T. Parker - The Famous and the Dead

Bradley took her offered hand-a cool, soft-skinned, bony hand-and he shook it firmly but he felt the unlikely strength in it. She smiled and turned and glided back into the thick chaparral from which she had apparently come. The dogs trotted along behind her and Bradley loped into the brush, too, in strong pursuit. But the manzanita and the scrub oak and Spanish saber were thick and high, and Bradley had not gone fifty feet before he lost sight of them. He heard the faint cracking of branches and brush far ahead. The dogs were not barking. He put his hands up over his face and plowed through. What there was of the trail soon narrowed to nothing and he was left to shoulder his way between the trees and stout strong shrubs. He could feel the branches scratching his forearms and cutting at the scalp of his lowered head. Finally he broke into a clearing and joined the dogs looking out at Eva, who was already far on the other side of the eight-foot-high, electric, motion-sensing fence-nearly a hundred yards beyond it, in fact-striding through a low grassy swale with a speed that Bradley could hardly believe. She turned and waved and a white van came rocking along the Forest Service fire road and picked her up. Call was as close to the fence as he had learned to get, watching her intently.

• • •

Late that night Bradley’s cell phone buzzed from his bed stand. He saw Jack Cleary’s number and answered.

“It looks like Warren flipped Rocky Carrasco,” said Cleary. “They spent two hours in the Gallo in Cudahy today. My informant says she saw a voice recorder on the booth between them. Your name was spoken. And my ears in Warren’s office tell me Warren can’t wait for Dez to hear it.”

“Rocky can hurt us. This is not good.”

“We can hope he’s just bullshitting.”

Bradley thought it through. Rocky was a La Eme OG, respected, well off, well protected. An aging family man. He’d taken over the North Baja Cartel’s L.A. franchise from Hector Avalos and he ran it well, employing the youngsters of Florencia 13 and kicking heavy taxes up to his old bosses in the prisons. He also allowed Bradley to function as courier to Herredia, a coveted and lucrative position. For which Rocky took a tithe from Bradley, of course. Rocky also had Florencia’s 18th Street competitors dying to put some bullets in him, and at least one informant in his organization passing along damaging information to LASD. Thus making him vulnerable to Warren. Thus giving him the need for something solid to keep Warren happy. If Rocky was ready to sing in earnest, Bradley was cooked and he knew it.

“We’ll hope that. I want updates before they happen. If your people can keep any closer eye on Rocky, we could use it.”

“I’ll do what I can do. You a father yet?”

“Soon.”

“Love to Erin.”

Rovanna walked onto the campus of SDSU when the San Diego Alternative Book Festival opened at ten that Sunday morning. He wore long pants and a different colored Windbreaker than at the church and a black wig he’d bought at a drugstore two days ago. He had on sunglasses and carried a free book bag, courtesy of KPBS. He had a backpack slung over his shoulders, as did many of the students in attendance. The day was cool and clear and Rovanna stopped to look at the roses just budding out in the open-air quadrangle near the bell tower. There were tables and booths set up throughout the quad, banners strung to advertise various publishers, a food area and a stage and the Children’s Big Top. He got a festival schedule and a large coffee, then sat on a bench and let the sunshine hit his face.

He heard Joan: The most important thing you can do is to not stalk Representative Freeman at the book festival.

He heard one of the Identical Men: You must act decisively, as an extension of impulse.

He heard Stren: Use this gift to protect yourself and those around you and to advance the ideals you believe in.

He heard Hood: If Stren calls or comes again, call me immediately. He’s evil, Lonnie. He will hurt you.

He heard a voice from one of his radios: Exterminate Freeman!

An hour later he saw Representative Freeman making his way toward the stage. Upon seeing him again Rovanna felt the familiar shiver, a physical as well as psychic reaction. Freeman. Orbitoclasts came to his mind and he was helpless to dispel the images until they were ready to depart on their own. Then he saw Dr. Walter Freeman himself, leaning over a patient, orbitoclast and mallet in hand. Rovanna closed his eyes, hard. Finally Dr. Walter Freeman was gone, and Rovanna’s mind was at least partially his own again.

He watched the representative. This Freeman was an unassuming man, early forties, imperfect posture and a head of gray-brown curls. Again Rovanna saw the subtle similarities between him and the pictures of Dr. Walter Freeman. Scott Freeman’s wife was with him, along with a young, broad-shouldered man who had quick eyes. Today Freeman was dressed in jeans and running shoes, a work shirt, and a black blazer. He stopped and shook hands, talked, seemed to be in no hurry.

Rovanna stood and ambled toward the seats in front of the stage. The first few rows were already filled but there was plenty of room in the middle and rear, so Rovanna took off his backpack and sat in the very last row, the first seat on the aisle that Freeman would likely walk. Freeman would go right past him, no more than a few feet away. Rovanna set the book bag on the ground and the backpack on his lap and opened the large compartment and took out a pack of small doughnuts.

Identical Man: When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to neutralize radical individuals, exceptional men will receive the call. You are an exceptional man.

Hood: You’d be good in the world, I think. Otherwise it’s just yourself and all the things that torment you.

Stren: There is nothing wrong with you, Lonnie. Sometimes friends are all we have. And voices speak to all of us. .

Joan: Do not talk to Stren again. If he shows up, hit him with that Bible. Literally pound him with it. It will repel him.

Radio Voice: Onward, Lonnie. Defeat Freeman in the name of free men everywhere. Do what you know you must do. History has left a space that only you can fill.

Freeman and a small group came into the seating area. Lonnie turned his face away but watched him through his sunglasses. When the representative chose to walk around the seats rather than use the aisle leading directly to the stage, Rovanna felt the terrible anger surge through him. Doesn’t that just figure?

As always, this anger was visible to Rovanna: a bucket of black liquid upended inside his skull, working its way down into his body, demanding violence. The anger would try to hold Rovanna hostage until he delivered such violence. The anger was far more frightening to him than any nightmare, even those of Dr. Walter Freeman, because he could not wake up from it, and he could not escape it and, yes, he could resist it but sometimes it was stronger than he was. And he would be forced to act.

Stren, from last night’s dream: You know the purifying fire of violence, don’t you, Lonnie?

Joan: You are a troubled man now being manipulated by a devil, and the final cost to you will not be the pain you inflict, but the pain you will receive. It will be utterly unbearable and you will not survive it.

Rovanna set the half-eaten doughnuts back in his pack. They rested upon the silver flank of the Love 32. The silencer was screwed into place, but Rovanna had not deployed the skeleton butt because it made the gun too long for the backpack. He folded his hands over the top and watched Freeman kiss his wife then spring onto the stage. The representative went to the podium as the crowd mostly applauded but also booed. Off to one side of the stage was a long table stacked with Freeman’s book, The Cost of Liberty: Paying for the American Dream. The cover was a dollar bill waving from a pole, with the stars and bars of the American flag superimposed.