The Heartless

by David Putnam

  Borkow used a homeboy out on the street who owed him a favor. He asked the homeboy to menace the bailiff Bruno Johnson’s daughter. Borkow chuckled at the simplicity of it. The caper had gone off beautifully, better than he hoped.

  He had hired the best artist in 3300 to sketch temporary ink-pen tattoos on his arms and neck. Big-breasted black girls, and double-barreled shotguns, a street sign with “Piru,” and two masks, one smiling and one sad, that depicted the classic street slogan Laugh now, cry later. The thing with Borkow, though, was that he didn’t believe in the cry part. He believed in himself and nothing more. As far as he was concerned, if you couldn’t laugh at any situation, brutal or otherwise, well, it was time to move on and see what came next.

  He didn’t fear death; he just wanted more time to enjoy the good things in life: money, power, women. Mostly women, women’s feet, but he wouldn’t openly admit that weakness.

  And, of course, the look in a person’s eyes when they realized their life was about to be snuffed out. That pure panic and piss-in-your-pants fright that suddenly shifts to a sort of calm, and resolve, an acceptance of the fate about to be handed to them at the point of a knife.

  The common misperception Joe Citizen had about the jail was that the inmates were all locked up in cells. What a bunch of FOVs—Full On Victims. That’s what Borkow called them, the ones who came in, the fish, who thought there would be rules and safe havens to hide from the wolves, when neither existed.

  Inmates could move around all day, just not at night after lights out. With any number of excuses, an inmate could obtain a pass from the module deputy for a visit—a legal visit, the infirmary, the chapel, or the commissary—and once outside their module, they could cruise the entire jail, selling drugs, buying drugs, committing rape, robbery, and murder in a confined, overpopulated cage. It wasn’t much different than a small city of twelve thousand. Well, the most corrupt and violent city in these United States of America, that is.

  It was just as hard for the cops to hang a new charge on the miscreant’s new crime. Harder. Inside the Gray Bar Hotel, there weren’t any witnesses or even victims for that matter. No one ever saw a thing. “I was on my bunk doing hobby craft, Deputy.”

  Borkow watched the big clock on the wall as Choco, with his small delicate fingers, tugged and pulled on his hair, weaving it as tight as he could. He’d never seen time move slower as it crept along edging closer every second to 6:00 p.m.—zero hour. The others in the crew grew more nervous. Some actually displayed physical jitters.

  “Calm the fuck down,” Borkow said. “The deputies are going to read you boys for what this is and that’ll be that. We screw this up, they’ll put us all in red suits and dump our happy asses in High Power where we’ll never get another chance. So take a breath and think about something nice and warm and wet. Think about all of that pussy you’re going to have in about an hour from now.”

  Willy Tomkins, a black guy with dark oily skin that made his face shine, said, “This goes down wrong, we doon have ta worry ’bout no High Power cells. Dey gonna shoot us dead. I mean, dey won’t stop shootin’ ’til dey guns go empty.”

  “Like I said, you keep thinking that way, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Think about something nice. Think about being free, going to see your family without bars in between you. Think about those chicken and waffles at Roscoe’s, the hot link sandwiches and chili fries at Stops.”

  He didn’t tell them the first place the cops would look was at family and friends’ houses and old haunts. Let them find out on their own the hard way. Add to the chaos. Muddy the water.

  The floor deputy—or Rover, whom Borkow had befriended—stuck his head in the barber’s shop. “Louis, all your visits are here; go on and get your passes from the Booth Bitch.”

  “Thank you, Deputy,” Borkow said, and shot him his biggest smile.

  The deputy came in a step farther. “Hey, nice do.”

  “Yeah. Thought I’d try a new look. Got to do something in here to slice through this boredom, you know what I mean?”

  “You have tattoos before? I don’t remember seeing them.”

  “Had ’em for years.”

  “All right, catch you boys later, I’m on my way to help supervise chow down on 2000.”

  “Bring me back some prime rib from the officers’ mess, would ya?”

  “Sure, you’re right.” The deputy went out and closed the door.

