The Famous and the Dead

by T. Jefferson Parker

  He glanced into the backseat at the bright Mexican blanket and the shape of the Stinger, armed and ready.

  When the black Charger stopped at the entrance to the parking structure Clint understood that God himself had just singled him out to perform a miracle. He held the glasses absolutely still and watched the window go down and Charlie Hood push a card into the reader. The arm rose and Hood drove in. Clint felt his finger throbbing but he smiled anyway. Should he wait for Hood to drive back out? How long was he going to be in there? What were his chances of hitting the Charger compared with hitting the building? After all, he’d never fired one of these things. Bird in the hand?

  42

  Yorth began to process him out and Hood could tell the man was embarrassed and angry. He seemed to be taking more time than he had to. In his few short months here in Buenavista, Yorth had lost weight and his hair was thinning. The death of one agent and the firing of two more agents under his command would not play well in his file or his soul. Yorth checked his watch. “Hour and a half until Wampler is supposed to show at the Greyhound station.”

  “That’s the last place you’ll find him. He knows we’ll be there and he’s not foolish.”

  “You think he shot Castro last night?”

  “I do. My guess is Castro wanted in on the missiles.”

  “He must have wanted in on something. How’s Mary Kate Boyle?”

  “She’s staying real low.”

  “She won’t talk to me. She only talks to Velasquez and Morris now. And you.”

  “She’s got a real stubborn streak.”

  “Reminds me of my sister.” Yorth shook his head and sighed when Hood emptied his ATF-issue Glock and set it on the desk, focusing on the gun but not looking at Hood. Hood began signing the stack of forms and a few minutes later he walked out.

  Down in the parking structure he had just aimed his key fob at the car when a sharp blast shook the ceiling and shivered the walls and rocked the Charger on its shocks. Chunks of concrete exploded through the glass walls of the elevator bank and skidded across the floor. Then alarms and human screams. Seconds later Hood ran through the blown door of the ATF offices. Inside, the screaming was more and louder, and water from the fire sprinklers rained down. He smelled smoke and explosives and he fell in behind Yorth, who was bleeding from his forehead but charging for the emergency exit with his gun drawn. Smoke had already drifted into the exit hallway. They burst outside to a narrow alley and ran through broken glass around to the front of the building, toward the screams of sirens and people.

  The lobby plate glass was blown out and the far lobby wall was demolished and the reception desk was blown to splinters. Oscar lay twenty feet from his station, on his back near the elevators, and Hood saw that the middle of him was mostly gone, just a huge ragged hole below his chest. Hood followed the screams to the café. A woman with a bloody face knelt over what looked like an elderly man, and beyond them, through the glassless storefront, Hood saw two more women, one screaming and one staring ashen-faced back at the destroyed lobby while her leashed terrier barked furiously at a loose Chihuahua. A big shard of window glass detached from above and whistled down and burst on the sidewalk in front of Hood. A man crouched through the shattered front door of the accounting firm, holding his laptop over his head with both hands. Some fled the building and others ran in to help. The traffic on the boulevard had slowed and there were already gawkers pulled over to record the calamity on their cell phones. Hood watched a red Honda rear-end a black Denali and both drivers spill out with their phones already raised. His attention went to two small boys on the other side of the street who were touching what appeared to be a burning storefront wall. Distant sirens sounded as he ran across the boulevard and waved away the boys, who scattered in opposite directions, laughing. Hood saw that the backblast of the missile had blackened the storefront and the scorched bricks still smoked. He looked up and down the street, trying to spot a new blue Explorer or any young man who resembled Clint Wampler. Anything. He ran to the parked cars and the gathered spectators, yelling questions. One young man said he saw someone standing beside a white car with a “funny-looking bazooka-kind of thing over his shoulder, and the next thing I know there’s a blast of white smoke going backwards out the tube, then the lobby blows up!” The witness could not describe the shooter or the car near which he was standing. When the smoke cleared, both were gone. The other answers Hood got were all no’s and the looks he drew were dubious and fearful.

