by David Putnam
“Thank you for understanding. When we get back to the hotel, we’re going to pack and immediately move to another hotel.”
“Okay.”
“And you are not to tell anyone where we’re staying. Not even Sonja or Bobby Ray.”
“Bruno, it’s their grandson, they have the right to—”
I stopped in the hall and started to turn us around to take Bosco junior back.
She jerked out of my grasp and continued down the hall the way we’d been headed. “Okay, Bruno, have it your way, but you better have a good reason for all your bullshit.”
“I do. I’m just worried about your safety, that’s all.”
“That’s crazy. Sonja”—she looked back over her shoulder to see if they heard—“and Bobby Ray don’t have any reason to harm us. You saw how they acted. They wouldn’t have given us their grandson if they held any bad blood between us.”
I didn’t want to lie to her, so I didn’t answer. We kept walking. She let it go. I’d catch the brunt of that penalty later. And deservedly so.
I sent Drago out to get a vehicle so we could move around without drawing attention to ourselves. He came back with a full-sized GMC truck with tinted windows and a red pinstripe that made the vehicle look like a black widow. I didn’t ask him where it came from.
Out in front of the hotel, sitting in the big GMC with tinted windows, I phoned Special Agent Dan Chulack.
He picked right up. “Yeah?”
He was playing it professional. He didn’t know if anyone was listening in next to my ear, like a Visigoth maybe, and said nothing extra until he knew the score.
“Where’s our boy right now?” Meaning I wanted to know where to find Jumbo.
“Why? What’s going down?” Dan sounded stunned that I’d even ask.
“I need you to back off your eye on him once I get up close. I wanna have a little talk with our big-eared friend.”
Dan said nothing for a long moment as he thought it through.
I nudged him a little more. “Dan, it’ll be plausible deniability for national security and all that shit. Come on, man, what’s goin’ on?”
“Can’t do it, pal. It’s not going to happen on my watch. What else you need?”
“You don’t understand. I need—”
“No, you don’t understand. I can’t and won’t do something like that. Stick to the plan and everything will be fine.” He clicked off.
I looked at the phone in my hand. “What the hell just happened?”
Drago shrugged. “Fuckin’ feds, what do you think happened? You can’t live with ’em and you can’t kill ’em. They just reeled you out there on a line as bait, and now your ass is left hangin’ out blowin’ in the wind. That’s the FBI way. What now, boss, where to?”
“Drive. We’ll just have to find Jumbo ourselves and deal with the FBI net around the little punk once we find him.”
I couldn’t get over what just happened. That wasn’t like Dan.
Drago started up and took off, steering with one hand. His other went into his shorts pocket and pulled out his phone. He’d had it on vibrate. He flipped it open and said, “Yeah?”
He listened for a second and handed it to me. “It’s for you. How’d those rat-bastards get my number?”
“Hello?”
“Bruno, it’s me. Sorry about that earlier call. I couldn’t talk on that phone.”
“Ah, shit, no, that was my fault. I wasn’t thinking. Of course you couldn’t talk on that phone. I took a good chunk to the head and I haven’t had a clear thought since. Sorry about that.”
Dan gave a little chuckle. “No problem. Okay, since you’ve been away, Jumbo’s bought himself an auto parts store. He’s trying to go legit, or at least wash some more of his money. This new shop is on Crenshaw just north of MLK Boulevard, on the west side of Crenshaw in the Albertson’s shopping center. And ah . . . Bruno, I’m going to have a hard time pulling my team off so you can have your little talk with him. Especially now, with that last phone call.”
What he meant was that, if he pulled his team back now and something happened to Jumbo, it would make him look culpable.
“What happened to the old Dan? I want him back. I don’t like this new and improved supervisor Dan, the Dan with the case of ‘for reals.’ But thanks anyway, I can take it from here and let you know what happens.”
“I’m sorry, truly I—”
I hung up on him, more than a little angry. “Head up to Crenshaw and—”
“I got it,” Drago said. He’d heard both sides of the conversation. “I gotta tell ya though, I don’t think much of this. It isn’t a good idea working with the feds. They don’t play fair and they’re not afraid of screwin’ ya, once they get what they want.”
