CHAPTER-12.
Saturday morning we were back in action. Donald and Jill were up and dressed when I got up. Thankfully they had made coffee. Jana joined us before I finished my first cup. Donald was ready to leave because Saturday is a very busy day for retail people and his father would need him at the store, so he said his good byes and hopped onto his Harley.
Jana said that she also had to head off to work soon but then asked what Jill and I were going to do today. We started talking about the mission that had started this whole mess, that being buying some new furniture for my house. I had pretty much abandoned the idea but Jill thought we should spend the day hunting for bargains.
I am not sure whether Jill or Jana first suggested it but all of a sudden we were talking about “Harry Hines Bazaar” which is a big flea market in Dallas. It is not as big as Trader’s Village which Jill and I had originally planned, but it was one Jana was more familiar with as she sometimes shopped there for things to sell in her shop. Harry Hines Bazaar was different from Traders Village. They both rented space to just about anyone who wished to sell things, but Traders Village was mostly out of doors where as the Bazaar was all inside one large building. This meant that the shop owners would not have to remove all of their inventory each night whereas that would be required at Traders Village. Leaving the inventory in a secured weather-proof area over night allowed the shop owner to keep a larger inventory on hand, and the merchants are more likely to spend a bit of money on new merchandise to vend.
Of course the previous week when Jill and I were actually shopping we had rented a truck and we did not have one reserved for today. Jana told us that what she had done in the past was spend a day buying things and paying for them and then showing up the next day to pick them up. She would normally shop on Wednesdays and pick up her purchases on Thursdays, that way she could get everything done early in the day and open her own store just a little late on those days.
She suggested that Jill and I try the same thing. Go in one of our cars and just shop today, Saturday, and if we bought any big pieces arrange for a truck to pick them up on Sunday.
Jana scooted off to her store while Jill and I mounted Jill’s two year old VW Bug. Expertly Jill piloted the Bug onto the highway 183 right in front of my house heading east. From there she quickly got into the left lane so we could get onto Northwest Highway. Just a few exits down was Harry Hines Blvd and just a block or two north was the Bazaar. The entire trip took only about ten minutes.
It was only about ten A.M. when we arrived, but the parking lot was already almost full. Jill found a spot that she could fit in and we locked up the Bug. Armed with our platinum cards we headed inside.
I had seen Harry Hines Bazaar from the outside many times but this was my first time inside. It was like a loud bustling carnival. The crowd of shoppers was a good mix of ages and ethnicities but virtually every vendor was Hispanic. All the music which was blaring was Hispanic. The food vendors sold burritos and tacos. I was happy I had Jill with me because she is fluent in Spanish whereas I might know half a dozen phrases that all have to do with finding the nearest cold beer or bathroom.
The Bazaar was one of those huge buildings that had a concrete floor and was subdivided into stalls using two by fours and chicken wire. I have not checked into the arrangements but it seemed you could rent just about any sized space you needed and they would quickly build it for you. At one time I am sure they had it laid out in a simple to follow geometric pattern but they had added and deleted and changed it so many times that it was now a maze.
Jill and I tried to find a way to visit each booth in a logical path but ended up getting lost several times and running into several dead ends that separated us from the store we were trying to get to by a single layer of chicken wire. There were many clothing vendors but no changing rooms so we had to buy things based on faith and estimate. Still, for two girls with credit cards, the prices were just too good to pass up and we ended up with a couple of bags of clothes. We never did see any furniture we were interested in. What little furniture there was seemed to be new cheap stuff rather than older stuff built well enough to last until antiquity.
We had been in the Bazaar about two hours and had finally gotten through it. Jill had to go potty but I was tired of the noise so rather than waiting for her I took her bags and her key ring and headed to the parking lot. As I approached her car I saw a young boy with a brick banging on one of Jill’s car windows. I shouted at him and ran towards the car.
It was a trap. There were five of them. Each male, Hispanic, and small. Each wearing leather and mustachioed. Tattoos covering arms and necks. Each also swinging a chain with some sort of weight at the end.
The beat down lasted only about a minute. I survived it by covering my face with one of the shopping bags and falling to the ground in the fetal position. They swung the chains all over for just a few seconds and then it stopped for a few seconds when one of them bent down and shouted at me “You are sticking your nose where it don’t belong bitch!” Then the beating started again.
The stings from the chains hurt a lot but not as much as the kicks from their boots. I struggled to keep consciousness but lost the struggle.
I woke up surrounded by paramedics calling my name. Apparently a parking lot security guard had blown a whistle just about the time Jill had spotted the melee and when the whistle had blown the men had scattered. The security guard was correct in protecting me rather than chasing the perpetrators.
After the paramedics woke me up they hustled me into an ambulance. They had to stop the bleeding in several places and I soon found myself topless and bleeding in front of a growing crowd. Before I let them close the ambulance door though I got Jill’s attention. I asked her the condition of her car and apparently they had broken two windows but she could drive it. Additionally I had not been robbed because they found her keys and our packages.
I reached in my jeans pocket and pulled out a bill. Thankfully it turned out to be a hundred. I gave it to the security guard and told him to ride to the hospital with Jill and take a cab back, which he gladly agreed to do. I made Jill swear that she would call nobody at all and told her it was important. She agreed and got into her car.
They wanted to take me to Parkland hospital because it was closest but I told the driver I wanted Baylor in Irving and he didn’t argue. I remember two things from the ambulance ride. The first is that I could hear the siren but it did not seem very loud. The second is that one of the medics offered me a shot for the pain and I refused him because I wanted to stay awake. Once I refused though my body really started hurting.