  He sprinted back across the street to the Imperial Bank building and helped the bleeding woman walk the elderly man outside. He seemed stunned and possibly unhurt. The girl who worked in the coffee shop hugged herself, trembling as she ran through the shattered glass. The first cop car skidded to a stop out front, lights flashing, then a fire department engine screamed up behind it. Hood walked back inside the demolished lobby. The hole in the rear wall looked big enough to drive a car through. Yorth stood over Oscar in the sprinkler rain. He looked at up Hood, a trickle of watery blood still coming down his forehead and a coldly furious expression on his face. “Clint,” he said. “Goddamned Clint.”

  A moment later the Charger screeched from the parking structure, leaving a billow of white smoke in the clean desert air. Hood circled the bank building in a series of right turns, expanding each time, hoping to spot Wampler. Fruitless, he worked his way nearly to the interstate, then back again toward downtown Buenavista and the Imperial Bank building. Two more fire companies roared around him, lights flashing and sirens wailing. Hood pulled over to let them pass, then gunned the Charger onto the on-ramp of I-8 west, toward El Centro and San Diego. He called Mary Kate and told her Clint had just blown up the ATF field office in Buenavista.

  And not to open the door for anyone. Anyone.

  43

  An hour and forty minutes later, Clint was parking the Kia at the red curb in front of the Regal Hotel. The missile attack on the Imperial Bank was all over the news—at least one dead and several wounded. His pulse was good and slow and the world was in terrifically sharp focus. When he’d let that Stinger go at the bank building, he had felt a surge of adrenaline go through him, like the missile had actually released it, but by the time he’d dropped the launcher into the trunk and gotten back into the Kia and watched the aftermath of the explosion he was already beginning to feel calm again. The only problem was the finger, swollen and burning with pain.

  He went inside the Regal and the man at the desk told him he couldn’t park there. It was the law. The man had one of those goofy accents that make everything a question. RAKVI, said his name tag. Clint said he’d just be a minute and what room was the girl with the black eye in? The clerk scowled darkly and shook his head. Nimble as a chimp, Clint swung himself over the counter, landed lightly on his feet, and rapped the clerk hard on the forehead with the blackjack. Rakvi dropped and started moaning. Clint pressed his boot to the man’s mouth to mute him while he fiddled with the computer. It didn’t take long to find the room assignments, but no listing for Mary Kate Boyle. There were eight rooms taken by women and Clint saw that parking charges applied to five of them. Mary Kate had no car. Of the remaining three, two had given credit cards and one, Jennifer Logan, was a cash customer. JL, Clint thought. MK loves J-Lo. Room 6. He lifted his boot off the clerk’s mouth and put Rakvi’s wallet in a back pocket of his jeans.

  Room 6 was first floor. No spy hole. Clint knocked softly on the door and tried to mimic the clerk. “Miss Logan? This is Rakvi? The manager. I have a letter for you from a man named Charlie Hood?”

  Mary Kate slid the deadbolt and Clint barged inside and hit her with the sap, top and middle of her skull. The book she was holding fell to the floor and Mary Kate slumped but he caught her before she hit. He slung her over his shoulder. He found her cell phone on the desk by the TV and used his free hand to slide it the front pocket of his jeans. He walked back into the lobby, where he got her upright. She couldn’t stand on her own so Clint clutched her tight aro
und the waist and half-danced, half-dragged her to the car. It wasn’t easy to swing open the door and get her in but he managed. A passerby said it was kind of early to be that wasted and Clint told him his wife was a diabetic so go to hell.

  He left San Diego, navigating wide around the Greyhound station, which was only a few blocks away. She was out, her head lolling against the door and window. Her eye was still discolored. When he was away from the city, down south on Interstate 5, he pulled off and found an out-of-the-way place to park and taped up her hands and ankles. She didn’t open her eyes. He snuck a kiss when he was done. He didn’t make the tape too tight, didn’t want to hurt her. He kissed her again, fully starved for some home-cooked love but he couldn’t do that to a girl in this condition. I got standards, he thought. Clint’s no rapist.

