The Ruthless

by David Putnam

  He let out a low whine at my unfair accusation.

  Out in the middle of the parking lot, there wasn’t any shade. I couldn’t leave him in the car, not on a hot summer day. “All right, buddy, but I’m telling you right now, no shenanigans, you understand?” I reached behind the back seat and underneath. I pulled out a red Service Dog apron.

  He barked. He liked going undercover, acting like a normal dog instead of what he really was: a misunderstood hundred-and-ten-pound half lab, half Rottweiler mix who loved most everyone in the world with the exception of crooks. The SUV lady finished making her long, slow exit from the spot as I finished tying on the apron. I parked and jumped out with Junior Mint coming from behind, shooting ahead. “Whoa there, Junior, back it up.” He stopped. I clipped on the leash. We hurried to the ER entrance rather than the front door. I knew my way around Daniel Freeman but only from the ER entrance. And I didn’t want to be stopped at the front desk, identified, and given a visitor badge.

  The double doors whooshed open for two paramedics ahead of us who wheeled in an emaciated old woman on a gurney with an IV. She didn’t look so good.

  I whispered to Junior, “Okay, now I mean it this time, best behavior. Do not, I repeat, do not get us kicked out of here.” He looked back over his shoulder as if the incident three months ago in the McDonald’s never happened. We slid in behind the paramedics like we owned the place and stopped just inside so I could get my bearings. Junior tugged on the leash. He spotted RD before I did. RD looked different. He wasn’t wearing his trademark dopey smile. He stood outside one of the glassed-in emergency rooms that had mini blinds and a solid door. A private room. Not good.

  I hurried over to him. “Tell me.”

  He wrung his hands. “It’s bad, Bruno, real bad.”

  All the air left me and I swallowed a couple of times. “Okay, give.”

  “He was driving to work today, this morning. He was on his Harley-Davidson, just like always. You know how he is. I’ve told him and told him to get off that bike. He was coming down Alameda, in the number-one lane all by himself, no cars around, when a truck going northbound crossed the double yellow. Bart saw him coming and pulled to the left—jerked it over, you know. But so did the truck. It was almost like it came after him, Bruno. Bart banged off the side of the truck and went down hard. It could’ve been a head-on if Bart hadn’t pulled to the left. That would’ve killed him for sure. The truck just kept going. Felony hit-and-run.” Tears welled in RD’s eyes. “They’ve got him stabilized and they’re waiting for a surgeon, a specialist. It’s his back and neck, Bruno. They don’t think he’s gonna ever walk again. He’s asking for you. He wants to see you.”

  I nodded again. All I could manage with the big lump in my throat. I handed him the leash, opened the door to the private room, and stepped in.

  A short woman, slim with long red hair, stood by the bed holding Bart’s hand. She looked tiny in comparison to the mound under the sheet. Her delicate hand held onto Bart’s huge mitt. She turned to see who came through the door, her eyes bloodshot, her freckled face wet with tears. She wore stylish denim pants with ragged holes up and down the front of the legs, and a sleeveless blouse that displayed lean arms and an elegant neck. “Hello, Deputy Johnson?”

  I’d never met her and yet she knew my name. Bart had probably told her about my behavior, how I was a nightmare to supervise. With all of Bart’s black leather, his biker boots, his unruly hair and beard, this woman was nowhere near the wife I had imagined for him. I remembered what RD had said about Bart, his wife and kids, and how they attended church every Sunday, God-fearing folks who led normal lives in a crime-free neighborhood.

  She let go of Bart’s hand, came over slow to ease in close, put her arms around me, and rested her head on my chest. I didn’t know what to do or to say. I’d never met this woman and she acted as if we were old friends. She needed someone at that moment. I put my arms around her but didn’t hug. The spot where she touched my shirt turned damp with her tears.

  Finally, she turned up her head. She had big emerald-green eyes. “He wants to talk to you.”

