The Squandered

by Putnam, David;

  We came to the elevator and stopped. With the cop so close, Mack said nothing. We waited for the car. The doors slid open.

  Mack held up his hand. “Can you guys take the next one? I need to talk to my witness.” Bruno and the cop didn’t seem bothered by the request and continued their conversation. Mack wheeled me in. The doors closed. He pressed 4.

  “Your witness?” I said.

  “Yeah, it was a little dicey there on the timing, with Marie en route to the hospital by air and me on the ground keeping you from assaulting the paramedic. The paramedic, I might add, who was only trying to help you. But I pulled it off. And I don’t mind saying I’m kinda proud of my little caper.”

  “Pulled what off? What little caper?”

  “I managed to get a call into Wong before the traffic investigators and the hospital needed your names.”

  “What’s Wong have to do with this?”

  “I told you, he’s working the Coffin Dancer investigation on that task force. I told him I came across two very important witnesses in that investigation.”

  “The Coffin Dancer investigation?” The name sounded familiar, but the headache kept me from pulling it up.

  “Come on, old man, you’re better than this.”

  I smiled. “Just tell me, asshole.”

  “You know, the Los Angeles Consolidated Freight and Design, the LACF and D. The case agent on the task force about pissed himself when I told ’em I had two wits that could bring down the entire organization.”

  “You did what? We can’t do that. I mean Marie and I don’t know a thing about that investigation.” I put my hand to my head. The pain worsened as I tried to wrap my brain around what he’d just said. What would happen once the case agent found out Mack lied? Mack’s little house of cards would implode, with Marie and me on the inside. We’d catch the brunt of the fallout from the angry investigators.

  “Of all the dumbassed things to do,” I said.

  The elevator dinged far too loud. The doors opened. Mack wheeled me out.

  “Not really,” he said. “You’re now both in the witness protection program under John and Jane Doe.”

  “Mack, that can’t work for very long, and when the wheels come off this little plan of yours, you’re gonna be in the grease again.”

  He pushed me down the hall. “You’re not thinking this thing through,” he said. “Sure, there’s some risk, but we’ve been there before and in a lot worse. This isn’t as bad as you think it is. Once the whole thing works out, you and Marie just melt into the background and disappear. Everyone will be too interested in the big fish we caught and not even think about you two.”

  “Enlighten me, please. Not as bad as I think, what the hell? How much worse could it be?”

  “Hey, you and your pregnant wife aren’t in custody, are you?”

  “I’m sorry, yes, thank you for that. I should be more grateful. It’s just this damn headache. Go on, tell me the rest.”

  We passed nurses and a janitor in the immaculate white hallway.

  “Bruno junior’s kids got snatched and you shouldn’t be working this without the help of law enforcement. You know that.”

  He was right, of course. I’d put Marie’s safety above the kids’ and shouldn’t have. What had I been thinking? What he said now made so much more sense. If it worked.

  Wait. I’d missed something, a key piece hiding back under the throbbing pain. There had been a reason, a contributing factor not to bring in the cops. Yes, yes, Bruno said the LACF and D had influence with the cops. The three deputies who’d given us the bum’s rush back in the hotel room proved it. Unless, of course, those three had been bought off by Don the Don Brodie. Nine million could buy a lot of folks—even a lot of cops. Sure, that made sense. Those three, which included Blue Suit, could be working for the crazy woman from the Santa Monica pier.

  “This isn’t such a good idea,” I said.

  “Just listen a minute, would ya? The LACF and D task force has been up on these guys for months now, spent tens of thousands of dollars in man hours. They’ve identified some of the players, but haven’t been able to hang a predicate crime on them, at least not one to support a 182, a conspiracy indictment. From the mid-level up, no one touches the dope or the money. It goes against every other dope conspiracy I’ve ever been involved in. No one understands how it’s really working, and they’re scared to death this method’s going to spread throughout the U.S. They have the street-level guys doing all the handling. Those street guys screw up, they get taken outta the box, sent to the can, and replaced. It’s as simple as that. Normally you can grab the midlevel guys and at least have a chance at flipping them for one of the top, if not the top guy. Not now, not the way this thing is set up. They even have cutouts like spies use.”

