The Famous and the Dead ch-6

by T. Jefferson Parker

  “Yes, I did.”

  “What did you think of her?”

  “I kind of felt bad for her.”

  “Well, don’t forget what she is. She’ll be out in a few short years. There’s always been lots of back and forth between us and the dullards we’re trying to keep from ruining humankind. Mike is so swashbuckling sometimes, and darling, too, of course. I’ve never seen him happier than he is now. It’s all your fault! I’m very happy to have you with us.”

  “Nice to be on the team.”

  “Your timing is pitch-perfect, and the West has always been the most interesting territory, bar none. And this economy is making people question everything they think they know. They’re so angry and afraid and sometimes desperate. You wake up in the morning and can’t help but smell the fear. It’s the most delightful peacetime work environment I’ve experienced since the Great Depression.” She reached up and pinched Bradley’s cheek.

  He stood outside where guests arrived and the valets dashed into the dark with tickets in their hands. He dialed Erin and while the phone rang he rocked up and down on the balls of his feet, feeling the strong flex of his calves, and recalled in detail, though for no apparent reason, flying a kite with his brother when he was five, a big blue Chinese dragon with a six-foot wingspan and a long tail and big white teeth. They were at Huntington Beach on the twenty-second of August, 1991, the water was sixty-eight degrees, and the swell was out of the southwest. Now Bradley could clearly see that kite wobbling back and forth in the stiff onshore breeze, zigzagging higher and higher into the blue sky, slashing away with its great white teeth, and he could feel the pull of the plastic handle, and the warmth of the sun on his back, and the grit of the sand trapped between his skinny boy hips and his low-slung canvas trunks.

  “Hi, baby.”

  “Brad. I was sleeping. How’s the convention?”

  “It’s over and I’m on my way.”

  “No. I’m sorry. I’m tired and I want to sleep, just me and Thomas tonight.”

  Bradley said nothing for a long beat. He felt the optimism draining out of him like milk from a ruptured carton. “I’m very disappointed.”

  “Tired is tired. I wrote a song today. Maybe tomorrow we can see each other.”

  “When? What time?”

  “Please let me sleep on it.”

  “But for tonight I could just curl up on the couch like I have been. Or on the floor in your room. Whichever you want. I wouldn’t even wake you up.”

  “That’s a really nice offer. But no. Not tonight, Bradley. Thomas is quiet now.”

  “That’s really good, honey.”

  “I don’t like your tone of voice.”

  “I love you.”

  “I know you’re furious at me. You can’t hide it. I’m sorry it’s like this, Bradley. I don’t know how else to get through.”

  “Let me be with you.”

  “Not tonight.”

  “I love you with all my furious heart.”

  She clicked off. Bradley stood for a moment in the cold February night, then gave his ticket to the cashier and paid the parking charge. He headed west to Sunset and the Whisky, where he had first seen Erin McKenna six years ago. She had been onstage with her first band, the Cheater Slicks, and he’d fallen for her before the first song of their first set was over. He was sixteen but looked nineteen, had a good fake ID and a solid vodka buzz. Two nights later he finally caught her eye and he had not let go. Now, heading for the front door of the Whisky, Bradley remembered their first conversation perfectly:

  When you look at me it’s like walking into a beautiful room. I’m Brad Jones.

  That’s a pretty thing to say.

  I’m short on words right now.

  I’m Erin McKenna.

  After the last set tonight, we need to talk.

  Oh, we need to, Brad Jones?

  Yes.

  What are you going to talk with if you’re short on words?

  I’ll find something.

  In honor of that memory Bradley had a vodka rocks, listened to the band, thought about Erin. Six years with her. He knew that thousands of men had seen her perform here in L.A., and half of them had fallen for her just as he had. But he had had the luck. He was the one who got her. She had given herself to him, along with her trust and love. She would soon give a child to him.

