by David Putnam
He put his warm hand on my chest and eased me back to sitting on the edge of the bed. “She’s real mad, Son. She came over to my place with her suitcase. She asked if she could stay for a while. I told her she could. Hope that’s okay. I didn’t want her out wandering the street. I was going to tell you about it, but you got yourself caught up in that big mess over on Slauson. It’s all over the news.”
“No, I’m glad you did. I need to talk with her. Can you give me a ride over there?”
“Of course I can, but maybe you should give her a little time to cool off and to think about it.”
Maybe he knew better, but right or wrong, I had a desperate need to see my daughter. I needed to ask for forgiveness.
He smiled again. It lit up my life. He said, “Did you give that little girl a puppy?”
I smiled back.
He said, “Cutest darn puppy I think I’ve ever seen. That was the smartest thing you’ve done in a while. I wonder where you got that idea?” He winked. “Now that she’s staying at my place, you’re comin’ over any time that dog messes the floor.”
“I will, Pop, I promise.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
LIZZETTE LAY NAKED on the short stack of California king mattresses, three of them in a pile situated on the floor next to the Jacuzzi and only several feet from the Olympic-sized pool in the Muscle Max gym. She stretched out, feline in her repose, semi-wrapped in the white satin sheets, emitting a cute little snore. She was a little too skinny and had an expensive tattoo on her upper back, the right shoulder, depicting a woman with blond hair and red lipstick. She said it wasn’t Twyla, but Borkow knew better. He sat naked, reclined in his La-Z-Boy chair, feet up, with a vodka gimlet in a highball glass. He was watching the TV, sated from his time in the Jacuzzi, then from the heavy aerobics on the bed with Lizzy. He’d taken a dip in the pool right after and his skin still tingled, a sensation created when he moved from the hot water and then right into the cold. Life was good. He could stay there in Muscle Max a good long time if things just stayed like this. Sure, he could.
To the right of the pool on a repurposed bookshelf, Payaso had put on display the thirty pairs of shoes taken from that lawyer broad’s lair on Bronson Street in Hollywood. He didn’t like to think of her name anymore, not with the way she’d treated him, not since he had not gotten out of her where she’d hid the rest of his money. He took her expensive shoes instead.
He raised the remote and changed the channel to the news. He wanted to hear his tag again, “The Most Wanted Man in the Seven Western States.” Maybe after taking out Gloria Bleeker, he’d earned something a little heavier, more along the lines of “The Most Dangerous Man West of the Mississippi.” Yeah, he liked that one a lot.
He’d been biding his time with reruns of The Golden Girls. The costume director on that show, a fellow lover of the foot, must’ve had an unlimited budget or he’d sweet-talked the big names in the industry to donate the shoes for free advertising. That guy knew how to dress his women, and Borkow wanted to meet him. Those old biddies on that show had some ugly feet, but their shoes … whoa mama.
He clicked down to the local station. The talking heads came on the news with the top story. The video feed looked to Borkow like he had missed a major earthquake while he’d been messing around with Lizzy. A restaurant in LA had been trashed. Through the window of a place called Mel’s, the cameraman panned the decimated interior.
The screen cut to some earlier footage of a black man grimacing in pain while strapped to a gurney and being loaded into an ambulance.
Borkow sat forward in his chair, his naked skin peeling away from the cheap vinyl. He pointed for no one’s benefit. “Hey! Hey! That’s Little Genie. They got Little Genie. Son of a bitch, they got Little Genie!”
Lizzette rolled over onto her side. The satin sheet fell away from her bottom and the tattooed woman on her back stared at him. Odd as it seemed, that woman now resembled the face of Gloria Bleeker glaring at him.
Borkow closed his eyes and shook himself. He looked again. Bleeker disappeared and the resemblance to Twyla returned.
Lizzy muttered, “Huh?”
