The Squandered

by Putnam, David;

  I didn’t want to put too heavy a point on it, but that night Noble also tried to hide his crime. He didn’t come forward to tell Deputy Wilson what he’d done. He stuck to his story that the three came in, took two cases of beer, and fled. Said he didn’t know what happened after the three had left the store. Like a lot of folks in the ghetto, Noble didn’t trust the police. Noble not saying what really happened did show a consciousness of guilt. He’d been wrong. He broke the law.

  But he was also my brother, and now after all these years, when the law I’d so avidly enforced had let me down when Derek Sams killed my grandson, I could see my error. Maybe I should’ve given him a pass that night.

  “Bruno?” Noble said.

  I returned to reality. “Yeah?”

  “I don’t want my son involved in this. I don’t want him there when we make the exchange.”

  “I understand.”

  “Wait.” Marie said. “Why? What am I missing here? Oh, no, no, no, we’re not going to just let them take you off. We get the kids back, we get you back, too, right then. No, no, we’re not going to let them walk with you. No way. Right? Tell me that’s right, Bruno. We’re not going to—”

  She saw the answer in my eyes.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  I PUT A hand on each of her shoulders and looked her in the eye. “Noble’s correct. There’s no way to get the kids and keep them from taking him. Not unless the cops get involved, and that can’t happen. Noble’s wanted and so are we. We’re all alone in this thing. We don’t have the resources or the manpower. You understand? We have to get those children back, priority one.”

  Her chin trembled as she fought the tears. She nodded. And then shook her head, refusing to accept the painful truth.

  Noble gave a weak try at a chuckle. “Trust me on this. Those bastards, whoever they are, ain’t gonna get blood from this turnip. I can’t tell ’em something I don’t know. Right?”

  “Right,” I said, only with even less of his weak enthusiasm.

  In his case, though, it didn’t mean those guys wouldn’t try their best to get it out of him. That part of it went unsaid and sat in that motel room between us like a fat gray elephant no one wanted to look at.

  I took the card out of my pocket, the one the crazy woman on the pier gave me. “I’ll make the call.”

  “Wait, before you do that, I gotta do something first.”

  “What’s that? We really don’t have the time to do anything. They’re gonna know you busted out. We don’t want them to think we’re playing games, not when they have the kids.”

  Marie moved over and turned on the television and said, “I hadn’t thought about the news.”

  “I need to go the cemetery to see my Sasha,” Noble said. “I have to do that before … we do this.”

  I understood his desire to say good-bye to Sasha but, weighed against the safety of the children, it didn’t make good sense. He was the one who had to stand up against the real-world, fingernail-pulling, knee-busting, toe-crushing interrogation, so how could I begrudge him a last request?

  The old tube television came to life. Marie flipped through the channels. We’d left the jail part of the hospital about three hours ago, not enough time for news to tumble to the story. Not when the sheriff would do everything in his power to suppress the embarrassment of an escape.

  “You sure about this cemetery thing?” I asked.

  Noble nodded. Some of the color had returned to his face. I took two bottles of water out of the banged-up mini-fridge along with two pink coconut-covered Sno Ball cupcakes and handed him one set—forgetting he wasn’t supposed to eat anything—keeping the other for myself. My stomach growled at the thought.

  I dialed the number on the card. After one ring, the woman said, “Good, you got him.”

  I couldn’t focus my full attention on the call, not a good thing with the children at stake. Marie stood by the television and watched the news story unfold. They broke into the cheesy reality court show for the breaking news.

  Willy Jessup and his cotton-top never let grass grow under his feet when he could stand in front of the cameras and rant. He stood out in front of LCMC at the exact spot where we’d parked the ambulance to load up Noble. The scene of the crime.

  The woman on the phone said, “We’ll make the trade out in Lancaster, way out in the desert so you can’t pull any of your bullshit. Brodie says you’re real good with the bullshit. I’m runnin’ this op and I won’t put up with it. You understand me, cowboy? We get your asshole brother and you get the kids. Any other variation and the sniper takes care of business. And he goes at it for real. You understand? I mean everyone out there gets tagged with a hundred-and-fifty-eight-grain boat-tail .308. And I mean everyone.”

