Текст книги "The Disposables"

Автор книги: David Putnam

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

Chapter Six

The thug cop had run a check on me, found out about the parole, called Ben Drury at home, got him out of bed early on a Sunday to come out for a little get-even time. Back in the day, as a young and full-of-testosterone copper, it wouldn’t have been out of the realm of something I would have done. The parole tail on me gave him the balls to overlook Robby Wicks’s warning.

The thug said, “Morning, Mr. Bruno Johnson. We’re here on a routine home check.”

I looked over at Ben, who looked away. No doubt, the thug had something on Ben.

“Nice digs you got here, Mr. Johnson. How can a piece of shit like you, who works at a chickenshit little hole-in-the-wall grocery store, afford a place like this?” He kept walking, shoving me on my chest until I was back at the couch and sat down hard.

“What’s going on?” Chantal came from the hall, her eyes a little more alert from the adrenaline, her nipples poking straight out of her nightgown like a couple of number two Black Warrior pencil erasers. The thug cop moved closer to her for a better view, lust apparent on his shovel face.

His sudden change in behavior, from aggressive to ogling, stopped her cold. “Mr. Drury, who is this? He has no right to come into my home.”

“Just calm down, Ms. Sykes, he’s a deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. His name’s John Mack, and he does have a right to be here.”

“Chantal,” I said, “I’m sorry.”

Mack made no effort to hide his ogle as he kept his stark, blue eyes locked onto her breasts.

Chantal crossed her arms on her chest. “If you say so, Mr. Drury, that’s fine. I trust your discretion. I’m not happy about it, but I’ll go along. For now.”

“For now?” Mack said, “Who do you think you are? You uppity little nig—”

Drury stepped in between them and pointed a finger at Mack, looking him in the eye as he addressed Chantal, “We’re sorry for the intrusion this morning. I promise this won’t take long.”

“How can we help you, Mr. Drury, to get you out of here sooner?”

He turned back to face her. “I heard some disturbing news about Bruno. I came over to make sure everything was okay.”

“Is that right? Exactly what did you hear?”

“He had a run-in with the police last night. He slugged one.”

Chantal looked at Mack, and brought her hand up to her mouth, stifling a smile. “Oh, really, who could that be?”

Mack’s gaze snapped off her breasts, his expression instantly transformed to ugly. He took two quick steps toward her. I jumped up to stop him. He pivoted and shoved me back down on the couch. Chantal brought her fists up to defend herself as her eyes flared. She had grown up in Nickerson Gardens and knew how to defend herself.

“Hold it. Hold it,” Ben yelled. “Let’s everyone just calm down.”

Mack looked at Chantal, his expression softening.“Hey now, lookee here, the arrest gods have shined down on me this lovely Sunday morn. It looks as if our lovely lady is smacked back. She’s under the influence.” He reached to grab her wrist. She jerked away. Ben moved in between. “Stop it. We had a deal, no misdemeanor bullshit.”

“Okay, but if she’s under the influence, then she has to have her kit and dope somewhere in the pad. And dope is a solid felony. I’ll just have a little looksee.”

“You have no right to search my house without a search warrant.”

Ben had her by the shoulders. “This is Bruno’s residence of record. We don’t need a search warrant.”

Her head whipped around, her eyes ablaze, burning a hole right into me. “Is that right, Bruno?”

Too ashamed, I could only nod.

Mack stood at the stereo, tossing all the CDs to the floor. He pulled the pictures off from the wall, tossed them on the floor, and started to move systematically through the room conducting a professional search.

“Ben Drury, you stop this right now, or I swear I’m going to make a call.”

Mack hesitated.

Drury said to Mack, “I warned you.”

Mack smiled. “Grow some balls, Drury. All we have to do is find her stash and then nobody can touch us. Nobody. We’ll be bulletproof. Trust me.” He picked up the vase and turned it over. The silk flowers fell out. Green Benjamin Franklins cascaded to the carpet.

