The Famous and the Dead (16 page)

“You're not big enough.”

Hood looked at the representative but did not speak.

“I will look until I find him,” said Grossly.

“ATF is blameless in this,” said Lansing.

“ATF blameless? First Fast and Furious, now this? If you are blameless, then I have never seen a more inept governmental bureaucracy in my entire life. One thousand new machine guns flown out of the United States into Mexico under your noses? And you suggest to me that a murderous and perhaps half-crazy ATF agent doing deals on the side was responsible? I beg your pardon but that's not how things work. Things work top to bottom, not the other way around. And all I want to know is how far up the line did the real decision-making on this whole thing go? Who let it happen? I'm going to find out. I'm done here, people. Agent Hood, thank you for your time. We will most certainly be in touch.”

M
ary Kate Boyle rang up another Family Bucket Extra Crispy and took a handful of wadded bills from a very short woman who looked exactly as wide as she was tall. Mary Kate sorted the damp currency and made the change and when she handed it to the customer she had to bend over the counter and reach down. The woman waddled out with a white-and-red KFC bag in each hand, their bottoms scarcely clearing the floor. Tony, the manager who had hired her, helped another customer at the next register. He'd been shuttling between the front and kitchen all day but, now that early evening had come, he had to concentrate on the waves of hungry working people who hit just after five o'clock. Tony glanced very quickly at her, then away. He'd been doing that. Mary Kate pulled her cell phone from her apron pocket and checked the time, then put on a smile for her next customer.

Thirty-five minutes later she was at the Lowell Theater on Fourth, breathing hard from the long, fast walk, trying to steady herself to read for the part of Curley's wife in
Of Mice and Men
. It was a Community Theater Players production, non-Equity. In the theater lobby she scanned through the brief story synopsis and character description of Curley's wife. She'd read the book twice, years ago. She had liked it that Curley's wife didn't have a name and wasn't allowed to exist outside of the way the men on the ranch saw her. But she knew that Curley's wife had a whole other existence, invisible and outside the written story, like many women where Mary Kate came from. Secret hearts, she called them. A good many of the women she knew had them. Some men, even.

Waiting in the near darkness she watched the other actresses read. They were doing the scene at the end where Curley's wife talks to Lennie in the barn. Mary Kate noted the training and skill and robust beauty of the real actresses. Several of them seemed to know one another. Still, after four readings, she saw that there were things about Curley's wife that these women did not quite get. They played her as a sexy tramp, but didn't give her true loneliness and her sharp fear that her life's possibilities had almost totally slipped away. Those qualities were what made her more than just Curley's wife, which is what the writer knew but his characters didn't. Mary Kate sensed she wouldn't get the part, especially with her split lips and black eye, though the wounds were healing. But the idea of not getting the part somehow calmed her. She felt good inside. She was out of the sticks and into a city full of terrific food and good people. Her pulse was normal as she waited, her thoughts drifting peacefully along with the dialogue, a sense of confidence settling in. Her
fight
. The one thing she knew she had a lot of. A lot more than most people could even see. It was hers. Only an empty stomach could take away that fight, and her stomach now was filled with fiery chicken thighs and mountains of coleslaw and those terrific mashed potatoes, and there was more where all that came from.

“Mary Kate Boyle?”

•   •   •

The casting director said he might or might not call. Later she met Tony and some of the other KFC crew at a diner in the Gaslamp District. It was not far from her fleabag hotel, and it was noisy and busy and had the buzz of a local's hangout. Tony bought beers for everyone because he was the manager, though he explained that he made little more than his cooks and front-store employees made, and put in twice the hours. Three of the cashiers were there, all about Mary Kate's age. Two of the cooks came by later. Mary Kate liked the cooks. They were Mexicans, like Tony. For the past few days during slow times at KFC, she would go back into the kitchen just to watch them work. She liked their coordination and athletic balance and goofy singing as they slid around the greasy kitchen floor carrying heavy pressure kettles—boiling with fat and chicken—from the flame-belching stoves to the drainers. They looked like they were roller-skating. They were a happy bunch of daredevils, sliding around like that, but she hoped they weren't just showing off for her.
Don't want to be like Curley's wife,
she thought. That story had haunted her since the day she finished it.