  That left only the Booth Bitch, the module deputy who was locked inside his own cage with the phone and control panel to work the gates that let the inmates in and out of their cells in the 3300-cell block.

  Borkow nodded to Frank Robbins, known as Stanky Frank due to his questionable hygiene. He was the biggest and dumbest one on his crew. Frank nodded and kept on nodding as he moved around and got behind Choco. Once there, Frank moved quickly to wrap his thick arm around Choco’s neck. Nothing more than a squeak got past Choco’s crooked teeth. Frank applied pressure. Choco’s eyes bulged and his tongue slowly moved out of his mouth, the same as if Frank were squeezing a tube of pastel pink toothpaste.

  Borkow didn’t need Choco blowing the whistle on them too soon. Once you were in the slam for murder, what difference did one more make? Who knew, Choco might’ve grown a set of balls and traded the escape conspiracy for a time served sentence.

  It should’ve taken two minutes to choke him to death, but Frank’s arm was strong, and Choco’s neck snapped loud and with enough violence to sense the minute vibration in the air. Frank carried him, light as a feather, over to the mop closet, stuffed him in, and forced the door shut.

  “Okay,” Borkow said. “Now all you swinging dicks know what to do. Leave in two-minute intervals and meet up in Visiting. Don’t screw this up. In less than an hour, we’ll all be outside the walls.

  “I’ll go first.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I DRIED MY hands on the dish towel and hung it up. I’d completed the domestic chore with my mind totally focused on Olivia—how to handle the situation—a problem without an obvious or logical solution.

  When I came out of the kitchen, she was gone. She and her best friend, Jessica Lowe, had been sitting on the couch doing their homework. Whenever I would move out of hearing range, they whispered and giggled. Not all that long ago, they talked out in the open about clothes and about books they were reading and loved.

  They both attended Destiny Girls Academy on South Broadway. The annual tuition cost the same as a new car. Dad helped out a lot, and I loved him for it, but I felt guilty over not being able to pay for my own family. I’d pay him back as soon as I got caught up.

  Even though we sent her to an out-of-the-area private school, I had still royally screwed up, fell asleep at the wheel, and had somehow let a kid like Derek Sams weasel in.

  As I stepped from the small kitchen, I froze when an ugly thought hit me. Olivia and Jessica had slipped away without making a noise. My heart skipped several beats.

  Not again. She didn’t run away again, did she? Was she that mad at me for forcing Derek to sit in the back of the truck, mad enough to sneak out of the house?

  Her books lay open on the coffee table next to a notepad. I headed for her room and hesitated, looked over at the open notebook, afraid to snoop. But she was the one who’d left her notebook right there where anyone walking by could take a peek. She’d been working on History and English.

  Before Derek had come on the scene, she’d been an A student, and since then her grades had slipped. I checked the hallway to see if she stood there watching. All clear. I sat on the couch and turned the pages.

  The notes pertained to Catcher in the Rye, a book I remembered vividly from high school. In the margins she scribbled her name under Derek’s, both of their names inside little hearts shot through with arrows. Those small hearts numbered in the hundreds and further confirmed her unjust and manic craze over the boy.

  I straightened up and realized for the first time the emotional and mental turmoil she ha
d to be dealing with. I’d been in love like that once before—with her mother, who wouldn’t have me no matter what I said or did to change her mind. At the time, the woman’s lack of understanding hadn’t seemed logical to me either. The problem seemed easy enough to fix but wasn’t. Now I stood on the outside looking in on that very same problem but in reverse. How could Olivia love someone like that little shitass Derek Sams? What could I do to make her see what she was doing? Somehow, I needed to help her understand my point of view. I moved down the short hall to her room and knocked on the closed door.

  No answer. I knocked again.

  “Yes, who is it? I didn’t order a pizza, and tonight, that’s the only reason I’d open my door.”

  “O, can we talk?”

  “Not tonight, Bruno, I’m beat. It’s been a bad day. It’s starting to really catch up to me. I can’t believe what happened. It scared me, Bruno, it really did.”

