David Putnam - The Replacements

The sound of whimpering brought me out of my funk. I followed it down the hall.

All three children huddled together in the kitchen, half-scared to death from their ordeal, and now all the gunfire. They didn’t move when I approached them. They’d slipped beyond scared and teetered on the razor’s edge of shock. If they went over that edge, they would need immediate medical care. I cooed to them and stroked their hair until they calmed down. There wasn’t much time. I got down on one knee close to Eddie. “How are you doing, partner?”

He said nothing.

“We’re through the worst of it, I promise, really we are. But we have to get somewhere safe, you understand?”

His eyes wide, his mouth in a straight line, he nodded.

“I’m going to need some help. Are you up to it?” He shook his head. I didn’t blame him, not after all that had happened, those scars on his back from the electrical cord.

“I’m not going to leave you, I promise. But I need you guys to hold hands and walk with me, okay? Can you guys do that? We have to go now. We have to hurry.”

Sandy Williams all of a sudden came alive. “Well then, let’s get with it, let’s go.”

I tried not to react. She’d spoken. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it and said, “Good, good.”

I picked up Eddie. He resisted for just a second. “It’s okay, partner, no one’s going to hurt you. No one’s ever going to hurt you ever again. I give you my word on that. Shake on it.”

I held out my free hand. He hesitated, took it, and shook.

“All right, little man, let’s get out of here. Sandy, you take Elena’s hand.” She did. With trauma and shock, these eight-year-old kids acted more like four- or five-year-olds. Kids are resilient, and with a little bit of love and attention, they bounce right back. The courts and social services had already failed them twice, put them back into abusive homes. I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, let that happen again.

“Come on, kids, what do you say let’s make like sheep and get the flock out of here?” Eddie giggled a little. He was already bouncing back.

We went out the back kitchen door and into the overgrown yard. I left the door open. We picked our way in the dark until we came to a cedar plank fence fallen over in long sections. We carefully negotiated past it and into the alley. The cop car Barbara had sent to cover the back must’ve been recalled and gone around to the front to help out and to get into all the action.

Eddie wiggled. I stopped in the dark. “What’s the matter, partner, you want down?” He didn’t want to be carried when the girls were walking. “Okay, say it. Say, ‘Bruno, please put me down.’” His eyes, shadowed in the dark, kept me from seeing how he reacted. “Okay, partner, I understand. If you want down, pat me on the shoulder.” He did.

I set him down. He immediately took hold of my hand. My heart swelled and a lump rose in my throat. How could a kid who’d been through so much go back to trusting that quickly? No time to ponder.

I turned us south into the alley. We had to hurry. We’d made it to the cross street Howard Avenue when Marie caught up. She didn’t say a scolding word or ask me where the hell I was going with the kids. She just fell in step and took hold of Elena’s other hand. We continued over to Roswell and to the FBI Suburban. We got in, buckled everyone up, and I steered us south.

With the threat gone, the kids leaned into each other and immediately fell asleep, a natural reaction. We hit the Mexican border in an hour and a half. Rosarito Beach in another thirty minutes. We abandoned the FBI vehicle and took a cab the rest of the way to Ensenada.

The next day, Marie went shopping and bought suitcases and the basics we’d need for the freighter trip to Costa Rica. In the hotel room, I watched CNN news as they covered the Sons of Satan clubhouse story and the shoot-out in Montclair. FBI agent Zack Price was hospitalized and expected to make a full recovery. Barbara stood behind her podium in full dress uniform, a hero in her city for taking down the kidnappers, for personally braving the gun battle. The investigation still continued for the missing children, and she said she would not rest until there was closure in the case. She looked up from the podium, and I thought for a brief second her professional demeanor cracked. She smiled, a small one at the corner of her mouth.

I watched Elena and Eddie and Sandy eat a huge room service breakfast. I told them they could order whatever they wanted. They didn’t believe me when I handed Sandy the phone. She looked at me funny. I took the phone back. “Okay, if you don’t want to order.” I started to order one of everything. She hadn’t said much to me since we’d been together. She smiled and I handed her the phone. All three huddled around the menu and ordered big. Eddie still had not said a word and could not be coaxed into it. He pointed to what he wanted. When the food came, they fell upon the cart like a starving horde.

I carried the phone into the bathroom and called St. Bernadine’s Hospital, told the nurse my name was Scott Drago and that I wanted to talk to my brother Karl.

“Hello, Franc? Is this Franc?” He pronounced it like the French dollar.

I didn’t know if Karl had a brother. I’d made up the name Scott. “No, Drago, it’s me, Bruno Johnson.”

Silence. Then faintly, “Bruno Johnson? Oh, yeah, yeah, the darkie. How the hell are ya, buddy? I’ve been watching the news and you really put the meat to the SS. I owe ya for that. Clay’s picture’s been all over the news. That son of a bitch finally got his. Damn good job. They’ll kill him in the joint, you know. Dumbshit kept all those pictures. What an asshole.”

“How you holding up, Drago?”

“Good. I’ll be out of here in a couple of days. They came by and took the restraints off, said I was free to go, said you took care of all the problems. I owe you big for that.”

“Who’s that? Who came by?”

“Guy in a suit. Chuck-a-luck or some shit name like that. Was real anxious to know if I knew where you were.”

“Did they drop the charges on my friend John Mack, the Los Angeles County detective?”

“Yeah, yeah, fact we’re in the same room together because we were both on lockdown and under guard, and now we’re not. He sleeps a lot. He’s asleep right now. You want to talk to him?”

“No, that’s okay.” Guilt kept me from speaking to him. The charges were dropped, but he’d still lose his job.

Drago laughed. “Saw you took out that Jonas asshole. But the news didn’t say nothin’ about those kids. Johnson, you got those kids?”

“Drago, listen, about the gold.”

“Yeah, man, I know, I saw it. The safe was moved. Son of a bitch nothin’ was there. Someone found the gold. Probably a long time ago.”

“How do you know the safe was moved?”

“I asked that Chuck-a-luck dude. He told me, thought I might know more than I did about the SS. They had to move the safe to get into the false room. But I already knew the safe had been moved. When I opened the safe, there were only the bolt holes on the floor of the safe, and no bolts.”

“You didn’t tell him about the gold, did you?”

“Are you crazy? Cop out to possession of stolen property? No way. Too bad. I wanted that money. You have no idea how bad I wanted that money. Dreamt about it for twenty-five years. Now that it’s gone, it feels like someone cut a chunk outta my gut, you know what I mean?”

“It’s still there, I saw it.”

He yelled, “It’s what?”

“Yeah, it’s still there. I saw it. Clay moved the safe, put the wall up, and just poured concrete over the top of your golden doughnut. You can barely see it, but it’s there.”