Iron River

20

Hood sat on his stool in Hell on Wheels, the ATFE Dumpster modified for surveillance. The tow truck he had used to transport it was now parked over near the restrooms. Hood was borderline claustrophobic and disliked being caged. He ate a candy bar and drank a can of odd-tasting iced tea.

Twelve hours ago, Ivan Dragovitch had called Hood about the ammo sale, and Hood was now near ground zero of the deal, a rest stop on Interstate 8 midway between San Diego and Yuma. Ozburn and Bly had given him hell and their blessing, but this was still a legal deal, and bad as it smelled, it didn’t warrant the whole Achilles team. Within the ATFE ranks, small individual operations were encouraged because they often got results and were an important method of finding possible informants. Hood told them nothing of his relationship with Kyle Johnson. He wanted to see Bradley buy fifty thousand rounds of.32 ACP with his own eyes.

Dragovitch had suggested the rest stop. Here, in the far corner, at nine P.M., Kyle Johnson would inspect and legally purchase the product from an unlicensed munitions dealer named Wesley Savage. Ammo sales were not federally regulated, and the state forms were cursory at best. Dragovitch would preside and Hood would witness and record. Hood knew that Bradley could have gone online to any number of sites and had the quantity drop-shipped to his home, but this would have subjected him to the security protocols of the company and to their suspicions and possible relationship to ATFE. Savage’s prices were higher because he had no questions and filled out no forms.

Sitting now on the stool in the Dumpster in the middle of the immense desert, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his fingers crossed, Hood saw himself from the outside for a moment. There I am on a stool in a cage. All the many paths have led to this.

He thought of Beth Petty and her nervous chatter and the tone of her skin against the yellow dress. He wanted to touch her.

He held the video recorder up to one of the holes. He had positioned Hell on Wheels way out on the edge of the parking area to give himself a generous field of vision. With the zoom he could see across to the “Dangers of the Desert” display and the vending machines and the strip of ground with the NO DOGS sign above it and the sun-blackened turds dry in the dirt. Past them were a flat expanse of desert in which the creosote and ocotillo and cholla stood disparate in the windless evening. At the end of everything, the sun lowered into a lake of red.

Dragovitch pulled into the rest area at eight o’clock. Hood watched his black Dodge pickup lap the parking lot once, then roll to the far corner, closest to the desert, where pets were allowed. Dragovitch got out and left the door open, rolled his shoulders, looked around with casual alertness. Hood expected Sheila to get out next, but she didn’t. Instead Ivan whistled sharply and a white blur sailed from the pickup cab and into his waiting arms. Dragovitch held up the wiggling papillon, then set it down, and it pranced sharp-footed to business in the dog patch.

Hood sat on his stool and noted the final lengthening of shadows before sundown. He rechecked his recorder settings and the clamp holding the concave mike dish. He watched through a peephole. The rest area was getting busier, cars pulling in and out, and families hustling for the bathrooms and lining up for the vending machines, the big rigs moaning into their dedicated area and moaning out again.

The meeting time came and went. Dragovitch paced and the papillon lay on a cushion on the tailgate. Hood was tired of sitting in the Dumpster and he had the feeling of things going wrong.

A kid ran all the way from the vending machines to throw away a wrapper. Hood lowered the mike and backed away from the spy hole. He watched the boy lift the top and he felt the wrapper tap his head, then fall to the floor of the bin beside him. The kid brushed his hands together with a job well done, then turned and sprinted away.

Nine fifteen.

Bradley and his gang unloaded the ammunition in the Jacumba garage of Israel Castro, a friend and confederate. Jacumba was a smuggler’s roost between San Diego and El Centro, a hilly warren of trails and tunnels and dirt roads straddling Mexico and the United States, and Bradley liked this rough country and the lawlessness that hovered over it. He had met Castro through Coleman Draper, the reserve deputy shot dead by Hood. Castro had offered to store and later transport the ammunition, and get Savage’s truck down into Mexico for sale. Bradley knew it would fetch a good price from any narco with horses and acres to enjoy, or simply product to transport. The men worked quickly and silently, and when the heavy crates were arranged on the pallets, they said good-bye with the touching of fists. Car doors opened and closed and the metal garage door rumbled down and the motion lights at the gate held the dust for a moment, then even that was gone.

Bradley set off east and fast. The new Cayenne Turbo was a dream, four-hundred-plus horses throbbing through him as he penetrated space like a bullet. He thought of his mother again, a woman who loved speed and was sometimes possessed by a reckless abandon that had thrilled him from a very early age. But now he was driving away from Erin, and this pulled at his heart like gravity and he believed he could feel the distance growing between them, and it seemed unnatural and perilous. He had never asked his mother if speed felt good when it was taking her away from what she loved. He had never asked her about her love of anything but himself.

At nine thirty he sped past the rest stop where the deal was going down and he caught a glimpse of Dragovitch’s big black Ram far back in the parking lot. Smiling, he gunned it. Forty minutes later he pulled into the driveway in the hills outside of Quartz.

