The Innocents

by David Putnam

  Wicks said nothing.

  I thought about it some more, plugging in these new pieces to the puzzle. “It was the kid in the alley, wasn’t it?” I asked. “The one running right at me. The one that almost got away. The one Blue chased down and gunned in the back with a shotgun.”

  Blue’s words sounded in my head: Be sure to tell them he had a gun in his hand and that he was running right at you.

  Wicks said nothing.

  “Tell me.”

  I read his blank expression as he tried to throw me off. But it didn’t work.

  “No.”

  “Wait,” I said. Shock set in. “It wasn’t either one of those two, was it? Then that means it has to be—Oh, you’re kiddin’ me. Not the other one, not the poor guy over by the truck hit in the chest with the shotgun? Not the robbery victim?”

  “No. Stop it, Bruno. Just let it go.”

  “How did Blue know that guy would be at that gas station, driving that stake bed truck, on that particular night during our surveillance? Tell me or I’m out. Tell me right now.” I stopped short before I said, “I’ll take it to the press.” I couldn’t; Wicks and the chief trusted me. It didn’t matter anyway. I’d been a part of the killing, a part of the plan to block the alley with our patrol car. If it did come out, no way would anyone believe I wasn’t involved.

  Wicks let out a long breath. “The EME, the Mexican Mafia, set that guy up, the guy driving the stake bed. They sent him there on some bullshit pretense, told him to go there to pick someone up, a heroin courier from Mexico. We didn’t tumble to it until it was too late. We thought he actually was going there to meet with someone. You have to understand, we only had one end of the information and even that came to us cryptic. Blue could’ve just as easily been told to take down the courier in a dope arrest. He’d also been doing that sort of thing for EME, taking out the competition.”

  I sat there, stunned. “What a mess. Jesus, what a mess.” And at the same time what a perfectly executed murder. Blue did it with such bravado that no one could question it. Amazing. I said, “Good thing you weren’t there. You dodged a bullet that time.”

  But still, having the knowledge and not doing enough to stop it created an enormous liability problem.

  If it got out.

  “I would’ve been there,” Wicks said, “but if something did happen, just like it did, then my name would be all over those reports. I couldn’t risk it. Not when—”

  I cut him off and finished it for him. “When you were supposed to be on five days’ admin leave for the killing in the alley at 123rd and Central? The killing of Damien Frakes Jr.?”

  That’s the first time I mentioned that I knew about Frakes. Wicks did a great job finding Frakes, going after him, standing up to him. Only at what sacrifice?

  If he’d been at the robbery surveillance, being the only one with the wiretap knowledge, he would have seen the error when Blue changed positions, setting himself up for the kill.

  My boss, Lieutenant Wicks, nodded, “That’s right, five days’ admin leave.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I GOT HOME from the barbecue late and opened the front door to my daughter crying. Dad held her and paced the small living room floor, gently bouncing her in his arms.

  I hurried in. “Is something wrong? What’s the matter with her?”

  “Take it easy, Son. This little girl is just a little colicky, that’s all. And she probably misses her mother, or at least a woman’s touch.”

  “Here, let me have her.”

  So small and delicate. So small in my huge hands.

  I loved to chase violent criminals on the street, but the idea of holding my own daughter scared the hell out of me. And yet, at the same time, I had the overwhelming need to be closer to her.

  Dad pulled away. “No, no, why don’t you get some rest and you can take the second shift in about three hours.”

  “Second shift? You think she’s going to be crying that long?”

  Dad just smiled and shook his head at my naïveté. “What time do you have to work?” He spoke over the wail of the baby.

  “Tomorrow morning at eight.”

  “You’ve been burning the candle at both ends and you need to be sharp. Sometimes your life depends upon it. You better get some sleep. I just deliver the mail and that’s not all that dangerous.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “I know what’s best.”

  “I know you do.”

  “What is it? Something else is wrong.”

  Even with my daughter as a crying distraction, he’d been able to read me.

  “Dad, I got transferred.”

