The Ruthless

by David Putnam

  Dad stood over by the kitchen. “Where you going so late?”

  I started to put on a sock and stopped. Instead I put on a shoe without the sock to see what it felt like and also as a distraction so I wouldn’t have to answer his question right away.

  Dad said, “What are you doing?”

  “Just wanted to see what it felt like.”

  “Well, don’t. It’s uncivilized to wear shoes without socks. You can’t trust anyone who wears shoes without socks.”

  Huh. Now at least I knew where I got some of my genes.

  I put on my socks and shoes and walked closer to him. “Thank you for telling me about Mom.”

  He said nothing. Then, “Here’s that note.” He stuck it in my shirt pocket.

  I said, “If you really want to know where I’m going, I’ll tell you.”

  He raised his head a little. His eyes held mine as he thought about the offer. “All right,” he said, “tell me this—are you bound to someone else, sworn not to tell me?”

  My mouth sagged open. How had he figured that much out?

  He said, “Never mind, I can see as much in your expression. Can you at least tell me you’re not going down a bad road?”

  I put my hand on his shoulder, his story of Mom still heavy on my mind. “I can promise you that I will only do what needs to be done.”

  “That’s good enough for me. And someday you’ll tell me the rest, won’t you?”

  “Yes, in a few days, it should all be over.”

  “No, not that part, the other thing.” His tone had turned solemn and filled with despair.

  “What?” I took a half step back, stunned. He was referring to Albert. Somehow he had figured out I knew the whole story, that I knew the why, the how, and the who of what had happened to Albert. Had Dad guessed and was he now fishing for a reaction? Or had he just known that I would not rest, that I would move heaven and earth in search of the truth regarding Olivia and Albert?

  I said, “There are some things that are better kept—” I couldn’t finish it. Now I knew why, after all these years—decades—that he’d broken his silence about my mother. He’d methodically and with great deliberation backed me into a corner by telling me his deepest, darkest secret. The man could always outfox me no matter how hard I tried to keep up with him. He had a brilliant mind when it came to people and how to deal with them.

  My voice came out in a croak. “Yes, I’ll tell you.”

  But I didn’t know if I could ever tell him. Not because I didn’t want to, but because the words were too horrific to bring out into the light of day. To say them made them too real. Just thinking about saying them took me to an edge of a cliff where I stood ready to jump.

  “Soon,” Dad said. “Son, I need to know soon.”

  I nodded and headed for the door. I needed some air; the house had turned stuffy—smothering. The conversation he wanted would be the hardest one we would ever have.

  Outside, Junior Mint bounded along behind me. I’d forgotten all about him. I kept him off-leash as we walked through the dark neighborhood to MLK where I had parked the Kadett. He sensed my need for meditation and didn’t run off. He stayed right at my side. He’d always been someone I could confide in, and in the last six months, when we were alone, I spoke to him nonstop. Tonight, I couldn’t form the words to even talk to my dog. I had to get the words straight in my mind first. One thing I knew for sure, it wasn’t smart to enter into a dangerous gun deal with a head so cluttered with emotions.

  We made it to the Kadett, got in, and headed for TransWorld Freightliners, to the deal with Johnny Sin and Jumbo. We were going to try and talk them into selling a ton of stolen guns without anyone dying over it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  I KEPT CHECKING the mirrors as I drove. I couldn’t see anyone tailing along behind, nothing for certain, but instinct told me someone was there. I’d learned a long time ago to listen to instinct. If no one was there, a smidgeon of paranoia was a lot better than a little bit of dead.

  Who could be following? Johnny Sin? Did he want to know more about me before he fell in league with TW? A deal that could get him decades in federal prison if I turned out to be a cop? Sin acted more streetwise than your average crook, and I needed to be careful when dealing with him.

  I reached over and stroked Junior’s fur on his chest. He reciprocated by licking my hand.

  Maybe Derek Sams was somewhere back there among all the headlights. He had every reason to come for me rather than live with the real possibility that I would again, at the most inopportune time, pop up in his life. That was if my bad-self won out and I went hunting. Wicks should never have let Sams loose. I focused my anger at Wicks rather than thinking too strongly about Sams or I might lose that battle, drop everything, and go after him.

