The Heartless

by David Putnam

  I’d always suspected as much and turned a blind eye when Wicks flirted with women. I loved his wife, Barbara, and didn’t want to think of Wicks disrespecting her.

  “You keep coming back to my husband. What about me? Don’t you care at all about how I feel? About my situation? Don’t I have a say in all of this?”

  “Of course you do. I do care. But—” I couldn’t finish the rest; the words wouldn’t come. I didn’t have a problem talking to anyone at any time—except when it came to a woman about relationships. My brain just seemed to short-circuit.

  “Bruno. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “Okay, you said you were separated, living apart, for, what was it, six months? Is that true?”

  Tears welled in her eyes. She didn’t have to say another word. The truth was plain in her expression. She reached out her hand. I didn’t take it. She’d lied to me about the current state of her relationship. But maybe for good reasons, and I should give her a chance.

  A shitbox faded blue Toyota Corolla drove past. I caught a glimpse of the driver. Twyla.

  She drove into the long driveway and up to the front of the house. She got out of the car. Skinny as a meth freak with bobbed bleached-white hair and legs like sticks coming out of frayed denim shorts anchored by clunky military boots with loose flapping laces. Her purse was like a thief’s carpetbag. Large enough to hide a couple guns and still boost full-sized roasts from the grocery. She didn’t even look around and headed straight up the driveway completely unaware the house was under surveillance.

  I pulled the latch on the door. “Stay in the truck and don’t move.” Nicky sniffled and swiped at her nose. I didn’t wait for her to answer and eased the door closed until it clicked.

  I walked around the front and crossed the street. Behind me, the sound of the truck door opening made my back muscles cringe and my shoulders hunch.

  The door slammed and her cowboy boots clacked on the asphalt. What the hell?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  WE STAYED TO the right side of the driveway brushing along the shrubs, trying not to be seen from the house. The wide front door and windows had long ago been boarded over. No one could see our approach unless they were in the upstairs rooms, looking out the broken windows. I kept moving along the side of the house toward the wood-framed detached garage. I stopped at the corner of the house and put my back to the wall. Nicky came up beside me. I whispered, “You stay right here and don’t move. I mean it, Nicky. Don’t move.” She tried to see around me to the back of the house. She nodded. I pulled a gun from my waistband, eased around the corner and up the three steps of the back stoop.

  The back door stood ajar. This was where Twyla had to have gone. I stuck my head inside the doorway. Listened. Nothing. Not a sound. The place smelled of a fragrant air freshener, not what I would have expected based on past experiences of places like these.

  I took a step in as my eyes adjusted to the dimness. I was again surprised. My mind had already decided the kind of place I’d find—one filled with trash, rotting garbage, and overflowing toilets that reeked. Instead, someone, probably Twyla, had cleaned and painted and put down throw rugs. Even without electricity and plumbing, she’d tried real hard to make the place a home. It was much different from the last time I’d visited and not the usual habitat of a meth freak or crack head. My guess was that she’d met someone and this was a feeble attempt at making a place like this a home.

  I took another step. My weight caused the wooden floor to creak. Deeper inside, I heard someone bolt. I ran blind into the dimness and caught Twyla going up the staircase. I grabbed her by the back of her shorts and pulled her down. She weighed next to nothing. She rounded on me with fists and pummeled my chest and face. I held on with one hand, shoving my gun in my waistband. I grappled with her and pinned her arms. “Stop. Stop it, right now.”

  She struggled, kicking at my shins with her back to my chest until she ran out of steam and relaxed. She was all bone and thin muscle. She had a burnt chemical reek about her from smoking the glass pipe.

  “I’m gonna let you go. I don’t want you to run or to hit me anymore, you understand?”

  “What do you want? Who are you? Get out. Get out or I’m gonna scream. My boyfriend’s upstairs. He’s got a gun and he’s gonna shoot your black ass.”

  I held onto her wrist and spun her away. She got a good look at me. “Ah, shit, it’s you.” She relaxed a little.

