“You’ll do that?”
“Yes,” I said. “Do you know when Joe’s leaving town?”
“Monday, I think.”
She told me where Ernesto lived, then, almost as if she didn’t want to say it, added, “He pushed me.”
“Who?”
“Joe,” she said. “It was late, but I wanted to go out dancing. He said he was tired. I teased him, and he pushed me into the wall.”
I held my tongue as a surge of anger grew inside me.
“He said it was an accident. That he was just teasing back, but he wasn’t. He pushed me. He’ll hurt Ernesto.”
“Go to your place,” I said. “Stay there until Perdue leaves town. I’ll tell him you got sick. I’ll give him back his money if he asks.”
“What about Ernesto?”
“I’ll find him. It’ll be okay.”
Only it wasn’t okay.
Ernesto shared a room in a dingy building about a mile from Fields Avenue. When I got there, the normal chaos of a typical Angeles street had been replaced by something much more sinister.
White vans blocked off each end of the street, but it didn’t stop the curious from walking around them to see what was going on. The real action was toward the middle of the block, in front of Ernesto’s building.
Whatever had happened seemed to have just ended. A dozen soldiers stood near the entrance. They were wearing full battle gear and held machine guns at the ready. At first, I thought they were all Filipino, but the closer I got, I realized that though they were all wearing identical dark uniforms, most of the men appeared to be either Caucasian or African American.
My immediate thought was Americans.
I moved with the crowd, reaching a spot almost directly across the street from the building’s entrance. I knew enough not to put myself out front, so I held back, allowing others to stand in front of me.
After about ten minutes, two men appeared in the doorway. They were carrying a stretcher, complete with a sheet-draped body on top. By the way everyone was acting, I knew the dead man wasn’t one of theirs. And when Joseph Perdue emerged from the building a few moments later to the backslaps of his colleagues, it was pretty evident who was on the stretcher.
Homeland Security had gotten their man.
It was nearly 10 p.m. when Perdue showed up again in my bar. For the first time in a long time I wasn’t sitting on my usual stool. Instead, I’d taken over the back booth and left instructions not to be bothered unless it was really important.
Perdue spotted me right after he came in. He got a beer from Kat, then walked slowly back to my table, not even glancing at the girls on the stage. That was probably a good thing. While I hadn’t told any of them what had happened, most had found out through other means that Ernesto was dead and had a pretty good idea Perdue had something to do with it. The looks they gave him were nothing short of venomous.
“How ya’ doing, Wade?” he asked.
“Fine. You?”
“Doing just great.”
He slid into the other side of the booth without waiting to be asked.
Figuring ignorance was the best route to take, I said, “Haven’t been able to get anything about the guy in your picture.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Problem’s taken care of.”
I said nothing.
“Look. I’m going to be leaving town a little early. Heading out in the morning. Don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“Have a good trip.”
“Actually, I came by to thank you. I had a great time. Lots of fun.”
“That’s what we’re here for,” I said, less than enthusiastically.
He took a deep swig of his beer, then set the bottle on the table. “Goodbye, Wade.” He stood up. “You take it easy, all right?”
I shook his hand. Didn’t want to, but there was no sense in causing a scene. He was leaving town so I wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore.
“Have a safe trip wherever you’re going,” I said.
“I’m heading home,” he said. “Well, D.C., actually. I’m getting promoted.”
“Good for you.”
“Yeah, it is.”
I’d been so wrapped up in wishing he’d just get out of the bar that it wasn’t until after he left that I realized he hadn’t said anything about Ellie. Not one word.
Kat was the one who found her. We actually shut the bar down and I sent the girls out searching in every direction. But leave it to Kat to hunt her down.
Ellie was only a few blocks from the dorm-like room she shared with over a dozen other girls. She was in an alley-Angeles is rife with them-on the ground, her knees pulled up to her chest, and her head lolled back with her mouth open. There was a long gash running from her left temple nearly all the way to her mouth. Blood ran from the wound so I knew she was still alive.
The story I got later was that when she heard Ernesto was dead, she went crazy. All she could think about was killing Perdue. She got a knife and went to Perdue’s hotel. The rest is pretty easy to imagine. She was no match for him. The only reason he didn’t kill her-and I’m guessing here-is because he thought damaging her would be a worse fate.
As it was, what he did to her in less than fifteen minutes took three operations and several months to repair. Even then it wasn’t perfect. The scar that ran down the side of Ellie’s face would always be with her. A reminder not only of Perdue, but of Ernesto.
“Can I ask you a few questions?” the man said.
It was a Monday evening, and in less than an hour the place would be packed for the weekly body-painting contest. But at that moment, we were only half full.
“Of course,” I said.
“Something to drink?” Ellie asked the man. Since returning to work a couple weeks earlier, she had asked if she could work behind the bar with Kat. Who was I to say no?
“Just some water, please,” the man said.
He was the nervous type who probably felt a lot more comfortable in a suit than in the casual wear he had on at that moment.
Ellie set a cold plastic bottle of water in front of him.
“Thanks,” he said.
“I’m Wade Norris,” I said.
“Curtis Knowles.” He held out his hand and we shook.
“What can I do for you, Curtis?” I said.
“I’m with the FBI,” he said.
“A little out of your territory, aren’t you?”
He smiled. “I’m just part of an investigation, that’s all.”
“And your investigation brought you here?”
Knowles looked around. “It is one of the more unusual settings I’ve been in, I’ll tell you that much.” He unscrewed the top of his water but didn’t take a drink. “I’m looking into the disappearance of a federal agent.”
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “Joseph Perdue, right?”
“I realize someone’s already talked to you about this.”
“You’re the third person in two months. One of the others told me Perdue’d been kidnapped.”
“We don’t know anything for sure.”
“He said it was in retaliation for that kid he killed, if I remember right.”
“Terrorist.”
“What?”
“The terrorist he killed. Perdue had uncovered information that linked the man to potential attacks that would have happened right here on your street, Mr. Norris.”
“Really?” I said. “Hadn’t heard that part.”
“It was in the paper.”
“I stopped reading the paper years ago. Too depressing.”
Knowles removed a small notebook from his breast pocket and opened it to one of the pages. “According to my notes, you said you remember Perdue coming into the bar twice, is that correct?’
“I haven’t thought about this since the last time one of you guys came by. But that sounds about right.”
“People have reported seeing him with…a woman.”
I smiled. “So he was getting in a little fun while he was here.”
“The woman was not someone he was seeing,” Knowles said. “Perdue was a good family man.”
“Was?”
Knowles paused, caught by his own words. “At this point, we believe he is most likely dead.”