T Parker - The border Lords

This pleased him, because he wanted his team to be self-starters who could figure the score in their heads without fuss. People who understood the power of silence. People who knew an opportunity when they saw one. And had the drive and the skills to take care of business. It was early morning, nearly four, when Bradley and Erin got home to Valley Center. The drive was long but worth it. The ranch had grown to eighty acres now, and the house had been recently remodeled and the outbuildings updated and Bradley had installed a secret bunker beneath the barn and he was the only one on earth who knew it was there.

Bradley drove onto the property first, winding up the dirt road between the Indian land and punching his gate opener as he watched the headlights of Erin's X5 settle into the dust behind him. Then he drove through a gentle swale and along a fence that blossomed with climbing white roses and he passed the barnyard with the enormous oak tree in its center. The dogs had surrounded him by now, an eclectic pack of purebreds and mongrels led by a huge husky named Call in honor of Jack London. Call loped alongside Bradley's Cayenne, looking up at the driver, and the larger dogs stretched some to keep up and the little terriers spent more time in the air than on the ground, flying, arch-backed and ears flapping, yapping furiously but slowly falling behind. There were twelve of them total. They roamed the acres with proprietary arrogance for everything but human beings, who, they had been clearly taught, ran the show. Bradley sped past the barn and looked ahead to the cottages scattered back on the hillside where lived Clayton the forger, Stone the car thief and Preston the fraudster, crooks all but nice young men, paying their rents on time and pooling their skills and resources-sometimes with and sometimes without Bradley-and generally doing okay for themselves in a tough economy. They had straight jobs, too, and under Bradley's influence they had developed good instincts for the bigger paydays, the easier, the better.

They pulled up in front of the house and Bradley got Erin's gig bag and purse and carried them up the stairs to the porch and into the house. He put his arms around her and kissed her lightly.

"I gave Mike the message from Charlie."

"I saw you. Why are we talking about Hood?" He kissed her again.

"I'm so wrecked tonight, baby," she said.

"I was hoping to wreck you further."

"You're an animal with no morals or conscience."

"When you're around."

"I want a long hot shower."

"You take it. I'll slop the dogs and be waiting for you."

"I've got a little something for you, Brad. When you come to bed."

"Umm-hmmm."

In the flickering fluorescent tube lights of the barn Bradley fed his twelve associates. They ate seventy dollars' worth of food and fish oil each week. Call began first and the others made not even a feint at his bowl. One of the Jack Russells lay flat on the floor opposite Call, her muzzle to the concrete and her eyes aimed upward at the big dog while he methodically ate. Bradley turned off the lights and left the big sliding barn door half-open so the pack could come and go. While they ate crunching and snorting he stood out by the big oak tree and again counted this place as a gift and remembered his mother, who had first fallen in love with it, and thought of Erin upstairs in the shower by now, exhausted after nearly three hours of performance, and he saw again that he had been blessed hugely in this life not once, but twice.

When he came upstairs Erin was waiting for him in the big sleigh bed. A bedside lamp was on, and that was all. She was propped up on pillows and she had the spread snugged up to her chin. Most of her hair was in a tight ponytail, except for the sides, which were swept up and back. To Bradley, a car guy, they looked like the exhaust pipes on a dragster.

"What's with the do?" he asked.

"What I feel."

He smiled and began to undress.

"Stop," she said. She growled at him. Bradley hopped to a stop with one boot in his hands and a question on his face.

She growled again and threw back the bedspread and brandished her fists at him. Three long white claws protruded from each hand where her fingers should have been and Bradley thought of Wolverine, a favorite character of theirs, and he saw as she slashed at him that she was holding the claws firm, and now that he looked closer he saw the funny little windows on them and realized what they were. She growled, then beamed at him.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Yes. Six tests. I just couldn't stop once the good news started."

"God and again."

"We're going have a baby, baby."

He launched onto the bed and braced his landing and Erin screamed and released the pregnancy testers and they fell back into the sheets.

Ozburn stood in Mateo's room at the Solmar Hotel near Ensenada and looked down at the ten Love 32s arranged in two rows of five on the bed. Each lay upon an oil-dotted red shop rag. Mateo had screwed on the noise suppressors and extended the telescoping butts and fitted an empty fifty-shot magazine into each weapon. They had a stainless steel finish that shone dully in the hotel room light. Their presence was dramatic, Ozburn thought: tiny machine pistols, perfect and deadly, born live and ready to bite. A carton of ammunition sat on the floor beside the bed.

Daisy stood beside him, trim and alert. Mateo, his face weathered and his eyelids heavy, stood over a small desk with the empty ice bucket and an ashtray on it, weighing the money.

— This is half, he said. Seventy-five thousand.

— I'm surprised you can count that high. Here's for the ammunition.

Ozburn pulled a wad of twenties from the back pocket of his jeans and tossed it onto the bed. The ammo was still in the factory box,32 ACP, ten cartons of fifty. He pulled open the box and removed one carton and flipped it open. The new loads were packaged bullets up, their copper domes like bald men seated in church pews.

— Maybe you sell these to the Gulf Cartel, said Mateo, his voice a soft rasp as always. So they can kill us in L.A.

— Maybe that's what I'll do.

— I told Carlos don't sell them to you. I told him, where else will Gravas get the money to buy one hundred of the Loves? He needs the money of an organization but he is not part of an organization. Or is he? Is he just one of Benjamin Armenta's pendejos?

— Careful, now. I've been in a good mood for almost five minutes.

— You have no weapons but a useless dog. I have three men waiting to kill you if I tell them to. I think you killed our sicarios in Buenavista and San Ysidro. It happened in your houses. El Tigre blames Armenta but I blame you.

— Kill my own renters? Mateo, my friend, you are free to imagine anything you want.

Ozburn, angry now, watched Mateo weigh the money again. Ozburn's desire for violence had become sudden and strong. And like many of the unusual feelings he'd experienced in the last few weeks, this new desire actually felt very old and inbred in him, as if remembered from another age. The Sinaloan was wearing his swanky GPS unit clipped to his belt up near the outlandish buckle. Ozburn realized how easy it would be to strangle the man, load a few rounds into one of the gleaming new weapons and cancel the door guard, then take the GPS unit and scroll his way into the waypoints. Where, of course, he would certainly find El Dorado. Then he could load up a couple of Love 32s and whack the bodyguards waiting for Mateo out at the Denali. Take five minutes, he thought. He'd have the money and the weapons and he could either fly or drive out to Herredia's compound and blow him into the next world. Perform good acts. Defeat evil.

— I'd love to do that, he said.

— Do what?

But then, as Father Joe had pointed out, a dead Carlos Herredia would only make room for another one of his type to fill the void. That was law enforcement strategy, to cut off the head of the snake and foment bloodshed between possible replacements. But Herredia's organization was well run and El Tigre was much feared outside of it and much loved within in. No, thought Ozburn, the change of guard would take place practically overnight. So the best way to defeat El Tigre and his organization was to use his own guns against him: Complete the sale to Armenta's people and sit back and enjoy the fireworks show in L.A. That way, both teams were beating up on each other and the good guys could do better things with their time. Start not with the head of the snake but with the tail. Such a war would go on for months. Ruin his business, said Joe, and the man will follow. The final goal is not to kill him but to make him wish he were dead. Wasn't that the greatest punishment a human could receive? To be made to regret his own life?