The Ruthless

by David Putnam

  Wicks followed along. “Hey, what are you doing?”

  The manager was a midlevel dealer responsible for putting a lot of dope out on the street. He’d been doing it for a while. I had never gone back on my word with a crook. I never dealt away something I wasn’t willing to give up. Times change. Olivia had died of an overdose, and the sight of Jessica Lowe sitting across from me at the picnic table at Lucy’s was too fresh in my mind. Her ruined life and what the rock had turned her into. Rock had forced her to sell herself to the likes of that fat slob Turk.

  I didn’t answer Wicks and pulled the owner along. Out in the closest bay, I unlocked the handcuff on one hand and cuffed him to a steel loop on the hydraulic lift that held a crunched Toyota sedan high in the air. While Wicks watched, I moved to the phone on the wall and dialed the Lynwood Sheriff station’s Watch Deputy number.

  “Lynwood Sheriff’s Station, Deputy Baldwin.”

  “Listen, Baldwin, take this down. This is Detective Bruno Johnson. Get a unit out to The Body Shop. It’s a business on El Segundo about a mile west of Wilmington. There’s a man down, and another one handcuffed out in the shop. There’s three ounces of rock coke in the office and cash in the open safe.” I hung up.

  “What the hell?” Wicks said. “You know you just impersonated a law enforcement officer, right?”

  I shrugged. “We can’t keep leaving a trail of blood and bone behind us; the brass will figure us out.” I hadn’t used a heavy hand except with Sams, and he didn’t count—he never saw what hit him. I wanted to let Wicks know I was with him all the way on this one, but he had to know there was a line I wouldn’t cross. “I’m headed to TransWorld. You coming with me?”

  A large smile broke across his face. He punched me in the arm. “Now we’ll get this son of bitch Lofton for sure.”

  “Yep.”

  He hooked his thumb over his shoulder to the open office door. “What about dipshit? He’s going to be madder than a hatter after what you did. I’ll never be able to walk him back from that ledge.”

  “You don’t need him anymore, you got me. We got the final piece to the puzzle with this TransWorld lead.”

  And we did, too. We could check RD’s meticulous bookkeeping, the black three-ring binders, and find the deal Lofton made with TransWorld, his photo, his RAP sheet, the whole thing.

  Wicks shrugged. “You really think so?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “Then we might as well make his day, huh?” He took the Raven .25 from his pocket and tossed it through the open door. It landed on the prostrate Derek Sams’ back.

  I smiled and held out my hand. Wicks shook it. We hurried out to our cars. I yelled, “Let’s drop mine in the parking lot of MLK.”

  Wicks gave a salute, got in, and took off with me close behind.

  The entire drive, I tried to visualized Wicks’ face when I told him about TransWorld—when I told him I had lied to him about resigning from the Sheriff’s Department and how I had failed to bring him into my confidence when he came to bail me out for the stolen Monte Carlo arrest. I squirmed in the seat as stomach acid rose up in my throat. He’d falsely assume I’d played him for a fool and nothing more. Something you didn’t do with Wicks. Not without making him a permanent enemy.

  Ten minutes later, he pulled in and stopped at the far outer perimeter to the clustered cars in the parking lot of Martin Luther King Hospital. I parked the Opel in a slot without any other cars around. The only people present that we could see over the tops of cars stood by the emergency entrance fifty yards away, milling around, little steam engines puffing cigarettes, hoping for a favorable outcome for their loved ones who suffered inside the meat market.

  I got out and stood in front of Wicks’ Taurus. He stuck his head out the driver’s window. “What the hell’s the matter with you? Are you going to get in?”

  “Come out here a minute. I need to tell you something.”

  He opened his door. “God damnit, Bruno, we’re burning daylight.” He got out and slammed his door. “We don’t need any touchy-feely shit right now. We’re gaining on this asshole, and I got a good feeling about this. It’s going to be like the good old days. You and me are going to catch this guy before that whole task force that’s after him even has a clue.”

  “That’s what I need to talk to you about.”

