T. Parker - The Famous and the Dead

Bradley and the Ford men followed Herredia on the tour: first the incubation room, then the exercise runs, the sparring pit, then the various pens. Each rooster was separated from any others except for the breeding pairs. They were handsome birds, and bold of eye. Bradley had seen cockfights and hated them, hated the blades and the pain and the selling of bravery for entertainment. Though he also knew that solid money could be made.

On the way back toward the pool the Ford men talked with Felipe up ahead while Herredia fell back to walk with Bradley. Bradley looked out at the mountains, black and jagged. He had spent many nights here, all but a few without Erin, and therefore she was always poignantly in his mind at El Dorado because all he could do was imagine her and picture what she was doing. The cell phones wouldn’t work and the satellite phones were a security risk, so virtually every night here was a night without her or her voice, a tribulation.

“Come this way, Bradley.” They veered around the pool and cabanas and walked back to the drive where the trailer of new cars stood in the moonlight. “I need a driver for these cars. Caesar and Arturo have made the delivery only once and I believe they are not reliable. This trailer has very dependable state-police escorts to the border at Tecate. My friends at Mexico and United States customs will make sure that there are only minor inspections, if any. As you probably know, a trailer carrying new cars from a U.S. factory is not a thing of suspicion. In Mexico, it is a thing of pride. In the United States, it is the great Ford Motor Company. And not to be suspected. That is the beauty of this idea. Almost no suspicion. I’m surprised that Arturo and Caesar could think of it.”

“What’s in them?”

“Heroin and cocaine, packed solidly into the spare tires. And in the spaces created for subwoofers in the trunks. And in the tool compartments. We also created flat bricks, only eight centimeters thick, and glued them to form plates underneath each car, like an off-road vehicle. They are triple-wrapped against the dogs, and painted the same black as the chassis, and have genuine bolts driven into each corner. Very realistic. But there will be no dogs. It is just a precaution.”

“What’s the total weight?”

“One hundred kilos per car.”

“A ton and a quarter. Half blow and half junk?”

“Mas o menos.”

Bradley did a quick calculation on the street value of the drugs contained in the twelve new cars-roughly twenty million dollars by the time the last diluted gram hit the streets of L.A. “Wow.”

“The destination is Castro Ford in El Centro. A pleasant and relaxing three-hour drive from here! I know you and Israel are old and very good friends. We are new friends. The Tijuana Cartel has treated him poorly. He came to me. He is very influential in California. And we agreed that you would be a good courier for us. You have the class C license necessary in the United States. You are a gringo but you speak good Spanish. You can use your skills of bullshit if you are questioned. You can use your sheriff’s department badge should any trouble or controversy happen. You are made by God for this job.” Herredia smiled.

“How often?”

“It is variable. Once a month. Then maybe twice.”

“So I’d make the runs here on Friday evenings, but once or twice a month I would leave my car and drive the trailer back north.”

“I will arrange for your Porsche to be waiting for you at Castro Ford. Israel will give you a complimentary wash!”

“Twenty million dollars, retail,” said Bradley.

“I will pay you ten thousand as a flat rate. No matter the amount of product transported. Israel will pay you ten thousand more upon each delivery.”

Bradley inwardly smiled at a minimum $240,000 a year of tax-free cash, for roughly four hours of work a month, driving the same homebound route he’d be driving anyway. Herredia chuckled, then laughed. “Son of Joaquin!”

“That’s me, alright.”

“I can see by the light in your eyes that we have an agreement.”

“We do.”

Walking back toward the pool, Bradley wondered again at how his fortunes had begun to change so abruptly for the better, almost from the instant that he’d recited the Statement of Parity and asked Mike Finnegan to be his partner. Warren? Off his case. The Blands? Dismissed. Hood? Headed for genuine catastrophe. Herredia? Instead of punishing him for eighteen months of spotty service, El Tigre was heaving fresh fortune his way via Ford Motor Company, Mexico. Could all of this derive from his arrangement with Mike? Or were these upgrades largely just a matter of his own attitude? What could Mike really be other than insane? Yes, Mike had beautifully staged the Theater of Beatrice. But it was clear that the “angel”-most likely Owens using her actor’s vocal skills-was not truly trapped in the mineshaft at all. There was probably a ladder bolted to the rock walls, or perhaps some kind of powered miners’ funicular by which she came and went. But, Bradley thought, if Mike and his silly rituals were just a placebo that swelled his good luck, then so be it. His terrific reversals of fortune were almost everything he wanted in the world. Except for Erin , he thought. Erin. But this was all for her; his fortune was for her. And their son. And down near the center of Bradley’s cunning soul he knew that Erin was coming around to him. He would win.

• • •

The four men drank and smoked cigars around the pool late into the brisk Baja night. Felipe with his craggy face and shotgun kept to the edges of light and darkness. There were six women-three Mexicans and three gringas, pretty and friendly and well dressed. Bradley was polite but uninterested and enjoyed Caesar’s company and shoptalk about the Hermosillo plant. Caesar had a hopeful face and tone of voice, and he was a proud Ford man all the way. His wife’s staggering gambling and shopping debts had led him to the other side of the law. Those, and his daughter’s seemingly eternal college studies in the United States.

Herredia regaled them all with fishing stories of which he was the hero. Arturo in his olive suit drank heavily and extolled the virtues of ignorant, promiscuous gringas over wary, repressed Catholic Latinas. He danced with a gringa who wore a gold dress and she was nearly his height in her gay rhinestoned heels and when they finished he whispered something into her ear, then knocked her into the pool with a roundhouse punch. She looked like a mermaid gliding to the shallow-end steps and climbing out, sheathed in gold, bent in pain, the high heels still on. She gathered up a towel from the cabana and pressed it into her face as she ran in short steps, shivering, toward her guest casita.

Arturo said something about the way a wet dog shakes itself dry and laughed at his observation. One of the Latinas followed the drenched blonde and the other four women migrated to the cantina at the other end of the pool. Their anxious words and brittle laughter carried across the water. Arturo brought another bottle of tequila to the table and cracked the seal, then poured himself a shot. He pushed the uncapped bottle toward Herredia, and by some small miracle it slid to a stop instead of pitching over into El Tigre’s lap. “Carlos,” Arturo said. “I quit. I resign from this. I am ashamed of what I have become.”

Herredia tipped the bottle and Bradley saw the downward furrow of his eyebrows as he measured the pour. Watch out , Bradley thought.

“I truly thank you for your friendship, Carlos,” said Arturo. He burped. “But I am not the man I thought I was. I am an engineer. I am in control of quality. I have skills. I have no nerves for this kind of work.”