Iron River

28

Hood sat in his Blowdown Tahoe across from the Pace Arms building and watched huge Chester Pace come lumbering from the entrance. Hood turned down the radio news. Chester ’s head shone in late-night security lights, and his pale suit rippled as he walked and he was looking down as if in thought.

There were lights still coming through the blackened windows on the first and third floors, but from this distance Hood couldn’t see in. The building was ringed by a metal fence. Eight vehicles were parked in the Pace lot, mostly older economy cars, one nicely lowered Chevy Malibu, and one battered van. Hood recorded the license plate numbers in a small notebook.

Chester Pace strode into the parking structure, and a moment later a black Lincoln Town Car came into view, listing to port, tires whistling on the concrete ramp. The Lincoln lurched to a stop at the pay booth, and Chester punched something into the keypad and the arm raised. Hood wrote down the plate numbers in his small notebook and slipped the notebook back into his coat pocket. He turned the news back up.

Four hours later, just after five A.M., twelve men came from the building in a loose group, all Latino, early twenties to sixties. They looked tired. One of them placed a card in the fence gate and then opened it. He held it open for the rest and they walked into the parking lot in loose formation, then spread out to the various cars. Through his open window, Hood heard one of them laugh and a buenas noches.

When they drove away, the lot was empty. The lights on the first floor went off. Hood looked up to the third. Two of the corner windows were not blacked out but sheltered by blinds, which were now only partially open. He could see part of a ceiling lamp, and this and the blinds suggested a residence. Hood saw two figures inside, a man and a woman, moving slowly and closely as if in conversation.

He sat there in the dark for a few minutes. The lights on floor three went out. He kept waiting for his cell phone to ring with news about Jimmy, but it did not. Twenty-four hours since his abduction, thought Hood, Buenavista crawling with Guardsmen, and the president still holding up the possibility of a military surge into Mexico. Hood hated that idea, but he’d take it if the U.S. Marines got Jimmy back. Fat chance of that, he thought. The only way to get Jimmy out of Mexico was to deal with the people who took him. Simple. But if the Gulf Cartel wanted Jimmy’s headless body found on a road somewhere as a warning to law enforcement or other cartels, then there would be no word from them, ever. Hood’s hope was growing dimmer and his anger was burning brighter.

Late afternoon the next day, Hood was back. It was five o’clock. Same lights on the same floors, same vehicles in the lot. No Chester Pace. Hood’s background check of Chester had revealed no criminal record. He had paid back taxes of nearly three hundred thousand dollars last year, which on top of the legal fees to defend himself and Pace Arms had all but wiped him out. He had no children, an engineering degree from Cal Poly, and according to his CDL, he wore no corrective lenses and weighed three hundred and eighty-four pounds.

The background check on Ron Pace had revealed a twenty-two-year-old high school dropout with no criminal record, either. He was single and held two patents, one for a toilet bowl sweep and one for a device that would keep umbrellas from being ruined by the wind. From a smattering of articles written on the Pace family over the years, Hood had learned that Ron’s father had committed suicide right here at Pace Arms when Ron was ten. Ron’s mother had married Chester the next year. Two of the articles touched upon Maureen Pace’s hospitalization for schizophrenia.

Around five thirty, Hood watched as Ron Pace and a pretty young woman came from the Pace Arms building. They walked arm in arm across the entryway and into the parking structure. A moment later a red Mini Cooper zoomed to the pay booth and the arm went up. Pace waved to the attendant, then sped out. Hood followed. The Mini weaved through the traffic up Baker and turned north on Harbor Boulevard. Hood stayed back. Pace signaled a turn into Fairview State Hospital. The Mini stopped at a guard gate, and Pace talked to the guard. A moment later the gate swung open. Hood waited for the Mini to clear, then he pulled up to the gate and showed the guard his federal marshal’s badge. He tailed Pace to a parking lot shared by three of the smaller buildings of the complex. When Pace parked, Hood found a spot at the opposite end but facing the same direction. Hood watched Pace and the woman walk into what looked like a large Victorian home that stood apart from the other buildings and was surrounded by a trim green lawn.

One hour later they came back out. Hood waited half an hour, then walked across the lot and the grass and into the old Victorian.

