“I’ve got some things to move into the barn,” he said. “I won’t be long.”
“Take your time.”
He unlocked and pushed open the sliding barn door. He turned on the lights. It was one big and mostly unbroken space, no stalls, his mother never having gotten the horses she wanted. She always used to say she was too busy for horses. She had been a hard worker, he thought with a wry smile. Two jobs: schoolteacher and armed robber.
Pigeons fluttered in the new light, and a handful of feathers sashayed down from the rafters. This would be his version of Erin’s studio, a place for working on his cars and daydreaming and being alone. A place for hatching plans. Maybe a place for becoming a poet.
His phone buzzed on his belt. He took the call from Owens, listened to what she had to say, hung up. He pictured her face, the lunar eyes, the raised serpents of scars intertwined upon her wrists. She made him uneasy, but she had helped him before and now she was offering to help him again. Her father was an interesting little man, likely insane, but he raked Bradley’s nerves when he was around, and Bradley’s instincts told him the man could help him. He knew things Bradley couldn’t believe he knew. Bradley tried to trust people as little as he needed to, and Owens, with her vague history and uncertain circumstances, made this easy. He thanked her and rang off and holstered the phone.
Then Bradley looked at the floor where a double murder had taken place, and a sharp anger arose inside him. Bradley himself had discovered the bodies and in that moment had shed his boyhood. He was sixteen. His mother had been the target and the two men who had died, brothers, were men he had known and liked. Innocents, generous men. Later his mother had had the concrete replaced because the blood had soaked into it and left its eternal smudge that no bleach or broom or high-pressure hose could remove, but when she had seen the new wet gray concrete, she had them shovel it back out and replace it with the broken-up blood-stained slabs. Respect, Bradley knew, though his mother had never explained herself.
He drove his Cyclone GT into the barn, the Cleveland 351 rumbling low through the glasspacks. It was a perfectly restored 1970 and it shone beautifully under the fluorescent lights suspended from the rafters. He closed and locked the barn door. From the trunk he took a JVC television box and carried it over to the far corner. He set it on an old wooden table, then reached under the table and retrieved the key fob hung from a nail.
He again collected the TV box and walked to the opposite end of the big room, which was separated by sliding shoji screens. He used his foot to slide one open and walked in. This area was finished off with hardwood flooring and some comfortable furniture and a big-screen TV and a good stereo. There were bookshelves, mostly automotive pictorials and histories, and hundreds of car magazines, and many volumes of poetry, which Bradley enjoyed. Poems were the opposite of cars. Cars went fast, while nothing stopped time like a good poem. He had tried writing them. There were notebooks filled with them, almost one entire shelf of notebooks, but he had never written one he liked. Too much emotion. Not enough. Too much detail. Not enough. He kept trying. But he also knew that at his wedding to Erin, he would recite from Neruda and not himself, though she had asked him to read something written in his heart.
There was also a Ping-Pong table. He carefully set the TV box down on the floor, then took the paddles and ball off the Ping-Pong table and tossed them onto an old leather sofa. With the table clear, he hit the fob button. The concrete slab and the hardwood flooring that was cut away around the Ping-Pong table and the table itself, all rose six feet into the air and locked into place on four staunch hydraulic lifters. Bradley hustled down the steep narrow stairway with the JVC box and hit the fob again, which lowered the slab above him. He listened to the hiss of the hydraulics and then the final clunk of the concrete settling back into place. He smiled. He had built the door using the powerful lift assemblies from two trash trucks he had stolen in nearby Escondido. Driving the trash trucks away fast at night had been surprisingly good fun. It had taken him six backbreaking months to excavate the vault, using pick, shovel, and bucket. The labor and the thousands of trips up and down the ladder had left him ten pounds lighter and considerably stronger than when he’d last played football two years ago. And there was no feeling like the satisfaction of having done something with his own hands. Welding and cutting and working the steel had come easy to him, through his passion for working on cars. This trapdoor and the vault below were a secret that he had shared with no one.
