The Ruthless

by David Putnam

  I called him and he came running. I filled his food and water bowls, then went in to take a much-needed shower. He followed my every step. Lately, I’d been too busy to give him the attention he deserved. He needed a home with children to run him ragged. He’d been great with Albert and Alonso, my twin grandsons.

  The shower never felt better, and I ran the water heater out of hot water. I got dressed in a clean pair of denim pants and a khaki shirt with patches that said TransWorld Freightliners and Karl. I stomped on my heavy black work boots and laced them up. I headed for the front door when fatigue again took hold and tried to drag me back to the bed.

  The phone rang.

  I didn’t know where Dad had gone. It had to be one of his friends on the phone. No one ever called me anymore. I answered it.

  Harry Dolan, a newspaper reporter, said, “Hey, Bruno, I missed you in court today.”

  “How’s it going, Harry? Yeah, I ran into one of life’s little complications.”

  “I know how that is, but with you to miss this show, it had to be a helluva complication.”

  During my two years as bailiff in Judge Phillip Connors’ courtroom, I’d met and befriended Harry who worked the crime beat. Compton court had more than enough crime to keep him busy. He gave Derek Sams’ case a little extra attention for my benefit.

  “Maybe I’ll tell you about it someday.”

  “I’m always looking for a good story. Do you know why they recessed the Sams case today? I asked the DA, and he gave me the high-hat routine.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  This new information meant I no longer had to hurry to court. My body relaxed all on its own and allowed fatigue to take first priority and start to cloud my thoughts.

  “You know as well as I do, those kind of things happen all the time. I’ll call a friend of mine in the court and find out. If its anything out of the norm, I’ll ring you back. Thanks for the call.”

  “You got it, Bruno. Will I see you in court tomorrow?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  I hung up and dialed Esther, who worked for Judge Connors in a different court than the Sams trial. The phone rang and rang. That was odd; she ate her lunch at her desk and always answered during business hours. Even with court in session, I’d seen Esther lower her head, cup her hand over the phone, and whisper. Connors’ court must be dark for the day. I started to dial Connors’ home and changed my mind.

  I looked around for Junior and found him sleeping on Olivia’s bed. We had not touched her room; it remained the same as she left it the day she died six months ago. Junior missed her too.

  Seeing Junior on O’s bed made me realize I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I left Dad a note on the kitchen table. Junior, sensing I was leaving, ran and stood by the door. He liked going along. “All right, but this time you better mind your manners. No biting the bad guys, you understand?” He turned his head sideways as if trying to understand. We went out, got in my truck, and headed for TransWorld Freightliners in Lakewood. Another reason I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I needed to explain to my boss about the three thousand dollars in my pocket.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  OUT OF INSTINCT and habit I drove in and around TransWorld Freightliners checking for people or cars I’d recognize, checking for a threat. Looking for furtive people, the dregs of society who skulked about looking for a target of opportunity. The possibility of an attack from an angry customer remained foremost on the minds of everyone who worked at TW. According to James Barlow, “TransWorld is a septic tank that draws in every turd from miles around.” Based on this analogy, Barlow, a man who never missed a Sunday prayer meeting, referred to the people we dealt with as “Brown Trout, who had the inalienable right to be flushed.”

  Junior Mint sat up on the front seat of my Ford Ranger, his eyes on full alert as if he, too, knew the dangers that lurked around every corner. I continued to make my usual circuit of all the buildings in the complex.

  Barlow’s Harley Davidson Softail Deluxe sat around back of TW in the same place he always parked.

  TW, a storefront operation, was buried deep in a light industrial area of Lakewood and didn’t sport any signage other than a stenciled name painted in red above the smoked double glass doors in front. The back door was kept heavily barred, and no one was allowed to use it.

  TW sat at the far end of a cul-de-sac and had CCT cameras that covered the approach of all cars and pedestrians. Even so, I always played it safe. It was better to handle a problem when it was small rather than wait until it spun out of control, something Dad pounded into my head from a young age.

