The Replacements

by David Putnam

  Outside, eucalyptus trees whipped by in an endless procession. If only I could somehow escape and get into those trees. I put my face up close to the cold black screen that separated me from the cops and tried to see the MDT, the Mobile Dispatch Terminal, searching for any information that might help me get out of the car. There wasn’t much time. Once inside the jail, all would be lost. Tick-tock. Yards sped by and turned into miles.

  We exited at Etiwanda Avenue. A quarter mile later, we turned into the driveway of The West Valley Detention Center. The tall sally port opened to let us pass into the jail yard. I pivoted in the seat to watch out the back window as the gate rolled behind us and clanged shut with a finality I would never forget.

  The two uniforms got out and stowed their weapons in the trunk of the unit before they both came around, opened the door, and pulled me out. Each held firmly to an arm even though I could go nowhere but through the solid steel door into the jail. I was their prize catch. A murder suspect, a shooter of cops, and they were the captors.

  The one with sandy hair leaned up close to my ear as he stutter-stepped to keep up. “Say good-night, asshole. You’re goin’ away forever.”

  I stopped dead and stared at him. Sandy hair smiled and yanked on my arms. We continued.

  They sat me on the concrete bench and filled out the booking slip and the health screen. I gave them the answers to all their questions by rote. My mind was spinning out scenarios of escape, any kind of plan. I needed to calm down and focus, or I’d be nothing better than a trapped animal banging around in a cage.

  The intake deputy on the other side of the reinforced glass window asked, “You want to make a phone call?”

  A phone call. I could call someone, anyone who might help. But who? The moment, however brief, lingered. There was no one. “No. No phone call, thanks.” Thanks? Why’d I say that?

  I sat on the bench with five other malcontents, all lacking teeth here and there, dirty hair, and reeking of body odor. All waiting to be classified. Street people who’d be better off with a warm place to sleep, a roof over their heads, and three meals a day. Except one, whose clothes, a rumpled disheveled suit that hung off him. His hair was mussed, his eyes watery, the classic drunk driver. He looked right at me from two crooks over and leaned in. “Hey, man, I know you? Sure, I know you. You’re some kinda celebrity, right?” His breath was sweet with bourbon and cherries. A soured ignorance wafted my way.

  “You’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

  “No, no, I never forget a face. I’ve seen you someplace.” He sat back on the bench with a look of consternation as he tried to pull up the memory of my face the thousand times it had been shown on television nine months ago, a featured program on Most Wanted.

  I looked at my wristband. Damn. They’d figured out my real name. They had booked me under the alias Leon Byron Johnson I’d given them, but they must have later found my real name through a CALID fingerprint check. Since they had my real name, the warrant must have popped. I was caught. Booked on a warrant for the murder of my friend Chantal, back from before when we fled the States for Costa Rica. I didn’t do it. My old friend Robby had set me up to take the fall. I was boxed in tight. Robby was the only witness, and he was dead.

  No, don’t think that way. Every problem has an answer. There have to be options.

  I put my head back and closed my eyes. The drunk down the way leaned over. His odor spoke before he did. “Survivor, right? You were on that one in Bali, or some shit. The guy who ate that lizard and got sick, right? Kicked off the island because you ate that lizard. Hey, man, that chick on there, the one with the short red hair, was hot. Did you have a chance to do her? Did you get a crack at that?”

  I couldn’t think with his yammering. I opened my eyes wide and leaned over. “The name’s Bruno Johnson.”

  The smile in his eyes faded first, followed by the one on his mouth, as his alcohol-soaked brain cells kicked in and he put the name to the face. He turned face front and shut his yap.

  Gradually, my mind eased and drifted back to where all this had started. How simple life had been working a cabana bar on the beach. Going home every night to see Marie’s smile, the glow in her eyes, the joy of having the children, the tone in their perfect little laughs and giggles. Then the memories sped up. Images of the last two days came faster and faster in a kaleidoscope of color and pain, emotional and physical. I sat forward. A possibility, a small, ever-so-minute answer, burst to the surface. Sure, sure, that might just work. It had to work, there wasn’t anything else.

