The Replacements

by David Putnam

  “Who’s this Warfield he’s talking about?” asked Marie.

  I didn’t answer her.

  Drago said, “Right, like I’m going to believe you don’t know the president of the Sons of Satan, Southern California.”

  Marie looked at me as I maneuvered the van in a long sweeping turn into the first switchback. She whispered, “Maybe we need to find out how this Warfield figures into this thing.”

  I nodded. “Maybe, but in the end, it’s really not going to matter.”

  Drago said, “Like I’m gonna believe you don’t know Warfield’s a player in all this. Right. And I’m a Jewish pope. If by some crazy quirk of fate you really are dumber than dirt, and really don’t know Clay Warfield, you two are walking dead. That’s all I gotta say. You’re walking dead, and don’t even know it.”

  Drago kept up his verbal barrage until I turned off the asphalt onto the dirt road, then he went silent again. After a few minutes, I felt around for the interior light switch while negotiating the narrowing dirt path. I turned on the interior light. “Look, see if he’s being good.”

  I didn’t want two tons of trouble loose, not even for one second. Marie looked back. “Yeah, but his hands and feet are turning a little purple.”

  “Damn straight,” Drago said, “I’m not gonna tell you again, loosen these up, or when I do get loose, I’m gonna rip both your heads off and shit down your necks.”

  “We’re almost there,” I said, “and if you don’t tell us what we want to know, then it’s not going to matter whether you have feet and hands.”

  “I’ll save you two darkies the trouble. I didn’t give it up in the joint where I was locked up with a thousand assholes all wanting what I got. Think about that a minute. You think you’re going to be any different? You think you’re going to be able to get me to talk? You’re outta your little pea brains. I did twenty-five years in the joint without telling a soul. Don’t you think I don’t know what time it is? That once I tell you, Warfield told you to take me off the board? I’m no dummy. So you better listen, I’m not gonna tell a couple of Beavis and Buttheads like you one damn thing. You understand? I’ll take it to my grave if I have to.”

  Marie pivoted in her seat. “Fair warning then, the trip to your grave’s going to be ugly, painful, and very noisy with all your screams.”

  I leaned over close to her and whispered, “Jesus, Marie, where’s this coming from?”

  She didn’t whisper back. “This pile of dog shit is all that’s standing in the way of rescuing three little children and keeping me from getting home to my kids. Hand me those garden shears.”

  Who was this new Marie? I had gone bad early in life, broke the law, done things I regretted more and more as I got older. I came back from that place and improved my life. To think Marie was headed down a similar road made me ill. We had to get this thing done and over before she lost that innocence I held so dear. Before it became too late to turn back.

  The van bounced as I went around the metal arm that blockaded the fire road. The headlights illuminated the ‘No Trespassing’ sign. One of my cell phones buzzed. I checked. Mack. I didn’t want to talk to him. He could add nothing to what was about to happen. Something I no longer had the stomach for, especially not with my Marie present. Jonas proved that much when I had him out in the same place earlier. Stuck now, we had no choice, and had to play this scenario all the way out. The lack of options made me irritable. I stopped in the exact same place as before and shut off the van. With mountains all around, the darkness closed in. I couldn’t help thinking that we were trapped in a metal box with a wild animal, and I welcomed the opportunity to get out.

  Drago went quiet again in anticipation of the upcoming trauma to his body.

  I focused and turned my voice serious. “Last chance, tell us where you hid the money, and we’ll let you go.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I was unable to move from the van. Drago wasn’t going to make this easy. I didn’t want Marie to see what had to be done to save the children. I couldn’t help thinking that Drago had been only eighteen, hardly more than a child, when he had committed the armored car robbery and killed the guard. Now, twenty-five years later, he lay in the back of the van, a dangerous product of our rehabilitation system. We’d failed Drago and society twice, once in child welfare, and once in the penal system. The same as Jonas Mabry.