  In reality, Wicks wasn’t the cause of Sams’ release. The justice system had failed, letting a bad one slip through the cracks when they had him cold for a murder. You shouldn’t be able to trade one murderer for a better one, like baseball cards.

  Sams was a street thug and knew nothing about how to conduct a mobile surveillance. I’d spot him in an instant. It wasn’t Sams back there, but it was nice to think so, to think that Sams would make a rookie play to take me off the board. That kind of amateur move would make things so much easier. Self-defense. He was too much of a spineless punk for that play. But I’d have to give it more thought. I did like the idea.

  I made five passes of TransWorld before I parked farther away than normal, two long blocks down, and this time not even in the same industrial complex. I left Junior Mint off-leash and watched his reactions more than I watched the shadows as we made our way on foot back to TW. He was a good partner to have.

  RD was standing behind the counter when I came through TW’s front door. In the back, the soft ding in Black Bart’s office would alert him to check the CCT monitor set up in his office so he’d know I’d just walked through the door. RD shook his head. “Bart wants to see you, my friend, as soon as you come in. I’d pucker up and bend over if I were you.”

  “Yeah, I figured as much.”

  “I didn’t rat you out, Bruno, honest. Come here, Junior, come to Daddy.” RD clapped his hands and then his chest. Junior took off, ran around the counter, and tackled RD. I sidestepped around them on the floor and headed to Black Bart’s office. I entered, closed the door, and sat down in the hot seat in the chair in front of his desk.

  He stared at me with those hard-black eyes. I hated to disappoint him. In a short time, I had come to respect and like him more than any other supervisor I had worked for.

  I didn’t wait for him to break the ice in the uncomfortable situation I’d created. With his silence he knew how to dish it, that was for sure. “Thanks for being there,” I said. “I mean behind the Crazy Eight. You saved my ass.”

  He continued to stare and didn’t move, not so much as an eyebrow or lash.

  I said, “You heard what Johnny Sin said about the deal? You got a look at him?”

  Nothing but crickets. Pure silence. I decided to wait on him.

  He finally said, “Carl Weathers.”

  “What? What are you talking about? Who’s Carl Weathers?” The actor from the Rocky movies? Had Black Bart finally gone over the edge? Had worrying about my unorthodox behavior, my failure to follow policy and procedure, finally pushed him too far and all his marbles now rattled around in his head the same as in an empty cigar box?

  Black Bart nodded. “Johnny Sin said he’d never heard of a black guy with a name like Carl. Carl Weathers is a black actor.”

  “Oh.” I did remember the conversation, Johnny Sin saying it when we were to the rear of the Crazy Eight, but it was weird for Bart to bring that up at that moment.

  Black Bart said, “Stool Sample says the deal’s going down tonight, here at the counter—is that right?”

  Why wasn’t Black Bart jumping up and down and yelling? Why wasn’t he right up in my face dressing me down about the two errors I
’d made?

  “That’s what Nigel told me,” I replied. “Nigel said that he called Jumbo while you and I were out in the parking lot talking with Johnny.”

  Still with the stare he said, “That’s good. If this deal goes down right, you’re going to be a star with your department heads. You’ll be able to pick your assignment, maybe even make sergeant out of it.”

  “I don’t care about that; I just want to get the guns off the street. I’m sorry about the money thing and … the flash without backup. I didn’t intend on doing the flash like that. It just happened. I felt the deal slipping away and I made a mistake. I guess I wanted it too badly. It won’t happen again.”

  Black Bart leaned in over his desk. “I don’t want you at the counter tonight. I want you behind the glass with the gauge, covering me.”

  “This is my deal.” I said it too loudly, with too much vehemence. “I roped Jumbo on this. He wouldn’t be here if—”

  I sat back in my chair.

  He stared and said nothing. He didn’t trust me anymore and it hurt worse than if he’d yelled and screamed. I would’ve preferred anger and rage to the loss of his trust, the loss of my credibility and honor.

  I took a deep breath. “I understand.”

