The Ruthless

by David Putnam

  “Wait.”

  Johnny Sin hesitated. He looked back over the roof of the VW and said, “Deal’s off. Go on back to your slum bar, get blind-assed drunk, and pick the nits off each other, for all I care.” He stuck his leg in, about to enter the car.

  “Wait!”

  I hurried down the sidewalk along the businesses in front of the cars and took a chance. I put my gun back in my waistband as a sign of good faith. I stopped at the left front fender of the VW, less than a car length away. The door to the Vee-dub between us acted as a shield for him.

  Johnny Sin didn’t look anything at all like I’d last seen him. He’d made a stunning transformation. I could only recognize his lips and cheekbones, and that was if I were looking for a disguise.

  Johnny Sin bumped his chin up. “I said the deal’s off, asswipe. Now back away or I’ll pump a lead pellet into your belly.”

  I held up my hands. “I don’t come back with this deal, my boss is going to have my head on a platter.”

  “Not my problem—” He lifted his sunglasses to see better and read the embroidered nameplate on my work shirt—“Karl.” He said it “Karrral.” Then he muttered, low and almost inaudible, “Never knew a Negro with a name like Karrral. Especially Karrral with a K.”

  He was definitely a Caucasian with a dark tan but moved and talked like an African American.

  I pulled out a wad of cash, five grand I’d signed for with RD the night before at TW, money to use as flash for this deal. Black Bart didn’t know about it and wouldn’t have approved.

  I’d just violated an important rule in an undercover deal. You never flash money without having the appropriate backup; the more the money, the more the backup. With five grand I was short about five knuckle-dragging cops. “Here. See. I can prove I’m serious about this deal. There are stacks more where this came from. I’m talkin’ stacks.” I raised my hand to indicate a stack four feet off the ground.

  Johnny Sin let his sunglasses back down, eased the Vee-dub’s door closed, and stood ready, trying to decide. He licked his lips as if hungry and looked all around checking out the parking lot for witnesses.

  Now he was thinking about ripping me for the money. He pulled his chrome automatic and was about to take a step closer. I was caught if I tried to pull my gun now; he’d shoot me dead before I got the chance. I’d made a big mistake and was about to pay for it. Johnny Sin was going to shoot me and take the five grand. Why wouldn’t he? I’d acted like a complete fool—too anxious to make the deal and had thrown caution to the wind in order to get all those guns off the street.

  To my right, the door to the pawnshop opened. Out stepped a huge outlaw motorcycle gang member wearing a black leather jacket with too many zippers that gleamed in the sun, heavy black steel-toed boots, and a mess of black bushy hair and beard. His eyes were covered with dark sunglasses. Down by his leg he held an illegal cut-down double-barreled shotgun no more than ten inches long, a devastating weapon at close range.

  Black Bart.

  I wanted to kiss him.

  Johnny Sin stopped. “Who’s this?”

  “Never mind who he is. You interested in the deal, or aren’t you?”

  “Not with the likes of you two.”

  Black Bart said nothing and just stood there.

  “You change your mind,” I said, “there’s plenty more of this”—I held up the wad of cash—“and you’re not going to find a better deal on the street for what you’re selling. Ask around, but I think you already have.”

  He opened the Vee-dub door. “Not on your life, pal.”

  “You can find us at TransWorld Consolidated Freight over in Lakewood.”

  He got in, started up, backed out, and took off. I let go a huge sigh of relief. I turned to thank Black Bart. He’d not said a thing and had walked over to his Harley. He kick-started it and roared away. He wasn’t usually so unsociable. He was mad about the money because I hadn’t asked first. This after he’d just admonished me again about it the day before. And probably about doing a flash without backup. I’d hear about it for sure.

  To top it off, I’d cheesed the gun deal of the century.

  Terrific.

  Nigel came out the back door of the Crazy Eight being towed by Junior. All Nigel could do was hold on. “Bad news,” Nigel said. “When your dog here about toppled over that cooler he broke a ton of bottles and Dez is not happy.”

