The border Lords ch-4

by T. Jefferson Parker

  "Ensenada, then Mulege."

  "Business or pleasure?"

  "I have charitable donations from the Los Angeles Diocese. Mostly clothing. Nowhere near ten thousand dollars' worth. I make this trip four times a year."

  "What's in the luggage?"

  "More clothing."

  "To churches? Schools?"

  Bradley tapped the clipboard. "Mostly churches. Some orphanages. It's all here."

  "May I see that?"

  Bradley handed him the clipboard. The big man leafed through the first few pages, then placed a dark thumb under the bottom sheet and riffled through the stack like a deck of cards. Bradley sensed the sheer volume of the useless information dimming the agent's curiosity. He handed back the clipboard.

  "Good deeds. Have a safe trip."

  "Thank you."

  Bradley left his window down and lit a cigarette as he joined the traffic moving south through Tijuana. He smiled to himself, checked his new haircut in the rearview. It was short but casual, kind of a jarhead meets Brad Pitt thing, he thought. This part of the trip always found him happy. He put on a new demo CD by Erin and the Inmates. God, could she sing. And write music. Gifts, he thought. But I have work. Work is for those who don't have gifts.

  And Bradley was happy to have the work. These weekly runs from El Monte to Herredia's compound, El Dorado, were the real corner-stone of his fortune. He made roughly fifteen thousand dollars per week, tax free, in cash, fifty-two times a year, year in and year out. Eight hundred grand in the last twelve months. All this for roughly eight hours of work per week-it was four hours down and four back, depending on the northbound wait at the border. Sometimes he'd stay overnight and party with El Tigre, but most weeks he would hurry home to Erin. That was the longest four hours he had ever experienced. It wasn't like he could break the speed limit with fifteen grand vacuum-packed and hidden in the car, but seventy miles per hour was torture to Bradley with four hundred Porsche horses under his foot and Erin waiting for him just a few miles away. The danger, the cash, the speed limit, the lack of sleep and the absence of Erin all conspired to make Bradley something close to crazy. They made the most emotional love on those strangely beautiful mornings.

  So, coupled with his base LASD paycheck of $1,280 per week and the decent health benefits and retirement plan, not to mention Erin's increasingly handsome income from her performances and recording and publishing, Bradley was amassing a fortune that hardly even showed. Erin had no idea of it, though to explain some large purchases, Bradley had intimated a substantial inheritance from his mother. He felt shame in this, one of his two large dishonesties with Erin. But he couldn't tell her the truth without turning her into a criminal accomplice. His second sin was using Erin as part of an alibi to cover killing a man he hated. He had badly needed that alibi. He had not felt good about it and he still didn't. She suspected what he had done but she had not confronted him. Charlie Hood knew he'd killed the man but he couldn't prove it. The cops couldn't prove it, either. Screw them, he thought: I did what needed to be done.

  He pictured his secret vault, beneath the big barn on their property. It contained his most important secrets-his history, his fortune, even the poems he had slaved at over the last five years. Maybe someday I can show her our fortune, he thought, driving through the black Baja night toward El Dorado. It's really her fortune, isn't it? She's the reason for all this, isn't she? It's for her. For the children we'll have someday. For their children. So they won't ever have to be the weak of the world. So they won't have to work their hands to the bone for someone else. So they can live a little.

  He imagined showing Erin the safes with the cash he'd earned, and the jewelry and watches he'd been stealing since he was eleven years old. He imagined showing her Joaquin, El Famoso, his ancestor. He'd love to watch her run her beautiful fair fingers through all the diamonds and gold and pearls, even the cold, grimy loot. All for you, my love. All for you!

  15

  Herredia's compound awaited him, as always, at the end of a labyrinth of tortured roads and guarded gates and surreal walls that seemed to separate nothing from nothing and were patrolled by men in Federal Judicial Police uniforms. Bradley knew that some of them were real FJP officers, others less so.