  The soft bong sounded. We both turned to the CCT monitor. Two people entered TW through the front door. I recognized Jumbo by his big ears I’d heard so much about. The man with him wore a nice suit and tie and designer sunglasses. Jumbo had brought a lawyer to the deal. Who in the world brought a lawyer to an illegal, clandestine gun deal?

  Black Bart turned back to me. “I thought you said the deal was for midnight? It’s only nine o’clock.”

  “That’s what Nigel told me.”

  “Then these two came early on purpose. It’s a tactic to catch us with our pants down in case we had plans on taking them down. These guys are good.”

  “Yeah.”

  “The cover team for this isn’t due in for another hour. We’re going to have to do it without them.”

  “You want me at the counter?”

  “No, behind the glass. RD and I will handle this.”

  I nodded, too angry to argue.

  Black Bart opened his desk drawer, took out his cut-down shotgun, and moved around me, headed for the door. “Get ready.”

  “Bart?”

  He turned. I said, “Just so you know, Leo—you know, Leo from Sparkle Plenty—he told me that Jumbo is only the front guy and that Johnny Sin is the main man. If you don’t get a definitive answer out of Jumbo on the deal, that’ll be the reason why. Sin is the shot caller.”

  He pointed a thick finger at me. “Damn you, Bruno. I need you on that counter with me but you’re too bone-headed to follow the rules. Now get your butt on that gauge and make darn sure we all go home safe tonight.”

  I nodded.

  “They so much as flinch the wrong way, you pull that trigger. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I moved as silently as I could to the room with the one-way glass window. I turned on the video camera set on the tripod and picked up the shotgun, an Ithaca Deerslayer 12 gauge, an old gun from an LACO Sheriff’s patrol unit rescued from mothballs. The gun had three ancient notches in the wood stock. The notches had turned black with grime. The rest of the stock gleamed a deep polished brown. All the bluing on the steel had worn off. The gun had seen a lot of action. I eased the slide back an inch and made sure a shell was seated in the chamber. My finger automatically checked to see if the safety was off. I shouldered the shotgun and put the front barrel on the two crooks who stood at the counter talking to RD. The irony that the gun was an Ithaca Deerslayer wasn’t lost on me.

  Jumbo wore new designer jeans and a long-sleeve green silk shirt with a four-hundred-dollar pair of snakeskin cowboy boots. The lawyer wore a dark gray hand-tailored silk business suit that would cost more than five of my paychecks. He kept his hair shorn close to his scalp. He wore dark designer sunglasses that hid his face and—

  I grabbed up the phone and dialed the internal number for the counter just as Black Bart appeared. The phone on the counter rang and rang. Neither Bart nor RD picked it up.

  I held the shotgun at the ready and pinched the phone between my ear and shoulder. “Come on. Come on, pick it up.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  I LET THE phone ring. Maybe Bart would get tired of it and finally pick up. Bart had to see the lit line and know I was the one calling. He had to know I wouldn’t be playing a game. Foolish spite kept him from answering. Spite that might get him killed. I lined the barrel up on Johnny Sin dressed this time as a slimy lawyer. The man was a chameleon and that made him twice as dangerous. Dangerous as long as he was out running loose, something we intended to correct.

  The cover room where I stood had a speaker wired to hear what was said out front. Jumbo came up and laid his hands flat on the counter. He stared at Black Bart’s sunglasses. “Where’s Karl? I was dealing with a guy named Karl.”

  RD was smart enough to remain silent. Bart said, “He’s busy, I’m the one you need to talk to. It’s my money, not Karl’s.”

  Johnny Sin sauntered over to the glass window, his face close to the one-way mirror, his back to Jumbo and Black Bart at the counter. I put the shotgun inches from Johnny Sin’s nose. He raised his sunglasses, trying to peer in. He picked at his teeth as if something were stuck there and said, “My boss Jumbo only deals with the guy who set up the deal. It’s a silly superstition, but it has served him well.” He took a step back from the glass, turned toward Bart, and pointed back at the mirrored window with his sunglasses. “Tell your boy to put down his gun and get his black ass out here or the deal’s off.” He couldn’t see through the glass and had made a wild assumption.

