The Innocents

by David Putnam

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “MY HOUSE?” I said. “Oh, my house. Sure, we can stop by there.”

  I’d agreed too soon. She’d only been playing with me, and I hadn’t seen it in time. I didn’t want her to experience our little shabby house in The Corner Pocket, in the ghetto. What did it matter, though? Sure, I’d show it to her.

  Minutes later, I turned down Nord and jerked the wheel hard, pulled right over to the curb, seven or eight houses down from our house. I sat there, a little stunned. Up on the porch to Dad’s house stood a woman I’d never seen before. About the same age as Dad, dressed nice in business attire, a conservative navy blue pantsuit.

  And . . . and Dad stood there hugging her with one arm, the baby held in the other. As he . . . as . . . as he kissed this strange woman.

  Not a simple, chaste good-bye kiss, either. He really leaned into it. The kiss went on and on. I squirmed in my seat as I watched. I’d never seen Dad with a woman other than Mom. I never even pictured him with one. While Noble and I were growing up, Dad had put us first, his job second, and the rest of his time, his personal life, he put on hold . . . for us. I never truly realized the enormity of his sacrifice until that moment with the woman in his arm. And my child in the other, a child I would now have to make the same kind of sacrifice for.

  Chelsea looked at me, then followed my gaze. “Who’s that?”

  “That . . . that’s my dad.’’

  “Boy, that’s some kiss. He’s a regular Don Juan.”

  I broke focus and looked at her. “Dad doesn’t have a girlfriend. He’s never had a girlfriend.” The statement sounded odd even to me. Why wouldn’t he have a girlfriend? Then, more strange thoughts crowded in. Had he had one all these years and I just didn’t know about it? And why in the world would I say that to Chelsea?

  Maybe because the woman was white.

  Chelsea said, “Well, I guess he’s got one now. I’m not kidding, that’s really some kinda kiss.”

  I blushed for my father. I couldn’t drive up while they stood on the porch, not even if I wanted to; my hands wouldn’t obey any commands.

  My dad had a girlfriend, and far off in the back of my brain, a little twinge made me think she looked vaguely familiar, like I’d seen her before. The way my mind worked, her name would bubble up in my brain later on, after I’d calmed down.

  I waited until the woman gave Dad a final squeeze on his hand, climbed down the steps from the stoop, and headed for her car, a nice late-model, midnight-blue Cadillac Eldorado parked at the curb. The Caddy drove off down the street, headed west.

  Dad went inside without ever looking east toward us. I shifted into first gear and drove up to the house. “We can only stay a minute,” I said. “We have to get back to the station to help out.”

  Chelsea had already opened her door. She got out and stood looking back through the truck. “I know. I guess with your dad home, you didn’t have to worry about that burner on the stove, after all. Is that your kid he’s holding?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s its name?”

  “I . . . ah, well, we haven’t named her yet.”

  She shut the door and came around the front of the truck to my side, her expression confused. We started walking up to the house.

  “She’s a girl then? How could you not have named her?”

  “It’s a long story. Where did you grow up?”

  “Oh no, buddy boy, you’re not going to change the subject that easily. Come on, give.”

  We stopped at the foot of the steps, my anger starting to rise at her sticking her nose into my personal business. I took a breath and tried to calm down. Would I have been as mad if my daughter had not been the product of an inappropriate liaison with a female deputy, a deputy I’d been assigned to train? Or if my daughter had come to me in a more conventional manner with a name and a mother who was the least bit interested in the child’s welfare? Or if my daughter weren’t half white, an unfair social handicap she’d have to live with the rest of her life? Something Chelsea would never understand.

  Dad must’ve heard us talking. He opened the door and looked surprised to see us. He stuck his head out and checked the street, looked to the west to see if his Eldorado lady had made a clean getaway without me seeing her. Too bad, old man; no such luck. You’re busted.

  “Dad, this is my new partner, Chelsea Miller. Chelsea, this is my dad, Xander Johnson.”

  She took the three wood steps up, gave Dad a big smile, and shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Johnson.”

