The Reckless

by David Putnam

 CHAPTER EIGHT

  I SAT ACROSS from Gibbs, his hands moving fast. Gibbs worked as a deputy long enough to know to eat when given the chance. He put an effort into scarfing down his lunch. He’d better be careful, or he’d lose a finger.

  Coffman stirred his beans and rice around the burrito on his plate as he stared at my eyes. I slowly brought the taco up and took a bite. I didn’t want him mad at me, but couldn’t help thinking that this wasn’t the Coffman I knew from our patrol days.

  Ned came back in with a Thomas Guide map book, his expression like that of a kid at Christmas who just opened a present to find a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun. He sat down. “Okay, I called Riverside PD and got their narco division. I asked them, if I were a hype, where would I have the best chance to score some Mexican brown? He gave me three locations.” He pointed them out on the map. “Here. Here. And here. About two- to three-block areas, each place. This shouldn’t take us too long.”

  Coffman said, “What good’s that going to do us? That’s a lot of territory, and it doesn’t mean he’s going to be there. We’re not gonna go door to door, and we don’t have the manpower to set up a surveillance that big.”

  Ned eyed me.

  I said, “We’re not going to be looking for him.”

  “What?”

  “We’re going to be looking for someone to rat him out.”

  A rare smile crept across Coffman’s face. “Excellent. Let’s go do this.”

  I grabbed the second taco as I slid out. Gibbs shoveled faster, filling his mouth with the last of his food, his cheeks bulging. He picked up two tortillas as he slid out of the booth.

  I yelled at Ned, “Get the bill.”

  He fumbled for his wallet as he juggled the Thomas Guide. “Ah, man, that ain’t right.”

  Out at the cars, Ned put the map book on the hood. He made the assignments. “Gibbs, you and Coffman take this group of blocks right here. Jack-up any hypes you see, show ’em your cash and, ah … well, hey; I don’t need to tell you how to do it. Then, after you work that area, move to this one over here. We’ll work our area and meet you at that secondary location if we also come up dry.”

  He turned to look at Coffman. “You good with that, Sarge?”

  He nodded. “We’re too far out of our area for our regular radio frequencies to work. Go to CLEMARS so we can talk around. Also, our policy dictates that we notify the agency that covers the geographic area before we hit a house in their reporting district.” He looked at me. “You let us know if you get something, you understand?”

  I nodded.

  “I mean it, Bruno.”

  “I got it.”

  He said, “Then let’s hit it.”

  “Hey,” Gibbs said. “How much money do we offer these dirtbags?”

  Ned smiled. “How much you got?”

  “Three hundred.”

  “It’s not our money.”

  Gibbs smiled. “Got it.”

  We mounted our cars and headed out. I drove.

  Ned watched the passing landscape and said, “You know, in narco we’d be lucky to get them to turn loose with twenty dollars for a street buy. Three hundred. Jesus. The feds got it all, and they don’t know what they have when it comes to working the street. They still can’t find their ass with both hands.”

  “That’s not true. They know how to be there when you need them the most.” Chelsea had broken her cover to save my ass. I shouldn’t have treated her like that back in the office and needed to tell her I was sorry at the first opportunity.

  Five minutes later, I turned off Olivewood onto Bandini. Ned said, “This is the start of our search area. Make another left here onto Osburn Place.”

  I did. The street looked like a dog rife with fleas. People walked on both sides of the sidewalks. None of them moved with any enthusiasm. They moved without any real destination. Some even demonstrated the more acute “high-step” symptom of a smacked-back hype.

  The neighborhood probably once looked nice, ten years ago. Now all the houses needed paint or new roofs. An occasional house had a mowed lawn and trimmed shrubs. Almost all sported black wrought-iron bars on the windows and doors. I felt more comfortable in our own ghetto vs. this barrio.

  “Pull over here,” Ned said. “Let’s jack that one, right there.”

  “We do that, all the rest are gonna run for cover.”

  “Then how do you propose we handle this, Mr. Ace Narcotic Investigator?”