  “Okay, talk.”

  I gave him a half-kidding smile. “Can you first lock your gun in your trunk?”

  “What? Quit messing around and tell me what’s going on.”

  I held up both my hands. “Take it easy and don’t get mad.”

  “Quit dickin’ around or I will get mad.”

  “Okay, here’s the deal.” The words fled my brain without leaving a note when they’d be back.

  “You going to tell me, or are we going to get in the car and get back to work?”

  “I was sworn to secrecy. I want you to know that up front.”

  Wicks put his foot up on the bumper. “Now I know I’m not going to like this. We’re supposed to be friends, and friends don’t keep secrets. Tell me.”

  I cringed. “I never resigned. I’ve been a deputy all this time working undercover.”

  His back stiffened and he stared at me with his foot still up on the bumper. “That’s your big revelation?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sure, I’m hurt that you didn’t tell me, but I’m not some kind of ogre. If they swore you to secrecy then what’s the big deal here, huh? Wait, you’re not investigating me, are you?”

  “What? No, not at all. Man, am I glad you’re not ripping my head off right now. You can’t know how it tore me up not being able to tell you.”

  “Your dad know?”

  “No. No one except the Deputy Chief and the guys I’m working with.”

  “Well, if your dad doesn’t even know, then I have no right to be mad, now do I? You tell your dad everything.”

  “Good.”

  “Why are you telling me this now?”

  “I’ve been working at TransWorld. It’s a federally funded grant sting that—”

  Wicks punched me in the mouth. The blow staggered me backward and for a second made lights flicker behind my eyes. He followed it up swinging low, giving me body shots that thudded into my abdomen and knocked the wind out of me.

  I put a hand on his face and violently shoved him away. I followed in close and gave him my best haymaker. It caught him high on the cheek.

  That shut him down.

  He staggered back and swayed on his feet, almost going to his knees. His hand went to his face and came away. He examined it for blood.

  Breathing hard, I shifted my stance, with raised fists as I lowered my center of gravity preparing for him to come in again.

  He’d used his left for the sucker punch to the face or I’d have had the LAPD SWAT ring imprinted on my cheek. “What was that for?” I yelled. “What’s the matter with you?”

  He took two angry steps toward me. His right elbow, out of instinct, swept back his suit coat to clear the stock to his Colt .45 for a quick draw. He pointed his finger at me. “You should’ve told me about working for LAPD. They’re the enemy. You’re working for the enemy.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Sure, there’s always been some friendly competition going on, but they’re not the enemy.”

  “That gig, that sting, it’s being run by Jim Barlow, Black Bart.”

  “That’s right. How do you know who’s running it? It’s supposed to be a secret.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not as big of a secret as you think, bucko. The Deputy Chief told me all about it; he just neglected to tell me you’d been sent there TDY. And the Chief not telling me is chickenshit. He knows about you and me, that we only work together.”

  “What difference does it make? Who’s Jim Barlow to you?”

  “That’s none of your damn business.”

  I flashed on a memory standing in front of Black Bart’s desk with him being insistent that I not tell Wick
s about the sting. He made me promise. I thought it odd at the time. I knew Wicks would keep it quiet—he’d take it to his grave if asked. I thought Bart just didn’t know Wicks. Out of loyalty, I complied with Bart’s demand of complete secrecy. Now it looked like Bart had been using me as a pawn to get back at Wicks. That’s why Bart had chosen me for the sting in the first place. I liked Bart a little less for it.

  “Tell me. What’s it about?”

  “If you wanna know, we were friends once. Just like you and me used to be. Not anymore, buddy boy. Not after this.”

  I waited for him to tell the rest. I could see he wanted to get it all out.

  Some tension finally left his body. “We were real tight. ‘Used to be’ are the operative words here for the both of you now.”

  “What happened?”

  “What happened? What always happens, a girl got in the way. And leave it at that.”

  “Who, Greta?”