She was waiting for him on the front porch. Her dark hair was up and she wore a red chiffon dress and stood partially hidden by a porch column, her arms bare and her neck bepearled and her nails lacquered. She was barefoot.

Bradley left the engine running and made the porch in a few long strides and dropped a black suede Harley-Davidson purse to the boards.

“You’re beautiful tonight, Sheila. Yes. Here’s five thousand for you.”

“You said nothing about money.”

“Burn it if you want. You earned every penny of it.”

“I never asked for a penny.”

“And I thought you’d like the Harley bag.”

“What else have I earned?” She stepped forward and lifted her face to his, and Bradley kissed her on the cheek. Her perfume was strong and enticing. “Please come in. We have time for a drink.”

“No. He’ll be back.”

“It would mean very much to me.”

“As it would to me, Sheila. But we can’t let love make us foolish. Ivan would shoot us both.”

“Don’t belittle love. I’ve seen it in your eyes. You can’t hide it.”

“No, I can’t.”

She took his face in her warm soft hands and he kissed her deeply and with some feeling, but foremost in his mind was to leave this place unshot and make it back to Erin as soon as possible. He felt Sheila’s body against his and the wonderful offered weight of her. She was more than three times his age and amply beautiful still, but this was Erin ’s moment as were all moments, and in this thing that resembled unselfishness Bradley put stock and took pride. He broke away.

“You take my breath away, young lady.”

“I want something beautiful to remember you.”

He took her hand and looked into her eyes as he spoke. “‘Love is a war of lights in the lightning flashes / two bodies blasted in a single burst of honey.’ You can have that.”

She looked and he could see the pulse in the pale trunk of her neck. “You wrote that for your fiancée.”

“Neruda wrote it for my fiancée.”

“But you gave it to me.”

“The more you give away, the more you have.”

“So it is only about you having more?”

“I hope to be a better man than that someday. Until then, enjoy the five grand. And you might want to do something about the lipstick before Ivan comes home. I don’t think he’ll be too happy. Sheila, I thank you for bringing such a treasure to me.”

“You’re nothing but a criminal. But I know I’ll dream of you again and again.”

Bradley touched her cheek and got back into the Cayenne and drove hard.

At almost ten, Dragovitch hoisted himself off the tailgate of his truck and flipped open his cell phone with a fast flick of his wrist. The dog sat up. Hood watched the man shake his head and grab a handful of his own hair and pull on it. A moment later, Dragovitch came lumbering across the parking lot toward the Dumpster.

Hood climbed out, his heart sinking, pissed off.

“Tragedy, Deputy Hood. Mr. Savage was kidnapped by four masked men at gunpoint while loading the product into his truck. He was blindfolded and his money and cell phone were taken. He was driven far into the hills and released without his shoes or socks. It took him two hours to get to a phone and call me. His truck is gone. The ammunition is gone. He tore apart his shirt to make shoes. He is furious.”

This tale confirmed what Hood had felt, and now he was angry at himself for not feeling it more strongly and more clearly. “Ivan. I’m looking at a real short list of suspects who knew about this deal.”

Dragovitch spread his arms wide, hands open. “And of course Mr. Savage said the same thing about me and the armed robbers. But I will tolerate no suspicion. None from you and none from Mr. Savage. My reputation with law enforcement is perfect. Mr. Savage has his enemies and they have delivered him to this. I take no blame. The world has many ears and many pockets, Mr. Hood. You know this.”

“Fuck, do I ever.”

He stepped away and called Ozburn. Halfway through his explanation, he thought he understood Sheila Dragovitch’s intent stare at Bradley’s photograph. On this hunch he asked Ozburn for directions to the Dragovitch home in the Quartz hills.

He caught up with Ivan in the pet area, where the papillon sniffed and lifted his leg with an air of discrimination.

“I want you to stay here for half an hour, Ivan.”

“Why?”

“Stay put. Don’t move. Direct order.”

Hood pushed the tow truck hard, but it did him little good. It was all torque and no speed. He fruitlessly watched for Bradley’s Cayenne coming from the other direction. Forty minutes later he rumbled slowly down a dirt road until he came to the Dragovitch driveway. He switched off his headlights. He saw no cars, and the garage was closed. The house lights were dim inside. He drove past and up the hill opposite and parked. He could see the front of the house and the drive and garage. TV light shifted inside. Someone moved within the living room window, and Hood followed the shape behind the loosely closed blinds. Through his binoculars he saw Sheila carrying a drink toward the TV light. She sat. She was wearing a light blue robe and her hair was down. She set the glass on a side table and curled her feet up under her and settled the robe over her legs. Her face was shiny with cream. She pulled the robe collar up closer to her neck and hung her head, and it looked to Hood like she was nodding off or sobbing or both. Twenty minutes later, Ivan’s truck turned onto the driveway. Hood waited a few minutes, then left.