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“One more teensy little absinthe?” asked Beth.

“I don’t see why not.”

Beth threw herself into the bar crowd, and Hood found the coffee station and got a triple shot of espresso. Erin and McMurtry were onstage with the Inmates and the Heartless Bastards and two of Los Straitjackets, singing a not quite synchronized duet that advanced like an armored column.

Hood and Beth danced a song that became two more, then a slow one that Erin had written. They leaned into each other, bodies warm and hearts flush. Beth guided Hood off the floor and collected her goblet and aimed him around the rodeo arena and up the sloping barnyard to the tent city. There she delivered him to a unit up near the brushy hillside, set apart and unoccupied and welcoming. He turned on the lantern and held open the door for her. She stepped past him into the tent, clicking the lantern off on her way by.

36

Two days later, Hood sat in his replacement Yukon behind the Pace building and watched through the dark windows. There was a tall container of coffee on the console, and on the seat beside him were a bag of tacos and a package of cookies. He looked out at the rear of the building-warehouse, freight dock, loading ramp. There were pallets stacked along one wall and a motor home along another, the yard lights dull against the filthy windshield. A few minutes later he drove around the block and parked on the street out front, fifty yards away from the entrance.

Again the shift began at five o’clock. He watched the men park their old vehicles in the employee lot out front and wait to be let into the manufacturing floor. They carried plastic bags and beverage containers like his own, and some smoked. They looked relaxed and they talked and laughed quietly. The old ones reminded him of his father before his mind had betrayed him, back when he was easy and content with who he was and what he had made of his life and the working was never bad but never quite so good as being finished for the day.

He watched and thought about Beth Petty and the wedding and after. They’d made it halfway through the second day of dancing, eating and drinking before running out of energy. Someone had gotten the bulls drunk and let them loose and they had terrorized the dance and bar tents briefly, then wobbled off to lie in the shade of the hillside oaks or graze the barnyard or stand knee-deep in the pond, drinking and peeing. Bradley and several other drunken young men had gotten ATVs from the barn and attempted a roundup. It failed, with minor injuries to two men and one ATV that ran off the dock and sank out of sight in the pond. The bulls were unharmed and barely noticed the men. Hood had driven home with Beth conked out against the window, asleep and snoring at times, her hair dangling wildly, her knit dress somewhat stretched and lightly smudged, sapphires intact and atwinkle in the afternoon light, a wedding-gift absinthe goblet wrapped in wedding napkins peeking from the top of her purse. Hood smiled. She had part of his heart now and that was good.

Deeper into the night, Hood stole across the street and hunkered among the begonias and rhododendrons around the perimeter of the building. He moved slowly and found the place where he could see in. He watched for a few minutes, getting a good look at the handguns being finished inside. They were nice-looking weapons. Hood guessed.32 caliber by the bore, but at this distance they could be.22s or even.38s. He also saw something that wasn’t there the last time he’d surveilled Pace Arms: wooden shipping crates. Open and ready. The tops and packing material were stacked separately. The crates were roughly eighteen inches square. There were ten stacks of ten. At ten guns each, a thousand total. All crates awaiting their precious cargo. Soon, Hood thought. Soon.

He stood and was about to cut back across the street to his vehicle when he saw the Porsche Cayenne Turbo tear into the parking structure. The driver waited, then snatched the ticket from the dispenser. A moment later, newlywed Bradley Jones, trim in his Explorer uniform, strode to the Pace Arms entrance and pushed the speaker button on the wall. Then Bradley pulled open the lobby door and let the door swing shut behind him.

Hood’s heart raced and fell at the same time. He closed his eyes and opened them. He was surprised but not. Sad but not. Hugely pissed off at Bradley is what he mostly was, and at himself for believing in Bradley. How many times could he look at this boy but fail to see him? Suddenly the stolen fifty thousand rounds of.32-caliber ammunition made simple and terrible sense. And the Tiffany vase became nothing more than a symbol for his own sentimentality and daft hopes.

Bradley and Pace.

Pace and Bradley.

He knelt back down in the darkness again and watched the men make guns and felt the hard thump of his heart down in his chest. A few minutes later, Pace and Bradley appeared amidst the workstations, Pace convivial with the workers and Bradley silent. Bradley walked along the tables, looking down at the emerging weapons, his uniform crisp, his expression speculative, lost in thought.

37

“Mike,” said Gabe Reyes. “Meet Father Quang from St. Cecilia’s.”

“How do you do, Father?”

“Fine, thank you,” said Quang. “How are you feeling?”

“Peaks and valleys.”

“Gabe tells me you are strong as a horse.”

“We all know that isn’t true.”

“They tell me it’s a miracle you’re alive.”

“I believe in miracles, Father.”

“So do I. May I touch your hand?”

“Of course.”

Bleary from surveillance and the two-hour-plus drive, bruised by disappointment and self-recrimination, Hood sat in the corner of Mike’s room and watched Quang place his hand upon Mike’s. The IV line had been removed, and Hood noted that the needle bruises were gone. The books beside the bed were all different from the ones he’d seen last time. On top of the stack was The End of History and the Last Man. A cell phone and a charger sat on top of it. Hood had wanted to be here for the meeting between the priest and Finnegan, but he wasn’t sure what he hoped to learn.

Hood watched the monitor and saw Mike’s blood pressure rise when the priest touched him. His pulse went from sixty-eight to eighty-eight, but Mike’s voice was warm and calm. Neither Reyes nor Quang were paying any attention to the screen.

“What brings you here, Father?” Mike asked. “A little early for last rites, I hope.”

Quang removed his hand and stood back and laughed heartily. He was short and trim, and his hair was black and shiny with a blaze of gray. “Nothing like that, Mr. Finnegan.”

“Then what?”

Quang glanced at Reyes, then at Hood, then turned his gaze back to Finnegan’s swathed face, partially visible but mostly not.

“I am waiting,” said Finnegan.

“I wondered if you might need a confessor. I thought that a man with a good Irish name like Finnegan might be a Catholic. Are you?”