  Mike’s cool cucumber potion continued to stoke his memories, bringing them back in splendid detail. But his memories of Erin were not a comfort now; rather they were bitter torments of regret and frustration and of all that he had lost in her. Lost. Every beautiful remembered image cut him; every fond recalled word rang with impermanence. He drank two more vodkas hoping that his anger would soften but they only made it worse. He called her but she didn’t answer. He headed out of town on the 101, then cut east on Interstate 10, which took him to Monterey Park, where the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was headquartered. He pulled into the parking lot of a Circle K he knew.

  Looking back and forth between the storefront and the rearview mirror he tied a black bandana loosely around his neck. Then he set the lucky Santana Panama on his head and dropped the heavy.40 caliber derringer his mother had given him into the breast pocket of his tuxedo coat. He got them ready as he walked across the lot. He came out with a plastic bag stuffed with cash and a tall can of sweetened tea for the road and a promise from the facedown clerk not to get up off the floor for exactly five minutes. He had apologized to the terrified clerk and removed his wallet, added five twenties to the eleven lonely dollars inside, and worked it back into the man’s pocket.

  22

  Yorth stood at the open side of Hood’s cubicle with a cup of coffee in his hand and a frown on his face. He was haunted by Cepeda, and Hood could see it in his red eyes and the gray crescents under them and hear it in his voice. “I don’t know why Washington has to choose times of crisis to make things even worse for us. But the SAC wants you in L.A. in one hour.”

  “For what?”

  “He wouldn’t say.”

  “Fine with me, but it’s a two-and-half-hour drive even if you flog it.”

  “They’re sending down a helo. It’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”

  Hood raised his eyebrows. “Don’t I feel special. What’s up, Dale? Cough it.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they want to talk more about Reggie. Or Wampler or the Stingers.”

  “Why talk to just me?”

  “I told you, Charlie, I don’t know.”

  Ten minutes later Hood was tucked into a little Department of Justice Bell, looking down at the diminishing Buenavista Airport. The pilot introduced himself as a U.S. Marshal and those were the last words he spoke. Hood was taken not to the rather swank ATF regional headquarters in Glendale but to the westside Federal Building. He saw twenty-something chairs around the conference room table but there were only four people in them except for himself. He recognized two-a congressman from California, who was talking on his cell phone when Hood sat down. The other was Fredrick Lansing, acting deputy director of ATF, who shook Hood’s hand and gestured to a chair but said nothing. He’s a long way from headquarters in Washington, D.C., thought Hood. Then he interlaced his fingers on the table and looked out the window at Century City and wondered if he should have stayed in the Buckboard clubhouse to help Cepeda handle Wampler instead of going after Skull when he bolted. Maybe then Cepeda would still be alive and Wampler would have bought the farm instead. Really, where could Skull have gotten to? Well, the same place Wampler had gotten, Hood thought: away.

  Three of his four interrogators had laptops open on the table before them and small digital recorders beside the computers. A large monitor on a wheeled stand stood within eyeshot of everyone. The congressman spoke first. “I’m Representative Darren Grossly of California. Thank you for coming on short notice, Agent Hood. You must be rung out.”

  “I’m fine, sir.”

  “Any word on the Stinger?”

  “None. Wampler carj
acked an SUV ten minutes after he lost us. Now he’s in the wind.”

  Grossly was a small man with wispy white hair, fierce eyes, and an offended manner. Hood knew him as a hard-nosed conservative from the middle of the state, a power player who seemed to enjoy competition and attention. He’d seen him on TV. Grossly played the outrage card quickly and well, haranguing at any opportunity against the federal government he was a part of and against liberal social views, including abortion and gun control. Hood was a registered independent. “That Stinger is good from what, five miles out? Blow a passenger jet to kingdom come?”

  Hood nodded.

  “That’s a yes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “They’re recording is why.”

  “I see that.”

  “Then answer out loud please. Now, Mr. Hood, I didn’t fly you or Mr. Lansing or myself all the way here to talk about what happened out in the desert. I’m sure you and your ATF associates will make short work of this Wampler fellow. You have my complete confidence.”

  “We’ll stop him before he sells or uses that thing.”

