The Renegades (36 page)

Draper joined her, set his wineglass on the end table and leaned forward, elbows on knees. He felt her hands on his clenched neck and knotted shoulders. She was empathetic, her strong fingers drawn straight to the trouble spots and the bundled tension. He’d been riding in the SUV that turned over, and he’d wrenched his neck and shoulder. The driver had taken one of Hood’s bullets through his hand and gotten safety glass shards in his face.

Draper took a deep breath and let it out. Juliet’s thumbs found two mounds of pain on either side of an upper vertebra and she methodically kneaded them away. She was better tonight than usual. Another concern. By the time she finished half an hour later and led him to their bed, Draper was sure that something had happened and he was reasonably sure what it was.

She made love to him with less self-absorption than usual, now more generous and attuned to him. When they were finally finished he held her face against his beating heart and he smelled her tears before he felt them on his skin.

“Talk to me, Juliet.”

She sobbed instead.

“When something hurts you it hurts me,” he said. “We can’t have a beach without tourists and a flame without fire and tears without a reason, all in one night, can we?”

“I’ve been trying to tell you something.”

“I know. What is it?”

“They asked me to betray you. Hood and Stekol.”

He felt the adrenaline hit. It wasn’t there and then it was. He felt his body fortify itself and his vision take on a new sharpness as he looked to his holster lying on the floor beside his shoes.

“And what did you say?”

“I said yes. I said I would call when you came.”

He said nothing while he dressed and slid on the shoulder rig and put on his coat over it. He stood to the side of the bedroom window and looked through the edge of the drawn blinds without touching them. More condos. A street lamp. A peek of Pacific Coast Highway. Headlights and taillights and the glittering parade of chrome, glass and paint.

“Are they watching us now?”

“No. I’m supposed to call.”

“How do you know they’re not watching us, Juliet? Why would you say that to me?”

“I can’t be sure. You have to trust me. I told them I would call, Coleman. I deceived them. But I need to ask you a question.”

Draper was glad for the darkness of the room because she couldn’t see him. What he had wanted to do to Hood he now wanted to do to Juliet, but the desire was urgent, and here she was, not five feet away, utterly defenseless.

His voice was a mamba in dry grass.
“Ask.”

“Did you kill the men they say you killed?”

He walked to the bed and looked down at her. He lay beside her and again held her head against his heart. He stroked her hair and took the back of her slender neck in his strong right hand, and he pressed his body down the length of hers. “I did not. Before you and the god of beaches, flame, and tears, I swear to you that I’ve never killed anyone in my life.”

“I would know it if you did.”

“You would know it if I did.”

“I told them you didn’t.”

“You told the truth.”

“They told me about Alexia.”

“Alexia is married to my cousin. They rent my property in a town called Azusa. She’s not their business, or your worry, Juliet.”

She moved her face away from his in order to see him but he knew she would not see him truly enough. Her eyes were wet stones in the darkness.

“I told them we’re an arrangement but that’s not true anymore. I love you, Coleman. With all of my big unruly mess of a heart, I love you.”

“I love you, Juliet. I’ll call you and tell you what to say to them. I’ll tell you what to do.”

“I need that now.”

Draper glided off the bed and looked again through the crack alongside the blinds, then he went to the living room. There was nothing in the bags to incriminate him, nothing that he needed.

The best way out, in case they were watching, was through the sliding glass door, down to the beach, south across the cove and over the rocks, then through the side streets to Coast Highway. A cab would get him up to Newport and he could figure things from there.

He went back into the bedroom and kissed Juliet on the cheek and told her he loved her again. Her fingers trailed off his face.

Then he unlocked and opened the slider and slipped out and carefully pushed it closed. He was thankful that he could do this instead of jumping through it headfirst like Hood.

He leaned back and skied down the embankment, his shoes filling with beach sand, and when he hit the firmer floor of the cove he kept to the shadows of the rocks and loped south.

41

Saturday night was
starless and damp, a night for secrets and consequence.