  I left Marie in the passenger seat and got out. Without a moon and no ambient city lights here in the mountains, we were in pure darkness. My skin itched with the thought of other Karl Dragos loose in the world.

  I opened the back doors. Drago didn’t move. I pulled out the dirk and slit the cord binding his ankles. His legs fell apart and he moved them to get back circulation.

  “Come on, slide out.”

  He rolled over on his side and tried to inch out the back, difficult with his oversized belly, like a worm that had swallowed a Volkswagen Beetle. I reached in, took hold of his cold, bloated foot, and pulled, really putting my back into it. The man didn’t budge.

  “I think the only way this is gonna work is if you cut me loose,” he said.

  Marie appeared at my side. “Honey, I think he’s right, otherwise we’d need a crane.”

  I slid open the side door and showed Drago the Glock. “I will shoot you, you understand?”

  “No you won’t, darkie. I know what you want, and you won’t get the money if you do something stupid like that. You won’t get the money for your little shit-assed kids. I heard you talking. You two are a couple of real tools. Cut me loose and let’s talk turkey.”

  I didn’t move. The 9mm Glock was large enough to drop a normal-sized running man, but might only piss off Drago. If I had to shoot him, I needed something larger, something more on the order of a Sharps .50-caliber buffalo rifle.

  “Come on, man, cut me loose and let’s get to negotiating. I needed some help to pull off what I got in mind anyway. I’ll cut you two in for twenty-five percent. Twenty-five percent, that’s more than fair.”

  How could we possibly align ourselves with the likes of Karl Drago?

  Marie sensed the dilemma, gently put her hand on my shoulder, and with her other hand, took the dirk. She leaned in and cut Drago’s hands loose.

  “Ah, Jesus, that burns like a thousand fire ants eatin’ my skin. It’s on fire, I tell ya.” He stayed on the floor of the van, rubbing his wrists. “Can’t say that I blame you, it’s a lot of dough we’re talking about here. If you’re not working for Clay, then you’re just a couple of freelance operators. Okay, I get it.”

  I walked backwards to the rear of the van, keeping Marie behind me. We waited. I held the Glock at my side, prepared to raise it and dump all fifteen rounds in the magazine, center mass, right into his chest where his heart should be. If he had one.

  Drago struggled up to his hands and knees and backed out of the van, bringing with him the pile of litter. Bottles and paper wrappers rattled and fell to the ground. The dark washed out all color, turning everything to different shades of grays and blacks. Drago blotted out the van’s dark shape. His white-gray skin glowed, his eyes recessed in shadow, as he continued to rub his wrists. An ironic sight in his striped boxers. Had he not been so dangerous, he would have looked ridiculous.

  “That took some real balls to grab me right under the nose of those Feds,” he said.

  Quick as a cat, he leapt at us.

  I brought the gun up and fired, hitting him in the thigh. Marie yelped. Drago tumbled and rolled in the dirt as we backed away.

  “You shot me. You son of bitch, you shot me.”

  I pulled Marie under my arm and held her there. She had never seen anyone shot. Sure, at the hospital she’d witnessed the aftermath, but that was different. Never right in front of her. Who could be prepared for the way the violence snapped? I was saddened for her, and again wished she had not been there to witness the unwelcome actions of the lowest sub-level of man.

  She shivered. I hugged her hard for a lon
g second, let go, and moved over to Drago. “Now, you ready to tell me what I want to know, or is the ‘tool’ standing here over you going to have to shoot you in the foot, in the shin, in the knee? Well, you get the idea.”

  He groaned and rolled back and forth. “Who are you, man? You’re some kinda cold-hearted, black demon-asshole.” He quick rolled toward me. His bloody hand reached out for my leg to pull me down. I jumped back and raised the Glock, taking aim at his foot.

  Marie yelled, “Bruno, no.”

  I jumped back, pulling Marie out of reach with me.