  Dad pulled on her hand. “Come in. Come in. Can I get you something—some coffee, a soda?”

  “We can’t stay,” I said, following them inside. “We only stopped in for a minute, to see if you needed anything. We have to get back to the station. We have a ton of paperwork ahead of us that has to be finished tonight. They’re all in-custodies.”

  The small house I grew up in smelled of baby powder with a hint of sour—a hint of baby throw-up. What a contrast to Ollie’s van and the rock house not all that far away, three or five miles at the most.

  I moved in close. “Here, let me hold her.”

  He handed her over and kept his hands in the air close to her as if his mind hadn’t fully agreed to let her go. I took her and supported her head like he taught me.

  “Dad, what’s that on your cheek? Is that lipstick?” I didn’t see anything on his cheek, I just wanted to game him a little, see what he’d do. And instantly felt guilty about it.

  He wiped the side of his face. “Huh? What? Oh, no, no, probably something from Olivia.”

  “Olivia?” I couldn’t believe he’d copped out to his girlfriend so easily. I didn’t know anyone named Olivia.

  “That’s right, I named your daughter. You said I could. And I know I said I wouldn’t. I wanted you to do it, but it wasn’t right that this beautiful little girl didn’t have a name.”

  He shook my world with his simple words about my child’s name.

  “Olivia,” Chelsea, said. “What a beautiful name. Here, Bruno, let me hold her.”

  I didn’t want to give her up, but the name thing hit me like a kick to the stomach. I handed her over to Chelsea, who took her and gently bounced her and cooed to her, a big smile on her face.

  “Son, you okay with the name Olivia?”

  “Of course I am. Is there a reason why you chose that particular name?” I couldn’t help the horrible thoughts that pinged around in my brain. That he’d named her after the woman who’d just left. A woman I didn’t know. “You know someone named Olivia?”

  The concern in his expression shifted to suspicion and a little anger. “Yes. That was your mother’s middle name.”

  Of course, how could I have forgotten? What a fool for not seeing it right off.

  “Then that’s a perfect name for my daughter. Thank you, Dad.”

  He beamed.

  “Chels, we really should be going.”

  She stopped bouncing when she heard me use a too-familiar nickname, one I hadn’t yet earned.

  “Yeah,” she said, “let’s get moving.”

  She placed Olivia in Dad’s arms and headed for the door. She stepped out on the porch. I lowered my voice. “Hey, Dad, stay out of Fruit Town for a few days, okay?”

  He nodded and hurried over, lowering his voice. “I heard what went on over on Peach. That was really something. I’m proud that you had something to do with it.”

  “You heard about that already? That quick?”

  He nodded again. “It’s all over town.”

  Why was I surprised? The grapevine in the ghetto traveled at the speed of light.

  Dad nodded toward the door where Chelsea stood outside on the stoop. “She’s really cute and she took right to—”

  “Stop it, Dad. Don’t start doing that.”

  He smiled and punched me in the shoulder. “Riiight. But I saw the way you looked at that sweet little girl. Just promise me to take it slow this time and don’t scare her o
ff. She’s a keeper.”

  “It’s not like that. And go on and tell me how you, with your Great Carnac ability, can see that she’s a keeper in the short time she was in our house?”

  “That’s right, I can. I know women, Son. You might not believe it, but I know women.”

  “I’ll bet you do.”

  “What?”

  “We’ll talk when I get home.”

  From outside, Chelsea yelled, “Come on, Bruno, we have to roll.”

  “Coming.”

  “See you later tonight, Dad.”

  “Be careful, Son, and keep your head down.”

  “I will, Dad.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  THE NEXT DAY, I arrived early to the mobile home set in the back of Lynwood Station. My footsteps thumped up the wooden steps. I peeked inside. Empty. I went in the rest of the way. Blue’s clothes—his jeans, t-shirt, underwear, and change of socks—sat folded neatly on his desk, just like the day before. Right alongside sat the Smith and Wesson 9mm, the one Wicks gave me to carry. The one he entrusted to me. I took it back and stuck it in my waistband. I chose one of the four unoccupied, unassigned desks and sat down. I spun around and around in the desk chair. I got up, went over to Blue’s desk and the overflowing “in” basket filled with the previous night’s rockhouse arrests.

