The Heartless Read online

  Also By David Putnam

  The Reckless

  The Innocents

  The Vanquished

  The Squandered

  The Replacements

  The Disposables

  Copyright © 2020 by David Putnam

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, businesses, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-1-60809-378-6

  Published in the United States of America by Oceanview Publishing

  Sarasota, Florida

  www.oceanviewpub.com

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  To my wife, Mary

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE COUTROOM WAS packed—all attention riveted on Deputy District Attorney Nicky Rivers. She tilted her head in my direction, and for a moment, her eyes caught mine, her expression unmoved—but that was enough. I flashed on the memory from the night before in the front seat of my Ford truck. Her parting kiss had been alive with emotion. It had not been our first kiss—not by a long shot—but this one, for me anyway, had been different. This one beckoned me to take our relationship to the next level of commitment.

  But here in the courtroom, I knew what she was going to do next, and I’d warned her against it. Not in a courtroom filled with friends and family of the victim.

  She picked up a legal pad and approached the witness on the stand. Pam Peterson, the deputy coroner, had already been on the grill for more than an hour under cross-examination by Gloria Bleeker, the defense counsel. Now it was Nicky’s turn for redirect. “Ms. Peterson, can you tell the jury again how the victim was killed?”

  Peterson looked at Judge Connors first and then back at Nicky Rivers. “As I said before, the victim’s throat was cut with a thick serrated blade.”

  Don’t do it, I whispered.

  “How deep?” Nicky asked.

  “Almost to the point of decapitation.”

  Judge Connors said, “Counselor?”

  Nicky ignored the warning. “Ms. Peterson, do you know if the victim’s five-year-old daughter was present during this brutal attack?”

  Gloria Bleeker stood. “Objection.”

  Nicky proceeded against the judge’s earlier recommendation and pushed the button of the remote in her hand. A PowerPoint presentation in full color depicting the violent death of the victim came up on the television screen positioned directly in front of the jury.

  A loud din rose in the courtroom.

  I sat at the bailiff’s desk, my finger poised on the panic button, ready to push it. I watched for something to ignite the small riot, something thrown, an object, a punch, a shove. An action that would force me to protect the evil that sat quietly in the defendant’s chair. Force me to defend Louis Borkow against the innocent and misguided in the courtroom audience. The panic button would summon additional help that would arrive too late. Lives would be disrupted, people hurt. And for what? Not justice. Not by any stretch.

  Judge Connors had instructed me not to push the button in the standing-room-only court except in an extreme circumstance. According to him, “This monkey shit of a circus already has too many reasons for an appeal and we don’t need another one. So don’t you push that button, Bruno, unless you’re absolutely sure.”

  Louis Borkow sat unperturbed at the defendant’s table and used the verbal disruption—the yelling from the audience, the rap, rap, rap of the judge’s gavel—to, one at a time, stare down the members of the jury. Twelve of his “peers” who sat in the jurors’ box, tasked with giving him the needle for the brutal slaying of his black girlfriend. The jurors would have every right to fear him if there had been one chance in a million he’d ever see the light of day. He would never get out, not with all the evidence stacked against him. The jury was smart enough to know it.

  Borkow’s jet-black hair made his pale skin seem even whiter, and his intense blue eyes brought out the psycho in him. He was the most dangerous threat in the room, so I watched his every move.

  The Honorable Judge Phillip J. Connors, in his black robe, continued to bang his gavel until calm gradually returned and everyone sat down in their bench seats or went back to leaning against the wall. Two uniformed extra-duty deputies, on overtime, stood behind and to each side of Borkow. Not so much to restrain him but to keep the crowd from tearing his skinny ass apart. Keep the crowd from dragging him out in front of Compton Court and throwing a rope over the lowest branch of a pepper tree.

  With order restored, Judge Connors said, “If it happens again, I’ll clear the courtroom, and this proceeding will be closed to the public. Now”—he looked to Deputy District Attorney Nicky Rivers and pointed his gavel at her—“let’s move on, shall we, Counselor? I think you’ve made your point with those crime scene photos. Don’t you?”

  I took my finger away from the panic button and stood. I’d been sitting all morning. I let my thumbs hang on the top of my Sam Browne gun belt, my uniform shirt a little too tight at the buttons. Two years earlier I’d left the violent crimes team and transferred to court services to fill a bailiff position. The desk job had added an extra ten pounds and damn near drove me stir crazy. For the umpteenth time I silently swore I’d start running again on my next days off.

  Deputy DA Nicky Rivers looked down at her yellow-lined notepad as if deciding what to do next, what witness to call, what evidence to present. She didn’t need to check anything; she only wanted the pause so everyone had time to refocus on her. Which wasn’t difficult. Her custom-made suits were modest enough for an attorney, but when combined with elegant silk blouses and strappy heels, her onstage persona was unparalleled. Those brown eyes, sparkling with vitality, and those luscious lips and that cute little nose perfected her magnetism.

  She brought her yellow Black Warrior number-two pencil up to her mouth to tap her front tooth, a nervous tic she worked hard to overcome. This she had told me in a whispered confidence over dinner one night.