  I slowed the car’s speed, rolled down the window, and pulled out the wad of twenties Chelsea had issued me. I opened the money and fanned the bills, like a poker hand. I held the money up in the window. The hot summer air blew in and made them flutter. “We’re going to troll for a bank robber.”

  Ned chuckled. He pulled out his money, rolled down his window. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and hook up a shark.” He fanned the money and held it up.

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky and someone will try to rob us.”

  “We can only hope.”

  I pulled my handgun and stuck it half-under my right leg on the seat.

  The first person we got close to, a skinny Hispanic gal with raggedy hair and greasy jeans, saw all the green fluttering in the car window. With the car traveling under five miles an hour, she ran up. I jerked the money back. She kept pace, her breath coming a little harder than normal. “What’s up? Whatta need? You wanna cop some chiva?”

  I said, “We’re giving away three hundred dollars if you can help us.”

  “You Five-O?”

  Ned leaned over close to me, to get a better look at her. “You want the money or not?”

  “Whatta I gotta do?”

  “Simple,” I said. “Just tell us where this guy is?” I took the flyer off my lap and held it up.

  She waved her hand. “You’re Five-O, fuck ya all.” She stopped, hesitated, and walked off.

  Ned said, “She didn’t know our man, or she woulda ratted on him in a heartbeat.”

  I continued down the street at the same speed, the tires rolling over grit and gravel that crunched and popped. Up ahead, the next pedestrian eyed us and stopped parallel to a tree in the parkway. He peeked around the trunk as we came by. I held up the money. He stepped from around the tree.

  He looked more put together than the woman. He stayed out of the street and close to the sidewalk, moving faster now, pacing the car’s speed. “What’s goin’ on?”

  I kept the car moving to make us less of a threat. With our speed, we started getting too far away. He increased his pace, the money too big a draw.

  “This is all yours if you do something for us.”

  “What, you want someone dead? For that kinda money you gotta want someone dead.”

  “Nope, I need to find this guy. That’s all, just an address on one dude. Simple. And you get all of this.”

  He licked his lips. Heroin hypes did that a lot. He came our way. I slowed just a little, but kept rollin’, barely. I held up the Wanted flyer.

  He came even closer but stayed out of range in case we made a grab for him—the laws of the jungle.

  “That there says ten grand. You bounty hunters or something?”

  “No. You get this much for one address, no strings attached. It’s easy. Just tell us how to find him.”

  He waved his hand. “No thanks.” He backed to the curb, stepped up, turned and took off.

  I again sped up to five to seven miles per hour and folded the top half of the flyer over to block out the ten grand in big red letters.

  Ned said, “You know this is only going to work for about five or six hours, if that long. Then the jungle drums these shitbags use to communicate will start up, and your white brother, Dominic, will know we’re out here shaking the trees for him. He’ll be in the wind. Good-bye. He’s gone.”

  “What happened to the old Ned? The Ned who never gave up, no matter what? What happened to the guy who Willis Simpkins picked up and threw across a yard into a car? The guy who got right up and grabbed a big rock. Huh? What happ
ened to that guy?”

  “I’m not giving up, partner, I’m just being a realist.”

  “Well, try and be a positive-thinking realist, would ya? All this negativity is working against us. I can feel it in my bones, like a vibration.”

  He put his fingers up to his temples, closed his eyes, and pressed. “Okay, I’m getting in tune with my criminal self. And wait. Wait. Oooh, it feels … it feels so nasty, and dirty, and oooh, sooo good.”

  The car caught up with another ped on the sidewalk. This one wore a long-sleeved green-and-black plaid shirt and a blue Dodger ball cap down low over his brow. His stringy hair hung from under the cap, covering his ears. He had to be baking, out in that heat, in that shirt. Anything to hide the needle marks on his arms. The jeans looked reasonably clean with most of his dirty knees showing through torn holes.

  I slowed and held up the bait.

  He stopped and looked from side to side for a trap. I kept driving at a fast idle, my foot on the brake to control the speed.

