder more thoroughly.
"So what kind of a job did he give you?" the detective inquired.
“Just cleaning up his house on the weekends and tending to his garden, Stuff that has to be done ever since his wife di.... eh...maybe we should wrap this up detective Jakowski?”
“I never told you my name was Detective Jakowski. I'm curious, how did you know my name?”
“Female intuition. Oh, and you have your name card stuck in your hatband. Now that he's gone, I don't know what to do. The last few years he has shown me so much, like the father I never had...”
"Do you still have a key to his house? We need to look around and see what we find. But I must be careful, it could be a trap!”
II.
Meanwhile, downtown, in the dark, damp depths of the basement in a abandoned building, a shadowy figure is hunched over a work bench diligently working away. The shapes of rats scurrying in the depths and drops of water falling from the failing pipes give accent to the paint peeling from the walls.
“Wilson - Would you like something to eat? You've been down there for 6 hours already - What are you doing anyways?”
“Yes, please, I am starving and thirsty. Do you have any crumpets and a Tecate?
“Yes, but if you'd prefer something good to drink, I have Negra Modelo.”
“Ahhhh...that will do, Mexican beer FTW!”
III.
Detective Jakowski thinks to himself about how he can get more information from this beautiful creature without scaring her away.
"So did he have any close friends or family in the area?"
“Yes, my beautiful cousin, we are VERY close, but she is albino and bisexual. Does this bother you at all?”
Jakowski thinks "this is getting weird" just as the sound of screeching tires whips him back to the present. Looking down the street he sees trouble in the form of a 76 Monte Carlo, and his years on the beat tell him that his day has just gone horribly sideways. Recognizing the Monte Carlo as the chariot of choice for Diego Jones, Jakowski quickly dodged behind the tires of a parked Ice Cream truck. Reaching for the Sig P220 tucked into the waistband holster in the small of his back, Jakowski chuckled to himself as he thought, "I haven't even eaten lunch yet"....
The car slowed as it approached the ice cream truck, hard eyes scanning up and down the sidewalk. "Who is the target?" Jakowski thinks as he hustles the now very confused lady up the lawn and between two houses, providing some cover, if only temporarily...
"Jakowski, where'd ya go?! I got something you might be interested in taking a look at...."
Jones called out confidently as he strolled around the parked cars and headed towards the two. Wanting to keep the lady out of the picture if at all possible, Jakowski heaved her over a low wall just as Jones rounded the corner. He turned, started to draw, and was amazed to see Jones standing over him, not with a gun in hand, but a large manila envelope.
Staring down the barrel of a hot n' ready .45, Jones' confidence retreated as he quickly stammered to explain his suspicious arrival at the house.
"Whoa man, take it easy.....this is the missing piece, completing the puzzle that is your brother's untimely death in Nogales".....
“Well then, why didn't you say so.”
As he slowly tucks the Sig back into its holster he grabs the yellow color envelope with the other hand. By now, the young lady have shown herself to Jones...
Jones says: "Hey, who's the dame? What's she doing here?"
She sure is sexy though albinos are exotic! Jakowski mutters something unintelligible under his breath..As he slowly pulls a Camel cigarette out of his vest pocket - Letting out a deep sigh - Eyes lingering like he wants to say something. He is curious about the envelope and slowly tears open the top. He looks inside, then a bit startled, but trying not to seem so, he looks at Jones
"Where did you get this?" he asks
Turning the envelop over and dumping the contents into his open palm, Jakowski's face became red and his eyes welled-up with tears as he looked at the hotel room key, the Matchbook cover from "Antonio's", and a picture of himself and his brother in Nogales. The picture was time-stamped with the night before Jakowski's brother's murder, and the matchbook had a smudged phone number scribbled on the underside...Jackowski knew only one thing for sure...he was headin' back to Nogales.
"Who gave you these things, Diego?" asked Jakowski quietly, while looking at the smudged number on the matchbook with a growing sense of dread and remembering seeing his brother write down that number, the only way to contact his brother's "guy" in Nogales.
"It is not important, Maria Casteneda Villalobos will meet you when you get to the border and she will arrange for transportation south out of Nogales and fill you in with some details. Remember Jakowski, you and me's not even by a long shot, but, you know, enemy of an enemy is my friend....Maria will get for me what I need, and you worry about yours......." Diego turns his back to Jakowski as he finishes his last sentence and heads towards his Monte Carlo.
As the Motor in the 76 turns, coughs twice and rumbles to life, Diego leanes out the window...
"And Jakowski.... if you pull that rod in Nogales everyone's going to know your a cop... leave it and the badge home if you want information... There were two dozen people in that bar, Someone must have heard the old mans chest getting hollowed out"
Gathering his thoughts, and clumsily stuffing the key, matchbook, and photo back into the envelope, Jakowski notices, for the first time, that the envelope is stamped with the name of the Hotel where the photo was taken. Glancing back towards his recent acquaintance, she smiles coyly and with a soft tone asks,
"So, ya want someone to keep you company down Mexico way?.....oh, my name is Victoria, in case you were wondering."
Jakowski shrugs. But he can not possibly refuse the company of such a fine specimen.
IV.
"Do you think that you can hand me that Dasani that's rolling around on the floor back there, can you reach it?"
Jakowski shuffles himself in his seat as Victoria stretches her arm back into the rear of the cab and fumbles for the bottle of water. With 3 hours and some change remaining before they hit Safeway parking lot situated on the border of Nogales, AZ, the two unlikely travel companions share a nervous anticipation of their crossing into Mexico.
A fact that escaped conversation yet so far, Victoria, not even 2 weeks previously, had just returned home from a small plantation 100 miles south of Nogales. Why she was there in the first place, and why she intended to return would not become clear for Jakowski until sometime later.
What he did know was that he was getting hungry and the water wasn't helping him forget that.
V.
