The Vanquished

by David Putnam

  Smart man, this John McCarty, if that was his real name.

  I spoke for the fed’s benefit.

  “Deal was to hand the money directly to you in exchange for assurances. You can’t give me any assurances from that van. You got sixty seconds to start up and get your ass over here or the deal’s off.”

  I shoved Jumbo hard. He bounced off the Lexus and fell to the ground, further smudging his white linen. I counted in my head a slow sixty seconds. I picked up the .25 and tossed it to Jumbo. He didn’t catch it or even try to. He let it fall to his chest. “I warned you about that little popgun the last time, out in the desert, remember? Next time you pull it on me, you better shoot me because that’s what I’m going to do to you. Put one right between those big floppy ears.”

  I looked up at the white van, which hadn’t moved. I saluted in that direction and said, “See ya next time, asshole.”

  I started for my bike, turned my back on Jumbo, and froze. I turned, went back to Jumbo, leaned over, and ripped off the wire. “You tellin’ me true about the name of this fed? Tell me now. No one’s listening.”

  “Sure, Bruno, of course I told you the truth.”

  I took out Monster’s knife, flicked it open, and stuck the razor edge down by his crotch. “Tell me his name or I’m gonna give Little Jumbo a haircut.”

  “Okay, okay, it’s Larry Gerber.”

  I pushed the knife in a little harder, not hard enough to puncture the material, enough though to put pressure on his little brain, the one that ran the body.

  “I swear on my mother’s eyes, it’s Larry Gerber. Guys on the street call him Pike. He said he’d put me in prison forever if I told you his name.”

  “What’s he got on you?”

  “I bought a load of guns I was gonna trade up for some dope. The guy I bought them from was working off a case for Gerber. Hey, you wanna job? I’ll pay ya to take this guy off the board, ten grand. Whattaya say, huh?”

  “Here’s my answer.” I stood and kicked him hard in the ribs. I walked over to Bobby Ray’s Harley, picked up the worn-out sack of money, and kick-started the bike. I took one last look at the van and zoomed off.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  I PULLED UP to the front of the hotel, parallel to the valet stand, and revved the engine. The valet, a college-aged kid with curly black hair, came around from his stand and ran over. He took a step back and admired the bike. “What a nice ride. But, I’m sorry, sir, we don’t valet-park bikes.”

  I reached into the brown paper bag and peeled off two one-hundred-dollar bills from one of the rolls of Bobby Ray’s money. “I’ve had a long day,” I said. “A bad day. One of those kinds of days that gives you nightmares for weeks. And I need a little break here. Can you help me out?” I handed him the money.

  He started to shake his head until he saw the money wasn’t ones or tens, or even twenties. He looked around furtively and said, “Sure, man, no problem.” He snatched the money and made it disappear.

  I climbed off and he climbed on.

  “Park it someplace where it won’t get messed with or scratched.” I handed him another hundred. It wasn’t my money.

  He smiled and nodded. “No problem.” He gunned the throttle, clicked it into gear, and took off. He’d ridden bikes before.

  My feet throbbed in the too-small boots. My face still hurt from the fight in the freeway incident, and I had a lump on the back of my head the size of a dodo egg where Monster cold-cocked me. At least the feeling had returned to my fingers.

  I limped into the hotel. I needed a hot bath, some hot food, and to snuggle up to my little sweet Marie.

  In the elevator I pressed the button for the fourteenth floor. The doors closed, and I realized I’d walked right through the lobby without looking for Drago’s added security, the two cops standing watch. I needed sleep more than anything else.

  I reached in my back pocket for the room card key. Not there. I checked the other pockets. Not there. No room key. In all the excitement of the day, I’d either lost it or someone liberated it.

  Monster.

  If Monster had the room key—

  A new dose of adrenaline hit and woke me up. The numbers over the elevator door somehow moved slower now.

  Marie.

  What if the Visigoths came and snatched up Marie, held her until the deal went down to make sure I didn’t run off with the money? The crumpled bag of money tucked under my arm turned warm.

