The Innocents

by David Putnam

  He looked up, his congeniality gone, his expression grim. I’d screwed up and slipped over onto his bad side. That mattered to me. I’d have to work hard and try to fix it.

  Wicks sat down next to him. “Everything’s fine now, Chief. Bruno’s on board; we’re a go.”

  The chief stared at me as he stuck another piece of shark in his mouth and chewed. Finally, he nodded and smiled. But I didn’t believe it to be genuine. He’d only smiled as a political ploy to get the job done. I understood the dynamic, understood I should apologize. Only I couldn’t. My arrogance wouldn’t allow for that breach in pride. So I waited.

  He pointed his fork at Wicks. “Go on, tell him the rest.” He waved his fork. “You know the part I’m talking about.”

  Wicks said to me, “Okay, look, here’s what we know. Blue and Thibodeaux were working SPY. While operating in and around the prisons, they somehow got tangled up with EME, the Mexican mafia. They got in ass-deep and started answering to EME’s shot caller, a guy named Sonny Quintero who’s doing life without. From what we understand, they did small jobs at first until they moved up to the bigger paydays.”

  “And we know this how?”

  Wicks looked at the chief, who shoveled scalloped potatoes into his mouth and nodded.

  How did the man stay so thin and eat like that?

  Wicks said, “This goes nowhere, you understand? There are only four people who know this, and you make five. So if it gets out, it won’t be difficult to backtrack where it came from.”

  I didn’t like being threatened, or having my integrity impugned, but no longer had a choice. I’d agreed to join them.

  Wicks hesitated.

  The information must’ve really been radioactive.

  He said, “It’s a wiretap.”

  I looked from the chief, who’d stopped chewing then back to Wicks, and in that moment of perfect clarity figured it all out.

  I shook my head. “My God, it’s a black bag wiretap, isn’t it? That’s why you can’t bring in the DA or IAB.”

  The chief gave me another one of his Cheshire cat smiles and turned to Wicks. “You told me he’s a smart son of a bitch and now I see what you mean.”

  Everything fell into place with those two simple words, the ones they’d been too afraid to say: black bag. I now understood why they’d treated me the way they had. Once I was told about the black bag job, I would forever hold sway over them, over their careers, over their freedom. Not a power you’d easily hand to someone you didn’t know well, not even something you’d hand to your best friend. And yet they’d thought enough of me to trust with this huge bit of damning information.

  “So, you have them on tape,” I asked, “accepting a contract from EME to kill someone?”

  The chief picked up his fork and pointed it at me. He opened his mouth to speak when Wicks stopped him by putting his hand on the chief’s arm.

  “Listen, Bruno, it’s better if you don’t know the whole thing. We trusted you enough to tell you this much. I’m asking you to trust us and not ask for specifics. What I want to do—that is, if it’s okay with the chief—is give you a specific assignment: what to look for and what evidence we’ll need. The less you know about the front end of this thing, the better it’ll be for everyone. If you don’t know, you can’t testify about it.”

  It could also aid in plausible deniability for them as well.

  “Why not shut it down right now, forget the criminal prosecution? Fire both of them and be done with it? If you let it run, you risk innocent people—the future victims of the contracts—getting killed.”

  The chief looked at Wicks, which meant for him to take this one.

  Wicks said, “First off, none of the people EME are taking off the board are taxpayers. Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t matter; victims are victims. And they’re murderers, criminals. And that’s what we do; we put people like them in jail for the rest of their lives. But still, those aren’t the biggest reasons. The biggest reason here is that the chief and I believe there’s someone else.”

  The chief said, “That’s right, the dog heavy.”

  “The what?”

  “We’re pretty sure Blue is calling the shots for him and Thibodeaux. Pretty sure, but that’s not an absolute. There’s some reason to believe there’s someone else above them. We need to let it run a little while longer to be sure there isn’t anyone else. Or if there is, that we can identify him and take him down with the other two.”

