Iron River (31 page)

“How’s Chester?”

She studied Hood. “The caves rim the Pacific coast from Chile to Alaska. Not far offshore. Some believe they’re inhabited. I say believe what you want because the Mayan calendar only goes up to the year 2012. Just do the math on that one. Chet? Oh, he’s back, of course. I don’t see much of him for how much of him there is to see.”

Hood nodded. “What did Ron tell you about the big project starting up?”

“He didn’t say much. He called it a secret job and he’d be able to give me details someday but not yet. I can tell when Ron is excited about something. He glows. He always did, even as a little boy. The first Slinky he ever got in his Christmas stocking? You could have lit all of Seattle with the light on Ronnie’s face. He’s got two speeds—zero and full blast. And when something excites him, look out.”

“I wonder,” said Hood.

“Wonder what?”

“If he might be making guns again.”

“That’s prohibited by the terms of the judgment.”

“Yes, I guess it would be.”

“But who’s to say he’s not making guns in one of those caves?”

“I doubt that, Maureen.”

“Well, making guns is the only thing he knows how to do, so . . .”

Hood nodded.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked.

“One of the newspapers had it. From years ago.”

She studied Hood again. He sensed in her a patience that might be endless. “What did you say you did for us?”

“Down in manufacturing mostly. Built a whole lot of Hawk twenty-twos and a fair amount of the nines.”

“Oh, that twenty-two Long was a sweet pistol.”

“Still is.”

“I carried one until they took it away. Never used it except once at a restaurant. I was seated outside and I put it on my place mat to hold it down in the wind. They frowned on that!”

“I’ll bet.”

“But really, we’re responsible for our actions. Finally, finally, we are.” Her gaze held Hood for a long beat, then she looked outside. “The kittens are in the fountain again.”

“Nice.”

“I don’t remember you.”

“I worked nights and swing, so I didn’t see much of the higher-ups.”

“You wouldn’t be a lawyer, would you, sniffing around for some money that isn’t there?”

“No. I’m just a gunmaker looking for a job.”

“Good luck, Mr. Fischer. The Ring of Fire is dead and gone now. Too bad. There were six different companies at one time, and Paces ran four of them. There was Tony, my first husband, and then Chet, and all their brothers and sisters. Seven impressive Paces. Chet was huge and Barb was tiny, so figure that one out. They all got married and had kids and made guns by the skil-dillion. Pretty much all the upper management were Paces by blood or marriage. Good jobs and good pay and good products. The liberals killed us. They think guns run out on the streets and shoot people. They think guns rape women and sell drugs. They think guns walk into classrooms and kill students. They don’t have the guts to look into their own souls and blame human behavior on the humans. They think . . . well, I don’t know what they think. But they kept looking for a way to shut us down. When that gun went off accidentally and little Miles died, it was the end of everything. He was a beautiful little boy. It gutted the Ring of Fire. Scattered the Paces. Look at me. A crazy lady in a nuthouse and I’m all of forty-eight years old. Can you believe that? Look at me, Sam. I feel like the ruins of civilization itself.”

Hood looked. “You’re still young and lovely.”

“Of course you say that. But I detect dishonesty in you. It’s time for you to go. I hope you find employment.”

Hood drove back to Pace Arms and resumed his stakeout. His conscience muttered to him about lying to a crazy woman, but he told himself it was for the greater good. He knew this was the first refuge of the scoundrel but tried to believe it anyway.

Again he waited for the call about Jimmy, but there was no call. Forty-eight hours now. His muttering conscience went silent and his heart filled with uneasy anger.

Then the phone finally rang, but it was Buenavista PD captain Gabe Reyes reporting that he’d found a cell phone and a charger under Mike Finnegan’s pillow an hour ago. None of the nurses had ever seen the phone or heard him talking on it, and when Reyes went to the messages and call logs and contacts, they contained not a single name, number, or message.

“He said he never used it,” said Reyes. “That it was just for emergencies. It’s one of those prepaid models. I think he was whispering or texting. That’s why they never heard him talk.”

“Whispering or texting who?”