Draper steered the Touareg south on I-5, past the power plant and on to Pendleton. He looked to the place he had pulled over to retrieve the piece of chrome trim caught under the chassis of the M5, and reminded himself that this had been a curse that he could still turn into a blessing.

“So, this is all we do?” asked Bradley. “We drive a few hours and I make five grand?”

“This is all we do.”

“Rocky doesn’t trust me.”

“You’ll have to do better with Herredia.”

“He’s not famous for trusting. I heard he used a cartel rival for chum on one of his fishing trips. He personally cut up the pieces.”

Draper heard no worry in the boy’s voice. Bradley looked out at the ocean, slid his automatic from the deep pocket of his duster, considered it, then put it back. Next he brought out a pack of chewing gum, gave a stick to Draper and took one for himself.

“I saw the flash of green once,” the boy said absently. “Right there, off Trestles. I was sitting on my board outside, waiting for the set. It was November and when the sun went behind the water there was a green rectangle and it sat on the sky, then it was gone.”

“I watched three sunsets in a row from Mallory Dock in Key West,” said Draper. “I never saw any flash of green or anything else.”

But it was dark now, the sun hours down, and Draper aimed his thumb toward the box in the backseat. “What’s your gift for El Tigre?”

“You’ll see. A lot more impressive than your collection of fishing trinkets.”

Draper enjoyed the boy’s truculence and was annoyed by it, too. Earlier, when Bradley had loaded his box into the backseat, Draper had seen that it was heavy. The boy handled it with care. It was a square pasteboard box, big enough for a computer or a small TV perhaps, sealed with clear packing tape.

“So,” said Bradley. “Where we picked up the luggage and weighed the money, that’s not the usual place, right?”

“Why do you think that?”

“There was an air of uncertainty.”

“It was more than uncertainty.”

“But I’m right. That’s not where it usually happens. I understand that Hector Avalos was Herredia’s L.A. man. But Hector bought it, and the money wasn’t in Cudahy. So I’m thinking Rocky is the man now. And you.”

“Things change, Bradley. Routine is death.”

“For Avalos it was.”

“You should watch, shut your mouth. Learn.”

“Yep. For five grand a week, I can do that.”

Bradley was quiet for a while. Draper saw the lights of Oceanside to the south. At the border, Draper didn’t recognize the American Customs man, who quickly waved him through. Saturday shift, he thought, not the Friday night people he was used to.

The desultory Mexicans were new to him, too. They looked at his ID and LASD shield and asked him to roll down the windows of the SUV, and in the white glare of the floodlights they perused the plastic tubs of fishing gear, the loose rods, Bradley’s pasteboard box, and the rolling luggage in the back.

When Draper had passed through Tijuana and got onto the toll road he felt the familiar relaxing of his body, the comfort of American law surrendering to the darker, more flexible liberties of Mexico.

IN THE DUSTY DRIVEWAY of the compound Old Felipe pointed his shotgun at Bradley while a
compañero
patted him down. Draper studied Felipe’s puzzled expression as he sized up the boy. Bradley chattered away in Spanish. Draper saw the other gunmen, more than usual, stationed in the shadows. He knew that word of his troubles in Jacumba had traveled south on Herredia’s network. And that news of a new partner nominated to replace Terry Laws had been dispatched by Rocky through his
Eme
confederates. Draper had asked Rocky for positive spin. Draper was bullish that Bradley would pass his audition. Rocky had clearly disliked the boy, but the decision was Herredia’s. Draper remembered what El Tigre had once said about Laws:
The desert is made for secrets.
Draper hoped to hear none of that tonight, fully understanding that he was the executor of the fate of Bradley Jones.

They entered Herredia’s inner sanctum. First went Felipe, then Draper, then Bradley, bearing his gift box, then a big man and a skinny man who went to the back corners of the room. Two more men wheeled in the luggage and went outside and closed the door behind them but Draper didn’t hear them walk away. He looked back at Felipe in his usual seat by the door, the combat shotgun across his lap, his hand on the grip and his weathered brown index finger tapping the trigger guard.

