Authors: David Putnam
I moved low and fast, shoulder down. I gave an Apache war cry. It came out all on its own from the bottom of my gut.
Startled, Ruben hung the flame over his head.
Mack backed up.
I hit Ruben waist high, driving my legs, feet digging in. I had to hit him hard enough to get his finger off the little paddle that kept the lighter lit.
Ruben's legs came off the ground. He grunted as I knocked the wind out of him. We plowed into Mack who couldn't move
fast enough. Mack saw his death in the shape of two bodies bowling toward him, a small flame held above like the Statue of Liberty. Mack screeched like a little girl.
We hit the ground in a dog pile. Mack on the bottom. The gasoline reek strongest now. If Ruben flicked the lighter, whether it lit or not, the spark would be enough to barbeque us all. I fumbled. Looking, feeling for Ruben's hand that held the lighter. Mack yelled, “Get off. Get off.”
I couldn't find Ruben's hand and out of desperation decided to go to knuckles. I slugged Ruben in the head again and again. Bare hands against thick skull. I wanted to ring his bell to daze him, make him forget the day of the week, forget his own name.
Mack grunted. Mack bench-pressed the both of us off him, tossed us aside. Mack stood, backed away, fear bright on his face. He yelled something unintelligible twice, then came in fast with a heavy boot and punted Ruben in the face. Ruben's teeth skittered against the wall of Huggies.
Mack pulled back and booted him again. Ruben had gone still. I held no love for Ruben, the way he killed five other undeserving folks. Four years ago I might've been right there with Mack, meting out a little curbside justice, but I'd learned my lesson and changed for the better. Being inside, seeing the end result, changed me. I laid across Ruben and covered him as best I could. Mack didn't pull back on his last kick. It glanced off my back. “Hey, hey, enough. The man's down. The man's down.”
Fong ran up, not knowing what happened, put his shoulder into Mack and shoved him away. My breath came hard. “Give me your cuffs.” Fong tossed them to me. I climbed off of Ruben, pulled his arms behind him, and cuffed him. I rolled to my feet, stood as I tried to catch my breath.
Fong finally smelled the gas and guessed what happened.
He leaned down and picked up the Bic lighter. “Son of a bitch. Don't tell me he tried to torch you?”
Mack turned and walked away, the emotions of the event too much for him. He didn't want us to witness it. I couldn't blame him.
Fong reached into his pocket, tossed me the car keys. “Here, bring the car up to the mouth of this little alley so we can load this piece of shit.”
I hesitated; I was Ruben's only advocate. If I left him alone, no telling what these angry BMFs might do.
Fong scowled. “Get your ass movin', we ain't got all night.” I walked backward toward Willowbrook until it became too hazardous with all the debris. I turned and walked slowly, listening for the telltale sounds of an ass beating. At the street, I turned back and looked. Ruben still lay facedown on the ground, unmoving. Fong and Mack had their backs to me. Fong had his hand on Mack's shoulder, in close, whispering to him. Mack was more shaken than I had thought. I ran for the car to get back as soon as I could.
I opened the door and started up. I could run for it, be in Mexico in three hours, home free. Then I realized Fong, the guy who'd wanted to store me in the trunk, was the one who'd trusted me, tossed me the keys. I put it in gear and skidded up to the opening between the buildings, held my breath when I looked. Fong and Mack each held a shoulder, hands under Ruben's arms, dragging him to the car. It was over.
They opened the back door and tossed him in, an empty sack of useless humanity. Fong opened the driver's door, “Get out, skillet, I'm driving.”
Mack walked by me, grabbed the driver's door before Fong closed it, “Don't call him skillet.” They both stared a long time at one another. Fong nodded. “Okay. I got it.”
Mack said, “Get out, I'm driving.”
“Johnson, you ride up front.”
Fong didn't protest. He got in the back, shoved Ruben over.
Most of the gas had already evaporated off Mack. The sour smell of barf emanated from him. Something else went missing, snuffed out in near flambé experience, something gone from his eyes. I'd seen it often in prison. That little extra spark that kept a man upright, head held high, went missing. Before now Mack had burned too bright, the odds swung in his favor. It would return. If it didn't, well, I'd ask Mr. Cho if he needed somebody to run his counter.
