The Reckless

by David Putnam

  We continued to kiss. Her hand reached down between us. I groaned. She broke the kiss and in a harsh whisper said, “My panties, Bruno, get my panties.”

  I pulled back just far enough, reached down, and tore away her panties. Her hips rose with the abrupt movement. In a smoky voice she uttered, “Jesus.”

  I moved in fast and then checked my speed, hesitated. She reached up, took hold of my shoulders, her nails digging in as she pulled me down on top of her.

  * * *

  I woke with a start. Chelsea had moved, readjusted, draping her leg over mine. She snuggled her cheek deeper into the crook of my arm. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said.

  “That’s okay.” The first real words we’d spoken to each other. I didn’t want to say anything more for fear of ruining it, and at the same time, I wanted to know her intentions. I knew mine. If she only asked, I’d gladly tell her. I also feared that she’d bring up the investigation, try to apologize for the disrespectful and despicable way her agency was using our team. Only she’d obviously not seen it that way. She thought that I had disrespected her and her agency by capturing two fugitives that they couldn’t.

  “So?” I said.

  She reached up and put one finger across my lips. “Shhh. Just a couple more minutes, okay? Let’s keep the rest of the world out for a few minutes more.”

  I nodded and waited. I didn’t mind waiting, not with her resting in the crook of my arm, the feel of her warm breath on my skin, the beat of her heart next to mine.

  But I guess I did mind waiting and said, “What’s going on?”

  She sighed, taking my hand in hers, hers so much smaller.

  Another minute passed as she caressed my hand with her fingers. “I ah … I broke up with Jim.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” The words sounded wooden even to me.

  “No, you’re not.” She shoved the side of my chest with the palm of her other hand.

  “No, I’m not.”

  More silence. I looked at my watch. The luminous dial read 2:30 a.m. I had two more hours before I had to get moving and that would be cutting it close. Coffman wanted us out there set up on Gadd at five thirty.

  “What’s going on with the case? You guys doing any good?”

  I could understand why she didn’t want to talk about Turner, but there was much more going on between us that I needed to know. “Just surveillance for now till we get the lay of the land. You want to tell me how you made it out of the North Dakota field office? Last I talked to you, you said that it was a career killer, getting transferred out there. What happened? How’d you score this plum job out of the LA office?”

  “That’s it, just surveillance? Really?”

  “Don’t try and dodge the question. Come on, tell me.”

  “I told you what happened in North Dakota was real ugly.”

  “I didn’t see anything on the news. So it couldn’t have been too ugly.”

  She let go of my hand and she started to get up. I gently took her arm and pulled her back down on me, her naked body tense and hot. “If you don’t want to tell me, it’s cool. Just know that I would like to find out so I can understand what happened to you, to help me understand what happened to us.”

  That last part was a lie. I wanted to know what lay in store for our future together and what happened in Dakota might hold the key.

  She nodded and snuggled back down into my arm. “Can I tell you another time?”

  “No.”

  “You’re harsh.”

  “I’ve been called worse.”

  She swung her leg over, slid on top, and laid her head on my chest, not looking up at me. Her words came out small and hesitant. “It’s a no-nothing office, four agents and a soup. Crummy little cases, mostly tribal related, with alcohol thrown in the mix, felony spousal abuses, burglaries, stolen cars, that kind of thing.”

  I didn’t reply and waited.

  “No one wanted to be there—every one of us a screwup, including the supervisor.”

  More silence.

  “What happened?”

  “Screwups are screwups. I found out about something this other agent did. I didn’t want to rat him out and tried to fix it.” She looked up at me. “I did, Bruno. You have to believe me.”

  I moved her head back to my chest and stroked her hair. “I do.”

