T. Parker - The Jaguar

Bradley sat at a small desk before the window of the casita, cleaning the two Love 32s he had brought south to Mexico. A desk lamp threw good light on the weapons. It was late evening and he had not heard from Hood. He sipped tequila mixed with bottled water. His untouched room-service dinner sat on a stand by the bed. He could feel the adrenaline buzzing through him, low-level stuff waiting to be turned up.

He worked intently but patiently, the guns breaking down and going back together with an efficient simplicity. Their stainless-steel finishes were resisting the tropical moisture well. Erin moved around in his mind, a changeable resident, sometimes her face and sometimes her voice and sometimes a feeling that she was right there in the room watching him, which made his heart ache most. He could feel her anger at him and he knew full well her sense of betrayal. Would he ever be able to explain the secret life that he had been leading? Was there really any explanation for it, except brute, stupid greed and the pleasures of danger and deception? Would she forgive him?

Through the sheer curtain he could see half of the swimming pool, filled by rainwater clear up to the deck but emptied of tourists by Ivana. There were two tall palms that had survived and one that had not, and Bradley could see the sectioned trunk of the palm lying where it had fallen and been cut for burning. Beyond the pool was the Bacalar Lagoon, rippled silver now in the fading light. In the little marina in front of the hotel was a handsome Chris-Craft set up for big game-outriggers and a fighting chair and a large bait tank on the stern. There were three pangas and a catamaran. South of the pool was a windowless white tower with a cross fixed to the wall. Bradley felt watched by this symbol of the God he had prayed to so often in this last week. These prayers felt earnest but he knew that they were not so much devotion as the covering of bets.

He had already wiped down and stashed the Glock.40 caliber he would carry on his hip when he met her tomorrow, and the eight-shot.22 Smith AirLite revolver for his ankle, and one of the two two-shot forty-caliber derringers that had been passed down through generations of Murrietas from Joaquin to his mother and now himself. She had foolishly given the other to Hood. But Bradley would pocket his gun tomorrow somewhere in his pants or jacket. A talisman, but more than only that. It had a grip of black walnut that was deeply oiled and scarred and a barrel pitted by the years and his mother had told him it had killed men.

He reassembled the Love 32s, their parts warmed by his hands, but there was no excitement or comfort for him in the weapons as there once had been. The grand aphrodisiac of living a secret life had dried up with Erin’s kidnapping. The warm gun was now just another tool of folly. Bradley imagined returning home to Valley Center with Erin and burying his arsenal deep and forever, then raising their child and a few more children perhaps, to be productive American citizens, while he worked as a paramedic or a salesman or maybe a cagey independent financial advisor. Erin would write, perform, and become rich and famous. Of course he would also have buried the head of El Famoso, and all of his great ancestor’s belongings, and likely his mother’s revealing journals. How could he not? This daydream lasted a few bucolic seconds, then he abruptly pictured himself slipping off the ranch to rob a fast-food place or a convenience store or perhaps steal a fast car just to drive it for a few days, as his mother used to do. I’m sorry, he thought. I’m sorry I’m who I am.

He took a sip of the tequila and shook his head. There was no escaping himself no matter how hard he tried. He knew that his dream of burying his guns and his past and himself had approximately the same weight as his prayers: both were righteous and good but they were still subordinate to the demands of his unsatisfied young heart.

Before leaving home he had put a picture of Erin in his duffel and now he took it out and propped it up on the desktop and the wall in front of him. It was a candid snapshot he had taken on the front porch of the Valley Center ranch, Erin sitting on a picnic bench with a guitar, looking up at the camera. Her hair was pulled back casually and her eyes were knowing and she had a private, unguarded smile. It was the look he enjoyed most, the look that said: just you and me, baby.

“I’m sorry, Erin,” he said softly. He looked at her picture, genuinely amazed that she had married him and was willing to bear his children. Long ago he had conceded that he’d done nothing to deserve her. Nothing, he thought now. When he spoke, his words sounded lost in the little motel room but somehow they sounded right, too, and necessary. It seemed like forever since he’d told her what was in his heart. Really, had he ever done that?

“Erin, I’m so damned sorry for what I’ve done. I wanted to tell you the truth ever since I’ve known it. A million times. I’ve wanted to tell you about my quirky ancestors. That Mom came from Murrieta, El Famoso. And so I did too. Of course. I wanted to show you his famous head in the famous jar, right there in your beautiful barn in Valley Center. I could have told you that much without doing any harm, I guess. Some people said Murrieta was a cutthroat and some said he was a hero but really, they killed him in eighteen-fifty-three, so how could what happened to him a hundred and fifty-nine years ago matter to us now?

“Well, I’ll tell you how it matters now. History doesn’t repeat. It extends. I got his blood and his DNA and somehow his spirit or soul or whatever you want to call it. Not so much into my brothers. But it was heavy in Mom. She didn’t know what to tell me about myself and what to let me discover on my own. Should she keep me from knowing my own past? What do you do with something powerful but secret? She died not knowing what to do with it. I’ve got her journals. She wrote a lot. They sound like her, blunt and brave and half-crazy sometimes. Parts would make you laugh, and parts would make the hair on your arms stand up. Tough Suzanne Jones. Smart and selfish Suzanne Jones. Award-winning eighth grade history teacher Suzanne Jones. She was proud of that-Los Angeles Unified School District Middle School Teacher of the Year. Imagine. But Erin, guess what? She was also an outlaw, an armed robber, a car thief, a shoplifter, an occasional con. She was horny as a mink, vain as a starlet, and a terrible, terrible cook. Made some good coin, though, bought Valley Center with it, gave a lot to charity. Though to be honest, Erin, she spent most of it on herself and her lovers and us boys. I’ve wanted to show you those journals a million times, but…

“But. If I told you all that, then I’d pretty much have to show you the vault under the barn floor and the money and loot that I have stored up there. I stole every bit of it, just like Mom stole most of what she had. Now, I told you that I earned some money by delivering cash across the border a few times. Well, Erin, I actually did that a lot more than a few times-and I delivered cash and guns and ammunition and hot cars and anything else that would bring a price. I stole a yacht once and paid some guys to sail it down. I stole a trash truck from the city of Escondido and sold it to drug traffickers in Tijuana-they moved tons and tons of dope in that thing, hid all under a layer of garbage. If I showed you the vault under the barn, you’d understand what I’m all about. You’d understand that I have a badge and a gun but I’m not always a cop. Not even when I’m on duty. I don’t wear my badge and gun to protect and serve the people. I wear them to protect and serve myself. I am ashamed now and I understand that my shame matters very little if at all.