The wedding party sat on a dais above the celebrants. Photographers shot pictures, and Bradley threw bones to the dogs, then at the photogs. Two of the Inmate roadies were dancing on the old wooden bar top and kicking unattended goblets into the air, glass slivers shooting through the lights like tiny comets. Hood ate ravenously. Beth spoke in fluent French, stood and told a joke in Italian, then sat back down embarrassed. After dinner and toasts, James McMurtry and the Heartless Bastards took up arms onstage and their first portentous notes issued forth from the amplifiers like the disturbance in advance of a hurricane.
Hood bought a dance with Erin with a crisp Ben and they did a swing to a song about a guy with an Airstream trailer and Holstein cow. Erin told him they were honeymooning in Moorea but that wouldn’t be for a couple of weeks because of some L.A. gigs that the label had added late, and Bradley had some things to do. After the dance, Erin kissed his cheek and put her hands on his shoulders and looked directly into Hood’s eyes.
“You’re important to him and to me, too,” she said. “Watch over him, Charlie. He needs you more than you know.”
Bradley came up behind her. “I need you more than I know,” he said, taking one of Erin’s hands off Hood’s shoulder and kissing it gallantly.
“Thanks for coming, Charlie,” said Bradley. “It means something to me. It would have meant something to my mother, too. Our futures go together, whether she’s with us or not.”
“Congratulations to both of you,” said Hood. And for a moment his hope for them was stronger than his dread.
Near midnight the crowd surged outside where the rodeo arena was now bathed in the floodlights. The bulls shuffled and snorted in the pen adjacent. There was a black bull in the chute and it stomped and snorted and threw its haunches against the rails, and Hood could hear the crack of wood. When the stands were full, a cowboy climbed onto the animal. The crowd was yelling loud when the black bull exploded into the arena and the kid rode its fury up and down, casually enmeshed in the circling chaos of the animal until he was suddenly flung from it and he landed and rolled and made the wall. There were five more bulls and five more riders. Hood watched them through an absinthe glow, transfixed and grinning.
Then Bradley sprung down from his seat and walked toward the chute. Erin turned and ran from the arena. Bradley stripped off his tuxedo jacket and flung it to his little brother, Jordan, who ran to keep up with him and appeared to be instructing him. Bradley climbed atop the chute, and the crowd roared into the night, and he lowered himself onto the dappled gray-and-white beast. Hood could see the shine of Bradley’s patent leather shoes against the great flank of the bull and he watched Bradley take the rope as a cowboy instructed, and the cowboy spoke fast to Bradley, and little Jordan was speaking, too, and Bradley listened with lessening patience, then he shrugged and nodded to the gateman. A gray-white bolt shot to the middle of the arena and went into midair without seeming to have jumped. It landed and Bradley, with his one hand high and his other locked to the rope, crashed hard to the bull’s back. The animal twisted and launched itself into the air again and this time Bradley was thrown high. The crowd went silent as Bradley sailed. Hood watched the bull watch him. Bradley gauged his speed and his height correctly and he landed on his feet and pitched forward and bowed. The crowd burst into cheers. He bowed again, then heard the thunder behind him and scrambled over the wall inches ahead of the slashing black horns. The audience mobbed him, and two men began bashing each other with chairs out in the bar area, and another ran for the pond with a bottle of vodka upturned in his mouth, and a great Dane on its hind legs lapped the pink punch from the glass maiden’s bowl, and two of the saloon girls danced burlesque on the bar top, waving their bras overhead like pennants.
“One more teensy little absinthe?” asked Beth.
“I don’t see why not.”
Beth threw herself into the bar crowd, and Hood found the coffee station and got a triple shot of espresso. Erin and McMurtry were onstage with the Inmates and the Heartless Bastards and two of Los Straitjackets, singing a not quite synchronized duet that advanced like an armored column.