The TV screen cut away again, this time to a stand-up with a female reporter talking to an overly tanned guy dressed in a cheesy western-cut polyester suit.
Borkow jumped to his feet. “Hey, I know that dude.” He was the guy with that asshole Bruno Johnson, the bailiff. The ones who raided the Grand Orchid. Borkow, his fingers shaking, hit the button on the remote to take off the mute.
The cowboy in the suit, the one who’d flipped off the SWAT team leader, spoke first.
“Members of The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s elite violent crimes team tracked the notorious murderer Sammy Eugene Ray to this location. Ray had escaped from the county jail and was considered armed and extremely dangerous. After a gun battle two blocks south of here, members of the team chased Ray—known on the street as Little Genie—to this location, where he refused surrender. As you can see, he was extremely desperate.”
“Lieutenant Wicks, isn’t it true that one of your detectives shot Sammy Ray twice, once in each leg, and that Sammy Ray was unarmed?”
“I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation. But maybe you didn’t hear me when I said that the man was wanted—listed as armed and extremely dangerous. He was in custody for the murders of four men and—”
“But he’s still going to trial, so isn’t he innocent until proven guilty? Doesn’t that mean your detective shot an unarmed, innocent man in both of his legs?”
“You can spin it any way you want and you usually do. And you have your facts wrong—he’s already been convicted and he got four life terms. But as far as I’m concerned, the proper amount of force was used to effect the arrest. He is back in custody where he belongs and will stand trial for these new killings over on Tenth. Thank you.” He walked away.
“Payaso! Get your ass in here!” Borkow’s demand echoed off the walls of the indoor pool area. Lizzy raised her head and looked around, her hair mussed and her eyes tented.
“Get dressed, babe, we have to roll.”
“Huh?” she said. “Really? Can’t I stay here and sleep?”
“I said get your ass dressed. I’m not going to tell you again.”
Payaso silently appeared at his side, almost as if he’d come through the wall. Borkow jumped. “I wish you wouldn’t keep doing that.” He pointed to the TV. “Did you see this? They got Little Genie.”
“Yes. I warned you it would happen.”
“You warned me that they would get Little Genie so quickly? I don’t remember you telling me anything of the sort.”
Payaso shook his head. “No, I told you that Bruno Johnson doesn’t play games. He’s the real deal.”
“The news just said that cowboy’s team took him down, not Johnson.”
Payaso shook his head again. “No, it was Johnson. He also shot down two of Genie’s men, then chased Genie on foot to that restaurant.”
“How do you know? Never mind. Johnson did all that?”
“The judge shot one of them. Johnson took the other two by himself. Genie was about to get away. Johnson shot him in both his legs to stop him. He’ll be coming for us next. You won’t be safe here much longer. We have to make a move. We need to do it right now.”
“He shot him in both his legs?” Borkow hopped around putting on his pants without bothering with underwear—going commando. He was real careful when he zipped up. “Don’t just stand there, bring the RV around. We gotta make some moves, all right. We’re going to put that big black bastard off his game. He shot Little Genie in both his legs, you believe that shit? He’s not going to shoot me in both my legs, that’s for damn sure. Make a call to that kid. Tell him we’re coming to see him about his girlfriend, now. Right now.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
DAD DIDN’T SAY much on the ride from the hospital to Wilmington Boulevard where I’d left the Ford Ranger. The brooding silence meant he didn’t approve
of something that I had done. I’d left the hospital against doctor’s orders. In Dad’s world, why go to the doctor if you didn’t follow what they recommended? But I sensed that was just the catalyst for a much larger issue.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I might’ve stayed if I didn’t need to talk with Olivia. It’s important.”
“No, you would not have stayed, and with Olivia, it’s nothing that couldn’t wait until you got out of the hospital in a few days. They wanted you to stay. The doctor strongly recommended it.”