Inside, it was dimly lit and quiet. It smelled lightly of mildew and disinfectant and age. The foyer had a sign-in log. Hood printed the name Sam Fischer beneath Ron Pace’s entry and wrote in the time of day, and in the “to see” space he wrote “Maureen Pace” and under “relation” he wrote “friend.”

Confessing that this was his first visit to Maureen, Hood was given her room number by a helpful young patient with black curly hair and ice blue eyes who was watering the plastic palm in a brass pot in the hallway. She smiled beautifully. When she tilted the big red plastic watering can back up to continue her task, Hood noted that not one drop of water came out.

Hood stood outside Maureen’s room and looked past the open top of the Dutch door. When he knocked, she came into the small foyer with an inquisitive look on her face.

“Good evening, Maureen. I’m Sam Fischer. Do you remember me from Pace Arms?”

“Of course. How are you? Come in.”

Hood waited for her to open the bottom half of the door. She smiled at him and stepped aside, then led Hood down the short hallway and into a sitting room. There was a fireplace with no fire and a braided rug on top of the carpeted floor and a bentwood rocker and a love seat facing each other over a small pine coffee table. There was a small kitchen. Two walls had tall corniced windows that offered views of the lawn and beyond. The glass was reinforced with steel safety mesh.

Maureen took the rocker. She was slightly built and pretty although she took no pains with her appearance. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her face was pale and lined. There were ribbons of gray in her dark brown hair. She wore a denim dress that looked two sizes too big for her, and a pair of athletic shoes with no laces in them. Hood thought she looked incomplete.

“I was hoping you might be able to put me in touch with Ron,” he said. “I’m unemployed. Guns are what I know. Manufacturing, sales and marketing, admin-I can do it all and I’ll take any work I can get. When I ring the bell at the old building, nobody answers.”

“Oh, the company is long bankrupt,” said Maureen. “They don’t have a penny. But I see Ron almost every day. He was here just a few hours ago.”

“How is he?”

“Good. Good. He took up with that girl he was so crazy for the whole time- Sharon.”

“Of course, I always liked her. What’s Ron doing for employment, then, if Pace is completely defunct?”

“I don’t know, really. He says he has an office there. He says he goes into work. Just a couple of weeks ago, he said he had a big project starting up. But I don’t believe him. I think he makes up good news to give me something to be happy about. Ever since I told him about the caves, he’s been quick to make things up.”

“The caves?”

“Exactly.”

Hood paused and looked out the mesh-reinforced windows to the shady lawn. There was a round vinyl dining table with chairs around it and a birdbath with a mockingbird splashing and drinking. In the evening light, the grounds seemed bucolic and hopeful.

“How’s Chester?”

She studied Hood. “The caves rim the Pacific coast from Chile to Alaska. Not far offshore. Some believe they’re inhabited. I say believe what you want because the Mayan calendar only goes up to the year 2012. Just do the math on that one. Chet? Oh, he’s back, of course. I don’t see much of him for how much of him there is to see.”

Hood nodded. “What did Ron tell you about the big project starting up?”

“He didn’t say much. He called it a secret job and he’d be able to give me details someday but not yet. I can tell when Ron is excited about something. He glows. He always did, even as a little boy. The first Slinky he ever got in his Christmas stocking? You could have lit all of Seattle with the light on Ronnie’s face. He’s got two speeds-zero and full blast. And when something excites him, look out.”

“I wonder,” said Hood.

“Wonder what?”

“If he might be making guns again.”

“That’s prohibited by the terms of the judgment.”

“Yes, I guess it would be.”

“But who’s to say he’s not making guns in one of those caves?”

“I doubt that, Maureen.”

“Well, making guns is the only thing he knows how to do, so…”

Hood nodded.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked.

“One of the newspapers had it. From years ago.”

She studied Hood again. He sensed in her a patience that might be endless. “What did you say you did for us?”

“Down in manufacturing mostly. Built a whole lot of Hawk twenty-twos and a fair amount of the nines.”

“Oh, that twenty-two Long was a sweet pistol.”

“Still is.”

