The Famous and the Dead

47



Bradley doesn’t have to touch her like that,” said Erin. She rotated the focus on the binoculars. Hood and Erin stood at the window in a the third-floor office of the California Building Tower, looking down on Balboa Park. This hidden vantage point had been arranged by one of the Museum of Man curators, Erin and the Inmates having performed a gratis fundraiser for them just last year. The curator had secured a couple of hours for them, no questions asked, though he loitered in the break room with coffee and his laptop.

“I’m sure he’s thinking of you,” said Hood. Bradley was making his act look pretty easy, he thought.

“He better be. Look at Thomas. How small and perfect he is. Does he look like me? I’m a nervous wreck with him being so far from me and so close to Mike. I want Mike stopped. I want him . . . whatever it is you’re planning to do with him. Do it, do it, do it.”

Hood lifted his big camera and zoomed in on the picnic below. Mike was animated, gesticulating with a drumstick in one hand, his other hand outstretched, apparently mid-tale. His shoes were brand-new and very bright yellow and green. Bradley had already finished his lunch and he now slouched on the bench with swaddled Thomas in the crook of one arm, ignoring Mike. A born actor, thought Hood.

“Soon, Erin.”

“Not soon enough. Maybe you can get Mike to shoot himself in the foot, like Clint Wampler. I’m so glad you stopped that rocket wacko, Charlie. Oh, look at my baby down there. He’s so cute. They say a woman’s IQ drops dramatically right after birth. I know mine has. What do you think, Charlie?”

“It’ll come back.”

“I hope so.”

“What are you going to do with Bradley?” he asked.

She lowered the glasses and studied him. “I really don’t know. Right now all I care about is Thomas. Do you know what Bradley has planned for later?”

“He won’t tell me. He just wants us all there in Valley Center.”

“I hope he doesn’t think we’re coming down to Valley Center to stay.”

“You made it pretty clear you’re not, Erin.”

“I want to stay on with you in Buenavista,” she said. “Can Brad spend some more time there with us? I know it’s a lot to ask. And it’s up to you and Beth, not me.”

“Beth and Minnie moved out. They want no part of what’s coming. It’s best for everyone, I think.”

“Then it’s up to you, Charlie.”

“You’re welcome in my home. All three of you.”

Erin studied Hood, then lifted the binoculars and looked down through the opening. Hood watched her watch, her hands on the glasses and her profile and the red cascade of her hair. He knew that in another time and place they would have been good together but he also knew this fact was useless at best. “I love him but I can’t love him,” she said. “And I resent him. What am I supposed to do with all that, Charlie?”

“You’ll know when you have to know.”

“Do you really, really think he’s changed?”

“I think he’d give his life for you and Thomas.”

“But do you think I can trust him?”

“I’d give him one hour at a time.”

“I’m serious.”

“I am, too.”

She lowered the binoculars and looked up at him. “You want him to pay for what he’s done, don’t you?”

“He will.” Hood nodded and lifted the camera.

• • •

That evening Hood parked his Charger outside the Valley Center ranch house. Bradley was standing on the deck with Call by his side, while the lesser dogs boiled around Hood’s car. Hood and Beth got out, and Beth held the door for Erin, who stepped into the cold and pulled her Navajo blanket coat tight around her. She put one knee on the seat and leaned in to work her sleeping son from the car. Bradley came bounding down the steps to help her. He wore a pale suede duster and moleskin breeches and a jacquard shirt and his polished boots caught the porch light. Hood wondered what the occasion was. He wondered if Beatrice had finished off the rest of the food in his pantry yet. He hadn’t figured on meeting an angel in his life, especially one with such a voracious appetite. A moment later Reyes and Owens pulled up in Gabriel’s pickup, rekindling the dogs.