  He also knew that he had never been brought to El Dorado exactly the same way twice. For the last half hour of driving he was accompanied by two SUVs bristling with men and guns, one behind him and one ahead. Tonight a helicopter hovered low, like a Christmas star to lead them on. Then Bradley saw the pastures and the cattle frosted by moonlight and the airstrip and the nine-hole course upon which Herredia merrily hacked and cheated on his scores, and then Bradley saw the compound softly lit and nestled into a valley ahead.

  Bradley dined with Herredia and old Felipe in the stately hacienda-style dining room, the rough-hewn table piled with grass-fed beef and quail shot the day before and a dish of white asparagus roasted with goat cheese, and platters of fresh cold jicama and cucumbers and carrots served with lime juice. Herredia was a big man, thick-bodied and curly-haired, often sunburned. He was a man of extremes, Bradley had found, capable of generosity as well as mayhem.

  Herredia told them tales of his latest fishing expedition, a ten-day raid on Isla Cerralvo near La Paz. One night after fishing he'd gone to one of La Ventana's fabled cockfights and drunkenly bet two thousand U.S. dollars on an unfavored rooster. But he had won the bet and bought freedom for his heroic gallo, then gotten half the village drunk for the next forty-eight hours.

  Bradley listened. Herredia was a good storyteller, although his stories featured only one hero-himself.

  Later they retired to the poolside cabana for cigars and brandy. Three pretty, well-dressed gringas joined them and the blond one talked to Bradley at length about G-20's smart inclusion of developing economies, and the apparent fact that Iran's latest "secret" uranium-enrichment site didn't have half the centrifuge capacity that even the smallest nuclear power plant would need to operate, which, of course, left it good for one thing: weapons. Then she pried off her espadrilles and tossed her dress and undies onto a chaise longue and dropped into the pool and waved him to come in.

  Bradley excused himself and took a walk out to the pasture, tailed at a polite distance by three real or fake FJP officers. He looked at the stars and thought of Erin. He tried to bounce a message off the moon to her but doubted that it got through. Later Herredia offered Bradley good brandy and a Cuban cigar and they sat on the ends of the chaise longues leaning forward like men unable to relax. The women swam and drank. Felipe sat in a chair across the pool with the moths buzzing the tiki torch above him and his shotgun across his lap.

  "What did Rocky tell you?" asked Herredia.

  "Nothing."

  "But Rocky cannot say nothing."

  "A little, sir. He said you had an idea for me."

  "Yes. Yes. Listen. Another story from El Tigre. There is a man, an American citizen. He is a partner of mine in the United States. I had to trust him but I never trusted him. He did little things for me. He bought some product at a high price. Okay, I figure he's a fool. He loans money to a friend of mine and lets the man not pay back. Okay, he's a puto who wants buy big friends. He flies a plane. He uses his plane to move some product for me. He makes me a good deal. Fine, fine, fine. He has money. He buys homes in the U.S. and rents them to my men. This is good for us both. Real estate is down. Rent is cheap. The houses are nice. My men take good care of them. They have big screens and good air-conditioning. They are in good neighborhoods. Then suddenly my men are dead. Slaughtered. They were no more than boys. Murdered, right there in the safe house. The safe house! I suspect that Armenta was informed. He's trying to run me out of California, as you know. This man, then, his name is Sean Gravas. He rents to me but informs to the Gulf Cartel, correct? He's a traitor. Imagine his arrogance. He allows my men to be murdered."

  "That's a terrible thing, Carlos. The safe houses were a good idea. I'm surprised that there might be a leak in y
our organization."

  Herredia's eyes flashed. "The leak was Sean Gravas. But his betrayal and murder of my men was not enough. Now he wants to buy guns from me."

  "The Love Thirty-twos?"

  "Es verdad! He wants one hundred Love Thirty-twos. I guess that he wants them for Armenta. I think that Armenta saw one and now he wants to have them for himself."

  Bradley considered. He drew on the good Cubano and swirled the brandy in his snifter. "You could sell Gravas the guns and then kill him and take them back."

  Herredia glowered at him. He had thick eyebrows that moved tellingly-up toward each other in the middle and he looked soulful; down and he looked stoked for violence. Now the eyebrows were down. "I could rape his wife and behead his children while he watches, too. I could detach his face and have it sewn onto a soccer ball and kick it down the street. But I am not that kind of man."