  “I know it did, baby, I know it did. Come on, just let me in so we can talk about it? It’ll be better if we could talk about it.”

  “No, thank you. Maybe tomorrow. Okay, Bruno? Tomorrow.”

  I put my forehead against the door. I wanted so badly to be the one to console her, to be her father. But she was fifteen and deserved her privacy, so I wouldn’t go in without her consent. My voice croaked a little. “I asked you not to call me that.”

  “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

  My fists clenched all on their own as I closed my eyes tight. “O, you can call me whatever you like. I’m going in late tomorrow, so we are going to talk in the morning, you understand?”

  No answer. “Listen, I want you to promise that you won’t see Derek until you and I have a chance to have a sit-down, a serious powwow, okay?”

  No answer. “O, you answer me or I’m coming in.” I wiggled the doorknob.

  “Okay, okay, I promise.”

  “I love you, O.”

  “Ditto—”

  I held my breath and listened hard, hoping she’d end it with “Popi.” I heard something but couldn’t be sure. Maybe I just wanted it too badly.

  I gave up, went into my room, and changed clothes. I dressed in a pair of beat-up denims and my khaki-colored truck driver shirt with the name “Karl” in an embroidered patch over the right breast and “Grace Trucking” over the other. The old garb I used to wear while working the violent crimes team. I put on an ankle holster that held a big model 66 Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum. I stuck a matching gun in the front waistband of my pants under my shirt. Next, I took out a dirk, a double-edged knife, and clipped it to the inside boot on the left side. My flat badge wallet went in my back pocket and a 415 Gonzales sap in the opposite back pocket. I opened my dresser drawer to neatly folded handkerchiefs. All of them were different colors that represented the black gangs in the area: purple, red, and blue, mostly. I took out two blue ones and tied one over my head the way a gangster would. I stuck the other in my back pocket so it hung down in plain view.

  I made a show of closing my bedroom door with enough noise that Olivia had to hear it. I went to my bedroom window and eased it open. I climbed out and pulled the window down until it latched. I moved with quiet agility out to my truck, opened the door, and slid in. I’d disabled the dome light long ago. When you tracked murderers, you didn’t want to make yourself a target. I put my back to the passenger-side door and eased down until my eyes barely showed above the opposite window ledge, and then I waited.

  And waited some more.

  After a year in court services, the bone-crushing tedium of surveillance returned, a part of the old job I did not miss.

  Down the street a car turned the corner, slowed, and turned off its headlights. I sat up just a little to see.

  If it was Derek, I’d … I’d … I didn’t know what I was going to do.

  The car crept forward and pulled to the curb into the one open spot on the crowded street. The streetlight silhouetted the only person in the car, the driver. Many a suspect I’d chased down and put away had threatened me and my family with great bodily harm. I was never one to buy into paranoia and was confident in my ability to handle anything that came our way. Even so, I had paid close attention to all the cars on our street, watched the comings and goings at all hours to get a feel for the norm. This car, at this hour, didn’t belong.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE DRIVER GOT out and stood by the open car door. The dome light was disabled like mine so I couldn’t discern who this person was creeping outside my apartment building. The driver eased the door closed without making a sound and walked up to the sidewalk staring at our apartment. I put my hand on my gun and struggled up for a better angle.

  The driver moved down the sidewalk and into the halo cast by the streetlight.

  “Ah, shit,” I whispered. I got out on the passenger side and stood in the shadows. “Nicky?” I said, without yelling it.

  Nicky Rivers, the deputy district attorney prosecuting the Borkow murder, the woman I’d put on the phone with Olivia just before I ran out of the court, the woman I’d kissed on the front seat of my truck the night before, had come to see me without calling first. Or maybe she had and I wasn’t in the house to answer. I should get one of those new cell phones, but they were too expensive and too big to carry around. They called them “brick phones,” because they were the size of a brick.

  I’d meant to call her, to thank her again for helping out, but had been too distracted by the other problem that consumed my entire being: Olivia.

  Nicky looked around for who had called her.