  “He’s right about that,” said Lansing. Lansing was an imposing man, gray faced and gray haired. His voice was deep and resonant. He was reputed to be intelligent and dour. His overcoat lay on the expanse of table beside him.

  Grossly nodded and gave Hood a long look. “Randall, can you fire up that PowerPoint or whatever it is, and just start at the beginning?”

  Randall was fortyish, slender, and dark haired, bespectacled. “Hello, Mr. Hood, I’m Randall Schmitz. I’m a Department of Justice prosecutor. Across from me is my associate, Grace Crockett, also a DOJ lawyer. I’m sorry this whole meeting came up so quickly and, perhaps to you, rather mysteriously. I know the timing couldn’t have been worse with regard to what happened to Agent Cepeda. He gave his last full measure. So I thank you for being here at such a difficult time down in Buenavista. But, on the lighter side, I can tell you this is a very informal hearing. You are not being deposed. You will not be placed under oath. We are not here to lay groundwork for a finding or indictment. We are here to help Representative Grossly gather information about certain individuals and policies of ATF, which of course operates within the Department of Justice. Representative Grossly is on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, as I’m sure you know. So, we’re here to ask some questions and try to get some clarity on things. Specifically, we’re interested in the smuggling of guns from the United States into Mexico in the summer of two thousand ten. Here-I may as well just start out with the physics of all this.”

  Schmitz used his computer to control the images on the large monitor. Hood had never seen the first few pictures but the lawyer’s question was easy enough to answer. “Mr. Hood, can you identify this firearm?”

  “It’s a Love Thirty-two.”

  “Describe it, briefly.”

  Hood ran through the basics. Grossly’s eyebrows knit dubiously upward.

  “And these?” Schmitz continued.

  “Crates full of the same, it looks to me.” A charge of adrenaline went through Hood. Three years ago he’d seen such guns in crates while peering through a slot basement window of the Pace Arms manufacturing building. That was last anyone at ATF had seen Love 32s until some of them showed up in the hands of cartel sicarios one year later in Buenavista. But he’d never seen photographs of the newly manufactured, crated guns, except for the few he’d taken himself through that window and later included in his reports. These were of much better quality and taken up close. He wondered who took them and why, and how Grossly had gotten them.

  “Do you know where these guns were made?” asked Schmitz.

  “A thousand of them were made in Orange County, California, by Pace Arms. It’s possible they made others at that time. Or have made them since.”

  “What time are you referring to?” asked Grossly.

  “August of two thousand ten.”

  “To your knowledge, was ATF aware that Pace Arms was manufacturing these guns at that time and in that place?”

  “Yes, sir. We opened an investigation into Pace Arms. It’s well documented.”

  “And what did that investigation conclude, if anything?”

  “We confirmed that Pace Arms was manufacturing the Love Thirty-twos. Because the gun is fully automatic, they’re illegal for most people in California to buy, possess, or sell. We were building our case against Ron Pace and a Los Angeles County sheriff deputy who we believed was planning to transport the guns for illegal sale.”

  Next came pictures taken inside the Pace Arms production area. There were workers at the tables, and they looked at the cameraman, smiling with pride and admiration, as if they were in the presence of a celebrity. One of them had puckered his lips for a kiss at the moment the picture was taken.

  “Pace Arms again,” said Hood.

  “And this?”

  Hood watched the video. It showed the backside of the Pace Arms building, apparently evening but still light. Ron Pace and two Latino men-possibly two of the gunsmiths-were loading the Love 32 crates into the cargo hold of a very dirty motor home. Then came a series of still shots taken at night, showing Ron Pace and a pretty young woman loading more of the gun crates into a Ford F-250 and a Dodge Ram. They were dressed in snappy travel wear, and looked as if they were packing up for a pleasure trip.

  “ATF shot that video of the shipping dock of Pace Arms,” said Hood. “That’s Ron Pace, and his girlfriend, Sharon Novak. I think the others are the gunmakers.”

  “They’ve loaded three vehicles with crates of guns?” asked Grossly.