  She’d just indirectly threatened to shoot the kids if it went down wrong.

  The news director cut from Willy Jessup’s rant to a more faded color image pulled from a different source. Marie backed up and sat on the bed as she watched. The surveillance cameras had caught us coming out of LCMC wheeling Noble. Caught all three of us with our hands in the cookie jar.

  Not Mack, though. He’d somehow stayed out of the frame, the video camera catching only his body. Mack had known exactly where to stand. He, too, had been trained by Robby Wicks. Wicks taught everyone on the team to “be aware of your environment; that includes cameras. These days cameras are the same as guns, and they’ll do you in just as fast.” I hadn’t been looking for cameras, hadn’t looked for them in a long time. Once already wanted, what did it matter? Good for Mack.

  Marie and I wouldn’t be able to just hop on a flight to go back to Costa Rica, not now. All the cops in Southern California would be looking for me—for us—again.

  I sat down next to Marie and took her hand. “You okay?”

  “Sure. I just can’t believe how fat I look on television, that’s all.”

  I kissed her ear. “You don’t make a very good liar.”

  The woman on the phone said, “Hey, asshole, you hear me? In Pear Blossom, at 116th Street and Fort Tejon Road. You got it? Two hours. Be there.”

  “Huh? What? No, you get the location this time; that means we get the time.”

  “No chance,” she yelled. “No way, asshole, no way do we—”

  I hung up on her.

  From over at the bed, Noble said, “Hey, I look pretty good on TV, don’t I? Look at that uniform, I should’ve been a cop. Hey, Bruno, I should’ve been a cop like you. Huh? Whatta think?”

  I looked over at him. He reminded me of the kid I used to know, the return of that sparkle in his eyes, dreaming dreams that didn’t have one chance in hell to work out no matter how hard he tried. Not when you rise up out of a burning house like he did. Not with a burnt family to drag around with you forever and ever.

  The phone rang. I answered it as the TV played the surveillance-camera feed again. This time they froze our images, blew them up, made our faces huge on the screen.

  Beside me, Marie brought the back of her free hand up and tapped under her chin, checking the nonexistent fat. She did it to throw me off her fear of every cop in the state after us. I knew her that well. I smiled.

  Noble needed to see the grave of his loved one, and I wouldn’t deny him that, not with the stakes he chose to play. I said, “Three hours,” to the crazy woman.

  I hung up.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  “WHERE’S THE CEMETERY?” I asked Noble. I turned to Marie. “Let’s get him ready. I want to get out of here before Bruno and Mack get back.”

  “It’s Forest Lawn in Hollywood, not far from here,” Noble said.

  Marie got up and shut off the television, then went over and pulled the IV from his arm, taped it, and checked his pulse and blood pressure.

  Noble watched her with great interest, watched her every move. I watched Noble.

  She finished. Looked up at me.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t recommend that he leave this bed for at least
two weeks, but I guess we don’t have that luxury, do we?”

  “Not hardly,” Noble said. He tossed off the blankets and swung his legs over the side as if nothing ailed him at all. “Hand me those pants, please.”

  Marie got his pants. I helped him stand by holding onto his arm. Up close, the gray in his hair showed. In another year or two he’d look like Dad, he’d look like Willy Jessup, a cotton-top. My hair didn’t have as much. Prison life could do that to a person.

  He got his pants on and his shoes. The little bit of physical exertion stressed his body and showed by the sweat on his face and his labored breathing. We helped him out to the rental, the sleek black Cadillac STS parked at the fleabag motel conspicuous among all the beater cars driven by sketchers and thieves and people of the night.

  We put Noble in the back. Marie got in the front, and I drove. I started up and looked around again for Mack and Bruno, hoping they wouldn’t happen in before we got away.

  I flipped on the turn signal and waited for westbound traffic before pulling out to make a left.