  She hesitated then nodded. “One day I was working as the OD—officer of the day—and took a phone call from Detroit. This dope dealer named Beals wanted to talk to Mac—John MacDonald. I told Beals Agent MacDonald wasn’t in and was on his RDOs—regular days off. Beals says that if Mac doesn’t call him within fifteen minutes, he was going to call the IRS and ‘spill it.’ At first he wouldn’t tell me what was going on, but after about ten minutes, I was able to talk him into it. I got it all out of him. I didn’t know what MacDonald did in Detroit that got him launched to North Dakota because none of us talked about our indiscretions.”

  Indiscretions? The only thing Chelsea had done to ruin an up-and-coming career was to rescue me from a fortified apartment, drive right through the wall to do it, and once inside, shoot and kill someone about to shoot me. Not her fault. The FBI saw it differently. I not only loved her, I owed her everything.

  She continued, “But according to this guy on the phone, before Mac left the Detroit field office, he had committed a major violation, not just of policy, but a criminal felony no one yet knew about.”

  “What was it?”

  She hesitated. She didn’t want to tell. “Mac, he’d been working narcotics and paid this doper Beals a million-dollar finder’s fee on a ten-million-dollar asset forfeiture. That’s SOP with FBI and DEA, ten percent. Only Mac held back two hundred thousand, skimmed it for himself. Beals only got eight hundred thousand. So when Beals got his 1099 from the Department of Justice and found that he had to pay taxes on the two hundred thousand Mac skimmed, he was pissed.”

  She stopped talking.

  I asked, “What’d you do?”

  “I went to Mac instead of following procedure by immediately reporting it, thinking maybe Mac could give the money back before it all came out.”

  I stifled a groan, already sensing the end of her story.

  “I know. I know. But if he gave the money back, he might at least avoid some jail time. He’d still lose his job.” She shrugged. “And what could they do to me—send me to North Dakota?”

  “What happened?”

  “I went to his apartment in Fargo and found him drunk—I mean stinking drunk. I got some coffee in him and walked him around a bit before I told him. When I did, he sobered up quick. He thanked me, said he knew exactly what he needed to do. I left him in his apartment and … and …”

  I hugged her tighter.

  “… and I made it down to my car before I realized I’d just made a huge mistake, leaving him alone like that. I … I … ran back and just as I made it to his door … I … heard the gunshot.”

  Her tears soaked my chest as I continued to stroke her hair. I wished I could take the pain from her.

  “Bruno, I didn’t make it out of that hole by doing something great. They gave me a plum assignment so I wouldn’t say anything that would give the FBI a black eye. I took the assignment like a good little girl and kept my mouth shut. The press never found out about it.”

  As she quietly sobbed, her tears brought on an ache to my chest. I’d hurt her by asking a painful question, forcing her to confront a painful issue, reopen old wounds.

  I’d only just reconnected with her but I found myself loving her more than I had before—and that hadn’t worked out so well.

   CHAPTER THIRTY

  I AWOKE WITH a start. In the dim light, Chelsea stood naked at the edge of the bed wiggling into her denim pants. “My panties are in shreds, thank you very much. Now I have to go commando style.” She smiled, reached out to touch my arm. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Thank me for what?”

  “Just for being you.” Still b
raless and without a top, she grabbed up her boots and sat on the edge of the bed to put them on.

  I reached over and placed my hand on her back, her skin warm to the touch. I didn’t want her to leave. Not ever again. But I needed to get up and get moving.

  I realized I needed to watch her, to burn these new memories into my brain—the way she looked, the way she moved, the way she smelled. I couldn’t help thinking that we wouldn’t survive, that the time we had last night might be the last I’d ever see of her—at least as lovers.

  “Am I going to see you again?”

  She got up and found her shirt, put it on over her head, picked up her bra and stuffed most of it in her back pants pocket. A red lacy loop and cup hung down. “Silly, why wouldn’t you?” She leaned over the bed and kissed me. “Insecurity doesn’t become you. It’s not who you are.”

  “Tonight then?”

  She’d gotten up to leave and hesitated. “Sure, of course, but it might be late. I’ve got a lot going on right now, and you’re doing that surveillance, right?”

