The border Lords ch-4

by T. Jefferson Parker

  19

  The next day Hood drove up to the Valley Center ranch where three years ago he had interviewed Bradley Jones's mother, Suzanne. It was Hood's first assignment as a prospective LASD homicide detective and he'd made a fool of himself that morning with her.

  Now Bradley's voice came over the intercom as Hood waited at the gate. A moment later it slid open and a pack of dogs boiled around Hood's old IROC Camaro as he drove in. The meadow grasses had gone to tawny brown that shimmered in the crisp October light. He looked out to the ranch house and the big barn and the casitas up on the hillside.

  He drove past the barnyard where Bradley and Erin had gotten married last year. There had been a stage for musicians and an absinthe bar and a dance floor and the bullring in which Bradley had nearly gotten himself killed. Hood remembered how lovely his companion, Beth, had been that day, and he remembered the musicians who played, and the tents set up in the meadow for the guests, and Beth taking him into their tent that night. Oh, what a night that was.

  Hood parked up by the ranch house, in the same spot he'd parked four years ago. Instead of Suzanne watching him from the porch deck, it was her son. Hood got out.

  "That car is still your best quality," said Bradley.

  "It's not for sale."

  "I could steal it."

  "How's the wounded hero? I saw you faint on TV."

  "That was my sensitive side showing through."

  "Musta hurt," said Hood.

  "The thought crossed my mind that I'd die of that damned little thing and never get to see Erin again."

  "That would be a high price to pay, Bradley. Though it's a hard fact that you don't deserve her."

  "I've told her a million times but it doesn't change her mind. Come on up. We can sit in the breakfast room where you tried to seduce my mother."

  "That's not exactly what happened." Hood pictured Suzanne in her wrinkled periwinkle nightshirt, the sun on her hair and her eyes on him.

  "I was there, don't forget."

  "Let's walk," said Hood. "I like this day."

  Bradley went inside and came out with two bottles of beer. He launched one down at Hood, who made a good catch. They walked out into the barnyard and stood in the shade of the oak tree. Hood watched a pair of young red-shouldered hawks wheel above in the pale blue sky, keening sharply.

  "Congratulations on freeing the boy," said Hood.

  "We stumbled into him. Pure luck."

  "You've got a lot of that."

  "The kid had the brains to set off a silent alarm wired to us."

  "I hear they're having trouble finding a record of it."

  "Yeah, well, lots of things get lost at HQ. Or maybe the media got it wrong and there never was an alarm."

  "Well, then, how did you choose that house?"

  "Dispatch chose it, Charlie." Bradley moved away from Hood and faced him. "Now what?"

  "Just wondering."

  "You're like a prying old woman sometimes, Charlie. Tell me something interesting about Blowdown."

  Hood told him they were sticking it to the gunrunners-they'd recovered sixty-two firearms in a buy last week. And ATF had spent a lot of time and money getting Spanish versions of their computer gun tracing programs into the hands of law enforcement officers and prosecutors all over Mexico.

  "I saw the gold-plated Uzis that DEA and the Mexican army found in the La Familia bust," said Bradley. "Saw the pictures, I mean. What, ten or twenty of them? And fifty gold-plated pistols?"

  Hood absorbed the insult with a nod and a smile. "They need them to do battle with the thousand Love Thirty-twos some enterprising gringos sold to the North Baja Cartel."

  Bradley laughed derisively and shook his head. "You're incorrigible. I can't wait to be your boss someday."

  "I saw you and Pace, and I saw the guns."

  "What you thought were guns turned out to be new jeans we'd bought for poor kids south of the border. The reporters even got that right. That was egg on ATF's face, Charlie. And not even you can hold me accountable for Ron Pace."

  "The Pace Arms building in Costa Mesa is empty now. Ron still owns it but the penthouse is abandoned. Where did he go?"

  "I don't know. I'd tell you if I did, because we're on the same side, Hood. I'm a deputy sheriff now, remember?"

