The Ruthless

by David Putnam

  His head whipped around, his eyes searching mine for the truth. I didn’t envy what he had to look forward to: nine to ten years of appeals, the entire time the razor-sharp sword of justice perched over his head ready to swing down and snuff out his life.

  “What exactly are you willin’ to do? You willin’ to take a dude off the board? ’Cause what you’re askin’ of me is pretty heavy.”

  He wanted us to kill someone on the street, someone he could no longer get to and still owed a bullet.

  Wicks smiled. “Sure, we can do that.”

  Wicks was going to take Genie’s information and not hold up his end of the bargain.

  “No,” I said emphatically. “That’s not going to happen. What else can I do for you?”

  He sat back and thought about it a good long time. He looked from Wicks and back to me. “Okay.” He pointed at me. “I can trust you. You and I are bound by blood.”

  Wicks muttered, “What a bunch of street bullshit.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “If I help you, I want … what I want is for my mama to get a dozen red roses every Monday for the rest of her life.”

  I sat back, stunned. In all of my years of working the street, I’d never come across such a kind request from someone in his situation, especially from a cold-blooded killer.

  “Sure,” Wicks said. “We can handle that.”

  “I’m not talkin’ ta you, cracker.”

  “Every week is too much,” I said. “Once a year?”

  “Once a month?”

  I stuck out my hand. He took it and shook.

  “My mama didn’t deserve what I put her through, the trial and then all that escape bullshit. They kicked her door in twice before you caught up to me. I can’t make it up to her but I can at least—”

  “Okay, okay, quit flapping your gums and tell us what you know about who ran with Jamar Deacon, back in the day.”

  Genie shot Wicks a hot glare that did nothing but draw deeper into Wicks’ ire. Wicks had received worse and let it roll off for the moment. Genie looked back at me. “You gunned Jamar’s homeboy that day on 10th and—”

  “I know, forget that guy, who else? Who would be mad enough to go after the judge for killing Jamar with the shotgun? Who knows guns and knows how to handle pumpkin balls?”

  A slow smile crept across Genie’s face exposing white teeth. “Pumpkin balls? You’re telling me that’s what he used on the judge?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That wasn’t in the papers.”

  “Homicide holds back information to keep crackpots honest who come in to claim the murder. Who is it? I can see you know something, tell me.”

  He pointed a finger too close to my face. I didn’t like it but put up with it.

  “You promise, once a month, twelve red roses?”

  “You have my word.”

  “His name’s La Vonn. He and Jamar were tight. They worked some gig together way back before they both broke bad, turned street thug, and came to work for me. He was supposed to be there that day on 10th. He is a baaadass, and if he’d have been there like he was supposed to, things would’ve turned out much different. I can guarantee you dat. I never ran into a dude so ruthless. He would’ve taken you out, Depuuteey. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  Wicks stood and moved to the corner, his back to us, his cell phone to his ear, calling in the name to OSS, Operation Safe Streets, the Sheriff’s gang detail.

  “What’s La Vonn’s last name?” I asked.

  Genie shrugged. “You want more than that, it’s going to be roses once a week, Depuuteey.”

  I jumped from my chair, grabbed a handful of his red jumpsuit, shoved him across the short distance, and slammed him against the concrete wall. I pressed my shoulder into his chest. I got up into his face. “We had a deal and you’re going to keep it.”

  His eyes went wide with fear. Maybe he did remember the toaster, or maybe he remembered the way I stuck that .380 against his leg, the poke of the barrel just before I pulled the trigger—the searing hot thud as it parted muscle and lodged in bone.

  “I … I don’t know his name. You know how it is on the street, no one gives their real name. Ease up on me, Deputy, step off. Come on, man.”

  I backed up and gave him some breathing room. “Where can we find La Vonn?”

  “Don’t know. He just fell out after you took me down.” Genie readjusted his red jumpsuit. “I can tell you one thing though, he also ran off with my stash, couple a hundred grand. Word is he used it to open up some kinda straight shop and he’s not slingin’ anymore. He’s an eight ta five suit now. He only does big deals. Big. Big deals. But trust me, he’s just as dirty as before. That cat won’t ever change his spots.”