  Her back was facing me so I couldn’t see her eyes, but I detected something in her tone. Maybe I’d been a cop too long and deceit had crept into every aspect of my life, whether actual, or falsely perceived. This feeling now wrapped around her words and became so powerful I could almost taste its bitterness on the tip of my tongue. I forced myself to discount it, push it aside as pure paranoia. I had to trust someone—who better than Chelsea? She’d saved my life years ago, to the detriment of her career.

  I jumped up, turned her around, and hugged her. She tried to wiggle away and patted my chest. “Come on, baby, I gotta go.”

  When I released her, she leaned up and kissed me on the cheek. “See you tonight.”

  “I’ll be here waiting.”

  She opened the bedroom door and walked out. Her cowboy boots clunked quietly on the carpet runner over the wood floor. I waited, holding my breath, hoping she’d come back and we’d crawl back into bed, pull the covers over our heads, and pretend nothing else existed outside my childhood bedroom.

  The front door opened and eased closed. A moment later someone popped into my room and scared the hell out of me. I startled and pulled a fist back to slug the intruder.

  “Hey, hey. Take it easy, big fella. Remember me? It’s Ned, your best friend.”

  I slumped back onto the bed still in my underwear. “Jesus, Ned, I almost knocked your block off.” I took a deep breath. “And you might be a little presumptuous on the best friend thing.”

  “Ah, man, come on. I mean, not to be rude, but who else you got? Huh? Tell me, who?”

  “Dad. I got Dad.”

  “I can’t argue with you on that one, my friend.”

  He sat next to me. “Who was that who just walked through my bedroom and snuck out the front door?”

  “By your bedroom? You mean my living room? You’re sleeping on my couch? What time did you come in?”

  “Don’t try and dodge the question, buddy boy. And I think this is your father’s house and his couch, too, not yours.” He leaned over and sniffed me. I shoved his face away.

  He smiled and raised his finger, shook it. “Ah, Bruno, my man, you got some last night, and I think that beautiful vixen who just snuck out had to be the wily and intrepid, wicked witch from the Riverside FBI office, am I right?” He shook his hand as if he’d touched something hot. “Va va voom, partner.”

  “No, you’re not right—in any case, it’s none of your business. And I told you, don’t call her that.” I did a surreptitious scan of the room for any evidence, and spotted a red silken swatch of torn panty. With my foot, I carefully nudged it under the bed without Ned noticing. At the same time, I asked, “Where did you get off to yesterday? Coffman’s pissed.”

  “I was working.”

  “What, rescuing a damsel in distress?” As soon as I said it I knew exactly what he’d been up to. He wasn’t rescuing, he was recruiting. “You worked her, didn’t you? You signed her up, didn’t you? What’d she tell you? She had to be fed up with Gadd for shoving her out of the car and leaving her in the street all skinned up.” Gadd had literally “tossed her to the curb.”

  Before he could answer, a loud knock at the front door interrupted.

  Chelsea must have changed her mind.

  I jumped up and made it to the hall as Dad came out of his bedroom dressed in his pajamas, a ball bat in hand. “Bruno? What the hell, Son? This isn’t Grand Central Station.”

  “I know, Dad. I’m sorry, this won’t happen again. I promise to keep the noise down.”

  His concerned expression shifted to a smile. “Was that Chelsea last night?”

  I glanced over my shoulder at Ned, who stood in the doorway to my bedroom with a huge smile, finger raised. “Ott, ott?”

  “Later, Dad. Let’s talk about it later, huh?” The knock came again, saving me.

  “Bruno?”

  “Please, later, Dad, okay?”

  “Son, you better put some pants on before you go to the door.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” I hurried back in my room, found my pants, and jumped into them. I hesitated at the bedroom door, looking back at the rumpled bed, the image of Chelsea sneaking out, her red lace bra hanging from her back pocket, Dennis the Menace kind of cute with his slingshot, and realized I hadn’t been so happy in a very long while.