I didn’t tell him how Borkow used his granddaughter as a diversion so Borkow could escape from jail. He didn’t need those kinds of worries, that kind of white-hot anger. If I told him, Dad might’ve been mad enough to go against his own edicts, pick up a ball bat and go looking for Borkow on his own. No one messed with Dad’s granddaughter.
“I’m okay, Dad, really. But there is something that needs to be addressed with Olivia right now.”
He nodded and pulled up behind my truck still parked in the same place where the judge had met us hours earlier, just before I made the wrong choice taking the judge and Nicky with me.
“She’s at the house doing homework,” Dad said. “She told me she wanted some time away from you so she could think this through. With all that’s happened, I suggest that you respect her wishes, let things cool off just a little before you talk to her. She’s more mature than you give her credit for. She’s a bright young girl. You did a great job raising her, Bruno.”
A lump rose in my throat, because I hadn’t done a great job, not really, not if she was linked to the likes of Derek Sams and I’d allowed it to happen.
We sat there for a time, both looking out the windshield of his car.
I put my hand on the door latch to exit out of the uncomfortable situation. I didn’t want to leave it like that and didn’t know what else I could say to make him see how I felt about what needed to be done and when to do it.
“Hold it just a minute, would you, Son?”
I let go of the door latch and waited.
He said, “You remember what I always told you and Noble about what’s most important? The one thing in life that makes all the difference, the one thing that means everything, and that tells the most about a man’s character?”
I nodded but still couldn’t look at him.
I felt his eyes on me. When he spoke next, his tone came out lower, more sincere than any time in the last few days, any time in the last six months. “Say it, Son, show me that you know what I’m talking about.”
I swallowed hard. The words to his lesson came out of my mouth by rote. “No matter what the circumstances, always be nice. More important than that, be generous. If you always do those two things, you can never go wrong in life.”
“That’s exactly right. In your job you always followed your heart, you did what you most desired, what you wanted to do, and you were—you are—very good at it. You might even be the best there is. That’s very commendable. But in doing it, you’ve missed out on a lot. I thought that when you transferred to work in the court, you’d finally made the change and had gotten back on the right path.”
I had no idea this was really the way he thought. His words hurt worse than the buckshot cut from my flesh. “Now you’re saying I’m right back to where I was, back in the hunt, a job that lacks all generosity and the ability to be nice to my fellow humans. Is that what you’re saying?”
“What do you think? All those people you chased down, you never had the opportunity to be nice, not once. It’s not your fault. It just wasn’t in the nature of the job. That meant you never had the opportunity to be generous either. Did you? Not that you could. Don’t get me wrong. I understand you did what you had to do and that you were left with no choice. I love you for it. You did accomplish a great deal by taking those bad people off the street. They would have surely hurt others had you not stopped them.”
I didn’t have to reply. We both knew the way all of those events turned out, all the blood and bone. He was right. It was the exact opposite of nice and generous. How could that kind of life not change a person?
“I know,” I said. “I realize that now, being on the hunt all the time, I wasted my chance to live. That’s what you’re really trying to say. I understand that now. I do.”
Sitting there in the car with my dad, reviewing the past events in my life in a flurry of memory, all those images of violence, the smell of gun smoke, the rictus of pain on the faces of the crumpled and captured, pain I’d inflicted on those who’d asked for it, I realized I’d been running hard without letup. That in doing so, I’d been living in a false world, one I’d created in my own mind and at the same time forsaking all else.
In comparison, Dad was a stalwart pillar of the community, a stellar example of what it is to live a healthy and upright life. I had to look at the raw truth about myself. I was beat to hell, shot, and stabbed; my relationship with my daughter in shambles; my daughter, my reputation, and integrity impugned over a relationship, and for what? His words never meant more to me than in that moment. I now understood the magnitude of my error in my life’s chosen path.
Dad was a postman. He was never called upon to move heaven and earth and never would be. He never saved anyone’s life, but what he did do was live a clean and untarnished life, free from moral turpitude. He did it to the best of his ability. At the same time, he did his best to raise two boys in a difficult environment. He did a damn good job with what he had to work with.
