by David Putnam
The shame left and in sauntered fear, cold with a knife-hard edge. I saw where this was going.
“They flipped him,” she said, “They flipped the great Robby Wicks. The man who knew the game better than the FBI. The FBI told him all his problems would all go away if he did one thing. Just one. Something they couldn’t do themselves in eighteen months of trying with all their assets. You would have thought with all their satellites, high-tech surveillance devices, the relaxed constitution for terrorism they’d be able to follow one ex-con. Something he refused to get involved in until they played dirty pool.”
She waited for me to say it.
I couldn’t. I said nothing.
“Yeah,” she said, “you know, it’s your fault. That’s why I can’t believe you had the balls to come here. Say it, Bruno. You know what they want. You didn’t need to come here for me to tell you. Say it.”
I loved and respected her too much, I said it. My voice cracked. “Wally Kim. They want Wally Kim.” The Korean kid, the diplomat’s son.
Chapter Forty-Eight
She said, “That’s right. Kim put a lot of pressure on the State Department, who in turn pressured the Justice Department.”
“I’m sorry, Barbara; it’s no longer about that. It’s Robby, he—”
She turned pale, sat down, “What? What’s happened?”
Of course, she still loved him and cared what happened to him. They had been together too many years. I didn’t know how to say it, so I used Mack’s words, “He’s gone off the reservation.”
“How bad?”
I couldn’t answer that one. I couldn’t say the words to her. She stood on the fringe about to be pulled into the vortex of this awful shit storm, one initiated by my actions. Her eyes bore right into me. The phone rang.
It rang some more.
She picked it up. “Yeah, I wanted you to call. Are you paying attention out there? Four Paul Three was about to go to dinner with a missing-person report hanging. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I understand. Just keep your crew straight, all right? That’s not asking too much. Yeah. Thanks.” She hung up.
She said to me, “It’s the million dollars, isn’t it? He killed someone for all that damn money.”
She saw my expression, my jaw drop.
“What’re you talking about?” My thoughts went to Jumbo and the millions wrapped up in the computer chips. He must have killed Crazy Ned Bressler, did it for money. It had not crossed my mind until that moment. If I didn’t kill Bressler, then who did?
Now she mirrored my expression. She closed her mouth, stood up. She’d made a mistake, violated a cardinal rule in interrogation, she gave away more information then she received. “Time for you to leave, Bruno.”
“No, this is important. What are you talking about?” She had the missing piece, the motivation. A million dollars and I needed to hear it.
“No, go. Now.” She shifted her gaze to the window that opened to the hall. The uniformed desk officer appeared outside her door awaiting orders, an obedient watchdog anxious to impress his master with a thirty-inch mahogany nightstick.
“Then just tell me where I can find him.”
“I honestly thought he was looking for you.”
“He found me. Barbara, he said he was going on a cruise, on a long and well-deserved vacation.”
The color drained from her face. “The bastard.”
“Where can I find him?”
The office door opened. She waved the officer off. He closed it. “He’s got his money then?”
“I’m not going to lie to you. I know nothing about a million dollars. He tried to hang a murder beef on me, locked it down tight. I only just now got out from under it. The dog team will be on him in another thirty minutes or so. I want to find him before they do. You of all people know why. If you still care for him, tell me. He might come in for me.”
“I could care less what happens to the pig.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. She came around her desk. I stood. She put her hand on my arm. “Looking for a little get-even time, aren’t you? You’ve got your chance now to do to him what he did to you. Right? Is that it?”
She made me reexamine my motivation. What the hell was I doing? I wanted to track him down to help clear my name, make him talk. Mack could do the same thing, only sanctioned by the law. Robby had the money. We needed the money, money I earned. Now I sounded like a degenerate criminal justifying his criminality.
“That’s it, isn’t it? You want to shoot him in the back the same way he shot you.”