Hood and Beth danced a song that became two more, then a slow one that Erin had written. They leaned into each other, bodies warm and hearts flush. Beth guided Hood off the floor and collected her goblet and aimed him around the rodeo arena and up the sloping barnyard to the tent city. There she delivered him to a unit up near the brushy hillside, set apart and unoccupied and welcoming. He turned on the lantern and held open the door for her. She stepped past him into the tent, clicking the lantern off on her way by.
36
Two days later, Hood sat in his replacement Yukon behind the Pace building and watched through the dark windows. There was a tall container of coffee on the console, and on the seat beside him were a bag of tacos and a package of cookies. He looked out at the rear of the building—warehouse, freight dock, loading ramp. There were pallets stacked along one wall and a motor home along another, the yard lights dull against the filthy windshield. A few minutes later he drove around the block and parked on the street out front, fifty yards away from the entrance.
Again the shift began at five o’clock. He watched the men park their old vehicles in the employee lot out front and wait to be let into the manufacturing floor. They carried plastic bags and beverage containers like his own, and some smoked. They looked relaxed and they talked and laughed quietly. The old ones reminded him of his father before his mind had betrayed him, back when he was easy and content with who he was and what he had made of his life and the working was never bad but never quite so good as being finished for the day.
He watched and thought about Beth Petty and the wedding and after. They’d made it halfway through the second day of dancing, eating and drinking before running out of energy. Someone had gotten the bulls drunk and let them loose and they had terrorized the dance and bar tents briefly, then wobbled off to lie in the shade of the hillside oaks or graze the barnyard or stand knee-deep in the pond, drinking and peeing. Bradley and several other drunken young men had gotten ATVs from the barn and attempted a roundup. It failed, with minor injuries to two men and one ATV that ran off the dock and sank out of sight in the pond. The bulls were unharmed and barely noticed the men. Hood had driven home with Beth conked out against the window, asleep and snoring at times, her hair dangling wildly, her knit dress somewhat stretched and lightly smudged, sapphires intact and atwinkle in the afternoon light, a wedding-gift absinthe goblet wrapped in wedding napkins peeking from the top of her purse. Hood smiled. She had part of his heart now and that was good.
Deeper into the night, Hood stole across the street and hunkered among the begonias and rhododendrons around the perimeter of the building. He moved slowly and found the place where he could see in. He watched for a few minutes, getting a good look at the handguns being finished inside. They were nice-looking weapons. Hood guessed .32 caliber by the bore, but at this distance they could be .22s or even .38s. He also saw something that wasn’t there the last time he’d surveilled Pace Arms: wooden shipping crates. Open and ready. The tops and packing material were stacked separately. The crates were roughly eighteen inches square. There were ten stacks of ten. At ten guns each, a thousand total. All crates awaiting their precious cargo. Soon, Hood thought. Soon.
He stood and was about to cut back across the street to his vehicle when he saw the Porsche Cayenne Turbo tear into the parking structure. The driver waited, then snatched the ticket from the dispenser. A moment later, newlywed Bradley Jones, trim in his Explorer uniform, strode to the Pace Arms entrance and pushed the speaker button on the wall. Then Bradley pulled open the lobby door and let the door swing shut behind him.
Hood’s heart raced and fell at the same time. He closed his eyes and opened them. He was surprised but not. Sad but not. Hugely pissed off at Bradley is what he mostly was, and at himself for believing in Bradley. How many times could he look at this boy but fail to see him? Suddenly the stolen fifty thousa
nd rounds of .32-caliber ammunition made simple and terrible sense. And the Tiffany vase became nothing more than a symbol for his own sentimentality and daft hopes.
Bradley and Pace.
Pace and Bradley.
He knelt back down in the darkness again and watched the men make guns and felt the hard thump of his heart down in his chest. A few minutes later, Pace and Bradley appeared amidst the workstations, Pace convivial with the workers and Bradley silent. Bradley walked along the tables, looking down at the emerging weapons, his uniform crisp, his expression speculative, lost in thought.
37
“Mike,” said Gabe Reyes. “Meet Father Quang from St. Cecilia’s.”
“How do you do, Father?”
