The Replacements (3 page)

Though another major consideration, Jake had on a light linen jacket that could easily conceal a weapon. I remembered what Robby Wicks, Barbara's husband, used to always say, that God created men, and Samuel Colt made them equal. Robby had died by those words. My next thought was, what would Marie and the kids do if this wrinkled, bag-of-bones of a man threw down on me, shot me dead?

In the last nine months since I'd been in Costa Rica, I had allowed my instincts to wane. I would never again disregard my street sense and let it fade away like that.

I straightened up and pulled my shoulders back. I did what I used to do while working the streets on the Violent Crimes Team for the Los Angeles County Sheriff when confronting a rabid predator: I returned his stare the same as you would with a vicious dog.

“If you're going to tell us, old man, get to it. We're not getting any younger.”

Jake's mouth dropped open and his eyes probed mine, trying to figure me out. His tongue whipped out, lizard like, and wet his dry lips. “All right, you black bastard, I'll tell you.” His head jerked to the right to see his pals, “And if any of you cocksuckers rat me out, it'll be the last thing you ever do. You can bet your ass on that. You hear? You hear me? You sorry sack of pussies.”

No one answered. They were all too scared. Jake had never talked to them this way. He'd always been quiet, calm, told quaint anecdotes of urban living. Ansel Tomkins, the CPA to the movie star he'd ripped off, one of Jake's three pals sitting at the bar on his left, looked away, brought a shaky hand up and scratched his cheek to bleed off a little tension.

In a bizarre mood shift, Jake seemed to decompress and took the situation down a notch. While we all watched a little stunned, Jake slowly spun his stool around until he faced the bright blue ocean capped with white, blown up by the afternoon breeze. When he talked again, he used the same harsh words, but his tone had lost the hard edge, gradually melting back into the Jake we knew, the quiet, mild-mannered old man everyone liked to drink with.

“Those Mexican assholes, they were the ones did it. I did it, sure I did. But it was those chili-eatin' Mexican assholes was the cause. They were makin' cheese in the bathtub next door. I know it sounds damn silly to start off a horrible story like this with bathtub cheese, but that was the way it all began.

“The smell…damn, you boys should've taken a whiff of that rotten smell, you'd a done the same. The whole damn neighborhood reeked like Mexican dirty socks, a million of 'em. Sure, I called the code enforcement boys. They came and raided the house.
‘But it was only cheese, after all.'
That's what the code enforcement supervisor told me when he went ahead and walked across my yard, right up to my door. Burned me to those chili-eaters, sure as God made little green apples. The code enforcement boys took all their cheese and issued them a summons to go to court. A summons, for cripes sakes, and nothin' more.

“That's when it really started. Sure, right then.” Jake hesitated, his eyes lost on the blue horizon. The boys at the bar exchanged glances. Ansel seemed to recover from his fear and shrugged at the others.

Jake swallowed hard, in profile, his tan and prominent Adam's apple rose and fell against the bright blue, cloudless sky. “Them assholes decided to put in a fence to wall me out from their front yard. ‘Okay by me, bring it on.' That's what I yelled when they started diggin' the ditch for the foundation. Sure, I said it just like that, ‘bring it on, you assholes.'”

He hesitated again. And we waited. I had a feeling I knew how this story would end. I was glad I no longer worked the streets of South Central Los Angeles, so I wouldn't have to deal with domestic disturbances in person ever again. Including the news I'd just heard. Though compelling, Jake's story still could not entirely push out the kidnapping and the image of Barbara Wicks on the television.

Jake continued on. “Couple a days later, my best friend Freddy came over. We sat on the porch and had us a few beers. That's when Freddy said it. He was the one that lit the fuse. He said, ‘Jake, look at that, would yeh?'”

“‘What's that, Freddy?' I ask.”

“‘They come right over on your side a the property line. Look, look.'”

“I got up, walked out to the street and checked that little
line-marker doughnut thing in the sidewalk. Sure as shit, Freddy was right. Those shit-assed brown bastards had crossed the line. Well, we got into an argument, me and Freddy and two of them Mexes. We started pushin' and shovin'. That's when the cops showed up. They broke it up. But the assholes threatened me right in front of those cops, said for me not to go to sleep or they'd burn down my house.

