Iron River

by T. Jefferson Parker

  “Mike Finnegan?”

  “So you know him.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  Reyes looked frankly at Hood in the morning’s new light. “I went by the hospital about half an hour ago. He’s still in the ICU but he’s conscious and talking. He said: Tell Charlie Hood to come by and say hello.”

  Hood stood over bed 11 in the ICU. Finnegan’s legs were fully engulfed in thick plaster casts, and one arm bore a cast from shoulder to hand. His entire head was wrapped in gauze with small openings for his eyes, nose, and mouth and was pinned upright for stability by skull clamps affixed to stainless steel rods that rested on a rigid collar.

  “What are you looking at?” asked the man. His voice was soft and strained and it sounded as if it came from a mouth that could barely open. Hood thought he heard a humorous edge to it but knew he must be mistaken.

  “I don’t know you,” said Hood.

  “Maybe, under all this, I’m your long. Lost. Brother.”

  “My brothers aren’t lost. And they don’t have a voice like yours.”

  “Well, don’t be disappointed. Because I don’t know you. Either.”

  “Charlie Hood. You had my name and address in your wallet. You told the police chief you wanted me to come and say hello.”

  “Oh, Charlie. I don’t know how that piece of paper got there. I’m Mike. Finnegan. I’m sorry I can’t shake your hand.”

  Hood looked down on the man. Hood guessed that he was short and slender underneath all the plaster and gauze. All Hood could see of his actual body was a pink spot of mouth, two twinkles far back in the head wrap, and part of his right arm and hand, bruised and bandaged and spiked with an IV drip and a finger cuff for the monitor.

  “Who would have thought you could get top-drawer medical care here in this desert?” asked Finnegan. “Of course I’m sure it helps to be a cash customer.”

  “What happened?”

  “A flat tire, a speeding Mercury, and a heaping helping of bad luck. I wish I could have a cigarette now, but I’ve never smoked one in my life. No telling what zany ideas are getting through the new cracks in my brainpan.”

  “The doctors say you’re lucky to be alive.”

  “Really.”

  “Another couple of hours out there would have done you in.”

  “I’m nodding in agreement.”

  Hood located the twin glimmers deep in the gauze. “What are you doing in Buenavista?”

  “Trying to pass through Buenavista.”

  “What’s your business?”

  “I’m self-employed.”

  “What business?”

  “Business is all the same, Charlie. Buy low, sell high. Wait for the bailout.”

  Hood watched a thin stream of bubbles rise up through the saline bag. A woman in scrubs appeared from behind him and she glanced at the vitals monitor, then back at Hood. She was young and pretty and when she took up the chart, Hood checked her ring finger but before he could look away she caught him.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Charlie Hood. I think I’m here on the basis of some misunderstanding.”

  Finnegan laughed tightly. “Is this a cosmic misunderstanding? Or a comic misunderstanding?”

  “Mike, you talk too much,” she said. “You talk to me about the effects of steroids on cranial pressure. You talk to Chief Reyes about the boy who was killed last night. You talk to the nurses about party boats on the Colorado River and you talk to the janitor about floor cleaners and his brother in prison. Now you’re yapping away to Mr. Hood about selling high and cosmic versus comic.”

  “That’s Deputy Hood, doctor,” whispered Finnegan.

  “Oh?”

  Hood said he was “on loan” from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. She offered her hand and he shook it.

  “Beth Petty.”

  “She’s a female doctor,” whispered Finnegan.

  Beth Petty smiled and shook her head. “Careful, Mike, or I’ll sedate you.”

  “Use something pleasant. Please.”

  Dr. Petty held Hood’s look. “Los Angeles? I studied medicine at USC.”

  “I studied psychology at Bakersfield State.”

  “There’s a conversation killer,” said Finnegan.

  There was in fact a brief silence as Petty made notations on the chart and hung it back on the wall next to the sharps collector. “I hope you like Buenavista, deputy.”

  She smiled at him and walked out and Hood heard her footsteps no longer.

  “Is she beautiful?” whispered Finnegan.

  “Yes,” Hood whispered back.

