The Renegades: A Charlie Hood Novel

by T. Jefferson Parker

  “Christ,” said Draper.

  Bradley stood and walked over and stopped short. Draper got up and followed. Erin tried to rotate on her stool but Tall was leaning in tight on one side and Wide was leaning back staunch on the other and she didn’t have the strength to move their shoulders.

  “Let her out,” said Bradley.

  “She likes it here,” said Wide.

  “And we like her here,” said Tall. “But she don’t have a sense of humor. Be honest, boy, do you fuck her enough?”

  “Plenty, guys, plenty,” she said, and tried to shoulder past Tall but she couldn’t move him. Her purse slid off her lap to the floor.

  Bradley took a step forward and knelt and picked it up and stood there with the strap in his hand. Then Wide slid off the stool and stood. He was taller than Draper had thought. He poked Bradley with a finger.

  “I like your girlfriend,” said Wide.

  “I love her. And I don’t like you.”

  Erin had moved into the space vacated by Wide. Draper reached out and took her hand and ushered her back to the table.

  “Enough, you idiots,” he said. Then, to the bartender, who had just picked up a cell phone, “Everything’s cool. Buy them a round of doubles.”

  Wide poked Bradley in the chest again and Bradley let the purse fall and took the man’s hand in a casual motion and bent the wrist down with his thumbs and turned the hand sharply. Wide screamed and went to one knee and Bradley turned the man’s wrist further and Wide grabbed wildly with his free hand but Bradley stepped away and lifted and turned harder and Draper heard the bone snap and the anguished, breath-sucked scream. Tall stepped forward and threw a punch that caught Bradley on the head but he was already leaning away from it. When Tall followed with a big right roundhouse Bradley stepped inside and blocked it, popped him in the forehead with an elbow, clawed one eye with the fingers of the same hand, then pivoted and drove the butt of his open left palm up into Tall’s nose. There was a bloody explosion and Tall pitched backwards and Bradley threw himself high into the air and caught the man in the rib cage with a bone-crushing kick. Tall collapsed to the floor like a dropped blanket.

  It took about ten seconds.

  Draper threw Erin’s coat over one arm and pointed her toward the exit.

  Then he pulled Bradley back by the collar of his shirt and looked briefly down at Tall, who was curled on his side, panting and bleeding. Wide was still on one knee, white-faced and clammy, his left wrist cradled in his right hand but twisted freakishly askew.

  Bradley shook Draper off and took two quick steps to Wide but he didn’t throw or kick. He just stared down at the guy for a long moment, then turned back to Draper.

  “If we stay I’ll get mad.”

  “We should go.”

  Draper pulled him toward Erin and gave her the coat, then went to the bar and offered sincere apologies to the barman and the waitress. He dug five hundreds from his wallet and set them by the drink garnishes and stir sticks. “I’ll be back in an hour to make sure everything is all right.”

  “That’s okay, Coleman,” said the bartender.

  “Who’s that kid?” asked the waitress.

  “Just some brat who wants into the Sheriff’s.”

  “You going to take him?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I’d take him. Be easier than fighting him.”

  Draper went over to the bikers. Tall had progressed to his hands and knees. There was a puddle of blood under his bowed head and a long drip leading down to it from his nose. Wide now sat on a bar stool with a nauseated expression on his face and his mangled wrist already beginning to bloat.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Draper said. “If you assholes are still here I’m going to arrest you and take you to jail.”

  “I’m going to kill that kid someday,” said Wide.

  “Bring help.”

  DRAPER DROVE them back to the Cal State parking lot and followed Erin’s directions to their car. It was a classic Cyclone GT that Draper had admired the first time he’d met Bradley, a long few weeks ago. Draper opened the door for Erin and closed it after helping her get the tail of her long black coat properly arranged inside.

  “Can I borrow your boyfriend for a minute?” he asked.

  “Sure. But don’t let him beat up anybody else.”

  “Just a minute for some deputy-to-deputy talk. Ninety seconds, max.”