  "I meant no insult."

  "It is gringo arrogance to insult the Mexican. Call him an animal. A beast."

  "I've never said nor believed that. With all due respect, Senor Herredia, I descend from one of the greatest Mexicans of them all."

  "Murrieta," Herredia said quietly. He smiled.

  "You've seen the proof of this, sir."

  "It was an unforgettable moment."

  "Tell me your plan."

  Now Herredia's eyebrows went to neutral. "I have a better idea what to do with Sean Gravas. I want to give him to you. As a gift. He is an American partner of the Gulf Cartel. He has crossed an important line. And I want you to give him to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. He can spend his life in prison. Here. See the man. When he meets with Mateo, my secret spy took his picture!"

  Herredia produced a cell phone, touched the screen with his big suntanned fingers, then let Bradley scroll through six pictures of Sean Gravas. He was big and tattooed and looked every inch a gun and meth man. Bradley felt his heart do a little jig. An American cartel partner would be a splashy prize, he thought. An American who housed killers on U.S. soil and arranged murders and used his own plane to fly dope and money around? An American buying one hundred machine pistols from one Mexican drug cartel to sell to another? A trophy that would be his to award to a deserving law enforcer. Charlie Hood would die for a chance to impress his Blowdown handlers with Sean Gravas and atone for some of the one thousand Love 32s they let slip by last year. But maybe Hood wasn't the right deputy to gift in such a spectacular way…

  "What do you want in return?"

  Herredia raised his eyebrows in a show of innocence, and spoke softly. "I ask for nothing."

  Bradley smiled inwardly. He nodded and sipped the brandy. "I would arrange for Gravas to be arrested in the act of buying the Love Thirty-twos from your men, correct?"

  Herredia nodded and sipped his brandy thoughtfully.

  "So we keep the guns."

  "Yes."

  "And the money."

  "Yes. Of course."

  "What about your men? We couldn't let them just walk away."

  "They will be men without value. American boys purchased for money to do a job. Take them. They will know nothing."

  Bradley knew that one hundred new Love 32s, made by his friend Ron Pace and outfitted with the sound suppressors and extra-capacity magazines, would cost Herredia right at one hundred thousand dollars. Who knew what price Sean Gravas could get from Benjamin Armenta and his murderous Gulf Cartel.

  Bradley felt another bump of excitement. The whole idea was crazy in a way that appealed to him. Outlandish, yet Herredia could easily afford to punish a traitorous partner, sacrifice more than a hundred grand cash and forfeit a hundred new machine pistols-considering the hundreds of thousands of dollars that he received from Bradley every week at El Dorado. And, Bradley thought, if you considered that other couriers were bringing Herredia like amounts of drug profits from elsewhere in the United States, the cash and guns were just drops in Herredia's bucket. And he had many buckets. Bradley wondered what Herredia wanted in return.

  He thought about the idea for a moment before he spoke. "How can I know about this deal between Gravas and the North Baja Cartel? I'm a simple patrol deputy."

  "Because you are a good cop. And you are lucky, too. You say you have knowledge that an American criminal, Sean Gravas, may be buying guns. You don't know details yet. But you believe your informants have good information. Of course. And as it will turn out, your informants are truthful. You will be congratulated. You will come under no suspicion at all."

  "Why not?"

  Herredia smiled. "Because American policemen do not do such things."

  Bradley smiled, too. For a man with blunt lusts for money and power, and a sixth-grade education, Herredia sometimes had an incisive worldview. He was right. An American cop might sell a little confiscated dope on the side. Might let a working girl stay free to work, for an occasional favor. But no one would suspect a young deputy of helping one Mexican drug cartel destroy another.

  Bradley knew that some of his fellow LASD deputies would wonder how he could be so lucky. The same deputy who had rescued a kidnapped boy on his very first LASD patrol? He'd need answers for questions like that. And there were other problems.

  "What if he's ATF or DEA?" Bradley asked. "They'll spring their trap and take the money and guns with or without your help or mine. And if any of your people are unlucky enough to be caught, too, they'll lean heavily, Carlos. American prison terms are not light. That's how the feds work their way up to people like you."

