The Innocents

by David Putnam

  The ironic thing about his outburst, using threats and talking that way, especially in front of a female employee, was that he’d just put himself at the same risk as “pissin’” off the landing. It gave Blue power over him. Now the captain couldn’t take on Blue without the risk of Blue blowing the whistle on him.

  Had that been Blue’s intent from the beginning, to put a sheriff’s captain in his pocket?

  Blue took his cue. “Won’t happen again, Captain. Scout’s honor.” He raised his hand in the three-finger salute of a scout.

  “Put a shirt on, before you catch a sexual harassment beef.” He pointed his finger again, this time at Blue’s desk. “And I won’t tell you twice, you’re on five days’ admin leave. You shouldn’t even be here. You should be at home. You’re riding that desk until Friday, no arguments.”

  “Thursday.”

  “Blue.”

  “Yes, sir, Friday.”

  Stubbs took another step back from his unchecked fury, calming even further, and finally noticed the rest of us. “Good to see you, Chelsea. Sorry you have to work with this bunch of shit-ass monkeys.” He took another cleansing breath. “Please pardon my behavior; it was uncalled for.”

  He looked at me, his face flushed red all over again. “And you, you keep that dick of yours in your pants. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He turned heel and fled before the anger again took him by the throat and led him down the path to an unplanned retirement. His big wingtips pounded the wooden steps outside.

  Blue came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder. He leaned up and whispered. His congenial tone gone, he now spoke with that same hard edge from Saturday night in the patrol car. “Keep your dick in your pants, huh? You’re going to fit in here just fine, Johnson.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  STILL SHIRTLESS, HIS expression neutral, Blue turned to face his desk. He stayed that way, staring at the wall. Chelsea broke the trance that gripped us all. “Let’s get started on that station dope evidence so we can get out there and throw some dirtbags in jail.”

  Her tone didn’t match the words. She didn’t want the busywork assignment either. The word “dirtbags” somehow didn’t seem right coming from her lips. Not without knowing her better. I’d not yet accepted her as a deputy.

  Thibodeaux held up his hand and said, “Shh.” He watched Blue carefully with a look of concern.

  After a moment, with everyone still not moving, Blue picked up a white mug off his desk, one embossed with the gold letters “LASD.” He rolled the mug around in his hands. All the pens and pencils fell to the desktop. He muttered, “Ride the fucking desk.” He said it a second time, louder: “Ride the fucking desk.”

  He threw the mug against the cheap wood-paneled wall. The mug shattered. He grabbed at his chest with one hand; the other went to the edge of his desk for support. He closed his eyes, trying to eat the pain the sudden movement caused to the deep bruising in his gunshot injury.

  He’d finally let his guard down and showed some evidence of vulnerability, some humanity. Without realizing it, I had begun to view him as a sort of super bad guy, the kind only Batman or the Green Hornet could take down.

  He turned his back to us, pulled a folded t-shirt off the desk, and without turning around to face us said, “Dirt, tell those two about the thing. Have them go handle it.” He shrugged into the worn-out Black Sabbath t-shirt and ran the fingers of both hands through his black hair, smoothing it straight back even more.

  “Sure, Blue, whatever you want. What about the evidence? We have to get that stuff processed. The lab transport will be here in another coupla hours.”

  “You and me will handle that. I’m on the desk, remember?”

  “Ah, shit, Blue.”

  He spun around, his eyes fierce. “What’d I just say?”

  Thibodeaux held up his hands. “Okay, boss, okay. Whatever you want, man. I’m with you.”

  The two stood face-to-face for a moment until Blue broke, turned, and walked by us. Heat radiated off his body as he continued to cool down from his long run and now also from this new predicament he couldn’t control, being shackled to his desk.

  He stopped at the door. “I’ll be on the pager.” He disappeared outside, his footfalls on the steps light as a dancer’s.

  Thibodeaux kicked the desk, dented a drawer. “Shit.”

  Chelsea spoke first. “We can do the evidence. We need to learn it anyway.”

