Lowcountry Punch Read online

  Lowcountry Punch

  Boo Walker

  Also by Boo Walker

  Turn or Burn

  Off You Go (Novella)

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Boo Walker

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Sandy Run Press (sandyrunpress.com)

  Cover art by Karri Klawiter

  For Mom, Dad, and Ben, who made me who I am.

  You are bright stars in my universe.

  Lowcountry Punch

  Table of Contents

  I

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  II

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  III

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  IV

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  I

  “Oh, God, the pride of man, broken in the dust again.”

  - Gordon Lightfoot

  CHAPTER 1

  The Miami I knew wasn’t all G-strings and mojitos. We were undercover, working our way up the stairs of a parking garage in the Latin Quarter, minutes from a cocaine exchange, with no backup. We’d been trying to get to whoever was up there for two weeks and needed to make arrests. I’d be damned if we were going to let them walk away just because there hadn’t been a chance to call it in.

  The three of us walked in tandem, our footsteps echoing through the concrete stairwell. A crane’s demolition ball banged rhythmically in the distance, the driver no doubt rushing to get some work finished before the holidays. I could empathize. I couldn’t wait to get home to my fiancée, Anna. It would be our first Christmas together. I was twenty miles from our home, and I could practically smell Anna’s macaroni casserole bubbling over in the oven, crisping up on the top.

  Like me, Rick Quivers was a special agent in the Drug Enforcement Administration. He had combed back, greased gray hair and wore white leather shoes and linen pants. He was an inch or so taller than I, probably six foot two. His face shined like he’d shaved five minutes ago. We’d borrowed him from the Tampa field office. Rick and I had been working deep cover as muscle guys for John Latell, the other guy with us. John had no idea who we really were or that he was about to be singing “The Little Drummer Boy” from a downtown holding cell on Christmas Day.

  John was in his mid-forties and slightly overweight. One of his eyes didn’t work and stayed put while the other eye probed you up and down when you talked to him. He owned a couple gas stations and sold coke for extra cash, and he’d brought us along in case something went wrong. He had no reason not to trust us: we’d come highly recommended due to some preliminary work of my own, and we’d already done four of these successfully.

  This time, we were meeting his main source and had to make arrests. My supervisor had a quota to meet. If it had been my decision, I would have kept working the ring for a couple months, see what kind of snakes we could shake out of the tree. But, like my bad knee, supervisors and quotas are an unpleasant part of my life I can’t change.

  “What kind of parking garage doesn’t have an elevator?” John asked, breathing like he needed to sit down. “Two days before Christmas, it’s eighty-nine degrees, and I’m sweating like hell. Santa’s gonna have to climb down the damn chimney in his boxers and undershirt. Fucking Miami.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt you to lose a few, would it?” I asked.

  “Thanks, asshole. Not all of us are born looking like gladiators.”

  “It’s all in the breeding. So what’s Santa bringing you this year?”

  He put the working eyeball on me. “Santa don’t come to my house.”

  Santa Claus was most certainly coming to our house. Anna and I had been engaged for almost a year, but I’d known her since I was a boy. Her fascination with Christmas hadn’t diminished since the first day I met her. We had decorated our absurdly oversized tree the morning after Thanksgiving, and, through our engagement, I had inherited her four massive Tupperware boxes of lights, and little dangly elves and nutcrackers, and all sorts of fantasy, and they were everywhere. Our home was the Graceland of Christmas, and if it wasn’t for the joy it brought her, I’d throw all of it in the back of my truck and make someone at Goodwill real happy.

  We reached the fourth floor. Most of the garage was empty. Not many people working late today. Only twelve cars sparsely spread between two lanes. John patted the bag swinging from his shoulder, making sure the money was still there. He’d done that five times since we’d left his car, which he’d parked on the other side of the street. A smart move, I thought. You never know, we might need a fast getaway.

  “There they are,” John said.

  There were two ways down from the top of the garage: the steps or the ramp. The sellers were on the ramp side, standing in a corner, hidden from the lights pointing down from the ceiling. John walked between us. Rick and I both packed Beretta nines. John was carrying, too. If something went wrong, blood would be shed, and it wasn’t going to be ours.

  Two men stood in the darkness. One was holding a bag. They started toward us. Now they were twenty feet away. The light hit their faces. Two Cuban men. I recognized them and froze. My muscles tensed up. I slowly worked my hand toward the gun at my waist. John and Rick stopped with me, feeling my anxiety.

  The Cubans recognized me at the same time. Our eyes locked, and I could tell all three of us knew things were going to hell.

  The two men, Diego and Robert Vasquez, were brothers. Diego, the shorter and younger of the two brothers, had a face scarred by pockmarks. Robert, I knew well. He was a cop and a friend. Seeing me, Robert’s handsome face sagged at first and then sharpened, like a dog picking up a scent. The fear in his eyes told me that he wasn’t there on official duty.

  I’d just caught him slinging coke. “Not good,” I whispered to Rick.