“We don’t have much of a choice, now do we? You want out?”
“Don’t be an asshole.”
I put the air conditioner on high, leaned back, and closed my eyes. The doctor might’ve been right about the rest my body needed. I continued to fight off sleep. The last thought that lingered in my mind before my brain shut down was this: Why did Sonja tell me not to do anything for Bobby Ray? She’d been so emphatic. Was it that she didn’t want me to get wrapped up in his scandalous activity? Or was it that she just hated him right now and didn’t want anyone to help her old man out?
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
DRAGO SHOOK ME awake. The truck door on my side stood open. Drago stood in close. He held on to some long-haired hippy by the scruff of the neck. The guy squeaked a little like a mouse.
“Hey, man,” Drago said, “you all right? You’re droolin’. For a minute there I didn’t think I’d be able to wake ya.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m good.” I wiped my chin. He’d been right about the deep sleep. I’d dreamt I stood behind the cabana bar in Costa Rica, serving drinks to my regulars. This one seemed so much more real than other dreams, so much detail, right down to the scent of salt air. I’d never smelled anything in a dream before.
And I should’ve felt refreshed after a nap like that, but didn’t. In fact, I just wanted to sleep some more. Sleep forever. Go back to that cabana, where life didn’t have all the pressures.
The hippy didn’t speak. He smelled of nicotine, and his facial skin reflected the damage of a longtime smoker, wrinkled and sallow. His hair needed washing, and he kept it held down with a sixties-style, beaded headband. He sported a raggedy blond goatee and wore a long-sleeve shirt open at the front with a chain and a peace sign medallion.
“Who’s the dude?” I asked.
Drago dipped his shoulder down a little and nodded behind him. “He’s agreed to let us borrow his truck for a few minutes. I told him if he kept his mouth shut, you’d give him a couple hundred bucks.”
“His truck? What are you talking about?” I struggled up to see over his shoulder. We’d parked in a shopping center under a tree, away from all the other cars.
Next to our big GMC sat a smaller Ford Ranger painted all white with a blue business logo that said, “Big John Ahern’s Auto Parts. Big parts without a Jumbo price.”
What a cheesy advertisement. Jumbo had to have thought that one up himself. He had that kind of ego, one even bigger than his ears.
Drago, using his own initiative, had corralled the auto parts delivery guy in the parking lot and made the deal, all while I slept. I really needed to shake off the fatigue or we’d be in trouble.
Drago took hold of my arm and pulled me out of the truck. He shoved the hippy in. When the hippy shuffled by, his body odor all but gagged me and dispelled the final essence of salt air from my dream.
Drago pointed a meaty finger at the guy. “Don’t fuck with the truck. Sit there and be good.”
The hippy showed some balls. He held out a shaky hand and said, “How ’bout my duckets, amigo?”
Drago went to grab a handful of his throat. I put my hand on his shoulder and stopped him. “Here.” I reached in my pocket and took out the roll of hundreds I had taken earlier from
Bobby Ray’s bag of money, a habit I didn’t care to curb. I didn’t like Bobby Ray much. I peeled off two hundreds. “You keep your mouth shut and stick to the story that we stole your truck and there’ll be another two hundred in it for you when we get back.”
He took the money and said, “Far out, man.” He pulled a doobie out of his pocket and started to light it up.
Drago said, “Hey.”
“It’s cool, let him do it. Come on. I’ll drive.”
We got in the Ford Ranger, shoulder to shoulder, this truck much smaller than the GMC. I looked around to get oriented. I knew the area that Dan described but didn’t recognize the shopping center we’d parked in. I started up. “Which way?”
“You sure you’re okay to drive?”
“Which way?”
He pointed in a direction I would not have guessed. I headed that way and pulled out onto Martin Luther King Boulevard, which back in the day used to be called Santa Barbara. Now I recognized the area. Two or three years before, though it seemed liked decades ago now, I’d shared an apartment with a beautiful woman named Chantal. She’d given me a cover story for my parole officer, for my “residence of record.” She gave me a place to lay my head while I capered, pulled train heists for Jumbo, and rescued abused children from toxic homes and stashed them with my father while Marie and I prepared to flee to Costa Rica.