They shot some pool at the Rack and when it got late Tony walked her out. The Gaslamp was quieting now and the breeze off the ocean was up and Mary Kate buttoned her coat high and put her hands deep in the pockets. Out in front of the Winston Arms, Tony embraced her politely and waited until she'd gone inside. By the time she got upstairs to her window he was gone, and this was good. She liked him but didn't want him stuck on her. Her phone rang and she checked the number and didn't recognize it, except the area code, which was Russell County. “Hello?”

“Clinton Stewart Wampler here.”

“Not you, Clint.” She put him on speaker phone and turned on the recorder that Charlie Hood had given her.

“Why
not
me? Skull's in jail and Brock, too. They got busted by the feds. But not me. I got away. I got a plan and I need some help.”

“How am I going to help you from way back here in Missouri?”

“You listen. I didn't just get away, I got away with a
missile
! I want to sell it for big bucks. And if I can't, I'll just blow something up. Like maybe an abortion clinic or a Muslim church or school or something. Southern California's full of shit like that.”

She felt queasy at the words
abortion clinic.
“But why are you calling? What do you want me to do?”

Clint said nothing for a moment, then, “I want you to come out here and be my girl.”

“While you blow things up?”

“Exactly. We'd be like a movie.”

“I was Skull's girl.”

“Why did you say that?”

“I'm not sure why. Something about how different you two are.”

“But you're not his girl no more, right?”

“‘No more' is most certainly right.”

“Then what about me? I always was lookin' at you when I wouldn't get caught at it. Skull and you didn't know squat about my affections and overall designs for you. He was too old to understand your value. I'm young, Mary Kate, and I got a future.”

Mary Kate Boyle said nothing for a long beat. She was truly flummoxed.

“Now when you come, bring all the money you got and a decent car.”

“I can't afford a car.”

“Then borrow one. Just get here. Take a Greyhound if you have to.”

“What's in this for me, Clint?”

“
Forty thousand American-made dollars
is what I'll take for this here Stinger
.
I ain't saying one penny of it's yours but if you're with me it's gonna rub off. You know what I mean.”

Mary Kate kept herself from laughing. It was funny to her that anyone could be as self-serving as Clint yet so confident in his success. Maybe that's how people like him got away with things. He'd never said much more than a word or two to her in the six months she was hanging with Skull's merry band. He looked about eighteen with the big ears and bad haircut but she knew he was older than that.

“Let me think about,” she said. “I'll call you.”

“You can't. I'm on a pay phone and I won't use it twice. When you going to make up your mind?”

“When I'm done thinking about it.”

“Don't be taking all day. I got half the cops in the world out here looking for me. I think I've pissed them off. There's this one, Charlie Hooper—tall asshole with diamonds in his teeth, the guy who set us up—I'm gonna do something special with him.”

A chill rippled down Mary Kate's back. “Like what?”

“Like none of your business.”

“If Skull and Brock got popped, how did you get away?”

“'Cause Clint is smarter and meaner, that's how.”

“I guess I believe that.”

“I'll call soon. Don't piss away the lifetime of an opportunity, honey. I've got a big heart for you. And plenty more.”

“Yeah, yeah. I get that part, Clint.”

“Skull said you got it real good. Now I'm the one loving you.”

“You're not doing any such, Clint.”

“I know you're gonna come.”

•   •   •

She played the recording over the phone to Charlie Hood. It was very late but she thought this information might be important. Lawmen always wanted to hear about bad guys blowing up things like schools or mosques or clinics. Hood had told her a full day ago that Clint might call and she had thought that was ridiculous. Why would he call her? But now she knew and Charlie had been right. He was a smart guy. With diamonds in his smile. She wondered if maybe he was still in bed right now and if anyone was in it with him. It worried her that Clint Wampler wanted to fix Hood's wagon and had a missile to do it.

“So, Charlie, what do you want me to do?”

“Tell him you're on your way.”

“Then what?”

“Set him up for us.”

“I figured that's where you were going.”

