T Parker - The border Lords

In the long twilight Seliah put on her running clothes and loped out into the cooling desert where she ran along flowering gardens and country club ponds and a golf course closed this month for re-seeding the fairways. There were towering palms and plaster walls hung richly in bougainvillea. Even in the waning light the bracts vibrated with color. Every green and living thing was framed by the clean beige desert sand. She glided past man-made waterfalls and fountains and ponds and creeks, water gushing everywhere. Every inch of her was sore but the motion helped her gather the pain into one big neat package and will it all away. Maybe we could move here, she thought: Raise the baby here in the good, clean desert heat. Sell the San Clemente house. The prices here are cheaper.

When she got back to the suite Sean was gone. All of his things were gone. Daisy, too. It was like they'd never been here, like the whole thing was some fever dream she'd had and she would wake up soon in her San Clemente bed, trying to remember all the good moments of the last twelve hours.

All that was left of him was the light scent of his shampoo and shave cream, and a handwritten note on the Rancho Las Palmas stationery: Dear Seliah, I've thought it through and there's no way I can complete this mission with you. The risk would be unacceptable and my options would be limited by you. Please, please understand. Now that we have been together again there's nothing I want more than you and you and YOU. Go back home. Get Dave to give you your job back. Tell him you were having a bad day. See a new doctor. Find out about us. And wait for me. Wait for me. We will be together soon and we will be together forever. Walking through that door without you will be the hardest thing I've done in my life.

Love eternal,

Sean

PS-Daisy misses you already. I had a talk with her but I don't know if it did any good.

Seliah took the note and sat on the bed and looked around at the darkened room. The curtains were tightly drawn and the blanket still covered the dresser mirror. She gathered a handful of bedsheet and wiped the tears from her face. She could smell him in it, his wildness, his unsated needs. She stood and ripped the bedsheet with her teeth, then tore it to shreds with her hands. Seliah sprung up and pulled down the blanket and saw herself in the mirror but again she couldn't stand the sight of herself. She picked a vase off a side table and threw it hard into the middle of the mirror and saw a circle of glass splash into shards and spatter to the tile floor.

"Fuck you, Sean. Fuck you."

Bradley did Larry King Live the next evening with a fresh haircut and his left arm in a sling. He sat up straight for the interview and he looked sharp in one of his tailored LASD summer weight shirts. He tried to sound objective as he answered the questions and gave his account, downplaying his role as hero, giving large credit to Deputies Vega, Clovis and Klotz.

"They saved my life," he said.

Then King cleared his throat and sat forward. "Three dead, Bradley. A deputy-involved shooting. There's an ongoing investigation and it's possible that you and Deputy Vega will face disciplinary actions or even criminal charges. Talk to me about that, will you?"

"I can't, Larry. It's department policy. All I can say is that the LASD Internal Affairs teams are professional and thorough and they'll do the right thing."

"Are you worried?"

"No, I'm not."

"You know, there's been no neighborhood backlash thus far. No cries of misuse of force. Do you think there's a sense that these alleged Gulf Cartel kidnappers got what was coming to them, taking a little boy who is an American citizen?"

"People love Stevie Carrasco."

"You know we wanted to have him on, but we had to respect the privacy of his family. That's number one, in a case like this. What can you tell us about him? How did he behave that night? Do you know yet if he was the one to actually set off the silent alarm?"

Bradley nodded and furrowed his brow. He had invented the alarm story for Theresa Brewer, to explain their appearance at the kidnappers' house. And she had passed it along to FOX News, which later solidified the tale for scores of thousands of viewers. Bradley figured when LASD dispatch checked the tapes and found no such alarm call, they'd blame FOX for the error. And he also figured that this seemed like a good moment to wash his hands of it.

"Larry, I don't know who set off what. So far as Stevie goes, he's brave, cool and tough as nails. He didn't shed a tear. But his old man did when he got Stevie back, is what I heard."

"I'm sure you know that his father is a convicted felon. A former member of the violent prison gang La Eme?"

"I've never met him. I'd guess that even gangsters can love their children."

"How's your chest wound, Deputy Jones?" "Oh, yes, gangsters love their children!" said Rocky Carrasco. "You're quite a philosopher for being a dumbass cop!"

He smiled as Bradley walked into his El Monte lair an hour later. They bumped fists semi-elaborately. Bradley went to the fridge and got a cold Pacifico and plopped down on the leather sofa in front of the big-screen TVs. There were three of them, each tuned to picture-in-picture mode, which, when coupled with Rocky's digital recorder, gave him all the Mexican football matches and Pimp My Ride and Wild Planet and Simpsons he could handle. Rocky pulled a remote from the waistband of his baggy Lakers shorts and muted all three monitors.

Bradley had shed his uniform and sling and now wore plaid shorts and a white Lacoste tennis shirt and flip-flops and a narrow-brimmed hat. He raised his left arm gingerly to the sofa pillows. The little bayonet of a potato peeler had gone in two full inches, the doctors had told him, and it had sliced through a goodly portion of pectoral muscle but stopped short of the major blood vessels that lay deeper. They'd cleaned it out but left it unstitched so the wound could drain and heal. They'd given him twenty thick, sterile adhesive pads and pumped him full of antibiotics and told him to take a week off from any demanding physical work.

Which was fine with Bradley because he had plenty of non-physical work to do tonight.

Rocky sat at the other end of the sofa. He was a small knot of a man, muscular, covered in tatts and the scars left by various enemies. Shirtless, and wearing the oversize basketball shorts, Rocky appeared gnomelike. His skin was pale from years at Pelican Bay and years of indoor living. As the linchpin of Carlos Herredia's L.A. franchise Rocky liked privacy and anonymity. He rarely left this compound. He was the opposite of the showy gangsta and he claimed that his quiet life would allow him to live a hundred years, as his father had. The old patriarch had been gone a year now.

"I hear El Tigre might have a deal for you," said Rocky. "A proposal."

"Carlos always has something cooking."

"You're gonna like it. Mateo told me not to tell you so I'm not telling you."

"No."

"He says it's a good thing. I say it's kinda like this Larry King deal, but bigger."

"What could be bigger than Larry King?"

Rocky laughed. "You will be seeing what I mean."

Bradley checked his watch. "How'd we do this week?"

"Three hundred fifty plus some."

"Down again."

"I don't get it," said Rocky. "In a bad economy people need to get wasted even more. You know they're getting their kicks somewhere, man."

"Maybe from the Mara Salvatrucha-Armenta's hired cutthroats. I hear his product is terrific. Well, let's get this thing done, Rock. I have a long drive."

"Yeah, man. You rest. I got cut four times in a fight and they took me to a horse doctor 'cause nobody knew a real doctor that wouldn't call the cops. It was one shit feeling when I woke up the next day. I killed the boy, too. Stupid. We knew each other. Fuckin' Mexicans. I'll get the stuff ready."