I held my hands away from my sides. “I don’t have a gun. I want to be honest with you. He has a whole lot of my money. And under normal circumstances I really wouldn’t care, but there are some people very close to me who depend on that money. Please tell me where he is.”
“How much are we talking?”
“Two hundred and fifty.”
“Thousand?”
I nodded.
“Two hundred and fifty plus the million. That son of a bitch.”
I remembered that Mack had said that Robby was smart, he’d go for a lot more. One point two was a lot more. Especially if his job went down the toilet. “Where did the million come from?”
“He talked with Mr. Kim, made a deal. Once he found Wally, he’d receive a reward.”
“He doesn’t have Wally.” He didn’t. Robby jumped the gun, took Marie down before she made it to Dad’s. “You said he found someone else. Was that just a woof cookie you fed me or is it the money?”
“No, he’s got both. I guess I know Robby better than anyone on this planet and knew he was stepping out the first minute he crossed the line.”
“I know this is hard for you, but I need to know where she lives.” Paranoia set in. I began to think maybe Robby did know where Dad lived with the kids and only waited until the time was right to make his move. I knew the location of the kids. What I didn’t know was Robby’s girlfriend’s address.
She said, “I first suspected about six months ago. I rented a car and followed him.”
Most wives hired private detectives; the dangerous part about a wife trained in narcotics surveillance is that she also carries a gun and knows how to use it.
Anxiety rose in me until I hummed like a tuning fork. I knew she would tell me and had my hand on the doorknob ready to flee, be on my way to end this thing.
“Two weeks ago, I had enough. I followed him over to an apartment, all the way over in L.A. Watched him walk up the stairs, put his own key in the door, only she’d been waiting, watching for him out the window. I loved him like that once, waited for him to come through the door, never wanted him to be away from my side. The whore opened the door for him. They kissed like there was no tomorrow. There almost wasn’t.”
She’d said the words in a trancelike state, now she snapped out of it. “I pulled my gun, got out of the car, and started up those same steps. They went back inside. Good thing. At the top, I realized he wasn’t worth it. I was lucky. Now I’m here trying to defend him. If he did take your money like you say, then I hope you get him. When you do, tell him I helped do it.”
Similar words to what Mack said. These two people who had been loved and gave their loyalty, now spurned. It struck me that everyone in his life now turned on him, his department, his team, his wife. I felt sorry for him. We’d had a lot of great times together, tight scrapes, long, hot nights, celebrations, beer drinking.
“What’s the address?”
“It’s a three-story walk-up over off Crenshaw and Santa Barbara.”
I sat back down, the wind knocked out of me. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.
Chapter Forty-Nine
“What’s her name? Do you know her name?”
She shook her head. It didn’t matter. I knew.
Chantal.
Six months though? How had I not known? It made sense. He’d come up on me looking to find Wally and made contact with her, a big risk that she would rat him out to me. But he was always into big risks, the
y had potential to pay off in big dividends. She did what she always did, turned on the charm, offered up the only defense she possessed, she gave him a little sugar.
“I’m sorry, Barbara, I have to go.” The words nothing more than a whisper. I stood and opened the door. The uniform blocked my path. I looked back at her. For a long moment I thought maybe I wouldn’t leave Montclair Police Department.
“That’s okay, Al,” she said. “Let him go.”
Al stood aside.
Thirty-five minutes to go before Mack came onto the same trail with all his resources backing him. I got in the little Toyota Camry with the punched ignition, started up, and drove to the exit watching the rearview for cop cars laying in wait to ambush me.
Too much paranoia.
I used the turn signal to pull out onto the street. A sleek black Crown Victoria came up rolling hot and squealed his tires into the Montclair Police Department parking lot. As the car passed under the streetlight, I caught a glimpse of the driver: Detective Mack from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. He was early, in too big of a hurry to pay attention to an innocuous Camry with a fleeing felon in it. I saw him, but he didn’t see me. I don’t think he lied about the two hours. Anxiety whipped him into such a frenzy he could easily have thought he’d waited the prescribed amount of time. He drove a cop car with emergency equipment, red lights, and a siren. Once he got the same information from Barbara, he’d jump on the Pomona Freeway and scream on past me. Unless Barbara listened to what I told her, believed I was the best man to bring her husband down, if she believed in irony. If she still loved him even a little, she’d stall. I pushed the speed, as much as I dared. The trip back to the city, the freeway long and rolling ahead of me, was going to be the worst I’d ever made.