  I peeled off a hundred from the wad and handed it to him as I took the leash. “Here, go pay for it and be sure to get a receipt.”

  He took the proffered hundred, his eyes still on the wad in my hand. “Man, that’s some load of green you got there. Whattaya say you and me go party? I know a place where—”

  “I’m not in the mood. I just blew the deal with Johnny Sin. My boss is going to be mad as hell. I’m guessing he’s going to fire me.”

  He waved his hand. “Pshaw, Johnny’s a badass for sure, but he’s just a flunky like you and me. I talked with Jumbo just now on the phone inside the bar, he’s the main man.” He hooked his thumb back over his shoulder. “He still wants to do the deal. He’ll be at TW at midnight to talk price and to set up the exchange. But I’m warning you right now, he wants to see the color of your money, and you better be up front about this, because I’m tellin’ you, these guys are not to be messed with.”

  I smiled hugely and peeled off five hundreds. I started to hand them over to Nigel and realized that, if I did, he’d disappear for days, using dope until the money ran out. “Here’s a bonus for getting me out of the doghouse with my boss.” He grabbed for it. I pulled it back out of his reach. “You can have it after the meeting tonight.”

  “Okay, okay, so this is over and above the two grand you promised me, twenty-five hundred total, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cool beans.” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “This is really working out, Karl. Man, am I glad I ran into you six months ago.”

  I loved to see the gleam in his eyes, the way he spoke about our friendship and yet I couldn’t help thinking about the end of the sting when that friendship would come to a screeching halt. He’d hate me like no one has ever hated me before. My only consolation was that time in prison away from the dope might straighten him out, give him a chance to get his life back on track. It was a weak justification; true friends didn’t betray each other.

  When I first came to TW, I asked Black Bart about this unfortunate conundrum, how we worked so hard to gain the trust and friendship of people, when all along we planned to double-cross them and steal away years of their lives by putting them in concrete boxes with steel bars. He’d simply said, “That’s the life we chose, as did they.”

  From that day forward, every time Nigel smiled at me, as did they echoed in my mind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I HAD SOME time to kill. I didn’t want to go back to TW and confront an angry Black Bart. Not right away. Let him cool down a little first. I had again left my cell phone at home. I wasn’t used to carrying one and didn’t know if I ever would be. With each passing day, more and more of the phone booths along the streets disappeared, and I’d eventually be squeezed into remembering to carry mine.

  I needed to make a call. From the back seat of the Kadett, I took out a red banner that read “Service Dog” in white letters on the side. I strapped it around Junior’s middle. It was meant for a smaller dog and looked a little ridiculous on him. I went in the back of the Crazy Eight with Junior Mint on the leash. Ledezma stood at his open cooler. He stopped what he was doing, gingerly placing broken bottles in an empty box as beer foam rolled off the ledge and onto the floor. At his feet sat a bucket with gray soapy water and a dirty rag hanging over the rim. “No, Karl. Not this time. Get that damn dog outta here. I mean it, out!”

  Junior growled.

  I shrugged, pointed to the red banner, and ignored Ledezma. I used the pay phone on the wall to dial TW.

  While I waited and listened to the ring, I flashed back to
when I attended the Sheriff’s academy. The drill instructors constantly inspected our uniforms for field readiness, polished leather, razor-sharp creases. We always had to have a hard-plastic comb in our back pockets, whether we had hair to comb or not. The comb was there as a failsafe in case we were ever taken hostage and handcuffed with our own cuffs. We were shown how the comb could disable the cuffs. We had to practice the difficult maneuver until we got it right. We were also made to carry a spare handcuff key taped to the inside of our Sam Browne belts for the same reason. The DIs made the young and dumb me think that out on the street a whole lot of dimwitted cops were getting taken hostage. The DIs also insisted that we keep a dime in the bottom of our speed loader bullet pouch on our belt. This was in case we found ourselves away from the cop car radio and needed to make a call from a pay phone. Now all cops carried radios on their belts.

