The Jaguar

38

Two weeks later Bradley labored under a fretful November sky, installing underground electrical line for motion sensors on the perimeter fence of his Valley Center property. Last week a crew had added shiny new razor wire to the existing eight feet of chain link. Even on this cloudy day the blades caught the sun in muted flashes that spiraled back and forth along the length of coils according to a watcher’s position. Bradley looked at the improving fence. There was nearly a mile of it and it was not cheap but certainly worth the money.

He had rented hand-trenchers for the digging. The soil was mostly decomposed granite but there was plenty of just plain granite and the work was slow and punishing. Old friends Stone, the car thief, and Clayton, the counterfeiter, were helping. At Bradley’s suggestion Stone was now moonlighting as a GMC salesman up in Escondido. Clayton had a consignment space in the tony SoLo building of Solana Beach where his lovely watercolors were sold.

Bradley had the boom box going and a cooler with ice and beer in it. The dogs were out, some of them crowding the men for a good view of the project, others in the shade of the cottonwoods. The two Jack Russells were digging enormous caverns in search of gophers and ground squirrels. The trencher was gas-powered and loud and Bradley wasn’t aware of the quad runner buzzing toward the nearby gate until it was practically there.

He hit the kill button and swung the machine pistol around his back. In his peripheral vision he could see Stone reaching for his shotgun and Clayton, never armed, standing with his hands on his hips, smiling at the whining intruder.

Mike skidded to a stop with a flourish, throwing up dust. He wore red-and-white leathers and a matching helmet and goggles and to Bradley he looked, as always, ridiculous.

“Men! How goes the security upgrade?”

“It takes a cold twelver to join the club,” said Bradley.

“Fresh out. But you don’t mind if I hang around for a just a bit, do you?”

“As long as you don’t warble for hours on end.”

“Fine then,” said Finnegan, pulling off the helmet and setting the goggles up on his forehead.

Bradley saw Stone glance at him as he set the barrel of his scattergun against a nearby sagebrush. Stone thought Mike was a weasel, though Clayton adored him. Bradley pulled the trencher back to life and strong-armed it along the inside of the fence. The powerful machine chewed its way along. His sunglasses were frosted with dust but he was still able to see one of the terriers streaking off from his hole with a gopher locked in its mouth, the other terrier in pursuit.

Mike stood in front of him, backing up a few steps when the trencher got closer. After a while Bradley shut off the engine and dropped the handles and shucked his gloves to the ground. From the cooler he got a beer for himself and tossed one to Mike. They walked along the chain link toward the escarpment to the east, the big husky Call trailing behind them with five other dogs.

“Let’s see that happy new smile,” said Mike.

Bradley grimaced down at the little man. Only the perfection of the new implants betrayed them. His facial bruises were faint shadows now and the gun-butt cuts up on his forehead were still red but smaller. His palm had finally healed. In an attempt to improve his overall appearance Bradley had gotten a short, smart haircut, something between Wall Street and Camp Pendleton, and was giving himself a close shave each morning.

“What gives, Mike?”

“How is she?”

“Showing more and sleeping less. The ultrasound and tests were all good. The baby’s healthy and strong.”

“She showed awe-inspiring resolve against Armenta, according to Owens. Has Erin told you what happened to Saturnino?”

“Of course she has.”

“Astonishing bravery. I’m happy to have done my small part in getting her back.”

“We’re happy too.”

“Funny that I didn’t get one sincere word of thanks from you.” Finnegan stopped walking and looked up at Bradley hopefully, waiting. The dogs sat or stood around them.

“Your birds and your research made it all possible, Mike. You and I both know that. I asked you to be my friend and let you stab the hell out of my hand, which took two weeks to heal. So, well, thanks again if thanks are really what you’re after.”

“Accepted!” Mike raised the beer bottle and drank.

Bradley drank too. “Where is Owens?”

“Laguna Beach. Some well deserved R amp;R.” Mike smiled, looking along the newly installed razor wire.

“I’m surprised you’d pimp her out to Armenta.”

“I did no such thing. She helped Erin at no little risk to herself. She was free to decline the job. And free to leave his Castle at any time. Any time. She liked him and he was quite good to her. There are costs, Bradley. We all make commitments and sometimes sacrifices in order to achieve success, and reap rewards.”

“How long was Owens down there with Armenta?”

“Oh, I forget exactly. Months.”

“So it was just a coincidence that Benjamin grabbed Erin when he did?”