Hood looked at the ranch house and thought of Suzanne, standing on that deck, summer of ’08. He was just a patrol deputy with a few questions to ask her about an investigation he’d been assigned. Her hair had been a mess and her nightshirt was periwinkle colored and revealed little while suggesting much. It was a Saturday morning and she was here at home with her boyfriend and three sons. Later that morning she’d flirted brazenly with him. She’d told him she was an eighth-grade history teacher, but was not like any eighth-grade teacher he’d ever had. First and last warning, she’d said. Later she teased him about his ears and almost touched her nose to his cheek. But not quite. He could hear her inhale. He felt judged. A minute later she excused him with a funny little backward wave as she walked away. The wave that said, See you later if you’ve got the courage. Turns out, he did. He had met Bradley that day. And Jordan and Kenny and his father, a big Hawaiian man named Ernest. And just a few short weeks later, Erin. More past that’s not even past at all, he thought. Thanks, William. You were right.

• • •

Now it was early evening and the sun was down. A rosy tint brushed the hills and lay flat and shiny on the pond. Doves creaked through the sky above them, disappearing into the big oak tree in the barnyard. Hood and Beth stood together looking to the oak glen beyond, where they had made love for the first time, in one of several tent cabins set up for Erin and Bradley’s wedding guests. “That was a night,” Beth said.

“And a morning and another night.”

“Things were perfect then.”

“Maybe again, Beth. How is it, back in your own home?”

“It’s where I belong.”

“Thanks for coming tonight. It means a lot to me.”

“Remember at the wedding the absinthe bar was over that way? Remember the bulls getting drunk and stumbling into the lake and the guys on Jet Skis trying to round them up? And the dancing and the brawl? Now, that was a wedding party.”

“I was hungover for a week.”

Hood saw that the barn door was slid all the way open and a strong light came from inside. He thought he saw a Ping-Pong table in there, then wondered if his eyes were deceiving him because the table seemed to be somehow suspended in midair. He blinked and refocused, but the table remained levitated.

Bradley got Reyes to help him set champagne flutes along the deck railing, then disappeared into the house. A moment later he came back with a magnum of champagne cradled in a towel and sent the cork zooming into the darkness. Some of the dogs broke off in chase of it, nipping at one another for advantage. Bradley motioned everyone to join him and began filling the flutes. “Look how responsible we’ve all become,” he said. “Just a few years ago we celebrated our wedding with two days of food and booze and bull riding. Now, we toast our son with Dom Perignon. To Thomas Firth Jones! And to you, who helped bring him into this world. We thank you. We thank you!”

They drank. Then Bradley handed off the bottle to Reyes and led them back down the steps and, taking command of the stroller, walked them across the barnyard and past the big oak. The dogs followed with their usual sense of purpose. Hood saw the outline of the hills against the deepening dark and a white cuticle of moon already high in the late winter sky. There was a John Deere with a lowered front loader parked near the barn. Bradley stopped at the entrance and lifted Thomas from the stroller. “Charlie, can you hang on to him for a few minutes? Erin, will you take my hand? I won’t bite. I have some things to show you all.”

Hood gave Beth his champagne glass, then took the blanket-wrapped Thomas. He was very light and the blanket was warm with him. He wore the blue hospital cap and tiny blue mittens against the chill. Erin fussed with his cap for a moment and told Hood not to drop him, then they followed Bradley into the barn.

Inside the smells were of gasoline and vehicles and tools, not horses or livestock or poultry. Hood saw that what he had thought was a levitating Ping-Pong table was just that—held straight up off the concrete floor by two very large hydraulic lifts. He saw the MX bikes and the quad runners lined up against one wall, and the gas and oil cans and the tires stacked nearby. There was a Bobcat and two power mowers and a chipper and several generators.

Before they came to the Ping-Pong table, Bradley stopped and looked down. “Right here, you see this? This is where two of my friends were hacked to death five years ago. They were brothers and they lived next door. I found them. Mom thought it traumatized me but I said it didn’t. I didn’t sleep for eight nights. Then I slept for three full days. The doctors said I was fine. I think about those guys a lot. They were Rincon Indians, Herold and Gerald Little Chief. Mom had the concrete here replaced because of the bloodstains, then she thought their blood should be honored, not hauled away, so she had the new slab torn out and the rip-rap from the old one put back in. So that’s why you see the stains and all the cracks.” One of the Jack Russells nosed the floor, then looked at Bradley and cocked his head. “Come on, there’s more.”