  I let all this astounding information run in my head for a moment. “All right,” I said, “I understand. But for now, let’s focus on Blue and Thibodeaux and talk this through. Evidence requires a basis, a trail in how you came to have the information in order to use it in court. Say I get enough on Blue and Thibodeaux, how are we going to complete the chain of evidence and justify my transfer from the violent crimes team to a narcotics street team when I’ve only been on violent crimes a few days? It’ll stink of a setup. People will start to ask . . . Ah, shit.”

  I marveled at the simplicity of it. “That’s why you said it was perfect. Blue personally asked for me.”

  “Son of a bitch, Robby. This kid’s sharp as a tack.”

  My mind spun out far ahead, trying to see how this could turn out any other way than in a major disaster.

  And couldn’t. Not one chance in hell.

  Wicks read my mind. “We know this isn’t the best setup and that it’s going to be extremely dangerous.”

  That’s what Sergeant Kohl said in the briefing for the Mona gas station surveillance, that it wasn’t the best setup. Look how that ended. Another red flag that said I should just get up and leave. Take a flyer and run for it.

  “Blue is smart,” Wicks said. “Cunning, smart, and highly effective. In a way, I wish I were the one going up against him instead of you. But the way the cards fell, you’re the best man for this job. You’re also not married and you don’t have any kids. You can devote all the time necessary to make this work. You won’t have the responsibility of family influencing your decisions so you can step out onto that edge and—”

  The chief pointed his fork at Wicks. “Ah, but that’s no longer true. He does have a family now.” He shifted and pointed the fork at me. “Don’t you, son? Just a couple of days ago, you found out you had a baby daughter, didn’t you?”

  The world spun as vertigo set in. I grabbed hold of the picnic table for balance. How in the hell did he know?

  Wicks said, “What? What’s he talking about, Bruno? You had a baby and didn’t tell me about it?”

  His words swirled around in my head and exited the same way they came in as I tried desperately to figure out how and where the chief got his information.

  Click.

  It came to me just like that.

  Millie, the redhead from the shower, on the day Sonja knocked on my door. She was the captain’s secretary at Lynwood Station. Of course, she was the only one who could’ve passed on that little gem of truth. That meant the captain and chief also knew I’d been messing around with Millie.

  A white woman. Ah, man.

  In this day and age that shouldn’t still matter, but it did.

  I waved my hand in an attempt at a casual dismissal. “My daughter won’t affect my work product, I can promise you that.” The words “my daughter” came out alien, as if someone else said them. How could I have a daughter?

  One part of me wanted to turn down the assignment because of her. The other part wanted the excitement, the adventure of it. The kind of thrill I’d seen in Wicks’ eyes just now as he described going after Blue. But I no longer had the option to decline. I’d already agreed. When I did, Wicks and the chief let the genie out of the bottle.

  And everyone knows that once the genie’s out, he won’t ever go back in. Not without force.

  Not without a lot of dead bodies.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “ALL RIGHT,” I said. “Then, as we agreed, give me the details on my specific assignment.”

>   Wicks smiled. “Good, good. So listen, we’re going to come at this from a different angle. We’re going to get a legal search warrant for the phone taps and we’re depending on you to get us probable cause for that warrant. So it doesn’t matter if the warrant is for dope, money skimming, or whatever, just get us that PC for the tap. They’re doing contract killings; you can bet it doesn’t stop there.”

  The chief stood. “I think it’s time that I take my leave and let you two work out the particulars.” He wiped his mouth and hands on the red-checked napkin. He offered me his hand. We shook. “Bruno, I’m proud to have you on board. I know you’ll do a great job. And rest assured, you’ll have the full backing of my office during this investigation.” He turned to Wicks. “Give your lovely wife my thanks and make my excuses, would you, Robby?”

  “Sure, Chief. Thanks for coming.”

  We both watched him walk to the gate and disappear into the front yard.