  I hung up and dialed again. Listened to it ring. RD probably had his feet up on the desk watching the color television in Black Bart’s office. He loved watching CHiPs reruns. He’d yell and scream at the outrageous scenarios, how the TV portrayed the highway patrol. “They don’t do any of that shit. Can you believe this? All they do is chase taillights. They’re triple A with guns. They should issue them tow trucks instead of patrol cars.” And yet he continued to watch whenever he had a spare moment, which was rare.

  Ring. Ring.

  During my patrol days, I was glad I had that dime. More than once I had to leave the safety of my patrol car and chase a crook on foot through backyards and over fences. Twice the chase had gone several miles. When I caught the crook, I’d finally look up and realize I was deep in Indian country far from any backup and without a radio. I held the handcuffed crook in a headlock while I used the dime in my bullet pouch to call the station from a street-side pay phone.

  How times had changed.

  In the Crazy Eight I had to use a quarter, not a dime, to make the call to TW. With the age of cell phones, I could easily see a time when all the pay phones would disappear. I understood the need but actually liked it better the other way. With cell phones, everyone became constantly connected and people lost their sense of individuality. People became a collective of one, surging and ebbing like an ocean tide.

  RD at TW finally picked up. I told him about the deal at midnight and asked him to have enough guys on hand to handle it and to brief Black Bart when he got there. RD said he would. I hung up, waved to Nigel, and yelled that I’d see him tonight. He raised his glass smiling like some kind of goof.

  Nigel smiled again. As did they pinged off the inside walls of my brain.

  Outside, I got in the Kadett and drove home, a place I’d been trying to avoid for the last six months. The bad memories there overpowered the good. Olivia and the twins used to visit Dad. I had watched him play with Alonzo and Albert on the floor as Olivia looked on with a huge smile, a memory I dearly cherished. We also met at Dad’s for Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving, warm, cheerful times. That’s all I had left. Memories.

  Now Olivia and Albert were both gone. We only had Alonzo left and we really didn’t even have him.

  I parked the Kadett in the parking lot to Martin Luther King hospital and walked back to Nord. Junior loved the outing. I talked to him the entire way, telling him stories of the street when I worked as a uniform patrol deputy. He seemed to enjoy the tales of human encounters, the good and the bad, and I started to believe maybe my dog had been a cop in another life. Hell, he might even be my partner Ned. It would be real nice if he were Ned.

  We found Dad in the living room reading Dumas’ The Three Musketeers for at least the third time that I could remember. The sight of the cover made me want to reread the book of high adventure and wonderful comradery. It was also a sign that things were getting back to normal. Dad hadn’t read a book for six months. Depression could do that to a person. Throughout his life, he rarely watched television and always had a book in his hand. It would still be a while before I could sit in one place long enough to catch up on my favorite author’s new books I’d let silently slip past.

  Junior bounded over as Dad struggled to stand. Junior knocked him back onto the couch and licked his face. He laughed.

  He actually laughed.

  Music to my ears. I had not heard him laugh in I couldn’t remember how long. He struggled to his feet, pushing on Junior to give him room. “Hey, Son, how are you doing?” His smile remained.

  “Okay, what’s going on, Dad?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I pointed a finger off into the distance. “Hey, I know what you did.”

  “What’d I do? What are you talking about?”

  “You went back to Laurel and saw Alonzo again, didn’t you?”

  His smile tarnished some. “I might’ve. Is there something that says I can’t?”