  The doors finally opened. I ran down to the room and pounded on our door. “Marie?”

  The door across the hall opposite ours opened. Drago stepped out and took hold of my shoulder with one paw. “You all right, man? Everything all right?”

  “Yeah, yeah, how’s Marie? She okay?”

  “Yeah, I told ya she’d be fine and not to worry about her. You shouldn’t’a run off like that, you scared the hell outta her. Jesus, man. What the hell happened to you? You look like someone took you through a meat grinder. You better sit down before you fall down.”

  “No, I’m good.”

  “No, you’re not, man, no you’re not. You shouldn’t’ve of left me like that. I coulda backed your play. You wouldn’t look like—”

  The hotel room door opened. Marie rushed out and wrapped her arms around me, buried her face in my chest and wept.

  Her love for me made a lump rise in my throat and tears well in my eyes. Somewhere along the way I’d transitioned from a hot-shit violent crimes detective into an overly emotional old man.

  I handed Drago the bag of money. “Here, keep this safe for me, okay?”

  “You got it, bud.” He gently ushered us both into our room. “You two need some alone time.” He backed out and closed the door. Marie had not let go. We stood there a long time, holding each other, swollen feet be damned.

  “Bruno?”

  “Yeah, babe?”

  “Whose boots are those?”

  “It’s a long, ugly story that I might tell you about someday if you’re very nice to me.” I pulled her away enough to kiss her. And I did just like there was no tomorrow, a long, wet kiss we both got lost in.

  We came up for air, her face wet with tears. She looked at me. She immediately lost her contented smile. “Bruno Johnson, what in the hell have you been up to?”

  “Sweetie, please.” I tried to usher her over to the bed to sit down. “These boots are killin’ my dogs.”

  “No, come into the bathroom, let me get a better look at you.” She took hold of my shirtsleeve and dragged me along. “Start talking, mister. Tell me everything that happened.”

  The memory I had difficulty locking away instantly brought me back to the freeway, brought me the image of Bosco flying overhead, the Honda snatching him out of midair, the look in his eyes.

  His plea for me not to do it.

  The image made me sick to my stomach.

  I couldn’t talk about it. Not yet. And I didn’t want to lie to Marie.

  She stood me in front of the sink in the bathroom and turned on the light. My mouth dropped open. I hadn’t seen myself since it all started. I didn’t recognize the person who looked back at me.

  Marie went to work cleaning the abrasions on my face with a warm washcloth and soapy water.

  “Start talking, mister.”

  “Marie, honey, I really need to get these boots off.”

  “Come over here, sit.”

  I did, on the edge of the bathtub. She tried to pull the boots off and couldn’t. “Here,” I said, “turn around and put the boot between your legs.” She did. I put my other foot on her bottom and pushed. Nothing, not even an inch. My feet throbbed, my head throbbed, I had a rhythm going.

  I leaned to the side and pulled the knife out of my pocket. “My feet swelled up and we’re gonna have to cut ’em off.” I tried to hand her the knife. When she didn’t take it, I looked at her.

  Her mouth hung open, her eyes wide. “My God, Bruno.” She started to cry again. With shaking hands, she probed the dodo egg on my head.
“We have to get you to the hospital, baby, and I mean right now. You have to have this X-rayed.”

  “No, we don’t; no hospitals and you know why.” She knew part of the reason, the warrants, but not the most recent.

  She took my head in her arms, pulled my face into her breasts, and hugged me. Her body shook as she cried. She spoke in broken sentences. “Can you see okay . . . you’re not . . . seeing double, are you? Are . . . are you nauseous?” She pulled me away from her chest and looked me in my eyes, checking my pupils, at the same time watching for the truth. “Did you lose consciousness?”

  “No.” I spit out the lie quick so she wouldn’t spot it, and I felt like a heel doing it. We couldn’t go to a hospital; they would report the injuries to the police, who’d be looking for the guy on the freeway who’d fled leaving bodies in his wake.

