The Replacements Read online

  “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.

  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.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jake’s mouth dropped open and his eyes probed mine, trying to figu
re 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?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  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.