  He ventured our way, the money pulling him like an invisible string. Three hundred in twenties would carry him—and the monkey on his back—several days before he started jonesin’ again, and had to go back to boosting, and thieving and scamming the innocent and unsuspecting.

  He followed along, his eyes on the money. I watched his hands, mine on the stock of my gun. A crook’s gun didn’t kill you. His hands did.

  His voice croaked. “Whatta need?”

  “I just need an address. Three hundred. Easiest money you’ll ever make. Just tell me one address.”

  “Whose?”

  He’d made us for cops and knew the game. I pulled down the money and lifted the Wanted sheet. He licked his lips and looked around again and again, his nerves strung wire-tight.

  “I know that dude. I just saw him.”

  I stepped on the brake hard and stopped the car.

   CHAPTER NINE

  NED POPPED HIS door, rolled out, and came around the back of the truck. I opened my door as I stuck my gun back in the holster on my hip. I held my hand out to him. “Take it easy. Don’t get spooked now.”

  The guy continued to back up, getting ready to rabbit.

  “You want this money?” I held it out—the only thing keeping him there.

  Ned stopped. He didn’t want to chase the guy in this heat.

  “Where did you see him?” I asked, my tone lower, softer.

  He stopped. “How do I know you’re going to give me the money?”

  “It’s not my money. Here, you can have half until we get Johnson.”

  Ned said, “You can hold half. We get it back if we don’t get Johnson.”

  “I don’t know no Johnson.” He pointed to the Wanted sheet in my other hand. “But I know that dude. He goes by Slick.”

  “That’s fine. Here, take half and get in our truck and show us. That’s all you have to do—show us the address. If he’s there, you get the whole thing.”

  Ned said, “Don’t worry. Slick won’t see you. We’re very good at this. You won’t get burned.”

  The guy walked over to us and took the offered half, a hundred and sixty bucks in twenties. “I don’t care if he does see me. A while back, he sold me some bunk shit. I paid good money for it. I was really sketchin’, man. I really needed it. No, I owe him.”

  Ned held up his hand. “Hold it. Listen, we don’t know you from Adam, and we don’t know if your holdin’ heavy, so I’m gonna pat you down for weapons, okay?”

  He lifted his arms and put his hands on the back edge of the truck. Body odor wafted up. Ned and I made faces. Ned patted him down, quick and efficient, then said, “Hey, man, there’s not enough room in the front of the truck—you’re going to have to sit in the back.”

  “No problem.” He vaulted in with an agility I would not have expected from someone opiate impaired.

  “Where to?” I asked.

  “Not far. Go up here, bang a right, go two blocks, take a left. It’ll be the puke-green pad on the left, halfway down. You can’t miss it.”

  Ned pointed a finger at him. “You run, I’m not going to chase you, not in this heat. I’m just going to shoot you in the back. You understand?”

  He nodded. “Take it down a notch, bro. I’m good.”

  We got in. I drove, and Ned tried to raise Gibbs and Coffman on CLEMARS, California Law Enforcement Mutual Aid Radio System. They didn’t answer.

  He turned to me. “You don’t think it’s going to be this easy, do you?”

  I didn’t want to say anything and jinx it, so I only shrugged.

  I made the first right. Ned slid the back window open. The dry heat poured in, overpowering the air-conditioning. “What if we can’t raise them? Coffman’s going to be madder than a hornet if we hit it without him.”

  “Try him again.” I made the last turn and slowed. Ned worked the radio, trying two more times. Our snitch in the back turned around and sat with his back to the cab as we drew closer. He was right. Only one house matched the description of “puke-green.” The guy in back scrunched down a little, pulled his ball cap down even further. He might not be afraid of Slick, but he was afraid of a snitch jacket he would never shake—the kind of jacket that would get him killed in the joint, if he ever went back. And he would go back, eventually. That was just part of the life he’d chosen.

  I increased the speed. Ned stuck his face in the back window. “Point it out. I need you to point it out to me.”

  After a few seconds, Ned turned back around. “Okay, we’re good. What do you want to do now?”

  I pulled around the next corner and stopped at an alley. “ID our friend in the back. I’ll keep trying on the radio.”