  I pulled back and slapped him hard across the face.

  “Hey. Hey.” He cowered.

  “Is La Vonn the dude you wanted us to take off the board when we first started talking? Are you playing us now? Are you giving him up just so we’ll go after him?”

  “No. No. I didn’ know it was La Vonn you was lookin’ for until you said he ran with Jamar and … and that he used pumpkin balls. Swear ta God, on my mother’s eyes, dat’s the truth.”

  Wicks turned around and put his cell in his pocket. “No hits on La Vonn. He’s yankin’ our dicks.”

  I looked back at Little Genie. “You have to give us something more or I’m going to start working on you.”

  “I don’t know nothin’ else, I swear.”

  “What was the gig Jamar and La Vonn both worked?”

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s right. They both worked at some kinda gym. You know, one of them body shops where all the muscle heads go and drink protein milk and slap each other’s asses.”

  “What’s the name of it?”

  “I don’t know, man. I don’t run like that. But I know you can ask around and someone will tell ya.”

  I grabbed his red jumper and yanked him to his feet. He flinched away and brought his arms up to his face.

  “Relax, I’m only chaining you back up. You better not have lied to me or I’ll be back.”

  “It’s the truth, every bit of it. You still gonna get the roses for my mama?”

  “I’m a man of my word.” I hooked his wrists to the cuffs at his waist.

  “Thank you, Deputy Johnson.”

  I opened the door and handed him off to the escort deputy waiting outside. Wicks walked with me to the sally port that would let us back out to the freedom side of the world. He lit up a cigarette. A uniform sergeant walking by stopped. “No smoking in—”

  Wicks pulled his jacket aside to show him the lieutenant’s badge clipped to his belt. The sergeant shook his head and walked on, muttering.

  While we waited for the sally port to open, Wicks said, “How is it that punks you beat and shoot open up to you and that never works for me?”

  I didn’t answer him. If he didn’t already know, then it was too late for him to figure it out now.

  I stood staring through the bars to the other side wondering what it would be like to be confined like an animal. I could only hope life would not kick me in the teeth and put me there. I couldn’t use life as an excuse; I made my own choices.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I PUSHED THE accelerator to the floor, the engine on the little Opel Kadett winding out and threatening to blow. I wove in and around slower cars heading northbound on Wilmington. Once I hit Imperial Highway, I’d go west to Central and then go north. Junior Mint sat next to me, sensing my anxiety, and moved around from paw to paw. He was far too large for the small seat and footwell. I’d drop him at TW first, but I didn’t have the time.

  Wicks had let me off back at my car in the Compton court parking lot. He wanted to follow up on what Little Genie had told us. That’s what Wicks said, but I knew better. What I told him about Derek Sams had been grinding on him. How Derek had used him. Wicks would page up Sams. If Sams was dumb enough to answer the summons, Wicks would hav
e a heart-to-heart with him, one with knuckles and a blackjack employed to get the truth. Wicks would determine whether or not Sams really did have the ability to ferret out the judge and his wife’s killer or if he was just feeding Wicks a line.

  When Wicks asked what I intended to do, I told him I’d search for the gym where La Vonn and Jamar had worked. And I would do that, right after I took a run up to the Crazy Eight for the meeting with Jumbo and Nigel.

  I was fifteen minutes late. Nigel had the gift of gab and would do his best to keep Johnny Sin at the bar as long as he could. I had offered Nigel two thousand dollars of TW’s money if he could put together the gun deal with Jumbo. If he had to, Black Bart would go a lot higher than two grand for a deal this large, a deal that would make international news. The U.S. government had put the kibosh on the train car theft, and nothing in the media had leaked. No one knew except the government and the railroad. The government didn’t want the media to find out how terribly deficient their security had been and that low-level criminals could walk away with so many guns and munitions, putting the public at great risk.