  His expression shifted to one of concern. “What happened? Was it because of all that blood on your coat and shirt the night before last? Was that what it was? I’m real sorry, Son. I know how excited you were to have that new job.”

  Wicks told me not to tell anyone that the transfer wasn’t real. The way he phrased it, “You can’t tell one swingin’ dick. And that means absolutely no one. It’s a part of working undercover. That’s part of the life of an undercover. It’s the number-one thing you need to get into your head. You have to be playing the game every second. You can’t trust anyone. No one. The word slips out and you’re through. Dead. Are you getting my meaning here?”

  I couldn’t lie to my father—I wouldn’t lie to my father.

  “It’s not a real transfer. I’m going undercover. I’m going to be working with the Lynwood narco street team.” I raised my voice a little to be heard over my daughter.

  “Ah, jeez, Son, that’s not good.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  I hadn’t even told him the worst part, the part about going after two dirty cops. How did he know that it wasn’t good? Did he know something I didn’t?

  “I don’t know much about your job,” he said, “but working undercover has got to be one of the most dangerous positions in the department. You’re out there all by yourself, without a radio, without all your gear.”

  He hadn’t figured it out after all. He’d cut me off before I could tell him about the who and the why of the assignment. And if he worried about just working undercover, he’d go ballistic if I told him the part about trying to build a case against two very dangerous cops. “I’ll be all right, Dad. You don’t have to worry about me.”

  “But I do. You know I do. And I always will.”

  “Here,” I said, “let me have her.” Her wailing cut through flesh and bone and sliced right down into the exposed nerves.

  He handed her over.

  All at once I was struck by her softness, her warmth, her tiny size—her delicate vulnerability. The realization finally set in that this was my daughter. My chest expanded, shoving out my ribs to make room for my bigger heart—for the love I now experienced for my baby girl. I gently bounced her, put my lips close to her ear, and cooed. She smelled of baby powder and of an unseen newness I automatically linked to innocence.

  She stopped crying.

  Dad smiled. “Well, I’ll be a son of a gun.”

  Tears welled in my eyes. I turned to the side, away from Dad, a little ashamed of my weak emotional state. Dad reached out and put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Why don’t you go on to bed, Dad,” I said. “I’ll take the first watch.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I DROVE MY Ford Ranger into the employee lot, all the way around the back of Lynwood Station, and parked in a slot twenty yards or so away from the single-wide mobile home. The mobile, my new home until further notice.

  I shut the truck down and sat watching. The truck ticked as it cooled. To the right, or west, over by the red-bricked station, black-and-white patrol cars drove in and out of the motor pool shed area, deputies going about their daily routine, all friends of mine. A large part of me already missed patrol, the simplicity of it. Just chasing standard everyday street crooks and murderers.

  Wooden steps and a small landing painted green fronted a door at each end o
f the mobile home, one side for OSS—Operation Safe Streets—the other for the street narcotics team, with an interior wall in between. To the left of the mobile home, or east, a ten-foot-tall chain-link fence with coiled concertina wire at the top ran the entire perimeter of the parking lot. A sidewalk bordered the other side of the fence. Beyond the sidewalk, a residential street, and beyond that a well-manicured neighborhood, all with houses free of gang graffiti.

  A short Hispanic male ran in from Bullis Road, the same way I’d entered. He came down the long drive and into the parking lot. He ran by with the two rows of cars in between for cover and went over to the mobile home, the narco side.

  Blue.

  Running in Lynwood wasn’t a healthy proposition, not with all the gangs moving around shooting at each other, especially if you were a member of the opposing team: the cops. Foolish. True to form, though, for Blue: bold and foolish.

  He wore green Miami Dolphins running shorts and a yellow tank top, LASD colors. His bodybuilder shoulders and arms, along with his face, glistened with sweat. A regular athletic tube sock covered his right hand. An odd place to wear a sock, it made him out as a puppet master on the cheap. Maybe he had a rash or dry skin and needed the sock to keep the aloe moist.

  He climbed the steps and stopped on the stoop facing the parking lot. He looked over the two rows of cars, right at me—at least in my direction.