  Drago laughed. “I can see who wears the pants in—”

  I shot a round next to his face. The bullet kicked up little rocks and dirt, peppering his skin. He flipped away, both hands to his face. “Jesus, are you crazy? Shit, are you outta your mind? You tried to shoot me in the head.”

  “If I wanted to shoot you in the head, you’d be dead right now. Where’s the money?”

  “Okay, okay. We can’t get it until tomorrow.”

  “Not we, Drago.”

  He pulled his hands down from his bloodied face, his smile wide and scary. “You won’t have a chance getting that money unless you take me along. Trust me on this one.”

  “Why not?” asked Marie.

  “Because I hid it someplace, and it’s going take all three of us to get to it.”

  I kept quiet. Marie did better with him, so I let her talk. “Where?”

  “The Southern California clubhouse for the Sons of Satan.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Marie foraged around in the van and found a dirty Black Sabbath t-shirt. I tossed it to Drago, who sat on the bumper at the back of the van and tied up his thigh. The bullet had passed right through the tattoo of Jesus’ praying hands and missed the bone. He had an overabundance of thigh flesh to spare. He’d lost a lot of blood, but he didn’t look any more pasty for the loss.

  “Why tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Oh, no. We have to get the ground rules straight first.”

  I waved the Glock. “If you haven’t figured it out, the only ground rules are the ones I make. And I’ll make them as I see fit.”

  “No chance, it’s not going to work that way. We work a deal right now, or you can go back to shootin’ and torturing.”

  “We know where the money is now,” said Marie.

  “Good luck with that.”

  “So I’ll ask you one more time, why tomorrow?”

  “Seventy-thirty split. I’m the seventy, because I put in twenty-five years of my life waitin’ for it. And what, you got about two minutes invested?”

  “How can we make a deal with you?” asked Marie. “The first chance you get, you’re going to try and hurt us again. You’ve already tried twice.”

  “Ask your man here why. He knows. I can tell he knows. He’s been to the joint. I can smell it on him. In the joint there’s a code we live by. I give you my word, I’m good for it.”

  Marie looked at me for confirmation. I nodded. “That’s true to a point.”

  “I give you my word, it’s my bond. You can ask anyone.”

  “Fifty-fifty,” Marie insisted.

  I waved the gun. “We’re not here to negotiate. That’s ridiculous. The amount’s not going to matter. We need what we need to trade for the children. We don’t need any more than that. So it doesn’t matter what the split is.”

  “You’re telling me you don’t care about the money for yourselves? Is that right?”

  “That’s correct,” Marie said.

  “And you’re doing this only to help out some little shit-assed kids?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. What’s up with these kids? What do you need the money for?”

  “Someone from my husband’s past is trying some sort of revenge thing and has kidnapped three children,” she said. “He won’t give them back until we give him the money.”

  “Some piece of shit has kidnapped your kids? I wouldn’t give him any money. I’d cut his nuts off and stuff them—”

  “They’re not our kids.”

  “Wait, they’re not your kids, and you’re doing all of this for someone else’s kids?”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  Drago thought about that for a moment. “How much does this piece of shit want?”

  “A million.” The number came out low and without confidence. The amount sounded beyond absurd.

  “A million dollars for three kids, are you shittin’ me?”

  How had our forward momentum been derailed and degenerated to talking our problem over with this prince of humanity?

  “You don’t have the million, do you?” asked Marie.

  Drago looked at me, then at Marie. He offered his hand to me, splotched with his drying blood, and held my gaze. Blood-borne pathogens came to mind again, but I didn’t look away.

  “You shake with me and make a deal before I go any further,” Drago said. “Before I tell you any more.”

  “Don’t do it—don’t get that close to him,” Marie said.

  Drago didn’t move, didn’t say anything, and continued to stare.

  “What’s the deal?” I asked.

  “Bruno Johnson,” warned Marie. “You get close to him and I’ll—”

  Drago’s mouth dropped open. “You’re Bruno Johnson? You’re the Bruno the Bad Boy Johnson?”

  I wanted to look away, ashamed at my reputation, but continued to hold his gaze. “That’s right.”

