The Disposables

by David Putnam

  He pulled up in front of Chantal’s apartment on Crenshaw. “I’ll pick you up right here in six hours. Then you can talk to our one and only witness.”

  I nodded. “Right.” Which meant only three hours’ sleep. I had to track down Jumbo to get the rest of my money before he had time to change his mind. I watched Robby drive away.

  I knocked on the door. Chantal opened it. She was dressed in Chinese silk pajamas. Her hair was mussed and she didn’t have on any makeup. I’d never seen her this way. She looked ten years older, the youthful girl gone.

  “I’m going to have a key made for you. This is ridiculous getting up to let you in. I was dead to the world.”

  “Sorry.”

  She wandered down the hall and stopped. “Some guy was here looking for you. I think he was a cop. Good-looking guy. For his age, I mean.”

  “You got a name?”

  “I think it was Wicks. What kind a name is Wicks? You in trouble, Bruno?” She stopped at her bedroom door.

  “No. Well, not anymore than usual.”

  “Since you woke me, maybe you could rub my back until I fall asleep.” She turned around and pulled up her pajama top to reveal a lean sexy back, the little bumps of her spine, the dimples above her rounded bottom, the smooth, unblemished mocha skin.

  “Maybe another time,” I said as I hustled into the spare bedroom and closed the door.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When I half stumbled from the bedroom, sleep still thick in my eyes, muted-orange filled the living room window, the sun low on the horizon, the last remnants of a dying day. Three hours’ sleep wasn’t near enough. My body ached and begged for more. Anxiety to have it all over was too strong a stimulant. I went to the phone and dialed Jumbo’s number for the third time. No answer. He was dodging me. I’d have to go after him. The anger that he was going to cheat me cleared the rest of the sleepy cobwebs from my mind. The task ahead wouldn’t be an easy one, getting him to turn loose that kind of cash.

  We didn’t have to have the money, it wasn’t part of the plan, but now that I had earned it, the amount would make things a lot easier later on. Jumbo would be at his pad laying low while his number-one thug, nasty Crazy Ned Bressler, searched for me.

  I leaned over to the window and pulled the sheer away to look out, something I did a lot since my release from Chino, let out of that six-by-eight barred chamber. I had an itch, reached back and scratched a butt cheek.

  “Those aren’t your boxer shorts.”

  I jumped, spun around, hands coming around front—an involuntary modesty instinct. Chantal sat unmoving on the couch in the shadowy recess of the living room. On the table, strewn haphazardly, lay a syringe, rubber tie-off, a spoon, and a couple of balled-up red toy balloons—her outfit along with Mexican brown heroin. Tears rolled down her cheeks. I went over and sat next to her. She wore an eggshell chiffon blouse with Kelly green slacks, her feet naked. The big toe on her right foot sported a slim, gold ring.

  I took her hand. “What’s the matter, kid?”

  Her eyes large and brown, the kind you could get lost in if you stared too long. This evening they didn’t have the usual spunky bring-it-on look. They were soft and vulnerable. Scared.

  She scooted over, put her hip up against me, her hands grabbed mine. “I’m scared, Bruno. I’m scared to death.”

  “Of what? What’s the matter?”

  The fear in her eyes flamed bright, then extinguished as quickly as she changed her mind about the truth she wouldn’t reveal. She looked away. “I … I found another wrinkle today. Bruno, what am I going to do when I get old?” She pointed to the corner of her left eye. “What’s going to happen to me when I can’t live this life anymore?”

  Her hesitation said aging wasn’t the real problem. Something was up. Her outfit on the table lay unused. Her hands were cold and shook with an alcoholic’s palsy. She released my hands, reached up, and put her arms around my neck. She smelled of lilac and Colgate toothpaste. She put her head on my shoulder in an awkward position. I was too tall. I scrunched down and put one hand on the side of her face and gently stroked it. “Tell me, kid, what’s up?”

  Her body started to shake as she wept. I turned and took her in my arms. Gooseflesh rippled across her back, coarse enough to be felt through the thin satin material.

