Iron River

4

Hood got up early to move the last of his possessions into his Buenavista rental home. The dawn was pink, and a vapor light on the carport burned white over the driveway. He carried the boxes into the house. His old Camaro wouldn’t hold much so he’d rented a trailer. He would soon receive an ATFE take-home vehicle. Hood was thirty and never married and he had few things. As he wrestled another box from the trailer, he was thinking it would be nice to have a dog.

The house was a 1920s adobe, one of ten tucked amidst the hills on the northwest side of town, a development that never quite caught on. The place came furnished and had a new swamp cooler. The road in was graded dirt with ruts for gutters, but the hillside views were good: south to old town in which the bell tower of the church was still the highest point, east to infinite desert, and west to more desert and black-orange sunsets that covered miles.

Hood had arrived in Buenavista forty-eight hours ago, just enough time to meet the local chief of police, shake hands with the three members of the ATFE task force he was assigned to, then participate in the gun buy that had resulted in the killing of two men. One of the dead was a teenaged boy named Gustavo Armenta, who was on a date that night, and as Hood carried another box into the house, he pictured the way Gustavo had led his girlfriend by the hand from the restaurant patio and how a few moments later an errant bullet had found his heart in the darkness fifty yards away, stopping eighteen years of past and sixty years of future dead and forever. The other dead man was a gun dealer with a revoked license.

Hood heard a distant noise and through a window saw a vehicle coming slowly up the road. The headlights raked and bounced, and a while later the police cruiser came to a stop just outside the carport light.

Gabriel Reyes got out and let the door close quietly, bumping it shut with his hip.

“I’m glad I didn’t have to wake you up,” he said.

“Coffee?”

“Please.”

In the kitchen Hood poured a cup and Reyes looked around the old home. His uniform was clean and pressed. His expression was that of a man expecting the worst.

“I guess you don’t come out this early with good news,” said Hood.

“Benjamin Armenta ring a bell?”

“Gulf Cartel.”

“The boy who was killed last night is Gustavo, his son. He lived in Buenavista, on the Mexican side. Engaged to the girl. It’s a shame and a mess.”

“Was he mixed up in his dad’s business?”

“Who knows? He was on his way to UCLA.”

Hood sighed and looked out at the lightening day.

“So be extra careful, deputy. Benjamin Armenta will demand vengeance for Gustavo. It’s a point of honor. It’s my job to say that, even though I probably don’t have to. You know the Zetas, don’t you?”

Hood knew they were the latest pestilence in the drug wars raging in Mexico, paramilitary killers leaving corpses, sometimes piles of them, across the nation. “The Gulf Cartel’s beheaders.”

“They’ve been busy. Thirty-four headless men, women, and children in eight days. All of the victims tied to Carlos Herredia’s Baja Cartel. Of course, Benjamin Armenta has lost ninety-seven of his own. That’s one hundred and thirty-seven killings in a week and a day.”

“Have you talked to my task force people?”

“I called them.”

“Thanks for coming out.”

“Gustavo and the Zetas aren’t why I came out.”

“So there’s even more good news.”

“Let’s sit outside and watch the sun rise.”

They sat on the low courtyard wall because there were no chairs. Hood saw that Reyes walked with a slight limp. The chief looked sixty, gray-haired, thick.

“Be careful at dusk and dawn this time of year,” said Reyes. “If you step on a western diamondback, it can ruin your whole day. I still limp.”

Hood nodded and looked down at Buenavista.

“I got an anonymous call two mornings ago,” said Reyes. “It was the same day you got here. It was a woman, and she told me there was an injured man in the desert outside of town. She told me to drive east on 98 until I saw a pickup off to the side. I did that. Big skid marks at the truck. A rear flat and a jack ready to use. I followed two sets of tracks to a bloody patch in the sand about fifty feet from the highway. Then those two sets doubled back, then I followed a third set into the desert. He’d walked half a mile or so. I found him dug in underneath a bush, just about dead. Half an hour later, the med center ambulance got there and they carried him out on a stretcher.”

“Did she hit him while he was getting the jack ready?”

“That’s a reasonable explanation, but she didn’t say anything about it. I called for a tow and did a DMV check on the truck. Registered owner is Mike Finnegan of Los Angeles. Later in the impound yard, I went through the truck. He had a big tool chest in the bed and ninety thousand cash dollars inside it. Wasn’t even locked. So I went to the hospital. He was in surgery to set two broken legs and a broken arm. His jaw and both cheeks were broken also. And four ribs. Serious internal injuries. The ER doctor told me the X-rays showed two skull fractures. The doctor said there would certainly be damage to the brain-the question was just how much. I examined the guy’s wallet. Valid CDL, same address as DMV had. No credit or debit cards, no phone or insurance cards. No pictures of the wife and kids. He had a chain video store membership card, a key, and a punch card for a car wash up in Los Angeles. He had four hundred and sixty-four dollars. And a folded piece of plain white paper with your name and your new Buenavista P.O. box number on it.”

“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.