  I exhaled. “No, Dad.” I fought down the jealousy. “I’m just glad you get to see him and that Alonzo gets to see his great-grandpa.” I needed to change the subject before I choked on the emotion. I went down the short hall with him following along. I got down on one knee at the threshold to my bedroom door and pulled off the piece of frame close to the bottom. The piece had a fine cut that was almost invisible unless you got right down close to look. With the piece pulled off, it gave me access to a narrow compartment behind the wall. I took the stolen/recovered Colt .38 from my back pocket, the one I’d taken from Leo in the gun deal, stashed it there, and replaced the piece of wood frame. Dad watched without saying a word. He knew about the spot; I’d told him years ago in case he ever had the need for a gun. He’d said at the time and always maintained that he could “never, ever point a gun at another man, let alone look him in the eye and pull the trigger.”

  “Never say never, Dad.”

  After I replaced the piece of doorframe, I stood and said, “Come on, let’s sit down.” We moved back into the living room. When I sat on the couch next to him, his smile returned in force. Junior settled close on the floor. I kicked my shoes off and removed my socks. I rubbed his chest and belly with my feet. He groaned with pleasure.

  I stopped playing with Junior and turned serious. “Can you please tell me more about my mother?”

  Dad lost his smile.

  I put my hand on his leg. “Please, Dad?”

  He nodded. “It’s not something I’m proud of, Son. It’s not something you need to know. I wish you’d trust me on this. It’s … well, just trust me when I say once I tell you … you’re … you’re not going to be glad I did.”

  “Please?”

  I preferred his smile, but at the same time I had a deep desire to know more about my mother, a woman I had for years been forced to create in my mind. His story the night before sparked an intrigue inside me that was difficult to quell.

  Dad stared off into nothingness and started to speak.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  DAD MARRIED BEATRICE Olivia Elliot in a civil ceremony two weeks after he went to work for the U.S. postal service, the day he received his first paycheck. They took a place of their own, the rental of a run-down, one-bedroom home in the outskirts of Los Angeles amid vast empty tracts of land. The house wasn’t there anymore, replaced with a park now in the city of Compton. He never remembered being so happy. Every day was a joy to come home to his new wife, who seemed to radiate love for him. They’d eat the meal she prepared, usually something boiled and flavorless, but he didn’t care. Not when her eyes glowed with excitement to see him and to hear all about his day. He got in the habit of using a lot of salt and catsup.

  They’d go to bed early, make love, and then pull the covers over their heads and whisper late into the night. They’d talk about their dreams and how they’d achieve them, of how he’d move up in the post office hierarchy and they’d buy a wonderfully huge house in Baldwin Hills. In the morning, she’d get up without disturbing him and make breakfast. At the front door, he’d kiss her on the forehead and tell her, “See you tonight, beautiful.”

  “Not if I see yo
u first.” She said this each time and he didn’t know for sure if she knew what it meant or if she just repeated a line from a movie.

  Bea went to a lot of movies, this according to her. At first, she told him all about each scene with verve and élan and made him wish he’ d been there with her. But as the weeks passed, her excitement started to dwindle and then fade until she took to just explaining the story arc. And finally, just the title. Life didn’t move fast enough to hold the attention of his life-loving wife, and he didn’t know what to do about it.

  Six months to the day after they’d been married, he came home and found two strangers, a black man and woman sitting on his rented divan in the living room of his rented house. “Honey, this is Melvin Shackleford and his girl Cleo Elliott. That’s Elliott with two t’s, no relation. I met them at the bus stop on Long Beach, you know the one just a little south of Century Boulevard.”

  What the heck was she doing in that part of town catching a bus? He’d have to talk to her about it later. That part of town spelled real trouble for blacks.

  He shook their hands and eyed them up and down. He didn’t like at all what he saw of Shackleford, with his patched-over secondhand clothes and the scuffed and dirty shoes a bum might wear. But more than that, it was how he carried himself, with the look of a criminal on the grift.

  Bea had stopped at the store and spent too much money on three cans of Chung King, the dinner with the dried noodles in a separate can taped above the chopped suey in the other can below. It was more cost effective to cook their food than to buy it already prepared. She knew that; they’d discussed it.