  “You just hear what Blue said? You’ll figure out soon enough, little lady, that you do exactly what he says, when he says it, or you’ll pay the price.” He stepped over to a rack of handheld radios and pulled one out. He handed it to me. He pulled a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to Chelsea. “You two twits, go to this address and set up on it. Today, sometime before noon, a fat black chick is going to make a big delivery for Lucas Knight, aka Mo Mo. She’ll be wearing purple. According to the snitch, she always wears purple. She’ll drop off a load of rock and pick up some cash. Hopefully a big chunk of cash.” He smiled at the cash part. For a brief second, it shifted his whole personality.

  “And if she shows up?” I asked. “What do you want us to do?”

  He lost his smile and shifted back. “Get on the radio, dickhead, and call it in to us.”

  I didn’t like his attitude or the petty name-calling. “What car do we take?”

  “What car did you drive into work today, dickhead?”

  I took a step closer to him, my fists clenched. I remembered the switchblade he kept in his boot and realized I shouldn’t have moved in so close. Not against someone like Thibodeaux.

  Chelsea reached up and put her hand on my shoulder. “Come on, big guy, let’s get going.”

  I didn’t break. My bad-self wanted to sock Dirt, knock his nose loose at the roots, shove some teeth down his rotten, murderous throat. Chelsea, from behind, pinched my shoulder in a pain compliance move.

  “Ouch.” I dropped my shoulder and broke away from her, still looking at the threat, Thibodeaux. From the sound of her steps, Chelsea had already turned and headed for the door. “Men and their stupid, testosterone-fueled bullshit. I’ll never get used to it.” Her light footfalls followed her on the wooden steps. I backed away, not breaking eye contact. He finally grinned. A grin, not a smile. I turned and left.

  Twenty minutes later, we pulled up and parked a block from the house on Peach, in Fruit Town, a section of unincorporated Los Angeles. The drive over had come and gone in silence as we both pondered our new situation, working for a neurotic supervisor with a hair trigger—one who liked to pee in public.

  The problem was more critical for me, though. From the moment I first walked in the door of the narco mobile home, I sensed a constant low-level hum of potential violence, one much different than the kind on the street. I hadn’t realized it until after I stepped out of the presence of those two.

  I shut off the Ford Ranger and reached across to get the binoculars out of the glove box. Chelsea reacted too fast and put both hands on my arm and pushed away so I wouldn’t inadvertently touch her knees. Or give her a grope. I didn’t know which.

  I pulled back, looking at her, kind of shocked. What the hell? What she must think of me.

  Then Captain Stubbs’ words echoed back: “Keep your dick in your pants.”

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “Yeah, right.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I SHOVED THE glove box closed and leaned back in my seat, angry. I checked out the house through the binoculars.

  I grew up in the Corner Pocket, not too far from Peach, in Fruit Town. I didn’t recognize the numbers of the address but I recognized the house. Big Stevie used to live there. On the high school varsity team he could shoot from the corner, a flat jumper, no arc, and hit it at least 90 percent of the time. Kind of eerie, the way the ball went straight to the basket as if on a metal wire. No defender could shut him down. He definitely had what it took to get a full ride o
n a hot college team. UCLA and USC started to scout him at some of our games.

  His family moved out of the Peach house after Big Stevie took a round in the spine while he sat in his car at the Big O donut shop. An errant rifle round meant for someone else. That happened one hot summer night, seven or eight years ago. They moved to Moreno Valley in Riverside County to get away from the gangs. I’d heard from his sister that he now resided in Chuckawalla State Prison. He’d caught a ten-year jolt for possession of two keys of rock.

  Someone else now lived in Big Stevie’s house. And if Blue got his information right, Lucas Knight had bought it as a stash house for distribution purposes.

  “We might have as long as four hours sitting in this car together,” Chelsea said. “Let’s start over, okay? I am sorry about flinching like that.”