They stood around the neat opening in the floor, above which the Ping-Pong table and section of concrete were suspended by the hydraulic lifts. Hood saw that the jacks were freshly greased and the welds were neat and ample. Stairs led down.

“The hydraulics came from city of Escondido garbage trucks I stole,” said Bradley. “Two of them. They were surprisingly fun to drive. Now, watch your step coming down, guys. You dogs—wait.” Hood watched as Bradley and Erin disappeared beneath the floor one step at a time. The dogs really did wait. Hood brought up the rear behind Beth, Owens, and Reyes. Thomas awoke when Hood stepped into the bunker. His eyes searched Hood’s face and Hood had no idea what a three-day-old human being could see or think.

Hood snugged the blanket to him and looked around the vault. It was roughly twenty-by-twenty feet, with an eight-foot ceiling. The light was low voltage, bright and clean. It was cold. There were three floor safes and a gun safe. Along one wall was a workbench or a long table of some kind, covered by colorful blankets. Beneath the blankets were irregular shapes that Hood could not identify. Beth looked at him in frank disbelief.

“Did Suzanne build this?” asked Erin.

“I did, honey. It took six months. I excavated by hand so no one would know about it. I spread the dirt and rocks all over the ranch here where it wouldn’t be suspicious. You never remarked on the patches of fresh dirt when we’d ride the quads, Erin. Did you wonder how they got there?”

“I never noticed the dirt. All I saw was you and all I heard was music. I was a fool. When did you come down here?”

“When you were working or asleep. Here, look what’s in the safes.” He knelt and spun the dial and threw open one of the doors, then quickly opened the two others. Hood saw the bricks of vacuum-packed cash, the jewelry and watches and loose stones. Bradley, still kneeling, stared into one of them as if hypnotized.

Erin stood above him, staring into the same safe, her hands raised to her mouth in disbelief. Her voice was a whisper. “Did you steal all this, too?”

“The cash was my cut of what I smuggled south to Mexico. Drug money, of course. The watches and jewelry and stones I took as payment or bought cheap from friends. I stole some of them myself, back when I was young and really idiotic.”

Erin looked at him with a numb expression. She snugged the collar of her Indian blanket coat up against her neck. “You . . . your whole life was doing things like this?”

“There was also school and hapkido and football. And then the sheriff’s department.”

“Why?”

Still staring into the safe, Bradley stood and put his hands on his hips. Finally he turned to Erin and his look glanced off Erin to the others, one at a time, in turn. “I loved it. It was very intense and lucrative but mainly fun. Later, I told myself it was to provide for you and our family to come. But that was bullshit and I knew it. We could have lived just fine off your music and a deputy’s salary. I don’t love jewelry unless it’s on you. Or fancy watches. And I don’t really have anything to spend all this cash on. The getting of it was what mattered. It was a way to feel . . . alive.”

“How did I make you feel? Dead?”

“Blessed. Chosen. Lucky beyond compare. After a job I couldn’t wait to get back to you. You were my reward for the hard work it was to get this stuff. It’s not easy working for a drug cartel. The first time I met Carlos Herredia I peed my pants. He’s a demanding employer. You never know if he’s going to hug you or shoot you. And stealing other people’s things? It’s not like anybody just lets you take what you want. Try taking a toy away from a two-year-old. And all the while I was trying to be a good cop. I really was. I wouldn’t recommend that kind of life, except maybe to a few people.”

“How about to your son over there, Bradley? Would you recommend it to him?”

Hood watched Bradley shake his head and look down. “No. Not after meeting him, I would not. Erin?”

“What?”

“There’s more.”

Bradley went to the workbench and pulled away one of the brightly striped blankets. Everyone crowded in to look. “All that stuff Mom said about her being a direct descendant of Joaquin? It was all true. These are some of his things. She died before she could show them to me, but I was a curious boy. All this stuff was hidden here in the barn. It wasn’t hard to find. Even Hood found it. I didn’t mean that as an insult, Charlie. What I meant was, even a relative stranger to our family was able to find it.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Erin. “It’s not possible that Suzanne was a descendant of Joaquin Murrieta.”