  Without a word of advertising, TW depended exclusively on word of mouth for business. If the good people of Lakewood knew about us, they would raise “holy hell and we’d all be looking for a new job,” this also according to Barlow, our boss, who went by the street name Black Bart. That’s why we kept our presence on the down low.

  I didn’t mind walking in from two or three or even four blocks out. I parked the Ford Ranger under a magnolia tree at the side of B and R Plastics, a factory that made ballpoint pen bodies, key chain fobs, and their bread-and-butter item, a variety of bobblehead dolls that mounted on car dashboards or in back windows. I parked in a different spot each time, always someplace in the same industrial park. I didn’t want my truck to be associated with TW’s criminal enterprise. After Friday’s arrest and incarceration, my choice to join TW was turning out to be a bigger mistake than I had anticipated.

  I walked a block on the sidewalk and cut in, moving down the asphalt access through the long concrete tilt-up buildings. Junior stayed at my side without a leash. He wanted to run off and sniff the shrubs and walls and fire hydrants. Every time his curiosity got the better of him and he’d veer off, I’d say, “Junior.” He’d come right back to my side.

  The big roll-up door to Sparkle Plenty, a place that customized chrome for antique car bumpers, car trim, and anything else people wanted chromed, stood open to let out the heat from the liquid metal vats inside. Leonard Martinez Jr., the owner’s son, waved. “Hey, Karl, wait up a second.” He came out and hurried to catch up.

  Junior let go with a low growl. He possessed an inborn crook alert that had not been wrong yet.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. But I knew, and I didn’t want to have this conversation. Leo wore all black tattoos on his arms and neck, the kind obtained almost exclusively in the joint. If I wanted to play the odds, I’d bet money he was still on parole. His dad, Leo Senior, a helluva nice guy, made him show up for work every day whether he picked up a tool or not. He just wanted to keep an eye on his son, to keep him out of trouble.

  “Hey, can you stop for a second? I need to talk to you.”

  “Sorry, man, I’m late for work.”

  Leo followed along in quickstep. He looked back twice to the open bay door to his dad’s business. He licked his lips, his tongue was dry and caked, and his body hummed with anxiety. All subtle symptoms of a casual meth user, one who stood on the razor edge ready to take the final plunge into full-on tweaker.

  “Hey, ah … word on the street is that you guys over at TransWorld buy guns and the like and—”

  I stopped and rounded on him. “Go back to work, Leo. You don’t want any part of what I’m buying over the counter at TW.”

  “So it’s true?”

  I tried to think of a way around the problem while Black Bart’s voice boomed in my head: “We buy from any and all Brown Trout that swim our way, no exceptions. You hear me? None, zero. You turn someone down, the word goes out, and it’ll ruin our reputation. And in this business, reputation is everything.”

  “What do you got?” I reached down and took hold of Junior Mint’s collar so he wouldn’t lose his cool and bite Leo. Two weeks earlier, he’d bit a skinny black guy named Trunk, who Nigel had brought into TW to sell a gun. Trunk didn’t ask permission before he pulled the Desert Eagle .44 from under his Raiders football jersey. Bad manners on his part that could’ve gotten him kil
led. Before anyone could stop him, Junior Mint leapt and took hold of Trunk’s arm. Twenty-seven sutures later, Black Bart said Junior Mint was no longer allowed out in front of the counter. For morale purposes, he stopped short of complete banishment; everyone in TW loved Junior Mint.

  Leo once again looked down the row of businesses to the open bay of Sparkle Plenty to see if his dad had noticed him missing, and then back at me. “I might have a few guns.”

  “What are they and how did you get them?” Parolees and ex-cons weren’t allowed to possess any type of firearm.

  “Let’s just say … that … well, you know, I found them abandoned in an alley.” He winked at me. He’d taken them in a residential burglary to supplement his income and support his drug habit.

  “What exactly did you find in this alley?”

  “I can bring ’em over tonight after work. You going to be open late?”

  “We can be. Handguns, rifles, what?”

