Bowen wouldn’t know. Few people ever told him yes.
Making his way down the hallway past the kitchen toward the alley exit where the vehicles were staged, he passed a smiling Hispanic woman wearing blue hospital scrubs. She stood beside a train of canvas laundry carts working at a huge blue-and-white sheet-pressing machine that was called a mangler — a little factoid Bowen would never have known had he not explored the back hallways of the hotel.
“Augusto.” The woman smiled, raising dark eyebrows up, then down to flirt. “I take a break in five minutes. Why don’t we sail away on that boat you are always talking about? My husband, he would never be able to track us down.”
“Ah, Josephina,” Bowen chuckled. “Mi Corazon es perdido en ti.” He used six of the dozen Spanish words he knew — and those from a Brooks and Dunn song. My heart is lost in you. “But I think I could not keep up with a woman like you.”
Josephina was old enough to be his mother, but she gave him a sly wink that would have scared a lesser man. It was all innocent flirtation.
As advance deputy, Bowen made it his job to know the backstairs staff by name. It took a little extra time, but gave him two dozen more sets of eyes and ears to help protect the judge.
Saying good-bye to Josephina, Bowen worked his way down the hall, past industrial driers that hummed and thumped and filled the air with the pleasant smell of warm cotton. The hotel was built on a hill, so he exited the steel delivery doors at ground level, across the street from a Panera Bakery and a Starbucks. The Suburban and Lincoln Town Car they used for the protective detail were parked around the corner, but they would come this way en route to the courthouse in Alexandria. It was Bowen’s job to let them know the area was clear of any possible threats.
It was still early and crowds of commuters ducked in and out of the bakery and Starbucks, getting their morning bagel and coffee fixes before heading off to work. A group of three youths in their early twenties hung out near the doorway to the coffee shop. Their swaggering demeanor caught Bowen’s attention as he crossed the street. They wore baggy jeans, loose NFL jerseys, and colorful tennis shoes. One, the tallest of the three, wore a ball cap turned sideways. But their clothing, their race, or the fact that there were three of them was not what aroused his suspicions. It was the way they looked at the people walking by.
They were predators looking for someone to catch unawares. A hunter himself, Bowen watched a young woman just a few feet away from the boys, and recognized her as just the kind they would target. She had a messenger bag over her shoulder and a rolled copy of the morning paper under her arm. Her eyes were glued to the screen of a smartphone and her ears plugged with buds that piped in music to block out the noises — and threats — of the world around her.
Bowen picked up his pace, watching the kid with the ball cap step out as the girl walked by. She was too close for Bowen to reach her in time so he shouted, trying to get her or, at the very least, Ball Cap’s attention before he sucker punched her in another senseless game of “knockout” — just to watch her fall.
“Hey!” Bowen yelled as loud as he could, running now.
Even wearing earbuds, the girl heard something and looked up in time to see the kid swinging at her with a doubled fist. The blow still came in hard, but it hit her shoulder instead of her head. She staggered sideways.
His knockout sucker punch foiled, the kid turned to run, and came face-to-face with Deputy August Bowen.
His two buddies just stood there, waiting to see how their friend handled a full-grown man.
Realizing he didn’t have time to get away, Ball Cap bladed his body, bringing his right arm back as if to chamber it for a punch.
Bowen had been a boxer since junior high school, and sent in a left jab before the kid even had a chance to make a good fist. The jab put him in perfect line for a right cross, which in turn set him up for Bowen’s left hook — a powerful blow that nearly took the kid’s head off. With punks like this a simple combination was all it took. Bowen didn’t even have to get clever. Reeling, Ball Cap’s main problem seemed to be trying to figure out which way to fall. Bowen helped him with a wicked uppercut that snapped his teeth shut like a gunshot and shut out his lights.
The deputy turned to look at the other two, but they’d wisely decided to vanish somewhere between the cross and the left hook.
Bowen flipped the kid over on his belly and handcuffed him, patting him down for weapons as a gathering crowd cheered and applauded. He got on his radio and briefed the protective detail supervisor, letting her know what had happened. She advised they would take the alternate route away from the hotel, and told him to hang back with his collar and fill in Arlington PD when they arrived.
Bowen showed his badge to the victim, who seemed more shaken up than anything. She was anxious to stay and give her statement to the police. Scribbling something on a piece of her newspaper, she shoved it toward Bowen with a shaky hand.
“Here’s my number,” she said, smiling. “You know, in case you need it for your report… or just want to call me…”
Bowen’s cell phone began to buzz in the pocket of his suit, but an Arlington squad car rolled up so he ignored it for the moment.
He made his excuses to the girl and turned to hold up his credentials.
“Knockout game?” the officer said.
“Yep.” Bowen grinned. “And you can maybe add assault on a federal officer because his chin sort of hurt my fist.” He’d been known to cross three lanes of traffic and pull his car over just to right the smallest of wrongs, but he’d prayed for the day he was around when some delinquent turd decided to play the knockout game
Bowen winked at the girl as his phone began to buzz again. He looked at the officer, holding up the phone. “Sorry,” he said. “I need to take this.”
“Hello,” he said, pressing the phone to the ear without the pigtail radio wire hanging out of it. He walked down the street a few steps.
“Deputy Bowen.” The caller was female and spoke in the snapped speech of someone on a mission. “Do not say my name out loud, but do you recognize who this is?”
“I do now,” Bowen said. Even when she was rushed, there was no mistaking the sultry tones of Ronnie Garcia, peppered with just a hint of Cuban spice. Hers was one of the few voices that, like the voluptuous Jessica Rabbit from the cartoon, actually belonged to the lips that made the noise. “Who else besides you and that boyfriend of yours would get all spy games on me?”
“True,” Garcia said. “How are you?”
“I’m well,” he said, chuckling at the pleasantries. “What can I do for you?”
“I need to ask you a favor,” she said. “But I have to warn you that it could get you into serious trouble.”
Bowen groaned inside. Just being assigned the Jericho Quinn fugitive case had nearly gotten him relegated across the river to work the DC Superior Court cellblock — otherwise known as “Marshals Service Hell.” Still, dismissing the fact that Quinn had beaten the snot out of him when they were both still in the military, he was a good man and there were damn too few of those.
“What’s the favor?” Bowen asked when he was well away from the Arlington PD officer and the growing crowd.
“I can’t talk about it on the phone,” Garcia said. “We need to meet.”
“Okay,” he said. “Come by the courthouse. I’ll be there most of the day after I finish up here.”
“That won’t be possible,” Garcia said. “I’ll explain it all when we meet. Someplace public.”
“Public?”