  His expression shifted to shock that I would’ve guessed her name, but he recovered quickly. “Yeah, Greta.” When he said her name, his expression shifted yet again from anger to dazed and confused. I’d never seen this one on him before. I hadn’t worked with him for a while, though, and people change, sometimes rapidly.

  “So I guess you haven’t heard,” I said.

  “What?” He quickly came toward me. “Tell me.”

  “We … I mean me and Black Bart had this gun deal set to go, a big one. It was with a punk named Johnny Sin. Sin didn’t like the look of Black Bart and wanted to work with me exclusive.”

  “Yeah, and?”

  “This morning Black Bart was coming to work on his Harley. Johnny Sin ran him off the road. Bart’s in Daniel Freeman in critical condition.”

  Wicks ran for his car door. I hurried and got in the passenger seat just in time, dragging my foot to get the door closed as he took off spinning the tires and slewing the Taurus’ rear end.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  I PULLED THE review mirror around and checked out the swelling on my cheekbone under my left eye, gingerly touching the painful, puffy spot. Wicks put his hand on my head and shoved me away, still angry. He moved the mirror back in place. He worked his jaw with his hand. “You really got me good with that one, pal o’mine. I think some of my teeth are loose.”

  “You going to tell me the rest of it?” I asked.

  “I told you, it’s none of your damn business.”

  I waited it out and stared him down.

  “There’s nothing to tell, so quit giving me the evil eye.”

  I didn’t let up.

  He drove, weaving too fast in and out of traffic, periodically checking to see if I’d eased off the stare. Twice he pulled into opposing traffic to get around a slow car.

  “Okay,” he said. “Way back, me and Barlow, we were friends. We worked a narcotics task force together … that was when I first made detective.”

  He said nothing else, his eyes making rapid movements as he mentally returned to an era long past. His foot eased up on the accelerator.

  “That’s all you’re going to give me?”

  “Ah, hell. We got along better than good. We were like brothers. We tore up the street. We drank hard and played hard and worked harder. We were lovin’ life.”

  “He’s pretty religious.”

  His head whipped around. “He wasn’t back then. When the task force ended … well, it wasn’t really ending as much as the bosses wanted to separate us. That’s what it really came down to. We were too proactive, and because of it, we got into some real action.”

  In all the years we worked together, he’d never talked about this, the genesis of the job that made him into what he was, a man chasing violence.

  “Me and Jim took down a lot of hard-core assholes who didn’t want to go to jail. You of all people know how that goes; it creates a lot of paperwork for the brass and fodder for the media hyenas.”

  He turned silent and watched the road.

  “What about Greta?”

  “He met … we met her during a surveillance. Her daddy owned an apartment building she managed on the side while she attended school. We wanted to use an empty apartment to watch a target across the street. She was going to UCLA and had the apartment down the hall from where we’d set up. We saw a lot of her in those two weeks. She liked to hang around. You know, the Double-O-Seven syndrome.”

  He again turned silent, lost in reminiscence.

  Greta was older than I first thought, and it didn’t make sense her having two young children. Earlier at the hospital when Greta came close, took hold of my arm, and made her demand for vengeance, her youthful appearance threw me off. I had naturally thought she was much younger than her husband, Black Bart, and that they’d gotten a late start on their family.

  “And?”

  “And, nothing. Like I said, me and Barlow, we were tight when the brass tried to break us up as a team. They reassigned me and left him working dope on that same team. I … I went as far as applying to LAPD, a lateral transfer from the Sheriff’s so we could work together again, that’s how tight we were. When we worked together, I knew every move he was going to make before he did. We were like twin brothers.”

  I knew what he meant. Ned and I were like that before Ned was shot and killed by a teenage rock dealer during the service of a narcotics search warrant. His absence led to a huge void that had finally begun to fade, but it would never fully dissipate. And I didn’t want it to.

  Wicks had tried to steer the conversation away from Greta.

  “Then what happened?”

  “What do you mean then what happened?”

  I said nothing and waited.

  He turned up Alameda, gunning the Taurus.

