The Ruthless

by David Putnam

  “You lookin’ for me?” I asked.

  “That’s right.” He held out his hand to shake.

  I turned, faced the bar, and took up my beer. I watched him in the mirror on the wall behind the bar. “How can I help you? I’m kinda busy.”

  Johnny Sin lost his smile. “Not here.”

  I turned back to face him leaning against the bar, mug in hand, and looked him up and down. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I know better.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You could have a couple of your thug buddies waiting for me outside.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “I don’t even know you.”

  “Hell, you could be a cop, for all I know.”

  “I’m not a damn cop,” he said. “I look like a cop to you?”

  I shrugged. “Who looks like a cop nowadays? Hell, I could be a cop for all you know. State your business or take a walk.”

  He didn’t like being talked down to. He raised his hand and pointed at me. “I’m here to do you a favor, asshole. Jumbo wanted me to—”

  “Cop,” Ledezma whispered harshly.

  The front door opened and in walked Robby Wicks. He stopped just inside the door to take in the crowd, to assess what he was up against.

  Ah, hell.

  If Wicks opened his mouth, he’d burn me. With just a few simple words, he could burn down all the work we had put in at TransWorld.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WICKS HAD HIS Western cut suit coat pulled back on his right side so everyone could see the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s star clipped to his belt next to his holstered Colt .45. His eyes moved down the bar until he spotted me.

  I whispered to Johnny Sin, “You better jam. I think he’s here to kick my ass over a stolen car.”

  Ledezma heard me and said, “Karl, take it outside.”

  The bar went dead calm. Wicks walked over and stood behind me. I drank my beer and tried to pretend he wasn’t there. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with him, and if he wanted to fight, I’d mop the floor with him.

  “You going to ignore me?” he asked.

  I drank my beer.

  “Take it outside,” Ledezma said again, louder this time.

  Johnny Sin slithered back to where he’d come from and watched from the mirror reflection. Nigel had talked to Jumbo like he promised, and Jumbo had sent Johnny Sin looking for me to talk guns. This was the big opportunity, and now Wicks had screwed it up.

  “Hey, slick,” Wicks said, “let’s do what the man said and take it outside. You don’t want to air your dirty laundry in front of all these fine human specimens.”

  I chugged down the rest of my second beer and realized Dad must’ve told Wicks where to find me. “Ah, man,” I half whispered. I threw down a wadded-up ten and headed for the back door with Wicks close at my heels.

  Outside I turned and braced for a physical attack that didn’t come. Instead, Wicks stood back and stared at me. I’d worked with him too many years and could see he wasn’t on edge ready to leap—or even angry for that matter. We stood under a security light meant to keep away the riffraff, the dope deals, and the quick sex acts for hire. He took out a brown cigarette and lit it with a lighter that carried the Marine Corps emblem. He’d never been in the Marines. Six years back he’d taken the lighter off Daniel D. Jacobson III, a Marine Recon, a true badass who’d flipped his nut and had gone on a killing spree. We caught up with Jacobson first when all of SoCal was looking for him. We could’ve bushwhacked him—shot him in the back—but this was what Wicks lived for. Instead, Wicks ordered me to stand down, told me to take him out if Wicks didn’t walk away from it. Jacobson had walked through a paint store and into an alley to shake any tail that followed. We were waiting for him at the other end.

  Wicks yelled. Unaware of our presence, Jacobson, quick as a snake, spun and fired. Wicks fired at the same time. The shots melded as one and echoed up and down the alley. They both went down. Wicks was hit twice, once high in the leg and once in the meaty part of his side. Jacobson was hit once in the forehead. When I got up to Wicks, he said, “Son of a bitch, did you see that? That was really something, wasn’t it? God damn, that was really something.”

  Over the course of many years on the violent crimes team, he’d taken souvenirs from his boldest victims—three of them that I could remember—Zippo lighters.

