The Innocents

by David Putnam

  I sat back down. She offered me another beer, and I waved her off. She also sat down.

  “Hey,” I said, “where’s everyone else? Should we be worried about them?”

  She sipped her dirty vodka martini, the first one of the afternoon, and leaned in a little, her eyes probing. “Robby called the other three and uninvited them.”

  Just that fast I lost my sense of humor and sat back, feeling like I’d somehow been ambushed and used. For some reason, they wanted to turn me into everybody’s fool, and I couldn’t fathom why. The beers filled my head with cotton and didn’t help.

  “Why?”

  She sipped again, her eyes still not leaving mine. “You have to believe me, Bruno, this was beyond our control.”

  “What was?”

  She’d said “our” as if she’d become a part of whatever was happening.

  “Robby got a phone call,” she said, “right after he talked to you.” She paused and looked over at her husband at the grill.

  “And?”

  She looked back at me. “Let’s just say this has turned into a working lunch.”

  “Ah, man, are you kiddin’ me? What are you talking about here? Working? How?”

  No way could she mean strapping a gun on and going after a violent felon, not with all the alcohol on board. They’d lured me there for a reason, to ask something of me. I didn’t like the smell of it. They’d used the beautiful warm day, the beer, the camaraderie, to soften the blow.

  “This is going to be real bad, isn’t it?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  BARBARA SAID, “SILLY boy, of course not. Robby just wants to talk to you about something and it’s better if no one else hears.”

  I should’ve felt honored. Instead, I felt betrayed. The afternoon’s good cheer fled on shaky legs, and suddenly the intensity of the sun caused me to break out in a sweat. They’d turned me into a staked goat. The worst part, they didn’t even have the common courtesy to ask. They just did it.

  From over by the grill, Robby said, “You tell him yet, babe? You getting him all prepped like we talked about?”

  The gall, talking about how they wanted to butter me up, doing it right out in the open as if I meant nothing more to them than a hand puppet. I stood. “What’s going on? Tell me now.”

  Barbara just looked up at me, sipped some more of the cocktail. “It’s okay, Bruno. Take it easy. This is a good thing. Trust me.” Still sitting on the bench, she reached out and took hold of my hand, hers cool to the touch on the hot day.

  I pulled away. She got up, hesitated, and went into the house to leave me alone with Wicks. I took the few steps over to him at the grill. “Tell me what this is all about. I don’t like being blindsided.”

  Wicks smiled, his eyelids a little droopy from all the beer. “Take it easy, big man. Listen to my wife. Like she said, this is a good thing.” He picked up the platter, pulled off the wax paper, and used his fingers to lay the slabs of shark on the grill. He started to pull off the foil-wrapped corn on the cob, picking them up with bare fingers, jerking his hands and shaking them from the heat.

  The fish sizzled.

  He said nothing more as I waited for the explanation, too scared to walk away without it.

  He picked up a plastic container with a brush and pasted on some thick and smooth white paste. He said, “The key to making great shark steaks on the grill is this concoction right here, baby. It’s my old family secret recipe: mayonnaise, a dash of lemon, a dollop of sour cream, and just a hint of paprika. Keeps the steaks moist.”

  I stared at him as the smoke rose, carrying a marvelous aroma that made my stomach growl, embarrassing me further. Even my stomach took every opportunity to betray me. “Well, you gonna tell me, or am I gonna walk out?”

  Robby didn’t turn to see that Barbara had gone into the house. He said, “Hey, babe, I’m a little parched. Could you please get us a coupla beers?”

  “She went inside. And I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but you’re going to tell me what’s going on right now, or I’m leaving.”

  The gate at the side of the house scraped. I looked over to see a thin, gray-haired gentleman come into the backyard. I looked back at Robby, who didn’t draw his .45. He didn’t seem to care that this guy violated the sanctity of his inner kingdom.