  “Yeah, some of each.”

  “How many?”

  “Twenty pistols and eleven rifles. How much do you think I can get for them?”

  “We’d have to see them first, but I’m going to tell you up front; if they’re hot, you’re not going to get anywhere close to wholesale value.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it. Gimme a guess? Ballpark?” His eyes glowed with greed.

  “Fifty each for the rifles and seventy-five for the handguns. Was anyone hurt when you found these guns in the alley?”

  His mind spun trying to do the math in his head.

  “Around two grand,” I said, to save him from having part of his brain blow out his ear from the effort.

  “Two grand, huh?” He licked his lips again. “You know the going rate on the street is two hundred each. I can get more on the street.”

  “Then why are you talking to me?” I took a step to leave. He took hold of my arm. Junior let loose with a soft rumble. I’d low-balled Leonard on purpose. I really didn’t want his father going through the kind of pain his son’s poor judgment would cause.

  “Can you do a little better?”

  “Not up to me, it’s up to my boss. Was anyone hurt?”

  “What? Nah, nothing like that, it’s all cool.”

  “Come around about eight tonight, and we’ll fix you up.”

  He took my hand to shake. Junior growled and lunged at him. I pulled him back and told him no. I said to Leonard, “I have to get to work. See you tonight.”

  “Yeah. Hey, Karl, don’t say anything to my dad, okay?”

  I just stared at him. I couldn’t imagine what it would do to my dad if I’d committed a burglary, stolen a bunch of guns, and sold them for dope. Dad wouldn’t say a thing, but the look in his eyes would have the same effect as a Mack truck falling on me.

  “I’ll catch ya later, Leo.” I tugged Junior around and we headed for TW. I could feel Leo’s eyes on my back until I made the turn in between the buildings.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I CAME OUT in front of TW, opened the door, and entered. Rodney Davis stood behind the counter. He went by the nickname RD while working TW. “Hey, Karl. You’re late. Bart wants to see you ASAP. Hey, Junior, come here, boy.”

  I let go of Junior, who took off running. He rounded the corner of the counter and tackled RD. I stepped over them and went into the back, past the break room that opened to a huge warehouse area with rows and rows of cheap gray shelving, eight feet high, that contained every kind of used and new household item: power tools, TVs, stereos, silverware, you name it. Even a couple of banged-up yard gnomes. Their eyes seemed to follow me as I walked by. Against one wall of the warehouse stood a row of seven gun safes, all purchased at the same time, all with the same combination. Three stolen cars sat in the bay close to the roll-up back door: a Honda Civic, a Dodge minivan, and a shiny new yellow Corvette with Arizona plates.

  Black Bart spied me from his open office door. “Karl, get your shabby black butt in here.”

  “Yes, sir.” I entered and closed the door. The burly James Barlow never shaved or cut his shaggy black hair and looked more like Chewbacca’s long-lost brother than a D-3 from LAPD. He could burn right through a person with his wet brown eyes. A scar peeked out the top of his beard on the right cheek, the end result of a broken beer bottle in a Pacoima bar fight when he wore a uniform. He had knuckles the size of quarters and was one person I never wanted to go up against—not without something long and heavy in my hand. Even then, maybe not.

  “You got yourself arrested in a G-ride?”

  “Sorry, boss.”

  “What did I tell you? That arrest could’ve gone a lot different. You know that, don’t you? You could be in the hospital right now, but I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Where would I be without my best field man?”

  I sat in the chair in front of his desk and held up the flat of my hand. “I know. I said I was sorry. It won’t happen again. Nigel was too loaded for me to let him drive. He’d have piled up the Monte for sure. I didn’t know he’d bring a hot ride to our meet, and I couldn’t leave it there.” Bart didn’t know about my meeting with the PI. That was strictly personal business conducted on company time.

  Black Bart eased back in his chair; the butt-chewing portion of the meeting was over. “Get me the report on your version of what happened ASAP, and I’ll have the DA do a no-file. But I can’t get the record in CII expunged until—”

  “I know all of that. I knew the risks when I signed up for this detail. It’s just the cost of doing business.”