“What do you mean?”

Bradley looked down at Finnegan as he upped his bottle and drank. “Hood said you supplied Armenta with everything his men needed to take Erin that night-drawings of the property, measurements and locations, the hideout, even the alarm code for the house. He found sketchbooks in your apartment in Veracruz.”

“Why would I do that?”

“So Armenta could take Erin, and you and Owens could help me get her back. So you would gain my trust and we would become partners.”

Finnegan laughed quietly. “Partners,” he said. Bradley heard humor but an odd longing in the word too.

“That’s what he said.”

“But I already had your trust, or thought I did. Now, after all we’ve been through, you doubt my loyalty to you because of Charlie Hood? Some basic facts, Bradley: how do you know what Hood saw in Veracruz? Because I know exactly what he saw and I will prove this to you. Answer me.”

“He saw the sketchbooks. He grabbed one before he left but it was full of pigeon drawings.”

“I do draw pigeons. I confess. But not sketches of this property, or floor plans of rooms I’ve never seen. Or your alarm code! Listen to me, Bradley: Charlie Hood broke into my home. I found him there, rifling through my belongings, for reasons I couldn’t fathom at the time. It was actually good to see an old friend, but he’s changed, and changed drastically. His eyes are wrong, something has become dislodged in him. In my home! The circumstances were an outrage. I asked him to leave, then ordered him to leave, then begged him to leave. He assaulted me, dislocating my shoulder. I am an older, smaller man. I disabled him in order to escape, not to maim or kill. I stand unblemished, Bradley-I had no choice. Let me tell you something. The real tragedy in all of this is that Charlie Hood has lost his sanity. Decent, moral, upright Charlie. We all knew he had become obsessed with finding me. The world is a witness to that. Some might call it stalking. Okay. Fine. I did not judge. Obsessions can often lead to good things. Well, he finally found me. And assaulted and injured and tried to abduct me.”

Bradley studied him. “Twenty stitches to close him up. How did you ever get the better of him? He’s half a foot taller and outweighs you by fifty pounds.”

“Surprise. The same as every street fight.”

“Hood thinks you’re a devil. Literally. A real one. Not human.”

“A devil? Not human? Then I rest my case against the delaminating Charlie Hood. He was muttering that kind of nonsense as we grappled. And therein lies the tragedy of which I have spoken. I don’t know why it is, Bradley. Why does a good, strong man like Hood break down? Why is it that people need so badly to believe in gods and devils? They crave the existence of something larger than themselves, or so we are told. But they drive themselves literally insane. Why aren’t the travails of humankind enough to keep them busy. Why?”

“What do you want?”

“Let’s walk. The dogs looked bored.”

They climbed the escarpment. The boulders had sheared off ages ago but the face of the wall was still sharp and steep. Sage and dudleya and prickly pear grew between the rocks. Here the fence stopped and Mike examined the end post, kicking away the dirt at its bottom to reveal the impressive cylinder of concrete in which it was set.

“Carlos wants you back,” said Mike.

“I can’t. I told him that. Look what happened to Erin. Never again. I’m going to be a father soon. Hood suspects what I was doing for Carlos. He won’t let go of it because Hood doesn’t let go. And IA is still breathing down my neck about last year. I’m done. I’m straight. I’m out.”

“But Carlos is heartbroken.”

“He’s got Vega and Cleary.”

“He’s insulted too.”

“Is this a threat?”

“He’s made an offer. He’ll let you out of your commitments with no hard feelings. All you have to do is get a horse for him.”

“A horse.”

“Xtravagan.”

“Xtravagan is a million-dollar-a-pop stud. Worth ten times that on the hoof.”

“That happens to be pastured less than twenty miles from here.”

“Funny.”

“But true. For Carlos’s fledgling racing program. And don’t worry. I know the stable.”

“Christ, not again.”

“I suggested that your loyalty through the years might have earned you the freedom to raise your family in peace. But he gave me that certain expression. You know the look.”

“Where his eyebrows point down instead of up.”

“Precisely. They pointed down.”

“It’s easy to make fun of Carlos until he kills you. I don’t take this lightly, Mike.”

“I’m urging you not to.”

Mike tossed Bradley a flash drive. “Think about it. In the meantime enjoy the show. It’s off my security cameras in Veracruz. Motion activated. No way Charlie could have seen those beady little lenses watching him from up in that dark ceiling. And if he gets a little too righteous on you, you’ve caught him in action-trespassing, theft, assault and battery, attempted wrongful imprisonment. Maybe it’s something your Commander Dez should see. Or maybe it would just make an amusing Internet posting. Who knows?”

