The Replacements (2 page)

“Two-fifty-Tom-one, I got your back, Bruno, I'm shutting down Rosecrans now.”

I shot past Compton and Rosecrans making excellent time. I only had Century Boulevard left, the largest, most dangerous intersection—and there was nobody left.

The boy in my arm, held lightly against my chest, let out a little gurgle.

A bad sign.

“Come on, kid, hold on. We're almost there.”

We came up fast on Century. The entire intersection was shut down with two fire trucks. Fire fighters stood in the street waving me on. I took the corner with five big blocks left.

I pulled into the back of St. Francis. Three nurses and two doctors waited for me with a gurney. They yanked open my door and took the child, ran with him on the gurney. They disappeared into the hospital. I couldn't move. I shook all over. Blood soaked my uniform shirt. Feet cold and numb in wet boots, I sat there a long time before I was able to put it in gear and head back to my crime scene, one I'd had no right to leave in the first place.

Twenty years after the house that bled, I was tending the cabana bar at La Margarite in San José, Costa Rica. The usual suspects were in attendance, and I mean just that—four regulars who started around noon and stayed for hours, day after day. All four expats from the US. All four had fled under dark or morally corrupt circumstances. Like me, all four were criminals.

I'd brought my patchwork family to San José to dodge the law in the US.

The US could extradite those who sat at my bar, but instead, they worked under the theory that Costa Rica could deal with the nefarious and disreputable hiding out in their country. Only a few had been extradited since the treaty in 1992. Why bring them back for an expensive trial and incarceration?

Everyone who was not a local in the small village just outside San José had something to hide. I, too, had fled under unfavorable circumstances. I needed to know with whom I associated as a matter of self-preservation.

The first three of my regulars had been no challenge at all, not with my prior law enforcement experience. When time allowed I worked on the fourth. The last holdout, Jake Donaldson, was a hard nut to crack.

With the first three, I'd employed an elementary interrogation technique. When I had one of them alone, before the others arrived, and after he'd had a few drinks, I'd admit to my own culpability in a major criminal enterprise. Not the real ones,
of course. Looking them in the eyes, trying for compassion, and then, when the time was right, I'd reach over and lay my hand on their arm. It was the touch that did it. They opened up every time, like little children standing in front of their mothers with their slingshots clutched in their fists behind their backs.

Mike Olivares and John Booth were both tax evaders owing $1.5 and $2 million, respectively, to Uncle Sam. With interest and penalties, that number would easily triple. Neither had to worry too much about the US government coming south to scoop them up. Not for taxes. Not for that paltry amount.

Ansel Tomkins, the most cunning of the three, had been a certified public accountant who'd managed a big movie star's finances. An embezzler, he'd robbed the fat piggy bank and left the movie mogul with nary an IOU. I'd read about it in the
LA Times
, a paper they usually left lying around the bar. These men missed their abandoned lives and avidly pored over every inch of every column. Or maybe they just wanted to see if they had made the news again, craving an additional spotlight in their fifteen seconds of fame.

I hoped they hadn't seen my ugly mug on the front page nine months ago. All of
that
mess had calmed down now. The bullet wound in my ass had healed. The scar tugged and pulled if I stretched to reach the Patrón Silver bottle high on the top shelf. Though it was likely the men had seen my picture and read the story, they never put it together. Lucky for me. Once given the information, the Feds would gladly sneak down on a black bag operation and snag me up in an illegal extradition. They were beyond mad that I had slipped through their fingers on the lam. The main reason why I wore shirts that covered my BMF tattoo, an identifier from another lifetime. I'd also changed my name from Bruno Johnson to Bob Johnson. Johnson was like Smith, there were tens of thousands of us. I always wore an old Cincinnati Reds ball cap and dark sunglasses. Not a great disguise, but enough that I didn't think anyone so far south would identify me.

The hotel insisted that the television suspended from the ceiling remain on. When I turned to take some glasses out of the warm soapy water, Barbara Wicks, in a Montclair Police Department blue uniform, appeared on a CNN news item. For a long moment I stood there stunned, watching, unable to move.

Her husband had been the one who'd shot me the first time three years ago, and again nine months ago. But that was a long, sad story, one I was trying hard to forget.

The four gold stars on her collars indicating chief status caught my eye. Nine months ago when I had left, Barbara had been a lieutenant. Good for her. She had worked hard, first as a patrol officer, then as the department's first female homicide detective. She had excelled as an investigator and quickly moved up to watch commander. And now chief.

Way back, Barbara and Robby had been good friends of mine. I missed them both. The camera came in tight on her face. I stared at the screen. “At seven thirty yesterday morning, eight-year-old Sandy Williams was taken from her home on Buena Vista Street in the City of Montclair. The suspect jimmied the back door to get in, as the parents were home preparing to go to work. Montclair Police Department is working every possible lead, and we are using every available resource. This is a crime of unimaginable horror, not only for the Williamses, but for any family with children. The citizens in our city have to be able to feel safe in their own homes.”

“Hey, Bobby J,” Ansel said, “turn that crap off. We don't want to hear it. It'll ruin our buzz.”

I kept my eyes on the screen, eager to hear the rest, and I tried to keep the anger out of my tone, “Ruin your buzz? How do you think that child, Sandy Williams, is feeling right now?”

I'd taken—rescued, really, eight children—though some might describe the rescuing as kidnapping—and brought them to Costa Rica. Had this suspect taken Sandy Williams like I had taken my children? Taken her from an abusive home, where she'd been doomed to a life of pain and agony? Taken her with
no other intent than to trundle her down to Costa Rica, where it would be safe for one and all? No chance, there were no statistics for what I'd done with my kids. No one had ever rescued children like I had done. Mine had been a one-time shot.