Herredia sat at his big iron desk. The huge Desert Eagle revolver lay in front of him. He didn’t rise to greet Draper, or smile, or even acknowledge him. All of his dark attention went to Bradley. Draper saw something ancient in Herredia’s stare, and he thought of lions eating cubs, and Pharaoh and Moses, and wondered if he’d need to shove Bradley off in a bulrush basket.

“What are you?” asked Herredia.

“An outlaw, sir, by birth and profession.”

“What is loyalty?”

“The greatest gift that can be offered or received.”

“Who has your loyalty?”

“Those loyal to me.”

“Take one step forward and set down the box. At your feet.”

Bradley stepped toward Herredia, squatted and lowered the box to the floor, then straightened and folded his hands contritely behind his back.

“How important is your life to you?” asked Herredia.

“Pretty damned. This is all we get, as far as I can see. I’ll negotiate the afterlife when I see that I have one.”

“Did you kill the man who shot your mother?”

“Yes.”

“How many others?”

“None, sir.”

“Did this make you proud or ashamed? Did it draw you toward God or the Devil?”

“Proud. The Devil. Of course.”

Herredia idly picked up the gun and set it back down on the desk, pointed at Bradley. He never took his eyes off of him. “Why do you say ‘of course’?”

“I thought you would understand, sir.”

“You presume to understand what I understand?”

“I don’t mind the company of the Devil, Mr. Herredia. I’m just a thief. If you feel closer to God, then I apologize to you and to Him. Very sincerely.”

Herredia looked at Draper for the first time. Draper saw no recognition in the black eyes. Then they were back on Bradley.

“How old are you?” asked Herredia.

“Eighteen.”

“Your driver’s license says seventeen.”

“I round up on the little things. But I always count the big things with extreme care and accuracy.”

“Such as in the luggage.”

“Yes.”

“Open the box slowly. Felipe has a knife.”

But Bradley flicked his wrist and a switchblade appeared and the blade clicked open. Draper saw the ripple of surprise in Herredia’s face. Bradley knelt and swept the knife across the taped seams—middle and both sides. He closed the knife with a one-handed flourish and dropped it into a pocket. He pulled out a red, green and white beach towel from one end, uncoiling it from within. Then another. The Mexican colors, thought Draper: cagey.

Bradley dropped the second beach towel to the floor and looked down into the box. All Draper could see was what looked like a glass bottle of water. There was something dark inside but the light reflected off the surface of the liquid and Draper could not make out what he was seeing.

Then Bradley reached down into the box and hefted out the bottle by its bottom. He held it outward toward Herredia.

Draper saw the head bobbing in the liquid and the long black hair floating just off the bottom. The head was pale. He couldn’t see the eyes or the expression of the face.

“This is the head of Joaquin Murrieta,” said Bradley. “He was my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. He is the same Joaquin Murrieta that you’ve read about—the legendary horse thief, marksman, gambler, seducer and generous benefactor of the poor.”

“Set him on my desk.”

Bradley stepped forward and set the jar in front of Herredia.

Draper watched El Patrón peer into the jar. The head tilted and wavered slowly in the liquid, as if it were carrying on a conversation.

“His head was supposed to be lost in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906,” said Herredia.

“It was stolen the day before by his great-grandson, Ramón. It was passed down to my mother, the outlaw Allison Murrieta.”

“But where is the hand of Three-Fingered Jack?”

“It was never in the same jar with Joaquin. That was an error of history. There were many errors about Joaquin.”

“Fantástico,”
said Herredia. “Felipe.”

The old man came forward and leaned his craggy face to the jar. His voice was a whisper:
“Murrieta!”

With this, Bradley turned and looked at Draper, whose attention went back and forth between the head in the jar and the wide-eyed delight of Carlos Herredia.

Then Bradley turned back to El Patrón. His voice was clear and calm. “I can’t let you have him, sir. He’s family. I wanted him to meet you. I want you to understand that I am who you need.”

Herredia frowned and snarled something to the men in the corners. They burst past Draper and closed in on Bradley, a pistol held to each of his temples as they wrenched back his arms and pushed him up hard against the iron desk.

“He is not a gift?” asked Herredia.