  In the living room, Ned opened the front door to let in the beginning—an insidious kind of trouble that would eventually eat us all.

   CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  NED STEPPED AWAY from the door, a gun in his hand held behind his back, and let Ollie’s huge bulk enter my living room. A few days earlier, over the phone, Ollie had given me the clue I needed to look for Honeybee Holcomb, which led to the capture of the Bogart Bandit. I owed her a big favor in addition to three hundred dollars. I’d forgotten all about the three hundred dollars. That had to be the reason for the unannounced visit. But at four thirty-five in the morning?

  I liked Ollie as a person, but she still represented a part of my professional life I’d insisted on keeping separate from my personal life. No way did I want to blur those lines by her being in my house and, more to the point, putting in jeopardy the place where Olivia lived. How did Ollie even know where I resided? People on the street must have told her. She knew everyone, and those she didn’t know opened up to her as if old friends, a unique phenomenon for the ghetto.

  My anger dissipated entirely when she stepped in wringing her hands and displaying an expression of fear and concern I’d not known her to possess. Ollie had always been happy-go-lucky with a huge smile and bright eyes for everyone she met. She wore custom-made black slacks tailored to downplay her bulk and a voluminous teal green satin blouse. Multiple bracelets on both wrists rattled when she moved.

  I hurried toward her. “What’s going on, Ollie? What’s happened?”

  “It’s my nephew. I tolt you about my nephew. You said you’d do somethin’ about it. You promised me you do somethin’ about it.”

  I caught up to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “I did say that and I will. What’s going on, what’s changed?”

  “It’s—” She froze mid-sentence. “Who’s this fool?”

  Ned had closed the door and walked in his stocking feet back to the couch covered in bedsheets, his gun hanging in his hand.

  “He’s my partner. He’s okay. Go on with what you were about to say.”

  “A whitebread? You got yourself a whitebread as a partner? Mmm, mmm. But if you say he’s okay, he’s okay.” She looked back at me. “Devon, my sister’s boy, he done robbed hisself a bank.”

  “What?” I said

  Ned came back from the couch. “What’d you just say?”

  “I said my nephew Devon D’Arcy has been robbin’ banks. Bruno, you have to help him. He’s a good kid, really he is. He jus’ fell in wit’ the wrong group. You said you could help him. Now I need you real bad to help him.”

  Ned asked, “How many banks has he robbed?�
��

  She looked from me to Ned, glared at him, and pointed a hand bejeweled with rhinestones mounted in gaudy gold-plated rings. “I don’t like him.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I’ve been gettin’ that a lot lately. But I promise, he’s okay.”

  “Come on, man, I’m standing right here.”

  “Make us some coffee, Ned, would you please? Ollie, come over here and sit down. Tell me what happened.”

  She came over to the dining room table, but didn’t sit. Her body vibrated with too much nervous anxiety. “My sister … she doesn’t deserve dis, I swear ta God she doesn’t. She works two jobs to feed dem kids—six, seven days a week, and Devon goes and does this. I wanna kick his ass up ’tween his shoulders my own self.”

  “How does your sister know he robbed a bank?”

  “She fount some money in his room and ax him about it. And den you know what he done? He stuck his head up in the air all proud like he was king shit and said he’d taken down a bank in Monnaclair.”

  Ned moved in closer and said to me, “You think this is Gadd?”

  “Yeah, who else could it be? It’s too much of a coincidence for it to be anything else.”

  “Gadd?” Ollie said, her eyes going wide. “Who’s this Gadd?”

  “No, now you let me handle this,” I said. “Where can I find your nephew? I want to talk to him.”

  “You ain’t gonna arrest him, are you?”

  Ned said, “Naw, he’s just a kid, but he’ll still have to answer for what he did in juvenile court.”

  “Really? You promise you ain’t gonna arrest him?”

  “You know me. You know I’ll do the best I can. You know I won’t lie to you, and I’m not going to promise you something now that I can’t do. I can only promise to do the best I can.”