  “Bruno?” Noble said from behind me.

  The way he said it, I looked around for my nephew. I continued to pull out across the westbound lanes, waiting for the last few cars to go by eastbound before completing my turn.

  Noble yelled, “Bruno!”

  Marie yelped like a puppy a split second before I looked to the right where the westbound lanes should’ve been empty.

  The huge truck hit us broadside on Marie’s door. Traveling fast. Traveling far too fast.

  The whole world exploded.

  The airbag deployed and slapped my face. Broke my nose. The big Caddy spun. The powder from the airbag shoved out all the oxygen and made it impossible to breathe.

  In the same instant:

  Glass shattered.

  Tires screeched.

  The sound of rending metal on asphalt pierced the havoc.

  I fought the airbag, shoved it down in time to see through Marie’s mangled side window. This time a second, smaller truck, still a full-sized half ton, smashed into Marie’s door. The intrusion from the already damaged door shoved her all the way over into my lap.

  The Caddy spun again.

  “Marie? Marie?” I spoke the words in my head. They wouldn’t come out audibly no matter how hard I pushed on them.

  How could she be all the way over on me? What happened to her seatbelt? What happened to her airbag? My head lolled to the side. I tried my best to stay conscious and failed.

  * * *

  “Bruno? Bruno?”

  I rose up out of the blue-black darkness to find Mack’s face close to mine. My head hurt something fierce. I’d banged it good on the support beam during the impact from the second truck. My ears rang and I could hardly hear Mack at first. The bright blue sky haloed his head. The siren in the background grew louder, then faded away.

  I tried to sit up. A hand on each shoulder pushed me back down on the gurney. I grabbed Mack’s hand. “Marie?”

  “Bruno. Bruno, listen to me, they transported her to the school. That was her ambulance that just left.”

  “Huh? Her ambulance. To a school? What’re you talkin’ about?”

  But I knew. I’d been a street cop too long. I knew how all this worked.

  “They’re taking her to an airship. They cleared the school grounds for an airship. They’re airlifting her to the hospital.”

  My adrenaline surged. I tried to rise up. Mack and the paramedic leaned in, put all their weight on me. “Take it easy,” Mack said.

  “Sir, I think you have a concussion,” the black-haired paramedic said. “You need to lie perfectly still. We need to immobilize your neck.”

  I grabbed him by the throat. “Let me up, now.”

  He choked and clawed at my hand.

  “Better do what he says,” Mack said. “I’ve seen him like this before. We let him up or he’ll take us all on. And the bad part is that he’ll probably win even in his condition.”

  I let go.

  The paramedic choked and coughed. “Bullshit. Bullshit. I’m filing charges. He can’t do that.”

  Mack whispered in his ear.

  “All right,” the paramedic said, “but he’s gonna sign off AMA, against medical advice.” The paramedic’s features smeared together in a mess of eyes, a nose, and a mouth and then returned to focus.

  “I’ll sign and take full responsibility,” Mack said. He showed him his sheriff’s star, the gold blurred in my vision. I did have a concussion, no doubt about it.

  Mack sighed and helped me to my feet. The world swirled out of control in an unholy vortex that threatened to pull me down to the earth’s core. I didn’t have time for the out-of-control part. I needed full control to get to Marie. I had to get to Marie.

  Mack put my arm over his shoulder. I closed my eyes tight for a long minute and then opened them. It helped. We moved through the people, the LAPD officers, the firemen, and around the tow truck backing to hook up to the wreck.

  I froze, stopped us dead.

  The wreck sat a few feet away. Not one square inch of smooth metal remained on the sleek new Cadillac that we’d only minutes before been riding in. The passenger-side intrusion—Marie’s side—reached across almost to the inside of the driver’s door. How could that be? That had been where Marie sat.

  “Mack, where’s Marie?”

  “I told ya, pal, she’s on her way to the hospital.”

  Nausea rose up. I couldn’t hold it. I threw up. Sno Ball and chocolate milk spattered the glass-strewn asphalt. My knees went weak. I wilted to the ground. Mack eased me down.