Hood watched as Bradley put his hands on Erin’s face, looked into her eyes, and smiled. “After a lifetime of lying to you, I never thought it would be so hard to convince you of the truth. Look, honey—this saddle here was Joaquin’s. And those are his six-guns and holsters. And his hemp lariat and leather bullwhip. He was very good with that lariat, known for it. That deck of cards belonged to him. He was a terrific gambler, used to deal Monte games in the Gold Rush country before they raped and murdered Rosa. His wife. My great-great-great . . . well, you know.”

Bradley let go of Erin, lifted another blanket, and dropped it to the floor. “And that’s his bulletproof vest. See the big dent in the middle? That was from Joaquin’s own forty-four—the gun you see right here. Before paying for the vest, Joaquin ordered the blacksmith who made it for him to put it on. Then he shot him, to make sure the workmanship was high quality. Look! It held. And see the new pockmarks? The fresh ones that haven’t tarnished yet? Those came during a gunfight in Lancaster two years ago, remember, the big car-wash shootout where two deputies and three drug runners died? That was me wearing the vest, Erin. Bradley Jones, direct descendant! See that, Thomas? That’s what your daddy used to do.”

“Not funny, Brad,” said Erin.

“Erin, this is the last time he’ll hear about any of this.” Bradley looked back at Hood, then with a flourish pulled the last blanket from the workbench. The glass jar was just as Hood remembered it, the head pale and hairless and stripped of hope.

“Jesus Christ,” said Reyes, crossing himself.

“Ouch!” said Owens.

“My God,” said Beth.

“Don’t let Thomas see it!” said Erin.

Hood sheltered the baby deep in his arms, hiding him from the world and the world from him. He watched Erin take a step toward the jar. She reached out her hand but stopped it short of the glass. “You came from him?”

“But tonight and here, all of this ends. It should. Mom couldn’t decide if knowing was a curse or a blessing. It is not a blessing. And I won’t let Thomas carry it.”

Hood watched as Erin turned away from the jar and toward Bradley. She looked up at him for a long beat, then touched his face. Hood thought her hand looked like a blind woman’s, touching an unknown face for the first time. Then she came past the others and took Thomas from him and climbed back out of the bunker. Owens followed.

Bradley spread his arms. “Hey, everybody! Show’s over. Help me load all this stuff into the tractor outside. Everything on the workbench, everything in the safes, all of it. Right down to the blankets.”

• • •

Within five minutes the tractor’s front loader was heaped with the known physical history of Joaquin Murrieta, and the proceeds from Bradley Jones’s life of crime. Hood carried the big jar, as no one else seemed inclined. Reyes, his arms cradling bricks of cash, gave him wide berth. Hood came back and got the blankets, too. Bradley started up the clacking diesel and the dogs ran around the machine barking. In the faint moonlight Hood could see Joaquin’s head bobbing with the rhythm of the engine. Bradley slowly drove the tractor across the barnyard toward the house. Hood saw Erin and Owens standing in the porch light.

At the water’s edge Bradley stopped and reversed so the front loader bearing his past faced his home and his wife and son. He backed into the water. Then he waved at Erin and shut down the tractor and jumped off. Hood saw the gas can in his hand. Bradley sloshed ashore, set it on the ground and pulled out the nozzle, then lifted and upended the can over the front loader. Hood watched him drench it all, shaking out the last of the fuel before tossing the empty can up onto the barnyard grass where it landed with a hollow thump. Bradley waved back at Erin again, then turned to the tractor. Hood saw him bring his left hand from the duster pocket, and the motion of his shoulders, and a moment later the big bucket burst into flames. Bradley called the dogs as he backpedaled away and slipped and fell, then he was up again. The fire, momentarily confined and angry, roared and whirled upward, and Hood could see the writhe and curl of the blankets, and the journals sparking and smoking, and the quick surrender of the plastic wrap. It took some time for the densely packed cash to catch, but finally it did, with a sudden concussive whump! Bradley and his dogs had scrambled almost to the big oak tree when Joaquin’s jar exploded and the sky was filled with burning fragments of him and fiery glass and bits of paper, all reflected in the water. Hood saw the lariat, aflame and uncoiling through the darkness on its way back to earth.