  The old guy, dressed in new khaki pants and a casual green polo shirt, came right over to me and offered his hand. “You must be Deputy Bruno Johnson. It’s nice to finally meet you, son.”

  Wicks turned around, his eyes still weeping from the smoke, the barbecue fork in hand, and said, “Bruno, this is Deputy Chief Rudyard.”

  Deputy Chief? Ah, shit.

  Wicks said, “Well, shake his hand, man.”

  I took his hand and shook. My next words came out softer than before. “What the hell’s going on?”

  Deputy Chief Rudyard laughed. “Not exactly the reaction I’d expect. Robby, I’m guessing you haven’t told him.”

  “Not yet, boss. We were waiting on you.”

  “I see. Leave the dirty work for me. You have another one of those beers? Bruno, let’s sit and take a load off.”

  Barbara came out of the house carrying a tray with a green leaf salad, a pasta salad, and a casserole of scalloped potatoes hot from the oven. The load made the muscles in her arms stand out. The Deputy Chief hurried over and relieved her of it. “Here, let me take that.”

  The chief ogled her. My mouth sagged open in shock. He made no attempt to cover it, leered at her right out in the open.

  Barbara had to have seen it. “Why thank you, Bill. That’s very gentlemanly of you.” She handed him the tray.

  I turned to look. Wicks had his back to us, working the shark steaks on the grill, or this might’ve been one of those instances where he “really needed a handgun” to dust off the chief with a couple of .45 slugs. Alcohol and firearms and another man’s wife never mix well in anyone’s backyard.

  Wicks turned. “Hey, these babies are ready to eat. Get ’em while they’re hot.”

  Barbara hustled over with the platter. He forked them on.

  In a daze, I didn’t know what to do and went along with them. There wasn’t anything else for it. I sat down. Barbara put a steak on each of our plates and then sat down next to me and across from the chief. Wicks sat next to the chief.

  Wicks handed me the pasta salad and smiled. I couldn’t help thinking that it looked like the wolf smiling at the goat. I took the bowl from him and my gaze caught the contrast of his skin to mine. I usually didn’t let that bother me. But under the circumstances, the fact that I was the only black man sitting at a table with three pasty whites, in a white neighborhood, with a dark secret among them that they were all afraid to give up, made me shiver a little.

  Everyone loaded their plates and started to eat. I guessed we’d talk about it later when they were ready.

  I took a bite of the shark. My mouth lit up with wonderful, mouthwatering sensations. The shark was nothing less than spectacular.

  The chief spoke first. “I want to commend you boys on the great start with this new team. Truly amazing. You’re really making me look good.”

  I stopped chewing and looked at him. I wanted to point out the senseless body count and would have, had the food not hit my stomach and started to sober me up enough to keep my comments to myself rather than commit career suicide.

  Wicks said, “Thank you, Chief.”

  Barbara reached over and squeezed my arm. She smiled at me. I caught the chief looking at her hand on my arm, his mouth a straight line. He broke his gaze and redirected his attention to his plate.

  One thing I knew for sure, I didn’t belong there and needed to extricate myself as soon as possible. Hopefully with my career still intact.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THE CHIEF PUT a bite of shark in his mouth and then pointed his empty fork at me. “Bruno, Robby says you ran the op in Pomona and caught that escaped prisoner from CIM. Did it in about two hours flat. That’s so
me good work, boy. Really great for the team’s first effort.”

  I looked at Wicks, who smiled and took another swig of his beer, the food on his plate hardly touched. I nodded, afraid of commenting, afraid the words would get out of control.

  I wished Armendez had not died at my hand.

  The chief shook his head. “Then last night, hmm, that was really something else, too.”

  The emotions of the shooting in the alley, the confrontation with Blue, still burned hot in my memory. I fought the urge to complain about what had happened, how Blue failed to follow orders and ultimately got three people killed. How Wicks wasn’t there to take care of his men. How I’d been forced to go back in uniform. That last one sounded petty even to me.

  I said nothing.