“I doubt it was somebody wanting to buy a shower curtain. You don’t hide a phone and not use it. And I checked—if you lie in that bed where he does, and you can use your right hand, there’s an outlet within reaching distance. He could have been using and charging that thing late at night when the nurses were changing shift, not paying such close attention.”

Hood thought that all of Gabriel’s police work added up nicely, but he wasn’t sure to what. “Thanks, Gabe.”

“I want to get Father Quang to talk with Finnegan.”

“Explain.”

“He’s a priest out of El Centro. Vietnamese, you know, a lot of them are good Catholics. Quang has a deep sense of evil because he has seen things. He is bright. I think he might help us cut through some of Mike’s bullshit.”

“I’d like to be there for that.”

“Sure. One more thing, deputy. Beth said IHOP was terrific. She had a light in her eyes. Treat her well.”

“Yes, I will.”

Around nine o’clock, Hood got out of his truck and shut the door quietly and trotted across the street. He climbed the fence and strode across the entrance walkway and the little perimeter of flower bed. He followed the edge of the building until he found a dark and sheltered place, then he squatted amidst the shade-tolerant begonias and rhododendron and African violets and looked through the smoked glass. An early article about Pace Arms said that manufacturing was done on the first floor, and this appeared to be true. In the faint light within, Hood saw the twelve men working diligently at their benches, all fingers and elbows, all working on what appeared to be small-caliber semiautomatic pistols.

Back in business, he thought.

 

 

 

He was almost all the way home to Buenavista when Ozburn called: Raydel Luna was here in California and Jimmy was alive somewhere down in Mexico, and there was a plan.

 

 

 

 

T
hey set off in their own vehicles, Hood in his black Tahoe and Ozburn in his Land Cruiser still caked with dry pale mud and Bly in her black Suburban, a dark posse charging down the highway through the deeper dark of night.

Hood brought up the rear, keeping his eyes on the divider and on the back of Janet’s ride, but along the peripheries of his sight the spindly ocotillos rushed by and the paloverdes marched full and rounded, through the headlight beams and to the north the quarter moon sketched the outlines of the distant mountains against the sky.

Luna was waiting at a bar called the Corral on Highway 98 just outside of Quartz. The Corral came into view ahead on Hood’s left. There were cars out front. He watched Ozburn drive by without slowing, then Bly and Hood did the same. The restaurant sign was dim and read only CORRA. A mile past, Ozburn signaled and flogged it, then skidded into a smoking U-turn across the highway and came back at Hood with a merry flashing of brights. Hood smiled, and when it was his turn he did the same. They parked noses-out in the lot, Bly and Hood near each end and Ozburn in the middle. Hood could hear music playing inside, a loud
corrido.

Hood pushed through the door first. The music jumped in volume and he saw the pool players and the drinkers and the smoke drifting into the rafters. Faces turned his way, washed in the red light of candles in red glass domes on the tables and along the bar. Luna sat in the depths of the room with two other men.

He stood as they approached and he shook their hands strongly and his small eyes bore into Hood’s. He wore a vaquero
-
style sport coat with leather-trimmed pockets and yoke that was too small for him, and this made his thick neck and shoulders seem even larger, like a bull disguised as a mariachi. Amador was Luna’s physical opposite, light and slender and long-necked and angel-faced. He was dressed in the uniform of the Baja State Police, and an AK-47 was propped against his chair. Hood guessed early twenties. Esteban Vogel was also nothing like Luna. He was light-skinned and blue-eyed and sandy-haired and he wore slacks and an open-collared dress shirt and a blazer that draped expensively. Early thirties. Along the wall beyond them stood two uniformed Mexican
Federales
, both young.

Luna said that Jimmy was alive and being held somewhere in the mountains. But there had been developments. And everything in Mexico was “not usual” since the bloody kidnapping at the hospital. The slaughter in Mulege was bad enough, he said, but now things were very, very not usual.