Fong recovered, slapped Mack on the back, “We got him, bro. We did it. This is the guy. It's got to be, the way he went after you, used the same MO, the can of gas, the lighter, we got him. Can't wait to see the look on that asshole Wicks's face. Let's call him.” Fong opened his cell phone, scrolled, tapped the number, and put it to his ear. “Damn. Voice mail.”
In a few short hours the BMFs would gather, and over a case of beer, celebrate the taking of big game.
“That lets me out, right?” I said, “You can pull over here and put me afoot. That'd be okay by me.”
Mack took his vacant eyes off the road for a second, turned. I read sadness and contrition, but I also saw his confidence ebbing back.
“Don't think so, Johnson. You still have to answer for Bressler.”
“I told you the truth about torching those people and I'm telling you the truth about Bressler.” I wanted to add that he owed me for the little tussle back there where I kept him from becoming a Fourth of July sparkler.
Fong fumbled around in back. He shoved Ruben the Cuban from side to side searching his pockets, a prebooking search as it were, pulling out everything in his pockets, a legal search acceptable in court. He handed the items over the seat, three books of matches with Theo's Bar on the covers, a can of butane
refill for cigarette lighters, some empty Ziploc baggies with residue, a moldering wallet chocked full of moldering papers, a fat key ring with old unused antiquated keys, and five cheap cigarette lighters, all blue.
I opened the wallet, damp, still warm from his body heat, and pulled out the papers. The newest addition to the mess, a yellow copy I recognized as a booking application to Los Angeles County Jail. I unfolded it and saw John Edward Ruben-stein had recently been arrested for under the influence of a controlled substance and had only just been let out on a promise-to-appear citation.
“You better have a look at this.” I handed it over to Mack as he steered us toward Century Sheriff's Station on Alameda.
“Can't you see I'm driving?” His anger bled through. Transference from what happened, anger at displaying fear.
Ruben the Cuban moaned as he came around.
I took it back, “When did that last guy get torched, two nights ago? This says our friend here was in custody at the time of the last burning.”
Mack yanked on the wheel, steered the car over to the curb by a vacant manufacturing building, the street dark, the streetlights all shot out. Fong reached over the seat and snatched the paper from my hand.
Every second I stayed in custody, I found it harder to breathe. Every second that passed brought us that much closer to being found out, the kids discovered, and put back in a system that let them down the first time and would do worse the second. Only because they now knew the way life was really supposed to be. It made my heart ache at the thought.
As the car slowed, I again thought about jamming out the door. I knew the area and could lose them, no problem. That left Marie holding the bag, something I could never do. At the same time, I wished for a couple of hours of freedom to pay
Jumbo a little visit, make him rue the day he ever heard my name, talk to him old BMF-style.
Fong said, “What? It can't be.” He checked the wrinkled booking slip, flipped it over, not believing it genuine. “Okay then, what? What's it mean?”
Mack took it from him. “It means we got a copycat, that's what it means.”
Mack possessed that innate sense needed to vault the gigantic chasm from mediocre detective to outstanding. He sprung from a family of law enforcement and probably came by it genetically. He handed it back to me, his eyes asking my opinion.
I said, “There are only two reasons for a copycat.”
Mack nodded. Fong didn't catch on, he asked, “What?”
Mack said, “One is a psycho who liked the idea and wished he'd thought of it first.”
“And the other?” Fong asked.
I said, “The other is someone borrowing the MO to dispose of a problem.”
“Okay, so we still got this puke for the others, right?” Fong asked, missing the full ramifications of the words.
Mack said nothing and held my gaze. He put it together in his mind and didn't like the end result.
Fong leaned forward. “What? What are you guys thinking?”
I said, “I really don't like the way this is playing out.”
Mack looked out the window into the dark night. “He's an asshole and I wanted to rub his face in it, but not this. The team's reputation's on the line, the entire department.”
“Who?”
I turned in the seat to talk to Fong. “My car in the Taco Quickie parking lot.”