  “He’s going to dump me. I know he is. Then what’s going to happen? He was the best, the—” She buried her face in my chest and let out a muffled wail.

  I felt helpless and sorry for her at the same time as my t-shirt turned wet. “You’ll be all right. You have some money put away, don’t you? You do, don’t you?”

  She pulled back, her eyes angry. “Not that kind of money. Not enough to live like this, not forever.”

  Right then I saw it. It flashed big as life like a hungry animal in the back of her eyes. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

  Before she could catch herself, her mouth sagged a little. “That’s not fair.” She balled up a little fist and socked me in the chest, not nearly as hard as Marie. “The ex-cop in you lets you interrogate people when they don’t know they’re being interrogated. Yes, for your information, I am very fond of the gentleman. I’m not totally materialistic, you know. I do have emotions.”

  “Never said you didn’t. You have a fight with him?”

  “No, I just sense things. I’m a woman, but you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  Boy-howdy did I know. She was pure, one hundred percent woman, but I wasn’t going to throw my dog into that fight. I knew women well enough to stay out of it.

  “Bruno, will you do me a favor?”

  “Anything. Name it.”

  “My hands are too shaky. Will you shoot me up?”

  “Anything but that. I won’t be a party to something so detrimental to such a beautiful young woman.”

  “You really think I’m beautiful?”

  “Babe, you are absolutely gorgeous.”

  She sat back and primped her hair, carefully wiped her wet cheeks with the backs of her wrists to avoid smearing makeup, most of which had already transferred to my t-shirt. “Then how come you won’t—” She brought her hand down to my thigh. I saw it coming and jumped up. “’Cause I’m a one-horse kinda guy.” I headed for the safety of the hall.

  “Those aren’t your boxer shorts.”

  Once I was safe out of view, I slipped off the boxer shorts and flung them around the corner at her. She giggled.

  I dressed in more of the pear’s clothes and got out of the apartment. I couldn’t stay cooped up, even though I needed the sleep. I missed Marie something fierce. She was like a narcotic. I jonesed for her if I stayed away too long.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Marie walked up Wilmington Avenue to the bus stop and waited. The urge to see her, to hold her, was all but impossible to suppress. I told myself I wasn’t some kind of obsessing creep and was only checking for surveillance that might be on her tail, trying to get at me through her. I loved her so. I was scared to death something might happen to her.

  I sat up against a wall across the street in a wool, full-length green army surplus dress coat with red corporal stripes and a black beanie next to a rogue Mexican palm tree, a volunteer that grew without irrigation in a barren parkway the county chose not to maintain. Off to the right, on a dark-brown telephone pole spotted with acne of a hundred tacks and nails from garage sale and lost dogs and cats signs, I recognized another poster, one of thousands of Wally Kim distributed widely throughout South Central Los Angeles. The image of the missing child was faded, but the fifty-thousand-dollar reward stood out in sharp contrast, a reward that added a lot of pressure to keep our kids out of sight. Folks in the ghetto sold out for a lot less, tens of thousands less. Below the reward was a police sketch artist version of the man who’d walked into the crack house in fruit town and snatched Wally up. The rendering of the suspect didn’t much resemble me. Even so, a Korean kid with a black man for a kidnapper stood out the s
ame as a salt-and-pepper bank robber team.

  If you read in between the lines of the numerous L.A. Times stories, Mr. Kim, a South Korean businessman—diplomat of sorts—had hooked up with an escort while visiting the US. Nine months later, said escort contacted him in Korea to extort child support. Mr. Kim, smart in business and the ways of the world, demanded a paternity test. The test was completed and proved positive. The woman had not lied. In between time, during the wait for the test, the mother of his child discovered the evils of rock cocaine. When Mr. Kim went to find her, she’d fled. Mr. Kim used a great deal of money and influence to track her down and find her in the same rock coke crash pad that I took Wally out of a week prior. Who would have known? Bad luck for us. To hand him over now would jeopardize our plan. When we got to where we were going, Marie and I had agreed we would contact Mr. Kim and arrange for Wally to reunite with his father. Of course, we would decline the reward.