  I jumped up. “Hey, I want that phone call now.”

  The custody deputy took me out of the classification holding and into the hall to use the phone. I dialed Barbara Wicks. On the other end her phone rang once. She didn’t pick up. Her phone readout would tell her the jail was calling. She’d have to know the caller was Bruno-the-dumbshit-Johnson on the line. Her phone rang a second time. She didn’t pick up. If she didn’t answer, the weak plan forming in the back of my brain wouldn’t see the light of day.

  Her phone rang again. She picked up, but said nothing. I said, “Hello.” My tone was far too desperate.

  She said nothing.

  “Barbara?”

  She said nothing. Her breathing came over the phone. She’d asked me not to take Mack along. She’d begged me.

  “Barbara, please?”

  More breathing. In the background a PA system paged a doctor. She was at St. Bernadine’s with Mack.

  I said, “I know it’s not fair for me to ask a favor, but I desperately need one.”

  Her voice came over terse and angry. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, Bruno Johnson, calling me after what you’ve done.”

  My face flushed hot. “I have the nerve? Who’s the one who came down to Costa Rica to ask me for a favor? Who had the most to lose?”

  “How dare you throw that back at me,” she yelled. “John’s in surgery right now.” Her voice broke with emotion. “His odds aren’t good. He has internal injuries. He’s bleeding internally.”

  “I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean that to happen.”

  “Didn’t mean that to happen? What exactly did you think was going to happen when you took Karl Drago, a degenerate murderer, into the Sons of Satan clubhouse to commit a robbery?”

  “It was a risk I had to take.” My voice trailed off. She was right. How imbecilic raiding the SS clubhouse for a pot of gold. No, for a golden doughnut.

  “I asked you not to take John with you,” she said in a quieter tone.

  “Wait, Barbara.”

  Her voice again caught with emotion. “He’s in custody, Bruno. He comes out of this alive, he’s going to do time for what happened. He’ll never be a cop again. Being a cop defined him. It’s all he’s ever wanted to do.”

  I gripped the phone, put my head against the wall, and closed my eyes. I knew exactly how that felt. “I’ve really screwed this up, I know, and I have no right to ask you for a favor.”

  “Damn straight, you don’t.”

  “Wait, wait, don’t hang up.”

  Her breath came hard into the phone, but she didn’t hang up.

  “Barbara, Jonas has Marie and Eddie.”

  Her breath caught. “Oh my God. You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have any idea where he’s holding them?”

  “No. Are you going to help me?”

  “You’re in jail on a murder warrant. I told you. You get picked up, there would be nothing I can do for you.”

  “I just need you to make one phone call.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  I sat alone in the holding cell watching the clock. I had told Barbara to tell the US attorney one hour or the deal was off. I didn’t know if what I had to deal was enough, but it was all I had. And I needed them moving fast. One hour ticked by, then another fifteen minutes. I had calculated in the extra time this part would take. The assistant US attorney would want me hungry for the deal; they’d want the extra
power driven home with the emphasis that they were the ones in control. They didn’t know what I had in mind, what I wanted to negotiate with, they just wanted a cop-out, a confession to make their jobs easier.

  At one hour and twenty minutes, the deputy came for me and escorted me to a large, comfortable interview room, not one often used for regular crooks. I sat in a hard plastic chair at a hard plastic table, hands cuffed in front of me.

  I didn’t have one minute to spare. I looked up to the ceiling where there had to be a pinhole camera and said, “No more bullshit games. Get in here right now or the deal’s off.”

  I watched the clock on the wall. The red second hand swept around the dial once. The door opened. Three men and one woman came in, all wearing suits. They didn’t sit down. The men folded their arms and leaned against the wall. The woman said, “Just to be fair, we don’t think you have anything worth trading, not enough to let you go on a murder charge. We are here at the express request of Montclair Chief Wicks.”