  Herredia drew on his cigar and looked down at the coal. "Then I have only sacrificed a few weapons and a small amount of money that was not yet mine."

  "Sacrificed for me? Why? I don't understand why you would do that." He was dying to understand. What did Herredia really want from this? It was much more than a simple favor. It had to be.

  "This Mr. Gravas does strange things," said Herredia. "He growls viciously at people. He claims to have performed a miracle of healing upon a dog. He now flies around with this dog in the plane beside him. He has this dog baptized. Or so he claims to my men. He is seen in Puerto Nuevo the night that six gunmen are slaughtered yet no one sees or hears a thing. He's too crazy to be with DEA or ATF."

  "What if it's just part of his cover?"

  "Then he is corrupt DEA or ATF. Murderous. This makes him even more valuable. My friends in the Baja State Police will share evidence with your friends in the news media. A very good story, yes? The flying gringo is buying guns for the Gulf Cartel. Where else can this man get one hundred fifty thousand American dollars in cash? There will be abundant testimony. And I will give up evidence of his ownership of the safe house where the sicarios died. And more evidence that he knew his renters were bad men. The ATF and DEA do not rent housing to Mexican killers on American soil. We can be sure of that."

  Bradley thought this over. "No, I wouldn't think so."

  "Then you accept the gift?"

  Bradley imagined the benefits of having provided the tip that had taken down an American working for a Mexican drug cartel, and led to a small fortune in arms and money-all of which would be retained by the LASD under asset forfeiture laws. Working behind the curtain, choosing the right people to take down Sean Gravas, he could earn goodwill that would trickle down to him for years into the future. An investment, he thought. Something you do now to earn dividends later.

  "The first ten guns will be delivered to Gravas next week in Ensenada," said Herredia. "This makes it easy for both of us. The other ninety will be in L.A. They can be built almost instantly, now that Ron Pace can build them without interference from American police or ATF."

  Bradley pictured the new Pace Arms factory hidden in Tijuana, partially financed by Herredia, and fully protected by him. Ron Pace had pumped out thirteen hundred more beautiful new Love 32s earlier in the year and it had taken him all of eleven days. Eleven.

  "And you think Armenta will pay fifteen hundred per gun?"

  "He'll pay whatever Gravas asks. The Zetas are aband
oning him here in Mexico. If he doesn't rearm quickly, I'll bury him. He knows this. It's why he is attacking my men in California. Do you accept my gift?"

  Bradley weighed the consequences. At age eleven, he had dreamed of jumping off the Oceanside Pier at night with his eyes closed. In the dream he was too afraid and he couldn't do it. But the next night he'd badgered his mother into driving him to the pier. He lied about his reasons. He had a beach towel and a heavy winter jacket with him. It was summer but the breeze was cool and the water, Bradley had read in the Union-Tribune, was sixty-one degrees. As they walked toward the end of the pier, he had explained to her what he had dreamed and what he was doing now and she said almost nothing. This surprised him. When they reached the end he told her he loved her and he closed his eyes and jumped. The pier was higher than in the dream, and the fall was longer than he had imagined, and the impact harder. He had swum back to the beach and climbed out of the cold Pacific and his mother had met him on the sand at the foot of the pier with the towel and jacket. He was numb with cold. She had hugged him tight and he had felt her large warmth trying to get into him. Shivering, his heart pounding, he had asked his mother to hold the beach towel around him, then stripped naked and pulled the big winter parka over himself. She had gathered up his wet clothes and put her free arm around him and together they hustled back to the car.

  "Yes," he said. "I'll accept that gift."

  Herredia's weathered fisherman's face broke into a smile. "I want this transaction to happen without delay. It will bring us to deeper friendship, Bradley. I will deliver the prize to you and your Los Angeles Sheriff's Department."

  "This is good, Carlos."

  "No existen balas capaces de matar nuestros suenos."

  "There are no bullets that can kill our dreams. It was true before and it's true now. Thank you, Carlos. You continue to smile on me."

  "Malverde smiles on both of us."

  "Malverde kind of gives me the creeps, sir. Now, tell me what you want in return."