Robby Wicks shot and killed Chantal, took my money, and tried to hang her murder on me.
Then, after I helped Dan Chulack take down The Sons of Satan clubhouse, he arranged for the FBI to adopt the Chantal murder investigation. Once he got control of the case, he closed it the way it should’ve been closed, with the killing attributed to the dead Robby Wicks.
The only thing Dan couldn’t suppress were the kidnapping charges for the eight kids, one of which was Wally Kim, the son of a Korean diplomat. Those charges still hung over my head and always would until I was caught and punished.
I spotted Jumbo’s Auto Parts right next to a Rite Aid and Ace Hardware. People walked all around the pharmacy and hardware store. No one came and went from the auto parts store. In the front, by the door, Jumbo employed one of those air machines that blew up and let sag an inflatable man to catch the shopper’s eye. A bright purple man no one could miss.
Big posters on the windows obscured the view to the inside and advertised oil and oil filters on sale, 50 percent off, loss leaders to pull in suckers.
A red and white “closed” sign hung on the glass door, conspicuous and contrary to the posted business hours.
I drove around back without hesitating. I didn’t see any of Dan’s people set up to watch the place. He supervised a talented crew.
In the back, a deep loading dock led to the rear door. I backed in. We got out and went up the concrete steps to the landing.
I stopped at the door and held my finger up, pointing at Drago. I’d taken this move from Marie’s playbook and didn’t like it much when she did it to me, so I dropped it. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Listen, I don’t want you goin’ in here like some kinda Destructo-Man, you understand what I’m sayin’? Just follow my lead and back my play. No independent action. Got it?”
Drago shook his head and put his hand to his chest in mock surprise. “Me? I’m hurt that you’d think such thoughts when all I have is the milk of human kindness running through my veins.”
I chuckled and socked him in the arm. “Come on, Dalai Lama.”
I opened the door to the auto parts store.
Someone stuck a gun to my head and yanked me inside.
CHAPTER FIFTY
DRAGO SHOVED HIS way in right behind me. He didn’t take any action, not with the gun to my head.
Just inside the door, the store opened up to a wider area where incoming deliveries sat before distribution to the rows of shelving. Four large men stood ready to fight. Jumbo stood among them, dwarfed by their size. He held his little chrome .25 auto down by his leg. He smiled, content with himself.
I stuck my hand in my pocket to the special cell phone Dan gave me, my hand on the panic button.
If I pushed it, the FBI would rush in and then we wouldn’t have a chance at getting Jumbo to talk, not legally. And in all likelihood, with all the other agents watching, Dan would have to take me into custody for the kidnap warrants. I didn’t push the button and knew that might well be my undoing.
The four men wore The Sons of Satan colors. Hard men, experienced men. Jumbo had set me up. Back in the weed-infested parking lot behind the Sears on Long Beach Avenue, he’d lied to me. He knew I’d come back on him for the lie and had called The Sons to take advantage of the twenty-thousand-dollar bounty they’d placed on my head. I could no longer believe anything Jumbo had told me in that parking lot. Not that it mattered at that moment.
The nausea rose up and made the polished concrete floor pitch like the deck of a ship. I put my hand to the side of my head to stop the world from rolling. The thug with the gun shoved it deeper into my temple. “Take your other hand outta your pocket real easy. That’s right, now don’t you move, asshole.”
I turned as much as I could to look at him. He could’ve been forty or fifty with his black and gray hair down to his shoulders, unwashed and greasy. He wore a handlebar mustache and had a silver skull ring on the hand that held the Smith .45. The embroidered patch on his cut said he went by Dead Dick. The one next to him was taller and a little thinner, with a shaved dome. He went by the name Dogman. The way Dead Dick held me, I couldn’t see the other two well enough, but they, too, would have weapons and know how to use them, none of them afraid of going to prison in the life they’d chosen.
Jumbo took a step back. “Holy shit, Batman. You know who this is? Do you know who this other asshole is who just come in here draggin’ his knuckles with Bruno The Bad Boy Johnson?”