  Now he stood two feet away in the back parking lot of the Crazy Eight, smoking a thin brown cigarette, staring at me. He finally let go with a smile that cracked his tanned face.

  “Robby, what are you doing here?”

  “You know, that beard is a great disguise.” He reached up to tug on it. I slapped his hand away. “I bet no one on the street recognizes you.”

  I said nothing. He wanted something from me. He’d done this before, acting as if nothing had come between us. He always came looking for me when he had an important case he couldn’t crack on his own.

  He squinted when he blew out a lungful of smoke and the slight breeze rolled it back into his face. He pointed at me with the lit cigarette. “You know, after I cooled down some I laughed about that Corvette in my driveway. That was a good one. I owe you though. When you least expect it, I’ll get you back, you wait and see if I don’t.”

  “I’m sorry about the car, it shouldn’t have happened.”

  “I told you, no big deal.”

  “What do you want?”

  He went back to staring me down. “I came looking for you because I need your help. I was going to tell you about it in the jail but … well, things just got out of control. That was my fault and I’m here hat in hand to apologize.”

  “Figured it was something like that.”

  “Don’t come off with that tone with me.” He caught himself and took a step back. He took a deep breath and let it out. “Look, you obviously don’t know what’s happened. The department was able to put a lid on it until tonight. It came out in the six o’clock news, and I know you never watch TV or listen to the radio.”

  “It can’t be anything I care about.” What he’d said to me in the jail—how I’d reverted back to type—popped back up and brought on an anger I didn’t want.

  He gritted his teeth. He must really want my help if he was putting up with my insolence.

  “When I found you in the jail … well, it just pissed me off that you’d gone to the other side. I didn’t know if it was worth trying to get that stolen car beef suppressed so you could work for me. I mean, so we could work together again.”

  “I didn’t ask you to get me out of that beef. And I’ll never work with you again. I’m done with all of that.”

  “Quit being a horse’s ass and let me talk.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sheriff’s star. He smiled. “I had to use every favor I had in the bank to pull this off. I had to lie to the deputy chief about your arrest in the Monte Carlo. I told him you were working as a confidential informant for me. I took the heat. I told him I had signed you up as a CI.”

  I stood there agog. I had not expected this. I didn’t take the badge from him. When the truth came out, and it would come out when the TransWorld takedown started, Wicks was going to be mad as hell that I made a chump out of him to the deputy chief.

  The deputy chief must’ve played along and had not burned TW by telling Wicks about the sting, but at the same time the deputy chief was sending me a message that whatever Wicks was talking about had enough weight to pull me off the sting.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’m sorry, Bruno. Judge Connors and his wife were gunned down Friday morning. They’re both dead.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MY KNEES WENT weak. I put my hand on the back wall of the Crazy Eight for support. It took a couple of minutes to grasp the loss. Connors was a good friend, a great guy. Three years earlier, he’d saved my life in a shooting at 10th and Crenshaw. And his wife? Why would anyone want to kill Jean Anne? Anger took hold of me. A pure anger that begged for an outlet. I wa
nted to punch Wicks in the face for bringing this horrible news. “What happened? Who did it?”

  Wicks shoved the Sheriff’s star at me. “That’s why I’m here. We’re going to find out. This is a superior court judge and his wife. You cannot believe the shit storm this has caused. Everyone is howling for action, the mayor, the DA, all the way up to the governor.”

  “So you know who did it?”

  “No. I told you, we have to figure that out.” He still held his hand extended with the star.

  “Hold on. We’ve never worked homicide. We were always the dog team that ran the guy down after homicide had the case wrapped and had a warrant in hand. We’re good at chasing fugitives, not this other. We’ll screw it up and it’ll get thrown out of court.”

  “What are you talking about? We can do this, no sweat.”

  “Putting a case together takes expertise with an intimate knowledge of the law, interrogation, and search and seizure.” My mind spun way out ahead, my own words sparking questions that spawned answers I wasn’t sure I wanted.

  Wicks said nothing and still held the badge for me to take.