  “Get that gurney back over here, now.”

  They lifted me onto the gurney, immobilized my neck with sandbags on each side, my forehead taped, my arms and chest strapped down. Someone started an IV.

  “Mack?” My voice came out in a horse rasp. My eyelids screwed down tight to keep out the violent spinning world.

  “I’m here, buddy.”

  “Come closer.”

  I opened my eyes. He came into view, his face close to mine.

  “Don’t let them … I mean, I don’t care about me, but don’t let them figure out who Marie is, how she’s—”

  “You trust me, Bruno?”

  I tried to nod and couldn’t. “You know I do,” I said.

  His lips close to my eyes, he said, “Then listen to me when I say, you have nothing to worry about. No one, I mean no one, is going to get at Marie, not the bad guys and not the good guys, no one. You hear me? You rest easy, pal, I got this.”

  They put me in the ambulance, slammed the doors, and turned on the siren.

  “Mack,” I said over the siren.

  “I’m here, Bruno.” Mack came back in my field of view.

  “Noble? What happened to Noble?”

  “They got him, buddy. They got your brother.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  THE HOSPITAL PERSONNEL checked and rechecked my vitals, shipped me down to x-ray, and brought me back to the ER. Wires ran out from my open shirt to a machine that beeped in time with my heart. The IV helped clear away the nausea and bring back a semblance of control. I wouldn’t regain complete control until they unstrapped me and took off the tape binding my head to the board. The headache remained constant and began to feel as if I’d always had it, a resident now not easily evicted.

  They dumped me in a curtained ER slot and left me, pending the x-ray results. I couldn’t let up on my focus, and kept Marie’s smile, the twinkle in her eyes during our wedding, foremost in my mind so the ringing headache wouldn’t take over the world.

  Maybe being strapped and taped worked in my favor; it suppressed the overwhelming anxiety, the need to be with Marie, and kept me from causing a scene. The image of the crumpled Cadillac wouldn’t leave me alone. All of that force, all of that energy directed at Marie’s door caused me to shiver. Grief and worry started to take a backseat to anger, and worse, the need to get even. I tried to justify the thoughts of
revenge by masking them in the pretense of protecting my wife from further hazard. You cut off the head of a snake and the snake dies. Some snakes would lose their heads over this. I knew that much for damn sure.

  I couldn’t see anything but the ceiling. My nose throbbed and, from what I could see of it, had swollen up double, making it more difficult to breathe.

  A police radio moved down the long room, coming closer. I tried to thrash about to force some wiggle room, to loosen the bindings, but it was useless. The police radio came in close, stopped not ten feet away, and stayed.

  Maybe the cop wasn’t there for me. Maybe he had brought in a drunk driver. Maybe—ah hell, who was I trying to kid?

  A voice said, “Hold it right there, kid. What business do you have here?”

  A guard. The cop stood guard at my bed. Now it no longer mattered whether I got loose or not.

  “It’s okay, I’m this guy’s nephew.”

  “Sorry, my orders are no one gets close to him.”

  From off down the way, Mack yelled, “He’s okay.” His voice was a welcome comfort.

  What the hell? Mack knew about the police guard and he could dictate to the cop who gets to have access and who doesn’t?

  The curtain rustled.

  “Is that you, Bruno?” I couldn’t see. “Come closer.”

  Bruno’s face came into view over the top of my broken nose.

  “How’s Marie? Did they tell you how Marie’s doing?”

  “I’m sorry, Uncle, about the accident. Aunt Marie, I think—”

  “What? Tell me.”

  He took a step back. “Take it easy. They won’t say anything. I don’t think it’s that bad, though.”

  “How do you know? Wait, do you have a knife?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Cut me loose.”

  “Not a good idea, Uncle, not until they get the x-ray back. You could have a broken neck or something.”

  “Cut me loose, damn you.”

  “No.”

  I took deep breaths to calm down.

  “What about my kids?” Bruno asked. “I’m scared. What’s going to happen to my kids?”