The Reckless

by David Putnam

  I liked Coffman and Ned but still couldn’t help feeling that the boss had cast me aside. I wanted to be on the manhunt for Duarte, not babysitting the FBI.

  Wicks said, “My team, you’re dismissed. Get started on the work-up for Duarte. Call all the involved agencies and get their reports. Coffman’s team, stay here a minute.”

  The others got up and left.

  Wicks said, “Bruno, don’t give me that hangdog look. This is a good gig I’m tossing you. You wait and see, you’re going to be eating this up with a spoon.” He stepped over to Coffman and handed him a piece of paper. “Report to this address in one hour, and don’t be late.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s downtown Los Angeles. That’s the office of the district US Marshal. You four are going to be cross-sworn as deputy US Marshals.”

  I couldn’t help it; I smiled.

   CHAPTER THREE

  COFFMAN PUT THE old team back together, making Ned my partner. We rode in silence, shaggin’ ass for downtown Los Angeles. I drove, weaving in and out. I didn’t think we could make it in an hour, with morning traffic. I lost Coffman minutes out of our parking lot. He and Gibbs could find their own way.

  I kept my eyes on the road. “You going to tell me how this happened? How you two got transferred into the team?”

  What I really wanted to know was how come I hadn’t known ahead of time.

  “If I didn’t know better, partner,” Ned said, “I’d think you were a little irritated.”

  “What? No. Not at all. I didn’t mean to come off that way … Well, you could’ve told me this morning at the house.”

  “Yeah, I guess that was a little mean. But you should’ve seen the look on your face when you saw me and ol’ Coffman sittin’ there in your office.”

  I stole a second and looked over at him. “I thought they were trying to force Coffman out, make him take his retirement. That’s why they sent him back to work Men’s Central Jail.”

  “Exactly. You believe they pay back all his loyalty and years of dedication like that? Bunch a bullshit.”

  “Ned—”

  I looked at the road, dodging more cars for better position in the other lane as we headed straight up Alameda Avenue. I almost told him about what I’d seen happen at St. Francis hospital over three years ago. Coffman had been old then and slightly demented. Now, years later, he’s older, but is he more demented? Was he more of a hazard out in the field, in a high-profile job with a constant threat of violent confrontations? If he refused to retire, wasn’t he better off in a controlled environment, like in MCJ?

  “What?” Ned asked.

  “Coffman’s got to be pushing, what, sixty-six or sixty-eight this year? Don’t you think—”

  “Ah man, not you, too. Don’t you worry about Coffman. I’d put him up against the best sergeants in the department. You wait and see—when the shit goes down, Coffman will be there, covering your back. In fact, he’ll be climbing over us to get in the action. Loyalty, trust, and honor go a long way, and he’s got it all in spades. He was a Marine on Iwo, man, for crying out loud.”

  I let it drop. I trusted Wicks. If he thought Coffman capable, I’d go along with his decision. “What happened with you? How’d you get on the team?”

  “I didn’t do anything. I was just minding my own business.”

  “Yeah, right. And?”

  “Okay. A few weeks back, Wicks came into narco headquarters for a meeting and saw me working the desk. He said hi and then asked how long I’d been working the desk. I told him about a year. And that was it. That’s all he said. I didn’t even have a request in for his team. Next thing I know, I’m transferred. Believe me, I cannot be more surprised, or happier.”

  “That’s great. It really is. I’m glad to have you back as a partner.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Did you meet Wicks before, when you worked the field?”

  “Yeah, I did. I was working Lakewood in a traffic car. Of all things, me working TCs and handing out citations. One of the guys on Wicks’ team, Gibbs, he was in there this morning. He came off the freeway in a marked patrol unit. He exited way too fast, came off faster than the terminal velocity of the curve, hit the guardrail and tore up the whole left side of his car. They were working a surveillance, looking for some guy wanted for a bombing of a synagogue, or some shit like that. And Gibbs drove the patrol car in case the team needed the suspect’s car stopped, or if he ran.”