  Could he really see me from that distance? Did he have that kind of tuned-in instinct? Did he know what kind of car I drove?

  Seven thirty in the morning; I didn’t need to report for another thirty minutes. Now I felt guilty. He’d arrived early to work out, conscientious and disciplined, another facet of the contradiction.

  Still standing on the stoop, Blue turned and faced the direction of the ten-foot chain-link fence and the neighborhood on the other side. He pulled off the athletic tube sock revealing a small revolver. He set it on the railing.

  Oh, a gun. That’s how he could run with confidence on the streets of Lynwood. Lord help anyone who tried to mess with this guy, a Hispanic running in an all-black neighborhood with a puppet sock on his hand.

  Without any pretense, he pulled down the front of his Dolphins shorts, took his penis in hand—one abnormally large for such a short man—and urinated off to the side of the landing.

  I couldn’t believe the balls of this guy, right out in the open, the public right across the street, in plain view through the chain-link fence. He finished, shook, put his penis away, grabbed his gun, and disappeared inside the open door.

  I took a deep breath, sighed, got out, locked my door, and walked in between the cars to my new unit of assignment.

  My feet thumped going up the four wooden steps to the landing. I hesitated and then entered. To the left, a row of filing cabinets abutted the end wall, filling the entire space, side to side. To the right, three desks on each side faced the outside walls and left a narrow aisle in between. Thibodeaux sat at the middle desk on the right. He looked up and glared. Blue stood by the last desk, naked, wiping his brown and muscular body down with a damp hand towel.

  Two circular bruises, both loud and red inside purple star bursts the size of oranges, stood out like beacons, one high on his abdomen, the other higher, on his upper right chest. He didn’t grimace or move with any favoritism to his injuries. At least he didn’t let it show.

  “Hey, Dirt, look who’s here,” Blue said, not slowing in his post-run hygiene. “It’s Bruno, the Bad Boy Johnson, come to pay us a visit.” He finished, took a pair of underwear off his desk, and stepped into them. “What can we do for you, Deputy Johnson?”

  “I’m reporting for duty.”

  Surprised, Blue looked at Thibodeaux, took a folded pair of denim pants off his desk, shook them out, and stepped into them. “That right? You working here now?”

  “That’s right, didn’t anyone tell you?”

  “Nope, and it doesn’t really matter; we can use you.” He walked the short distance, buttoning up his pants, and offered his hand. “Welcome.”

  I didn’t want to, but I took his hand and shook. I fought the urge to wipe my hand on my pants.

  “Well,” Thibodeaux said, “I, for one, don’t think it’s a good idea to have him working here with us.”

  Thibodeaux shot me a scowl. He couldn’t get over that he’d dropped his gun in the dirt while an armed suspect ran right for us in the alley off Mona. He let his anger eat away at him, anger that I’d been the one to see his dangerous and almost deadly error. He was angry that I alone kept his embarrassing little secret.

  “Ah, come on, Dirt,” Blue said. “Stand up and shake the man’s hand. Welcome him to the team.”

  I found it difficult to accept this nice and congenial Blue over the one I’d experienced Saturday night in the patrol car on the ride back to the station. This new Blue put me on my guard.

  “Shit, Blue, we don’t know diddly-squat about this guy. For all we know he could be—”

  “Go on, shake his hand.”

  Thibodeaux stood and offered his hand. “Good to have you aboard.” His tone didn’t reflect his words. He dropped back into his county-issue chair, which creaked and rattled and threatened to break down.

  I would’ve really liked to hear what he started to say before Blue cut him off. For all they knew I could be . . . what? Could Thibodeaux be that stupid, about to say something like that?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  LIGHT FOOT TREADS on the wooden steps outside alerted us to a visitor. We all turned to look. A woman with lustrous hair stuck her head in. “Is this the Lynwood street narco team?” She had wild brown eyes, a color that matched her hair, and a small mouth with dimples at the corners of her smile. Her creamy smooth skin didn’t have a blemish, except one. An obvious half-moon scar under her right eye added to her mystique. Her tight denim pants revealed slim hips and long legs. She wore a narrow brown leather belt with a pancake holster and a 4” blue steel .38 revolver, department issue.