At the hospital they got me into a sterile looking room where a nice nurse stripped me naked, washed me off, put on a few more bandages until all the bleeding had stopped, and got me into one of those hospital robes that lets the whole world see your hiney if you aren’t careful. The whole time she was examining me the only thing that was going through my mind was that I hoped that I did not have any ligature marks on my wrists that I might have to explain. Apparently my little bondage love session with Jana from the previous night either did not leave any telltale signs or the nurse wasn’t interested. The nurse told me a doctor would be right in to check on me and I directed her to let my friend Jill in as soon as she arrived.
Jill got there first. She was white as a ghost but turned a liquid gray when she saw me. As of then I had not yet seen my face and apparently I had dropped the shopping bag after I had passed out and not avoided every single kick. She refused to let me see a mirror. A doctor soon arrived and before she shooed Jill out of the room I made sure Jill took custody of my jeans. Since I rarely carry a purse my jeans were loaded down with credit cards and licenses and money and such.
The doctor however at my request let Jill stay in the room while I was examined. There were more bruises than cuts. I was tender in a couple of places. She told me they would have to do some x-rays and then they would admit me. She promised to get the x-rays scheduled as quickly as possible and also told me there was a cop waiting to see me.
The uniformed officer was female and about my age. She went right to work explaining that a crime had been committed and apologized that she would have to document the wounds as soon as possible which is why she was carrying a large camera with her. Due to where the bruises were I had to get all the way naked for the photo shoot and she took pictures from head to toe front to back. I was pretty sure I wasn’t as cute as the centerfold of this month’s Playboy so I said a silent prayer that the case would never go to court and have the photos entered into evidence which would make them a matter of the public record and therefore in the public domain as soon as the trial concluded.
As soon as the photo session was completed the officer started asking the usual questions you would expect about time and place and description of the perpetrators and so forth but I refused to answer any of her questions demanding that she call Detective Samuels in Dallas instead. Since we were at Baylor in Irving and the crime had actually occurred in Dallas she was happy to agree to this.
When the cop left us Jill and I were alone for a few minutes and as soon as we were I told her the worst fear that had been building up in me ever since I woke up in pain. I had clearly heard the man say that I was sticking my nose in where it did not belong. That meant that he was connected to the cases we were working, and only myself, Jill, and Jana knew we were going to be at Harry Hines Bazaar.
Briefly Jill and I discussed keeping that piece of information from Samuels when he took our statements but decided it would probably be better to divulge all to him.
An orderly arrived with a wheelchair so I left Jill in my examination room while he rolled me down to the x-ray department. It did not take as long as I had expected but they did have to take skeletal photos head to toe. Between the police officer in the hospital room and the x-ray tech doing his thing, I do believe this day was the one where I was photographed more than any other.
They wheeled me from there not back to the exam room but instead to one of the regular rooms on the ICU floor where I was being admitted. Eric Samuels and Jill were in the room when I arrived. The orderly got me into the bed and a nurse immediately jabbed a needle into one of my veins starting an IV saline drip.
Samuels sent Jill out of the room and started taking my statement. I pretty much told it as it happened and about the only real question he asked was whether I thought I could identify any of the men. I told him I got a pretty good look at two of the men as well as the boy who had been trying to break the car windows with the brick. He promised to get me some mug books to look through.
He would, of course, interview Jill separately to check for any inconsistencies in our versions of the story. Hopefully there wouldn’t be any.
Finally, with my story faithfully reported to my detective friend I did request from the nurse something for the pain. She was only gone a few minutes and returned with something in a hypodermic that she shot into the IV. I lost conscientiousness before Jill returned to the room.
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From the dark I wandered easily towards a silvery glow not too far down the road. I was perhaps seven years old and dressed in the shorts and a tank top that I had preferred back then. As the light got slowly brighter I could hear, still from a good deal of distance away, the chirping of birds, or was that crickets? It really didn’t matter much because either would have drawn my attention.
I strolled with a purpose away from the dark very curious about where I was going and what I would find when I got there. I was carrying some wicker thing that some how resembled an Easter basket but instead of brightly colored eggs the basket contained things like lock picks and a magnifying glass and a small digital camera. There was also, for some reason, in the basket, a picture of Basil Rathbone dressed as Sherlock Holmes.
The silvery light yielded to the bright orange that a child would pick to color the sky on a bright sunny day. It was almost blinding but the warm heat of the sun felt good on my skin warming me from a chill that I didn’t even realize I had.
I heard my mother yell at me for the one-millionth time to tie my shoe so I looked down and sure enough my big old sneakers were both flopping untied laces as I strolled along. I stopped and put the basket down and sat in the grass trying to tie the shoes. I made the two loops of rabbit ears with the laces but I could not remember which one was supposed to chase the other into the rabbits hole. I almost started crying so the Easter bunny stopped, put down her full basket of colorful eggs and tied my shoes for me. As the bunny completed this little motherly task she grabbed up her basket and hopped away. She was long gone by the time I realized that she had taken my basket with my tools of the trade instead of her own leaving me with the useless basket of brightly colored eggs.
I picked up the basket of eggs and started chasing after her desperately trying to catch up and losing ground. As I ran along the sound of the chirping slowly gave way to a dull roar that seemed to get closer and closer and also seemed to be coming from behind me. As the roar got louder and closer I realized I was no longer running but rather hopping on both feet and a large round white fluffy tail was growing on my backside.
The roar quickly turned into a large jeep with huge tires that was chasing me. It was driven by a large cartoon playing card that was the five of diamonds with a very nasty grimace on his face. He got closer and closer and I hopped with all my might with the precious eggs dropping out as I went, and the big tires of the jeep would crush the eggs leaving colorful egg goop in a five diamond pattern along our path.