“Can you do it? There's always risk when you deal with people like Clint. He murdered a man less than forty-eight hours ago. But we'll keep him away from you. It can all be by phone. We won't let him get close.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Promise me another thing, Charlie.”

“What's that, Mary Kate?”

“Aw, I don't know. Anything you want. Just funnin' with ya. My lips are almost healed up enough to smile again.”

T
hat Friday Bradley embarked on his first Baja run in nearly a year and a half. The evening was crisp and breezy, and the sunset was framed by towers of black clouds limned in orange. It was a glorious feeling for him to leave Rocky Carrasco's El Monte warehouse without the Blands tailing him. Heaven on earth. He kept checking the mirrors and smiling to himself. He wore the Santana Panama for good luck.

His heart was filled with nostalgic memories of such nights, and the hidden compartments in his Cayenne Turbo were filled with bricks of cash. So were the bottoms of the plastic tubs that otherwise held new clothing for poor Mexican children. The cash amounted to $412,500 and he'd end up with approximately $14,000 for himself. Of which he would lay off $2,000 each to Caroline Vega and Jack Cleary. All of it was Southern California drug profit for Carlos Herredia's North Baja Cartel.

He drove the speed limit south on Interstate 5, past the nuclear power plant at San Onofre and then along the hills of Camp Pendleton. To his right the Pacific Ocean looked plated with gold, which made him think of the silly gold-plated pistols that Herredia loved so much, which made him think of drug lords so he put on a recording of the song Erin had written in captivity four months ago. It was called “City of Gold,” and she'd been forced to write it by Benjamin Armenta, one of Mexico's most powerful drug lords, as a way of gaining greater fame and notoriety for himself. Thus, it was a lowly
narcocorrido
, one of many such ballads commissioned over the years by cartel players in order to glorify themselves. But because Armenta came from Veracruz he'd made Erin write the song in the well-known
jarocho
style of that city. So, although the song told the story of a violent drug lord, it did so with exuberance, a lovely harp-decorated melody, a hint of Caribbean rhythm, and exotic percussion instruments. The dissonance between subject matter and sound somehow made the song beautiful.

Armenta had never heard the full version because Bradley had blown him into eternity right there in his own recording studio in his secret castle on the Yucatán. Erin had foretold such an ending in her song. What a journey that had been, he thought now, what an astonishing ten days of trying to rescue her from the hell that he had helped put her in. He remembered the moment he swung open the door to the studio control room and through the glass saw Erin at the piano, facing him, and Armenta standing with his accordion on and his back to Bradley. He pictured it all again: charging into the hushed tracking room, opening fire with his silent machine pistol, the window glass shattering and falling, the dozens of bullets that the bearlike Armenta took before he finally went down in a heap, draped over his instrument. Bradley turned the volume up and started the song again.

But by the time “City of Gold” was over so were his violent memories, and he was sobered again by Erin's continuing anger and distrust of him. He knew he deserved these things, and likely more. He had been a reckless fool and he had endangered her, Erin, the fire of his heart, his reason for being. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have thought a hidden room could possibly protect her from professional kidnappers and killers? How could he have allowed these men to have observed her, and himself, and their property, long enough to discern the weakness in their defenses? How could he have failed to electrify the perimeter fence of their Valley Center ranch, and install motion sensors and wire them to his central monitor in the bedroom? That fence was his Achilles heel and Armenta had somehow found it.
Never again
, he thought.
I'll never be that stupid and careless again
.

Still, in a larger sense, he had successfully gotten Erin away from her tormentors. That task had been on par with any labor of Hercules, in his opinion. A young deputy and a few friends, up against one of the most powerful criminals in the Western Hemisphere, on his own turf, on his own terms. Bradley had told her he would prevail. He had promised. And he had delivered. He'd taken her back to the home they had made and fortified it against further attack, so she could give birth to the life they had created together. He'd even come away with most of the ransom money. And after all that, still she had left him.