The biker with the shaved head said, “It’s Dogman, and I’m not gonna tell you again. Next time I’ll rip those elephant ears off ya and make ya eat ’em. You got it?”
Jumbo ignored him. He took another step back and, with a shaky hand, pointed the Raven .25 in our vicinity. “Jesus H, this is Blow Torch. Son of a bitch, and we just let him walk right in. Come on, man, you know this guy. Back in the day he used to be one of you guys. This here’s Karl Drago. Shoot, man, shoot. Don’t let him make any move at all. Shoot him.”
Dead Dick let go of me, took a step back, and covered Drago as he, too, caught a little of Jumbo’s panic and hysteria.
Dogman said, “There’s five of us, you little dipshit, and we’re armed and they’re not, so cool your jets.”
I rubbed my head where the gun put a little dent. “I wouldn’t shoot my friend here; it’ll only make him mad.”
Drago looked at me and said, “Shut your piehole, meat.”
Everyone looked surprised, including me.
Drago grabbed me in a headlock. “I’m not splittin’ the reward with any of you swingin’ dicks. I caught this nigger fair and square and brought him here for my money.”
What the hell? “Drago?” I said. He squeezed a little tighter so I wouldn’t blow it. I figured his game a second too late. Oh.
Drago didn’t know his own strength, and he’d inadvertently started to choke me out. He held my head at an upward angle, though not on purpose, that’s just how it worked out.
Jumbo’s voice went up an octave or two. “Don’t listen to his shit. Shoot, man, I’m tellin’ ya, you better shoot this son of a bitch right now. It’s probably already too late. He’s gonna kill us all.”
“Shut up, Dumbo,” Dogman said. Then he looked at Drago. “How’d you know we were here and to bring this asshole to us?”
“I talked ta Clay on the phone, and he said you boys would be here and told me to go ahead and bring this prick and turn him over ta ya. Said you’d know what to do with him. You want I should get Warfield on the phone, let him tell ya himself?”
I tapped on Drago’s arm. He eased off a little. I could breathe again.
Dogman l
et his gun drop down to his side. “No, we’ll take it from here. Let his black ass go.”
“Bullshit. Where’s my twenty large?”
“Ah, man, I’m tellin’ ya, don’t do this,” Jumbo said. “He’s gonna take us all down and—”
Dogman spun, quick-stepped over, and booted Jumbo right in the nuts. Jumbo yelped and melted to the floor.
Dogman turned, reached into his denim cut, and pulled out a banded stack of hundreds. He tossed it on the floor in front of Drago. From the look in Dogman’s eyes, he didn’t believe Drago’s ruse, not entirely. “Now let him go.”
Drago let me go and shoved me hard. I flew to the polished concrete floor and skidded along for several feet. Drago wanted me out of harm’s way, out of the line of fire when he made his move. Drago took a step to the cash, bent over, and picked it up. He tore off the band and started to count.
Dogman and the other three Sons moved in closer to me, enough hate oozing from them to start another civil war, enough to take most of their attention off Drago.
Dead Dick put his boot on my chest. “What happened to Bone?”
“Who?”
“Bone and his girl. They went down to Costa Rica and haven’t been heard from since.”
“Oh them. I heard they went sport fishing.”
Dead Dick grimaced. He pulled back and kicked me in the stomach. I lost it and threw up on his boot.
On the floor, not too far away, Jumbo said, “I asked for their best men and they send me Batman and Limp Dick. We’re all fucked, I tell ya.”
Dogman spun around and pulled back to kick Jumbo.
Drago made his move. He threw the bundle of hundreds at Dead Dick as he charged. He lowered his shoulders with his arms spread wide and roared like a lion. He hit all four Sons down low, driving hard with his legs, catching them by surprise.
One of them spun out of the trap. Drago drove the other three into a rack of auto parts. The shelving went over with a loud crash, taking two more shelves with it like dominoes. The three men, including Dogman, flailed, trying to get a piece of Drago. Drago took the hits without reaction, picked his targets, and slammed their faces with his huge fist, again and again.