  Ned got out. The truck shook as the guy in back vaulted over the edge, to the ground. Ned talked to him, got his California ID card, and took notes. Coffman still didn’t answer. I got out.

  Ned handed the card back to him and said to me, “What do you wanna do, partner?”

  “We can’t wait. This guy Slick’s a real transient, and we’ve already put it out on the street. He’s going to hear about it soon. We’re gonna have to hit it now.”

  “Okay, then let’s go.”

  “Hold it. We need a uniform, in case this thing goes to guns, and at the same time notify Riverside PD, like Coffman said.”

  Ned stepped in close to me. “My partner lose his nuts since the last time we worked together?”

  “We are out of our jurisdiction and—”

  Ned smiled, held up his hand, reached in his back pocket, and pulled out his newly laminated US Marshal’s temporary ID. He said, “Good for two years or until revoked,” quoting from the small letters printed at the bottom of the nicely embossed ID.

  “Sorry, partner. I still want a uniform to go in with us. If we have to shoot, I don’t want to give him an excuse. I don’t want him to say that he thought he was being robbed.”

  “All right. All right. How do you expect to make that happen? You see any cops close by?”

  “When do I get the rest of my money?”

  “Hold your horses, Rodney,” Ned said. “I told you, not until we get this Slick in custody.”

  “Well, it’s not going to happen with you two standin’ here with your dicks in your hands. You want a black-and-white? Is that what you all are arguin’ about?”

  We both looked at him.

  “Jus’ go down this street about five blocks and bang a right, go two blocks, and you’ll see a panaderia. There’s a cute little chiquita in there with the sweetest little ass you’ve ever seen. And it’s like honey to all them uniforms.”

  “You going to wait right here for us?” I asked.

  “I’m not leavin’ ’til I get the rest of my money.”

  “Let’s roll.”

  Ned hesitated, then ran around and got in. I pulled a U-turn and took off. I watched the mirror. Rodney walked back toward the alley and into some overgrown shrubs at the edge of someone’s yard.

  We made the first turn an
d found a black-and-white on a traffic stop of a junker Ford Galaxy. They had the occupants out and sitting on the curb.

  Ned hit me. “This is a good sign, partner. This is going to be our lucky day.”

  I pulled up and stopped behind the patrol car. The two cops on the sidewalk eyed us. The older one took a step back and put his hand on the stock of his gun.

  We both got out, holding up our badges. The two cops came our way.

  “LA County Sheriff’s deputies,” I said. “We’re on a violent crimes team. We need an assist right now.”

  “What’s up?” the older officer said. He wore an epaulet of a training officer on his shoulder, and a name plate that read, “Sinclair.” His young-looking rookie remained silent, like all good rookies.

  Ned said, “You just had a 211 of a credit union on Mission. You’re looking for Dominic Johnson, and we just tracked him to a pad about five blocks from here.”

  “Well, shit. Let’s go.”

  Ned laid the map book on the trunk of the car. “He’s in a house right about here.”

  “Is it a light green shithole?”

  “That’s the one. You know it?”

  “It’s a slam pad. It’s got an alley in the back they always split out of.” I said, “Then we’re going to need one more unit to secure the back.”

  He pulled his radio off his belt and spoke into it. Then said to us, “Two minutes out.”

  “Okay,” I said, “when your unit gets here, my partner and I will go in the front along with you. You can have your trainee do whatever you think you need him to do.”

  “Second week out, he stays with the car.”

  The excitement in the kid’s face faded.

  The backup unit pulled up. Sinclair briefed them. Then he grabbed his radio and spoke in answer to a question someone had asked. He turned to us. “Our supervisor wants us to wait for him.”

  Ned shook his head. “Naw. This guy’s too slippery. He’s gonna be gone if we don’t move right now. The wait is not worth the risk. It’s now or never. If you can’t go, we’ll do it ourselves. This was just a courtesy. He’s robbing banks in your city, and we thought you might want a piece of him.”

  “Fuck it. We’re going with you.”