  They walked down the rows of parking spaces, mostly empty now after the Career Crusade.

  “Don’t tell Hood about today.”

  “I haven’t told him about anything.”

  “There’s more to the story of Terry Laws.”

  “I know that.”

  “Soon. Bradley, if you were the one who canceled Kick, congratulations. It’s what I would have done. I hope the little shit got to enjoy the feeling of the number six before he died. I admired everything about your mother, except that she took up with Hood.”

  Bradley studied Draper’s face. “I didn’t care much for that, either.”

  “And one more thing. As you’ve seen, to get what you want out of life, you will have to lie to Erin successfully. Other than that, you can build the life she wants. You can take her straight to her dreams. And of course to your own.”

  “You’re like the Devil in a uniform,” said Bradley.

  “Most people don’t notice devils.”

  “Most people are fools.”

  “Let’s prove that together someday.”

  They were almost to the car. Draper could see Erin looking through a side window at them. He knew that she would be Bradley’s downfall, unless he was an extraordinary boy indeed. It was the way of the world.

  Bradley got in and started up the Cyclone and screamed off with a fishtail and a billow of tire smoke. Draper shook his head and smiled as he got into his car. He had been young once, too, just about Bradley’s age when he had given up the dusty roads of Jacumba for the glittering promise of L.A.

  In some ways Bradley reminded him of himself. In others he saw that Bradley was far behind him. Bradley had bravado and intelligence. He was hugely selfish, and had an outlaw pedigree. Draper wondered if, because of their similarities, Bradley might someday try to see him for who he really was. Draper had spent his entire life staying close enough to people to influence them but far enough away to remain unknown. Father and mother? Brother and sister? Yes, and okay and fine—he had loved them in the conventional ways. But he could not let them see him truly. Few had seen Coleman Draper and none for very long. But he thought that Bradley Jones could be different.

  35

  “Hector’s arena on fight night? Pure insanity. Gangsters everywhere, and not only Mexican. Every Eighteenth click for miles around is there. Cadres of Crips and Bloods and Gangster Disciples. I see stone-faced Eme captains and smiling MS-13 killers and Aryan Brothers and Nazi Lowriders and Asian gangs. And not just gangs—the arena is filled with unaffiliated freelance horribles of every size, shape and color. Talk about a good place for people-watching.

  “There are athletes I recognize from the papers—football players, boxers, a recent NBA draftee. Some spectators have brought dates. Every imaginable drug is being used right out in the open, washed down with every imaginable drink, topped off by joints and bongs and pipe loads and tobacco. The smoke hangs in a cloud high up in the ceiling. I figure that if any ten of these people had been gathered in any other place on Earth, there would be multiple homicides and epic mayhem. But fight night is different. It’s a boiling cauldron of L.A. bad guys out for good clean fun. No business is done. All are equal. Affiliations mean nothing. Everyone there is having a great time.

  —Look at these fucking people, says Laws.

  —That’s the only thing they’re not doing.

  —Yet. Let’s get the money and get out of here.

  —Hector wants us to stay.

  —I’m not staying. You can.

  —We’re a team.

  —We�
��re way outnumbered, partner.

  “So we climb the stairs to the luxury box as usual. We go in. Rocky and three of his shotgunners stand guard at the windows while Camilla locks the sliding glass door and Hector begins pouring shots of something from a dark blue bottle with no label on it.

  “They want to party and Terry and I just want to get the money and get the hell out of there. But the luggage is right where it’s supposed to be, and the unloading and weighing and vacuum sealing and repacking go smoothly. Four hundred and eight thousand dollars—an all-time high. Avalos predicts that Herredia will give us all a bonus, yes, yes, yes, a bonus grande! He’s drunk as I’ve ever seen him, and still lucid.

  “I stand behind the sliding glass door and look down on the action. I wonder if God feels this way, gazing upon Earth. What a world: a brindle pit bull is tearing into a smaller, black dog, and the two factions of the crowd are bellowing against each other as if their lives are in the balance. High up in the bleachers someone collapses and they load his limp body down the crowd but nobody bothers to stand, they just pass him along hand to hand like a big bag of beans. When he gets to the bottom a couple of young vatos drag him into a walkway between the bleachers, then hustle back to their seats.