  “First off,” I said, “I know you’ve had the time to check out the case that this murder warrant is based on. I didn’t kill Chantal. She was my friend and, if it goes to trial, there is every likelihood that I will walk.”

  I didn’t want to tell her that Robby Wicks, my old supervisor, my friend and husband to Barbara Wicks, had killed Chantal. Any defense put forward would have to put Robby out front, and I didn’t know if I could do that. Even after all that Robby had done.

  One of the men, shorter, stout through the shoulders, wearing a blue suit with gray pinstripes, said, “And there’s the other matter of the kids.”

  Was he now referring to the kids I had taken down to Costa Rica? I had left no evidence behind. They knew about Wally, but not the others, not for sure they didn’t. They only had rumors, supposition, circumstantial evidence. When Robby was alive, Robby had been hunting the children. He and I had played a little game of fox and hounds. I was sure he had told no one. Now that Wally had been reunited with his father, the pressure had come off. What they had was conjecture, speculation, and, most of all, embarrassment for being outsmarted.

  I played dumb. “What kids?” When I said it, I remembered they had me on video putting Jonas in the trunk at the mall. They thought I had the two children, the little girls Jonas had taken, Elena Cortez and Sandy Williams.

  Blue suit said, “Chief Wicks told us you didn’t take those kids. But you did grab Jonas Mabry, and you will have to answer to that if and when we capture him.”

  He had tipped his hand, the first to give up something. I might grow to like him. I looked at him. “FBI or AUSA?”

  He shrugged.

  “Tell us what you have,” said the woman.

  I looked her in the eyes for a long moment, then shifted back to blue suit, where I was getting a little slack. “I know the FBI set up Karl Drago to be killed by the Sons of Satan in order to get a RICO on Clay Warfield.”

  His eyes twitched. He wasn’t ready for such a large serving of truth and reacted with his expression. I had him.

  The woman’s mouth dropped open. She hadn’t known. She wasn’t a Fed. She recovered and said, “Speculation and conjecture. Not enough to trade for a murder charge.”

  I looked back at her. “You’re County, aren’t you? You’re with San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office?”

  She smiled. “Wrong. Los Angeles. Your murder occurred in LA county. And because of all your past crimes, I’ve been instructed not to negotiate with you.”

  “I told you, it’s not my murder. You drove all the way out here not to negotiate with me?”

  She dropped the smile. I looked back at blue suit. “I have enough circumstantial evidence to go to the press with you using Karl Drago as a staked goat.”

  He held eye contact and shrugged. “Do what you have to do.”

  They turned in unison to leave.

  “I can give you Clay Warfield and most, if not all, the SSs in Southern California. I can do it with one predicate crime.”

  They froze and slowly turned back. Blue suit asked, “How?”

  I’d said the magic words. “Ill-gotten gain, proceeds obtained through a criminal enterprise that will also establish tax evasion.” The same thing that took down Capone. I wasn’t handing him a murder and mayhem predicate, but RICO carried a lot of years, and the blue suit would understand that you put enough defendants under that kind of pressure and they will start to roll. The whole SS organization would fall.

  “Where is it?”

  “I need a signed, court-authorized agreement that all charges will be dropped on me and John Mack and Karl Drago.”

  “No, not all charges,” the woman said. “Reduced time only. You are not in any position to negotiate.”

  “And you said you were told not to negotiate at all. You just gave up reduced time.”

  Blue suit pulled a chair out and sat down. He offered his hand. “Special Agent Dan Chulack.”

  I took it and smiled. He’d been the man Barbara called and told that we had recovered Eddie. Chulack was the special agent in charge—the boss. He had not broadcast his authority when he walked in. I liked him that much more.

  “What do you have?” asked Chulack.

  I let go of his hand. “I need a signed agreement first.”