He set the JVC box down and turned on the lights. The room was generous—twenty by twenty, eight feet from floor to ceiling. One wall was lined with three steel combination safes with a total capacity of forty-two cubic feet. The safes were bolted to the concrete floor and they were fireproof. There was a workbench along another wall, and a metal rolling shop chair. The worktop was orderly and sparse: two expensive digital scales, a vacuum packer designed for use on game, a rolled lariat, a Colt single-action revolver, an oily red bandana, a handmade Indian arrow with a small obsidian head, two rough-hewn wooden boxes in which Bradley could see the leather-bound book with no title on the cover and old clothes and old newspapers and photographs and a bandoleer with some of the bullets still intact.
Bradley picked up the TV box and moved it to the workbench amidst these oddities, then cut the packing tape with his switchblade. He folded open the top flaps and reached inside and pulled out a black velvet hood, which he set aside. Then he gently lifted out a heavy glass jar. He held it up to be face-to-face with the head inside, a man’s head, severed cleanly at the neck, a pale and lonely thing. The head was bald, and a layer of black hair lilted just off the bottom of the jar. The face could have once been handsome. Joaquin Murrieta. El Famoso. Bradley’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. Although history said the bottled head was lost in the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906, Bradley had read in his mother’s journal that in fact it had been stolen from an exhibition hall one week before by Ramon Murrieta, one of Joaquin’s grand-sons. The leather-bound journal said that the head had been spirited down through the generations by Joaquin’s most kindred descendants. Now it was here. Bradley believed the head. He believed that it had had power over his mother, the power of the past, the power of blood. Now it had power over him. She had kept it right here in the Valley Center barn, stashed in a hidden attic space that Bradley had discovered when he was fourteen. She had never told him about it or how it got here, but she had tried to. He remembered her sitting him down for important talks that failed to contain the important. She would begin but couldn’t finish. The journal had told him more than its writer ever could, and Bradley had spent hours with it before and after her death. Now when he read the words, he heard them spoken by her voice. I anguish over my oldest son. He is clearly Joaquin’s spirit, as I am. But I don’t know if I want him to grow up Joaquin’s way or just be a normal boy, a normal man. What am I supposed to do with the legend of Joaquin? Does it continue through me to Bradley? Does it end with me? Do I give Bradley his truth? Do I hide it from him? Do I let him search for it? Talk about a pickle. I’ve thought about it and prayed about it and even tried to just forget about it but I can’t. Carrying history is a burden. I’d rather be robbing a fast-food place.
Bradley knew that she had died not knowing what to tell him of his history, but when he had seen the head and put the pieces together, he understood.
He set the big glass jar on the workbench beside the Colt revolver and watched the head bob slightly and the hair begin to settle.
“¿Cómo estás, el Famoso?”
He rolled the work chair over and sat in it and looked at the tableau upon the bench. He got up and took his mother’s journal from the wooden box and laid it down beside the head and the gun, then opened a drawer and took out a feather duster and swiped it over the bench top. He put the duster back and sat back and viewed again. As he thought about his mother and Joaquin and his coming wedding to Erin, Bradley’s heart felt full and sad and joyful
all at the same time. These powerful emotions were exactly what all those notebooks were filled with, he thought, lame attempts all just to say what he felt.
Later he opened each safe and inspected the bales of vacuum-packed cash. He liked to run his hands over the packages. Because his payments from Herredia were often in small bills, they took up lots of space. He had laundered some of the money through Israel Castro, in Jacumba. Israel had several legitimate and illegitimate businesses and he was happy to work with Bradley and his money. Israel, as a notary public and a loan originator, had helped Bradley buy the Valley Center ranch for cash. Of the approximately one and a quarter million dollars that Bradley had earned in the last year and a half, only one hundred thousand remained in the safes. But he’d learned that fifteen grand a week, base pay, adds up fast. There was also money from stealing cars, but he had not been doing much of that with the wedding to plan and his new position as an arms procurer for Herredia. The deal for the Love 32s would earn him ninety thousand if everything happened like it was supposed to. Erin would be making better money now with the recording deal, but as Bradley had seen, musicians almost always either starve or succeed hugely. Clayton and Stone were freelance and they worked their asses off forging payroll checks and stealing cars, and as their land-lord and mentor and occasional muscle, Bradley took a nice tribute from them.
