David Putnam - The Replacements

I didn’t like being the fool. I spun around. No storm-trooper cops were creeping up. A few tan and lobster-red tourists milled about the pool, drinking and talking. The place was quiet. I looked up at the television. The station was replaying the interview with Montclair Chief of Police Barbara Wicks, on a continuous loop like the press does with sensational incidents.

I spun back to face her, pointed up, over my shoulder. “The kidnapped kids? Those kids? Barbara, I don’t have those kids. You’ve made a long trip for nothing.”

Her smile fled, shifted to stone-cold. “Now what are you talking about?”

“What are you talking about?”

She leaned over the bar, reached out, placed her hand on my arm, and said, “I need you to come back and chase down the guy who’s taken these two little girls.”

Barbara didn’t know about my kids. She didn’t know about Wally Kim. Could it be that her sole purpose in traveling all those thousands of miles down to Costa Rica was to ask me to…no, no way in hell. That didn’t compute, not at all.

“I can’t step a foot back in the States. You know that.”

She took a sip and stared at me, said, “You know I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important.”

“Why me? And don’t try that old saw that it’s because I’m the best at this kind of thing. I won’t buy-”

She waved her hand, “No, that would be ridiculous and you know it.”

“Oh, thanks for that, Barbara.”

She laughed, “You know what I mean.”

I waited until her laughter died. “Tell me.” I didn’t want to know, not really. This had to be some link back to my old life, and it wouldn’t be good. None of my old life had been good. That wasn’t true, I had met Marie in my past life, and she was the best thing that ever happened to me, bar none.

Barbara again lost her smile, “You’re my only chance, and you know me, I wouldn’t be here, hat in hand, asking, if there was any other way. I wouldn’t ask you to hang yourself out like that.”

This time I was the one who couldn’t speak, and only nodded.

Her cell buzzed on the bar. She left it, not caring if I saw it, displaying a little trust. I couldn’t read the text upside down and didn’t want to. She said, “It’s about your boy Milky.” She nodded over her shoulder in the direction Jake Donaldson had walked off. She pushed another button and a photo came up on her cell screen. I didn’t need to turn it right side up to recognize Jake. She picked up her phone, moved it closer for me to see. “That him? That the guy who just walked off?”

“Nope, close, but it’s not the same guy.” Of course it was, but I wasn’t going to rat.

She looked surprised, “Maybe you’re not the right guy for this job. Maybe I’m wrong. The Bruno Johnson I used to know has changed.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Used to be, no matter what, with you, a crook was a crook was a crook. Robby said you were a bulldog when it came to ‘fighting the tyrannical oppression of the underprivileged.’”

The name “Robby” coming from her lips caused me to cringe. With it came a stab of grief and sorrow. At one time, Robby had been a good friend. “Maybe,” I said, “but that was then, this is now. Times change. You change with them, or get eaten up.” My own words came out cold, desolate. But I was alive, and Robby was the one taking the cold dirt nap.

“All right, all right,” she said. “Let me tell you a story and, if you still feel the same, I’ll let you tell me whether or not I should drop the hammer on your friend Milky.”

“That’s okay, this hypothetical Milky, he told me all about it, and it sounds like what happened might’ve been a terrible accident.”

I didn’t really think that. By his own words, Jake, aka Milky, had swung his front door open with the intent to fire, with the intent to kill. That was murder no matter who stood there, friend or foe. But were there extenuating circumstances that mitigated his actions? Years ago, in my book, before I went to prison for gunning down my son-in-law, there had been no such thing. You did the crime, you went down for it, hard or easy, your choice.

Barbara began, “Milky used to live in Fresno. He killed a black guy on the sidewalk out in front of his house. It started with a stupid argument that turned to racial slurs. Milky pulled this huge hogleg from his waistband and, without provocation, shot him dead because he was black.”

Any empathy I might have had for Jake was gone. Barbara had no reason to make up this story. Jake had now morphed into the kind of animal I had chased while on the Violent Crimes Team.

Barbara continued, “According to the report, Milky had the gun under his jacket, out on the sidewalk. He shouldn’t have had the gun out there in the first place, which proves intent. Milky claimed that the victim came at him with a knife. Milky fled the scene and, by the time the deputies arrived, there was no knife. There were no witnesses. The Sheriff’s Department handled the incident and could not get the DA to file. And here’s a little bit of ugly irony for you. The sheriff screwed up and released the gun back to Milky. Maybe they had to, but I wouldn’t have. Milky left Fresno because it got a little too hot. Too many people wanted a piece of him. When he happened to settle in our little town of Montclair, I was working homicide and caught the case. He blew this guy right off his own porch. Point blank, right in the heart. He thought it was his Hispanic neighbor. Again, no witnesses. Again, no other motive than prejudice. He ran like most all of those cracker assholes do. And, until right now, we had no idea where he’d landed. We issued a warrant and we’ve been looking for him ever since.

“Oh, and the slug, went right through Fredrick Landsberg, the victim. We dug it out of a kid’s playhouse across the street. It matched. Milky used the same gun, the.44 Mag that he used to kill that sixteen-year-old kid in Fresno.”

A sixteen-year-old? To make matters worse, Jake had gunned down a sixteen-year-old kid!

Barbara cocked her head a little like she always did when trying to decipher a problem, trying to decide to say something further. “Be careful. I saw Milky when he left, what he did with his hand.” She mimicked Jake Donaldson and made a gun with her index finger, her thumb as a hammer.

I asked, “Wasn’t this Fredrick Landsberg his best friend?”

She scoffed. “Landsberg’s wife told me that her husband met Milky that same day at a filling station, and Milky paid him forty bucks to help him protect his property against the influx of, ‘the Mechican scourge.’ And she said it just like that too.”

I was stunned. How had I totally misread Jake? I didn’t know what to say. “Don’t worry about him. He’ll lay low for a while and then take off. He’ll go to Panama or Cuba.” I didn’t say the words with enough conviction to convince even myself.

She continued, “We never recovered that gun. The psych profile report believes that he’s probably devolved mentally, and in some sort of freaky way, worships that gun. Bruno, he looked right at me tonight. He knows me from Montclair. I was the patrol sergeant working overtime the day of the shooting. I’d been the one to respond out to his house earlier that same day to mediate a neighborhood disturbance. And, get this, it was over some bathtub cheese. So watch yourself, the way this went down, me walking up, he might think you ratted him out.”

“Perfect.”

She said, “I’ll notify the FBI and tell them he’s down here, but there’s not much they can do if he’s wanted for murder. Costa Rica won’t approve the extradition if there’s a possibility of the death penalty.”