Bradley finished his beer and looked at Mike for a long moment. For the first time he saw Mike Finnegan as not only cryptic and ridiculous, but genuinely dangerous. Erin and Hood had seen it. How had he not?

Mike spoke with a satisfactory tone: “Well, whatever you do with the video, our poor Charlie now has but a few tenuous holds on the world as we know it. He has his self-interested federal and county employers. His ailing father and aging mother. And of course the lovely, no doubt frustrated Dr. Beth Petty, who helped put me back together all those years ago.”

Suddenly Bradley considered Charlie Hood in a sympathetic light. Another first. A day for firsts, he thought. He snapped the beer bottle high into the rocks and listened to the sharp burst and patter of the shards. “I’ve got work to do.”

Mike kicked the end pole with the toe of his red racing boot. “Nobody’s going to get through this thing when you’re done with it, Bradley. No devils coming for you and your family!”

That evening he and Erin sat on the deck and watched the sunset and ate dinner. Bradley grilled tuna caught by a friend, and vegetables and red potatoes wrapped in foil, and poured a good Sauvignon Blanc. The dogs sprawled and fidgeted on the drive and in the barnyard grass, only Call allowed on the deck proper.

Erin sipped her one glass of wine and watched the hills while Bradley cleared the dishes and sat down. He firmly believed that she was to be pampered in every possible way until delivery day, still some four months out.

“You have that look again tonight, Erin.”

“Sorry.”

“You okay?”

“Just thinking is all.”

“About what?”

“The little one. Us. You know. All the wonderful things to come.”

“You’re not making them sound wonderful.”

“Some songs write themselves.”

“I didn’t mean it as a criticism.”

“I didn’t take it as that.”

He watched the red ball of sun melt into the western hills. Erin had become impossible but he could hardly blame her. He knew she was at the end of all tethers and anything might happen. She could take no more. He could not clearly imagine a life without her but he could sense it out there, like a storm still below the horizon, sending up an eerie light.

It was exhausting to think about so he let his mind wander. It landed on the men he’d killed in Campeche and later at Armenta’s Castle. These weren’t the first in his life but they were the least personal, like enemy soldiers almost, and his memories of them had been sneaking up on him lately, as soldiers would. One unhappy thought led to another: Carlos Herredia. El Tigre. Steal a racehorse? Well, he thought, sleep with a fucking drug lord and what do you expect? As if surrendering the twelve grand a week he no longer earned from Herredia wasn’t bad enough. It was hard to say good-bye to that a year ago, but as he saw now, the loss of income was just the beginning of his troubles. Which led him to think about the terriers of LASD Internal Affairs, still biting at his ankles about last year’s disaster. He wondered if he would have twice as many problems when he was twice as old, at say, forty-two. Or half the problems. Maybe that’s how it worked. Who knew?

“Those twenty stitches got me,” said Bradley. “Mike doing that to Charlie.”

“Me too. I tried not to let him see how awful that cut looked to me. And I believe what he said about Mike helping it all happen-all of it-not just the cut. Everything. I think Mike’s evil. I know you disagree.”

“I think Charlie’s blown Mike out of proportion in order to justify his own madness.”

“He put his life on the line for us. Is that what you mean by mad?”

Bradley shrugged and drank. “Charlie needs a quest. Human nature. Why not make it Mike? Mike isn’t innocent. He’s dangerous. I know that now.”

Erin sipped the wine and set one hand over her middle. “Well, when Charlie’s hair grows back, the scar won’t even show.”

“In his mind it will show.”

After a long moment Bradley put his hand on hers. It was another of the many acts of tenderness that he had offered since returning home. She had offered him not one. Still just the idea of her affection arced brightly across a dark gap inside him.

“We’re all carrying new things now,” Erin said.

That night they slept in separate beds again, and in the morning when Bradley came in from his early trenching Erin was gone.

Her note was brief:

Dear Bradley,

I cannot find enough love for you to take us through the coming days. I have searched and waited and searched and waited. When I think back on our joy and passion I see that they were based on lies, but they remain the standards of my heart. I used to have a dream of us, a belief. I will try to find that belief again. Whatever happens to us, your son will always be yours; I will see to that. Nothing can take him away from us.

Erin