Mack threw his head back and laughed. “Lookee, here.” He turned toward me, “Peekaboo, asshole.”

This, a term I myself had coined years ago, and it had become a standard BMF catchphrase. He knew its origin and purposely used it on me. Threw it right in my face.

“What?” Chantal said, “That’s my money. It’s not against the law to be leery of banks and to keep cash in your home. Is it, Mr. Drury?”

“It is if it belongs to a parolee.”

“I just told you that it’s mine.”

Mack came over to the couch, “Stand up, asshole, it’s time to go to jail.”

I knew I could take Mack, he was younger, stronger, but overconfident. The problem was whether or not Ben would stand by while I put Mack on the deck. I had no choice. No way could I go back for a year on a violation. Not right now, not with everything already in motion. I stood up, the decision made. I’d chance it, put him down. Go on the run until everything ran its course.

Drury’s cell phone rang. He looked at the incoming number. “Hold it. Hold it, the both of you, give it a rest.” He pushed the button, said, “Drury. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I understand.” He punched off. “We’re through here.”

Mack’s head spun. “What’re you talking about?”

“You heard me. We’re done. We’re leaving right now.”

“You can’t tell me what to do. I work for the Sheriff’s Department.”

“You’re absolutely right. I’m leaving. You can do what you want. But be warned I told you the setup here, and if you stay, it’s at your own risk. You’re no longer sanctioned by state parole for this search. You will need your own probable cause.” He turned to Chantal, “I’m sorry, Ms. Sykes, for bothering you on Sunday.” He walked to the door, opened it, “You coming, Mack?”

Mack looked at me, gave me his best cocksucker eyes. “We’re not through. You and me are going to tangle. Count on it.”

“I look forward to it.”

The words locked his jaw tight and screwed his muscles down. He hesitated, weighing his options, as if he could weather the shit storm he’d stir up if he jumped now instead of later.

It passed.

He stomped over to the door, turned, and said, “Lady, you know what kind of piece of shit you’re living with? He’s a murderer. He hunted down a twenty-five-year-old kid and shot him in cold blood right in front of witnesses.” Mack pointed an unloaded finger at me. “The kid wasn’t wanted by the law and he had nothing in his hands. This piece of shit gunned him in cold blood. Think about that the next time he’s kissing on your neck, running his hands up to grope that sweet little ass of yours, and then ask yourself, when’s he going to snap and kill again. Kill again for no reason. Think about it.”

Chantal walked over to Mack, smiled, put her hand up, and stroked his face. “And you, honey, try and keep your big nose where it doesn’t belong. Next time you might not be so lucky.”

Mack’s face bloated red. For a long second, I thought he would just say, screw it, pull his handcuffs, and take us both down. He finally gave it up, kicked the doorjamb like a spoiled little kid, and followed Ben out, slamming the door so hard the walls shook. I would now have to be careful and not give him my back. Without witnesses around, given the chance, he’d surely gun me.

Chapter Seven

Chantal’s shoulders quaked as she walked unsteadily over to a chair, sat, and lit a cigarette from the box on the end table.

I didn’t know what to say or do. I walked over, got down on my sore knees, righted the vase, picked up the silk flowers, and replaced them. My voice croaked, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

She took a long drag on her cigarette, held it in, and then blew it out of her nose in one long exhale. “What a prick, that guy.”

I started shuffling all the cash together. “Boy, we were lucky. If Drury hadn’t gotten that phone call—” I stopped and looked at her.

She took in another long drag and spoke as the smoke came out her mouth. “The way you came in, I knew there was going to be trouble so I made a preemptive call.”

“I don’t know what to say. Thank you. I owe you big.”

She held out her hand. “Yes, you do. You have no idea how much explaining I’m going to have to do. Calling him at home on Sunday morning, telling him that state parole was at the door, and could he do something about it? That’s going to cost me dear.”