“Me and Freddy, we went into my house and, when it got dark, we put guns by all the windows and doors and we watched. We were ready for 'em, you can bet. We were ready, sure we were.” Jake's voice trailed off again.

“Long about midnight—I was godawful tired by then, and I admit a little irritable waiting for them chili-eaters to attack—Freddy—my best friend Freddy, he said, ‘Think I heard a noise out back.' Freddy, he was covering the back door, I had the front. I said, ‘Well, dammit, man, you got the back, go on out and check on it.' I didn't think nothin' of it, thought it might be ghosts in old Freddy's head.”

Jake's voice broke as tears came in earnest now. “Them Mexes came right then. Knocked on my front door. I'd been ready all night, tense and tight as a wound spring. I yanked open that front door and said, ‘Okay, you sons of bitches.'

“I shot the .44 Magnum. The noise and flash…it…it stunned me. I wasn't ready for it.” Jake swallowed hard. “Freddy, my best friend, stood on the porch in front of me holding his chest. His eyes…his eyes pleaded with me to take it back, to take back what I had just done. He wanted to live, and I had stolen his life.

“You see, Freddy, he'd gone out back and the door closed, locked him out. And he'd come around the front.

“I cried like a baby.”

John Booth muttered low, “Jesus H—”

“Before he fell off the porch, dead, I yelled, ‘How come you didn't say it was you, Freddy? How come you didn't say?'”

Ansel reached over to put his hand on Jake's arm.

Jake jerked away. “It was his fault really, I guess.”

Oh, God, what a terrible story, and I had been responsible for him telling it. The poor man.

Jake slid off his stool and ambled a few steps down the beach before he turned back and pointed a finger at me, his eyes squinting from the sun. He lifted his thumb, his hand now resembling a pistol. For a long second he held it, pointing in a threatening manner right at me. He turned and continued down the beach.

Ansel tossed back the rest of his drink, set the glass down hard on the bar, “Hey, Bobby J, do that again, but make it a double and hold the ice. That was something, wasn't it, boys? That sure was something to tell your grandkids about.”

I did as he asked, while the other two sat solemn, brooding over the loss of their drinking buddy and his revelation. One thing I learned working the streets was all about human nature. Jake would never come back, not now, not after we all knew. Ansel took another drink, then said, “I never thought old Jake was down here on a murder beef. No sir, never would've guessed that one in a million years.”

Ansel talked while I refilled Olivares' and Booth's drinks. His words melted into the fading day as I, too, remembered a similar, life-changing incident. Long ago, I'd bumped up against evil on the other side of a similar door in a house that bled. A day didn't go by I wasn't reminded that not all humans believed in keeping children safe and out of harm's way.

That's when my world jerked back into focus. I stood at the cabana bar looking out at the blue water. That's when I saw Barbara Wicks, the woman who'd just been on the television, the chief of police for Montclair, and Robby's widow, walking across the beach toward the cabana bar, her black heels kicking up sand.

What in the hell was she doing in Costa Rica?

Why was she approaching from the beach and not from within the hotel? Could there be thirty or forty Feds along with the Costa Rican police hidden in and around the personal cabanas and tourist sunbathers? Was Barbara's approach a diversion so they could sneak up and take down a BMF, a Brutal Mother Fucker, wanted in the States on multiple felonies? I didn't turn and look. If they were there, it wouldn't matter anyway.

Barbara was a beautiful woman with brown hair going gray. Her face wore the haggard lines brought on by stress and sleep deprivation, and, to be fair, probably a little grief. Her now-deceased husband, Robby, had been the leader of the Violent Crimes Team, of which I'd been a member. We'd called ourselves the BMFs, Brutal Mother Fuckers. We'd had many a barbeque and beer in their backyard.

Robby's death had been the direct result of my actions. When he'd shot me in the ass—the second time he'd shot me in two-and-a-half years—he was trying to take me down. He was after Wally Kim, the kidnapped son of a South Korean diplomat who had a million-dollar reward on him for his safe return. Deputy John Mack of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department had then shot and killed Robby with a 12-gauge Ithaca Deerslayer shotgun.