  “And we’re working a kidnap,” I said, “that involves narcotics and big money.”

  “Exactly.”

  The fog cleared a little more, the pain eased up. “Wait, wait, they’ve been on them for months now, right? Do they have video of the kids? Do they know where the kids are?”

  He stopped at room 410. Another blue uniform stood watch outside Marie’s door, a young kid without much experience. Probably a nice guy, but he didn’t inspire confidence, not with Marie’s safety involved. Even so, I never thought I’d take comfort again in a cop being so close by.

  “Wong’s getting with the case agent as we speak,” Mack said, “to go over the surveillance notes. What are the odds, though? Probably not very good, but there’s still a chance. We’ll know in another thirty minutes or so. The best part about this whole thing … go on and guess what the best part about this whole mess is.”

  Based on his huge smile, I said, “You’ve been transferred from the jail TDY to the task force.”

  “Bingo, buddy boy. All because of you. I owe you for that.”

  He seemed to forget that I’d been the one to get him busted back from detective on the Violent Crimes Team to jail deputy working graveyard at MCJ. He also got the hell kicked out of him and spent four weeks in the hospital because of my last little caper. No, we weren’t even, not by a damn sight. I still owed him big.

  “Here, help me up. I can’t be wheeled in to see my wife, not like this. I gotta go in standing on my own two feet.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  I EASED THE door open, half-afraid of what I’d see, and at the same time I wanted to rush in and scoop her up in my arms.

  Marie sat propped up in bed, her eyes closed. The right side of her face bulged with a white bandage. Her right arm lay across her chest in a cast. The doctor said nothing about a broken arm. I ached inside over her injuries. I’d been the cause of this.

  She looked like a bird with a broken wing. A large lump rose up in my throat and tears burned my eyes.

  I wanted to hold her, protect her, something I’d failed to do even after my promise in the motel room. The anger returned and tried its best to chase out the tenderness. I gritted my teeth and walked over to the bed. Who’d done this to her, done this to our unborn child?

  I stood at the edge of the bed and looked down at her, the way her chest gently rose and fell. Her beauty radiated no matter what the environment, no matter what the circumstance. Not even a semitruck broadside on her car door could subdue beauty like this.

  Her eyes opened. She smiled, a weak, semi-sedated one, but still a smile just for me, a smile that warmed me all over.

  She raised her good arm and extended her hand. I made the final step forward and took her hand.

  “Hey, baby?” she said, her voice little more than a rasp. “Ah, Bruno, your poor nose.”

  I waved my hand. “It’s just a nose. “You though, scared the hell outta me. Look at you. Jeez, Marie … I thought … I thought I’d lost you.”

  “Don’t be silly, I got hurt worse when I fell off Alonzo’s skate-board.” She smiled again at her little white lie, her voice getting stronger as she shook off the sedative.

  I moved in closer and
glanced down at her tummy. She caught the look and lost her smile.

  “I guess they told you, then? I’m sorry. I wanted it to be a special time for us. I didn’t know, Bruno, not until they told me here at the hospital. I guess I shouldn’t have been drinking. Who would’ve thought, huh? Babe, you’re going to be a father.” She scooted to the side and patted the bed. “Come on, big fella, climb on up here.”

  I didn’t think it a good idea, but what she wanted overrode all good sense. I’d do anything for this woman, anything she asked of me and without hesitation. I gently crawled up in the bed beside her. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  She tried to hide a grimace as I scooted in between her and the bedrail. Her body radiated a heat I’d never experienced coming from another person, and in a strange way I craved it.