“I carried one until they took it away. Never used it except once at a restaurant. I was seated outside and I put it on my place mat to hold it down in the wind. They frowned on that!”

“I’ll bet.”

“But really, we’re responsible for our actions. Finally, finally, we are.” Her gaze held Hood for a long beat, then she looked outside. “The kittens are in the fountain again.”

“Nice.”

“I don’t remember you.”

“I worked nights and swing, so I didn’t see much of the higher-ups.”

“You wouldn’t be a lawyer, would you, sniffing around for some money that isn’t there?”

“No. I’m just a gunmaker looking for a job.”

“Good luck, Mr. Fischer. The Ring of Fire is dead and gone now. Too bad. There were six different companies at one time, and Paces ran four of them. There was Tony, my first husband, and then Chet, and all their brothers and sisters. Seven impressive Paces. Chet was huge and Barb was tiny, so figure that one out. They all got married and had kids and made guns by the skil-dillion. Pretty much all the upper management were Paces by blood or marriage. Good jobs and good pay and good products. The liberals killed us. They think guns run out on the streets and shoot people. They think guns rape women and sell drugs. They think guns walk into classrooms and kill students. They don’t have the guts to look into their own souls and blame human behavior on the humans. They think… well, I don’t know what they think. But they kept looking for a way to shut us down. When that gun went off accidentally and little Miles died, it was the end of everything. He was a beautiful little boy. It gutted the Ring of Fire. Scattered the Paces. Look at me. A crazy lady in a nuthouse and I’m all of forty-eight years old. Can you believe that? Look at me, Sam. I feel like the ruins of civilization itself.”

Hood looked. “You’re still young and lovely.”

“Of course you say that. But I detect dishonesty in you. It’s time for you to go. I hope you find employment.”

Hood drove back to Pace Arms and resumed his stakeout. His conscience muttered to him about lying to a crazy woman, but he told himself it was for the greater good. He knew this was the first refuge of the scoundrel but tried to believe it anyway.

Again he waited for the call about Jimmy, but there was no call. Forty-eight hours now. His muttering conscience went silent and his heart filled with uneasy anger.

Then the phone finally rang, but it was Buenavista PD captain Gabe Reyes reporting that he’d found a cell phone and a charger under Mike Finnegan’s pillow an hour ago. None of the nurses had ever seen the phone or heard him talking on it, and when Reyes went to the messages and call logs and contacts, they contained not a single name, number, or message.

“He said he never used it,” said Reyes. “That it was just for emergencies. It’s one of those prepaid models. I think he was whispering or texting. That’s why they never heard him talk.”

“Whispering or texting who?”

“I doubt it was somebody wanting to buy a shower curtain. You don’t hide a phone and not use it. And I checked-if you lie in that bed where he does, and you can use your right hand, there’s an outlet within reaching distance. He could have been using and charging that thing late at night when the nurses were changing shift, not paying such close attention.”

Hood thought that all of Gabriel’s police work added up nicely, but he wasn’t sure to what. “Thanks, Gabe.”

“I want to get Father Quang to talk with Finnegan.”

“Explain.”

“He’s a priest out of El Centro. Vietnamese, you know, a lot of them are good Catholics. Quang has a deep sense of evil because he has seen things. He is bright. I think he might help us cut through some of Mike’s bullshit.”

“I’d like to be there for that.”

“Sure. One more thing, deputy. Beth said IHOP was terrific. She had a light in her eyes. Treat her well.”

“Yes, I will.”

Around nine o’clock, Hood got out of his truck and shut the door quietly and trotted across the street. He climbed the fence and strode across the entrance walkway and the little perimeter of flower bed. He followed the edge of the building until he found a dark and sheltered place, then he squatted amidst the shade-tolerant begonias and rhododendron and African violets and looked through the smoked glass. An early article about Pace Arms said that manufacturing was done on the first floor, and this appeared to be true. In the faint light within, Hood saw the twelve men working diligently at their benches, all fingers and elbows, all working on what appeared to be small-caliber semiautomatic pistols.

Back in business, he thought.

He was almost all the way home to Buenavista when Ozburn called: Raydel Luna was here in California and Jimmy was alive somewhere down in Mexico, and there was a plan.