  For the next few minutes they traded deputy gossip-the union negotiations, the new LASD pursuit policies, county health care cuts, who'd get the current sheriff's backing when he decided to step down. Hood enjoyed this. It was like having a younger brother. He was the youngest of the five by a lot, always looking up at the rest-last to arrive, last to know, last to be included-his boyhood a series of good-byes as his siblings grew and left. He was closer to them now as adults than they'd been as children. Slightly.

  Back in the house they barged in on Erin in her studio. She was putting new strings on a Gibson Hummingbird and when she saw Hood she smiled and rose and kissed him on the cheek.

  "Erin? Charlie's here to make his usual baseless accusations, but I thought you'd want to see him."

  She cut a hard glance at her husband then smiled at Hood. "What did he do now?"

  "I congratulated him on rescuing the boy and he got very defensive about his astonishing good luck."

  "Well, he's a lucky one," she said quietly. The smile was gone and Hood saw wear on her face.

  Bradley sat down and took up the Gibson and took the high E string from its envelope and worked it into place.

  Hood looked at Erin while she told him about the upcoming Erin and the Inmates tour. She was a trim redhead, pretty in an open and forthright way. Blue eyes and a smile that made you smile. Raised mainly in Texas, four years older than Bradley. But her easy good humor didn't prepare Hood for the stark emotions of her lyrics or the fragile beauty of her music. She seemed wiser than her years and this impressed and intrigued Hood. He was eight years older and somehow looked up to her. So it angered him to think that Bradley Jones was leading a double life just as his mother had led, and was less than truthful with this woman. And it angered him to suspect with good reason that Bradley had used her as an alibi for a murder. He sometimes wished that he had met her first, one of the several moot wishes of his thirty-two years.

  "… then there's the Broken Spoke in Austin, the West End in Dallas and we've got two shows in Houston but I'm not sure where, then on to New Orleans and Miami and on up the East Coast. We've got twenty-eight shows in thirty days. No rest for this little band."

  "I'll catch the Belly Up show in Solana Beach."

  "You better. Bring that pretty doctor with you in case you need medical attention."

  "Looked like she could cure about any ailment you might have, Hood," said Bradley.

  Bradley tightened up the E string and attempted to tune the guitar by ear while Erin squinted, pained by the sound of his crude aural approximations. Then he picked the opening nine notes of the "Dueling Banjos" and offered a brain-damaged smile.

  "Honey? You're more than a little flat there and it's making my scalp crawl." Hood heard the edge in her voice.

  "No. I've got perfect pitch." Bradley pouted and clunkily strummed the first chords of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door."

  Erin put her hand over the hole of the guitar and the chords died against her fingers. "Come on, men, let's get a beer and set on the porch." They sat three across on a picnic bench in the shade of the porch. Dogs lay strewn about, panting. Erin absently picked the Hummingbird and told Hood about getting a guitar made by a fella back in Texas, would take him almost four months to do it but he hadn't even started yet. He made them for Clapton and Sting and James Taylor and pretty near all the stars. Only reason he'd make hers was one of her brothers knew him. Hood listened and looked out at the rolling hills and the green oaks with their branches overgrown to the ground and their afternoon shadows flat and blue on the tan grass.

  "Have you seen Mike Finnegan lately?" Hood asked.

  "He and Owens pop up at the L.A. clubs sometimes," said Erin. "Weird peopl
e. It's been months. Why?"

  "He keeps popping into my mind. I'd like to talk to him."

  "About what?" asked Bradley.

  "Why do you care?"

  " 'Why do you care?' You're sounding like that prying old woman again, Charlie."

  "Knock it off, you drooling primates," said Erin. "We don't have any way to get hold of Mike, do we, honey? I know I don't."

  "I don't, either," said Bradley. Then he stood and stepped around a big husky and hopped the porch railing to the ground. The dogs all rose and stampeded down the steps after him, the terriers barking.