  Nobody could know about TransWorld. The storefront acted as a criminal magnet drawing in the bad guys like moths to a flame. The city of Lakewood would be furious if they knew. If word ever did get out that TransWorld Freightliners was a front for a sting, all of our time and the federal grant money would be wasted.

  Cops, probation, and parole officers were the worst gossips, so they, too, were left out of the loop. The edict for all personnel involved in the sting—no exceptions—was that nobody was to know, not even wives or family or best friends. If one person slipped and word got out, it would spread around the street in a nanosecond.

  “Enough said on that point. Now onto the only stuff I really care about, the money. RD says you checked out three grand. You have chits to cover that amount? I told you, I need to know about it before you take it out.”

  I reached into my pocket, pulled out the envelope, and tossed it on his desk. “It’s short fifty. I had to get a ride back from the jail. I needed the money for flash on a gun deal.”

  He eyed me, opened his desk drawer, raked the envelope in, and closed it. He wanted in the worst way to do a count. I could see it in his demeanor, but out of good leadership, he’d wait until I wasn’t present.

  “Fifty’s pretty heavy for a ride home from the jail.”

  I shrugged.

  “Chit it and I’ll approve it.”

  “Thanks, boss.”

  If the PI behind the Crazy Eight had taken the money, we’d have been having an entirely different conversation. Didn’t matter. I was willing to risk it to find out where Social Services had placed my grandson Alonzo. He didn’t need to be in someone else’s home being raised by people he didn’t know. An absolutely horrible situation I needed to rectify one way or another.

  Black Bart leaned back and put his heavy black motorcycle boot up on the desk, and for the hundredth time, I wondered what the people of his church thought of him looking the way he did. I wanted to hear the wild explanation he gave them as to what he did for a living looking like an escaped black bear from a zoo.

  He said, “Nigel give up his big gun connection he keeps bumpin’ his gums about?”

  “He was taking me there when two of your brothers in blue pulled us over and ruined our weekend.”

  “Excellent. Get Nigel back online and let’s set up a deal with his connect.”

  “Nigel says this Jumbo took off a train car loaded with government M4 rifles and 9mm pistols. Said there was literall
y a ton of the stuff.”

  Black Bart brought his leg down and came forward, his eyes going larger than normal. I had never seen him get excited about anything. “You’ve got to be kiddin’ me? That kind of deal will put us on the map.” He waved his hand. “It’ll make all this other stuff we’ve done look like child’s play.”

  “Not to mention taking a butt-load of guns off the street.”

  “Yeah, that too.” He pulled a notepad over and started writing. “Did he say where and when this heist went down? Never mind, there can’t be too many. If this isn’t pure braggadocio then it’s probably the only one of its kind. This is big, Karl, my friend. This is huge.”

  “If it’s true, we’re not going to have enough money to flash for the buy bust, not for a deal this large.”

  Black Bart waved his hand as he continued to write. “If I can confirm this, it won’t matter. We can get ATF to come in and front us the bread we need. I just have to make a few phone calls. You go find Nigel and make nice with him.”

  “If I treat him nice, he’s going to know something’s up.”

  “I don’t care then, slap him around, just do what you do best and get him to intro you to this Jumbo dude. Also, get RD to work on identifying Jumbo.”

  I got up and opened the door. “I don’t like the idea of the feds coming in on this. It’ll be harder to keep Nigel out of it. I won’t put Nigel up front.”

  “I’ll do the best I can on Nigel, you know that.”

  “I know you will.” I turned to go.

  “Bruno?”

  I turned. Black Bart was death on maintaining our cover names, so him calling me by my real name caused my back to stiffen. “Yeah, boss?”

  “I heard about Wicks coming to see you in the can. That wasn’t right, what he said to you.”

  I said nothing and stared at him. The boys in blue had a serious pipeline for underground information.

  “I know how hard that was not to tell him about this operation. I just want you to know I appreciate it.”