  “That’s what we thought.”

  “Thought?”

  “Doesn’t it look that way to you?”

  “Keep watching.”

  Hood watched video of the dirty motor home trundling across the tarmac on a charter company landing strip at John Wayne Airport in Orange County. It climbed a loading ramp into the belly of a waiting CH-47 transport helicopter with Red Cross signage, which lifted into the air. An SUV came skidding into the picture.

  “Airport security video,” said Grace Crockett. “Is that one of you ATF agents in the Yukon?” She looked at Hood with a faux innocence. She had a sweet, almost girlish voice.

  “It was me,” said Hood.

  “That’s what we had deduced,” she said. “Because all of your other agents were down near the Mexican border, correct?”

  “Right. They followed the two trucks and I took the motor home on a hunch. There was also a van that left the loading dock, so at that point, we thought the weapons were divided up into four vehicles.”

  Grossly leaned forward. “You followed the motor home on a hunch. A hunch that turned out to be very damned right. The motor home had one thousand of these machine pistols in it. Yet still it got past you.”

  Hood looked back at Grossly’s incredulous face. “I realized it too late. We were stretched thin and the helo was waiting.”

  “You seem smarter than that. Maybe you just did what you were told.”

  “Nobody told me to let a thousand machine guns get away. We were trying to stop those guns. When we pulled over the trucks down near the border, they were loaded with gun crates. But the crates were filled with clothing, mostly new pants. The load-in was a good stage play.”

  “Pants?” said Grossly.

  “Mostly children’s jeans. New ones. Different colors and cuts. Bradley Jones was driving the Ram. He said they were taking the pants down to Mexico for the poor.”

  “Did you believe Bradley Jones’s story?” asked Schmitz.

  “No. The charity work was just a cover. We chased the jeans one way and the guns went the other way.”

  Hood looked at Lansing and wondered where the moral support was. The big man sat back with his arms crossed.

  Crockett spoke again in her sweet voice. “You know him, don’t you? Jones. You’re a friend and you attended his wedding.”

  “I went to his wedding. We’re not friends
, never have been.”

  “Why doesn’t he appear in any of these pictures or videos except with the crates of pants?” Schmitz asked.

  “I’ve been wondering the same thing,” said Hood, though it seemed obvious that Bradley himself had a hand in this. “He was at the loading dock.”

  “Yet you appear,” said Crockett. “And several other ATF agents.”

  “It was our case.” Hood looked past Grace Crockett to the Century City skyline. In Iraq he had worked for Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which put him at odds with the soldiers he was investigating. Over the months he had come to know their distrust and contempt. Now he felt that same enmity coming from the people in this room.

  “Who were your Achilles team partners in this?” asked Grossly. Hood named them while the representative and lawyers wrote. “Were you the only LASD sheriff deputy attached to ATF in Operation Blowdown?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’d been assigned to ATF for how long?”

  “It was my first month.”

  “And on only your third day, you were involved in the shootout that killed Benjamin Armenta.”

  Hood said nothing. He had not fired on Armenta and he knew that Grossly must know this. The shooting had been covered widely by the media.

  Next, the monitor showed various pictures of Mexican crime scenes, all containing Love 32s. The police officers and military men looked down on the bloody bodies and guns. Then came a video news clip from a Juarez shootout that showed masked gunmen firing automatic weapons that were almost certainly Love 32s.

  The following video clips showed the weapons back in the United States one year later: police and ATF footage of the aftermath of a rampage in Buenavista that left three young men dead-and two Love 32s to be recovered.

  “Buenavista,” said Grossly. “Not the Mexican side. The American side. Our side. ATF let one thousand machine guns go south into Mexico and now they’re coming back.”

  “Hold it,” said Lansing. “A thousand machine guns got away.” He looked dolefully at Hood, then to the congressman. “But we have seen no fault of ATF. We did not let these guns walk. This was not part of Fast and Furious. This was not failed policy. Don’t try to make us a scapegoat. I won’t stand for it.”