  I turned back to Wicks and said, “The clean search warrant still won’t allow you to use what you already have because the dates won’t line up with when you obtained the information on the black bag wiretap. You’ll have to start all over with this new tap. If they don’t tumble to what I’m doing, you’ll still have to wait for them to get another contract. That could cut it a little close for the next victim.”

  Another thought hit me.

  “Just to be clear, there hasn’t been a victim since you went up on the wiretap, right?”

  “No. No one’s been hurt. I give you my word on that.”

  “Good.”

  That would not only be our jobs, but it would also be a “failure to protect” lawsuit worth tens of millions of dollars. We’d also end up in federal court and then in the federal slam.

  “Okay,” I said. “How about this ‘dog heavy’ thing? I’ve never heard that used before.”

  “Believe me, I didn’t know either. The chief had to explain it to me. The chief comes from a family of movie and TV people. His father was one of the cameramen on I Love Lucy. Before that, his grandfather directed silent movies. In the silent movies of the ’20s and ’30s, if the bad guy was the town banker, the mayor, or someone in a position of authority, this guy would kick a dog when no one was looking, to let the audience know he was the bad guy. Back then he became known in the trade as ‘the dog heavy.’”

  That made sense, sort of, but I’d only half-listened.

  I’d never done anything like this, going outside the law, crossing over that defined line between black and white—going deep into the black—to grab a crook and scurry back across to file the case. I was amazed at how easily I fell in with this concept. Maybe it was because a cop was involved and was giving us—law enforcement—a black eye.

  Or maybe it was because that cop was Blue.

  Though I did know the truth of the matter, I didn’t want to look at it head-on. I’d already gotten dirty, the night I pulled that drunk driver, Jenny’s murderer, through the screen door and put the boot to him. He’d gotten what he deserved. No doubt. Only not in the way the law prescribed.

  In any case, I’d made my decision to join up in this operation and needed to keep my head in the game.

  “And you’re right, we won’t be able to use any of the past information, only the new stuff you dig up,” Wicks said. “But if we do this right and we don’t spook them, when they take another contract, you’ll be in place to watch for the overt act.”

  “Overt act? So, we’ll take them down for PC 182/187, conspiracy to commit murder, before they even get close to doing it?”

  “Yes, of course. What else did you think we were going to do?”

  Even as a new detective, this didn’t sound right. First, I’d never worked undercover; second, these two guys, Blue and Thibodeaux, would never take a stranger into their confidence to commit one of the gravest of crimes. Not without some serious validation on my part. The kind where I committed felonies right alongside them until they had enough dirt on me to carry the load.

  “And if we’re real lucky,” Wicks said, “and you do your job right, maybe they’ll even invite you into the inner circle to take the contract or at least to assist.” He shrugged. “Maybe this won’t work at all, but when Blue asked the chief for you, it was just too sweet a deal to pass up.”

  He shoved away his plate of cold and congealed food. “What’s this about a baby daughter? What the hell happened—you accidentally knock up some one-night stand?”

  Sonja wasn’t some “one-night stand.” His accusation made my face flush hot.

  I jumped up. “You’re my boss and I have a great deal of respect for you, so I’m telling you right now, don’t ever refer to her that way again.”

  “Whoa! Whoa there, buddy! I’m sorry. I stepped over the line. I didn’t know the circumstances. I misspoke. Sorry. Take it easy, okay?”

  I tried to control my breathing.

  “I know a kid complicates things a lot,” Wicks said. “And, of course, I want you to tell me when the job clashes with your family life. I’ll do everything in my power to compensate for it. Deal?” He stuck out his hand. I took it and shook.

  I sat back down. I, too, had lost my appetite, but I ate a little more as a distraction to think over all that had just transpired. To put all the pieces together to see if they fit the way they had been presented. I stopped chewing. “Hey, the chief never explained that thing that we didn’t know.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know, when he was talking about Blue, and how he was a contradiction?”