“Fine, thank you,” said Quang. “How are you feeling?”
“Peaks and valleys.”
“Gabe tells me you are strong as a horse.”
“We all know that isn’t true.”
“They tell me it’s a miracle you’re alive.”
“I believe in miracles, Father.”
“So do I. May I touch your hand?”
“Of course.”
Bleary from surveillance and the two-hour-plus drive, bruised by disappointment and self-recrimination, Hood sat in the corner of Mike’s room and watched Quang place his hand upon Mike’s. The IV line had been removed, and Hood noted that the needle bruises were gone. The books beside the bed were all different from the ones he’d seen last time. On top of the stack was The End of History and the Last Man. A cell phone and a charger sat on top of it. Hood had wanted to be here for the meeting between the priest and Finnegan, but he wasn’t sure what he hoped to learn.
Hood watched the monitor and saw Mike’s blood pressure rise when the priest touched him. His pulse went from sixty-eight to eighty-eight, but Mike’s voice was warm and calm. Neither Reyes nor Quang were paying any attention to the screen.
“What brings you here, Father?” Mike asked. “A little early for last rites, I hope.”
Quang removed his hand and stood back and laughed heartily. He was short and trim, and his hair was black and shiny with a blaze of gray. “Nothing like that, Mr. Finnegan.”
“Then what?”
Quang glanced at Reyes, then at Hood, then turned his gaze back to Finnegan’s swathed face, partially visible but mostly not.
“I am waiting,” said Finnegan.
“I wondered if you might need a confessor. I thought that a man with a good Irish name like Finnegan might be a Catholic. Are you?”
“Very lapsed, I’m afraid.”
“Then you have said confession before?”
“Centuries ago.”
“See?” said Reyes. “Centuries. He’s always talking about people and things from years ago. I figured he’d have to be hundreds of years old to have done what he says he’s done. And that bullet they took from his head, that was made in 1850-something. At first I thought he was hallucinating. Brain swelling from his injuries and all that. Now I think he’s either insane or he’s possessed. That’s what I think.”
“Centuries was a figure of speech, Gabe,” said Finnegan. “The gun was a collectible antique.”
“All you do is lie.”
“Wait,” said Quang, holding up his Bible. “Gentlemen, don’t argue. Mike, would you like me to hear your confession?”
Finnegan was silent for a long moment. Hood watched his numbers settle. “Sure,” he said.
“Wonderful!” Quang turned to Reyes and Hood. “Gentlemen, we would like some priv—”
“Let them stay, Father. I have nothing to hide. I am as God made me, aren’t I?”
“In His image were you made.”
“Then I’m ready to begin.”
Quang shot a concerned glance at Reyes, and Reyes shrugged. “Mike, how long has it been since your last confession?”
“I truly don’t remember.”
“Then tell me how you have sinned.”
Finnegan said nothing for a moment. “You tell me how I have sinned.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I will explain what I do and do not do, and you can tell me what the sin is. That’s your job, isn’t it?”
“It is God’s.”
“Come on, Quang. You made it to America. Take the bull by the horns.”
“Tell me how you have sinned.”
Finnegan said nothing for a long while. Hood’s mind wandered. He pictured Bradley in his Explorer uniform, walking along the workstations inside the Pace Arms building, his expression speculative, almost dreamy. Not Bradley’s usual look. Was he haunted by the guns that would be used to kill people? Hood remembered his own surprise and anger at that moment. On what basis had he kept alive such high hopes for Bradley? Was it all a sentimental homage to his mother? He saw that Finnegan was watching him.
“I have one God and no other,” Finnegan said quietly. “I’ve never bowed down to an image or likeness of anything in heaven or earth. I do not take the name of God in vain. I remember the Sabbath unfailingly, though I don’t often get to church. Though I am lapsed, I have kept up a lively dialogue with my maker. I honor my parents, but to be honest, I don’t remember them well. I do not kill or commit adultery or steal or lie. I am not covetous. I do not entertain impure thoughts.”