  For the first time, with no one else present, I had a chance to really look around. Taped to the cheap wood paneling over Blue’s desk was a Xerox copy of a quote:

  There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those

  who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it,

  never care for anything else thereafter.

  Ernest Hemingway

  The quote fit Blue too perfectly.

  I picked up the whole bundle of arrest packages, sixty-seven of them, and took them back to my desk. Each one needed a CR-1, a CR-2, and a CR-3, a crime report face page, the narrative describing the arrest, and an evidence form. Hours and hours of work. I started to fill in the first one, transferring the information from the booking slip.

  The steps outside thumped. In popped Blue, out of breath, dressed in his Dolphins running shorts, his sweat-soaked t-shirt, and the sock on his hand covering the small .38. “Morning, Bruno.”

  “Good morning.”

  He went right to his desk, paused for a second, and then picked up a tall yellow plastic cup. He pulled his shorts down and peed in the cup right in front of me. The man had no shame.

  He walked back to the door, stepped out on the stoop, and tossed the urine toward the street and the people who’d ratted him out to the captain the day before. He came back in and set the cup on top of the filing cabinet by the door.

  I worked on the reports and without looking at him said, “Somebody might want a drink of water and use that cup.”

  Blue walked by me to his desk. He opened his top drawer, took something out, and went back to the cup. He tinkered with it for a minute. “There.” He set the cup back down on the filing cabinet. He’d added a “Danger—Biohazard/Biowaste” sticker to the cup, stickers we used to label blood evidence when we sent it to the lab. “You happy now?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  He came back over to me and stood by my desk chair. “Stand up.”

  “Please stand up?” I said.

  He stood there and said nothing.

  I slowly stood.

  He took Wicks’ 9mm from my waistband and went back to his desk. He stripped down naked and wiped his glistening body off with a towel from his gym bag.

  I’d given in to his possession. Wicks would just have to live with it or get his own gun back. “You know,” I said, “that gun has a magazine safety. If you take the magazine out, it won’t fire the one still in the chamber.”

  He picked up the gun and looked at it. “Huh. Thanks. I’ll remember that. I’ve never used an auto loader.”

  He’d just donned his clean briefs when Chelsea walked in. She pretended not to notice the semi-naked Blue, came over, took the desk next to mine, and grabbed half of the booking packages from my desk. “Hey, Bruno,” she said. “You get enough sleep?”

  We’d stayed past midnight booking all the prisoners. By the time I got home, Dad was asleep in the recliner with Olivia in his arms, also asleep. I’d wanted to talk to him about the lady with the Eldorado, but didn’t want to wake him.

  “I got a solid five hours before Dad had to go to work and I took over the baby duties.”

  “You’ve got a really cute little girl. You have to be really proud of her.”

  “You have no idea.”

  I really hadn’t had too much of a chance to think about being a proud father until she’d said something. The truth of it made my heart swell, and I sat up a little straighter.

  The steps outside thumped. In came an unhappy Thibodeaux with a box loaded with all of patrol’s evidence from the night before, as well as the sixty-seven envelopes of rock cocaine from our arrests. On his way by my desk, he dropped a slip of scratch paper onto my pile of reports. “Use that DR number as the master and refer all of those other cases to that number.”

  I said, “Roger.”

  “Don’t get smart with me, asshole.”

  I stood. “Look, I don’t know what I did to piss you off, but let’s end it right here. I’m sorry for whatever I did that upset you.” I offered him my hand.

  He looked me in the eye and didn’t move.

  Outside, the steps thumped again. On the other side of Thibodeaux, Blue hurried to finish buttoning his Levi’s and quickly slipped the out-of-policy 9mm that belonged to Wicks under his t-shirt on his desk.

  Just as Captain Stubbs entered our office.

  This time, he smiled hugely as he stood for a moment, taking us all in. “I just wanted to come out to personally tell the team here what a great job you did yesterday.”