  “She’s not in focus and neither are you. The ocular swelling is horrendous. Oh, deputy, I just remembered how that piece of paper got into my wallet. It was pressed upon me by a reserve deputy you once worked with. Well, who you once shot and killed, actually. Coleman Draper.”

  Hood studied the small, plastered man. “For what purpose?”

  “He said you were a good man and you might be able to help me.”

  “Do what?”

  There was a longer silence and Hood saw that the twinkling lights of the man’s eyes were gone. His first thought was that Finnegan had died. Then he heard the deep, slow breathing.

  “Find my daughter.”

  “I already have a job.”

  “As we all do. Consider it pro bono or even charity. Deputy Hood, I’m a crushed and tired man. If it’s okay with you, we’ll. Talk. Later.”

  “Where did you get the ninety grand?”

  “I earned it, of course.”

  Hood waited a moment. Then he heard the yawn enclosed within the bandage and he walked out.

  5

  Jimmy Holdstock was bright and affable and still built like the Wisconsin tight end he once was, but this morning his brain was sleepless and his heart was heavy.

  He kissed Jenny and told her he loved her before he even cracked the front door of their El Centro home, to keep the heat out and the cool in as long as possible. The girls were still asleep, and Jimmy touched his wife’s cheek and walked outside to the new day. He was twenty-six.

  He had rented the house two months ago for his assignment to ATFE Operation Blowdown. It was a fifties home—pink stucco and squat—smack in the middle of five hundred acres of cotton a few miles from town. Holdstock liked the desert, which surprised him, because until two months ago he had never seen one except from the sky. This desert was full of unexpected beauties. Like now: a trio of doves cutting toward him low in the gray sky, squeaking softly as they sped over the miles of green plants tufted with white. Jimmy glanced up at them, but all he could think about was Gustavo Armenta.

  He slung his war bag over his shoulder—vest, holster, his standby gun and ammo, a Bible in case he got a minute to himself, lunch, a plastic liter bottle of frozen water that would melt during the day and always have an ice-cold swallow for him when he needed it. He was wearing a suit and tie and he already had beads of sweat trickling from his armpits despite the extra antiperspirant. Holdstock’s regular sidearm, the one he had discharged during the Buenavista sting, had been taken from him by a senior ATFE agent early the next morning.

  Four short years ago Jimmy had graduated from Madison and was headed for the priesthood through a Minnesota seminary. But his desires were powerful and he fell in love with a St. Paul coffee shop waitress, Jenny Reuvers. He dropped out, and six months later he was married and happy. Not long after that, Jenny had shown him the positive drugstore pregnancy test, the same week that Holdstock was accepted into the ATFE training program in Washington, D.C. ATFE was a good fit for Jimmy because he was smart and could think on his feet and always knew what the rules were. He was afraid of nothing. There was Miami and New Orleans and Chicago. When Blowdown came along, Jimmy and Jenny went for it. ATFE needed some fresh faces for the battles on the Iron River. Southern California!

  He unlocked the side door of the garage, stepped in and found the switch for the motorized door. When the door had cl
anged up into place, Jimmy slung the duffel onto the front seat of his Five Hundred, tossed his jacket in the back, and climbed behind the wheel.

  He arrived at the Federal Building in San Diego just over an hour later, having noticed almost nothing during the drive, having heard hardly a word of the Christian radio show. He parked and took a swig of ice water.

  Mars came to the ATFE lobby and took Holdstock upstairs to the regional director’s office. Mars was pale and unforthright and he said nothing on the elevator ride up. The SAC was Frank Soriana, a large and often jolly man who this morning looked at Holdstock with no jolliness at all.

  “Jimmy, the bureau got the Armenta bullet from the sheriffs down in Imperial and did a hurry-up on the toolmarks. You killed him and the gun dealer. So, good shooting on the one, and bad luck on the other. Armenta was almost fifty yards away when you fired. Incredible bad luck, Jimmy. I’m sorry it happened.”

  Holdstock had known that the toolmarks testing was pointless. His first two shots had hit the gun dealer—he could hear the smack of the bullets hitting the body—and the third had missed to the left. And just a moment later, he had heard the screams.

