The Reckless

by David Putnam

  He’d lose.

   CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  I FINISHED MY beer, now bitter and sour, while Gadd went back to wooing the woman on the other side of him. I put ten dollars on the bar and walked stiff-legged out into the parking lot, my mind in a world of confusion.

  Once in the car, I came up on the radio. “He’s sitting at the bar with a woman he just met. I think we’re going to be here awhile.” I stopped short of telling them that I’d just recognized Gadd as the Darkman. I needed to think some more about it. What would it gain by telling them now? We were already up on him for too many felonies to count. None that we could prove until the case broke.

  I sat in the parking lot of the Harbor Town Pub with the others and watched the black Lincoln and the front door of the bar. Gadd stayed in there another two hours. He came out with the woman on his arm and drove with great deliberation to an apartment complex on 213th and Avalon in the city of Carson, a cheap, run-down apartment probably belonging to the woman. Did we owe an obligation to warn her, to advise her of her possible ruinous choice in men? A tough decision nobody spoke of as we let the situation play out all on its own.

  We stayed on watch until midnight when Coffman came up on the radio. “Bruno, you and Gibbs go get some shut-eye, four hours, then come back and relieve me and Ned. We’re not gonna lose this guy again.”

  I didn’t acknowledge on the radio; I started up and let the headlights of my car coming on let him know I heard the orders. I drove home by rote, my mind struggling with the decision not to notify Compton and to let Gadd fall prey to our surveillance and eventual takedown.

  I pulled up, stopped in front of my house, and remembered about Chelsea. I slugged the steering wheel. I’d forgotten all about her. I should’ve found a pay phone and paged her with a code that said I wouldn’t be able to make it. She’d probably come and gone after waiting too long. But how long would she have waited? The longer she’d waited, the more she cared. Only a kid with a high school crush would want to know that kind of information to further assuage a wounded ego.

  I hadn’t slept a lot the night before, just a scant few hours. Not a complaint at all. I wouldn’t have missed the time being with Chelsea for anything in the world. But now fatigue hung off me like a warm, wet blanket beckoning me to lie down anywhere. Right there in the front yard would be fine. Curl up and sleep for two days straight.

  Before leaving the street and walking into my front yard, I checked the street one more time for dangerous interlopers and spotted a car that didn’t belong parked four houses down. I turned to face it, stared into the darkness as I stepped backward into the front yard, out from under the streetlight and deeper into the shadows.

  The headlights came on. The car started. The tires chirped as it sped right toward me. I pulled my shirt back from over the gun on my hip and put my hand on the stock, ready to draw and fire.

  The car, a nice silver BMW four-door—out of place for the neighborhood—pulled up and stopped on the wrong side of the street, nose to nose to my FBI car. I couldn’t see inside, the window tint too dark.

  I shifted my footing, drew my gun, and held it along the side of my leg. The driver’s door opened to a woolly looking male, with big hair, and a full beard. He wore a black leather jacket, also out of place in this kind of summer heat. He wore a dress shirt and slacks, and the foot emerging from the car sported the in-vogue penny loafer. I watched his hands—empty—or I’d have pointed my gun at him. He climbed the rest of the way out. “Bruno—hey, man, take it easy, it’s me.”

  “I don’t know who the hell you are so don’t make any quick moves. Step back by the car and into the light.”

  “Come on, you know me. We worked the street together. It’s me, JB.”

  “Ah, shit.” I reholstered my gun. I didn’t like JB. He’d cuckolded Ned. Ned caught JB in flagrante delicto with Hannah four years ago. I’d been there, seen it for myself. Ned had since reconciled with Hannah. No way did I want anything to do with JB.

  “Get back in your car, JB, you’re not welcome here.”

  “Come on, don’t be that way. Can we just talk? I need to talk to you for just a minute.”

  I turned to go in the house. “You got nothing I need to hear.”

  He raised his voice as if he wanted witnesses to come closer and listen, a real punk’s move. “I wanted to do this friend to friend, but if you force me, I can call the cops, and you’ll be arrested as an accessory.”

