Lake Charles (30 page)
“As I said, we can help you with that,” said Mr. Kuzawa.
She steadied her hazel eyes on us. “Where is Sizemore’s pot growing?”
“We’d love to show you but . . .” I glanced at Mr. Kuzawa.
“But only if our deal has been blessed,” he said.
“What if I call and see where we are on that?” She turned, left us, and closed the door to a makeshift office at the end of the building. My last glimpse saw the black phone cord snaked under a shag carpet remnant.
Mr. Kuzawa stopped in his tracks. “This is interesting.” He had walked over to the rear of Sizemore’s Porsche. I watched Mr. Kuzawa toe aside the leaning sheath of plywood and send it crashing to the floor. “Is this contraption what I think it is?”
My walk headed to the spot where he stood. “It’s Edna’s jet ski.” Instant relief spread its warmth and soothed the knots in my lower back muscles. The mud flecked, banged up jet ski had been squirreled away in here all the time. She was near us, and I knew where I’d search next.
“One crotch rocket is recovered, but one girl is still missing,” said Mr. Kuzawa.
“We’ll tear apart Sizemore’s mansion,” I said.
“Rip it down, brick by brick. If she isn’t there, we’ll raze the rest of the buildings.” Mr. Kuzawa lifted the Porsche’s hood and removed its distributor cap. “That should clip Sizemore’s wings from driving off.”
The swinging office door fanned the air, and Agent Sutwala’s chiseled face was flushed red from excitement. “Gil tells me they’ve green lighted your deal.”
“Put our terms in writing and have it signed off.” Mr. Kuzawa laughed. “The last time I trusted you Feds, I shipped out to a police action in a cold wasteland.”
Her smile turned wry. “Given your small window of opportunity, Mr. Kuzawa, I’d urge you to trust us. This case is breaking. We’ll soon ferret out what you know, and you’ll have nothing valuable left to trade us.”
His glance at me was sharp. “They’ve boxed us in. We better take her to where it grows.”
“Great but first we rescue Edna.” My head jerked to outside and down the way. “Sizemore is holding her prisoner.”
“Edna is Brendan’s twin sister, so this isn’t just somebody,” said Mr. Kuzawa.
“But Sizemore has lived alone since Ashleigh died,” said Agent Sutwala.
“Did you search the mansion lately?” asked Mr. Kuzawa.
“This morning after he rode off I ran a sweep. I stay in the bungalow out back, and I have the door keys.”
“I want to comb his rooms again. She’s in there. I just know it.” I bristled, expecting Agent Sutwala’s blunt refusal, given our time crunch.
“Ten minutes is all I can afford. Then we have to get to his narcotics source.”
“Fair enough,” I said, warming a little to her willingness to help.
“Are Gil and Earl leading in the cavalry?” asked Mr. Kuzawa.
“Naturally. They’re the regime in charge.”
“Then we’ll wrap this up before they get here.” He spat. “Does Sizemore own any firearms?”
“None are out in plain view, no.”
“Is the pony car yours?” asked Mr. Kuzawa.
“The blue Javelin is, yes.”
“Carry your car keys or Sizemore might scoot off,” said Mr. Kuzawa.
“No worry. My car stays locked and my keys are in my pocket.”
Our hustling arrived at the mansion, and this time no gunfire strafed us. A square of plywood patched our hole bashed in the glass panes to the French doors. She unlocked them, and we filed inside. In spite of Agent Sutwala’s professional help, I felt overwhelmed. We’d dozens of places to scout for Edna. Suppressing a shudder, I racked a 00-buckshot round into my 12-gauge’s chamber.
My clank made Mr. Kuzawa flinch. “Brendan, don’t do that again. Hearing it, I might turn and cut loose firing.”
“Sorry. I’m a little tight.”
The center hallway festooned with fox hunting murals funneled us to the library. Flanked only by the canyons of unread books diverted us on to the kitchen. Depressed by observing the sink of dirty silverware and plates, I pivoted to head on upstairs.
“Hold up, Brendan,” said Agent Sutwala.
This time a detail had arrested her trained investigator’s eye. I’d also given the yellow door behind the pie safe a second look on my last visit in the kitchen. She asked Mr. Kuzawa and me to move the pie safe away from the yellow door. We did. She pulled it out, and the expulsion of a sweet musk wreathed us. Pot smoke and Ashleigh’s favorite fragrance, I recognized. The wooden stairs sloped down into a brick-lined wine cellar. By now, I was a pro at exploring such dark, foreboding places.
Before she could detain me, I crossed the threshold. Trying to avoid any squeaks, I put down my weight at the side of the first tread. After each step down, I froze and listened until I got to the landing. My next moves were even more ticklish. I picked up a chunk of loose masonry and sidearmed it to sail around the landing’s corner.
The thump marked the chunk striking the concrete cellar floor. Braced for the reaction, I hunkered down, my hands covering my head for protection. Rattling automatic rifle fire sprayed out hot rounds and chiseled jagged holes in the brick wall behind me. The flying chips pelted my hands. The ricochets whined and pinged but didn’t nick me after their barrage quit. Not a brilliant move, I realized, the tinnitus singing in my ears.
Nonetheless, we had a read on the drug mules’ position and numbers. Three or four, I estimated. Hearing scuffles meant they came inching closer to the bottom of the stairs. Wired and numb from all the violence, I decided to try for diplomacy.
“You’re cut off,” I called out to them. “It’s gone down the tubes. You better give it up.”
Nervous coughs instead of more gunshots came. “Who’s up there?”
“The full force and authority of the DEA.” Agent Sutwala was at my shoulder on the landing. “There’s no exit out except through us.”
“Maybe we’ll plow through you.”