He smiled and shut the safe door and spun the locks. Proximity to cash and Erin made him feel secure and full of heart and wicked horny. He put the hood on Joaquin and took the empty TV box and hit the fob. He stood and proudly watched the door ascend into the barn light.
27
The seven hundredth Love 32 is finished and I sit at the bench beside Marcos and take the weapon from him and feel its wonderful weight and balance in my hand.
“The crew is tired,” he says. “Twelve hours a day, thirteen days in a row. No rest.”
“They can take a day off if they want.”
“They want the full bonus at the end. Is why they work hard.”
“Six more days should do it. Five point six, actually.”
“They have a request.”
I set the gun on the bench and look at Marcos. He’s a heavy, jug-eared Baja Californian with a family of five, all of whom were born here and are citizens. Unfortunately, Marcos and his wife are not citizens and not legal workers, though why they haven’t become naturalized, I can’t tell you. His English is good and he is more than smart enough to learn the basics of our history and constitution. Over the years I’ve told him several times that Pace would pay for his citizenship classes, and for any work he might miss in order to attend. Same for Teresa, his wife. The first time I told him this was five years ago, around the time I took over as production manager. Marcos had smiled amiably and nodded and said he would consider this, and he’s been smiling amiably and nodding ever since.
“They would like a larger bonus,” he says. “They ask you for sixty-five dollars per day if the job is finish in eighteen days or less.”
“I offered them a fifty-dollar-per-day bonus if the run is finished in twenty days or less. And they agreed.”
This is even more important now than it was when the agreement was made because Herredia wants the guns ASAP. With the National Guard stationed all along the border, and the American military itching to charge south, and the Mexican military ready to repel boarders, Herredia doesn’t like feeling outgunned by the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas. All this chaos is a handy cover for him and Benjamin Armenta to blast away at each other and the other cartels and not draw the full wrath of the Mexican government.
“Yes,” says Marcos. “But you know, the gas is very expensive for they driving to work. They cannot live in Costa Mesa, so they live in the Santa Ana and drive far. They live cheap. They have children. Jesus needs the tires for the van. Lauro he has the baby, and Juan he has the two babies. They send money home.”
“They agreed, Marcos.”
“Yes.”
I do the math in my head. A bonus of fifty bucks a day for each worker would cost me a thousand dollars per worker if the thousand-unit run is complete in the agreed-upon seven days. A bonus of sixty-five will cost me eleven hundred seventy dollars per. There are twelve gunmakers, so the total difference to me would be two thousand forty dollars. If I agree to the larger bonus, I know full well that they’ll finish within eighteen days. So my total production payroll, with the higher bonus, would be seventy-four thousand five hundred and twenty dollars, with extremely good odds of finishing up quick. My personal net from this run, after overhead, payroll, and materials, will be around seven hundred grand.
I look down at the handsome weapon that lies before me on the bench.
“Okay,” I say.
“Thank you.”
“Five more days.”
“It will be finish.”
“Three days would be better.”
“We are working very hard. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pace.”