  I hoped she’d not taken a fever, contracted some kind of infection in the hospital. I gently kissed her cheek, the side without the bandage, and her neck and her ear. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t see the truck.”

  “Shush. No harm done.”

  “No harm done? What about that poor car?”

  She giggled. It warmed my heart.

  “I can’t stay long, I have something I have to do.”

  Marie came out of the violent assault on the car well enough, better than expected under the circumstances. Thanks to the great design and engineering of American-made cars. Now she’d be safe in the hospital with a cop standing guard outside her door. And I could go do what had to be done without worrying about her.

  We lay silent for a long few minutes.

  “I need to look at you,” she said.

  I moved around to look her in the eyes. “How are you with this?” she asked. “I mean, with the baby? I didn’t want it to be this way. I didn’t.”

  She didn’t wait for my answer. I knew her well enough. She was hesitant to tell me right off about the baby out of an unwarranted fear I wouldn’t want a child.

  “I wanted us to go for a long walk on the beach when I told you,” she said, trying to keep the sob out of her voice. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out that way. I know you’re concerned about your age, Bruno, and you shouldn’t be. I know we never really talked about this. Bruno, darling, tell me honestly, how you feel about this? Please tell me.”

  “You can’t be serious. You honestly don’t know how I feel about this? Marie, this is the happiest day of my life. Having a child with you … I can’t begin to describe the joy it brings.” This time I had difficulty getting the words out, as they clogged up in my throat and got choked off.

  Her chin quivered. Tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

  “You sure, Bruno? You really sure?”

  I leaned over and kissed her long and deep. Her good arm came up around my neck. She pulled me down in a hug that I wanted never to end. She tried her best to pull me right into her, to meld us into one person.

  We broke only to come up for air. She laughed and laughed, her total relief evident. My poor sweet little girl had worried about me, what I’d think.

  I took up the sleeve to her hospital gown and wiped my eyes. “I don’t know why you put up with me,” I said. “I’ve turned into some kind of weepy old man.”

  Marie nodded. “Yes, you have, but you’re my weepy old man.”

  “Thanks. This was the moment when you’re supposed to lie to me about being old.”

  She brought her hand up to her mouth to speak into the mock recorder. “Subject continues to need constant reinforcement to bolster his …” She turned the mock recorder my way for me to speak. “ … his what?”

  “Oh, you want to play doctor now?”

  She held up her finger. “Bruno—” She tried and failed to keep from smiling. “Now, I’ve just been through a serious accident.”

  I raised my hands in the air like claws of a monster. “Suddenly, I’m feeling kinda hungry.”

  She shrieked like a child and I gently tickled her. We enjoyed the moment, the pure release with nothing at all left to interfere.

  Then it ended and I froze. An ugly image crept in unbidden to ruin the happy moment. I tried to keep it out and couldn’t. The cop in me wouldn’t let me keep it out. The image of Blue Suit in our hotel room, groping and threatening my wife, my wife who carried our child—the image wouldn’t leave me alone. He still lurked somewhere out there, still a threat, his act unanswered. And it needed to be answered.

  “Bruno? What’s the matter? You just went someplace.”

  “No, I’m right here.”

  “What were you just thinking about?”

  I pasted on my biggest smile. “With ten children at home,” I patted her tummy, “this little girl’s going to make eleven. I think we’ll call her Marjory, if it’s okay. Marjory, after my mother.”

  “Is that right? So you’ve already decided this child’s gender?”

  “Yes, a beautiful little girl who’ll most definitely take after her beautiful mother.”

  “I don’t mean to be contrary, but this boy’s father is so virile there isn’t any chance at all for a girl. And we shall name him after your father, no arguments.”

  I started to get up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Rebecca and Ricardo.”

  “Right now? You’re going to meet with those people right now?”

  I slid off the bed, stood at the edge. “That’s right.”

  She held up her hand. I took it. “Bruno?”

  “Yes, my love.”