  “Now the brindle has the black dog by the throat and the smaller dog is tight to the brindle’s leg but both animals are so exhausted they can only lie there, breathing hard. Did you know that dogs in combat sometimes sleep for several minutes right in the middle of a fight, an instinctive symbiosis before mustering their energies again to kill each other? Well, they do. Then the black dog lets go of the leg and the brindle is able to stand and bore its bloody head into the throat of the smaller dog. And then he starts that savage shaking that pit bulls do. I have to squint it’s so hard to watch, being a dog man myself. I whistle something. The crowd is screaming for death but the black dog’s owner finally throws in a white rag, then two men wearing elbow-high welder’s gloves jump the pit walls and force apart the dogs.

  “Laws pulls two of the rolling suitcases to the sliding glass door, then comes back with two more. Below, the black-dog faction is booing and the brindle faction has gone bonkers, throwing their drinks and cheering. Some approximation of a doctor makes a show of examining the limp black dog with a flashlight. He wears welder’s gloves, too.

  —There’s no way, says Laws.

  —No way what?

  —No way to see this and not die.

  —Ignore it.

  —That’s what I mean. You have to be dead to ignore it.

  —Steady, Terry. Five minutes and we’re out of here.

  “Rocky and his three men escort us down the steps. It’s much louder outside of the private box, and a wild musky smell cuts through the drug and tobacco smoke. The whole arena feels ready to ignite. Single file, Terry and I each push one suitcase and pull another, all of which bounce precariously down the steps until the rollers hit the floor. They draw plenty of looks but nobody is inclined to contest four stubby combat shotguns holding eight rounds each.

  “Suddenly Laws veers off to the fight pit. He parks the suitcases upright and hops into the ring, and I think for sure this is the beginning of the end.”

  “You’ve said that before,” says Bradley. “Laws has gotten you to the brink at least twice before, with Herredia.”

  “I didn’t know what a brink was until now. I stop and watch Terry. I figure he’s going to strangle or maybe even shoot the dog handlers or the doctor. His big body blots out the sight of them. I can’t really see what he’s doing. I let go of one suitcase and rest my hand on the pistol under my sport coat. The shotgunners, who are supposed to be protecting the money, all lower their weapons at Terry.

  “But the crowd sees what I can’t see, and it goes quiet for a long beat. Then all of a sudden there’s a drunken roar. And when Terry climbs back out of the pit, he’s got the defeated black dog in his arms and a martyr’s calm on his face. The dog is wrapped in a Mexican blanket. The ring doctor jumps the wall and stuffs a handful of something in Terry’s jacket pocket and Terry says something to him and the doctor says something back. But Terry doesn’t even break stride. Rocky takes one of Terry’s suitcases and one of his gunmen takes the other, and the six of us and one mostly dead dog proceed to the exit. We proceed to the exit!

  “I steer my VW Touareg south on Interstate Five. In the rearview I see Terry back in the second row of seats, holding the animal on his lap. The car smells of blood and fear, and Laws is talking to the dog in a low voice, telling it that things will be okay, you’re going to be just fine, hang in there, amigo.

  —The doctor said his name is Blanco, says Laws.

  —He’s black, not white.

  —That doctor helped us out. He really did. There’s scissors and butterfly stitches here, and a bunch of antibacterial ointment and swabs and gauze and a roll of white tape. Laurel will love this innocent warrior.

  —He’s probably going to die, Terry. You have to figure he’s going to die.

  —Don’t tell me what to figure, Coleman. There are figurers greater than you.

  —I’m saying the dog can die.

  —Blanco will not die.

  —Keep the blood off the leather, Terry.

  —It’s all in the blanket. Good dog. Good Blanco. You hang in there, my friend.