I looked at her hand, then down at all the money in mine. It represented a good a chunk of what was needed. To give it up meant I’d have to venture back out on the edge to replace it, take the risk all over again. Another delay, another big risk, when I’d thought I was all but done with that part of the plan.

Had she not stopped the law machine from running me over, I’d have been on the run from parole with an armed-and-dangerous warrant out for me, or worse, in the can waiting for a parole hearing. How much was that worth? More than twenty thousand, that was for sure. I set the money in her hand and said, “Thank you. I mean it, you saved my ass.”

She got up with a big smile, sauntered over to the stereo, and set the money on top in one tall pile. “You know what? That big ugly bastard made me feel dirty all over.” She slipped the spaghetti strings to her nightgown off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. “I think I’m going to take a shower.”

She walked down the hall, her perfectly shaped naked bottom over spiked high heels rose and fell with each step.

She’d put the heels on when she’d gone in the bedroom, put them on purposely for the overall presentation. While at the same time making that phone call that saved my ass. She was one cool, conniving woman who knew what she wanted and how to get it. She hesitated, looked over her shoulder to see if I followed. Her eyes and smile beckoned.

I shuddered and closed my eyes and tried to think of something else, about Marie, her smile, the way her eyes flashed when I said something that made her happy, made her laugh with the little crinkle at the corner of her lips. When I opened my eyes, the hall had turned drab in Chantal’s absence.

I went into the second bedroom, shut the door, quickly stripped out of my clothes, entered the bathroom, and locked the door. Locked Chantal out. Just in case. If she walked in the bathroom, opened the shower door, and stepped in while I lathered up, I didn’t think I’d be able to—I shuddered again at the thought and turned the hot water off and the cold on high. “I’m with you, Marie. I’m still with you, babe.”

Chapter Eight

Violence in its purest form will surge and ebb with a common rhythm, and if you’re familiar with it, you can predict when it will next surface. I’d been out of the business too long. Those last two weeks out in front of Mr. Cho’s, I missed the signs, the indicators.

Had I been on my game, I might’ve been able to stop the kid, been prepared for him the second he’d walked in. Maybe if I’d have thrown a forty-ounce bottle of Cobra beer, chunked him in the head with it. Instead of just watching, letting it all play out as if I were some kind of bumpkin sitting on a country fence.

Sleep in Chantal’s spare bedroom didn’t come easy. I tossed and turned and slept little in the four hours I allowed.

When I got up, Chantal was gone. On the kitchen table sat a note and a couple hundred dollars.

I’m not a total witch. I left you something. At least you can eat. You’re a survivor, Bruno. I know you’ll bounce back financially. I have to think of my own retirement. You understand. Please don’t hate me. Be out no later than five o’clock.

Love you, Babe.

Chan

She’d always talked about when her looks started to fade, how would she live in her old world after she’d become so accustomed to the “easy life,” how a nest egg was so important. I should’ve been mad about the money, but I wasn’t. I went over to the phone and dialed a number from memory.

The tin-hard voice of Crazy Ned Bressler said, “Yeah.”

“Let me speak to Jumbo.”

“You pissed in your Wheaties, pal. He doesn’t want nothin’ to do with yo sorry ass.”

I said nothing.

Bressler hesitated, then set the phone down with a clunk. Harsh rap music along with low murmurings in the background mixed and danced in my ear, then another voice on the phone. “What the hell’s this about? You said no more. Yesterday morning you said no more, that it was the last time. No if, ands, or buts, you said. Threw it right up in my face and laughed. You laughed at me. So, what am I hearing now, huh?”

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry, something’s come up.”

“You laughed at me, my man, when I asked you to do it one more time. Just one more.”

“I said I was sorry. What more do you want? A formal apology? You want me to say I was a fool that I wasn’t thinking clearly? Okay, I was a fool and I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“Fool? More like an asshole. Say that you’re an asshole, and I’ll think about it.”

I let the silence hang, then, “You know I don’t hold with your obstreperous language.”

