The Famous and the Dead (12 page)

He opened and checked them also, running his eyes and fingers over the bricks of compressed cash, the jewelry and old silver dollars, some loose gemstones waiting to be sold or set. He liked to see his loot in mild disarray and casually stored, more or less heaped, like a pirate might do. He lifted a wad of necklaces, mostly gold and pearls, then dropped them back to the safe bottom. There was even a cigar box that held the first few items he'd shoplifted, as a ten-year-old. He opened it and looked in at the baseball-card bubble-gum packs, now hardened and cracked within, the jawbreakers, pocketknives, toy cars and plastic reptiles, the tube of BB's, and the miniature skateboards.

Pleased, Bradley locked the safes, then walked over to the long table that stood along one of the walls. There were three colorful serapes spread upon it. He carefully pulled each one away and let them drop to the floor
.
Then he looked down on remnants of his history: Joaquin Murrieta's walnut-handled six-guns in old hip holsters; a bulletproof vest made for Joaquin by a French-American blacksmith in 1852; Joaquin's journal; the leather-bound journals written by various Murrieta descendants, including his mother, during the century and a half since his death, all of them filled with lawless exploits and seductions and great bravery and generosity, and no little violence. And of course Joaquin's severed head was there, too, still in the jar in which it was originally displayed after the shootout at Cantua Creek—the charge was one dollar to see the head of the bloodthirsty murderer and horse thief, Joaquin Murrieta!

Bradley ran his hand over the smooth leather of the holsters and the cool handles of the revolvers. He lifted his mother's first journal, begun when she was ten years old, and read out loud her opening line for maybe the thousandth time: “Dear Children, do I have a tale of adventure for you!”

A tale of adventure was right
, he thought. He pictured her and set the journal back with the others.

Now Bradley beheld the head. It was pale and roughly severed. The original preservative was brandy but this eventually had been replaced with isopropyl alcohol, then formaldehyde. It had yellowed, slightly. The face was vaguely handsome, as Joaquin had reputedly been in life, but his famous wild black hair had fallen out through the decades and now lay at the bottom of the jar. Sometimes he looked noble to Bradley, and sometimes only hapless and forlorn.

He tapped it twice and watched the head sway and the hair lift and lilt.
How could you have been everything they said you were?
Bradley wondered.
They said you were a real man. But they also said you were
only imagined. They said you were short and dark. They said you were tall, blond, and blue-eyed. They said you murdered for fun. They said you were generous and kind. They said you were loyal to Rosa. They said you seduced hundreds. They said you died young and were beheaded. They said no, it was a friend of yours who was beheaded. They said you lived and died very old with your head still on and a large family all around you. So what am I supposed to make of you, El Famoso? You're my history, but which history? How do I discover what I am when I know so little truth? What should I do with you? This is the twenty-first century, dude, and nobody needs a head in a jar. Especially a head that may or may not be what it's said to be. What am I going to tell Thomas about you? Mom got driven half crazy by that question—she worried for years what to say to me and my brothers. Should she tell us the truth? Tell us lies? Tell us nothing? Tell some of us some things and some of us other things? She agonized over it. Because she
knew
that I would fall for you. She knew I had something that she had, and that you had. Something waiting to be set free. Something wild. She died undecided. You must understand what a problem you are to me, Joaquin. Maybe I'm better off without you. Has knowing you made my life better? Well, you've helped me become reckless, brave, and rich. Yes. I've murdered several men, though I might add that they all deserved it. I've stolen. I've stolen a
lot.
I am steadfastly dishonest, manipulative, and self-serving. I've deceived and endangered the only person I love. And of all those things, the only one I regret even a little is the last—what I did to Erin. And here I am, doing it again. Hell, she doesn't even know about this place, and all the things I've done. So, Joaquin, why should I keep you around? Haven't you had enough? What does my son need with you? What good are you to me?

Bradley went to the workbench and poured a neat Scotch. He brought it back to the table and clinked the glass to Joaquin's. “To the river that carries us all,” he said. “Run long.” Then he covered Joaquin back up.

I
n the morning Oscar the security guard offered a minimal smile as Hood held his ID to the door lock on the ATF hallway. Hood got coffee and went to his cubicle and began reading still another ATF Form 3310.12, used to report multiple sales of semiautomatic rifles in Southwest border states. Hundreds were generated each month. It was attached to ATF Form 4473, the Firearms Transaction Record. Dealing with such forms made him drowsy.