  “Greta,” I said. “What happened with Greta?”

  He slowed his words and lowered his tone. “Greta ruined him. She was going to school studying theology. She wanted to be a minister.” He took his eyes off the road to glance over at me. “She was the one who really split us up, not the brass.”

  “Did she finish her degree? Did she become a minister?”

  I thought about her last words to me, her request for vengeance: Wreck ’em. I didn’t think I’d ever forget her expression. She said it with such hate, such vehemence, without one iota of forgiveness.

  “How should I know? We had this big row … over …”

  “Over what?”

  “Never mind what it was over. We split and I never talked to either one of them again. That was twenty-five years ago.”

  I didn’t want to push him any harder.

  I had plenty enough to think about with my own issues, so I let Wicks brood for the rest of the trip. Twenty minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot of Daniel Freeman Hospital.

  Ten minutes after that we got off the elevator in ICU. A slim nurse with brown hair dressed in blue and pink flowery scrubs at the nursing station tried to stop us. “I’m sorry, you can’t come in here.” Wicks kept walking, not even glancing at her.

  I grabbed his arm. “Show her your badge or she’s going to call security.” I would’ve shown her mine but I wasn’t carrying one.

  He grunted, reached inside his suit coat, pulled out his flat badge wallet, flashed it, and kept going.

  “Please excuse his manners,” I said. “James Barlow is a good friend of his. We’re here to talk to him about what happened.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. James Barlow is in room 610. I don’t know if he’s awake; he’s just down from surgery. His family is in there now.”

  “Thank you.” I hurried to catch up. Wicks slowed at each open door and peered in, being a rude dog violating each occupant’s privacy. I passed him. He followed. I entered 610 to find Greta sitting by Black Bart’s bed holding his hand. Two young children about seven years old sat in chairs busy coloring in Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner. Both were Asian, probably Chinese. Jason and Darlene. They had to be adopted, and it answered a lot of questions. The Barlows had started a family late.


  Wicks stepped around me and froze. Greta stood and stared at him. She let go of her husband’s hand, gently replaced it on the bed, and slowly walked toward Wicks. He opened his arms. She put her head against his chest, her eyes closed with tears leaking out. Wicks, with his eyes closed tight, rested his head on the top of hers. He took in a deep breath through his nose, taking in her scent.

  I stood there, an alien from a distant planet, trespassing in a place where I had no business. I took two steps backing up, turned, and exited. Down the hall came a well-built, uniformed LAPD officer who had two stripes on his arms, a P-2. This had to be the department liaison checking up on their downed officer.

  From afar, the officer’s eyes locked on me, again making me the intruder. Somehow even more so. Ten feet away and still coming, my jaw dropped all on its own. The officer’s mannerisms, his forehead, his eyes, made me flash on a Robby Wicks from days of old, a much younger Robby Wicks. A clone.

  He stopped in front of me, his hands down at his sides, loose at the ready. “Excuse me,” he said. “I saw you come out of this room. What business do you have here?”

  The nameplate on his uniform read “J. Barlow.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  OUTSIDE JAMES BARLOW’S room I extended my hand to LAPD officer J. Barlow. “Bruno Johnson. I’m real sorry about all of this. How is your father doing? He is your father, right?”

  His expression shifted, from solemn to a hint of a smile. And out peeked Wicks again. Unmistakable. I tried hard not to stare. Same color eyes. This had to be the source of the big row Wicks spoke of, the one that broke up the partnership.

  “Yes, he is. My mother told me about you. Dad was in surgery for four hours. We won’t know how much mobility will be lost for a couple of days. Is there any news on who did this?”

  “I have a few leads on the driver.”

  “Excellent. Are they good ones?”

  “I think so.”

  He reached up, unbuttoned his pocket, took out his business card, and handed it to me. I read it. He was assigned to the elite Metro Division, the place SWAT worked from. SWAT chooses their team members exclusively out of Metro. You had to have your game wrapped tight just to get in Metro. Most everyone in the division waited their turn for a shot at being on the teams.