  “I remember that night,” I said. “I wondered why Wicks and Gibbs fell out of the surveillance. We ended up losing the guy, and Wicks was really pissed about it. Gibbs isn’t known for his driving skills, but he’s a good man to have beside you when it goes to knuckles.”

  “Right, right. So that night I caught the call to take the paper on the crash. Wicks was there. He said this was Gibbs’ sixth crash and, if reported, Gibbs would be bounced from the team. I told him that was too bad, because the damage wasn’t as bad as it looked, and it would only take about four hours to fix. All you needed to do was pull the two quarter panels and the two doors, and replace them. Simple. You should’ve seen Wicks’ eyes light up.” Ned shook his head and smiled as he remembered the incident. “He asked me if I was an auto-body man. I told him, sure, I could do it. He tells me not to draw a case number for the crash. Told me not to do a damn thing until he got back. He went to a pay phone and came back a few minutes later. He cleared it with my watch commander, who he knew, and we drove the damaged unit to a tow yard where he also knew a guy, and I fixed it. Took a lot longer than I thought. I had to primer the used replacement doors before I repainted them. At the end of the night, the car actually looked better than when they checked it out. Wicks said he owed me.”

  I nodded. “Wicks always pays his debts.”

  “Bruno, that desk job was eating me up, tearing my heart out. Wicks saved my life. I owe him big.”

  “Yeah, that’s the other thing he does. Everyone on the team will walk through fire for him.”

  “You know I will, with him on my back if he asks me to.”

  “Like I said, good to have you in the car again, partner.”

   CHAPTER FOUR

  WE DROVE FOR a few more minutes. Ned said, “You ever catch that asshole Darkman?”

  I looked over at him. “Who?”

  Ned smiled. “Come on, man, you gotta know that’s what they call him?”

  “No, who’re you talking about?” But I knew. And no, I’d never come close to catching him. I didn’t even know his real name.

  “You know, that family killer from the back alley, the night we entered ol’ Willis Simpkins inta the Disney on Parade competition.”

  Ned had aired the words I didn’t want to hear. The anger from my inability to bring down the Darkman—years of pent-up anger and guilt continued to fester, creating a grim monster of regret. I couldn’t find him and knew I could if I only had a name to work with. I’d only seen his face for a brief moment that night all those years ago when he came out from behind the death house and into the alley. But I’d never forget those eyes, the mask of hate, how he looked at me. There was no doubt in my mind he’d been the one to shoot that family.

  Ned said, “Yeah, guys around the department call him the Darkman because of the way you describe him: the long dark raincoat, the black night watchman’s beanie, the dark alley. I can’t believe you haven’t heard that nickname. At least the whispers about how, whenever you get the chance, you go back out and shake the trees for the guy when you don’t even know his name.”

  “No, I haven’t heard anyone sayin’ shit about it.”

  “I’m sure it’s because everyone walks on eggshells around you when it comes to that little topic. You’ve been known to bite a head off here and there over it.”

  I didn’t argue with him.

  “Good thing you or the Compton coppers never did find out the name. I wouldn’t want to be accused of being the shooter on that one.”

  “Why’s that?”

/>   “’Cause that dead woman was Joey Lugo’s sister.”

  “Joey Lugo, as in Scab?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I never heard that. Are you sure? Compton didn’t say anything. The victim, the woman’s last name along with the two boys, was Humphreys.”

  “That’s right, different last names, different fathers, same mother. And Compton PD ain’t exactly burning down the world with their clearance rates.”

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “I worked narco, remember? Scab had word on the street, on the down low that he’d pay a hundred K to anyone who gave him the shooter of his sister. Sorry, I thought you knew.”

  “I didn’t—not that it would make a difference.” I tried to think if contacting Lugo now would make a difference. But if he couldn’t find a name—

  Ned said, “You know, Lugo probably did find out who capped his sister and made the guy disappear. That’s why you couldn’t find the Darkman—’cause he no longer exists.”

  “Huh.”