He paused. I knew it would get to him. He gave it a little chuckle.

“Obstreperous? What kind of word is that? You some kind of sissy-pole smoking asshole?”

“You want me or not?”

“You know I do. I told you that yesterday.”

“Man, yes or no?”

“Meet at the usual. No, make it at the Bun Boy in two hours. You know where that is?”

“Yes, but it’s way to hell and gone out in the desert and that’s too early. It’s twice as far out. You said yesterday morning that the gig wasn’t until—”

“Not on the phone, asshole. Just tell me now. You in or out?”

“I have to—”

“You going to punk me or you going to show some sack and—”

“I’ll be there.” I slammed down the phone.

Bun Boy was in Baker, the home of the world’s largest thermometer. With a fast car and no cops it was the better part of three hours away. No chance could Jumbo make it there that fast. I called him at his home in Downey. He was leery about my sudden change of heart. He smelled cops and a setup. I couldn’t blame him. But all I was going to do was get there before him and sit around and wait while he scoped the area, made sure everything was cool, and I wasn’t bringing the cops down around his neck. He already had two strikes. One more and it was twenty-five to life.

“Shit.” I was going to miss the visit I promised my grandson Alonzo.

I picked up the phone to dial Jumbo back to reset the deal in four hours, not two, so I could keep my promise with Alonzo. I slammed the phone down. Went to the closet, took out a pair of Chantal’s sugar daddy’s chinos and a blue chambray shirt, pure white-man-yuppie. The pants were too large and the shirt too tight through the shoulders and arms, the guy was a pear. I cinched the belt up tight and hung the shirt out over it. I searched the sock drawer for something other than the thin stretch nylon jobs he had tons of. My hand came across something cold and hard. I knew the make by feel without looking. I took it out. An H&K .40 caliber. Too much gun for a pear to hold up, let alone shoot. I’d held a gun my entire career and it felt as natural as if part of my hand. For a brief second I thought about taking it along to keep Jumbo honest. Only a gun was a misdemeanor for Joe Citizen and a felony for an ex-con. And if I took it, there might arise an occasion where I’d have to use it. If I didn’t have it, I’d have to run. I wiped off any fingerprints and put it back.

I still had to boost a car, a calculated risk that it wouldn’t be reported before I was done with it. I had to get on the road now. The Sunday traffic, everyone would be coming back from Vegas, opposite direction than I would be going. At least that much fell squarely in my favor.

Chapter Nine

I sat in the parking lot across the street from Bun Boy and waited. Just the way I’d figured it, Jumbo was late, although I hadn’t made him or any of his boys driving around the area. Baker was nothing more than a gas and food oasis in the middle of the desert, a “wide spot in the road” as Dad would call it, and easy to pick out a car that made more than one pass.

Finding the right car and the ride out took three and half hours. Another two put it at about four thirty. It wouldn’t be absolutely dark until five fifteen. I’d give him another forty-five minutes, then call it a day. Dad’s words about not telling Alonzo unless I was absolutely sure, echoed in my brain and hurt just a little bit more each time I thought about it. Anger started to rise up unbidden and soon I’d need an outlet. I tried to focus it on that shovel-faced Deputy Mack. He was the true reason why I was going to miss the meeting with my grandson. Mack was the reason why I’d lost the money, not Chantal. She just did what she needed to do to survive. Without her, I’d have been a lot worse off.

I had about fifteen hours to get the job done, make the drive back, and be in court.

Off, down the road by the ramp that dumped folks from the freeway onto the frontage road that led to the restaurant, came a sleek, 700 series BMW, black with tinted windows. Jumbo had arrived. He drove by and slowed, then accelerated on past. He wanted me to follow. I started up, pulled onto the frontage road and fell in behind. We drove five miles, then turned off onto a dirt road, that had Jumbo not turned on it, I would have missed for sure. This had to be something big. Jumbo wouldn’t get his car dusty or bang his suspension like this for small potatoes. I was tired, but the thought of the job made my pulse beat in my temples and behind my eyes. The prospect of a big job always got my blood up.