Hood watched the blood pressure and pulse readouts: no change. The room was silent except for hospital sounds.
Quang stood with his hands in front of him, the good book shielding his privates. “Really, Mike?”
“Yes. Really.”
“Do you know that lies offend God?”
“I’m sure they do. But what lies do you mean?”
“Your lie of personal perfection in a fallen world.”
“Father, I make no claim to perfection or even exception among the men of the earth. Perhaps I was born without the proper passions to commit sin. Perhaps my capacity for it has been smothered within the vast and terrifying fear that I feel at times for humankind. Perhaps sin bores me. However, I do have one very strong belief that may be a sin to some people and some gods. I believe that all people are free to choose the course of their lives and their deaths, and that the sacred and the profane are ours to name, and that our law is ours to write. Your God judged me thousands of years ago, and by that judgment I stand unblinkingly. But within his commandments, I am blameless.”
“You are not what we see,” said Reyes.
Finnegan sighed. His vitals had not changed.
“Does this mean anything to you?” asked Reyes. He brought a crucifix from his coat pocket and held it up for Mike to see.
“An exorcism,” said Finnegan. “I’m tickled.”
“This is no joke,” said Reyes.
“What it means to me is aisle eight of the Mercado Toro in Boyle Heights, right beside the candles of the saints, three dollars and ninety-nine cents, made in China.”
“Maybe then you would like to see it closer.” Reyes leaned across the bed and held the crucifix before Finnegan’s steady blue eyes.
“I like the ones made of straw in Mexico. No blood. No thorns. No woeful eyes. More mystery and a hint of the transcendent.”
“Maybe you’d like to touch it.”
“Now you sound like that uncle we’ve all had.”
Reyes set the crucifix in Finnegan’s upturned right hand. Hood watched his pulse and blood pressure rise, then race. The digital readouts raced higher, then higher. The numbers were still scrolling up when the monitor buzzed loud and a nurse flew in from the station outside.
“What’s going on here?”
“We’re not sure, Kathy,” said Finnegan. “Something with the sensors again, I’d guess.”
His voice was calm, but his numbers had exhausted themselves and an ERROR/RESET message now pulsed across the monitor screen. The warning buzzer continued. Hood watched Finnegan reach the crucifix back to Father Quang.
“Thank you so much for the visit, Father. I’ve always enjoyed the presence of the faithful.”
> “Mike, how do you feel?”
“Splendid.”
“You may be going into cardiac arrest.”
“Don’t be silly.”
Two more nurses squeezed into the room. One took Mike’s wrist for pulse, and the other pulled the monitor module from its stand and commenced pushing buttons. Hood watched as Kathy slid her slender hand inside the body cast below the cranial brace, feeling for the pulmonary sensor down on Finnegan’s neck. Suddenly the alarm stopped. The monitor nurse frowned down at the thing and waited a moment, then held it up for Kathy to see. From his stool, Hood read the numbers: pulse 72, blood pressure 118/66. Kathy withdrew her hand from inside the cast.
The other nurse continued to hold Mike’s wrist for another few seconds. “Pulse is normal,” she said.
“I still suspect a sensor,” said Mike.
“The sensor was drenched in sweat,” said Kathy. “But they’re made to withstand that. It happens. I don’t get it.”
“I sure love the attention,” said Mike.
Hood saw Finnegan work up a lip-only smile, his jaws still wired firm and his head still immobilized by the cranial clamps. His pupils were pinpoints, and his face was bright red and running with sweat.
“Father Quang, I’d be happy to continue this discussion at any time,” said Finnegan. His voice was calm and warm. “I might be able to come up with a sin or two I forgot about today. But next time, why don’t you confess to me? Gabe and Charlie, you two would be welcome to sit in on that session.”
Kathy herded the men into the hallway outside of the ICU, then shut the locking door behind her. Two Guardsmen patrolled past, weapons slung over their shoulders.
“He’s proud and intelligent and he’s playing with us,” said Quang. “He wants attention. He wants control.”
Iron River Page 28