  I said, “So they agreed to allow me to work it with you? They don’t want us on some thrown-together task force with a hundred other cops?”

  Wicks still said nothing.

  “No,” I said, figuring it out as I spoke. “They probably do have that task force set up, but we’re not going to be working with them, right?”

  I watched Wicks’ eyes and read them.

  I said, “We’re going to be separate because … because the word’s come down … they want this handled by the great Robby Wicks. They want this handled with flash and fury. They want this guy taken off the board with blood and bone and huge press conferences afterward. They want the public to know you don’t mess with our judges and their families. That’s it, isn’t it? This is labeled: terminate with extreme prejudice, pure and simple.”

  “You in?”

  “Damn right I am.” I snatched the badge from him and stuck it in my pocket in case someone from the Crazy Eight walked out. Now I had two of them.

  He smiled. “Good. So where do we start?”

  “What do you mean? You don’t have any place to start?”

  “Hell no, why do you think I’m here?”

  “How am I supposed to know? I’m just now hearing about it.”

  “You worked with him for two years. You were his bailiff. You saw all the cases that came before him. You, more than anyone else, would have a better idea about who we should look at.”

  “If you’re looking at his court cases, it could be anyone.” Once a jury gave their verdict, Connors didn’t hold back; he handed down the heaviest sentences he thought he could get away with. Every fifth defendant, it seemed, threatened to get even, and those were just the ones I heard in court. “Connors constantly received hate mail. It’s going to take forever to ferret out his killer.”

  “Come on, think. You can still do that, can’t you?”

  “Don’t talk to me that way. You’re the one who dropped the investigation with Olivia.”

  He stepped in close, his warm and humid breath mingled with the smell of burnt tobacco. “We’re going to leave that topic alone for now, until we finish this other thing. Then if you still want to discuss it, we can lump it in with the stolen car you left in my driveway and we’ll have it out in the street. How’s that?”

  “Fine by me.”

  “Come on, get your ass in my car.”

  “I said don’t talk to me like that or this isn’t going to work.” I followed him anyway and got in his black Dodge that he’d parked out back of the Crazy Eight. He had parked there and walked around to the front to make an entrance so everyone would see him, a grand entrance that was pure Robby Wicks.

  He drove as he always drove: as if someone were chasing him. He whipped in and out of streets, neither of us talking. He accelerated out of turns hard enough to throw me back in the seat. After a few miles I figured out where he was taking us and didn’t really want to go, but I knew there wasn’t any way around it. I sat back, closed my eyes, and tried to relax, tried to think of who could’ve killed my two friends and why. There were plenty of whys for Judge Connors, but not his wife, Jean Anne; she was a kindred spirit who would never have done anything to incite someone’s ire. She’d been collateral damage, wrong place at the wrong time. I didn’t have to look at the crime scene to figure that much out.

  Wicks made the last turn down Begonia, Connors’ street. Branches from trees on both sides of the street met in the center, making a tunnel the streetlights had difficulty penetrating and making our headlights brighter. No cars or trash cans cluttered the curbs. All the homes sat quiet with warm yellow lights that spilled from the windows on large lawns and circular driveways. The well-kept houses would fit in most upscale, middle-class neighborhoods, but here at the edge of Bel Air they would cost twice as much.

  Wicks pulled to the curb in front of Connors’ house, where I had visited many times and fostered fond memories of dinners and long talks out on his patio in back.

  Yellow police line tape marred the otherwise perfect neighborhood, strung from one tree to another, effectively marking off the house and screaming “Crime scene, stay back!” An LAPD black-and-white patrol car sat at the curb across from the house. Wicks pulled up and stopped behind it. The cop inside, a short Asian woman with short raven hair, got out and waited for us. Her nameplate said “Wu.” We got out and showed her our stars. She nodded and logged our names and the time. She didn’t ask why Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies wanted to enter an LAPD crime scene. Or why one was an African American who wore a khaki shirt with a TransWorld patch. Wicks had pre-loaded the situation, knowing ahead of time that I would go along with him. I didn’t like that he could read me so easily.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  WICKS DUCKED UNDER the crime scene tape and stood on the sidewalk in front of the driveway to the house. I followed. He took a step closer and waved his hand. A motion detector mounted over the garage activated lights that flooded the driveway area and blinded us. I held up my arm as a shield.