Fong wasn't chosen for the Violent Crimes Team out of
ineptness. He cut me off. “What about your car? What are you trying to say? ” It came together for him, only he fought it more than we did. We knew the “who,” we just couldn't rectify in our minds the why.
“What did you recover out of my car?”
Fong didn't hesitate. “Dope and a gun. Rock coke, about three grams.”
I didn't smile. His reply confirmed it.
Mack came out of his reverie, “What was in your car?”
Mack made the leap. I now stood as a full partner to be trusted with covering his back and more, the reputation of the Violent Crimes Team. “I had forty-five thousand cash, taken from Q-Ball Bridges, and a Smith & Wesson model 645.”
Mack hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand.
No question. He believed me.
Fong sat back. “Son of a bitch.”
Ruben sputtered, “I didn't do it. I'm innocent.”
“Shut up.” Fong elbowed him in the chest.
“What kind of gun did you find in my trunk?”
Once I accepted the “who,” truly believed it, the beauty of the flawless, perfectly executed plan, awed me.
Mack read my mind. “Something's missing. He wouldn't do it for forty-five K. No chance. If he went off the reservation, he's smarter than that. He could take down a hundred times more.”
As each move fell into place, more questions popped up. I had been made a patsy to the point of comedy. It was almost funny all the crap he'd laid at my door. “Tell me about the gun. Who is Kendrick?”
Mack's head whipped back. “The last guy torched.”
I stayed ahead of Mack in my thinking, not by much though. “Who found the gun in the trunk of my car?”
Fong cut in, “He did. Hey, should we be talking in front of this shitbag?” Referring to Ruben.
Mack said, “The last guy torched is the key.”
When he said it, I'd already gone by that part. I'd played back all of our conversations from the very beginning. “It's not just forty-five K.”
No one said anything.
I said, “How much money did you guys get from my crash pad on 117th?”
Fong said, “We haven't found any money yet.”
Mack said, “How much?”
“Total? Close to two fifty.”
Fong said, “Where the hell you get that kind of money?”
I didn't answer and went on. “The ballistics of the gun in my trunk matched the Bressler kill, didn't it?”
Mack nodded. “It all comes back to Ahern, doesn't it?”
“Who contacted Jumbo to set up the take-down at his house?”
Mack said nothing.
I looked at Fong. He wouldn't meet my eyes, said, “What are we going to do?”
“It's a double-blind, me and Jumbo. We need to give Jumbo a visit.”
“No chance.” Mack shook his head. “No way. What good will that do? He's too smart. Jumbo'll just lawyer up. And besides, who's he going to be more afraid of? Us or him?”
“I could talk to Jumbo. Guaranteed he won't want to see me.”
Fong smirked. “You're on your way back to the can.”
“Stop and think about what you just said.”
“All right, I'll say it again, you're going back to the can. I'm not putting my ass on the line for you.”
I didn't look at Mack and take an unfair advantage. He owed me. I let it hang in the air. When Mack didn't offer up, I spelled it out for Fong. “What did you book me on?”
“Murder, multiple counts, ex-con with a gun, possession of cocaine.”
“And you base all of this on what?”
He didn't answer. He knew.
“I'll tell you what you based it on,” I said. “Planted evidence in the trunk of my car. And to make matters worse, your whole team was on me during these purported murders, most of them anyway, following my every move. It would only take one instance where you had the eye on me the same time a murder went down. Just one. You'll have detailed records of your surveillance. How are you going to explain that in court? I didn't do it. You know I didn't do it.”
“You admitted you had forty-five thousand and a gun in the trunk of that car, and you're on parole, that's two to five on top of the parole violation.”
“Sure, you're right. Produce the gun and the money. What you got is pie in the sky.”
“We booked you and took you out. We have to take you back in or it's our asses. The court'll let you out when the DA scraps the case.”
“You can blue sheet me, an 849.b2.”
Fong waited for Mack to ring in on the subject. When he didn't, Fong shook his head. “No, Homicide'll have our asses, making a unilateral decision like that. It's their case now, not ours.”