  Ah, a deputy sheriff.

  Thibodeaux smiled and jumped up. “Sure is. How can we help you, my lovely lady?”

  She came in the rest of the way and offered her hand to Thibodeaux. “Deputy Chelsea Miller, nice to meet you. I’ve been assigned to work here.” Her eyes went right on past me to Blue’s topless build. They hung there a beat too long.

  With Blue’s type, no other man stood a chance with women in his presence. Even with his abnormally large nose, he carried confidence like a weapon that women fed on.

  “Ouch.” Chelsea nodded to the gunshot injuries to his chest. “What happened there?”

  Blue smiled. “What? This? I’m allergic to peanut butter.”

  Chelsea smiled at him, her eyes still locked with his.

  Blue clapped his hands once and looked at me. “One day we don’t have enough manpower to do the simplest buy-bust. Today we got enough to do a full-blown mobile surveillance. Look out, Lucas Knight, we’re comin’ for your black ass.”

  Thibodeaux continued to shake Chelsea’s hand with vigor, his grin lecherous.

  Blue, still looking at me in an odd way, said, “Dirt, give young Deputy Miller her hand back and roll your tongue back up into your mouth.”

  Thibodeaux let go but didn’t stop looking at her.

  Not a raving beauty by any standard, Deputy Miller still possessed a certain aura of intrigue that begged to be investigated further. The kind of woman that, the more you got to know her, the more beautiful she became.

  Blue moved over to the water cooler. From the desk, he picked up a large plastic cup and filled it to the top. He drank while everyone watched, his throat doing all the work. He finished the entire cup.

  “Okay,” Blue said. “Before we can go out and have some fun, we have some boring busywork to finish.” He wiped his mouth on the back of his arm. “The street narco team works as a support component of this station. So, we’re tasked with processing all of patrol’s dope. Every morning the stuff from their on-scene dope arrests
the night before has to be tested and processed for the lab. Since you two are new fish, you now have that responsibility. Dirt will show you the ropes and hand it off to you. It’ll be done every day when you first come in.”

  “Thank God,” Thibodeaux said. “That’s a thankless, piece-of-shit job. Maybe you’re right—these guys will work out, after all.”

  The outside steps behind Chelsea thumped again, only louder and with purpose. Captain Gary Stubbs bulled his way in, his face flushed with anger.

  I stepped back two steps, ready to physically defend myself. He knew I started work today and came out of the station to take his pound of flesh outta my ass for fooling around with Millie, his executive secretary. In that split second, I decided I would not put up with any physical or verbal abuse. I’d technically done nothing wrong. If I lost my job over it, so be it.

  Captain Stubbs, a large, florid-faced man dressed in a tired brown suit, took us all in at once. His bloodshot, watery eyes fell on the shirtless Blue. He raised a fat finger at Blue and leaned into it as if on a pistol range. “Goddamn you, Blue. I just warned you the other day about pissin’ off the back of this mobile. And what do you go and do, not two days later? Son of a bitch. This is your last warning. You do it again and I don’t care how good your arrest stats are. I don’t care what kind of juice you have downtown. You’re going to find your brown ass in a sling and launched back to MCJ working graves, sniffin’ ass and dirty feet. Do we understand each other?”

  Blue gave him a half-guarded smile. “Oh, sorry, Cap, I thought you meant—”

  Stubbs took a long step toward him, his finger moved into a fist. “Bullshit! You damn well know what I meant. Last chance, asshole. You got the balls, do it again. Just try me. Go on, take another piss out there.”

  He stopped himself and took in several long breaths, his lips silently counting down. None of us moved. Rumor around the station said that, due to his anger issues, Stubbs had caught a midnight transfer from a plum assignment at HQ to this last-resort outpost, Lynwood Station. That same rumor put him in anger management classes, and that if he didn’t successfully complete them, he’d be asked to resign from the department.