Bly had requisitioned them from Buster's Last Stand and it wasn't hard for Hood to find what he was looking for. He wondered why Yolanda Drumm, the rhinestoned AR-5 buyer, needed a new 7.62 mm assault rifle every week for the past four weeks running. And why, before the new reporting rules, she had needed two, sometimes three rifles per week. Once, four. Well, clearly, for the Sinaloans, Hood thought, or other deserving patrons. He yawned.

He wrote down Drumm's address in El Centro, and her phone numbers, and her credit card number. If they could catch her selling to the wrong people, they could take out one small supplier, one tiny contributory to the Iron River. She probably made fifty bucks a gun, maybe a hundred. Hood's counterparts in Mexican law enforcement called this small-time gunrunning
contrabando de las hormigas—
contraband of the ants—but when the many ants were added up, their trickles became a big part of the river.

From the government numbers Hood saw, he conservatively figured that the flow of guns from the United States to Mexico was between a thousand and fifteen hundred a month. What he'd seen with his own eyes—there were over six thousand federally licensed gun dealers operating along the border, roughly three per mile—put the number higher. One prominent think-tank estimate of two thousand guns per day seemed way high. But in a sense everyone was counting backwards, because the number of guns going south could only be extrapolated from the number of guns
found
in the south and traced back their origins. Many guns of course were never found, and many more were not traceable. So the numbers floated as numbers do, subject to interpretation and misinterpretation, often politically colored.

Regardless, Hood knew for certain that it was good luck running into Yo Yo and the Sinaloans at El Pueblo. They probably did their deals in the parking lot in back, or somewhere close and handy. Hood believed in luck. His cell phone buzzed and he liked the number he saw. He hit the digital recorder on his desk and answered.

“Hooper. It's Dirk Sculler here.”

“The Lewis made my collector very happy.”

“I had the weirdest dream last night. And when I woke up I thought of your customers, the ones you said didn't need small-bore playthings.”

“Edge of my seat, Dirk.”

“I dreamed of FIM-Ninety-two Stingers, straight from Raytheon, still in the crates.”

“Certain people do dream of owning those.”

“I'd like to meet just one.”

“Let's get off the air for this conversation, Dirk.”

“Meet me at noon at the Monterey Restaurant. Best burritos in the world, according to Israel Castro. And he
owns
a Mexican restaurant. You know Israel?”

“Every human being in Imperial County has bought something from Israel.”

“That's him, alright.”

•   •   •

They sat back by the restrooms, away from the window. Hood set his straw gambler crown-down on the seat beside him. The restaurant was loud and busy. Hood got the carne asada “super burrito,” which came loaded with guacamole, sour cream, and pico de gallo. He had a speedy metabolism and could devour such meals several times a day and not gain weight. Skull outweighed him by twenty pounds and his four-item combination plate was down to two before Hood had taken a bite. Hood looked around the room and tucked one corner of the paper napkin under his shirt collar. Today he was wearing a pale blue cotton/linen seersucker suit and a Jerry Garcia necktie that he didn't want stained.

“Where's the wild bunch?” asked Hood.

“What do you care?” Skull held his fork with the handle palmed and his thumb on top, lifting from the elbow.

“How's the chimp's finger?”

“Black. The tip's pretty crushed. The nail's gonna fall off for sure. I couldn't tell if he reached into the trunk before or after you started to close it.”

“Before,” Hood lied. “But I just couldn't resist.”

“Yeah. He's a good guy, Hooper, and I guess you're not. Here's the deal . . .”

Skull talked softly and Hood leaned forward, ate, and listened: Two FIM-92 Stinger missile launchers, lifted from the Naval Weapons Station adjacent to Camp Pendleton by a pair of “enterprising friends.” Two missiles to go with them, but more launchers and missiles possible. The weapons were the RMP variant, which use both infrared and ultraviolet homing systems. The warheads were hit-to-kill types with impact fuses and self-destruct timers. “They can knock a Cessna Citation out of the sky at five miles,” said Skull. “Anything bigger is just that much easier. Eighty grand for the pair. Value priced.” Scully gave him a wicked smile and his shaven head clearly reflected the ceiling lights. He had merry blue eyes and a black tattoo of barbed wire around his thick neck.

Hood nodded and gazed over Skull's shoulder to the sun-washed parking lot. El Centro was bustling and he could see the steady river of cars on the westbound freeway. The winter optics were clean and the day was cool. He leaned in and spoke softly. “I have some ideas, Dirk. But let me ask you something. Aside from friendly governments, these kinds of tools usually end up in the hands of religious fanatics, insurgents, warlords, cartel kingpins. Do you have any problems at all with these types of individuals?”

“I won't sell to rag heads. Just won't do it. Anybody else, well, the only problem I got is if the check bounces.”

“That's what I figured you'd say.”