Now he pictured her in Charlie Hood's dusty hovel down in scorpion-infested Buenavista. What was she doing? Playing her guitar? Watching TV with fucking Charlie? Listening to the hobbled old cop's war stories? Hanging with Dr. Beth? He turned off the music and cracked his window for a moment and let the cold hit his face. Emboldened, he rolled the window back up and used the voice dial. When she answered, the sound of her made his heart stir. “You're a soundtrack I never want to end.”

“You're full of it, Bradley.”

“I'll always be full of it. Are you okay?”

“I'm fine. Are you?”

“Good. Driving to Escondido for some takeout. Long day. Can I come see you tomorrow? Around noon? You said maybe.”

“I know what I said. I'm not sure yet.”

“Is he moving a lot?”

“All the time. He kicks and hits. I can feel his little fists in there. The doctor predicts a stubborn and gifted person, but he's just saying that.”

“Why wouldn't he be stubborn and gifted?”

She was quiet a moment.

“I miss you every second,” he said.

“I miss you sometimes.”

“Say that again.”

“No. It's already passed.”

“Ouch.”

“Self-defense.”

“It'll be caesarean, then.”

“Well,
he
, not
it
.”

“Dr. David better do a good job.”

“He's done hundreds of them.”

“I'm going to be there.”

“You should be there.”

“Amazing how cold your voice can get.”

“It just follows the rest of me,” she said. “But you seem stronger the last few days. Your voice and your attitude. You sound different. More positive.”

“I'm bullish on you and me and the baby. Decide on the name yet?”

“I still like Thomas.”

“Jones or McKenna?”

“You keep asking that. Still Jones. We're married. I'll honor it.”

“Thank you. I'd like the middle name to be Firth. After your mom.”

“She would be very proud of that.”

Bradley looked out at the black ocean sprinkled with the lights of Oceanside. The Coaster train glided over the fog-misted marsh and he saw passengers reading in their seats, each passenger upright, individually lighted and alone. “I like that time we made love in the sand dunes. How can you make love in a sand dune? We did.”

“And that laundry room up at Zach's that smelled like fabric softener and dryer lint and somehow it was so . . . just took my silly breath away.”

“That time in Nordstrom.”

“We used to have a lot of that,” she said.

His heart sped up at the sound of melancholy in her voice. The sound of loss. It meant that she wanted him back, or soon would. Wouldn't she? “I dwell on it. I'll probably go to my deathbed picturing one time or another, what we did. Like, remember—”

“I wish I could dwell.”

“I could help you.”

“I'm going to have a baby and I feel empty and alone.”

“If I was there you would only feel empty.”

“Very funny.”

“What's the difference between a musician and a large pizza?”

“A large pizza can feed a family of four.”

“It's important to laugh,” he said.

“I'm trying to talk to you.”

“I'll listen anytime.”

She was quiet for a long beat. Bradley stayed at seventy down into Carlsbad. The smokestack at the electric plant wafted steam into a starry sky. “Did youth get wasted on us?”

“I don't see waste, honey.”

“This whole thing. Didn't you feel golden for a few years? Just really . . . blessed and full, like the world was happy to have us in it?”

“I still do feel that way.”

“I don't. I feel like I spent all my goodness. Pissed it away on a man who lied to me. Like I just got plain old
faked out.
”

“Guilty as charged. Again. But I've changed, Erin, for the better. You'll see it as our lives move forward. You and me and Thomas. But you have to let me up off the floor someday, girl. I'm no good for anyone down here.”

“Noon,” she said and rang off.

•   •   •

Beneath a foreign glow of moonlight he drove the last five miles to El Dorado, Carlos Herredia's compound. It was in the general vicinity of Cataviña, near the middle of the state of Baja California. There were several routes he had been brought in on over the years, some gated and heavily fortified, some roadless and nearly impossible to see unless you knew what to look for. Tonight the way was new. Two SUVs with shooting ports built into the rooftops led the way, and two more followed. Dust billowed through the path of his headlights and surrounded the small convoy.