  Five minutes later, I made a wide sweeping turn from Central onto 81st and into the Crazy Eight’s rear parking lot. The little car bounced and banged into the driveway. I pulled up and stopped. Junior Mint barked. He sensed the excitement of something important about to happen. I checked the mirrors and looked all around. I couldn’t leave Junior in the car, not in this neighborhood. Too many gangsters with guns; otherwise, I had no doubt he could hold his own against any other threat. Junior paced, moving his front paws back and forth in more of a hop, while his rear stayed put on the seat. On one pass he licked my cheek. He wanted to go in real bad. “I’m sorry, pal, this isn’t the kind of place you think it is. It’s not for good dogs. It’s ugly inside and it smells … it kinda smells like ass.”

  “Arf.”

  “Okay, okay. But if I take you in with me, you have to be on your best behavior. You promise?” He licked my cheek again. I opened the door and slid out. He came out right behind me and almost knocked me down. “Hey, hey, take it easy.” I grabbed his collar and clipped on a long leather leash. He about jerked my arm out of the socket heading for the back door. You’d think he was an alcoholic in desperate need of a Singapore Sling or a Greyhound. I pulled him up short to talk to him, let him calm down a little.

  “Just so you know, my friend, they don’t serve top-shelf liquor in here. It’s strictly plastic vodka. What’s plastic vodka, you ask? Well, I didn’t know either until Nigel told me. It’s cheap vodka poured from a plastic bottle.” I patted his side. “Okay, here we go.”

  I tugged open the thick, heavy door reinforced with wrought-iron bars and steel. We entered the cool darkness.

  Ledezma yelled from behind the bar, “No, Karl. No dogs, God damn you. Get him the hell outta here. Now.”

  I ignored him and pulled hard against the leash trying to control Junior. Junior wanted to belly up to the bar with all his newfound friends, but that spelled trouble with a capital T. I jockeyed him over to a large double-glass-door cooler made of stainless steel. Ledezma bought it at a fire sale and stored his overstock of cheap bottled beer where he could keep a close eye on it. He only sold two flavors, cheap and cheaper. He didn’t leave the derelicts, drunks, and ne’er-do-wells who patronized his bar open to temptation and locked the double door handles together with a chain and padlock. I threaded Junior’s leash through the same handles and snugged it down just as Nigel, over at the bar, yelled, “Hey, Karl, lemme buy you a beer.” He held up a near-empty mug. He didn’t have any money; he meant he wanted me to buy him a beer.

  My eyes had adjusted to the dimness. I moved toward him. The bar was near capacity, half again more than normal. What was different today? Oh, Mother’s Day in the ghetto—the day the welfare checks came out. There always came a flurry of bar activity until the money dwindled. A flash of calming behavior settled throughout the ghetto—drunks, speed freaks, and cokeheads would lie low until the money ran dry. Then, gradually, hunger would set in, malnutrition, jonesing for the next fix or pint—a hum, a vibration, would grow louder with each day until once again the eagle screamed and the welfare money hit the mailboxes. If one more person walked into the Crazy Eight, they’d have to take a seat in one of the grimy red vinyl booths where nobody ever sat, too dark and dreary in the realm of the already dark and dreary.

  Over by the cooler, Junior whined.

  I gently elbowed in beside Lois, a woman who spent most of her day scavenging cans and bottles with a shopping cart in order to drink her breakfast, lunch, and dinner at The Eight. She reeked of body odor and dirt and of a hopeless despair. “How’s it hangin’, Lois?” I slipped her a five hand-to-hand under the bar so Ledezma didn’t see it in case she owed him a tab.

  “Thanks, Karl,” she whispered. “My kids’ll ’preciate it. Now I can buy my babies some beans and rice.”

  Many winters ago, her three children died in a carbon monoxide accident, victims of a faulty wall heater. This while she attended the neighbor’s Christmas party partaking in a nog laced heavily with rum.

  If I slipped her anything more than a five, it would endanger her health with a drug overdose or alcohol poisoning.

  Ledezma came over and slapped the bar with the flat of his hand. “No. I won’t have it, Karl. Get that damn dog out of here now or I’m callin’ the cops.”

  He didn’t want the cops in there any more than I did.

  I smiled. “Where’s my beer?”

  “Get him out.” He pointed off into the distance with a move that looked more like a salute to Adolf.

  Nigel said, “Ah, come on, man, don’t be that way. Peace on earth starts at home. Give my friend a beer, I’m buyin’.” He held up his clenched hand for a fist bump from the angry bartender.