  "Charlie, throw me your keys. I want a look under the hood of this thing."

  Bradley caught the keys just before a leaping Labrador retriever could close its mouth on them.

  Hood sat back down on the bench. He thought of the strange conversation he'd had with Mike Finnegan, about a year and a half ago, in Imperial Mercy Hospital down in Buenavista. He was in a full-body cast and his broken jaw was wired, but his words were clear:

  … Charlie, you are just the kind of person I would love to form a relationship with. It likely wouldn't happen-you're much too strong-willed and law-abiding for the likes of me. Unless, of course, there was something you wanted very, very badly. Something I could help you with…

  "Anyway, the next time you see Mike, give him my numbers."

  She looked at Hood with a small smile. "Not so you can find Owens?"

  "Not Owens. Mike."

  "She's one spooky beauty."

  "That she is."

  "Damaged goods, Charlie. Stay away from her. That's my decision."

  "There you go again, giving me advice I didn't ask for."

  "I gave advice to all my brothers, older and younger. When I love someone I feel the need to run their lives."

  Bradley had the hood of the Camaro up and he stood looking down at the engine as if it were a chessboard. He wiggled the fan belt and a battery cable and swung the dipstick out over the gravel so it wouldn't drip on the car. "You don't love Hood. You love me."

  "There are different kinds of love, Bradley."

  "You run natural or synthetic in this car, Charlie?"

  "Synthetic."

  "Why did I even ask? She doesn't love you."

  "She just said she did."

  "I do love you, Charlie. No matter what he says."

  Bradley held up the stick to the light. "About due for a change, Hood. Looks like you got at least four thousand on this stuff."

  "Thirty-two hundred is what's on it."

  Bradley swung a drip onto the gravel, then slid the stick back in. He banged the hood closed and wiped his hands together, then on his jeans. "I couldn't love a man who doesn't keep his engine oil clean."

  He unhooked the cell phone from his belt and walked out into the barnyard.

  There was a long silence. "How are you?" asked Hood.

  "I'm okay. It's all good."

  "I worry when I hear that sentence."

  "Bradley's trying to do a good job at the deputy work. He… takes it seriously. Looks forward to it."

  "I'm glad to hear that."

  "I mean, we all make our mistakes, right?"

  Hood said nothing but she offered no explanation.

  "You still don't trust him, do you, Charlie? But you like him. You see something of yourself in him. And something of his mother."

  "I owe him. I hurt his chances in life when I took up with Suzanne."

  "You don't get to take any blame for what happened to her, Charlie. Suzanne was hell-bent and she got unlucky."

  He nodded.

  "Something's changing," she said. "I don't know what it is but I'm changing."

  Hood considered this. Her words were an eerie echo of Sean and Seliah Ozburn's. "Explain that if you'd like."

  "I can't. I have nothing firm to report."

  "Good change or bad?"

  "It feels like both. Maybe it's two different changes."

  "I'll be your ears anytime, Erin."

  "I'm seeing that he's like his mother. More and more."

  Hood tried to find the right words but he couldn't. "If you know something-"

  "God, Charlie, I married him and I love him."

  "Love him all you want. But don't take a fall for him."

  "You're trespassing."

  "I didn't see the sign."

  "I don't think you miss much. You just blunder in anyway."

  "Man, that's the truth, Erin."

  Hood watched a flock of gnatcatchers swoop in unison into the oak tree. They vanished into the leaves but he saw the flicker of tails and wingtips. He set his empty bottle on the deck and stood. She rose and hugged him with one arm, the other hand clamped to the neck of the Gibson.

  "If I run across Mike Finnegan, I'll tell him you want to talk."

  "I'd appreciate that."

  "I really don't like or trust that man."

  "Don't ever change."

  "I just told you I was changing."

  "Well, okay. But not too much."

  "See ya, Charlie."