  I nodded. I shouldn’t have had to ask her name. I should’ve already known, but the last six months had challenged my world, filling it first with worry and grief, and then with a depth of regret like I’d never experienced, leaving no room for decorum and manners. In another time, another place, we would’ve known each other from family get-togethers, dinners, and outdoor barbecues, play-dates with our kids—my grandkids.

  I left her where she stood and stepped over to the hospital bed where Black Bart lay. They’d shaved his beard and cut off all his head hair. A latter-day Samson. They had stolen his strength, his identity.

  Now, instead of a biker, he resembled a mangled Buddhist monk. They’d secured his head with thick molded plastic and tape and a neck brace. Life-sustaining wires and tubes and beeping machines kept watch over him. I didn’t recognize his face, which was bloated red with the right side an open wound of road rash where he’d skidded along the asphalt.

  “Bart?” Black Bart was the nickname I used so often that his real name now escaped me. Under the circumstances, I couldn’t pull it from my memory. “Bart” would have to do.

  “Karl?” His voice came out weak instead of the usual Black-Bart-strong. He, too, called me by my nickname, my cover. With our fake names, we were adult children playing at cops and robbers, in a make-believe world that had suddenly turned too real.

  He opened his eyes. I took his hand and leaned over so he could see me. He squeezed hard and I couldn’t help thinking that at least he still had the use of his hands. “I’m right here, my friend.”

  “Good. Good. You came.”

  “Of course, I came.”

  Silence. After a minute or two he said, “I ruined my bike. It’s totaled.”

  “Yeah, I heard. Did you get a look at the driver? Will you be able to identify him?” I didn’t know what to say and reverted to my training, asking him a cop question. That question made me finally comprehend what had really happened. This had not been an accident; this had been done with malice and forethought; this was attempted murder. Johnny Sin wanted to deal only with me. He’d said as much the night before. Once denied, his ego now required it. This was his way of making that happen. I gripped Bart’s hand harder as my mind shot out ahead figuring how I’d take down Johnny Sin. I’d rent the largest dump truck I could find and drive it right through the front window of his auto parts store in Norwalk. I’d get out, hook a chain to Johnny Sin’s feet, and drag him down the street. Blood and bone.

  I stood in the same spot by the hospital bed and didn’t know how much time had slipped by. Bart was still holding on tight to my hand when he said, “I gotta ask you a big favor.”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s a big ask.”

  “I’m here for you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  STANDING AT BART’S bedside, his hand clutched in mine, he said, “I don’t want you to go through with the gun deal.”

  I tried to let go. He held on tighter than ever. “Bruno, I want you to promise me you won’t go through with it.”

  “But … wait … That’s not right. We can’t let those guns hit the street. Too many people will—”

  “Turn it over to ATF—the feds are better equipped for a deal like this. These guys we’re into, they play for keeps. I couldn’t live with myself if any of my guys got hurt over this and I wasn’t there.”

  I knew how to play for keeps.

  Bart had no idea what I was capable of, and now the gloves were off and we were going to knuckles. I wouldn’t let Johnny Sin score even one more point. I was going to put him down for keeps.

  Blood and bone, that’s what life always came back to, and over the years I’d learned the hard way in how to play that game.

  “Bruno, promise me you won’t go through with the gun deal.”

  I could not lie to this man, not while he was on his back critically injured
waiting for surgery, the outcome unknown, not with his only concern being for the welfare of his men. All of a sudden, his true name bubbled up in my brain, James Barlow. “Jim, that’s an unfair ask, and you know it.”

  “I know it is and I know you better than you think. Let the law have this guy. He’s not worth a career. He’s not worth a prison sentence.”

  I guess he did know me, that or he could read minds. He wouldn’t release my hand. He’d hold on until I relented, he’d hold on even after the docs put him under, hold on until he got what he wanted.

  “Promise,” he said. “You’re a man of your word. Promise.”

  I could let ATF have the guns and Jumbo, but I’d give Johnny Sin the personal touch. “I promise I won’t go through with the exchange.”

  He eased up on his grip. Under the sheet and light-blue cotton blanket the tension in his body eased as if a great load lifted off him. He closed his eyes to rest.