  I dragged her along back to the kitchen and set her in a chair. “What’s going on, Twyla?”

  “What are you doin’ here, Johnson? Why are you harassing me? I ain’t done nothin’.”

  “You know why I’m here; don’t play dumb.”

  “I don’t know nothin’ about nothin’, so you’re wastin’ your time.”

  The floor creaked again in the same place. We both looked toward the back door. Nicky had come in. “I told you to wait outside.”

  “Has she told you anything about Louis?”

  Twyla’s head whipped around. “I didn’t have nothin’ to do with that jail thing. Me and Louis, we’re quits, we have been for a while now. You know that. Why do you think I’m livin’ in a dump like this? I don’t work at the Willows no more. I don’t make any money except what I can hustle.”

  “I’ll settle for you telling me where to find Lizzette.”

  “Lizzette?”

  “That’s right. Don’t pretend like you don’t know her.”

  “I haven’t seen her in months.”

  “She’s lying,” Nicky said. Nicky leaned with her back up against the kitchen sink, her arms folded across her chest. She looked fierce, in control, like she did when interrogating a hostile witness on the stand.

  “Who is this snooty bitch?”

  “I’m the deputy district attorney who is going to slam you in CIW for the next ten years if you don’t tell Detective Johnson exactly what he wants to know.”

  Nicky didn’t know how to work an informant; it took a certain kind of finesse. You certainly couldn’t threaten someone without having something to back it up. And as yet, Twyla hadn’t done anything that would warrant serious prison time. She’d only freeze up and say nothing. She knew the game better than Nicky.

  I looked at Nicky. “Why don’t you wait outside?”

  “No, I’m good right here.”

  “Please?”

  She shook her head.

  I glared at her. So much for following directions and ducking when I say duck. She was only succeeding in making a duck out of me.

  I looked back at Twyla. “Where’s that carpetbag you had when you came in?”

  “Don’t do this, Johnson. You don’t need to do this. I’m gettin’ out. I’m leavin’ town. I’m going up to San Fran. I’m leavin’ today.”

  “That’s probably a good idea. Just tell me where to find Lizzette, and I won’t bother you anymore.”

  “Handcuff her, Bruno, let’s take her in. We have plenty to put her away.”

  Nicky had watched too many cop shows and was trying for the good cop–bad cop routine that never worked anymore. Today’s crooks were too savvy for it.

  “Go on then, take me in. I’ll be out in five, six hours at the most, on your trumped-up bullshit, then I’ll be gone. Puufft, just like that.”

  Now Nicky had done it. We wouldn’t get anything out of Twyla, not once she dug in her heels. This wasn’t working out at all.

  “Is that right? Trumped up?” Nicky said. “Bruno, ask her what’s outside in the garage. Go on, ask her.”

  Twyla’s eyes went wide. She opened her mouth to refute the allegation and then shut it.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  Nicky shrugged. “Go have a look for yourself.”

  I grabbed Twyla by the wrist. She tried to resist. I yanked hard once. She relented and came along. Nicky led the way through the kitchen, down the stoop, and across the cracked concrete walkway to the side door of the detached garage.

  I stepped inside. I sto
od there stunned. I tugged on Twyla’s wrist. “Nicky’s right. You’re going to prison for a long time.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  THE 1973 DODGE Fleetwood, a cab-over RV, rattled and banged with each little bump in the road and gave Borkow a blazing headache along with a mild touch of carsickness. At each turn the mushy suspension canted wildly as if the whole rig might tumble over onto its side. They’d be like a turtle, unable to right themselves, and be vulnerable to all enemies. He sat in the dining area back from the driver’s compartment and watched Payaso maneuver through the side streets, regretting now his decision to come along.

  The constant rattle-bang, rattle-bang knocked around in his head like a rock in a tin can.

  He’d been cooped up too many hours already. He needed to get out of that Muscle Max gym and see the world. Otherwise, what was the sense of being free and on the loose?

  The air-conditioning didn’t work in the beast, and the inside air had turned stagnant and humid, adding to the overall discomfort. The reek from the bathroom compounded matters.