  Jimmy nodded and looked down at his hands. He had been a half step ahead of Janet Bly, and he could see the young gunrunner in the black suit standing there like Death himself in the patio light, his gun out and ready. He could see Tilley with his hands up. He was aware of Ozburn and Hood in the periphery of things. He was aware of the empty tables, empty chairs, the closed umbrellas, the big outdoor grill unmanned at that late hour. And when Black Suit had swung his gun at Ozburn, Holdstock had put him down with two shots and missed by a fraction of an inch with the third.

  Sitting in the regional director’s office and staring at his hands, Jimmy Holdstock replayed the scene for what seemed like the thousandth time.

  But by now the scene had changed. It started one way and then it became different. Now, when Jimmy saw it again, the black-suited gunman—his name turned out to be Victor Davis—wasn’t swinging the gun on Ozburn, he was lowering it.

  Holdstock closed his eyes. Janet Bly had held fire. Sean Ozburn and Charlie Hood had held fire. So Jimmy had been outvoted three to one on deadly force and killed an innocent boy, too. Since it happened, he had been telling himself that the toolmarks on the boy’s bullet would prove him innocent, but really, he knew that no one else had fired and what were the chances of some other shooter having taken out Gustavo Armenta?

  He took a deep, wavering breath. I’ve killed a young man I never saw alive, he thought. Leadeth me beside still waters. Please.

  “We’ve talked to Ozburn and Bly and the deputy,” said Soriana. “Sean and Janet thought Davis could have been preparing to fire. Charlie Hood didn’t say that, but he did say that Davis was not lowering the gun as ordered. So, three out of three witnesses are standing with you, Jimmy. And I’m standing with you, and Agent Mars is, and all of ATF. The boy was an accident. He was collateral damage. It breaks my heart to see the innocent die and I know it’s breaking yours, too, Jimmy. But don’t let it break all the way. We need you whole again.”

  Holdstock sobbed without sound, head hung, big hands still folded on his lap. It felt good to let those tears out. He thought he should feel humiliation, too, but he didn’t.

  He didn’t cry long. A moment later he had wiped his face on his hands, took another deep, wavering breath, and stood up.

  “You want a couple of weeks off, take them,” said Soriana. “You’re entitled to them and you’ve earned them the hard way.”

  “I think I’d like to work, sir. Back on the horse and all that.”

  “The fact that Gustavo was the son of Benjamin Armenta gives us cause for concern,” said Mars. “There are the Zetas. We can reassign you.”

  “I want to see this through.”

  “You want to do a couple of weeks of office work here in San Diego?” asked Soriana. “We could use you. You can bring Jenny and the kids, stay in a motel with a pool, enjoy the summer.”

  “No, sir. But thank you.”

  Soriana and Mars stood and all three men shook hands.

  “We’ll get your sidearm back to you in good time,” said Mars.

  “I appreciate your support, you guys.”

  “You acted properly, Jimmy. You did the right thing.”

  “I really, really appreciate that.”

  Holdstock bought small gifts for Jenny and the girls in a San Diego Target and made El Centro by two o’clock. He ate his sack lunch on the way home but he was starved, so he drove to the Denny’s and pulled around back and parked with the other locals in a patch of scarce afternoon shade. He stripped off his tie and when he got out of the car he buttoned the suit coat over his hip holster and walked around to the entrance and into a blast of conditioned air.

  He got a newspaper out front and sat at the counter and ate a large lunch and a piece of pie for dessert.

  He read the front page and sports and slowly he felt the terrible tension lessen in his body. You did the right thing. Funny what a few words could do. Words from men you respect.

  He left a big tip for the waitress and pushed outside, thinking that was how he met Jenny. He could still picture the little café where they’d met, the bud vases on the tables, Jenny beautiful. He’d go in for lunch whenever he could afford it, wait for her station if he had to.

  He was smiling when he got into the Ford and started up the engine and hit the air, and when he turned to back out he saw the bright orange flyer on his rear window. The print was facing him—something about losing weight. Could actually stand to lose a few pounds, he thought. He glanced at the cars on either side of him and saw the orange sheets flapping in the hot desert breeze.