  “I know that look in your eyes, that place you just went to in your mind, and it’s not one that I like. You know that. That look says you’re going to burn down the world. Please tell me that you’re not going to burn down the world, please. Promise me, Bruno.”

  “I promise I won’t burn down the world.”

  “Bruno Johnson, you’re going to be a father and our son’s going to need his father to stick around. You get those two poor little children back safe, and then you get your ass back here, you understand?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  MACK WAITED FOR me outside Marie’s room. “You ready?” he asked.

  I put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him away from the blue-uniformed LAPD officer. “You sure you’re okay with this cop here watching over Marie while we’re gone?”

  “What kinda paranoid are you, buddy? This isn’t some kinda cheap horror movie. These guys are pros. Relax, would ya? Come on, I sent your nephew down to wait for us by the car.”

  “What about those three deputies that assaulted us back at the hotel? Do you call them professionals, too? What if one of them comes here and flashes a badge, says he’s the relief for this guy’s shift, just to get at Marie?”

  Mack lost his smile and walked back to the door, with me close on his heels. “Listen,” he said to the cop, “no one, and I mean no one, is to go in there without my approval. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And no one is to relieve you except me and I mean no one, not even your supervisor. You have my number. If your supervisor wants you somewhere else, you call me, and I’ll get right back here. Do not leave that woman in there unprotected.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  We walked away, headed toward the elevator. “You feel better now?” he said, taking out his cell phone.

  “Yeah, thanks, I do. What are you doing? Who are you calling?” We stopped at the elevator to wait for the car.

  “You and your damn paranoia. Now you gave it to me like some kinda virus. I’m calling Barbara to come sit with Marie until we finish this thing.”

  The elevator doors opened and out stepped Barbara Wicks, the chief of police of the Montclair Police Department, Mack’s fiancée.

  “That was fast.” I said.

  She wore a brown suit coat over a beige silk blouse and denim pants. She carried a radio in her left hand, leaving her gun hand available. She’d been married to Robby
Wicks for years and knew how to handle herself. Soon she’d be married to my friend Mack, an absolutely honorable man and an exact opposite of Robby. I took at least a little comfort in their relationship, their age difference not all that different from Marie’s and mine.

  Along with Barbara, two Hispanic men dressed in nice suits stepped out.

  Mack punched off his cell. “I was calling you. What’re you doing here?”

  She gave Mack a peck on the cheek. “Marie called me, told me what was going on, said you two boys were off on some sort of chest-thumping expedition. I’m guessing it’s to get those two little kids back.” She said to Mack, “You should’ve called me, babe, told me about the accident.”

  Mack nodded. “I’ve been a little busy. Ask Bruno, I was just going to call you.” He tried to change the subject. “You brought help?” indicating the two Montclair detectives, who’d yet to speak and stood off to the side awaiting assignment.

  She pointed a finger up in Mack’s face. “You think after only being engaged to you one day, I’m going to let you go off with this bozo”—she hooked a thumb my way—“and get yourself all broken up again? No chance, my friend. I’m goin’ with you. I brought my guys, who I trust with my life, to stay with Marie. No arguments.” She moved over closer to me. “You got something to say about this, Bruno?”

  I held up my hands and took a step back. “No, not a peep. I’m glad you’re here.”

  * * *

  With less than an hour left, the four of us met down in the parking lot by the two cars Mack and Barbara had brought, an early model blue Honda Accord and a black Dodge Charger.

  We didn’t have much time; the drive to Santa Monica Pier would take thirty minutes.

  Mack looked right at me when he spoke. “I called in the task force. They’re already set up based on the way you said it went down the last time, with you on the pier and the kids down the beach about a hundred yards. We have forty-five detectives and agents on this and have both sides of the pier covered in case these guys decide to get smart and do a change-up.” He handed my nephew a purple Crown Royal bag, the bottom rounded with fake glass diamonds.