  She hardly moved as he drove the interstate south toward Imperial Beach. In National City, she started to wake up. Clint pulled off again and parked in a strip mall parking lot and rolled down a window. He listened to the radio. It was all about the bombing in Buenavista. But they couldn’t even figure out how many rockets had been fired. No wonder this country’s so messed up, Clint thought. A few minutes later Mary Kate raised her head and squinted at him through her mess of hair. “Ouch,” she whispered, raising both taped hands to her head. “You hit me, Clint?”

  “Not with my fist. With a secret weapon.”

  She lowered her hands to her lap. “And you got me all taped up?”

  “Just don’t scream or say nothing to nobody. I don’t want to tape up your mouth so just stay quiet, will you?”

  “Oh man.” Mary Kate was still whispering. “I got such a headache . . . if I screamed my head would explode.”

  “Then don’t and we’ll both be happy.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I got it all figured. I know you been with Charlie Hood, Mary Kate. I seen him walkin’ you out of the ATF place and I seen the way you looked at him. I know he was telling you what to say to me on the phone. And I know you thought you were fooling me but you weren’t. You betrayed me after all that time I was secretly in love with you. I been mad enough to kill you, MK. I was gonna and I still might. But seeing you in person has beaten down the hardness in my heart. Mostly. Hood’s another story, though. Hood I’m gonna waste.”

  Mary Kate closed her eyes and slowly let her head settle back against the door frame. “I wasn’t ever with him, Clint. He’s a nice enough guy but he didn’t have the time of day for me. I think he’s got a girl stashed somewhere.”

  “Or a boy.”

  “What did he do to you?”

  Clint held up his left hand. “This is all consequential of what he did to my finger, Mary Kate.”

  “That’s just a hurt finger, Clint.”

  “It’s more than that. It’s the whole stupid thing about me being stupid.”

  “Goddamn, you hit me hard. I can’t open my eyes without it hurting worse.”

  Clint gave her a sweater for a pillow and got back on the freeway. The day was bright and cool and the shipyards rose high at the edge of the Pacific, cranes and booms fussing over the huge navy ships and tankers, mile after mile of them. A California Highway Patrol car passed him going close to ninety, didn’t so much as look at him, which pleased Clint. Probably headed for Buenavista. Nobody was looking for his little white Kia and that was just the way he liked it. He kept stealing peeks at Mary Kate Boyle, dazed or asleep with her head on his sweater, and he felt bad for hitting her so hard but he couldn’t have a scene getting her out the hotel and into his car, now, could he? She had a small upturned nose and pretty lips and he even liked her ears. He wondered what her scalp looked like where he’d walloped her. No blood, because a good sap wouldn’t cut if you hit flat with it. And his was a good one, made it himself out of bull hide and a hearty slug of lead he’d cut from an ingot using a coping saw. Sewn by his own hand. He’d tried it out on one of Carl Blevins’s young hogs out by Alley Spring back in Missouri, and that porker had collapsed like the rug had been pulled out from under it. Woke up about a minute later and ran around in circles, snorting.

  He worked her phone out from his pocket and flipped it open and scrolled down the contacts.

  44

  Hood’s phone vibrated and he answered. “Hood, this is Clint. I got your number from our mutual friend, Miss Mary Kate Boyle. MK? Say hi to Twinkle Tooth. Then I’ll tell him how it’s gonna be.”

  Her voice was faint and flat and almost choked up. “I’m so sorry. He was following me on foot yesterday when I called you. While I was looking for the damned blue SUV. I’m so sorry, I got fooled and conked and am now adding to all your troubles.”

  “Has he hurt you?”

  “He hit me awful hard.”

  Hood heard static, then Wampler again. “How’d you like the explosion at ATF?”

  “You killed a nice guy and hurt a bunch of innocent people.”

  “I’m weepin’. Were you in the office when the rocket hit? What’d it sound like?”

  “A rocket hitting, Clint. Where are you?”