  Holdstock sighed and got out and went around to the back. The flyer was held in place by a rock. He reached for the rock and heard something behind him, and when he turned, the first man hit him on the head with something small and hard, and a huge second man drove him down to the asphalt with a choke hold and didn’t let go. The first man stripped away his pistol and hit him again over one temple. The last thing Holdstock knew for sure, they were stuffing him into the backseat of his own car.

  6

  Bradley Smith and Ron Pace braced themselves against Smith’s Cyclone GT convertible while two gunmen frisked them and two more stood by and watched. Smith looked over at Pace. The gunmaker had been blindfolded since the outskirts of Tijuana, and he was still blindfolded now. He was grinning.

  “Wipe the smile off your piehole,” said Smith.

  “I smile when things get intense.”

  “I told you the people who run Favier and Winling are intense.”

  “They don’t even trust you, and you work for them.”

  “He who trusts ends up on the dinner table.”

  “They frisk me for guns, but I make guns.”

  “They know what you do. Speak when spoken to.” Smith looked at Pace, and the idiot was smiling again.

  As the cartel pistolero felt his boots for weapons, Smith looked out at the pale green Pacific. It was afternoon, and the summer Baja wind had whipped up battalions of whitecaps and sent them marching toward shore. The last time Bradley was here on the beach at Baja was early spring, when he had brought his fiancée, Erin, to an old hotel down here to celebrate her first recording contract and their engagement. Quite a party—fifty friends and family down from L.A., Erin’s band, of course, some producers and soundmen and session guys, Bradley’s gang of outlaws, and all the roadies and dealers and hangers-on, catered by an upscale restaurant in TJ, booze courtesy of a friend with a San Diego tequila distributorship. Bradley and Erin, in a Max Azria runway dress, had snuck off with blankets and made love on the sand dunes. He missed her right now. Business was business, but Erin was his heart.

  When the gunman was finished with him, Smith turned and looked up at Herredia’s hilltop retreat. It was a white Castilian two-story buried in a lavish oasis of pools and fountains and blue palms and big terra-cotta
pots overflowing with protea and plumeria and flowering tropical vines. A helicopter hovered high above, swaying in the currents like a kite.

  “Where is it?” asked the gunman.

  “In the trunk,” said Bradley, handing him the keys.

  They walked single file up a winding stone path toward the house, then along the shady western flank of the home, then descended into a grotto of gurgling pools and flowers. The pistolero carried the lacquered box with the stainless steel Pace Arms insignia on the top. Bradley saw two uniformed Mexico Federal Judicial Police officers with combat shotguns standing motionless beside a man-made waterfall. He was impressed that Herredia was now employing Federales . He’d never seen that before. He knew that local and state police were defecting to the cartels for better pay and benefits, just as the federal soldiers were defecting to the Zetas. Calderón was pitting both police and soldiers against the cartels as never before—thus the spiraling body counts and savagery as the cartels warred for share in a tougher market. The men who had once upon a time pursued Herredia now drew much fatter salaries for protecting him. Herredia’s answer to the Gulf Cartel’s Zetas, thought Bradley. He glanced back at the stone-still soldiers. The times they are a-changin’. Spooky. Maybe Erin could write a song about it.

  From this height Bradley saw a swatch of desert far below and an airplane hangar painted to match the desert and an ancient transport helicopter hunkered beneath a canopy of camouflage net. A soldier stood guard outside the hangar. A man squatted beside the big helo, welding away at its flank.

  Then the path dropped steeply and a handrail appeared and when he rounded a wide turn, the wind pushed against him. He saw the cove of black rocks below and heard the ocean pounding onto the white crescent of beach. It took a few minutes to get there.

  Bradley jumped down from the last step and felt the sand give beneath his boots. He saw North Baja Cartel leader Carlos Herredia waiting in the shadows where the black rocks met the sand. There was an old cable spool upended for a table in the shade. Two pistoleros sat on plastic buckets. Nearby stood old Felipe with his combat 10-gauge, drum-fed shotgun. Bradley had never seen him without it. It was like a limb. Felipe was white-haired and walnut-faced and wore a black eye patch.