  Wicks turned toward the LAPD car and pointed up. The Asian girl had the garage door opener and pushed its button. The metal garage door came up and made a racket in the dead calm neighborhood. Wicks had been here before and knew the routine. He took a moment to light one of his thin brown cigarettes. He pointed with his lit cigarette, the white smoke filling the still air in a halo effect around his head. “Happened right in there.” He pointed to the open garage. “Friday morning at 0803 Judge Connors and his wife stood by his open Mercedes car door. The judge was dressed for work, suit and tie, and his wife was still in her robe. I got the photos if you want to see them. I don’t think you do.”

  He took another drag on his cigarette, a diversion to ponder the deadly tableau. He’d been friends with the Connorses, too, as much of a friend as Wicks allowed anyone to be. In the huge, two-car garage sat a gold Lexus sedan, Jean Anne’s car, and next to it the big, heavy silver Mercedes. The front driver’s door stood open. There was at least six feet between the two cars.

  Wicks turned and pointed south along the sidewalk with his cigarette, the smoke trailing like a road flare. “The judge made the fatal mistake of always leaving for work at the same time. The asshole came walking down this way and stood right about here where we are. From the neighbor across the street, the suspect was medium height, medium weight, wearing a long-sleeve dark shirt and a hunter’s cap, the kind that comes down over the ears and neck. The neighbor couldn’t be sure of race.”

  “So absolutely nothing workable on the description?”

  “Correct.”

  He still had not taken a step toward the open garage door. I wasn’t in a hurry to see the bloody remnants of my friends.

  Wicks turned back toward the garage and raised his hands and arms shoulder height as if pointing a rifle. Smoke came out of his mouth as he spoke. “The suspect held a pump s
hotgun and from this range fired twice.” Wicks worked the slide on the imaginary shotgun that recoiled every time he pulled the trigger.

  A shotgun—now I really didn’t want to see inside that garage.

  “Pumpkin balls, Bruno. The bastard used pumpkin balls.”

  My breath caught. Pumpkin ball was a street term used for deer slugs. Four hundred and fifty grains of lead coming out of a long-barreled shotgun generating enough foot-pounds of energy at close range to bring down an elephant. We stood thirty or forty feet from the open Mercedes door. From that range those deer slugs would have—

  I shivered at the thought, how the delicate Jean Anne and poor Judge Connors faced that level of unanticipated violence, a level of evil that now needed heavy-handed assistance in leaving this mortal world.

  Wicks broke into my thoughts. “Hit each one of them once, center mass. Then he dropped the shotgun on the lawn right there—” Wicks mimicked tossing the shotgun with both hands. “Then this mutt kept walking down the street like nothing happened. He rounded the corner down there where we think he had a car waiting for him.

  “From this range, standing right here, it wasn’t too technical of a shot.” He pointed with the flat of his hand into the garage. “He left the expended shells on the sidewalk right there.”

  He looked at me. “Does this ring any bells?”

  “What?” I shook off the fugue state I’d slipped into. “Ah, no. Should it?”

  He reached up and, with a knuckle, knocked on my head. “I don’t know. You were the one who worked in his courtroom.”

  I shoved his hand away. “Knock it off, Robby, don’t treat me like that. I’m not kidding, don’t do it again.” I wouldn’t put up with it and would slug him the next time.

  I walked up to the threshold of the garage without entering, turned, and looked back down the gentle slope of the driveway to see what Judge Connors and Jean Anne must have seen of the suspect and his huge gun seconds before he shot them. A chilling prospect no one should ever have to endure.