  I turned to leave. His wife stood in front of the door and held out her hand, her jaw set firm. I headed over and took her hand in mine, cool and delicate.

  Her tone came out in a low whisper so Bart couldn’t hear. “My name is Greta, we have two sons, Jason and Sonny, one little girl, Darlene; she’s four years old.”

  “Nice to meet you, Greta. I’m sorry for all of this.” Why was she telling me about her family?

  This time it was Greta Barlow who wouldn’t let go of my hand and held on tight. Through clenched teeth she said, “Darlene and Jason are never going to play with their father again, not on the swings, not in the sandbox, not in the tree house Jim just finished. If he’s real lucky he’s going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. That’s a life sentence for something he didn’t deserve.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  Tears welled in her eyes. “Do you know the man who did this?” Her husband had told her what had happened. They had a relationship where they kept nothing from each other.

  I nodded.

  She stepped closer, went up on tiptoes. “Then wreck him. You hear what I’m saying? I want you to wreck him.”

  My mouth sagged open. I had not expected this kind of personal request, not with such vehemence, not from a thirty-five-year-old woman who looked more like a high school senior. For a moment her demeanor and her words shook me to the core, how she could so easily step from her world into mine and ask for blood and bone. Demand it. I leaned down closer to her ear and whispered, “It’ll be my pleasure.”

  She’d not expected the coldness in my response. Her eyes grew large and her lips parted as she shifted from messenger to my world back to hers. Her other hand came up to her mouth. She stepped back and let go of my hand. She stared at me as if I were a monster. And in the case of blood and bone, maybe I was.

  I stepped out of the room and eased the door closed.

  RD sat on the floor, his back to the wall under the window with the closed blinds. Junior Mint sat next to him, watching all the activity in the ER.

  RD struggled to his feet and handed me the leash. “Well? What do you think? What’d he say?”

  “He wants to put down the gun deal.”

  RD waved his hand. “Of course. Why in the world would he think we’d go through with that now? Not after all this … I mean with what we got going on here.” He paused, as if his mind had just caught up with the words coming out of his mouth. “Why would he ask you to stand down on that deal … unless … unless …” The sorrow in his expression shifted to pure predator, something I’d never seen in him. He’d always been the House Mouse at TW doing the busy work. He shook his finger at me. “He thinks this”—he pointed the same finger at the window to Jim Barlow’s room—“that this is related to the gun deal.”

  I stared at him.

  His mind continued to put it together. “He didn’t make you promise not to do this gun deal, did he? That’d be just like him to do something like that. You’re still going to do the deal, aren’t you, Bruno? Aren’t you? I want in. I want a piece of this guy.”

  I held out my hand. “Give me the business card those two left on our counter last night.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the business card and held it close to his chest. “You’re taking me with you.”

  I said nothing and glared at him. If I took him along, he’d be more a hindrance than a help. He gave in, slapped the business card in my hand, and said, “I checked out the location—it’s a professional center. I was in the middle of a background check on it when all of this came down. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know yet.” I put the card in my shirt pocket. I’d caught a glimpse of the address the night before. I had lived in LA all my life and knew that area by feel, not by the named businesses.

  “You’re not going to do the gun deal?”

  “I promised him I wouldn’t do the exchange. I didn’t say anything about a little reconnaissance.”

  “What do you want me to do? You’re the default supervisor, that’s the way the org chart is set up. You’re in charge.”

  I’d forgotten that part. “What do you have on the truck that ran him down?”

  RD fumbled to get the notebook out of his back pocket and opened it. “Forest-green Ford F150, earlier model but real clean. Except now it has right-side damage from Bart’s bike. Witnesses said they thought a woman was driving.” He stopped and looked up. “That’s why I didn’t think to link this incident with what we had going at TW, the fact that a woman was seen driving.”

  “Johnny Sin wore a wig.”

  “No shit. How do you know that?”