  Ledezma ignored the drunken Nigel and glared at me. “The health department does a surprise visit, I’ll lose my ticket. They’re just lookin’ for a reason to close me down.”

  I picked up the dirty bar towel with two fingers, made a face, and dropped it on the other side onto the duckboards that hadn’t been cleaned in weeks. “Seriously?”

  I reached across the bar, grabbed a mug, and pulled my own draft. Ledezma watched with a scowl. I had to keep up my hardass image as part of the game of roping for TW.

  Nigel leaned in close and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Johnny Sin is late, you lucked out. When he gets here and he likes what we have to say, he’ll take us to Jumbo.”

  I sipped instead of glugged. I wanted my senses clear. “You couldn’t get him to come to TransWorld? This meeting has to be here?” I wanted Johnny Sin on videotape at the TW counter talking over the deal, hard evidence for court he wouldn’t be able to refute.

  “Naw, man, I was lucky to get him to come here, and I’m tellin’ you right now, this isn’t a good idea. Johnny Sin is no one to mess with. I mean it. I’m not kidding here. Even if it’s a straight deal, which from what I hear he doesn’t do a lot of those, my friend. The bigger the deal, the more likely the other guy just up and disappears after the transaction. Never to be seen or heard from again. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Then Johnny Sin keeps the money and the merchandise.”

  I shrugged. “You don’t know for sure. A big deal means big money—maybe they just took off for warmer climes down South.”

  He leaned away from me as if trying to get a better look. “You sun-stroked, son?”

  The door opened. In walked a street gangster wearing an aftermarket football letterman’s jacket, sunglasses, and a Raiders ball cap pulled down low. He wore denim pants four or five sizes too large that sagged front and back, the waist cinched up with a narrow black belt. He didn’t belong in the Crazy Eight. The door behind him closed slowly, cutting off the pie-wedged light from outside.

  Junior Mint stood and barked.

  Ledezma, behind me, said, “Better curb your dog or you’re not going to have one.”

  “Junior!” I yelled.
/>   The light continued to winnow down as the door closed on its own.

  The gangbanger stopped and turned his head to look at Junior, his hand going inside his jacket. He was going for a gun.

  I reached under my shirt and yanked out the .357. “Junior!”

  Nigel grabbed my shoulder. “Don’t, Karl. It’s too late.”

  I shrugged away.

  Junior didn’t like criminals. He leapt forward, jerking the tall, double-glass-door cooler and pulling it a couple of feet away from the wall. The steel-pegged feet scraped the floor. The bottles inside rattled and fell and banged. Some broke. The handles held and so did the leash.

  The gangbanger pulled a chrome automatic handgun and swung his hand around.

  Junior leapt again, pulling the heavy cooler filled with cheap beer along the floor a few more feet.

  I jumped between my dog and the gangbanger, pointing my gun at his face ten feet away. “Back off. Back off!”

  Everybody froze. Except Junior; he made another leap. I reached down and grabbed him by the collar, still holding my aim on the guy’s head. “Put it away or I’ll put you down.”

  The gangbanger’s solemn expression didn’t change. He remained cool under duress. He slowly lowered his gun, turned heel, and exited the same way he’d entered.

  Nigel came over, beer in hand. He reached down and patted Junior’s head. “Thanks a lot, Karl. You just ran off your gun deal and now I’m out two grand.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That there was Johnny Sin.”

  “That wasn’t the guy I saw in here before.”

  “Yes, it was, he just never looks the same way twice.”

  I said, “Here, hold my dog.”

  I hurried out to catch up to Johnny Sin.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  OUTSIDE, I HELD up my arm to block the bright sunlight and flinched waiting for Johnny Sin’s bullet to take me in the gut. In the glare, I caught movement over by the cars parked in front of the pawnshop. I brought my gun down by my leg and headed that way. Johnny Sin moved to the door of a faded light-blue VW bug and opened it. Only his head and shoulders were visible. What a perfect car to move around in. No cop would be looking for a high-powered crime figure, not one capable of negotiating a gun deal with literally a ton of guns, not driving a VW. Or maybe he really couldn’t do a deal at all and he’d just hornswoggled Nigel.