T. Parker - Iron River

“You need the help,” said Rocky. “If you get tired or sick or late, you can become careless. One mistake and El Tigre is out a lot of money. And he loses trust in you and loses trust in me and we know what happens when trust is gone.”

They compressed and sealed the bills with a vacuum packer made for game meat. This minimized scent and bulk. Finally, they stashed the packs in three large rolling suitcases, then buried them with brand-new clothing still tagged and folded, in case the Federales decided to snoop. Bradley always took several more tubs of the new clothing as a donation to various Baja parishes, along with a note on Los Angeles Diocese letterhead forged by Clayton and identifying Bradley Jones as a representative of All Saints, an El Monte Catholic charity. He had never had a problem heading south through the border, and now that he could wear his Explorer uniform and present a replica LASD badge also made for him by Clayton, he felt even more confident.

Shortly after dark, he left El Monte for Tijuana in a Ford Freestar with twenty-five pounds of cash worth $384,000 and ten plastic tubs of new clothes. Already hidden in the van were the first five production Pace Arms Love 32s for Herredia’s perusal, a deal separate from Rocky and about which Bradley had said nothing. Two carfuls of Rocky’s pistoleros trailed him through the surface streets to the freeway, then fell away. Bradley now wore street clothes instead of the conspicuous and uncomfortable Explorer uniform.

Bradley drove within the speed limit and signaled his lane changes and listened to the radio. His mind was clear and he was alert from the caffeine in the tea. He thought of the Love 32s nearby and could not fail to think of the five men whom Herredia had extinguished using the prototype. He knew that they were Zetas and had chosen to be killers, but he also knew that as men they were conscripted not only by their free wills but by history and the complexities of luck. He believed that those men had died at that time so that he did not have to, and for this they had his respect.

His phone buzzed and he saw the call was from Owens Finnegan and he let it ring. He didn’t know what to make of her and he did not trust her, but he was not in the habit of turning down help from people who offered it. That was how you filled out your team, grew your people, expanded. Clayton. Coleman Draper. Israel Castro. Rocky. Ron Pace. Owens and Mike Finnegan. Caroline Vega? You never knew where you’d find them or where they would find you. He’d met Clayton in jail and found Coleman Draper at a sheriff’s department recruitment booth. Draper introduced him to Israel Castro, Mike Finnegan had introduced himself and his daughter, Owens, at one of Erin ’s performances up on the strip. And Caroline Vega was training for Explorer, just like he was.

He pulled over at a rest stop and called Erin and they talked for nearly half an hour. She was performing tonight and this pricked his longing and his anger at having to miss the performance.

Back in the car he thought of her and his heart tripped because his distance from her was growing, but he reminded himself that ten hours from now, befriended by the early morning darkness, he would be driving into his garage at home up in the desert of L.A. County with $15,360 stuffed into a hollowed body panel in the van, his share for the night’s work, his base paycheck for the week, and plenty to cover the stage boots and the couture dress and some of the mounting expenses for the wedding, and Erin would be standing backlit in the doorway between the house and the dark garage, radiant and his.

Holdstock tried to smile at Hood as he walked in. He was unshaven and his hair was aslant, his eyes vacant. His hands were heavily bandaged, each finger thickly delineated by gauze, and they rested beside him like the root balls of trees upturned.

Hood held up the music CD he’d bought for Jimmy, then commenced opening it with his pocketknife. It was a collection called The Bakersfield Sound and Hood thought Holdstock would like its emotional straightness and down-and-out humor.

“Thanks,” said Holdstock. “Isn’t that where you’re from?”

Hood sat in a visitor’s chair and yapped about growing up in Bakersfield for a minute or two. Heat, wind, oil fields. Good music and good people. It was late Sunday afternoon, and Imperial Mercy was quiet. He could see Holdstock’s interest drifting, so he stopped talking and looked along with Jimmy through the window to the blue Buenavista sky. They were six stories up.

“The deputies are still here, right?”

“Yeah, Jim. Two of them outside and two inside the stairwell. They checked my badge before they let me in. Don’t worry.”

“When I dream about my family, Gustavo is with them. He holds the girls’ hands. He’s white. He’s in charge of them. He’s going to escort them to either the grave or heaven. I can’t tell by his expression what he’s thinking.”

“You won’t dream about him forever, Jimmy. It was an accident. No one on earth blames you.”

“Benjamin does. Honor. That’s why they’ll come to get me.”

Hood had learned that in his seven days of capture and torture, Jimmy had been injected with adrenaline and other stimulants so he would remain conscious and endure more pain. A doctor said this would induce a psychotic state that would take some time to abate. Not only had his fingernails been pulled out but they had crushed two of his molars and hobbled him by breaking both of his big toes. A psychiatrist had told Ozburn that Jimmy was more devastated emotionally than physically. The doctor had treated prisoners of war and said that in some ways this was worse because Jimmy had been singled out, perhaps by chance only. No fellow soldiers had gone through this with him. He had been utterly alone. He had only himself to blame. That was why it was important to visit him often and let him know that there were other people who were on his side. It was going to take time. Much longer than the fingernails that would or would not grow back, depending on the damage done to the germinal matrix, or the healing of the bones, or the building of crowns to fill the place where his teeth had been.

“Charlie, can you get me a gun?”

“I can’t, Jimmy. Oz and I asked about that, and they turned us down.”

“You’ve got yours.”

“I’m not a patient here, Jimmy.”

The truth was that Holdstock had no way to fire a handgun with the gauzy stumps of his fingers, and the psychiatrist had said that if he could, Jimmy might use it on himself.

“Because if they come after me here, I’m going to need a gun,” said Holdstock.

“They won’t come after you here.”

“I have no defense.”

“You’re not ready to shoot yet, Jimmy.”

“These bandages won’t be on forever.”

“I’m not going to bring you a gun.”

“Well, then fuck you, Charlie. And fuck everybody who looks like you.”

“I had a friend in high school who used to say that to me all the time.”

“I’m sorry, man. But you try lying here, can’t pick your own nose. And your wife cries when she looks at you and you know she notices other men. And your kids stare at you like you’re some kind of pathetic freak. And you pray and you pray and you pray, and so what?”

“I know it’s bad, Jimmy.”

“Bad? I’ll tell you what’s bad-I think those Zetas are going to come through the damned door any minute and drag me back down there. It’s irrational. It’s crazy. It won’t happen. But none of that matters. I spend the night with my eyes wide open, and sleep a few minutes during the day. They got into my head, Charlie. I keep hearing ’em.”

Out of respect for what Jimmy believed and heard in his mind, Hood said nothing.