  “Hey, you ever get Scab in your sights, don’t hesitate to drop the hammer on that scumbag. He’s responsible for untold mayhem in the streets—drive-byes, South American neckties, you name it. You’d be doing this world a great favor if you take him out. I was looking to take him down when they transferred me to the desk. Hey. Did you hear what I just said?”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah, I got it.”

  Neither of us spoke again the rest of the way.

  We made it in time to be sworn in by the US Marshal. Coffman and Gibbs rolled in fifteen minutes late, Coffman a little tweaked at how slow Gibbs drove. Once Wicks jumped your ass over a deficiency, you didn’t let it happen again.

  We followed Gibbs and Coffman over to the FBI office in Riverside to meet our partners in this new assignment.

  But the FBI would never look at us as partners. If you weren’t FBI, you weren’t shit—their age-old doctrine. I’d learned that the hard way.

  The drive took an hour. We weren’t going to be assigned out of the LA office but out of what they considered their rural office.

  The commercial building rose up taller than any other building in the area. The blue glass and steel reflected the sun and made the building look uncomfortably warm. Eleven o’clock, and the mercury already broke ninety degrees, a sign summer would continue with its unrelenting heat in this second year of severe drought.

  We took the elevator up to the top. The FBI occupied all of the eighth floor. The doors opened to a small waiting area, empty of any humans. A large plaster cast of the FBI emblem adorned the all-blue wall on the right. Twenty Wanted posters covered the left wall: the LA FBI office’s ten most wanted, and the national ten as well. The receptionist, a woman with gray hair streaked with black and without a sense of humor, sat behind thick Plexiglas that made her office a bulletproof bunker. She wore a nameplate on her subdued dark tan and beige dress that said, “Wilson.”

  Coffman took the lead, walked over, and pushed the intercom button. “LA County sheriff’s deputies here to see the RAC—the resident agent in charge.”

  “Yes, you are expected. Have a seat, and he’ll be right with you.”

  Ned said in a harsh whisper, “If we’re expected, then why the hell are we waiting?”

  Coffman stood at parade rest. I watched him closely trying to see signs of cracks. The memory of the last time I’d seen him was still all too fresh in my mind.

  * * *

  The night four years earlier when Willis Simpkins picked Ned up and threw him into a yard car—we’d ended up at St. Francis hospital getting Ned’s ribs checked. The patrol shift had been over for three hours or better, and I stood in the ER, waiting for Ned to get back from X-ray. The ER doors whooshed open. In walked Sergeant Coffman.

  He still wore his spit-shined boots and green uniform pants, but no shirt. He wore a white strap t-shirt that exposed his shoulders and arms. His tan skin obscured fading tattoos from his long-ago Marine Corps days.

  He moved slow and deliberate as if drugged. His eyes glazed over, unable to focus on any one object. He looked shell-shocked and hollowed out.

  I hurried over to him. “Sarge, what’s going on? Why are you here?”

  He grabbed my arm in a vice-like grip, his eyes going a little wild. “How many did we lose?”

  “What?”

  “How many men did we lose to those little yellow bastards?”

  I whispered, to no one, “Ah shit.”

  * * *

  Nobody sat. We stood there like four animals in a zoo enclosure staring through the Plexiglas at Wilson the lion tamer.

  We waited. She ignored us and typed on.

  And we waited some more.

  Twenty-one minutes passed before the all-steel door masquerading as wood opened. A diminutive man in a brown suit, white shirt, and narrow tie smiled and held the door for us. “Come, come. Sorry to keep you waiting. I was on a conference call with DC. My name is Joshua Whitney, Special Agent in Charge of this office.” He offered up his hand.

  I went by him first and shook. I smelled heavy cologne, something dated like Old Spice. His hand came away a little dry and chalky. He stood a bit shorter, and under his thinning hair, eczema in the shape of Cuba snaked across his scalp, red with white flakes.

  Once the door closed, he moved ahead of us. “This way, please.”

  Conference call to DC, my achin’ ass. He was probably cleaning under his nails and giving them a final buff while he let us stew in his lobby.