  “The dog is still alive two hours later when we come into San Ysidro and join the line of traffic heading for the border. Laws and I both know that getting an American dog in and out of Mexico is much harder than smuggling large sums of drug money, so we take Blanco to a twenty-four-hour emergency veterinary clinic. Laws badges the employees and pretty much tells the truth about Blanco and what happened to him. He gives them his credit card and agrees to an estimated twelve hundred bucks for treatment and boarding charges, just for the night. The young vet says that Blanco’s chances are “fair.” Terry tells the doctor that the dog will live. I’ll tell you, something in the tone of Terry’s voice really got my attention. I’d never heard that tone from him. The young doctor, he turns kind of pale, and he nods and looks away.”

  I watch Bradley Jones as he puts the flame to a fresh cigar.

  “So,” he says. “Laws has found his heart and lost his mind.”

  “Approximately.”

  “NEAR THE DIRT road that cuts off from Mexican Highway Three, I hit the brights and look for the small pile of stones that marks the turnoff. Terry still has the dog on his mind and that almost sad, almost content look on his face, like he’s bound for heaven or something.

  —It’s important that Herredia has confidence in us, I say.

  —What’s that supposed to mean?

  —There was the falling-in-the-swimming-pool incident. Then the passing-out-in-his-chair incident. He worries about your religious conversion, Terry. He worries that it will interfere with our work.

  “Laws goes quiet while I guide the SUV off the asphalt and bounce it across the shoulder to the dirt road that leads to El Dorado. Dust rises in the headlights and the beams straighten into the desert.

  —You told me all that before, Coleman.

  —Stay focused, Terry. Stay calm. Choose life.

  —I’ve murdered for profit. I’ve been forgiven by God. I see no contradiction in that. I see no reason why God should interfere with our work.

  —God is not our employer. Herredia is.

  —Then I will render unto El Tigre.

  —Terry, keep your God and your jokes to yourself. You should know that by now. I can’t cover for you much longer.

  —Don’t worry. Be happy.

  —I worry and I am not happy.

  —Blanco is going to be fine.

  I order a bottle of good Brunello and we choose two more cigars. The night is still young and the Sunset Strip is just now beginning to find its mood. When I first moved from Jacumba I rented a place on Horn, just a few blocks from here, but I could only afford to keep it for two months. I had a business to build. But I found myself a Sunset girl, and
we had more than our share of moments. Excessive women are easy to identify—they have a visible aura, as excessive men have known for centuries.

  I taste the wine and nod, and the waitress pours.

  “So, we make El Dorado shortly after midnight. We’re escorted in, as usual. It’s a moonless night and I can feel tension in the air. A helicopter circles steadily high above. Laws is a bloody spectacle, but luckily, he always traveled with a change of clothes. He excuses himself to change. The American women are not to be seen, and Herredia is preoccupied. Felipe keeps his one good eye extra close on me.

  “But the unpacking and weighing go smoothly. Felipe weighs and repackages our share. Laws doesn’t say much, and neither does Herredia. We eat a light meal, and six hours later we’re back at the animal hospital.

  —Blanco is doing very well, says the vet. He’s stabilized and resting. I think he’s going to be okay.

  —What did I tell you? asks Laws.

  “The doctor nods and looks at Blanco asleep in the crate. Laws signs off on the fourteen-hundred-dollar charge and carries the crate to the Touareg. I get the bag of pills and ointments and I see the vet’s relieved expression as we walk out.

  “San Ysidro is hazy and slow in the winter dawn. I look out the window and see something beautiful in this place. And a feeling tries to come to me that I haven’t felt in a while—not since Terry had made a fool of himself after the fishing trip. The feeling is that everything is going to be okay. Okay. What a sound that word has, when you hear it clearly and you believe it. I look over at Terry and of course he’s got Blanco on his lap and a peaceful gaze on his face as he looks down on the thing. Madonna and child, whatever, I think, whatever happens next is going to be okay. And as soon as you tell yourself that everything’s going to be okay, that’s when the gods choose to demolish your hopes, right? So get a load of this. Here’s what Terry says next.