  Robert wasn’t the first dirty cop I’d known, but he was different. He was a dear friend, and a man I owed my life to.

  We began to take steps backward. Agonizing seconds melted away, all of us waiting for someone to make a move.

  Diego reached for his gun. The five of us scattered like marbles. Robert and Diego slipped back into the darkness. No shots were fired. Rick and I took cover behind the nearest parked car, a Cadillac. I leaned my back up against the wheel, protecting myself. He did the same.

  “I know ‘em,” I said to Rick.

  He nodded. “What you wanna do?”

  “What we came here for.”

  I bent down low, peering under the car. The two
brothers were hidden behind a thick column that extended to the wall. There were several cars in between them and the ramp, and then a good open section where they would be exposed. It wasn’t an easy escape. I fished the phone out of my pocket and called in the address.

  I heard a door open back by the stairwell. John Latell was making a run for it. He had decided not to hang around. That was okay. I knew where he lived, and we’d collected piles of evidence against him. The door closed behind him.

  “Lay your guns down, gentlemen,” I said. “This is the end of the line.”

  “Let us go,” Robert replied. “It’s not worth it. You know how this could end.”

  “You’re right. I do. With you and your brother in the back of a patrol car. I don’t make exceptions. So there’s only one way this can go down. Slide your weapons into the light and move out with your hands on your heads. We’ve got men on the way up.”

  “There’s money in it for you. Give us a chance to run down that ramp. You’ll be taken care of. The other one, too.”

  “Not gonna happen, Robert. No way.” I changed tactics. “Diego!” I yelled.

  “Yeah?”

  “Talk some damn sense into your brother! Or neither one of you will make it.”

  He didn’t answer.

  One of them fired at us. I jerked my arms up, making sure nothing was visible. The first shot in a gun battle is the one that triggers the “fight or flight” instinct, something I was trained to accept and work with. I could feel the tunnel vision and audio exclusion trying to taking over, but I stayed focused. Let the adrenaline work to my advantage.

  Two more shots flew by. Bits of the wall rained down from above.

  I could hear the mumbles of an argument.

  “My brother may have doubts about killing you, but I don’t!” Diego yelled. “Think about your fiancée. She seemed like a good woman when we met. You’ve got your whole lives ahead of you. Don’t make me take them away.”

  I didn’t like him talking about Anna at all.

  More quick shots rang out from their side, plugging bullets into the Cadillac, the thunderous sound echoing out into the Miami evening. I rose to a squat, and fired over the hood. I had no problem putting one in Diego, but I didn’t want to shoot Robert.

  He’d saved my life the year before. That’s how we met. The Miami-Dade Police Department was helping us with a raid. I took a bullet in the stomach, and Sergeant Robert Vasquez ran into the line of fire to drag me out. That was the closest I have ever come to death, and if he hadn’t gotten me out of there when he did, I would have died. No doubt in my mind. Only after he had gotten me to safety did he realize he’d been shot in the forearm.

  We ended up in the hospital together and got to know each other well. Anna and his wife Maria became friends. Even our extended families met. Our friendship continued after we left. Backyard barbecues, double dates, and day sails on my Catalina. Robert and his wife had even been trying to teach us to tango, but teaching T.A. Reddick to dance is like teaching yoga to a brick. It’s not pretty and it’s not gonna work.

  Despite our history, I wasn’t letting anyone go. All I have is the law. That is what I do. Make exceptions and everything breaks down. I am an enforcer.

  “Damn it, Robert!” I yelled. “Control your brother. There’s nothing I can do.”

  Sirens began to sound but they weren’t close enough. This would be over long before we had help.

  A shot ripped into the front tire of the Cadillac. The rubber spat air and the car dipped forward. A full minute of gunfire exchange ensued. I knew someone was going to die. Concrete powder from the missed rounds smoked up around us. Rick stood and fired with more precision, resting his forearms on the trunk, attempting to catch one of them as they peeked around the corner of the column. As I rose up to join him, a bullet snapped Rick’s shoulder back and he fell.

  I shuffled to him on my knees. “You alive?”

  His eyes were open. “I’m all right.” He tried to sit up and winced.

  “You’re not going anywhere. I’ll take care of them. Watch my back from down here. Shoot under the car.”

  Movement. Footsteps.

  They were trying to get out of there. Diego was moving backward, his gun pointing directly at me, rounds coming my way. I stood and pulled the trigger, aiming for center mass. He’d brought it on himself. My bullet missed and moved further into the darkness. It was only then that I saw Robert directly behind Diego, running away from me. The bullet ripped into the back of Robert’s head, and a spray of blood splatter shot up into the air as he dropped.

  Diego yelled, looked at me, and then at his brother. He knelt down next to Robert. I followed him, coming around the Cadillac.

  From ten feet away, I saw Robert’s skull, the gray of his brain, the dark blood oozing onto the concrete.