  She waited a long moment for my eyes to give me away. When that didn’t happen, she helped me up. “Come on, you’re going to bed.”

  “Oh, thank you, babe, but I’m not feeling particularly amorous right now.”

  “You’re not funny, Bruno Johnson. And I already told you once I don’t like being lied to.”

  She’d seen right through me. I knew better and shouldn’t have even tried it. She eased me down on the bed. She disappeared. The room door opened and closed. I fought to stay awake. The door opened again. She put a wet towel filled with ice on the knot at the side of my head.

  Aah.

  Someone took hold of my feet. I looked down.

  Drago.

  He tried to pull the boots off, and I only slid further down the bed. “Ow. Ow, hey!”

  “They’re not gonna come off,” he said.

  “I know that, Karl,” Marie said. “Go ahead and cut them off.”

  “You sure? These are custom. We probably got two grand in boots here.”

  “Drago.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Drago cut. The first boot came off. My foot screamed with delight. When the second one came off, the world closed in as my body decided, all on its own, that it was time to rest.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  BACK WHEN I worked as a Los Angeles County deputy sheriff and had a little girl to care for, Olivia, I needed extra money. I signed up for special-duty assignments on days off or after shift. I worked events at the Eagles Lodge, weddings, quinceañeras, birthday parties, that sort of thing. The job didn’t require much brainpower, more just a security post so that no one got stupid. That didn’t always work, though, on either side.

  The night of the accident, I stood just inside the entrance to the Eagles Lodge, monitoring the people coming and going to a wedding reception. Henry Espinoza sauntered in wearing a black bowler and gray trench coat. He’d tattooed a big double-barreled shotgun on his neck, a symbol of his life’s work that made him easy to recognize. I’d thrown him in jail a few times, chickenshit cases he pled to and got county time. I’d just wanted him off the street to cut down on the murders and mayhem.

  He came into the hall, stopped, and gave me the stink eye. I returned it. People attending the wedding walked by. Henry shoved one guy into another guy, his eyes still on me. The fight started among them and quickly grew. A common prison tactic, he wanted a diversion to pull me into the melee in order to shank me in the kidneys or liver.

  I took out my mace and sprayed it over the tops of all their heads, tear-gassed the whole mob, as I kept an eye on Henry. I’d arrest him for inciting a riot, put the hurt on him this time.

  People screamed and tried to get away from the mace. Half the group, with Henry included, pushed out through the doors to the sidewalk. I followed. Henry saw me and ran west. I chased him down the sidewalk.

  Behind me came a woman’s scream. I turned in time to see a man, still rubbing his eyes from the mace, run blindly into the street. A car took him at full speed, forty-five or fifty miles an hour. He thudded hard and flew in the air in a cartwheel, up and over the car. He landed flat on his back twenty feet from where he’d started.

  I’d caused him to run out into harm’s way. My fault. I ran to him to render aid. I called for backup and an ambulance. I got to him and didn’t know what more to do to help him. I flagged cars to go around him and took a piece of lumber chalk I kept in my pocket to mark tires at scenes of car accidents and drew an outline around his body.

  I felt like hell.

  I’d caused this.

  I went back to directing traffic, not knowing what else to do. The sergeant arrived first. He parked his car blocking the road in front of the Eagles Lodge. He hurried up to me and said, “What the hell happened, Bruno?”

  “It was terrible, Sarge. I maced Henry Espinoza and contaminated this other guy who ran out into traffic. He got hit. He’s bad off.”

  “Where is he?”

  I turned around. The street lay empty, with only the yellow chalk outline of where his body used to be.

  Later that same night I tracked him down, patient John Cruz at St. Francis. Not one broken bone. He’d been so drunk, with all his muscles relaxed, that the impact only gave him soft tissue damage and no broken bones, this according to the doctor.

  I came to in the hotel room, thinking about John Cruz and how he flipped over the top of that car and landed on the asphalt twenty feet back. Saw that empty yellow outline of his body again. I didn’t think Bosco was drunk when I flipped him over and out into traffic. He would’ve been tense. I know I would’ve been.