  He didn’t like to sweat, a grotesque bodily function he avoided at all costs. His tee shirt stuck to his underarms. Rivulets of sweat ran down his sides to the tops of his pants and chafed at his waist.

  Even so, he had to admit, Payaso took good care of him. What self-respecting Johnny Law would pull over a hunk-o-shit like this old broken-down RV to look for his skinny ass? No one would believe “the most wanted man in the seven western states” could be toolin’ around in this paint-faded, dented eyesore. It was too far below his new station in life.

  That’s what the five o’clock news had called him, “The most wanted man in the seven western states,” a distinction he had not chased after but was glad to have the title just the same. With it came a large dollop of street cred. Everyone knows you can’t get enough of that.

  “How much farther?”

  “It is better if we go slow, take our time, and stay off the main streets. We stay invisible that way.”

  “Hey, chili-eater, I didn’t ask you that now, did I? I didn’t ask why we’re taking this route. Why do you always give an answer to a question I didn’t ask? I don’t get it.” He’d given the same ignorant answer, doling it out for the last hour and a half as if Borkow were some kind of idiot that had to be told multiple times before it sunk in.

  Payaso looked up into the rearview and said nothing. His brand of noncommunication irked the shit out of Borkow. When asked, he expected Payaso to answer his question, not some random one of his own liking. How hard was that?

  Payaso slowed and jockeyed the wheel into another long sweeping turn down yet another endless side street of ghetto hovels. Depressing. They all looked the same. How could people live in places like this?

  Payaso said, “I told you we should’ve stopped for some enchiladas con mole. You get too sketchy when you don’t eat.”

  “Let me worry about my stomach, okay, amigo? You just get us there pronto.”

  Over the din of the raggedy RV’s rattle and bang, a muffled plea made it out of the bathroom. Borkow got up. He staggered from side to side, fighting to keep his balance, his arms out, hands to the interior walls. He had nothing better to do. He might as well have another go at her. Couldn’t hurt. He slid the accordion door to the bathroom open to the reek of body odor and urine, mixed with a faint chemical smell from the toilet. Lizzette sat on the floor all trussed up with gray duct tape. Her face glistened with sweat. Her bottle-blond hair was pasted to the sides of her face and forehead. Her eyes pleaded with him.

  “Lizzy, I cut you lose, you promise to be a good girl?”

  She nodded vigorously. He leaned over, and reached a jittery hand that shook like a man with a terrible palsy, the luxury coach hitting every goddamn little bump in the road. He took hold of the tape on her mouth and yanked it off. She yelped at the pain.

  He smiled. “There, I’m sorry, but I really needed you to know the full extent of my displeasure. You understand what I’m saying here?”

  She continued to nod and said nothing. Payaso had called him sketchy. He didn’t feel sketchy or otherwise. All the heat, the smells, and the noise irritated his stomach.

  He grabbed her bound wrists and helped her to her feet. They both banged from side to side in the small bathroom trying to maintain their balance. He got her out and leaned into her damp and sweaty body, pushing her against the wall while he peeled the tape from her wrists. “There. Now get your feet undone and come sit. Let’s talk.”

  He sat back into the dining couch behind the driver’s seat and waited. She slid to the floor leaving a damp smudge on the faux wood panel and worked on the tape like a wild animal in a trap. The skin on her wrists and ankles and mouth turned a little pink from the abuse. Better a little abuse than the alternative.

  Payaso looked up in the rearview. Borkow raised his hand and waved. “I know, I know, you don’t approve. But she’s my main girl. I owe her for getting me out of that hellhole. She gets another chance. You hear that, girl?”

  “Yes, Louis. Thank you, Louis. I won’t make you mad again, I promise.” Her voice came out hoarse from the lack of water.

  “That’s good. Now come and sit.” He patted the seat next to him.

  She came over, her feet taking wide sidesteps to keep her balance as she rubbed her wrists.

  Louis said, “I’m so sorry about hitting you. I promise it won’t happen again.”