Mack must’ve left his partner Fong to book Ruben the Cuban. It also meant Mack had not released Marie. The bastard had the blood spoor and nothing else mattered. I unintentionally pushed on the accelerator, had the speed up to eighty. I forced myself to ease off.
Thirty-five minutes later. I pulled up a block away from Chantal’s. Three floors up, the white-yellow light from her apartment spilled onto the outdoor walkway. For the last twenty miles anger rose and pulsed behind my eyes. I had no weapon. Didn’t need one. I still had two hands. I had my rage. I went up the stairs intent on kicking the door.
The blinds in the window sat in the frame slightly skewed, probably from Chantal watching the street for her man to arrive home. The slot between the blinds and the frame revealed half the living room. Chantal sat naked on the couch. Her smooth, perfect cocoa skin against the butternut leather would’ve made a tasteful and expensive work of art. Call it Ghetto Princess. Before her on the thick glass coffee table—the subject of her full attention—lay stacks of US currency: sex and greed.
She sat perfectly still staring at the money, her eyes and facial features displaying the classic opiate droop. I stood mesmerized, stood there longer than I should’ve, standing right outside her window looking into her apartment. Down on the street, a random noise floated up, the acceleration of a car a block away, trying to catch an amber signal turning red. Without taking my eyes from her, my hand went to the doorknob. That’s when I realized something was wrong. Chantal hadn’t moved. For someone hooked on junk, sitting still for hours didn’t call for panic. I guess it registered first in my subconscious. Her chest, the bellows that brought the life-giving air into the lungs, didn’t move either.
My hand turned the knob. Unlocked. The little bit of pressure eased the door open. Someone had kicked it in. Splintered wood stuck out jagged in the frame. The same someone had simply pulled the door closed. I pushed it open all the way, wary of who stood behind it.
The unmistakable stink of cordite hung in the air, floating in a bank of smoke at the ceiling, too soon for it to dissipate. I walked in like an awestruck civilian. I had grown to like Chantal and saw her as a special friend. I went over and sat on the couch next to her. Her eyes stared off into oblivion, her lips were parted slightly, a narrow trickle of blood ran down the corner of her mouth. I reached up and put a gentle hand on hers; her skin still warm to the touch. Under her left breast, difficult to discern from any distance, a small red dot wept another trickle of blood. In the back of my mind I knew I should’ve cleared the apartment first. But I also knew this, the money on the coffee table, had not been his big payday. This whole time, he’d been after the million-dollar reward for Wally Kim. He was just tying up loose ends. Chantal.
All that money was too bulky to carry. And he was in a terrible hurry. Odds of someone finding Chantal before he got back were slim to none. That’s why he’d pulled the door shut. A calculated risk. Then I realized another reason he had to come back. He’d not had time to set the scene up to frame me for her murder. No, he’d be back for the money.
The bullet must have hit a vital organ, and killed her instantly. On the table was everything he had stolen from me. The motives for murder have always been timeless: money, power, sex. Robby Wicks succumbed to all three. First, the influence of the job now lost, power. Then, the woman, sex. Then, the money, greed.
The sight of the money on the table, what it represented, what it had caused, the untimely death of this beautiful woman, made me physically ill.
Her hand moved.
“Chantal? It’s okay, it’s me, Bruno. I’ll call 911.”
I looked around for a phone. No one had landlines anymore. Everyone had cells. Where did she keep hers? “Where’s your cell phone?”