  “Trust me on this. I want you to make up a flyer on the truck and personally take it around to every police station in the area. Tell them the truck is wanted in connection with an attempted murder on a police officer. Put a ‘stop and hold’ on it for prints. It’s going to be abandoned somewhere, and I don’t want some half-assed job on the recovery. Then I want you to contact the agency handling this crash and tell them we have motive and intent and that this isn’t a felony hit-and-run. You understand? Tell them that we are taking the lead on the investigation and get everything they have on it. If they balk, refer them to me.”

  “I got it. What are you going to do?”

  I checked my watch. “I’m going to keep our meeting with our friends, Jumbo and Johnny Sin.”

  A crooked smile filled his face. “Are you taking a cover team?”

  “Don’t need it. Remember what Jumbo said, we’re still in the talking stage. And he said no guns.”

  Black Bart would never let me take a meeting of that magnitude without three or four guys close by backing me up. Maybe I wanted Johnny Sin to make a move. I wouldn’t let him get the jump on me again. This time I wouldn’t come begging for a gun deal. This time I would be on the offensive and that would make all the difference.

  I walked away, stopped, and looked back at the closed door that RD stood next to holding Junior’s leash. Greta’s unforgiving words continued to echo in my head. “Wreck him. I want you to wreck him.”

  Out of the mouths of babes.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  I LEFT JUNIOR Mint with RD, who needed the company. I told RD I’d pick up Junior at TransWorld a little later. As the new supervisor, I didn’t have to tell the other members on the TW team what to do. Black Bart had the place running on automatic pilot. Bart had only controlled the money and the actual meetings at the TW counter. He was also there to hand out stern reproaches if we wandered too far afield from safe practices. I’d get the team together later on and we’d discuss what to do: shut TW down and make all the arrests, or let it run as planned until the money ran out. At the moment, I really didn’t care one way or the other.

  The address on the card was a couple of miles or so on the other side of the Los Angeles River in Downey, right at the edge of Norwalk. I knew the area, or at least I thought I did. I drove by in the ratty Kadett and double-checked the address on the plain white card—no business name, just an addre
ss scrolled in pencil: 9539 Firestone Blvd. Avenue Suite #A. Downey. Above the address in pen was written “Bruno Johnson,” probably put there by RD.

  I’d been expecting an auto parts store, and in its place, found a high-end office structure with Mercedes and Audis and Lexuses in the secured parking lot with a guard shack. I made another pass. I had the address correct and thought about calling RD to make sure he’d given me the right card. Instead, I decided to check the location first. I made two more passes in a widening grid search of the surrounding neighborhood, just like I would have if this had been the right address. I wouldn’t make another mistake.

  It was only ten o’clock in the morning, two hours early for the meeting. Johnny Sin and Jumbo came early last evening to TransWorld. Turnabout was fair play.

  In the upscale neighborhood, the Opel Kadett stood out like a piece of coal on a snowbank. I found an alley posted No Parking Any Time and drove down to a wide spot and parked. I got out and left it unlocked. The immaculate alley didn’t have graffiti or visible trash cans. What self-respecting alley didn’t have trash cans? All the outfacing garage doors and buildings were recently painted, the grounds well-groomed and-maintained. My Opel wouldn’t last long before someone called it in to the police as suspicious. I hurried. I came out of the alley on Hasty Avenue, three or four blocks north of the location, and headed west on a tree-lined street where sixty-year-old houses had been converted to professional offices. I froze. My subconscious caught something I’d missed.

  I turned around. Parked at the curb half a block down the street sat an early-model forest-green Ford F150 truck. It had not been there minutes ago when I cruised the area. No way could I have missed it.

  The truck’s presence meant only one thing: that Johnny Sin had been involved in running over Black Bart. Ol’ Johnny had been following me. The best way to vet someone you’re about to sell a bunch of military-grade guns to is to follow him around. He had to be really good at it for me to miss him. He’d seen me go by the office a couple of times, saw me park, and strategically parked the truck where I’d see it. A little in-your-face kind of thing to put me off my game. Mission accomplished. Or maybe he thought I’d be a softer touch with a little taste of violence perpetrated upon my boss.