T. Parker - The Famous and the Dead

“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.”

That 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.