  “Oh, that. I think I know. What he meant to tell us was that when Blue got back to the station, and during the interview with homicide, right in the middle of it, he just casually stood up, took off his sheriff’s windbreaker, took off his shirt, and showed the dicks his body armor. And get this: he’d taken two slugs to the chest. Homicide dick I talked to said it was the damnedest thing he’d ever seen.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  I thought back to the ugly events: Blue walking toward me in the alley, a smoking shotgun in his hands, his words, the way he moved. I would never have guessed he’d just been shot. It wasn’t like in the movies. Bullets to the chest with body armor caused trauma and a great deal of pain and in some cases even turned life threatening.

  Wicks continued, “He never said a thing about it to anyone at the scene. Two huge bruises to his chest. He could’ve had a bruised heart or internal bleeding. He should’ve been transported right from the scene and checked out at the hospital. You believe it? Never told a soul and then just stood up right in that interview, showed those two homicide dicks as if it were no big deal at all. The slugs were still embedded in the vest.”

  I shook my head. How could someone, a cop who crosses the line to commit the most heinous of crimes, display such bravado?

  “So, here’s the deal,” Wicks said. “The chief still looks at these two, Thibodeaux and Blue, as low-down dirty dogs for committing these types of crimes, especially under the color of authority. But to take two to the vest while taking down two asshole robbers . . . well, there’s the contradiction he was talking about.”

  Something Thibodeaux had said just bubbled up. Words from a conversation the night before, while we sat in the car waiting for the robbery to go down. Those words echoed back in my brain, simple words that changed everything in the way I looked at my world.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I STARED OFF into nothing as my mind ran full tilt to catch up, to calculate all the horrible ramifications.

  Wicks must’ve seen it in my expression. “What? What’s the matter?”

  I looked at Wicks. “You’re a lying asshole.”

  Wicks looked as if I’d slapped him. He recovered, shifted to anger. “Don’t you talk to me like that. I’m a sheriff’s lieutenant, Deputy Johnson.”

  I pointed at him. “Last night, Thibodeaux told me that Blue just randomly volunteered for the robbery surveillance. No warning, right out of thin a
ir, a street narco team jumps into a robbery surveillance with station detectives and the violent crimes team. That just doesn’t happen.”

  Wicks’ expression shifted again to one of concern and then discomfort as he squirmed in his seat. He watched me closely to see if I’d put the whole thing together. “Don’t, Bruno. Stop right there. Don’t say another word. You don’t want to say it. It’s better for—”

  “One of those two robbers Blue killed was a contract hit, wasn’t it?”

  “Shit, Bruno. Ah, shit.” He slapped the picnic table with his hand. Everything bounced, the plates, the glasses, the condiments.

  I said, “You, or somebody the chief has working this black bag, had the wire up and knew there was going to be a hit. You just didn’t know exactly when, right? So, you and the chief couldn’t stop it, right? Not without tipping your hand. That’s why you put the violent crimes team on the surveillance. That’s why I was put in the car with Thibodeaux. And Blue was put in the containment car to keep him out of the way, to keep him out of the action. But Blue changed his position at the last minute, something you didn’t know about because you weren’t there.”

  “Bruno, you cannot, and I mean absolutely cannot, tell anyone about any of this.”

  “Which one of the two robbers was it? Which one was the target?”

  Wicks shook his head. “No, you don’t have a need to know.”

  “Tell me. I’m in this now up to my neck. I have a right to know. Those two rounds to his vest give Blue some cover for the murder, right? Isn’t that right? That’s what the chief really meant. If you try to drag Blue into court, he looks too much like a hero going to guns against two armed suspects and getting shot twice in the process. How can anyone bring charges against him? No jury in the world would buy it. And worse, it’ll come out that the whole thing, the robbery surveillance, was mishandled. What a God-awful mess. Blue really put the screws to you.”

  But at the same time there was a beauty to it, the cold brutality of it. The way Blue pulled off the perfect crime, with animal cunning and bravado. It gave me a little shiver.