  In every trial, she played the role of lion tamer, her chair and whip guiding the jury, the audience, and even the judge, toward the conclusion she wanted, a master at manipulation, a crackerjack attorney with no equal. I may have been a little biased.

  I would have felt sorry for Borkow having Nicky as an opponent if he hadn’t deserved everything coming his way.

  “Ms. Peterson,” Nicky said, “can you please continue with what you were saying before the interruption? Apparently, the court has decided we no longer need the photos of the crime scene.”

  Nicky clicked off the audiovisual equipment and didn’t look at the judge. But I did. He scowled and shook his head. He wouldn’t let it slide, and later, in his office away from the jury, he’d warn her one last time before he sanctioned her on the record.

  Pam leaned into the mic. “I’m not sure what the question was … ah, that’s right. Ah, no, I have no way of knowing if the decedent’s five-year-old daughter was present when the defendant, Louis Borkow”—she pointed at him again—“decapitated her with the thick-bladed, serrated knife we found at the scene.”

  Gloria Bleeker jumped to her feet. “Objection, Your Honor! Now that’s the second time the jury’s heard hearsay testimony, which is nothing more than morbid supposition, myth, and rumors. It violates my client’s right to a fair trial.”

  Judge Connors banged his gavel
as the din in the audience again started to rise. “Council approach.”

  The phone on my desk rang. Bleeker and Rivers moved to the judge’s bench as he leaned over to whisper to them as if they were two errant children. I didn’t have to be up there to know what Connors was telling them. I picked up the phone, hit the button on the phone’s console, and said in a whisper, “Deputy Johnson, Superior Courtroom Three.”

  “Popi!”

  Olivia. My daughter.

  Only Olivia hadn’t called me Popi in years. Every time she called me “Bruno” it grated on my nerves and at the same time made me a little sadder over a childhood lost.

  “Popi.” She sobbed. “Don’t be mad. Please don’t be mad at me.”

  “Sweetie, what’s the matter? What’s happened?” My tone turned loud and no longer followed courtroom decorum.

  “I’m with Derek.” She suddenly lowered her voice. “And … and they have guns.”

  My back went straight and my hand gripped the phone too tight. Derek Sams, every parent’s nightmare. “Olivia, honey, I won’t be mad; who has a gun? Where are you? Tell me where you are.”

  The courtroom went quiet and I felt everyone turn to look at me, even the judge and the attorneys.

  “Just tell me where you are. I’ll come and get you.” She was supposed to be in school. I’d just gotten her back two weeks ago after she’d run away. Fourteen years old and she’d been out on the street on her own for three days and two nights before I tracked her down. I should’ve taken Derek by the neck then and throttled his seventeen-year-old ass.

  “Popi, I don’t know where we are. I snuck into the other room. I’m in the closet on the floor with the door closed. I’m so scared.”

  “It’s okay. It’s okay, baby. Listen to me—what did you see? What was around you when you pulled up to the house?”

  Everyone in the courtroom held their breath, still looking at me. Everyone except Louis Borkow, who smirked, clearly enjoying my distress. He ate up the violence about to rain down on someone dear to me. When I had the chance, I’d pull him aside and have a heart to heart with him while his face was mashed up against the wall.

  Her voice suddenly shifted to a smaller whisper. “I’m in a house in Compton. I think it’s blue and white with a big tree and …”

  “What street? Do you remember the street? What’s the house close to? A market, a church?”

  “They got a gun to Derek’s head. They’re going to shoot him. You have to come. Hurry. Please hurry.”

  “Olivia, stop. Listen, take a breath, baby, and relax. You’re gonna be okay, I promise. That’s good. That’s good, honey. Breathe. Now think. What street are you on?”

  She hesitated a moment as she thought about it. “Pearl, yeah, I think it’s Pearl, off Alondra.”

  “I know where that is. I’m coming for you, baby. You sit tight, I’ll be there in less than five minutes. Here, I want you to stay on the phone and talk to a friend of mine, okay? Stay on the phone.”

  “Okay, Popi.”

  I held the phone out. Nicky Rivers hurried over and took it from me. I took off running.

  “Bruno!” Judge Connors yelled. “Bruno, where the hell do you think you’re going? You’re not going anywhere. You call it in. You have patrol respond. You’re too emotionally involved.”

  “There’s no time for that. I can get there faster. It’s not far.”

  “No, you’re not going, not without backup.”

  “I’m sorry, Your Honor, I’m going.”

  I stopped and looked back. Connors stood as he stripped off his black robe. In a controlled voice, he said to the two extra duty security deputies, “This court stands in recess. Lock down the defendant, then come back and escort the jury to the jury room.” The judge wore a starched white long-sleeve shirt buttoned all the way to the top. He reached under his bench and pulled out a large-frame revolver he kept there for emergencies and shoved it into his waistband. “You’re not going without backup. I’ll go with you.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  I RAN TO the elevator, the judge close at my heels. I stopped, looked at the lit floor numbers above the elevator doors, and couldn’t wait. I went for the stairs. The door banged open. I put my shoulder to the wall, let the handrail slip through my hand, and did a controlled fall down to the next landing. My feet slapped hard and it jolted my teeth.