I fought the urge to turn back to the television to see if Barbara's image was still there, hoping to make this nothing more than an apparition of guilt, retribution for what I'd just done to Jake. The news broadcast had been taped, and the flight to Costa Rica only took six hours—an obvious explanation.

She smiled. “How's it hangin', Bruno?”

“Get you something to drink, Chief? Something pink with a little umbrella?” I played the cool fugitive, suppressing every instinct to leap over the bar and run for my life. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't come up with a logical reason for her standing there other than to take me down. Just because she'd been in the process of divorcing Robby didn't mean she hadn't loved him. Taking me in could be a matter of principle. Unlike me, some people still lived by principles. That wasn't necessarily true; I did have principles, just a different set.

I thought Costa Rica was far enough away so I hadn't worked at changing my appearance. A disguise would not have fooled Barbara Wicks. Robby hadn't married her because she was a fool, not by a damn sight.

She looked at the three compadres all watching her every move. “You boys need to find someplace else to drink. Bruno and I need to talk.” She didn't know I was living under an alias. Didn't know or didn't care.

Her business professional dark slacks and a peach blouse displayed no law enforcement insignia. Her assertive, no-nonsense demeanor was all she needed. The boys got up mumbling that they had something to do or someplace they were supposed to be, and walked away. Ansel stopped and said, “Hey, Bruno, see you later?” He'd used my real name instead of Bob and winked. He was the smartest of the three and sensed the same dreaded outcome, a conversation that might end with my arrest.

“Sure, come on back later and the first one's on me.” Meantime, my hands had been working all on their own mixing a Cosmo, her favorite drink. I set it in front of her. I wanted to blurt out, to ask her—no, to beg her—to tell me why she was there. I had to know if my life, as I knew it, was over. She slid up onto the stool, took the drink, and sipped. “What an absolutely beautiful view. This is a hell of a place to work, Bruno. You did good.”

My mind clicked in on the obvious reason for her appearance. Wally Kim. What a dumbass for not thinking of it outright. She
was there for Wally Kim. I had promised John Mack I would give Wally back. I just hadn't gotten around to it. Of the eight children I had saved from abusive homes, Wally Kim had a good father, one I hadn't known existed when I'd liberated Wally. Through the South Korean embassy, I'd set up a meeting to give Wally back. The meeting was scheduled for tomorrow. The embassy called early in the morning after Marie had gone to work, and I hadn't told her yet. I could have called her at work, but she was going to be upset. I wanted to tell her in person, hold her in my arms and whisper it in her ear, be there to comfort her.

All the kids we took were doing great, flourishing in their new healthy environment, one that none of them had ever had. I regretted that we had not had the time to prepare Wally or the other children emotionally for Wally's departure.

That was how Barbara had found me. Somebody from the embassy must have called her, told her where I was hiding out. Maybe that was why she was sitting at the bar sipping a Cosmo. Maybe the cops had already raided our bungalow, seized all eight children, which included my grandson Alonzo. Marie, the love of my life, and my father may now be in custody, pending extradition.

All because of me.

My heart sank. Of course, this was the only logical conclusion. We'd had a good run. Why had we thought we could get away with it in the first place?

Barbara set her drink on the bar and looked back down the beach. “That guy who just walked away, the dried-up old fart who looked like an old kicked-around walnut, that was Melvin Milky, you know. He made me as a cop.”

I took up a white towel and wiped down the bar. “Don't know who you're talking about. Didn't see him.”

She nodded as if she believed me. She pulled out a slim cell, from where I couldn't guess, and texted while she talked. “I am absolutely sure that was old Melvin.” She finished her text and took up her drink. Had she just made up the name Melvin Milky
for Jake Donaldson, and was using it as an excuse to text her backup to swarm in?

“Okay,” I said, “come on, tell me. I can't stand it anymore. Why are you here?”

She sipped her drink, her expression unreadable.

“Barbara?”

She smiled, set the glass down. “I think you know why.” She nodded behind me.