  Hood waved to Bradley and got into his Camaro. He swung a turn and rolled down the dirt driveway, glasspacks rumbling and the dogs setting up a dust storm behind him.

  20

  Two nights after the great crash of his faith, Ozburn landed Betty at a private strip near Indio, California. The runway had been offered by one of the Desert Flyers. He called a cab that took him to one of the motels along Interstate 10. He had his mane tucked up under a cowboy hat, and he wore a Mexican poncho over his shoulders. As always now, he wore his sunglasses against the brightness of the light, even after dark. It felt right to change his look. ATF was certainly out there, tracking him like a pack of silent hounds.

  He got an upstairs king with free Wi-Fi. He swung his duffel onto the bed and pulled out a fresh bottle of tequila and poured half a plastic cupful. He drank it in a gulp, to an ovation of warmth and excitement inside. He counted out his vitamins and supplements and washed those down with another gulp.

  While Daisy sniffed around the room, Ozburn drew the curtains tight against the night and hung bath towels over the bathroom mirror. He could look at his reflection only very briefly before revulsion made him look away. He closed his eyes against this apparition and he felt the urge to pray. But who do you pray to when you have pulled your faith out by the roots and flung it into the dust forever?

  At eight P.M. the room phone rang as planned, and Ozburn told the caller his room number. He made sure both of the Love 32s were fully loaded and off safe and he slung one over each arm and moved a chair to the middle of the room facing the door and waited for the knock.

  Half an hour later he heard it and said, "Come in."

  Big Paco lumbered into the room with the same briefcase in which Ozburn had delivered the first Love 32 to him. He was not as tall as Ozburn would have thought but he was certainly as big. His sport coat must have been fitted by a skilled tailor. He wore his sunglasses as before and his pitted face caught the light unhappily. Paco shot out a stout leg and the door slammed shut. Ozburn stood.

  "Tequila?"

  "Yes, please."

  Ozburn poured drinks into plastic bathroom glasses while Paco set the briefcase on the bed and opened it. Ozburn handed him a drink and Paco handed him a small digital postage scale. Ozburn set the scale on the tabletop and turned it on and reset it. When the weight settled to zero he set the stacks of hundred-dollar bills on it and read the readout: one pound, eight ounces. Ozburn tapped his calculator. Seventy two thousand dollars. Then he weighed the twenties and the fives. There were eighty-seven thousand, five hundred dollars-one-half of the total.

  "The first ten are almost ready," said Ozburn.

  "The sample gun is very good. Is quiet. We are ready for the first ten."

  Paco placed the money back in the briefcase and shut it. He slipped the scale into the pocket of his sport jacket. They touched plastic cups.

  "I want to trust you," said Paco.

  "
As I trust you."

  "But you now have eighty-seven thousand and five hundred of our dollars and we have nothing. You know that the Gulf Cartel can't be in the business of loaning money to strangers."

  "You have my word and you will have the guns. Someone has to trust someone for things like this to work, Paco."

  "We have something even better than trust. Come see."

  Ozburn followed Paco outside to the parking spaces where a new Escalade waited. The windows were darkened but Ozburn saw movement inside. Then a rear door opened and a man in a green military uniform stepped out. He had a machine gun strapped over his shoulder. He looked at Paco and Oz, then reached back into the vehicle and brought Silvia out by the hand.

  There was no sign of her having been severely stung by the scorpion but the girl was plainly terrified.

  "We have friends in Agua Blanca."

  "There's no reason to bring her into this."

  "We want no reason to hurt her. She is our guarantee that our money and our good friend Sean Gravas will not disappear. She guarantees that the guns will be delivered to us."

  "You people have no rules anymore."

  "You saved her life. Now her life depends on you, again."

  Ozburn turned and walked back into his room. Time to call an old friend, he thought. He unwrapped one of his several new preloaded phones. He drank more tequila, then lay back on the bed and called Charlie Hood.

  "Charlie, Gravas here."

  "It's good to hear your voice."