  I turned back and walked quickly up to him. “You can’t have me arrested if I’ve done nothing wrong. Now get the hell off my property before I take you to the ground and arrest you for trespassing.”

  The other door to the BMW opened. Hannah’s head popped up looking across the roof of the car. “Hey, Bruno.”

  “Ah, shit.”

  Behind me, the front door to the house opened a crack, Dad peeking out. The porch light went off so he could see better. Or maybe he knew about backlighting and did it to protect me.

  Hannah closed the car door and came around. As she did, JB asked, “Have you seen Ned?”

  I hesitated, trying to catch up with what was happening and didn’t like the way the puzzle started to go together.

  Ned had never reconciled with Hannah—or had Hannah recently gone back to JB?

  Hannah walked over. She wore a dynamite pair of black leather pants that looked like someone designed them just for her body. She wore a tight pearl-colored satin blouse unbuttoned down almost to the bottom of her ample cleavage. Her leather jacket didn’t have the zippers on the sleeves like JB’s. Her long blond hair fell loose on her shoulders. She was nothing short of stunning.

  I swallowed hard. “What’s going on, Hannah?” But I thought I knew; I just couldn’t believe Ned would put me in this situation. It all flooded back at once, Ned suddenly showing up after all those years, needing a babysitter for Beth. Wicks not wanting to tell me what was going on with Ned, that it was personal. And that it could become a problem for the department. All of it made sense now.

  Hannah reached out and took my hand, her bright blue eyes burning right through me. “I think you know, Bruno. Ned’s kidnapped my baby. He’s taken Beth.”

  “Ah, shit.”

   CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “I THINK KIDNAP is a strong word.”

  JB reached into his coat. I jumped past Hannah and grabbed his wrist. “Don’t.”

  “Easy, big fella,” JB said. “I’m just going for some court papers. You’re a little paranoid, aren’t you?” His breath smelled of spicy pork rinds and Dr. Pepper. You could take the deputy out of the ghetto, but you couldn’t take the ghetto out of the deputy.

  “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean someone’s not following me. You two are staking out my house. You accuse me of accessory after the fact, aiding and abetting a kidnapper. How do you expect me to react?”

  Hannah put her hand on mine and gave me the eyes again, full power this time. “Why don’t we all just dial this down a little, huh? I don’t want it to go down this way. I really don’t. Why don’t we go inside and discuss this in a civilized manner?”

  My mind, all on its own, skipped back to that night in her apartment when Ned caught them naked. I’d stood right behind him. That image of her nudity, the smooth freckled skin, the curves and her wonderful breasts, made me flush with embarrassment. What the hell was this woman doing with the likes of JB? Ned was ten times the man JB ever thought of being.

  I let go and stepped back. “We’ll talk right here. What can I do for you tonight, Hannah?”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “I just want my baby back. You can understand that, can’t you, Bruno? You have a little girl.” She took a step toward me and raised her hand to place it on my chest. I took another step back, took her warm hand and let it drop.

  “I … I don’t have your baby. You know me. I would never …” The lie clogged in my throat and wouldn’t come out. I turned to look back at the front door that stood ajar and the darkness t
hat filled in the crack. Dad had always taught me to tell the truth, and now he stood there listening to the conversation. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t lie to Hannah. Not blatantly. “I haven’t committed any crime. You’ll have to talk to Ned about Beth. That’s all I’m going to say.” I held up my hand to end any further conversation and headed for the front door.

  JB said, “Bruno, have Ned and Beth been staying here?”

  Part of the crime of kidnapping, the aiding and abetting part, I had to have knowledge to fulfill the elements, to make me culpable. They’d just informed me Ned had taken the child, and now if I answered in the negative, they had me for the accessory charge. I stopped and turned back around. “If the child belongs to both you and Ned, then it’s not kidnapping. It could only be a violation of a court order, if you have one. You’re trying to bluff me with that kidnapping bullshit, and I don’t like being taken for a fool.”