“Let me explain,” said Esteban Vogel. “You know that originally the Zetas were defectors from the Fifteenth Battalion of Mexico’s Special Forces—GAFEs. These men were great soldiers, our bravest and best. They specialized in airborne operations, counterinsurgency, counter-drug trafficking, and, as we saw at Imperial Mercy, rescue operations. At first there were only twenty defectors. They were led by a man named Humberto Vascano, known as Z1 and El Verdugo, which means The Executioner. He sold their services to Benjamin Armenta’s Gulf Cartel and began recruiting in the poor Mexican states of Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Puebla and Chihuahua. Vascano is charismatic and ruthless. The recruits were trained in the special forces tactics, and armed heavily. Because of their counter- drug trafficking training, they became very effective drug traffickers. Because of their counterinsurgency training, they became accomplished insurgents. They were paid three hundred dollars a week to start, and could earn up to one thousand. The pay for the GAFE soldiers is two hundred dollars per month and this was the reason for the defections.”

Vogel looked at each of the Blowdown team while he removed a silver cigarette case from his coat pocket. He offered cigarettes around the table. Bly and Hood accepted. Vogel lit their smokes, then his own, and clipped the case shut.

“This was three years ago. At that time, Mexican desertions were approximately one hundred soldiers per month. Now it is twelve hundred soldiers per month. The Zetas have grown to over one thousand. They grow faster than we can count. They have outgrown Armenta, though some of them still work for him. They have branched out into Quintana Roo, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Sinaloa, and Baja California states, establishing territory, controlling smuggling routes, reaping profits, destroying the opposition. They have been extremely successful in Guatemala and are now drawing recruits from the once legendary special forces known as the Kaibil. The Kaibiles are defecting at twice the rate of us Mexicans. The Kaibiles and the Zetas have aligned themselves with the Mara Salvatrucha, which gives them street-level numbers and foot-holds in American cities. They consider themselves superior to the cartels. They have bragged about overthrowing the government and murdering President Calderón. They have been unleashed. I can tell you that the worst is yet to come. Gentlemen, and lady, of Blowdown, we have a crisis in our country and now it has moved into yours.”

“We want Jimmy back,” said Ozburn.

“This long preamble was necessary,” said Vogel. He exhaled curtly. “The Zetas have Jimmy. But they are not Benjamin Armenta’s Zetas. It is Vascano himself. The Executioner is offering Jimmy to Armenta for one million dollars. But more important than the money, he is using Jimmy to destroy the trust between our two governments. Both sides are humiliated by the hospital raid. Because the kidnapping makes Calderón and his government appear inept and lacking in control, Vascano believes he is closer to destabilizing it. And, if he can infuriate the United States against Mexico, this is good for the Zetas. This was an act of terrorism not only against the United States, but against Mexico. However . . .”

Vogel drew deeply on the cigarette and slowly let out the smoke. He tapped the cigarette out in a black plastic ashtray. “However, at the powerful urging of my advisors, and Sergeant Luna, I asked Vascano, through intermediaries, to also offer Jimmy to you. He has agreed.”

“What price?” snapped Bly.

“Five million dollars.”

“The United States government doesn’t pay terrorists,” said Ozburn.

“Nor does ours,” said Vogel. “And it will not be seen to. But we are hoping to diffuse the crisis that began at Imperial Mercy. We are hoping that the return of Mr. Holdstock, perhaps made possible by certain sympathetic elements within the Calderón administration, will ease tensions. We are hoping that the sight of Mr. Holdstock returned to American soil, reunited with his family, viewed by millions of Americans, will reduce this strife between our two great nations.”

Hood sat back and figured his net worth if he cashed out everything he had. It was about forty grand if he kept the Camaro.

“We’ll get it,” said Bly.

“You tell Vascano we’re going to get it,” said Ozburn.

“You already have it. It’s a gift from our people to Jimmy Holdstock. You just have to deliver it to Vascano and bring Jimmy back across the border. The Zetas will call Luna at noon tomorrow. Only two persons can be present to transport the money and collect Jimmy. One must be Sergeant Luna. If a third is suspected, they will murder Jimmy on the spot. They have said that the Executioner wants this exchange done quickly.”

“What if Armenta offers more?” asked Hood.

“Vascano will sell to the highest bidder.”

“We could easily be walking into a slaughter,” said Ozburn.