Mr. Kuzawa who’d joined us had a chilling laugh. “We’re packing 12-gauges, double-ought buck. We’ve trapped you in close quarters. So, bring it on, asshole. Dare you. I’ll take my chances on who comes out on top.”
Nervous coughs sounded again. She knew the most effective way to parley with them.
“Look, we know you’ve got the young lady. Don’t add a kidnapping charge to your rap sheet.”
“Where’s Sizemore?”
“He’s on the run. Be smart. Don’t take the weight for him. Surrender peacefully, flip on him, and plead down to a lesser charge.”
“Either that or we charge in, shotguns blazing away,” said Mr. Kuzawa.
They weren’t up for playing heroes. “What’s your idea then?”
She laid down their surrender terms. “Slide your weapons on the floor within our view. Stand by the stairway in single file, your hands reaching high.”
They had a survivor’s smarts. Banana-clipped automatic rifles scraped over the concrete floor. I counted three. We swept down the steps, our 12-gauges aimed, our fingers snug on the triggers. Keeping one eye on the upstairs, Mr. Kuzawa kicked away their weapons and protected our rear.
The three drug mules, their arms held up, were squat, toad-skinned, and cruel but not dim-witted even when half-stoned. They knew the drill. Serve your time, make parole, and fall back in the queue toting the contraband. I’d been a customer of theirs but not anymore.
“Brendan, snap to and round up Edna. She must be here.”
Mr. Kuzawa’s command spurred me to act. I left them and probed a side tunnel appearing recently excavated. It angled into the danker catacombs. Expecting to see a hydroponics operation set up to grow the reefer, I darted into a chamber. This one contained a bunk bed, its three levels rumpled. The ladder-back chairs sat yanked away from a wood table. On top of it, I saw a pile of shelled crabs, a greasy deck of playing cards, and a plastic bong smudged black from usage. But I ran into no Edna.
This far below ground, I felt too insulated to hear any noises made upstairs in the mansion. This chamber was the barracks to house Sizemore’s couriers transporting his illicit wares to peddle and enrich him. The narcotics profits had financed his political ambitions. Seething rage propelled me to cut down a narrower tunnel into an even more wretched, low-lit cavern. A movement in my peripheral vision spun me in a half-turn. A scruffy captive behind the panel of steel bars had sprung up from the floor.
“Hey, Brendan . . .”
Her husky salutation fell on my ears.
“Edna—you’re alive.” I smiled at her. “And now safe.”
An ecstatic Mr. Kuzawa frisked the drug mules’ pockets to fish out the keys. I led him down to Edna’s cage, and he undid the padlock to open the barred door. She shuffled from her prison, mincing a few tentative steps and wobbled on her feet. Reaching out, Mr. Kuzawa steadied her. “Easy there, girl.” Smiling her thanks, she regained her balance, and we returned to Agent Sutwala holding the drug mules at gunpoint.
Edna’s eyes were lusterless while abrasions and bruises marred her face. She moved her puffy lips. “I thought you’d never find me.”
“Didn’t you hear our gunplay break out?” asked Mr. Kuzawa.
“When?” she replied. “Down here stays quiet as a morgue, and you lose track of time. Where’s Cobb?”
“He’s in town with the other agents,” lied Mr. Kuzawa, his leathery face unexpressive. “Agent Sutwala, please show Edna where she might get cleaned up. We’ll hold things together down here.”
Agent Sutwala assisted Edna up the steps and then returned while Edna scrubbed off some of the grime.
“You told us Sizemore left on horseback earlier,” said Mr. Kuzawa.
“He saddles his Appaloosa and takes long trips over his bridle paths.”
“Where do his bridle paths track?”
“After tracking into the hills, they peter out near some old lake.”
“Sizemore is at Lake Charles,” I said, remembering the horseshoe prints I’d seen there on Saturday. “He’s ridden to Lang’s Teahouse and the old marina. That’s where his goons attacked Cobb and me, but we beat them back.”
The eavesdropping drug mule snorted at me. “I should’ve gone back to blow your shit away, especially since you—”
“But you didn’t, did you?” My glare clashed with the drug mule’s hate-filled eyes. Mr. X, his partner mowed down by my bullets and now rotting on the bottom of Lake Charles, had no part in this conversation.
“I remember Lake Charles is on our topographic maps,” said Agent Sutwala. “Is that where Sizemore grows the pot?”
“Beacoup of it,” replied Mr. Kuzawa. “We saw it with our own eyes.”
“Where is Lake Charles exactly?” asked Agent Sutwala.
“North on this side of Will Thomas Mountain, and it shouldn’t be far the way the crow flies.”
“Take me there,” said Agent Sutwala.
She herded the drug mules down the tunnels to Edna’s former cage and padlocked them inside it. The mouthy one flipped us the bird, and I laughed at him. We found Edna, and Agent Sutwala led us from the mansion. Gil and Earl’s wine-colored sedan hadn’t breezed up the driveway, and there was still no sign of Sizemore. Edna, Agent Sutwala, and I squeezed into my cab truck as Mr. Kuzawa clambered over the tailgate. I saw him fork a thumb over his shoulder at the mansion.
“Set a Zippo to it.”
“Whose? Mine or yours?” I said, rotating the ignition key. He sure did like to burn stuff down. Just then, a flicker of recognition in me solved a riddle. “Just between us, do you set your Zippo to torch the woods for the fire crews to rush in and douse?”
“Why not? The people need work, and Uncle Sam is plenty flush.”
Agent Sutwala dealt us a glance. She didn’t realize after all these years and fires, I’d identified Jerry Kuzawa as our well-intentioned but misguided Robin Hood arsonist. His palm thwacked the top of my cab truck’s roof.
“On to Lake Charles,” he said.