He’d always been proud of me for each one of my accomplishments: first becoming a deputy sheriff, passing the strenuous and difficult sheriff’s academy, going to work in the jail, then working patrol on the same streets where I grew up. For all of those things he literally beamed with pride. He told everyone who would listen, and even a few of those who wouldn’t, how proud he was of me.
Then I transferred to the violent crimes team, where I chased violence. I chased death. Things changed. I changed. From that point on, I’d missed my chance at living a life like his. I’d deviated from the path. The job had changed me. The job had changed everything. The worst part about it, the absolute horrible thing about it, was that I couldn’t take any of it back. I had to live with all that I had done, all that I had screwed up. Olivia was the biggest casualty of that error in judgment. Leaving the violent crimes team and taking the job in the courts hadn’t been enough. No matter what, I had to fix my life even if it meant quitting the sheriff’s department.
I was going to quit.
That decision stood out blatant and obvious, a choice without rival. I had tried to leave the life and at the same time keep one foot in by working in the courts. But that hadn’t worked. My past and my ability to run down the violent and morally bankrupt had pulled me back in. If I went back to the courts, it would just happen again. The only way to truly escape that life was to leave it altogether. Maybe I’d apply at the post office.
I definitely would not continue working for Robby Wicks or chasing that morally demented Louis Borkow. Law enforcement would catch up to him soon enough. I needed to let go of my anger. I needed to get back on the right path and retake control of my life.
I would quit the sheriff’s department.
“I really need to talk with her tonight,” I said. “Do you think she’d talk to me on the phone?”
Dad reached over and put his warm hand on my arm. “I can only promise you that I’ll do my best when I ask her.”
“Thanks, Dad. I’ll go back to the apartment and wait by the phone.”
“Good boy. Please, Son, I really want you to rest for the next three days just like the doctor said. Stay in bed. If I can’t get Olivia to talk to you on the phone tonight, I promise I’ll talk her into coming to see you tomorrow.”
“I’ll call Wicks as soon as I get home and tell him I’m out for good.”
“I know how difficult that’s going to be for you. You won’t regret it, Bruno.”
I got out and closed the car
door. The Smith and Wesson automatic hung heavy in the back of my waistband. From leaning back against the seat, the steel frame made an imprint in my flesh. I’d never been so aware of a gun before, the instrumentality of my chosen vocation that had led me astray.
Dad drove off down the street. I watched him go. I had no desire to go back to an empty apartment. I wanted to see my daughter, hug her, and make sure she was okay emotionally over what I had done to Derek. Only I couldn’t, and my subconscious mind had a difficult time trying to understand why I couldn’t.
I got into my truck, pulled an illegal U-turn, and headed for a hot, empty apartment. To wait there alone.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
I DROVE UP and down the street twice looking for a parking spot close to our apartment and didn’t find one. It was too late. Everyone, all the neighbors, were home from work and inside for the night, getting ready for bed, watching prime-time TV.
I parked around the corner, two blocks down at the edge of a manufacturing district, and hoped my truck would still be there in the morning. My body creaked and ached with every step, the pain still not enough to pull me out of the deep depression that stifled and smothered. Olivia needed me, needed my entire focus.
I’d made the decision to leave the sheriff’s department, a job I loved, a job where my fellow deputies, every single one of them, were like family, like brothers.
But who was I trying to kid? It was the job that I’d miss. What scared me the most, though, was that I might be more like Wicks than I wanted to believe, that I’d miss it for the wrong reasons. There isn’t any other job in the world that offers such excitement, such pure emotion.
I was halfway up the walk before I noticed someone sitting on the concrete step at our front door. My hand immediately went to the small of my back and gripped the Smith 9mm.
The person slowly stood, rising out of the shadow and into the haloed streetlight.
Nicky.