  “You did a couple of bullets up at San Quentin on B block.”

  I nodded. “No, only a year, then was transferred down to Chino.”

  “Yeah, yeah, but you’re the guy. You’re the guy who killed his son-in-law for killing your grandson, am I right? You’re the guy who saved all those kids in Los Angeles. You’re a friggin’ legend, my man. You go to prison now, you’ll reign as king. It might almost be worth it to go back to the joint for something like that.”

  In prison, and on the street, all criminals live by a code with few rules. Anything goes as far as crime, robbery, murder, and even mayhem. All except one. You don’t mess with children. You don’t harm or molest them, or you are automatically sought out and killed. And, if you, as a prison inmate, as a non-K-Nine, a non-keepaway, have the opportunity to kill a “baby raper” and don’t, then you, too, are marked for termination. That’s why “baby rapers”—the K-Nines—are kept segregated, lumped all together and kept away from the general population. Anyone who took aggressive action against those degenerates by enforcing that rule was considered a hero.

  Drago held out his hand with sincere vigor. “I don’t usually hold with no nig—I mean, well, you know what I mean, man. But I still want to shake your hand, bro.”

  I needed something from him, so I handed the Glock to Marie and stepped in close, bracing for the worst. He took my hand and shook it, strong and unyielding. Power and strength emanated from this guy, the most formidable person I’d ever come across. I would not stand a chance empty-handed against him. Not one chance in hell.

  He let go. “Okay, here’s the deal. You help me get the money, and then I’ll help you get the kids back.”

  “That’s not going to work,” I said. “We need the money as flash—”

  “There’s not enough money, is there?” Marie asked again.

  I stepped back with Marie. Drago looked at her, then back at me. He shook his head.

  “How much is there?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “We’ve gone through all of this and you don’t even know?”

  He shook his head again.

  Marie lowered her tone, just as scared as I was, her voice cracked. “How much did you get away with in the robbery?”

  If this plan wasn’t going to work, what other option did we have? I started thinking about how we could get him tied up again, and dropped off where the FBI could babysit him; keep an eye on him for the sake of the public’s well-being. A lion loose amo
ng the lambs. Or a hyena.

  “Three hundred thousand,” Drago said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  In the joint, I had lived with lots of guys like Drago and had learned to get along with them, even got to like some of them. I needed to keep in mind that Drago had killed an armored car guard for the money we were now trying to obtain. Tainted money. Blood money. Drago fit the worst category of animal I used to chase while on the Violent Crimes Team. And yet here, I had begun to trust him, just a little. A bad move on my part? Even so, three hundred thousand dollars put in with cut-up paper might be enough to flash to Jonas Mabry. That much flash, presented properly, might give us just enough time. After all, Mabry’s main objective was to get me to commit robbery and violent crimes, to further tarnish my moral compass, to get me put away in prison forever. His goal was now semi-accomplished by me kidnapping and shooting Karl Drago.

  “Three hundred thousand is not nearly enough,” Marie said.

  “Why tomorrow?” I asked. “Tell me why this caper has to be tomorrow.”

  Drago nodded. “Like I said, I stashed it in the clubhouse, and tomorrow there’s a local ride, the June ride for Toys for Tots. All the clubs in SoCal gather toys for the halfway point in the year. They do it again in December for the publicity, for all the TV cameras. Along with the toys from the June ride, they double up and look like stars, real pillars in the community. Bunch of bullshit.”

  “So the Sons of Satan clubhouse will be empty tomorrow?”

  “Sort of, I guess.”

  Marie, with her clenched fists down at her side, took a step toward him. “Sort of? Sort of? It is or it isn’t, mister. Which is it?”

  “Ooh, girl, you need to take a chill pill.” He smiled, trying to get her to smile back. When she didn’t, he said, “They’re never gonna leave the clubhouse unmanned. Never. There’ll be a couple or three prospects and a couple old heads to supervise.”