Coming up the last mile to El Dorado, Bradley felt a fresh wave of nostalgia break over him. The lights of the compound lay sprinkled on the hillside up ahead. And then he saw the spring-fed pasture for the cattle. And there was the nine-hole golf course upon which El Tigre so boldly cheated, and there the paddocks and hot walkers and barn for his thoroughbreds. Then came the helipad upon which sat not one but two immense transport helos and a half dozen smaller, heavily armored gunships. One of the big helos was a CH-47, painted over in Red Cross insignias, the one they had used to carry a thousand automatic pistols down here to Herredia while Hood and the other ATF morons were focused on boxes of clothing going south to benefit poor Mexican children. What an operation that had been! Tonight on the airstrip was something that Bradley had never seen before: a Lear Jet, lean and proud and somehow smug.

At last he approached the compound proper, several stone-and-adobe buildings low slung and countersunk into a boulder-studded hillside. He saw the outbuildings and the lights of the swimming pool and cabanas that Carlos had so often stocked with dazzling young women that Bradley had always refused out of loyalty to Erin, though in truth she was more lovely to him than all of them put together.

Another surprise waited for him as he swung into the large circular cobblestoned drive: a transport truck and trailer filled to capacity with glittering new automobiles. Herredia himself stood beside the truck, wearing his usual uniform of shorts and flip-flops and a T-shirt with a sportfishing logo of some kind. Behind him was old Felipe with his eternal sawed-off shotgun. Standing with Herredia were two men. Bradley's escorts broke away and he pulled to the curb.

Herredia strode to greet him. He was large and powerful, with thick legs and a barrel chest and skin browned from long hours of fishing. His hair was a curly tangle and he had an expressive face and telltale eyebrows. He hugged Bradley with considerable strength, then stepped back and clutched Bradley's face in both hands, using his thumbs to lift the lips as one might do to a horse. He turned Bradley's head one way then the other, up then down. “
En buen estado.
You are well repaired.”

When the thumbs were finally removed, Bradley could speak. “The teeth are almost too good. But the lip healed up well.”

“
Perfecto.
And with most importance, you are now free to be doing your work with me again. I must hear all details tonight at dinner, of how this became possible. I have a new jet. And tonight there are important guests here for you to meet. Come now.”

Felipe had already laid his scattergun across the trunk of the Cayenne and begun stacking the bins of cash and clothes on a hand truck. Felipe had designed and welded the secret compartments beneath the floor of the storage area of Bradley's Porsche, as well as the front-end containers that could only be opened electrically, using a car battery. Felipe was small and goatlike and sharp faced, and he appeared very old but he moved with a lithe ease. Bradley knew that he would weigh out the bricks of cash and set aside his courier's fee, which was based on the total amount transported. Good couriers were highly valued in the drug world, not only for their honesty, which was a prerequisite, but for their ability to smell out dealers who had turned to informing. Bradley, as an LASD deputy with close friends in narcotics, had special powers in this area and had identified two such young men, who were no longer.

He stood off to the side of the big auto trailer and looked at the shiny new Fords. Even the dusty journey from the Hermosillo plant to El Dorado had not ruined the sheen of their paint where it showed between the protective sheets of white plastic, or the occasional glimmer of chrome. There were four Fusions, four Lincoln MKZs, and four Ford Tauruses, in varying colors. He wondered if these cars might have something to do with what Rocky was hinting about.

Herredia introduced the men not by name but by their positions in Ford Motor Company, Hermosillo Manufacturing Plant, Mexico. The young, tall one was the assistant director of quality control and the short, stubby one was the transport manager. Herredia said they had personally delivered the cars and were here to make sure the fourth and final leg of their new Fords' journey began well.

“For the U.S. market?” asked Bradley.

“Yes,” said the transport manager. He was dressed in a crisp guayabara and jeans and tan lace-up work boots. “Hermosillo now has the highest quality rating of any Ford plant in the world. J. D. Powers & Associates have proven this.”

“How come you brought them through Baja?” asked Bradley. “That means you had to trailer them south to Guaymas, then ferry them to Santa Rosalía, then trailer them all the way here. If you went straight north from Hermosillo to Nogales, it's less than half that distance.”

The tall man looked coolly at Bradley and drew on a cigarette. He had a patrician face and a pale olive suit and a white shirt open at the collar. “What concern are our freight routes to you?”