Skull leaned back and looked around the room and didn't bother to moderate his volume. “There's plenty of people out there who could use what I'm offering. Any of these goddamned cartel beheaders and torturers, they'd love to shoot down a government chopper or a rival's jet or a commercial airliner. Just to make their point. Which is, well, I'm still not really sure what their point is.” Beside them, a four-top of Mexican farmhands looked over at Skull and Hood. As did a well-dressed businessman and his female tablemate sitting catty-corner. “So, let the Mexicans lose their souls. They're not human anyway.”

“That's not scientific.”

“They're taking over this whole country. Look around you. And think it over, slick. Don't take too long. Nice suit. You see a lot of that poofy material in the south. Queersucker, something like that.”

Skull stood and pulled two twenties off his roll and let them fall into the salsa bowl. He lumbered between the small vinyl tables and booths and pushed out.

Hood took his time finishing his lunch. Skull called, but Hood saw the number and let it ring. It was not yet one o'clock. When he was finished, he stood and walked out through the hostile stares.

•   •   •

Hood called Skull forty-five minutes later from the conference room of the ATF Buenavista field office. “The Stinger batteries crap out after five years, so none of the eighties-era stuff will do. I won't touch it.”

“In the crates means new, Hooper. Christ.”

“New, I've got interest at seventy grand.”

“The price is eighty. Subtract it from your end, Hooper. You're not the only show in town on this one.”

“I'm not coming alone with that chimp of yours on the loose. If we do this deal, I'll need to bring friends.”

“Who and how many?”

“Two cartel
jefes
. The nonhumans you enjoy so much.”

“End users?”

“Sí.”

“Show me the money, Hooper.”

“Show me the toys.”

Five minutes later Hood's cell phone received pictures of two still-boxed FIM-92 Stinger launchers, and two of the sixty-inch missiles they could fire. Each of the missiles was crated as well. Skull had included the day's
San Diego Union-Tribune
in the shots. The launchers were roughly one yard long, the diameter of a large orange, with fold-up telescopic sights and large battery packs underneath. Hood knew the batteries were crucial—they powered the missiles far enough so they could commence burning their own fuel and not scorch the gunner.

Now the Blowdown team—along with two agents just helicoptered down from L.A.—crowded around behind Hood to see the pictures. Velasquez ran out for a newspaper and Yorth lugged in a duffel full of cash, and a few minutes later Hood sent back two pictures of it back to Skull,
Union-Tribune
included. “Is this fun or what?” asked Yorth. He played air guitar to a Stones riff, windmilling his arm like Keith. “I love this job!”

Then he hustled to his office and came back with a one-way radio transmitter disguised as a smartphone and three tiny clip-on receivers all sprouting wires and earbuds. He said the mic was built into the body right behind the speaker, and it was supposed to be good for human conversation for roughly a thousand feet.

Hood clipped it to his belt, and when he walked outside the lobby and across the street to the bus stop and muttered to himself, his real cell phone rang. It was Bly, saying the radio reception was terrific; she could even hear the cars going by. Hood stood there a moment and looked out at the darkening eastern sky, then west to the orange spray of sunlight where the sun had just dropped behind the Devil's Claws. He thought of his home in Buenavista, somewhere out in that darkness beneath the mountains, and he thought of Beth.
Here we go
, he thought. He hummed a rocking tune from the new McMurtry CD. He felt the luck.

They all huddled in the conference room and Yorth laid out the basics: The two ATF special agents from L.A.—Marquez and Cepeda—would carry the cash and follow Hood in ATF's unmarked silver Magnum. They would be armed but not wired. The bust words were “kinda like a Steven Spielberg movie,” Yorth's idea. It would tie in with the general theme of explosions and spectacle. In the event of a wire failure, or wire discovery, Hood would signal the takedown team by removing his hat. When the hat came off, hell would break loose. If he was inside or otherwise not visible, well, there was no Plan C—the team would move in when it felt right.

“Hood,” said Yorth. “If by some stroke of luck we really can see you, please don't take off that hat just to wipe your brow or greet a passing lady. Don't do that, Charlie Diamonds.”

“Got it,” said Hood.

“When Scully calls, tell him you can go eighty grand. We've got a hundred in the safe. Let's bag and tag these dirtballs.”

A few minutes later Hood caved on the eighty thousand and Skull told him he was smart. Skull set the callback for six o'clock. The next two hours sped by like minutes. The agents ate delivered pizza and watched TV, and Skull called at exactly six: Meet at the clubhouse at Buckboard Estates off the interstate in the southeast part of El Centro. Seven o'clock sharp. Skull said they'd leave the gate unlocked for Hooper and his cartel cutthroats.