  Wicks took a pull off his can of beer and said, “That wasn’t any of our guys who dropped the hammer on that one, Chief.”

  Wicks words came out as if disappointed we didn’t shoot.

  The chief looked at me when he spoke. “I know, and that’s why we’re here today, isn’t it?”

  I set my fork down. Now I knew why all the special treatment came my way. They wanted me to rat out Blue, speak to “Internal Affairs,” tell them what really happened. But my statement wouldn’t make a difference. They already knew exactly what happened. Nobody tried to cover anything up. Sure, Blue acted like some kinda arrogant asshole, but that wasn’t a violation of policy.

  Unless they intended to bang Blue for jumping his position, going against the plan and confronting the two suspects while the suspects held onto the victim.

  Still, not a big deal—that violation of policy only rated, maybe, a letter of reprimand or a day or two on the bricks.

  The chief looked down and stirred around some pasta salad while everyone waited for him to speak. He looked up and again pointed his fork at Wicks then at me. “There’s something neither one of you knows about.”

  Disgusted, he let his fork drop and clatter on his plate. He took a napkin off his lap and wiped his mouth and shook his head. “I don’t know. Blue, that bastard, I can’t figure him. He’s a walking contradiction.”

  Wicks asked, “What do you mean, Chief?”

  The chief’s eyes went to Barbara.

  The awkward moment hung thick in the air. Barbara stood and picked up her plate. “Guess that’s my cue.” She gave us a cardboard smile. “I’ll be inside. Call me when it’s okay to come back out and rejoin the boys’ club.”

  “No, wait,” the chief said. “I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. We can talk about this later, Barbara. I don’t want to run you off and ruin your dinner.”

  Barbara just smiled and kept moving toward the door, the perfect hostess.

  Wicks said, “Thanks, babe.”

  The chief waited until the door closed. “That’s a good woman you have there, Robby.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  The chief looked across the table at me as if he didn’t know how to start the conversation, and with him, I bet that didn’t happen too often.

  Wicks helped him out. “What is it that we don’t know, Chief?”

  The chief nodded as if he’d made up his mind. “Before I get to that, let me first get to the question. Bruno, we need to ask a big favor of you.”

  I leaned back, stared at the chief, the food in my stomach starting to sour. “I figured as much.”

  Wicks said, “Take it easy with the mouth, Bruno. This is a chief talking here.”

  “It’s okay, Robby, I’ve got this. Bruno, we want you to go undercover.”

  “What?”

  This wasn’t at all what I expected. Undercover wouldn’t be so bad. In fact, I’d always wanted to try it. Go deep undercover after the major narcotics dealers, the ones selling their poison to the kids on the street. Go after people like Papa Dee and Lucas Knight, really make an impact and improve the quality of life in the ghetto. “Who’s the target and where?”

  “There really isn’t any easy way to say it,” the chief said. “I’m going to reassign you to the narcotics street team at Lynwood. Temporarily. It’ll just be for a week or two, maybe a little more. I don’t think it’ll go that long. But it’ll have to look like a permanent assignment, so I don’t want you to worry about that.”

  I got up, threw my napkin down on the table, and headed for the gate. I didn’t care what the chief thought. No way would I work undercover as a rat. Even if it worked out perfectly, I could never come out of the assignment unscathed. I’d be labeled a pariah. No deputy anywhere would ever trust me again for anything. No one in any other agency would either.

  Behind me, Wicks got up and said to the chief, “Let me talk to him.” He hurried to catch up.

  He caught my arm as I reached for the gate latch, his voice harsh. “What the hell’s the matter with you, man? When a chief asks you for a favor, you never turn him down. You just do it and say, ‘Thank you, sir, can I have another?’ What you don’t do is throw a childish little fit and stomp off.”

  “I’m nobody’s rat.”

  “You haven’t even heard him out. How do you know what’s going down?”

