T. Parker - The Famous and the Dead

Bradley sipped the martini, lightly. He noted that nearly all of the guests were drinking highballs or apparently straight liquor and the waiters and walk-up bar were quite busy. Empty glasses were already stacking up on the bar top and bus trays. He also saw that many of attendees were drinking from silver flasks like Mike’s, often offering the flask around to others, as Europeans offer cigarettes.

The three of them went from group to group, where Mike and Owens unfailingly drew warm hugs and hearty backslaps and words of good cheer. Fantastic work down there in San Diego, Mike-wonderful! Mike introduced him as Bradley Murrieta, the new partner in MFB-Mike Finnegan Bath-a man he hoped would help to “resuscitate MFB’s wheezing bottom line.” The conferees were polite but seemed slightly skeptical of Bradley, which was fine with him. Owens positioned herself at his side, and occasionally held his arm in such a way that drew looks.

Mike and Owens danced a waltz, then she and Bradley drew a brassy foxtrot and, when it was over, light applause for a dance well done. Bradley was struck again by her lustrous beauty and easy humor. Even now in the late days of winter her skin was tanned brown and smooth, and her black hair was wavy and shiny as obsidian. Silver gray eyes.

Bradley knew that Erin had spent many hours with Owens in Benjamin Armenta’s castle in the Yucatan lowlands, where Erin was held for ransom for ten days. Owens was Armenta’s mistress and Erin had distrusted her at first. But Owens had helped Erin preserve her sanity, and protected her and her baby from men far more wicked than Armenta. From that remote jungle fortress without computers or telephones, Owens had shown Erin how to communicate with her husband, at no small risk to herself. Owens had even helped Erin attempt an escape. Now as Bradley danced with her he was aware not only of her beauty but of her strange history-illegitimate daughter of a powerful Catholic monsignor; attempted suicide; devotee of Mike Finnegan; consort of cartel kingpin Benjamin Armenta; actress, cipher, and siren. What else was she, and what had she done and what did she want? Bradley understood that she was far more versed in life’s shadows than he was, and therefore somehow his superior.

They dined at one of the eight-tops with a two-man extrusion-mold-making company based in Grass Valley, a patent lawyer from Fresno, and two tool-and-die honchos from the Bay Area. The conversation was arcane to Bradley, all about people he’d never met and events outside his experience. It was plain that they were all part of a huge, complex industry about which he was uninformed:

And I told Delmonico himself, right then and there, that we could help this man and why wasn’t that enough? Isn’t that what we’re about? My prospect was a good-enough prospect-maybe not a brilliant man, but-oh, Bradley, can you pass the Thousand Island?

And:

We’ve got to quit apologizing, everyone. We need to be more confrontational. People crave it in this short, violent century. It’s simple as that. Transparency and honesty. They need to know the facts so they can decide.

Or: I’ve never seen such a tender being turn into such a producer. You should have seen the swath she cut through those happy Presbyterians! It just made me realize again how talent can hide in a person and how our job is to bring it out.

Bradley followed as best he could, wondering what a customer’s history or this short, violent century or cutting a swath through Presbyterians had to do with fabrication and manufacture. He thought of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department social events and how it was all cop talk. How much of that would these guys understand? They probably had no idea what a 187 was. He wondered what Erin was doing. He pictured her sitting in that shadowy, low-ceilinged adobe living room of Charlie Hood’s, could see the play of the lamplight off her fine face, and the round outline of their future alive inside her.

By the time dinner was over, Bradley felt tipsy with half the martini and one glass of red wine down, plus whatever Mike had given him from the flask. But he still felt solid, too. They made the rounds from table to table. The conversations became harder to decipher. The miasmal soul I told Delmonico I had secured? At the last second of the final minute of the eleventh hour? Betrayed. Betrayed! Bradley noted that practically every attendee was drinking far more than he was. He watched them carrying two empty glasses at a time to the bar, and two full ones away. The bus trays were overloaded and drinkers were setting their empties on the floor beneath the stands or on the stage or neatly along the baseboards of the walls. The waiters had given up stately attendance for old-fashioned hustle. Bottles were appearing at the tables, buckets of ice and stacks of clean tumblers. The giant delivered a case of something to his table, balancing it high over his head on his fingertips. Yet none of the conferees appeared in the least intoxicated to Bradley. Slightly more animated, but only slightly.

“We can certainly hold our liquor,” said Mike, taking Bradley by the arm and heading to an empty table. Owens led a tall man to the dance floor and looked over her shoulder at Bradley with an oddly apologetic expression. The men took off their jackets and put them over empty chairs and sat with their backs to the wall. The giant swung by with a bottle of Scotch that Bradley recognized as rare and expensive and placed it in front of Mike with three glasses. His face was huge and bony but pleasant enough. He gave Mike a smile, then strode away.

“Bradley,” said Mike, opening the bottle. “I’m worried for you.”

“Don’t be-things are good. The Blands are gone and Dez is pushing Warren into retirement. Hood’s on the run and it’s only going to get worse for him. Carlos has a new business plan for me, according to Rocky, but Rocky can’t tell me what it is. And Erin? Well, I think she’s coming around. I think I’m starting to add up to something in her eyes again. It’s all coming together, Mike.”

Mike poured them each a shot, held his glass up to the chandelier and twirled it. He looked pensive. “It’s Erin. She is your love and your reason for living. What worries me is this-what if something happens to her?”

Bradley sipped the Scotch. “Nothing’s going to happen to her.”

Mike raised his eyebrows and looked away. “What if? Accidents? Disease? Enemies?”

“That’s why I’m trying to get Erin back to Valley Center, like ASAP. I can protect her and the baby there. It’s secure now. Nothing like that kidnapping will ever happen again. Me, her, and Thomas. The family unit. That’s how it’s going to be. I can feel it, Mike. She’s going to come back to me. Soon.”

“What if she doesn’t? What if you don’t know her heart as well as you think you do? You’ve been quite surprised by her thus far, correct? By her independence and anger and strength in resisting you? What if she moves further away from you with the birth of Thomas? What if all of her heart goes to him? This is commonplace in many women.”

Bradley drank again and studied Mike’s face. Mike looked concerned but crafty. Bradley surveyed the crowd and saw the same basic expression on every face in the room. Mike’s worries about Erin and him were ridiculous, he thought. “Are these people all like you?”

“You could say that.”

“Are a lot of them partners?”

“Very few. I applied for permission to bring you and it was granted. We keep the partners segregated until we or someone upstairs finds a synergy. Then introductions follow. Hitler and Himmler are a good example. But most of our work is far more subtle-thousands of couplings over the centuries.”