  In the short time we knew Wally, we fell in love with him. He was a great little kid and it would be very difficult to give him up, but we would.

  At the bus stop, Marie wore her raven hair down around her shoulders. I didn’t like it that way. I liked it up, pulled back tight, like the first time I saw her the night the cops brought me in to have the bullet they put in me removed. In all the years as a cop, the nurses and doctors always treated the crooks brought to them with strict professionalism but never meted out the compassion, the TLC reserved for the victims of the same crooks. That night Marie was different. She was gentle and genuinely cared, even though I was a murderer. She saw something in me, Lord only knows what. She followed the court case, wrote to me in the joint. At first I felt like slime, that to correspond with her might in some way corrupt her. She stayed with it until one day she came to visit. I took the visit to tell her to leave me alone and half expected her to be weepy and sad that I hadn’t responded to her long, awe-inspiring letters. Instead, when I came into the visiting area with the thick glass between us, she stood with her arms across her chest, her eyes fierce, angry. She wore a classy red dress and black high heels. I sat down and pointed to the phone. Instead of picking it up, she started to jump around, yelling and screaming, shaking her fists. The guard came in and told her to calm down. She gave him a piece of her mind as well. The guard left and came back with another. They took hold of her arms. She kicked and screamed, her rants muffled by the barrier as they dragged her out.

  I stood there a long time, stunned. Then, after I thought about it, I started to chuckle, then laugh out loud. The first time I’d laughed in forever.

  Now she stood at the bus stop moving her feet back and forth to stay warm. It was cold but not that cold. She always had to have the heater on, an extra blanket, or a hot drink. She frequently talked about moving to warmer climes with palm trees and a balmy breeze. What she really liked best was when I climbed into bed, and I took my warm socks off. She wanted me to put them on her feet. I had to do it for her or it wasn’t the same. For some strange reason it acted as an aphrodisiac. The memory made me ache for her.

  I got up and crossed the street without staring at her so I didn’t draw her attention. I wanted to keep her in sight as long as I could. Tomorrow, no matter what, I’d go see her. By tomorrow, if nothing changed, I felt sure it would be okay. I only had an hour and a half before I had to be back out in front of Chantal’s apartment where Robby was supposed to pick me up.

  The bus slowed, stopped, the doors opened. My Marie was first to get on but had to back out to let the passengers getting off pass first. I saw her expression change to surprise, and it scared me. I took a quick step, looked to see what had caused her reaction, to identify any threat.

  Sometimes there was a God who looked after the little children. Dora Bascombe was exiting the bus with little Tommy Bascombe in tow. His tear-streaked face, dirty denim pants worn with holes in the knees hung from his too-skinny body. And, of course, he was barefooted. His broken arm with the cast should’ve been in a sling but swung back and forth banging against his chest as she jerked his other arm. Dora got off the bus to take him to Killer King for his follow-up. According to Marie, Dora had missed two appointments, and if she missed another, Child Protective Services told her they would take Tommy and put him in a foster home. The threat of a foster home wasn’t what motivated Dora. If she didn’t have Tommy, the state money would dry up. She was forced to take heed to CPS and protect her little golden goose.

  The mother and child moved down the street toward the hospital as Marie stood on the first step of doorway of the bus. Her head whipped around wildly, not knowing what to do, helpless to do anything. She wanted to act, to run and “sock the livin’ shit out of the bitch” but thought better of it. As I watched, I loved her even more. If that were possible.

  Finally, she got on the bus. The doors closed and the bus moved off down Wilmington. She stood in the window and watched as the bus zipped past mother and child and then faded off into traffic. I walked along behind Dora and Tommy, seething at her abusive language to the boy who wouldn’t walk fast enough, his dirty bare feet a blur, getting air every time she jerked his arm. I looked around for a rock or even a bottle to bash her head, but, like Marie, knew that would solve nothing. I’d have to bide my time, play it smart.