  I handed her the binocs and pointed. “It’s that pink one with the black wrought iron on all the windows and the front door. They got a derelict hoopty, an old rust bucket Chevy, parked in the yard, to slow down any bullets from a drive-by.”

  She looked through the binoculars.

  After a moment, I said, “I don’t bite.”

  She brought them down. “I know. I said I was sorry. Don’t be so thin-skinned.”

  I nodded and rubbed my shoulder, smiled. “What was that you did to me back there, some kind of Vulcan death grip?”

  She smiled. “No, I grew up with three brothers and learned a few things in how to survive a dog pile.”

  “Where’d you do your street time?”

  “Lomita.”

  I chuckled. “You mean, Slowmita.”

  Lomita, which was in an affluent section of Los Angeles, didn’t have a lot of action. “What was your last assignment before you came here?”

  “Public Affairs.” She didn’t hesitate and said it with confidence. Public Affairs, a know-nothing fluff job for those who couldn’t handle the abrupt and violent vagaries of the street.

  Perfect. She didn’t have a lot of experience. Not the kind that counted, not the kind needed to work a street team in South Central Los Angeles, where if you let your guard down for one second, even a hundred-pound coke whore will shank a lung out of you.

  “Did you put in for this team?” I asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I did. This department is top heavy with good ol’ boys who like to promote all the other good ol’ boys. If I want the slimmest chance of moving up, I need to show them I can handle myself. And I am going to move up.”

  “Well, you came to the right place, that’s for sure.”

  “Don’t you worry about me.” Her smile tarnished a bit.

  “I didn’t mean anything by it.” I offered her my hand. “Bruno Johnson.”

  She took it. “Chelsea Miller, nice to meet you.”

  She looked at me for a moment more and then went back to looking through the glasses. She asked, “Who’s this Lucas Knight we’re watching?”

  “They call him Mo Mo on the street. This is supposed to be one of his stash houses. Our goal here, in theory, is to take down this pad, grab up some of his cohorts, and flip ’em. Then, with each arrest we move up the line, flipping the next higher up until we get to Mo Mo.”

  With the glasses to her eyes she said, “I see, so we’re going after the dog heavy.”

  “Ah, shit.” The words slipped out before I could pull them back. I couldn’t believe what she’d just said. I’d never heard that term used before and I’d just heard it twice in as many days. And I didn’t believe in coincidence.

  She pulled the glasses down to look at me. “What’s the matter?”

  No way would I tell her, and reveal what I just found out about her—that she hadn’t just fluttered in like some delicate bird from Public Affairs. The motivation for her presence on the narc team just changed the entire game.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I think I left a burner on the stove at home. That’s all, no big deal.”

  “We can’t leave here to go check on it,” she said.

  “I know, don’t worry about it. I’m not.”

  “You okay? You look a little pale all of a sudden.”

  “I’m fine. Tell me what you’ve heard about our new team leader.” I needed to change the subject to give me time to think. And also try to find out exactly what she knew.

  She said, “Ricky Blue? He’s a real piece of work.”

  “That right? Why do you say that?”

  “He—”

  “One of us needs to watch the house,” I said. “Let me have the glasses.”

  I didn’t want her reading my expression. I had the feeling she knew a lot more about me than I knew about her. That she knew a lot more about everything going on than I did.

  She handed them over.

  “Go ahead,” I said. “Fill me in. I only heard what Thibodeaux told me night before last.”

  I sensed her moving around in the small front seat, trying to get comfortable. She hesitated a moment, as if deciding exactly what to tell me. She said, “I only heard what’s going around, you know, the rumors on the street.”

  “Okay, and . . . ?”

  “Just that he’s a shit-hot cop who’s a little trigger-happy and has at least ten OIS’s, five of them kills. That he’s a piss-poor pistol shot and prefers to use a shotgun.”

  Did those numbers count the three from Saturday night? I didn’t think so. That would put him at thirteen, with eight of them kills. Had some or all of those others been contract hits? Wicks hadn’t said anything about them and he’d know of the shootings. He had to have been through Blue’s file.