  Bart hesitated, weighing his options. If I came out from behind the glass, there would be no one to cover. This violated one of Bart’s hard and fast rules on safety. If Bart agreed, he’d be doing the same thing I had done earlier in the day out behind the Crazy Eight where I played fast and loose with the rules because I wanted the gun deal too badly. Bart would never do that. He’d let the deal go sour first. That was the only game Bart played, conservatively and by the book.

  Over the speaker mounted in the cover room behind the one-way glass came a low growl. Junior Mint, on the other side of the counter and out of view of the two criminals, didn’t like the idea either.

  Jumbo put his hands to his ears. “Would you please answer that damn phone?”

  Bart picked it up without taking his eyes off Jumbo. “Get your ass out here and tell Ruben to stay there and cover us.”

  There wasn’t anyone on our team named Ruben; the name was a bluff. Once I left the glass, I was blind to what happened out front and they were without cover. I hurried around and through the warehouse. I stepped through the doorway with the Ithaca held down by my leg, not attempting to conceal it.

  Johnny Sin had come back from the glass and now stood at the counter. He held open his suit coat and twisted his hips one way, then the other. “What’s with all the heavy artillery—we’re all friends here, aren’t we? We’re just here to talk. Or am I missing something?” He’d shifted to a southern accent, perfect in syntax and delivery.

  Who was this guy?

  The front door of TW opened. It was Nigel. RD and Black Bart startled. Bart had forgotten to bolt the door. Black Bart brought up the shorty shotgun and laid it on the counter directed at Jumbo. If he pulled the trigger, Jumbo would turn into a fine mist of tomato paste.

  At the door, a drunken Nigel half-stumbled in. “Hey? Hey? What’s going on? It’s early. It’s too early. What are you guys doing here? Are you tryin’ to cut ol’ Nigel outta the deal? This is my deal, remember?”

  An ugly grin crept across Johnny Sin’s face, exposing a sliver of straight teeth. He stepped quick, before Nigel could react, put his arm around Nigel’s neck in a headlock. “Why, we’d never leave someone as important as you out of a deal like this. Would we, boys?”


  Bart let his other hand drop behind the counter, where he pushed the button. The electric bolt slammed home on the front door. Everyone heard it. Now no one else could join the party. And no one could leave unless we wanted them to. Bart had violated his own rule. The bolt was always supposed to be thrown before a deal started. That was his second mistake of the evening. We didn’t need any more.

  At the sound of the bolt, Johnny gripped Nigel around the neck harder and turned so Nigel was a shield between him and the one-way glass. Johnny didn’t know for sure if we had a guy named Ruben back there covering. He wasn’t going to take any chances.

  Bart raised his hand. “Okay. Okay. Let’s all just calm down before things get out of hand and someone gets hurt.”

  Jumbo said, “Good idea, fat man. It’d be real silly for us to go to guns when all we’re here to do is talk. You want to buy my product or don’t you?”

  “If the price is right. What do you have?”

  Jumbo smiled, opened his arms. “Well, we couldn’t very well bring it with us, now could we?”

  “I’m not buying sight unseen.”

  “Didn’t expect you to. I have some samples over at my shop. We came here to see if you really have the kind of money we’re talkin’.”

  “That’s not gonna happen until we see the product.”

  Jumbo put a card down on the counter and slid it over. “Come by this address tomorrow, say noonish, and we’ll talk turkey.”

  Bart picked up the card. “Okay. Give me some idea of what we’re talking about? How much money?”

  Jumbo didn’t lose his smile. “This is your home turf. I’d prefer that we talked at my place tomorrow.”

  Smart. He was afraid of a wire or video.

  “Might be all for naught if the money you’re asking is out of my league?”

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Not my problem. There are two other … ah, backup buyers anxiously waiting in the wings. I’d rather keep this deal local, here in the States if you know what I mean, but if you don’t have the bread, no skin off my nose. See you fellas tomorrow. And, ah, no guns allowed at my place.” He lifted his hand and wiggled his fingers bye. Johnny Sin came along behind him with Nigel still in a headlock as Jumbo made for the door.