  Hannah took a step toward me. I raised the flat of my hand. She stopped.

  “Bruno,” she said. “What if I told you Beth was JB’s child?”

  “Ah, damnit, Hannah, don’t play mind games with me. I know better.”

  She kept looking at me and stuck her hand out toward JB. JB pulled the papers from his inside jacket pocket and placed them in her outstretched hand. She handed them toward me.

  I didn’t take them.

  She said, “We had blood tests done. This is a judge’s court order declaring Beth as JB’s child until there can be a hearing on the matter. That makes it kidnap.”

  “Does Ned know about this … these papers, I mean?”

  I caught it in her eyes as she quickly tried to decide whether or not to submit the lie in her attempt to get Beth back. “Aaah, no. We haven’t been able to find him to have him served.”

  She’d chosen to tell the truth.

  Ned had been hiding out at my house to avoid the service on the court order. I hadn’t seen or talked to him in years, and that made our house the perfect place to lie low.

  I smiled. “Then, when and if I see Ned, I’ll tell him. That’s the best I can do for you tonight, Hannah. Now excuse me. I’m tired, and I only have three hours to sleep before I have to be back out on a surveillance.”

  “Just let us look in your house,” Hannah said. “That’s not asking a lot, is it?”

  “Yes, it is. It’s saying you don’t take me at my word. It’s also a violation of my right to privacy, and I won’t subject Olivia to this kind of disturbance on a lark.”

  She said, “We can call the police—they’ll let us look.”

  “Not without a warrant they won’t. Will they, JB?”

  She looked to JB. He shook his head, agreeing with me.

  “Now, please, get off my property. I have to get some rest.” I turned and walked away.

  Hannah said, “You don’t want to get in the middle of this, Bruno. It’ll go down bad for you.”

  “Ned’s my best friend. You seem to have forgotten that part. And don’t you ever threaten me again. Good night.”

  I stepped up on the stoop, turned my back to the door, and watched JB and Hannah retreat to their seventy-thousand-dollar car. Hannah had thrown Ned over for money. That had to be it. I hated JB for causing all this upheaval. Then my emotions immediately shifted to Ned; he’d put me in this crack and told me nothing about it. I wanted to sock him in the mouth and would without hesitation the next time I saw him.

  Behind me, I sensed the door open a little more. Dad said, “You did the right thing, Son.”

  “What are you talking about?” I still had not turned around to face him. Hannah and JB started up; the headlights came on.

  Dad said to my back, “They came to the door and asked for Beth.”

  “What’d you tell them?”

  “I told them that Beth wasn’t here.”

  The BMW moved off down the street.

  “Is Beth still here?”

  Dad said, “Well, hell yes, she is.”

  I spun around, found the door open with Dad standing there, his jaw clamped tight, his eyes fierce. He’d never, ever told anyone anything other than the truth. I mean never. My world shifted under my feet. My dad had told a bald-faced lie. Not only that but he could now face criminal prosecution for that lie.

   CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  I PUSHED MY way into the house, the light turned down low from one lamp next to the couch. I closed the door. Dad stood there in his stocking feet, still wearing his blue-gray postal uniform pants with a white sling-strap tee shirt, his dark-skinned arms and shoulders lean and muscled. He held a ball bat down by his leg. As a street cop, I would never want to go up against him—not someone with truth on his side. He hadn’t changed to his pajamas and had been standing vigil all night. I said, “What’s going on, Dad? You always told me never to lie. And now you just involved yourself in—”

  His eyes went wide, and he raised his bat, pointed it at the wall in the direction of where JB and Hannah had stood out in the yard. “Those are bad people out there.”

  “Take it easy, Dad, what are you talking about?” I put my hand on his shoulder.

  He took a deep breath and let it out. He nodded. “I’m sorry, Son, I’m just a little worked up.” He turned and stepped over to the kitchen area and sat in a chair at the table. He got right up and paced the floor. “They’ve been sitting out there all night just waiting like a couple of vultures over a carcass. Makes me sick.”