  “You were a deputy, a street cop, and, from what I understand, a very…ah, effective one,” he said. “You know how this works. We don’t jump through a bunch of hoops with a load of legal red tape until we have a proffer that can be validated.”

  “You’re right. I do have a great deal of experience. So here’s the deal, Dan. If I tell you here and now, I give up my leverage. You’ll simply walk out, and I’ll never see you again. So I guess you’re going to have to trust me.”

  “You have evidence?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “There again—”

  “This is absolute bullshit,” the woman said. “We are not going to go along with something this thin. Especially not without an offer of good faith.”

  “I know I don’t have the best reputation but, I promise you, I can deliver to you the SS organization on a silver platter.”

  A gold doughnut platter, anyway.

  Dan looked from her, back to me. “We’ll bring you the agreement and it will be signed, but I won’t hand it over until you give us the information, and then only when that information is deemed satisfactory.”

  “It has to be completed within two hours. I have to be walking out the door in two hours.”

  Dan was getting up and stopped. “That’s impossible. Why two hours?”

  “Jonas Mabry has Eddie Crane, Elena Cortez, and Sandy Williams.”

  He nodded.

  “Jonas also has my wife, Marie. Chief Wicks didn’t tell you?”

  “No, she didn’t. I’m sorry. But what can you do if you get out? This doesn’t make sense. Do you know where she’s being held?”

  “No, and when I get out, I’m going to track Jonas down.”

  I held his eyes a long time.

  Finally he broke, turned, and said to the others, “Let me have a minute.”

  They didn’t argue, but went out and closed the door.

  “You don’t know me, but I am going to ask you to trust me,” he said.

  I hesitated for a second, worried about the room camera. But he wasn’t. I shook my head “no.”

  “Barbara told me what she did, how she flew down to Costa Rica to find you.”

  I sat down. “Is she in trouble?”

  “No, this isn’t going any further than me. This conversation goes no further. I believe everything you’ve told me, and now you’re going to have to trust me. You know how long this kind of thing takes. The contract has to be drawn up, it has to be reviewed by both sides, supervisors then managers have to approve it, and then we have to get a judge to sign off on it. We’ll be lucky to have this deal cut in two days, let alone two hours.”

  He was right. “So what are yo
u asking?”

  “I’m asking you to trust me.”

  “The FBI?”

  “That’s right.”

  He didn’t look away for a long drawn-out moment. “My way is the only way you’ll have a fighting chance at finding your wife.”

  I nodded. “How do you want to do it?”

  “Where is this evidence?”

  “It’s in the clubhouse. There’s proof there that will support a RICO indictment on Clay Warfield and, by extension, all his henchmen.”

  He shook his head. “We hit that place with a warrant two weeks ago and tore it up. We didn’t find anything, and I mean nothing at all. These people are organized. They have attorneys on retainer, they even have a public relations firm looking out for their reputation. They are being repackaged and rebranded as good guys, community leaders.”

  “The evidence is there. You just didn’t know what to look for. It’s there. Get your old warrant and have a judge standing by to sign an addendum. And get me out of here. We go to the clubhouse, hit it, and if I’m right, you let me walk right then and there.”

  “The LA district attorney’s not going to be happy.”

  “You ask me to trust you, now you’ll have to trust me. You let me go, then after I track down Jonas Mabry, I’ll surrender myself to you, and we can complete the paperwork on this little deal while I sit in custody. You have my word on it.”

  “Barbara said you are one of the most honest men she has ever met.” He offered me his hand.

  I took it. A lump rose up in my throat as I recalled that I had promised her I would not take Mack with me, and I had let her down. This was my chance to redeem Mack too.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  The concealed FBI radio speaker under the dash spoke continuously, the voices eager and anxious, setting up the raid I had orchestrated. I sat in the rear of a sleek black Cadillac Escalade with the windows blacked out in reflective limo tint, in a rundown neighborhood with tired houses and weed-filled front yards. Kids rode bikes and skateboards back and forth, waiting for something to happen, trying to peer in. The air conditioner ran on high.