Marcos barrels away and I sit alone for a moment to feel good about myself. Generosity is a gift to the giver, too. In my expansiveness I reflect on how my life has changed in three short weeks. I have never really seen myself as the captain of my own destiny. This idea always struck me as specious and self-referential, what with gods and fate and governments and history and luck. I still don’t see myself that way, but I’m not about to turn away from life’s blessings no matter how mysteriously arrived they are. I’ve just blundered into things, into a fresh new business and into the chance to love the love of my life. To my small credit I have realized a few key things. I realized that I’m not as gutless and ineffectual as I thought I was. I realized that Mendez is actually Herredia, which has put me into business with one of the richest and most ruthless men in the Western hemisphere. And I’ve also realized that Bradley Smith is of course Bradley Jones, the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Joaquin Murrieta, the great and terrible El Famoso. It came to me a few nights ago just where I’d seen his face. Thirty seconds later, I’d found a short video of his mother’s funeral online and spotted Bradley prominent among the mourners. If I said that I was not personally thrilled to be marching through history beside a direct descendant of El Famoso I would certainly be lying.
Sharon and I have just made love for the third time today when there’s a ring on my security monitor near the front door. I put on my robe and go to the monitor to see Uncle Chester standing outside the lobby entrance.
“Hello, Uncle,” I say.
“I did not give you permission to change the locks,” he says.
“We had a break-in.”
“We need to talk.”
“In fact we do. Come on in.”
By now Sharon is in the living room in her indigo silk robe, glowering at me.
“You let him in.”
“He’s my uncle.”
“We didn’t change the locks to beam up Chester whenever he wants us to.”
“We need to talk. You know that. He’s coming up, Sharon. That’s what is going to happen here.”
She stares at me because she knows that she is partially responsible for my new assertiveness, and she knows she could ruin it if she wanted to. I derive a new strength from her. But I’m utterly in love with her and I tell her this often and I show it constantly in the most glaring and obvious ways: I bring flowers and gifts, I take her on short creative outings such as a day on Catalina and a pleasant lunch with Mom on the sunny lawn outside her mental hospital Victorian, and just yesterday I bought and boxed up a complete sushi and sashimi dinner, including a thermos of martinis, and we took it all to the end of the Newport pier and sat on the benches, watching the fishermen and ate and tossed balls of rice to the gulls. She knows I’m a fool for her, complete and total. I can’t fake that I’m not.
But I also can’t let my uncle stand outside in the dark. It’s time for me to tell him the new rules here at Pace. And Sharon knows this, too.
“We better get dressed,” I say.
&
nbsp; We tour the production floor. Chester in his pale linen suit glides along ahead of me, hands behind his back, and despite the new rules here at Pace that I’m dreading telling Chet about, I can’t resist falling into his slipstream and holding my own hands behind my back and adopting his patient, noble stride. Sharon walks beside me, arms crossed. I have come to know her well enough over the years to understand that the slight tightness in her mouth and the odd flatness of her eyes and the barely detectable clenching of her jaw indicate uncut fury. You don’t mess around with Sharon when she looks like this. The gunmakers steal looks at Chester. Among them he was a man to be feared, and he still cultivates and enjoys their fear immensely.
The shift is almost over and the eight hundred thirty-seventh gun has just come off. Chester lifts it in his hand, aims up at the lights, and dry-fires. When Pace Arms was still in full production, Chester was known to fire men and women who dry-fired a Pace weapon. It’s hard on a semi.
“You would have fired you for that two years ago,” I say.
“The pull is too heavy.”
“Four and a half pounds.”
“That’s easily four and three-quarters. Consistency is everything, Ron. Consistency is the physical manifestation of trust. Sloppy workmanship will doom us and I cannot allow it. It’s time for us to talk.”
“Okay.”
He sets the gun on the bench and looks down on me and Sharon. The lights shine off his bald dome of a head, and his cheeks are flushed pink. He lifts his nose very slightly, then lowers it, and I guess he’s picked up the smell of our sex. He smells of baby powder. He gives Sharon a small-toothed smile but says nothing.
In my office, Chet sits in my chair behind my desk. Sharon and I sit before him like a couple consulting a doctor. I can feel the anger coming off her.
Iron River Page 22