  Diego rose and charged me. Left his gun on the ground like shooting me wasn’t going to satisfy his rage. He planted his shoulder into my stomach and pushed me backwards until we hit another car. My elbow cracked the driver’s side window. I lost my gun but put both fists together and hammered them into his back. He dropped. Then he looked up and threw a solid punch into my stomach. I slugged him with a right hook that knocked him down. His head bounced a couple times.

  But the anger inside of him, after seeing his dead brother, was hard to compete with. He wasn’t feeling pain. He popped up and side-kicked me in the groin, this time making perfect contact. Like jeopardizing-my-future-kids contact. I dropped and the pain ran through me. He kicked me again, this time in the face. I lost control for a moment.

  Then I heard Rick yelling, warning Diego he’d fire. Diego started running. Rick fired several rounds at him to no avail.

  I collected myself and looked for my gun. Finally saw it a few feet away. I reached for it, sat up, and fired towards Diego. He’d made it too far. Jumped over the side wall. I didn’t know if he could make a three story jump or not. Didn’t know what was below. The sirens were much louder now. I ran to the rail. Couldn’t see him in the darkness. Only a line of bushes where he’d fallen.

  I dialed a number and reached my contact. “Officer down. Get an ambulance up here. I have one subject on the run. Cuban male. Early thirties. Khaki shorts with sandals. Dark shirt. He just leapt off the edge on the north side.”

  I turned. Rick was stumbling toward me, holding his shoulder, his gun in his left hand. The blood had colored his shirt. His face was pale.

  “I’m a shitty shot with my left,” he said, shaking his head. “Couldn’t get him.”

  “How’s the shoulder?”

  “Hurts.”

  “Give me a minute, all right?”

  “Yeah.”

  I knelt next to Robert’s dead body. The friend. The brother. The cop I had killed. I took his lifeless hand in my own. “You didn’t give me a choice, brother. I’ll do my best to look out for Maria. See you on the other side. Merry Christmas.”

  I let go of his hand and his windbreaker opened, revealing his revolver. I touched it. Cold metal. He’d never drawn it. Never fired a shot.

  ***

  I ran as fast as I could down the stairs. Three at a time. Left Rick to explain the situation, so I could get out of there before the questions came. For a lawman, firing your piece takes explaining. Killing a man takes a lawyer. But if that man happens to be a cop, you need divine intervention.

  I dialed Anna for the fourth time and left another message. “Anna, call me back. Please. Something’s happened. Lock the doors and go upstairs. Stay away from the windows. The police are on the way.” Frustrated, I snapped the phone shut. “Damn it, where is she!” I burst out of the parking garage doors into the night. Patrol cars were coming from my left. I ran right.

  Panting, running at a dead sprint, I called my supervisor. “Alex, please listen to me.”

  “Reddick, what the hell is going on? Where are you?”

  “I’m leaving the scene.”

  “Your ass better turn around!” he yelled.
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  “I need you to listen to me. Send some people over to my house. Anna could be in trouble. I knew the buyers. We lost one of them, and he may know where I live. I killed his brother.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “Let me know if they find him.”

  “You know I will.”

  Rick and I had ridden with John Latell en route to the buy, so I had to find another way to get home. Three streets down, nearly out of breath, I saw lights and heard music. I ran that way. It was a biker bar. The neon sign high above the door read: CHAINED. The E flashed on and off, not much life left. Five men clad in leather were standing out in the lot smoking cigarettes, laughing at someone’s joke. The Lynyrd Skynyrd track blaring out of the speakers must have muffled the earlier gunshots. I looked at the guy in a goatee sitting on his Harley.

  “I’m a Federal Agent. I need your bike.”

  He blew out some smoke and smiled. “You can go—”

  I didn’t let him finish. Pulled out my nine and pointed it at him. “Get off your bike. Give me the keys.”

  “Jesus. All right.” He started to get off. I pointed the gun at the group before they got involved. Their hands went up.

  “Don’t try anything. He’ll get his bike back.”

  I tore out of the parking lot. Diego isn’t dumb enough to go after her, I told myself.

  I sped down the highway and made the twenty-minute drive in an agonizing twelve.

  There were two patrol cars in my driveway, their lights still flashing. Anna and I lived in a brick rambler with a quarter-acre yard. The Christmas tree lit up the living room. Candlelight in every window. I ran up to the officer standing in the yard. “I’m Agent Reddick. This is my house. Did you find her?”

  “Agent Reddick, you’re gonna want to go inside.”

  “What happened?”

  “Please, sir. The kitchen.”

  No.

  Anna Tate was my first kiss. I spent many childhood summers living with my grandparents in Charleston, SC, in the house where my father grew up. Anna and her family lived next door. The summer after fourth grade, the girl I’d been digging in the sand with all those years had suddenly become beautiful. I’d never really noticed her until then. We kissed that summer and every summer after. I saw her my senior year at my father’s funeral, then we both went to college and lost touch. The next time I saw her was November, just over a year ago. I’d heard she was writing a travel column for the Miami Herald, and when I accepted the post at the Miami field office, I looked her up.