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Is the plan for me to go undercover and catch Blue’s team dirty, stealing dope and money or both?”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  Now I was confused. I looked him in the eye to see the lie and couldn’t. “Why isn’t IAB doing this? Why me?”

  “It’s because of what Blue said in the interview last night. That’s what the chief was getting at before you threw your little hissy fit.”

  “I didn’t throw any hissy fit. What did Blue say in the interview?”

  I could only imagine what he’d told them after our confrontation in the cop car on the way back to the station. The nerve of the bastard saying he shot the kid to save my life and for me to be sure to tell the shooting team the kid was running at me with a gun in his hand.

  “Blue said you showed more balls out there than he’s seen in a long time. He said he’d trust you with his life, anytime. And since he needs a black undercover for his street team to do hand-to-hands, he called the chief and asked for you.”

  “He did what?”

  “That’s right, he asked for you. So, you see how perfectly it works out? This thing just fell right into our lap.”

  “What do you mean ‘perfectly’?”

  “Just come back and sit down. Listen to the whole pitch before you make a decision that’ll torpedo your career. And when I say torpedo, that’s an understatement. You’ll blow it right out of the water for good.”

  I tried to make sense of everything he’d just said. “So, I’m not being kicked off the violent crimes team?” I knew that didn’t make sense, either, but I needed a few more seconds to think and try and put it all together so I didn’t sound like a total idiot. Only I couldn’t put it together, not without all the information, the missing piece.

  “No. No, of course you’re not leaving the team. You just heard a part of it and then you jumped up and ran off half-cocked.”

  “I don’t like being made a patsy and I don’t think you would either. You wouldn’t have sat there like some sort of chump. It doesn’t really matter, it still doesn’t sound like anything I want to do.”

  I tried to imagine what it would be like to stand up in court, raise my right hand, and testify against my fellow deputies. Or worse, testify against someone like Blue.

  The lack of sleep, the warm sun, and the alcohol worked as contributing factors to my unruly behavior. I didn’t want to give Wicks those excuses. He deserved a yes or a no.

  Wicks nodded. “Okay, look, I handled this whole thing wrong from the beginning and I’m sorry. We should’ve been more up front with you. Come on back to the table, and we’ll explain it all to you.”

  Even with the fatigue and alcohol as factors, the little voice in my head kept yelling, “Run away, run away. You want no part of this screwed-up mess.”
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br />   “If it’s not about the dope or the money, then what is it about?”

  “There’s a problem with answering that question, Bruno.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “No, I’m not allowed to tell you unless you say you’re in. Are you in?”

  “How do I know if I want to be ‘in’ if I don’t know what ‘in’ entails?”

  Wicks stared into my eyes and wouldn’t answer. I wilted under his glare and looked away, down and to the left. My eyes caught a glimpse of something. On his white shirtsleeve, high up by the bicep, a small spot of fresh blood appeared. Not big, but one large enough to have seeped through a tightly wrapped bandage. The entire afternoon he’d not said a word about the amazing feat he’d accomplished. All alone, standing toe to toe with the armed and dangerous murderer Damien Frakes Jr. Going to guns with him close enough to feel the heat and concussion from Frakes’ muzzle flash. If Wicks could do that, what the hell was I complaining about? All of a sudden I wanted to prove to him that I could do something worthy of his approval.

  “Ah, shit, okay, okay, I’m in. Tell me.”

  He hesitated; the delay made me hold my breath.

  “You sure?” he asked.

  “Just tell me.”

  “It’s murder for hire, Bruno. They’re doing contract killings.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “MURDER FOR HIRE? Are you kidding me? No way. Not Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies.”

  “Come on.” Wicks escorted me over to the picnic table where Deputy Chief Rudyard continued to eat his lunch. Life went on for him as if nothing at all had happened, as if no careers or innocent lives hung in the balance. Throughout his career, he must’ve heard a lot worse, been involved in the destruction of many deputies, and at the same time their families.

  I again sat across from him.