  Marie said, “Look, he’s awake.”

  An Indian man I’d never seen before probed my cranium. Every muscle in my body ached. Marie and Drago stood at the end of the bed. The doctor put a light in each of my eyes and took it away, checking pupil reaction.

  He stood and spoke to Marie with a faint British accent. “Based on my examination, and the symptoms you described, I would say he definitely has a concussion. To what degree, I do not know. I strongly recommend he seek regular medical attention at a hospital where he can receive X-rays.”

  “That’s not going to happen, Doc.” My voice croaked from lack of moisture.

  “Bruno, shush.”

  “Barring that,” the doc said, “I recommend bed rest for the next five days.”

  “Doc,” I said, “if nothing’s happened in however many hours since I got hit on the head, doesn’t that count for something? I mean, if it was an intracranial bleed, wouldn’t it have manifested itself by now?” I looked at Marie because I never talked like that. I’d stolen all of that medical-speak from her, the benefits of being married to a physician’s assistant.

  “Yes, that is probably true, but there is definitely an injury there, and you cannot injure it further if you are restricted to the bed until you can heal.”

  “I feel fine, Doc. All I needed was a couple of hours’ sleep.”

  “Bruno,” Marie said, “do you know what time it is?”

  I looked out the window to the dark night. I’d rolled into the front of the hotel about six o’clock. “Eight or nine?”

  The doc shrugged and didn’t comment.

  “Drago?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Drago said, “he got that right, it’s eight fifteen.”

  “See?” I said

  “Bonehead,” Marie said. “You’ve been asleep for twenty-four hours. That’s why I had Drago bring in the doctor.”

  “Twenty-four hours?” I tried to jump up. The doc restrained me.

  Marie pointed a loaded finger, angry now. “Bruno, you stay in bed or I’ll have Drago tie you down. And you know I’ll do it.”

  I eased back onto the pillow and nodded. I didn’t know if I liked Marie having a bulldog like Drago available to do her bidding.

  “He’s my friend, too. I don’t think he’d do that, would you, Drago?”

  “Sorry, bud.”

  “So much for sticking together, huh?”

  He shrugged and smiled.

  Marie escorted the doc to the hotel door, where they spoke in low tones.

  “Drago,” I whispered, “gim
me your cell.”

  He reached into his basketball shorts, pulled out his phone, and tossed it.

  I dialed Sonja’s number. She answered on the first ring and didn’t say anything.

  I said, “It’s me. How’s Bosco?”

  “Same, thanks for askin’. Where’s our money? How come you didn’t turn it over to the fed? That was the deal and you screwed it up. He’s already called and he’s mad as hell.” She sounded tired and angry.

  “You know John Ahern, aka Jumbo?”

  “Yeah, he’s a little pinhead.”

  “But a dangerous pinhead.”

  “I’m not afraid of him,” she said.

  “He was the one who showed up in place of the fed.”

  “That little bastard. Why’s he got his beak dipped in this?”

  In the background, Bobby Ray said, “What is it?”

  She put her hand over the phone, but I still heard her brief Bobby Ray.

  “Sonja?” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you know the name of the ATF agent you were dealing with?”

  “The guy who called and gave us the deal for the fifty large said his name was John McCarty.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  “Whatta ya mean?”

  “Jumbo fed me that name, too.” I almost told her about Larry Gerber, but information is power and I needed to keep some on my side of the board.

  “That little bastard.” She put her hand over the phone and told Bobby Ray.

  Bobby Ray took the phone from her. “Thanks, Bruno, for handling this for us. I don’t know what’s going on with Jumbo in the mix, but thanks for not givin’ that money away.”

  “I got it here.”

  “I figured. What took you so long to call us? For a minute there I thought you might’ve skipped with our dough.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “I had a problem I had to deal with.”

  They hadn’t found out about my involvement with the incident on the freeway, not yet anyway.