The Famous and the Dead

51

Late that afternoon Bradley drove from Buenavista to Valley Center. With March here the days were longer and the orange trees were in bloom and the air was filled with their sweet, clean aroma. With the birth of Thomas and all of the subsequent activity, Bradley had been away for five days. He’d burned up most of his personal time and traded out two shifts. Whenever he was away from Valley Center, Clayton the forger or Stone the car thief, old friends, would stay in the ranch house, tend the dogs, keep an eye on the property.

Clayton was here now but as Bradley pulled his Cayenne up to the gate he got that something-wrong feeling in his gut. There were tire tracks in the dirt just past the gate. Several sets. So rather than punching in the code, he pushed the intercom button used by visitors. Clayton answered and Bradley could tell by the tone of his voice something was wrong.

The gate rolled open but Bradley reversed away and continued down the dirt road along the creek and past the Little Chief’s property, then climbed into the oak savannah hills to the east of his home. The road became narrow and overgrown and rutted from the winter rains, but the Cayenne was nimble and strong. Bradley drove down into a meadow where the road meandered through sage and wild buckwheat and Spanish saber and he saw a small covey of quail running ahead on the dirt road. Suddenly they burst together into the air, a percussive blast of wings. He dropped the Porsche back into low, then climbed up a hillock on the far side of the meadow. Near the crest he parked and got out, leaving the engine running. He climbed the last few yards to the top and squeezed between two large boulders and looked down on his property.

Clayton’s old Stingray was there, parked up by the house, shining as always. So were two LASD prowl cars and a prisoner transport van and a slick-back black Police Interceptor that was parked up near the house. Jim Warren and Miranda Dez stood near the unmarked car, Dez in her uniform. Four uniformed deputies waited on the front porch, apparently satisfied that the front door was not going to open. Clayton sat at the picnic table bench, back and head leaning against the house, hands folded on the table before him in his Zen I-don’t-hear-you posture. The dogs howled from the kennel in the barn. Two more uniforms walked from the direction of the barn. Bradley’s phone buzzed and Cleary’s number came up.

“Jack.”

“They’re on their way to Valley Center, Bradley. Search and arrest warrants signed by the judge and ready to serve.”

“I’m looking at them right now.”

“What do you need?”

“I’m okay.” Bradley called Clayton and watched him pick up and put the call on speaker. The deputies came closer, and Dez and Warren cocked their heads toward the porch.

“Brad.”

“Clay. I’m heading up to L.A. for the night. Little business to do. Can you hang another day?”

“Yeah. Everything’s fine here.”

Bradley rang off and watched and waited. Dez made a call on her cell phone. Warren looked bored, toeing the gravel with his boot. The uniforms broke into pairs and circumnavigated the house, then the barn, then the casitas up by the oak glen. The beauty of warrants was that they have to serve them to your person, Bradley thought. He crept back and turned off his Cayenne and got a jacket from the back and returned to his perch between the boulders. He watched. The deputies lingered patiently through a spectacular late-winter sunset and the beginning of another cold night. They put on jackets. Finally Dez and Warren got into the Interceptor and rolled down the road. The prowl cars and van followed, and as soon as they were out of sight Clayton picked up his phone.

“Clay, I’ll be going away for a while but I need some things. Power down the north gate sensors, pronto.”

• • •

An hour later, when he thought it was safe, Bradley backtracked through hills then picked up a good dirt road that looped around to the north perimeter of his land. There he unlocked the decommissioned gate and entered his property, then locked the gate behind him and drove slowly toward the house. In the distance he saw the lights of the barnyard, and his ranch house and Clayton’s Stingray parked out front.

Upstairs in his bedroom he kept looking out the windows and checking his security monitors as he packed a suitcase and got the briefcase of cash he’d secreted away under his bed, deducted from the far greater fortune he’d sacrificed that night for Erin and Thomas. He packed a Love 32 and two full magazines between the T-shirts and the jeans, and made sure his LASD badge holder was in the pocket of his jacket. He took his letter to Erin and slid it in next to the badge holder.

In the barn he let the dogs out of their run. They yapped and leapt about and Bradley touched and said something to each one. He knelt and rubbed big Call’s throat the way he liked, then stood and waved them back into the run. “Later, brutes,” he said. “I’ll miss you.” He felt a thickness in his throat as he walked away and they bayed after him.

Back in the ranch house he told Clayton to stay there until he called-it would be less than one week-and to keep his cell phone on and play dumb with the Sheriff’s Department. Out in the barnyard he used his satellite phone to call Herredia.

He stopped in Escondido and mailed the letter. He was nearly to the border at Tijuana when he called Erin and told her he would be gone for a while, but not long, just a few days hopefully, maybe a little longer.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Sheriffs were all over Valley Center trying to arrest me. They’ll come to you and they’ll do what it takes to find me. Don’t tell them anything without a lawyer in the room. Call that one down in San Diego-he’s good. They can’t make you testify against me. And try not to worry.”

“Not worry?” she asked quietly.

“I’m trying to do the right thing for you and Thomas.”

“Was burning everything just a show?”

“It was to show you what you mean to me.”

“What do you want?”

“Clayton’s at home keeping an eye on things. You and Thomas can go there as soon as you’re ready. You’re safe from Mike now. Valley Center is your home and your property, Erin. Yours. Take it. Continue your life there. Make your music and love your son and give me a chance. Please give me a chance.”

“When will we see you again?”

“You’ll get a letter in a day or two. Please believe what it says.”

She clicked off.