  I sat next to him. “What’s going on? Tell me.”

  He nodded again. His eyes stared into mine, but his mind wandered somewhere else as he must’ve pondered all that had happened and his role in it. I waited for him to tell it in his own time.

  He said, “I don’t remember ever lying like that to anyone, and it makes me sick that those people made me do it.”

  I said nothing.

  His mind returned as his eyes came back into focus looking at me. “But tonight, Son, tonight I realize there is only one exception to that rule I’ve always lived by. The exception is when it involves the safety of children. If a child is at risk and it’s the only way to protect them, then it’s okay to lie your ass off.”

  I sat back in the chair a little stunned. Dad never talked like this. It was unusual for him to use words like “hell” or “ass.”

  “What happened? Tell me what happened.”

  He held up his hand. “Okay, just give me a minute.” He paused and swallowed hard. “All right, all right, here it is. I come home from the office, everything’s fine and it’s a good day to be alive. I send Mrs. Espinosa home. I start making the kids their dinner. It’s about five o’clock, still lots of light outside being summer and all. Maybe it’s five thirty, I’m not sure. Anyway, Olivia and Beth are both up on the couch jumping and bouncing around having a good time laughing and giggling. I’m over here in the kitchen makin’ them some macaroni and cheese with hot dogs when I hear Beth let out a little yelp.”

  Dad points to the couch. “I look over in time to see her fall to her stomach, roll off the couch, and run to the bedroom.” He points down the hall with the ball bat. “She goes in and slams the door. I follow her to see if she’s okay. Something bad’s happened, Son, that’s what I think. I just don’t know what it could be.” Dad turned to look at me. “I found her under the bed backed up as far as she could go in the corner, whimpering. I started talking to her, tryin’ to find out what happened just as someone knocks at the front door. I’m still not figuring it out until I come back in here.” He again points with the ball bat. “As I’m going to the door, I realize Beth had been up on the couch and could see out the front window.”

  He didn’t have to say anything more. For me the entire situation fell into place. I took the ball bat from him and leaned it against the wall. “You opened the door and there was JB and Hannah asking about Beth.”

  “That’s right, how’d you know?”

  “That’s when you told them Beth wasn’t here?”

  “That’s right.” He pointed to t
he bat. “I also told him to get the hell off my porch.”

  “We’re going to be in trouble if they come back with a warrant and the Sheriff’s Department.”

  “What about that child in there? She can’t go back to those … those people?”

  “Dad, if the child belongs to—”

  “No, sir. No, I won’t have it. The police come here to take that child, force her to go someplace she doesn’t want to go, they’re going to have to fight me. I swear to God, Bruno, that’s the way it’s gonna be.”

  “Dad—”

  “No, sir. Not going to happen, not as long as I’m breathin’. Come here. Come with me.” He spun and hurried out of the kitchen through the living room and into the hall. I caught up to him at his bedroom door. He eased it open. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Took me the better part of an hour to talk her out from under that bed.”

  The low light from the hall illuminated the bedroom. Beth and Olivia slept on a daybed in Dad’s room. They laid facing each other, each of their arms draped over the other, best friends even as they slept. With the heat of the summer, they only wore light tee shirts and panties. No blanket or sheet covered them.

  Dad pointed and whispered. “Look, look at the bottom of her feet.”

  All the air went out of me. Oh, no. I didn’t want to look. I’d worked the street long enough to know what I’d find. And each and every time I found a child, hurt, abused, or exploited, I had a difficult time containing my anger, my rage.

  I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and got down on one knee for a closer look. Some sick bastard had whipped the bottom of her feet with an electric cord—or something similar. Scars crisscrossed the skin on the bottoms of both her feet. How had I missed this?

  I’d been too busy, too caught up in my own life, and hadn’t slowed down long enough to pay attention to a small child who stayed in my house. Me, the big bad sheriff’s detective whose main job it was to be observant and to ferret out crime, pick out the victims and keep them safe. I’d failed.