  “Hood, I’m going to take Mary Kate to the ocean for a picnic. We’ll be at the TJ River south of Imperial Beach. Waiting on you. I’ll be able to see in all directions on account of it’s a flat beach. Which means you come alone. Which means if I see another human being or car or even a damned helicopter I’ll kill her. You know I’m capable of this. Come alone, Hood. We’re gonna settle this like they used to, before the whole country turned queer like you. I’ll have my pistols in my pockets as is my style. You can pack anything any way you want—it ain’t gonna matter to me. You can call it a gunfight although it’ll be more of an execution. But it’ll be fair. Clint don’t cheat. The winner gets MK and the loser gets dead. All of this is subsequent of what you did to my finger. Where exactly are you at right now?”

  “Five miles east of San Diego. You beat me to her.”

  “When you get there, head south, amigo. Walk out on that beach alone. We’ll be there. You got exactly half an hour.”

  “Clint, this is stupid, even for you. Let Mary Kate go. She’s a sweet girl and she never hurt you. Just drop her off and keep on driving. Go back to Russell County or wherever else you want to be.”

  “Where I don’t want to be is on death row, for that fed I blew away in El Centro. I’m not too stupid to figure that out.”

  “Blowing away another fed won’t help you.”

  “Me and MK are already making plans for our future. Aren’t we, cupcake? You better show up alone, Glitter Gums. You’re down to twenty-nine minutes.”

  • • •

  Hood trudged through the rain-soaked sand, south along the Pacific. The sky was dark gray and stacked with great columns of pale gray clouds. The water heaved and chopped and the wind sent spindrifts off the crests. There were no surfers out and no one on the beach. Ahead of him was the river and beyond that the hills of Tijuana, faint in the distance. He zipped his jacket up against the biting wind and snugged its elastic hem between his holster and his hip, popped the strap and turned it down and out of the way.

  Soon the estuary was on his left and the ocean on his right. Hood continued down the wide sand beach, the shoreline eroded by the recent storms. He saw two young lovers wrapped in a blanket, leaning into each other and picking their way down the beach toward him. A flock of seagulls stood in the sand close together and all facing west as if waiting for something to come in on the water. The slough glimmered and its surface rippled in the breeze. Another quarter mile down the beach the dunes were deeper and sharper, and he saw that Clint could be watching him from one of them and be very hard to see until Hood was close upon him. He stopped and looked back to the last buildings in the United States, then ahead to the tall iron border wall jutting into the ocean. A woman in sweats and a hooded raincoat ran up the shoreline toward him.

  “Hooper.”

  Hood turned and saw Clint Wampler climbing out of a dune. He was holding Mary Kate Boyle’s arm and she w
as having trouble getting up the slope of sand. Wampler pushed her along in front of him with one hand, keeping her body between himself and Hood. His other hand was in the pocket of the peacoat. Hood could see by Mary Kate’s brief, dispirited struggles that she was exhausted or injured or both. Her hands were bound. They stopped a hundred and fifty feet away and Clint pressed her down into the sand. Her knees buckled and Hood heard her cry out. Wampler took a knee beside her and he seemed to be giving her instructions. He gripped her face in one hand and turned it to him.

  Wampler then stood and took a few steps toward Hood and stopped again. He had both hands in his coat pockets. He looked back at her and said something and she nodded. “I think she’s pulling for me!” he called out. “Mary Kate just has trouble showing her feelings.”

  “Let her go, Clint. Get to your car and get out of here. I’ll make sure she’s taken care of.”

  “She’ll be coming with me. Don’t you get that? I want this chick.” Wampler started toward him. “Make your move when you think you can hit me, Hood. I’m going to do likewise. This is what you get for treating another human being like you treated me.” Hood used his left hand to pull the tail of his Windbreaker taut. He could feel the cold wind through his shirt above the holster but he knew the grip was unencumbered now and he knew exactly where it was. Don’t hurry, don’t miss. He took a deep breath and thought, Help me.

  Hood walked. He heard his own breathing and the soft crunch of sand under his feet. Wampler’s hands were deep in his pockets as he ambled forward. Hood concentrated on Clint’s shoulders. At ninety feet the shoulders rose.

  Hood began his draw but he had scarcely touched the grip of his weapon by the time Clint had fired twice, then gone down with a sharp yelp. Hood never saw his gun and his first thought was Someone must have shot him in the back.