Her head moved slightly from side to side, her lips moved, “No.” Her eyes held that faraway gaze. Then I realized it was the heroin, an analgesic, a painkiller that also slowed down all the bodily functions. Anyone else would’ve already been dead. Slowly, she became more animated. She gripped my hand. “I’m sorry, Bruno. It’s all my fault. Not his. It was my fault.”
She spoke in short sentences, spoke around the pain, spoke around the lack of air, with small words.
I didn’t want to leave her, not for a second. I ran into the bedroom, grabbed a blanket, found her phone on the night stand and dialed 911 as I ran back into the living room. “I need medical aid at 2615 Crenshaw, number 310.”
“What is the reason for your—”
I shut the phone.
Chantal’s skin turned chalky in the time I was gone. I wrapped her up in the blanket and held her close. I rocked her back and forth. “It’s going to be okay. I promise. You just have to hang on a little while longer. Help’s on the way.”
“It wasn’t his fault,” she said haltingly. Her eyes refocused, she came alive a little more. The blanket, the physical contact, the hope of medical aid, did it.
“I shot him.”
“What?” I looked around on the table and floor for a gun.
“No, listen. I shot McWhorter. Kendrick’s aide. McWhorter found out about—” She coughed. More blood rippled out of her mouth. “—me and Kendrick. My gravy train, baby. McWhorter was shutting down my gravy train. My retirement. You understand, don’t you?”
Kendrick was a supervisor on the County Board of Supervisors. The pear-shaped man. The man with the clothes in the other room.
“Chantal, you have to relax. Don’t move.” Far off to the north, a siren started up.
“No, you have to listen. Please, Bruno.
“I shot McWhorter. I called Robby. Robby loved me. We were going to run away—” She gulped hard. “He came over, made it—He made it look like—the burning.”
“It’s okay, I understand. Now please, just relax, concentrate on your breathing.”
The siren drew closer.
I wanted to ask her who shot her. But it didn’t matter. I knew.
She convulsed. She went still. Limp.
Chapter Fifty
I stood in the shadows waiting for him. He was already there. He knew he’d erred when his team snatched up Marie seconds before she led him to the children. Then he’d driven me over there to gloat. He must’ve thought he�
�d later pit her against me in the interview and get the information that way. A critical mistake he’d rue the rest of his days.
Robby must know it had to be one of five or six houses. He, too, was there in the shadows waiting for something to give it away. A tell: father, the kids, someone going to a door with food, something out of place in the neighborhood. Wicks had never been patient. He’d wait only so long, then he’d make it happen by going door to door, force his way in, insist on searching, gun in hand without a warrant, without the shroud of law as a protective cloak. He would risk discovery to make it happen.
After I calmed down, I stood there thinking it through, about the kids, how I’d been a fool putting them second in my search for revenge, an odyssey masked by a moral obligation to make things right. I realized what I needed to do. I would miss Marie dearly. She was going to be mad.
I walked out into the street, right into the middle beneath a streetlight, stood and turned a slow circle. “I’m here. I’m right here, Robby.” I searched the shadows, the overgrown trees and shrubs in untended yards, the abandoned, rusted-out cars. He could be anywhere.
“I’m alone. Now’s your chance. You’re a coward. Come out and face me man to man. I’m unarmed. What’re you afraid of?”
Nothing.
I held my hands open, up in the air, and continued to turn. “You’ve always been a self-serving coward, using people, hiding behind the badge. I was a fool. I fell for your smooth talk, your words of righteousness. I let you turn my head, convince me what we did was what was necessary. You’re no different than the street thugs we chased. You’re worse. You’re—”
I heard the shot. I didn’t see the muzzle flash. The bullet bit into my ass. It spun me around, threw me facedown in the street. I flipped over, tried to get up. My body was in shock and slow to respond. I couldn’t rise any higher. Hot pain shot up my spine. I reached back, my pants sopping wet. I was hit hard, losing serious blood.
“You going to finish me or let me bleed out here in the street?”