  Judge Connors yelled, “Hey, wait. Wait up. Shouldn’t we call this in to the patrol dogs?”

  “No, we can get there faster than the deputies. I told you, it’s not far.”

  I slid down two more levels to the bottom and broke out into the blinding daylight, headed for my Ford truck. A few seconds later, the judge exited the same door. “Bruno?”

  I was too focused on getting to my daughter and for a second forgot where I’d parked. I hesitated while I got my bearings and my eyes adjusted to the light. The judge caught up, breathing hard. “Let’s take my car—it’s closer. Come on, it’s over here.”

  “Only if I can drive.”

  He tossed me the keys and hurried around to the passenger side of the beige four-door Mercedes parked in a slot with his name stenciled on the courthouse wall. Something I’d told him about in the past, that he shouldn’t advertise where he parked, not out in the open, not in an unsecured parking lot, and not with the kind of people that came through his courtroom. He put criminals away with heavy years, and angry families had made their displeasure known. He replied to my comment the same each time by putting his hand on the stock of the gun in his shoulder holster: “It’s America and I’ll damn well park wherever I want and to hell with them. I won’t shirk from my God-given freedoms.”

  Only the judge had never been in a violent confrontation and had no idea what it took to drop the hammer on someone, to experience the instantaneous snap of violence that changes your life forever. He was too in love with the idea of carrying a gun and fighting off avenging interlopers to consider the aftermath. And I was taking him along as a partner in a critical situation.

  I backed out as he yanked his foot in and closed his door. “Hey? Hey?” He put one hand on the door handle and one on the ceiling as I jerked the steering wheel this way and that, negotiating the parking lot, the tires screeching. “Bruno, you’re a little het up over this. When we get there, I want you to let me do the talking. Tell me what’s happened. Olivia’s in a gang house and someone in there has a gun?”

  He’d gleaned that much from my side of the phone conversation.

  The way he described Olivia’s plight brought home the seriousness of the situation my mind had automatically tried to sidestep and downplay.

  I barreled out of the parking lot onto Willowbrook Avenue, turned south, and almost sideswiped a blue Honda Civic. The driver, a black high-school-aged male, laid on his horn. I stole a look at Judge Connors. He had overly tan skin from playing too much tennis, a shock of gray hair gone white, and sad brown eyes. I said, “My sergeant is gonna have my ass as it is for leaving the court without department approval. You shouldn’t be anywhere near this sort of thing.”

  He grinned. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’re too emotional, too vested in this. You’re not thinking straight. You think I give two shits about what your sergeant thinks? Let me handle this. Okay?”

  Back in the day, Connors had been a sheriff’s deputy, who worked the jail, and then as a bailiff while he attended night school to get his law degree. He had never worked the street or had the opportunity to throw down on someone with a gun. When he passed the bar, he quit the sheriff’s department and went to work for the district attorney’s office. As a DA he excelled and moved his way up until he tried all the high-profile homicide cases. He was a living legend among cops and known as a hanging judge among the criminals. The governor appointed him to the bench ten years ago.

  I gunned the Mercedes’ big engine and made a wide sweeping turn to eastbound Alondra. “I know the place we’re going—it belongs to the Blood gang, the Mob James Piru. No
offense, Judge, but you’ve been out of the game for a while, and I’d feel a lot better about this if you sort of hung back a little.”

  Not that he’d ever truly been in the game.

  “Fat chance. Don’t you worry about me, son.”

  “Here we go. We’re coming up on Pearl.” I slid the pristine Mercedes to the curb on Alondra, five or six houses from Pearl Street, slammed it into park, and got out. I pulled my uniform shirt out of my pants and unbuttoned it, my fingers not moving fast enough.

  “What are you doing? We need that uniform in case this thing goes wrong.”

  “We won’t get in if they see a uniform walk up to the house. A tee shirt might get a little closer before they make us.” I didn’t tell him I didn’t want to misrepresent myself or the department in a situation where I expected my anger to get out of control. “You have something to put over that gun in your belt?” I tossed him the keys. He went to the trunk, opened it, took out a blue windbreaker, and shrugged into it. I unsnapped my Sam Browne and took it off. I pulled the gun and tossed the gun belt on the seat. I slammed the door and headed down the street in my green uniform pants and white tee shirt, holding the gun down by my leg.

  The neighborhood seemed quiet enough. Most all the houses needed new stucco, and some grass seed. All of them without exception sported wrought-iron bars on the windows and doors. And gang graffiti. Compton PD had lost the battle and the hoods owned it.

  I turned the corner onto Pearl with Judge Connors two steps behind. I put the gun in the waistband at the small of my back. Three houses down sat the house Olivia described, blue with white trim.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A SMALL BLACK kid, maybe ten years old, not old enough yet to make his bones in the gang, saw me coming down the street. All these little guys were called poo-butts—a classification within the gang until they made their bones. This one whistled, then yelled, “Five-O walkin’.” Another kid, older, standing at the open front door to the house, stepped in and slammed the wrought-iron security door. The clang elevated my sense of helplessness. I hurried up to the door and pounded on the warm steel, not standing to the side as procedure dictated, but standing right in front.