T Parker - The border Lords

Bradley excused himself and took a walk out to the pasture, tailed at a polite distance by three real or fake FJP officers. He looked at the stars and thought of Erin. He tried to bounce a message off the moon to her but doubted that it got through. Later Herredia offered Bradley good brandy and a Cuban cigar and they sat on the ends of the chaise longues leaning forward like men unable to relax. The women swam and drank. Felipe sat in a chair across the pool with the moths buzzing the tiki torch above him and his shotgun across his lap.

"What did Rocky tell you?" asked Herredia.

"Nothing."

"But Rocky cannot say nothing."

"A little, sir. He said you had an idea for me."

"Yes. Yes. Listen. Another story from El Tigre. There is a man, an American citizen. He is a partner of mine in the United States. I had to trust him but I never trusted him. He did little things for me. He bought some product at a high price. Okay, I figure he's a fool. He loans money to a friend of mine and lets the man not pay back. Okay, he's a puto who wants buy big friends. He flies a plane. He uses his plane to move some product for me. He makes me a good deal. Fine, fine, fine. He has money. He buys homes in the U.S. and rents them to my men. This is good for us both. Real estate is down. Rent is cheap. The houses are nice. My men take good care of them. They have big screens and good air-conditioning. They are in good neighborhoods. Then suddenly my men are dead. Slaughtered. They were no more than boys. Murdered, right there in the safe house. The safe house! I suspect that Armenta was informed. He's trying to run me out of California, as you know. This man, then, his name is Sean Gravas. He rents to me but informs to the Gulf Cartel, correct? He's a traitor. Imagine his arrogance. He allows my men to be murdered."

"That's a terrible thing, Carlos. The safe houses were a good idea. I'm surprised that there might be a leak in your organization."

Herredia's eyes flashed. "The leak was Sean Gravas. But his betrayal and murder of my men was not enough. Now he wants to buy guns from me."

"The Love Thirty-twos?"

"Es verdad! He wants one hundred Love Thirty-twos. I guess that he wants them for Armenta. I think that Armenta saw one and now he wants to have them for himself."

Bradley considered. He drew on the good Cubano and swirled the brandy in his snifter. "You could sell Gravas the guns and then kill him and take them back."

Herredia glowered at him. He had thick eyebrows that moved tellingly-up toward each other in the middle and he looked soulful; down and he looked stoked for violence. Now the eyebrows were down. "I could rape his wife and behead his children while he watches, too. I could detach his face and have it sewn onto a soccer ball and kick it down the street. But I am not that kind of man."

"I meant no insult."

"It is gringo arrogance to insult the Mexican. Call him an animal. A beast."

"I've never said nor believed that. With all due respect, Senor Herredia, I descend from one of the greatest Mexicans of them all."

"Murrieta," Herredia said quietly. He smiled.

"You've seen the proof of this, sir."

"It was an unforgettable moment."

"Tell me your plan."

Now Herredia's eyebrows went to neutral. "I have a better idea what to do with Sean Gravas. I want to give him to you. As a gift. He is an American partner of the Gulf Cartel. He has crossed an important line. And I want you to give him to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. He can spend his life in prison. Here. See the man. When he meets with Mateo, my secret spy took his picture!"

Herredia produced a cell phone, touched the screen with his big suntanned fingers, then let Bradley scroll through six pictures of Sean Gravas. He was big and tattooed and looked every inch a gun and meth man. Bradley felt his heart do a little jig. An American cartel partner would be a splashy prize, he thought. An American who housed killers on U.S. soil and arranged murders and used his own plane to fly dope and money around? An American buying one hundred machine pistols from one Mexican drug cartel to sell to another? A trophy that would be his to award to a deserving law enforcer. Charlie Hood would die for a chance to impress his Blowdown handlers with Sean Gravas and atone for some of the one thousand Love 32s they let slip by last year. But maybe Hood wasn't the right deputy to gift in such a spectacular way…

"What do you want in return?"

Herredia raised his eyebrows in a show of innocence, and spoke softly. "I ask for nothing."

Bradley smiled inwardly. He nodded and sipped the brandy. "I would arrange for Gravas to be arrested in the act of buying the Love Thirty-twos from your men, correct?"

Herredia nodded and sipped his brandy thoughtfully.

"So we keep the guns."

"Yes."

"And the money."

"Yes. Of course."

"What about your men? We couldn't let them just walk away."

"They will be men without value. American boys purchased for money to do a job. Take them. They will know nothing."

Bradley knew that one hundred new Love 32s, made by his friend Ron Pace and outfitted with the sound suppressors and extra-capacity magazines, would cost Herredia right at one hundred thousand dollars. Who knew what price Sean Gravas could get from Benjamin Armenta and his murderous Gulf Cartel.

Bradley felt another bump of excitement. The whole idea was crazy in a way that appealed to him. Outlandish, yet Herredia could easily afford to punish a traitorous partner, sacrifice more than a hundred grand cash and forfeit a hundred new machine pistols-considering the hundreds of thousands of dollars that he received from Bradley every week at El Dorado. And, Bradley thought, if you considered that other couriers were bringing Herredia like amounts of drug profits from elsewhere in the United States, the cash and guns were just drops in Herredia's bucket. And he had many buckets. Bradley wondered what Herredia wanted in return.

He thought about the idea for a moment before he spoke. "How can I know about this deal between Gravas and the North Baja Cartel? I'm a simple patrol deputy."

"Because you are a good cop. And you are lucky, too. You say you have knowledge that an American criminal, Sean Gravas, may be buying guns. You don't know details yet. But you believe your informants have good information. Of course. And as it will turn out, your informants are truthful. You will be congratulated. You will come under no suspicion at all."

"Why not?"

Herredia smiled. "Because American policemen do not do such things."

Bradley smiled, too. For a man with blunt lusts for money and power, and a sixth-grade education, Herredia sometimes had an incisive worldview. He was right. An American cop might sell a little confiscated dope on the side. Might let a working girl stay free to work, for an occasional favor. But no one would suspect a young deputy of helping one Mexican drug cartel destroy another.

Bradley knew that some of his fellow LASD deputies would wonder how he could be so lucky. The same deputy who had rescued a kidnapped boy on his very first LASD patrol? He'd need answers for questions like that. And there were other problems.

"What if he's ATF or DEA?" Bradley asked. "They'll spring their trap and take the money and guns with or without your help or mine. And if any of your people are unlucky enough to be caught, too, they'll lean heavily, Carlos. American prison terms are not light. That's how the feds work their way up to people like you."

Herredia drew on his cigar and looked down at the coal. "Then I have only sacrificed a few weapons and a small amount of money that was not yet mine."

"Sacrificed for me? Why? I don't understand why you would do that." He was dying to understand. What did Herredia really want from this? It was much more than a simple favor. It had to be.