  Blue said, “Thanks, Captain. But I feel bad that my team filled up your jail and caused all of that extra work.”

  Stubbs held up his hand. “No, no, I love it. A full jail is a happy jail. That was a helluva bust, a helluva bust. Keep up the good work.”

  “We missed Mo Mo . . . Lucas Knight,” Blue said.

  “You’ll get him, I have every faith in you. You need something, anything, you let me know.” He turned to leave.

  Blue said, “How about raising our overtime limit?”

  Stubbs’ shoulders came back as he froze and didn’t turn around. “I can do that. Just don’t abuse it.” He continued on out.

  Thibodeaux whispered, “Pompous ass.”

  Blue put on his t-shirt. “Knock it off. And get your head right about Bruno, too, or you and I are going to have a problem. We’re a team now, so get used to it.”

  Thibodeaux tossed the box of evidence on his desk and headed back to the door.

  “Where you going?” Blue asked.

  “Ta get some coffee and some fresh air. This place stinks like a dinge.”

  “Get back here.”

  By dinge, he meant me.

  Thibodeaux kept going. Outside, he got in his car, an ugly lime-green Thunderbird, started up, and chirped the tires backing out.

  My bearing witness to Thibodeaux’s embarrassment when he dropped his gun on the Mona armed robbery didn’t justify this level of anger, not even close. Something else was in play. I turned to Blue. “What’d I do to piss him off?”

  Blue grinned and hesitated. “Some of us just rub others of us the wrong way. Don’t worry about it, he’ll come around.”

  The grin, the way he said it, sent a long shiver up my back. Maybe I imagined it, but I thought the two of them had somehow figured out the reason for my assignment to their team. I shook the feeling off with a shudder and went back to work.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIBODEAUX NEVER CAME back. Blue didn’t seem to mind. He never paged Thibodeaux to ask him what the hell happened to him. Partners knew and trusted each other that way.

  The arrest reports took the rest of the da
y, and we still needed a few more hours to finish. At four thirty, my pager went off: three sevens, a designated code. Robby Wicks wanted to meet.

  Blue didn’t look up and continued to write. “Who’s that?”

  “It’s just my dad.” I picked up the phone and dialed Wicks. The phone on the other end picked up on the first ring. I said, “It’s me, Dad.”

  Wicks said, “Meet me, location three, in thirty minutes. Make sure you’re not tailed.” He hung up.

  “Did you change her diaper?” I said into the dead phone. “Try burping her. Okay, okay, no problem, I’m leaving now. Thanks, Dad. I’ll be right home.” I hung up.

  Blue looked up from his paperwork. “If you need to go, take off. Me and Miller can handle the rest of these reports.”

  Chelsea said, “Sure, Bruno. We got it. Go ahead.”

  “Thanks. It won’t always be like this, I promise.” Lying to these two stuck in my throat like a sideways stick.

  “No, it’s cool. Don’t worry about it,” Blue said. “I have two boys of my own. I know what it’s like. What’s the matter?”

  He’d read my reaction to the information that he had two boys. I just never thought that he’d have a family, not a contract killer. The morally incongruent nature of his fatherhood, juxtaposed with his being a cold-blooded murderer, sucked the wind out of me. What would those boys do when we finally took down their dad and he went to prison forever? I wasn’t sure it would’ve bothered me as much if I didn’t have Olivia at home waiting on me, depending on me. “Great. Thanks again. See you both tomorrow.”

  Blue went back to writing and just raised his hand in a wave. Chelsea stared at me. “Yeah, see you tomorrow.”

  Her words trailed off a little as if she wanted to say something else. I waited a moment more to give her a chance to say it, and when she didn’t, I got up and left. I made it down the steps and halfway across the parking lot when Chelsea called to me from the stoop. “Bruno?”

  I stopped. The afternoon had turned hot and I hadn’t really noticed it.

  She walked down the steps and quickly over to me. And maybe she stood a little closer than she should have. Or I could’ve just been imagining that part in a wishful thinking sort of way.