We headed across the desert toward a clump of rocks to the east that now looked like an island as the sun set behind us and shadowed the ground around it. The rocks grew larger and at the same time slowly sank into the gloom of dusk.

The other jobs had been closer to civilization. All of a sudden I thought maybe he was taking me out to “bumfuck Egypt,” a place he described when taking someone no longer useful off the board. I was a witness to his criminal activity, all felonies, and unlike me with one strike, he had two. I’d made him a lot of money in the last four weeks. Maybe it was time to clear the boards. What better place to do it than in the desert? Now I wished I’d taken the pear’s gun.

Just before we started to pass the large rocks, Jumbo stopped, the red brake lights overly bright in the gathering gloom.

We waited. He finally rolled his window down, stuck his arm out, and waved me forward. He wanted me to walk up and get in his car. I stayed put. After a time, he got out, a smile on his little ferret face. He stood six-foot tall and weighed a buck seventy. Thin, rail thin. John Ahern. They called him Jumbo because of his big floppy ears. The story goes that someone made the mistake of calling him Dumbo, a name he took exception to, not wise with a psychotic sociopath. The next time someone with any real balls called him Jumbo, he allowed it, and it stuck. He had on a black Tommy Bahama shirt, black slacks with a gold earring and matching bracelet, classy, unlike most thugs of his rank. He had little hands and held them open away from his body and said, “Hey?”

I checked the terrain one more time, got out, and walked up to him. “What’s with all the sand this time?”

“It’s the big one I told you about. It’s got to be a long ride. I got triple the crew catching for you.”

This time I held up my hands. “Where? I don’t see ’em.”

“They’re up ahead. I didn’t want them to see you. It’s better that way.”

I looked around again, not sure I believed him.

He cracked a small smile, “Why? You gettin’ sketchy on me?”

“Jumbo, if you haven’t noticed, we are out in the middle of nowhere.”

“Ease up on it, bad boy.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

He smiled broader. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“I’m going to need a hundred thousand this time.”

The smile disappeared. “I was going to be generous and double what I gave you the last time, give you fifty, out of the kindness of my heart. But a hunert, no, you can’t call the game like that, not after I already got this thing rolling. I could’ve got someone else for your part.”

“I don’t understand why you want me to begin with. But I’m here, and my price is a hundred. You said it was a big score.”

“I told ya before. It’s because no one else has the balls. They get up in the car, panic, and just start tossin’, breakin’ everything. You’re cool, take your time, treat the shit like it’s yours, and our recovery rate is higher. But this time there’s going to be a lot of loss no matter how gentle you are.”

“What’s the load?”

He squirmed a little, so I knew the next thing out of his mouth was going to be a lie. “Computer towers.”

“Bullshit.”

His eyes went hard. “Don’t push me, big man.”

“What’s the load?”

He hesitated, his mouth a straight line, “Computer chips.”

“Computer chips?”

Now, all the other times made sense. They were dry runs, training for this one. That nonsense about soft hands was just that, there was going to be heavy security. Heisting computer chips had become big business. They were small and valuable and easier to handle than gold bars. The computer companies had taken to delivering them in armored cars with escorts.

I smiled at him. “How much security?”

He nodded his head, smiled back, “Piece of cake, really. Four guards, two up front and two in the back. If you do it right, like you have in the past, they’ll never tumble to it.”

I tried to calculate the odds in my head. This changed the whole scenario. No one had hit them like this before. This was virgin territory for something of this magnitude. We were kicking over a hornet’s nest, and folks were going to be beyond pissed off. “What’s the take going to be?”

“None of your damn business. You in or you out?”

“Out.” I turned and headed to my car.

“Bruno! Bruno!”

The sand swished as he ran around me to be seen, a small gun in one small hand, the other up against my chest.