  “I also heard,” she said, “that he has a helluva rabbi, some heavy juice way up the chain of command that looks out for him.”

  I pulled the glasses down to look at her. “Who?”

  But I thought I knew and didn’t want to believe it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  SHE SHRUGGED. “IT’s only a rumor. But I also heard that whoever was protecting him is running scared.”

  “How can you know that if you don’t know who’s protecting him?”

  “Why else would Blue be launched from SPY to this shithole of an assignment?”

  “This place isn’t so bad.” She was right but I still didn’t like her disparaging the area where I grew up.

  I went back to watching the house just in time to see some activity. “Okay,” I said, “write this down. A yellow Honda Civic just pulled up, no front license plate.”

  “Is it a heavyset black woman wearing purple? I hope to hell it is. I don’t want to stay out here all day.”

  “Nope, a skinny Mexican chick wearing shorts and a tank top. She didn’t stay long. They must be out of pocket, waiting on the delivery. Or they really have a good system to move the dope. I don’t think this is a stash house. I think it’s just a rock house. Go on, tell me more about Blue.”

  She again hesitated.

  I pulled the glasses down to look at her.

  “You can’t tell anyone any of this,” she said as she looked into my eyes. She shook her head. “Nah, I better not. I hardly know you. This is some pretty heavy stuff. Real personal, and I don’t feel right talking smack about other people.”

  “Look, you and I are in the same boat with this new dope assignment. We need to help each other, right?” I smiled. “And the quickest way to get to trust someone is to tell each other some deep, dark secrets.”

  I’d never trust her, not for a moment. I didn’t care what she told me.

  She thought about that a moment. “All right, keep watching. But you have to promise you won’t tell a soul.”

  I looked through the glasses at the house. “I promise.”

  “Once I found out that I got the assignment here at Lynwood with Blue running the team, I went looking for this sergeant, who’s working Sybil Brand, the women’s jail. Her name’s Gale Taylor. I’d heard that at one time Gale was doing Blue on a regular basis, really tearing up the sheets. Blue broke up Gale’s marriage. She was married to some other serg
eant, and I guess that breakup got ugly. She got real tight with Blue and, when he got tired of her, he just kind of wadded her up and threw her away. Left her emotionally bankrupt. She’s better now.”

  “Yeah?”

  Chelsea talked like a street cop and not someone from Public Affairs.

  “Would you just keep watching? I don’t want to screw up my first assignment.”

  I looked back in the glasses. “Log another car,” I said. “A gray Toyota, no front plate, Negro female about twenty, didn’t stay long enough to make a deal. This definitely isn’t a stash house. Okay, go ahead, continue.”

  “This Gale really didn’t want to give it up, and it took me a while to get it out of her. The department put a lid on this thing. I don’t know how they kept it from getting out. I guess it was easier back then.”

  “Get what out of her? Come on, give it up.”

  “Take it easy, big guy. I’m getting to it.”

  Another long pause. I had to let her tell it at her own speed.

  “You promise you won’t tell anyone?”

  “Come on, we’re partners.”

  “Okay, here it is. When Blue worked patrol in Pico Rivera, he got a call from dispatch to respond to his parents’ house. His mom had called dispatch in a panic. Like I said, this was years ago when Blue was just a rookie. He goes home and finds his dad crazy-drunk. He’s holding Blue’s mom around the neck with a butcher knife to her head. Blue doesn’t know what to do. His mom’s bleeding from several cuts on her arms and what is later found to be a superficial stab wound to her stomach.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  I couldn’t imagine a situation like that. My mom died before I could remember anything, and I just couldn’t see Dad ever coming close to doing something that violent, especially to a loved one.

  “What happened?”

  “According to this female sergeant, Blue’s dad had always been a mean drunk—half Scottish, half Mexican, so he came by the alcohol and meanness naturally. But Blue still loved him. He had to make a choice that day, a terrible choice.