  She hesitated, timid as if he planned to betray her yet again and that this might be a part of a new game of mistrust and torture.

  He took hold of her wrist and gently pulled her down. “I said everything is cool. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

  She nodded and sat.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  BORKOW INVOLUNTARILY REACHED up and touched his face where her nails, earlier in the day, had raked his cheek. “If you’ve learned your lesson, what more could I ask? Just so you know, letting you out is not all out of the kindness of my heart. We’re on our way to pick up another unfortunate girl. So you have been paroled partially out of necessity, due to overcrowding. But know this: I have no problem piling you girls up in there like cordwood if the need should arise.”

  “I understand.”

  He took a cool bottle of Coca-Cola from the cup holder. “Would you like a drink?”

  She nodded and grabbed the bottle. A little too fast for his liking, snatching it right out of his hand. She drank like she’d been bound up in a confined space for the last twelve hours with duct tape over her mouth. He put his hand on the bottle. “Not too much. Don’t want you getting sick all over my nice digs.”

  She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and nodded. She didn’t look nearly as beautiful as she used to. The march of time had been an unfriendly bedfellow.

  “Now back to the business at hand. Tell me where I can find your girlfriend Twyla? I’m serious this time. No bullshit.”

  She sat back, her eyes going hard. She still had a bit of steel left in her. That was good. He was glad he hadn’t broken her entirely.

  “Do you want me to lie to you, Louis? Because if that’s what you want, I can lie to you, no problem. If I knew, I promise, I would tell you. But I don’t have the first clue where to look for her. Let me out. Let me get cleaned up. I can go around and check some places, ask some people, call in some favors. I know I’ll be able to find her if you just give me a chance.”

  He didn’t believe her. Every time she denied knowing anything about Twyla, the image from the night he hot-prowled her apartment in Santa Monica looking for the place where Lizzette had been staying came back vivid as if he still stood in the doorway to the bedroom watching them. That night in the dim light, the near darkness, the naked bodies of Twyla and Lizzette intertwined. From that moment, he knew they loved each other.

  So, not to keep close tabs on Twyla, well, that just didn’t make any sense at all.

  He reached across and took her damp hand. “You would do that for me?”r />
  “Of course I would. Just give me the chance.”

  He didn’t believe her for a second. This new tack of hers was nothing more than a ploy, a diversion until she could get loose and make a run for it.

  Twyla was the only one Lizzette would trust to help her make the move to get away from him. He could never break Lizzette. But Twyla was another story. He needed to find her and make an example out of the both of them so the other girls would never even think about trying to run. He’d been away for a year and he had to bring back order or risk losing everything.

  “Coming up on the street. This is the turn.”

  Borkow drooped his head to see past his driver and out the windshield. “This is Southgate? This neighborhood doesn’t look half bad. Why, it almost looks like hometown U.S.A. I mean, if you squinted a little and forgot where you were for a minute. Aren’t the housing projects the Nickerson and The Downs only about five miles to the west?”

  Payaso said nothing. After a moment he pointed. “There. There she is now, coming out of the apartment. We lucked out, mi amigo. Perfect timing.” He slowed and came to a stop. With all the vehicles parked on both sides, the street was too narrow for any other car to pass. They couldn’t stay put too long without being noticed.

  Off to the right, a pretty young girl with brown skin came bounding out of an apartment, a smile huge on her face, the classic image of a teenage girl giddy in love. She clapped her hands and ran into the arms of a young, good-looking black kid. Borkow leaned over even more. “Is that who I think it is? I thought you said he left town, that he caught a Greyhound to Barstow?”

  Payaso shrugged. “I guess he’s back. What do you want to do now? You want me to put the grab on her like we planned?”

  Borkow thought through the options. “Naw, it’s broad daylight. Why risk causing a scene and burning this vehicle to the cops. It’s kind of growing on me now, the noise, the smells, all of it. Besides, if that little shitass is back, we don’t need to grab her right now. With his help we can do it anytime. You know what, let’s just send a message. That might be enough. What do you think?”