T. Parker - Iron River

Pace came off his price a hundred grand, while making clear that all transportation and shipping was one-hundred-percent Mr. Mendez’s responsibility.

“Shipping is not an interest of mine,” Herredia said, with a look at Bradley. “Mr. Jones here is very good at moving things from one place to another. Between us, the transport will go smoothly.” At first, Bradley hadn’t liked El Tigre’s quip about the stolen Red Cross helo carrying more cash and guns than any vehicle. Bradley had no patience with men who didn’t value a good ally when they were lucky enough to have one. If Herredia wanted to move his own dollars and guns, then let him. But now it sounded like Herredia was offering to share the machine. A helo. Interesting.

“And I’ll need one-third of the nine hundred thousand dollars up front so I can order materials, hire my crew back, retool the lines for a totally new product, and make enough molds and dyes to crank out the units fast,” Ron said.

Pace had told Bradley this a few days ago when he’d made his proposal over martinis, so Herredia was prepared for it. Herredia told Pace that there would be three hundred thousand cash in small bills waiting for them in a Compton warehouse just as soon as they could get there to pick it up.

Pace told Herredia that, once operational, he would run one assembly crew-his finest-on seven twelve-hour shifts per week, with two hundred and fifty units ready for pickup in ten days. The full one thousand would take until midsummer, three weeks out.

“Your enemies will never know what hit them,” he said.

Bradley was prepared for Herredia to pitch smug Ron Pace off the balcony and be done with the pendejo. Ever since the death of Gustavo Armenta, El Tigre had expected vengeance on Americans from Benjamin, which meant American retaliation, which would be very, very bad for business. Herredia was irritable enough without being cajoled by a wiseass gunmaker. He just wanted his thousand machine pistols, value priced, and he wanted them soon.

“Tonight I will say a long prayer that I am not in business with a fool,” said Herredia. “ Ándale. You have work to do.”

He stood and shook hands with the gunmaker. Felipe watched from a corner. Two pistoleros left the darkness and escorted Pace and Bradley to the car.

Two days after the Buenavista shoot-out and one day after the disappearance of Jimmy Holdstock, Hood and his Blowdown team let themselves into Victor Davis’s townhome in Yuma, Arizona.

They were looking for guns. They searched the living room, kitchen, and small dining room without success. The master bedroom entertainment center yielded pornographic DVDs but no firearms. Hood noted that the framed picture of a lovely woman on Davis ’s nightstand was actually the sample photo sold with the frame. The Frame Shop sticker was still on the back. The dream girl had cost Victor $9.99. In the master closet hung two dozen dark suits, at least a dozen white shirts, and maybe thirty ties.

But the guest bedroom held pay dirt: four plastic bins under the bed, containing forty-eight used small-caliber handguns. Many were in poor shape, Hood saw. Six more bins stacked neatly up on a closet shelf held the big stuff: six.357 Magnum Smith & Wesson revolvers, four.44 Magnum autoloaders, ten.38 Detective Special revolvers, twelve Pace Arms nine-millimeter automatics, and two FN 5.57s. They were used but in fine condition.

Bly pointed to the FNs. “They penetrate body armor. The cartel gunmen call them asesino de policía-cop killers.”

Hood immediately thought of Holdstock again. He looked at Ozburn and Bly and knew that they were thinking of him, too. Hood feared the worst. Holdstock had vanished somewhere between San Diego and El Centro the day before. His car was missing, too, suggesting willful flight. But Holdstock had a family. Holdstock was stand-up. Hood thought he’d been murdered or abducted in retaliation for the shooting of Gustavo Armenta. Zetas. Abducted was worse.

“Okay,” said Ozburn. “We’re having another Jimmy moment. I’m gonna think a prayer for him right now where we stand. You two can join me or not.”

Hood bowed his head and closed his eyes. He sensed Bly doing the same. He asked for Holdstock’s safe return. He pictured Jimmy flipping the burgers at the barbecue he’d hosted for Hood before Hood had moved to Buenavista. It was a nice afternoon, and those few hours between them made Jimmy the best friend Hood had in this vast desert. His wife and daughters were a delight. Help him, help him.

“Amen,” said Ozburn. “You didn’t think that ATF could be so much fun, did you, Charlie?”

“It never stops.” Hood smiled to himself. He liked these people. He liked the way they refused to call themselves ATFE, just the old ATF was what they said. Ozburn had quipped once that it was ATFE but the E was silent.

There were four shotguns stacked in one corner of the closet and long rifles stacked in the other. The closet floor was lined with green military surplus ammo boxes, and when Hood toed them, he could tell they were full. He squatted and opened one and looked at the neat boxes of.44 Magnum loads, factory made.

Hood had quickly learned that Arizona was the widest and deepest part of the Iron River. It was legal to buy guns in Arizona with minimal ID, a cursory background check, and no wait. Then a gun owner could sell, trade, carry, and conceal with almost no paperwork. Many dealers both licensed and unlicensed worked out of their homes, just like Victor. Hood had seen handguns for sale in scores of gun shops in Arizona towns, in liquor stores, even in the convenience stores of gas stations along the scenic state highways.

“We yanked Victor’s license a year ago,” said Ozburn. “He sold to some straw buyers plugged into the Tijuana Cartel. He sold to young mothers in east L.A. We couldn’t build a case, so we closed him down. But Victor didn’t miss a beat. Gun heaven, man, pistol paradise. Most of this iron would have hit the streets in the next three months if Victor hadn’t run up against his own product. He’d sell the beat-up shit guns to the inner-city bangers. The heavy stuff he’d sell to the cartels. The badder the bad guys, the better their guns are.”

Bly ran a metal detector through the house in search of more. Ozburn safed and photographed and logged the guns and put them into ATFE lockboxes for transport.

Hood found a briefcase stuffed with ATFE Firearm Transaction Records and appointment books under the living room sofa. He’d seen such forms before-each dealer was required to complete and sign one for each sale, then keep it in his possession. If the dealer went out of business, he was supposed to send the forms back to ATFE for storage, but Victor Davis was noncompliant. Hood wondered at a system that trusted the crooks to follow the procedures.

He set the briefcase on the kitchen counter and rifled through the forms. They’d been thrown in loose. He found dates ranging from 2004 through June of 2009, when ATFE had pulled Victor Davis’s federal firearms license. Hood knew that 2004 was when the Iron River began to swell-cartel competition, another surge of Mexican law enforcement, another hike in the prices of street drugs across the United States. Now it was a flood and he was part of the levee.

He ran one hand through the piles of forms. Hundreds of them. All makes of guns, all calibers, from.22-short derringers to 10-gauge riot guns. The buyers were mostly men, but not all. The prices ranged from fifty dollars for a used Lorcin.25 to seven hundred and fifty dollars for a new Colt.45 ACP. The names were Dalrymple and Johnson and Gutierrez and Hoades and Valenzuela and Milliken and Djorik and on and on and on. Hundreds and hundreds more.