T Parker - The border Lords

"This Mr. Gravas does strange things," said Herredia. "He growls viciously at people. He claims to have performed a miracle of healing upon a dog. He now flies around with this dog in the plane beside him. He has this dog baptized. Or so he claims to my men. He is seen in Puerto Nuevo the night that six gunmen are slaughtered yet no one sees or hears a thing. He's too crazy to be with DEA or ATF."

"What if it's just part of his cover?"

"Then he is corrupt DEA or ATF. Murderous. This makes him even more valuable. My friends in the Baja State Police will share evidence with your friends in the news media. A very good story, yes? The flying gringo is buying guns for the Gulf Cartel. Where else can this man get one hundred fifty thousand American dollars in cash? There will be abundant testimony. And I will give up evidence of his ownership of the safe house where the sicarios died. And more evidence that he knew his renters were bad men. The ATF and DEA do not rent housing to Mexican killers on American soil. We can be sure of that."

Bradley thought this over. "No, I wouldn't think so."

"Then you accept the gift?"

Bradley imagined the benefits of having provided the tip that had taken down an American working for a Mexican drug cartel, and led to a small fortune in arms and money-all of which would be retained by the LASD under asset forfeiture laws. Working behind the curtain, choosing the right people to take down Sean Gravas, he could earn goodwill that would trickle down to him for years into the future. An investment, he thought. Something you do now to earn dividends later.

"The first ten guns will be delivered to Gravas next week in Ensenada," said Herredia. "This makes it easy for both of us. The other ninety will be in L.A. They can be built almost instantly, now that Ron Pace can build them without interference from American police or ATF."

Bradley pictured the new Pace Arms factory hidden in Tijuana, partially financed by Herredia, and fully protected by him. Ron Pace had pumped out thirteen hundred more beautiful new Love 32s earlier in the year and it had taken him all of eleven days. Eleven.

"And you think Armenta will pay fifteen hundred per gun?"

"He'll pay whatever Gravas asks. The Zetas are abandoning him here in Mexico. If he doesn't rearm quickly, I'll bury him. He knows this. It's why he is attacking my men in California. Do you accept my gift?"

Bradley weighed the consequences. At age eleven, he had dreamed of jumping off the Oceanside Pier at night with his eyes closed. In the dream he was too afraid and he couldn't do it. But the next night he'd badgered his mother into driving him to the pier. He lied about his reasons. He had a beach towel and a heavy winter jacket with him. It was summer but the breeze was cool and the water, Bradley had read in the Union-Tribune, was sixty-one degrees. As they walked toward the end of the pier, he had explained to her what he had dreamed and what he was doing now and she said almost nothing. This surprised him. When they reached the end he told her he loved her and he closed his eyes and jumped. The pier was higher than in the dream, and the fall was longer than he had imagined, and the impact harder. He had swum back to the beach and climbed out of the cold Pacific and his mother had met him on the sand at the foot of the pier with the towel and jacket. He was numb with cold. She had hugged him tight and he had felt her large warmth trying to get into him. Shivering, his heart pounding, he had asked his mother to hold the beach towel around him, then stripped naked and pulled the big winter parka over himself. She had gathered up his wet clothes and put her free arm around him and together they hustled back to the car.

"Yes," he said. "I'll accept that gift."

Herredia's weathered fisherman's face broke into a smile. "I want this transaction to happen without delay. It will bring us to deeper friendship, Bradley. I will deliver the prize to you and your Los Angeles Sheriff's Department."

"This is good, Carlos."

"No existen balas capaces de matar nuestros suenos."

"There are no bullets that can kill our dreams. It was true before and it's true now. Thank you, Carlos. You continue to smile on me."

"Malverde smiles on both of us."

"Malverde kind of gives me the creeps, sir. Now, tell me what you want in return."

Herredia laughed and Bradley drew on the cigar and felt the smoke soothe his nerves and thought of Erin and waited for El Tigre to tell him what he wanted in return for Sean Gravas. Herredia refreshed the brandy in their snifters.

"What is it you want, sir?"

"I have a thought. It makes my heart heavy. It wakes me from beautiful dreams beside beautiful women. It is this: My people in L.A. are under siege by Armenta. Twenty of my men dead this year in Southern California. Two every month. Then suddenly three more in Buenavista, when Sean Gravas betrays my men to Benjamin. Do I know each boy they have murdered? No. But these are my soldiers. These are my representatives and they are being treated very poorly. My earnings are down, as we saw again tonight. Six months down, Bradley. Six! Armenta's Maras are overrunning Los Angeles."

Herredia drank more brandy and re-lit his cigar. From the bar Bradley heard the women laugh, and some American rock and roll came on. The centrifuge blonde smiled at him directly. Then the women began to dance. Felipe sat upright in his chair across the pool, still as a statue.

"I need friends in L.A.," said Herredia. "I need help from the law enforcers to whom I am generous. I need Armenta's network prosecuted like the murderers and rapists that they are. I need my good men free to do the business that keeps both the lawless and the law enforcers employed. This to me seems like a humble and realistic request."

Bradley was an optimist and he began to catch the whiff of possibility. He considered Herredia, accepted the lighter from him and re-lit his cigar.

"It would take several lawmen."

"You must know many men who would do this."

"I don't know a single one, sir. We're talking about the United States of America. Not Mexico."

"Your country is very backward."

"Well, call it what you want. But American cops are American cops. They swear to uphold the law and most of them take that pledge seriously. Unlike your cops, ours make a decent wage. They raise families and they don't get murdered for doing their jobs. Not like down here."

Look at Hood, he thought. No way Charlie would bend for something like this, no matter how big a fish Sean Gravas might be to Hood's ATF handlers, no matter how much of that hundred thousand dollars might find its way into his pocket. Coleman Draper would have signed on, but Coleman was dead. Caroline Vega would approve of this arrangement if she could dip her beak into the cash, but as a yearling she was virtually powerless within the LASD.

But what about Jack Cleary, he thought, the sergeant? He was resourceful, self-serving as a dog, and fundamentally unprincipled. Bradley had befriended him, even invited him to his wedding, because he had the feeling that he would be able to use Cleary someday. Cleary could be persuaded. Cleary spent too much time losing at the Caesar's sports book. Cleary was assigned to narcotics now. That was good luck. As an old-fashioned, tough-on-crime detective, Cleary might have the street clout to mess up Armenta's L.A. network, one man at a time. Might.

He looked up at the moon and thought of Erin again. Everything I do, I do for you, he thought.

"I'm sorry, sir. I wish I could help you in L.A. But I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because law enforcement in the United States cannot be bought by cartel gangsters."

"But I have bought you!"

Bradley nodded, already doing some math in his head. "But I'm not enough. I would need more me's. I would need friends to help me protect your interests in L.A. But I can't ask my friends to risk their jobs and their lives for nothing, Carlos. You must see this."