This kidnapping was the worst kind, the suspect's motivation too difficult to ponder. I knew the odds were not in Sandy's favor. This kidnapping, like most others, was not going to end well.

My attention returned to Barbara Wicks on the screen. “We now have compelling evidence that the East LA kidnapping of Elena Cortez two weeks ago is related. We have put together a joint task force with Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and with the FBI as advisors. If anyone has any information about either of these children, please contact us at the number listed on your screen.” She looked into the camera. I couldn't help thinking she was looking right at me, right through me. She paused, then: “Now I'll take questions.”

So this was a serial kidnapping. Some animal was on the loose. My first instinct was to return to the States and manhunt him. Of course, I had to resist. I wanted to listen to the rest of the broadcast, but couldn't. The thought of what those kids were going through cut too deep. I lowered the volume with the automatic control and tried to distract myself by washing the rest of the glasses and filling drink orders for Becca, the server working the pool area. Lots of tropical drinks with little umbrellas and ice-cold Mexican beers.

Images of the children continued to pop up unbidden. I needed a stronger distraction. What I really needed was to go for a long run. That would clear my head, straighten things out. But I couldn't leave the bar. All I had left was to talk to the regulars. A mild distraction was better than nothing.

Ansel, if that was his real name, held up his empty highball. “Hey, Bobby J, how about doin' this again?” I filled his glass with Jack and Coke and made the seventh tick on the paper I used to keep track of ‘who' drank ‘what' and ‘how many.' I set down the
drink in front of him. He took the glass and leaned over the bar for a private word, his breath sweet with whiskey and mulled cherries. The other guys were talking amongst themselves and weren't paying attention to us. “Hey, Bob,” Ansel half-whispered, “you been working ol' Jake? You get a story outta him yet?”

I shook my head, “No luck.”

“Man, that's driving me nuts not knowin'. You know what I'm sayin'? I'm thinking real estate fraud. He skedaddled with all the proceeds from some big land grab. He looks like some crotchety old realtor, don't he? Whatta ya think?”

Ansel didn't have a lot of imagination. I'd fed the guys the story that I had fled the States on the heels of a major real estate fraud. I said, “Let me try something else.”

Three of my customers at the cabana bar—Ansel Tomkins, Mike Olivares, and John Booth—had had an overwhelming desire to tell their stories. Their consciences demanded it. With the help of Jack Daniel's and the need to wallow in self-pity, they'd all opened up.

All except Jake Donaldson.

Jake's insistence to hold on to his dirty little secret had always piqued my curiosity. I decided to take a different tack with Jake today. This time I'd conduct my interrogation with his drinking pals sitting right next to him. I'd try for a little peer pressure.

Jake was older than all of us. His head balding with wispy white hair, his skin tanned nut brown from the intense sun. He possessed that old man kind of strength with little body fat to hide the sinew and muscle that rippled when he moved. He'd been hiding out down here the longest.

I stepped over from Ansel, the Jack bottle in hand, and refilled Jake's glass, intent on further softening him up before getting started with the softball questions. He'd been hitting the Jack harder than normal. After each glass I poured him, he'd slump a little lower over the bar. I'd ask him where he grew up, how many sisters and brothers did he have—that kind of thing—that, if answered, revealed little by little a history of the man. I
stood there not marking down the ticks for each drink, trying not to be too obvious. The other three pretended not to be watching or listening, and whispered to each other as Jake's inebriation continued in earnest. Finally, I said, “Jake, old buddy, what'd you do in the States before you came down here? What were you into, huh, buddy?” He didn't answer right away. His cheek touched the smooth bamboo bar as he began to speak, his words aimed down the length of the bar, not directed at anyone in particular, jumbled and incoherent.

I said, “Jake, old buddy, sit up, look at me. Come on, man, sit up. What did you just say?” I thought he'd said I was his best friend.

Jake's head rose and swayed as if too heavy to hold, his eyes bleary, unfocused. I repeated the question, “What'd you just say?”

His jerky head turned, looked down the bar at his three fellow compatriots all intent to know his secret. Jake, his voice a low croak, said, “He was my best friend.”

“Who's that, Jake,” I asked. “Who was your best friend?” The four of us held our breaths waiting, watching his eyes. With a “best friend” used in the past tense, maybe I didn't want to know this.

He raised his head, face flushed red. Tears brimmed and rolled down, leaving glistening trails.

This was bad, too much emotion. Now I didn't want to hear this man's tortured secret. I'd been toying with these men for my own security and some entertainment, but this one wasn't going to have a happy ending.

“Jake, wait, don't.”

With his mouth in a straight line, he brought a drunken hand up and waved me off. “Freddy. That's who. My best friend, that's who. You black bastard. I know what you're doing. I know you've been talking to these assholes about me. So you want to know the rest of the ugly truth? I'll tell yeh, you black bastard.” He swayed on his stool. Waved his hand in a wider arc. “I'm not like these other pussies here, these spineless little chickenshits with their petty white-collar crime bullshit.”

In the six months I'd known him, Jake had never opened
up like this, never used such strong words. I realized, in part, this came with his new South American persona that included an accurate portrayal of a harmless nerd, a geek. But now he was shedding that skin, revealing the real man. I had awakened a sleeping ogre. I was getting old and rusty and had not seen the signs. Here was a street-smart crook, and I had pushed his buttons. I wasn't afraid of him; I was forty-five to his sixty-five, and I outweighed him by thirty pounds. And I was sober.