T. Parker - The Famous and the Dead

Then he began talking about her. His voice softened and he looked down at the tabletop as much as he looked at Mike. His heart felt so full yet so constricted. It felt good to let some things out. He had no one in life to speak to, really, except his wife. His brothers were scattered; his father missing-in-action, as he always had been; his mother a ghost. Erin was his best friend, now alternatingly tolerant and furious at him. He told himself it was her hormones but knew it was more than that. When he thought of his soon-to-be-born son, Bradley felt the tears well up in his eyes. He felt locked out of fatherhood, robbed of his natural right to protect and nurture, extorted out of something that should already be his.

When Bradley was finished, he looked up into Mike’s hopeful face.

“What do you want?”

“I want my wife to love me. And if I can get those assholes over there off my case, I can operate again. And if I can, I can provide everything Erin needs. Both things are connected. I want it to be like it used to be.”

Finnegan studied him frankly. His small, freckled hands were folded over each other on the tabletop. “These are not small things. You are twenty-two years old. You have a powerful bureaucracy on your trail-men who know how to inflict harm. And you have lost the love of your wife. I can’t make Erin love you.”

“I know that.”

“But I can help get you the possibility of escape from your predicament at work. And perhaps through that freedom, you could woo her back.”

“That’s what I want. I can work with possible.”

“Bradley, do you truly believe that I can help liberate you from your tormentors at work?”

Bradley thought, What I truly believe is I’ll try anything to get what I want . “Mike, without you I wouldn’t have gotten Erin back from Armenta. I never thought I’d see her again. I’ve come to realize what you did for us. You and Owens both. So I genuinely thank you. I believe that you can help me again. I’m here to ask for your help.”

Finnegan was standing and had already dropped a ten on the table. “Let’s take a short drive, Bradley. Enough of these big-eared Blands.”

“Blands? How do you know that word? I never called them the Blands in front of you.”

“Bradley, your thoughts are as loud as those trucks out there, especially when they’re about Erin, or your career. I can explain later. But now, vamos! ”

• • •

Mike drove a nicely restored 1953 Chevy pickup, fire engine red, aftermarket pipes. They rumbled several miles up Highway 395, then out a dirt road that led past a Vietnamese Buddhist meditation center and wound back into the hills. Mike sat up ramrod straight on a pillow and Bradley could see that the toes of his saddle cleats were all that touched the brake, gas, and clutch. With his small hands at ten and two, Mike warbled on about the corruption that shut down the city of Adelanto a few years ago, how the cops were taking money and freebies to turn their backs on prostitution and gambling going on at the now-boarded-up motel, and how some of the city councilmen were taking bribes for business favors, and there were backroom real estate deals involving usurious mortgages and people of color.

“I was five years old then,” Bradley said idly. He wondered what Erin was doing right now, what were her exact posture and movements and thoughts.

“It was an easy project, considering the handsome, long-term returns,” said Mike. “There were gambling losses, loan sharking, foreclosures, ruined marriages, blackmail, drug addiction, violence petty and not, untold heartache. A murder or two. Even venereal disease has its own wonderful little half-life. Too bad it all couldn’t last. You saw the old bordello. Technically a motel. Now nothing but dust. But those were three bountiful, beautiful years. All it took was a few ambitious citizens, a stuffed ballot box to put them into power, and wham! Bradley, remember this: If you can secure one politician and one member of the law enforcement profession, you can go bonkers in a small town. One thing leads to another to another. Everyone comes to see how easy it is to get what they want. It’s social fission. Things explode. Look at Bell, Maywood, Vernon! It’s my happy little circle of corruption.”

“What did you do back there in Adelanto, Mike? Personally. I mean, exactly what did you do?”

“Me? Oh, mostly just brainstorming. The city manager was one of mine. Just pure good fortune that I ran across her years prior. She came up in the net, as I like to call it, long after I’d partnered with her father. Who, by the time his daughter was running Adelanto, was locked up in Corcoran for a very squalid domestic murder. I didn’t see it coming. One of the dark spots on my curriculum vitae. But then, I gained her in the deal, didn’t I? She was a blessing I didn’t see coming, either.”

Bradley checked the side mirror but through the swirling dust he saw that the road behind them was empty. He remembered now that Mike, for as long as he had known him, had often seemed to find humor, and sometimes even joy, in human travail. “What value is it to you, Mike? Crime and suffering?”

“Executive summary? There were two brothers who lived hidden in a forest near a village. One was the King and the other was the Prince. In the beginning they disagreed about control of the people in the village. The King wanted to give them laws and demand their worship. The Prince wanted to let them create their own laws and worship whatever they wished to worship. You see, they both loved human beings. They saw human beings as the future of not only the village but the whole earth. So the King banished the Prince from the forest to the desert. The King remained hidden in the forest and sent his representatives into the village, disguised as people. The Prince from the desert did likewise. Then the village became a state and then a country, then the world. This story is oversimplified. But it is a convenient and truthful way to understand the world around you.”

“But I asked about the crime and suffering you seem to enjoy.”

“When faith in the King is undermined, people are freed from his control. People can then choose. We who work for the Prince know that our best tool is chaos, but our goal for you is not chaos at all, but choice. Choice. Freedom. Liberty. Man came into the world free and the King bullied you and stole that freedom away. We work in opposition to his slavery. We hold humankind in the highest esteem. We love and respect you. You are our image and ideal. In a very real sense, we worship you. So we work tirelessly to help you get your freedom back.”

And you’re crazy as a shithouse rat, thought Bradley. He nearly laughed but managed to get out his next words convincingly, with feeling. “You. . you’re the devil?”

“We rarely use that word, but yes. I’m one of many. And there are angels, too, and they have us outnumbered roughly ten to one. We are all representatives. Agents, if you prefer. Worldwide. We’re comparable to two multinational conglomerates. Though we wouldn’t be among the largest in terms of employees.”

Bradley looked at Mike and tried to apply the word devil to a small man dressed ridiculously and thought, Why not? A devil dressed for golf? What better disguise? Mike always looked ridiculous. Maybe that was how he managed to get around so easily. But try as he might Bradley could not swallow the idea. Still , he thought. Tell him anything he wants to hear. Let him believe that I believe . “What do you mean, partner ? You’ve used that word around me before.”

“Partnership is the deepest personal and professional bond we can offer you. To become a partner requires three things of you and one of me. The first of your requirements is belief.”