  He led the way into his expansive, wood-paneled office, with a floor-to-ceiling view of the mountains to the north. I crossed the threshold from the hall into the office and saw Chelsea Miller standing off to the right.

  Her jaw dropped in shock.

  She hadn’t expected to see me, either.

   CHAPTER FIVE

  FOR THE LAST several years, I’d tried to forget Chelsea. I’d fallen hard for her, and her for me. At least that’s what I’d thought at the time. Dad said, “That’s a woman’s main job, to stamp out one fool after another, like the Federal Reserve stamping out dimes. They make a sport out of it.” He didn’t say it out of anger. He said it to make his emotionally ailing son feel better. He’d liked Chelsea, too.

  The way we’d met, the FBI and the Sheriff’s Department’s upper brass had also slid Chelsea in as an undercover to the Lynwood narco team to ferret out the same deputies I’d been assigned to take down. Only they’d never let me in on their little secret. I believed her cover story that she was a sheriff’s deputy, transferred from public relations.

  In the end, I screwed up big. I violated the cardinal rule of undercover, and told another deputy, a sergeant, that I was undercover. That sergeant, whom I trusted implicitly, turned out to be one of the bad ones I was sent in to hunt down. I would’ve been killed had Chelsea not broken her cover to save my sorry ass. She drove a car through a wall to get to me and shot to death that same sergeant I’d trusted. A black letter day for sure.

  The FBI didn’t like their agents driving cars through walls, breaking cover without permission, and shooting sheriff sergeants. It was bad publicity. They rolled her up and banished her to the rural office in North Dakota, investigating tribal crimes, drunks, and domestics on the Indian reservation: the absolute bottom of the barrel, a career killer. That’s what she’d told me. She told me she’d never work her way out of a hole that deep.

  And there she stood in the Riverside FBI office, looking more beautiful than ever. Her brown hair longer now, almost to her shoulders—a good look on her. But her brown eyes remained just as luscious and alive with excitement.

  At that moment I needed to see her smile. The wattage from her smile could power the city of Los Angeles with enough left over to warm my heart.

  Her shocked expression shifted. And she did it; she smiled. Her eyes confirming, she genuinely enjoyed seeing me. She came over, hand extended. She’d made the move first to let me know: no hugs or pecks on the cheek allowed. Not
in the office, not in front of her supervisor.

  Peck on the cheek—hell, I wanted to take her in my arms, dip her, and kiss her right on into the other side of forever.

  “Deputy Johnson, so good to see you,” she said.

  I took her hand, cool and strong, my eyes locked on hers. “Deputy Johnson?” I said it as a question to tease her, to put her on the grill for one long interminable moment.

  She shook her head, the movement barely perceptible.

  I let her off the hook. “I’m sorry, have we met? Oh, that’s right, that’s right, I think we worked a fugitive case a few years back.”

  She let out a breath. “Yes, I think so. That must be it.”

  After that black letter day four years ago, for two glorious weeks, she’d moved in with me at Dad’s house, while I recuperated from injuries sustained in taking Blue and his crew down. We hadn’t slept much and stayed in bed naked for hours on end. Sometimes until Dad pounded on the door, yelled that I had to watch Olivia so he could go to work.

  Then, at the end of those wondrous two weeks, and without any notice, she just up and moved to North Dakota, to the new assignment. She wouldn’t take any calls and sent me a long and lovely “Dear Bruno” letter explaining how it just wouldn’t work out between us. She wished me a happy life. Stamped out a newly minted dime.

  On long, lonely nights I still took out her letter and read it. Pathetic, that I couldn’t get over the woman, after how she’d treated me, the way she’d made it painfully clear, with no room for interpretation, that we were through.

  And now she stood there, my hand in hers for the briefest of moments, as we shook.

  Her simple touch set off a whole slew of hot, moist, breathless memories of being wrapped in damp sheets.

  She let go, put her hand behind her back, and retreated two steps to stand beside her boss, Whitney.

  Ned moved closer to me, leaned up, and whispered, “Va va voom, partner. Va … va … voom.”