Free The Disposables by David Putnam Page A

tried the screen door.
    Locked.
    He started to close the inside door.
    â€œWait.”
    â€œYes, is there something else, Uncle Tom? Something you want to do for your whitie, the people you serve?” He didn’t try to mask the anger and hate in his tone. He was safe and he knew it, swaddled, nice and comfortable, in the shroud of the law.
    The next second I sniffed it.
    Alcohol.
    A drunk driver.
    The scent of metabolized alcohol set something off inside me, snapping the last straw. The professional face came off.
    I roared.
    With both hands I clawed through the screen, reached in and took hold of the enigma, a large, black man wearing a white Stetson hat. I pulled him through the screen door and out onto the ground.
    â€œI caught that last signal,” Robby said. “You remember? By the time I turned on Spring and found the house you hadthat old man down in his front yard and was putting the boot to him.”
    Robby had pulled me off. He had to slug me in the stomach to bring me out of the blind rage. That wasn’t how he’d saved my bacon, though. As a supervisor, he had witnessed a crime I’d perpetrated when I took the cowboy into custody with excessive force. Robby was obligated to stop me. Then turn me in for felony prosecution.
    No, the way he’d really saved me came after he got everything calmed down with med aid responding for the suspect. He told me I’d done a hell of a job tracking the car, that he’d never seen anything like it, the tenacity, the perseverance. Then he helped with the story, the way it would be written, the way the courts would accept it, and at the same time save my career. Get at least some token of justice for Jenny. Six months later, Robby was transferred to run the newly formed Violent Crimes Task Force and specifically asked for me to be on his team. So started the genesis of the BMFs.
    I owed him.
    The name Jenny brought it all flooding back, the hot night, the sweat, the odors, the images of shiny patent leather and blue gingham.
    â€œYes, I’ll help you, but only for a week. One week.”

Chapter Sixteen
    Robby smiled as he wheeled into Stops and parked among the derelict vehicles belonging to other customers. Stops had been at the corner of Wilmington and Imperial Highway forever. Right across the street was Nickerson Gardens, a city housing project that the city had finally fenced in with ten-foot-high wrought iron. Most places turned the curved pointed tops outward to keep the riffraff from entering. With the Nickerson, the wrought iron points were turned inward to keep the animals from escaping the zoo. Stops served hot link sausages on a bun smothered in barbeque sauce and chili fries so thick with grease they’d lie in your stomach for days. Cleevon Tuttle, a rotund black man in white apron with red barbeque sauce smeared in splotches all down the front, set a tray down on the counter with two hot links and chili fries. “Good to see ya, Bruno.”
    Robby, his money clip out, peeled off some bills. Cleevon lost his smile, “Man, don’t you dare insult me.”
    Robby put his money away and took up the tray.
    Cleevon looked back at me. I’d had a great deal of respect for this man, that’s why I hadn’t come around. I broke eye contact and lowered my head.
    â€œDon’t you be that way, Bruno. We was all pullin’ for ya. And if Johnny Cocoran hadn’t gone and died, you woulda gotoff just like O.J.” He leaned over the counter and took hold of my hand. “You stop that now. Listen to me, you been out a while, come around when you get hungry, anytime. It’s on me. You hear? You got nothin’ to be ashamed of. That sombitch had it comin’. He needed killin’. Everyone knows it.”
    â€œThanks, Cleevon.” All the help behind the counter stopped and watched. My new self-image, the crazy emotional old man thing, had me by the throat, sparking tears. “Doesn’t