  Dora didn’t know me, never saw me before, and if she did recognize me from court, it would mean nothing. She would have merely thought I was someone else in the audience watching court cases like she’d been doing, waiting for an unfair justice system to screw over a loved one. I followed her close behind into the out-patient wing of Killer King. She waited in line a long time. I stood off to the side, back against the wall, and couldn’t quite catch all her vulgar language as she chastised the receptionist in a lengthy tirade for the long wait. She took it out on Tommy, yanked his arm so hard he screamed. I clenched my fists. Not yet. Not yet.

  She went over to the U-shaped waiting area filled with chairs all occupied with indigents seeking medical attention. She looked around shaking her head in wonder, then said, “Fuck all this.” She towed Tommy out the door. I recognized her thought process, had heard it before. When the welfare caseworker asked her how come she didn’t take her injured child in for a follow-up, she would say that she checked in and waited for hours and hours, something that could now be verified, the check-in part. They never called her name, so she left. She’d be given another chance. Too bad for Tommy.

  Up close, I got a good look at Tommy’s feet. They were blue from the cold. They had not been inside long enough for him to thaw out, not on the cold floor, not before they were on the move again. Dora lived immersed in the tweaker life and only cared about one thing, rock cocaine. Tweakers thought of nothing else but their glass maiden, the pipe.

  She walked south on Wilmington, her head spinning on her shoulders. She searched for someone to give them a ride. If that happened, I’d be out of luck. I easily stayed with them, past 121st Street, 122nd and at 124th where she turned west. After one block on 124th I figured out her destination, it made my blood boil. I again wished I’d snatched the pear’s automatic from his sock drawer, because if I was right, I was going to need it.

  We passed a lookout, a preteen black kid who sat on a broken-down cinder block wall in his designer kicks and his Raiders jacket, who watched, ready at any moment to give the alert, a long whistle. I knew their routine, nothing had changed since I’d left. I pulled the knit beanie down further until it covered my eyebrows. As I walked, I reached into my pocket for the Band-Aids. I peeled them open, put one across the bridge of my nose and one on the cheek under my left eye, an old armed robber’s trick. The victims key in on the Band-Aids and never peep the person beneath. When interviewed, they promptly say it was some big black dude with Band-Aids on his face. The problem was I knew the area, had worked it before, and if I knew the area, the area knew me. Band-Aids or no Band-Aids, if someone said, “Hey, that’s Bruno Johnson,” the jig would be up.

  Chapter Nineteen

  We cros
sed another street that bisected 124th and headed into a cul-de-sac filled with apartment buildings. Thugs sat in groups on the hoods of their highly polished hoopties, with red bandanas folded and tied around their foreheads. They wanted all who came onto the block to know the block belonged to the Bloods, the Playboys, Pimps, and Gangsters clique. They had their gats—guns—stashed close at hand ready to go to guns at a moment’s notice.

  They whistled at the white woman with her child and made lewd gestures with their hands, some grabbing their crotch. I kept my head down, watching the sidewalk and the gangsters out of my peripheral vision. I increased speed, caught up with Dora, to let them think we were together, then backed off a little before she turned and said, “Hey, what the—?”

  I was in, past their main defenses. Getting out would be another problem.

  She knew exactly where to go. She followed the walkway between two apartments, made a left, went around a derelict pool filled with dirt and weeds and surrounded by rusted chain-link that sagged in places. She stopped at an open apartment door and peered in. She bounced from foot to foot as if her bladder were about to burst. “Q? Q, are you in there?”

  She looked back over her shoulder, sensing my presence. Our eyes locked for a long second before her need for meth again took control.

  Q? Maybe the kid’s luck was holding out. Q was Quentin Bridges, Q-Ball, a nickel-and-dime street dealer I’d known personally and had gotten up close and personal with on two occasions, laced his head with the barrel of my .357 for dealing crack to the neighborhood junior high school kids.

  The first time it happened when my team was executing a search warrant. We rolled up Trojan horse-style—the entire team in a van jumped out and deployed on an apartment complex on El Segundo Boulevard. I carried the door ram. When we rounded the corner, Q-Ball stood at his apartment door with a line of poor folks who hardly had enough money to eat, waiting to buy his rock cocaine.