  “Nicky?”

  This time she zeroed in on the sound. She checked both ways, and crossed the empty street. “Bruno?”

  I took her wrist and tugged her into the shadows of a huge bougainvillea bush. The move accidently pulled her in close, her warm chest touching mine. I didn’t know why she’d driven out to my apartment at that late hour. But maybe I did. We’d been just friends, workmates, enjoying each other’s conversation, the quips, the flirting. The light kissing more as friends and not yet lovers. I’d been out of the dating game too long. I wasn’t sure how to read the signs. Did she want to take our relationship to the next level? A conundrum I’d pondered for the last two years. She made the boring job in the courtroom a lot easier to take. That particular kiss the night before confused everything. I didn’t want to ruin what we had. I enjoyed her company too much. Was that why she’d come out to my apartment? Did she feel the same way and was here to ease back from the ledge we’d both stepped out on—to keep me from taking that next step embarrassing us both? The idea of her breaking it off between us scared the hell out of me.

  She went up on tiptoes to whisper, “What are we doing out—”

  Her lips were close to mine. I kissed her. She returned the kiss but not like last night’s. She hesitated.

  I pulled back.

  She looked at me as if confused.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I don’t know why I did that, I’m sorry. I …” I let the last words trail off. They sounded too much like a high school kid buried too deep in his first puppy love.

  We’d gone out to lunch many times in the past and had a couple of dinners—maybe three or four. After the dinners, we’d talked for hours. We’d been in a happy friendship groove until last night. That kiss last night had changed everything. Was it supposed to happen that way?

  Now, in the shadow of the bougainvillea bush, I needed to be strong and say something first. Workplace romances never worked out. I’d had experience in this arena with Sonya, Olivia’s mother. I had to tell Nicky we couldn’t continue, we couldn’t take it any further. Only the words wouldn’t come.

  Finally, I started. “I …”

  “I know,” she said. “You felt it, too … I mean last night … we …”

  “Yes. I felt it but …”

  “Oh, you’re probably right. I’m only separated; we need to wait until I’m divorced. I think that’s the smart thing. I mean that’s—”
<
br />   “What?” Stunned, I pushed her back a little. Separated? Divorce?

  “What’s the matter?” She took a step back. “Oh, you mean you didn’t want to go on with … with this?”

  “No, no, it’s not that. I didn’t know you were married.” The topic had not come up during our lunches or dinners or in the long talks. Or the previous night when we made out in my truck. She never wore a ring. She’d never said anything about a husband.

  “Okay, wait. Listen.” She didn’t break eye contact, her brown eyes, big and lush, absolutely beautiful. She took hold of my hand. “I am separated from my husband. I moved out six months ago, and until last night, I wasn’t sure about anything. You helped me make my decision. I’m going to go ahead with the divorce.”

  “Ah, geez, I …”

  No way did I want to be any part of breaking up a relationship.

  “No. No, you big lug, I’m not … I mean, I don’t mean to infer anything about you and me so don’t go running for the hills, like a typical man, okay? You just made me realize how unhappy I am in my current situation and that I need to move on, that’s all. Just take it easy, Bruno.”

  I nodded, the wordless response making me the world’s biggest dolt. My mind spun. I needed to say something. “Who are you married to?”

  “What? Who? Oh, Lieutenant John Lau. You know him?”

  The blood ran from my brain. I eased back until my legs touched the branches of the bush. My voice came out in a whisper. “Not the Lieutenant John Lau from SEB? You’re his wife? You’re Nicky Lau? I thought that Nicky Lau was …” What I wanted to say was that I thought his wife would be Asian. A stupid assumption I shouldn’t have made. I only knew Lau from a brief encounter at a sheriff’s picnic at the Shark Park in Pomona. Wicks had introduced us. John Lau was a stout man who looked like he lived in the gym. He wore his denim jeans ironed with a sharp crease. He had predator eyes like Wicks. My first impression was that he was not someone you wanted to mess with, the perfect commander for SEB, Special Enforcement Bureau, the department’s SWAT team.