Later, when his phone vibrated, he had a heart-dropping premonition that his father had died, and he was correct. The stroke had been massive and his death nearly instant. His mother was strangely composed and she didn’t talk very long, having two more of her children to inform of this. She seemed fortified by purpose. Hood stayed by the fire long after the woman and the dog had gone. More bourbon. Midnight came and went. When he got back to his room and took off his boots, his feet were blue-white and as cold as a T-bone just out of the fridge. He pulled the armchair up near the heater and put on the dress socks he’d worn that morning. He thought of his father and remembered good things from his boyhood and let the tears come.
34
Bradley and Erin walked slowly across the gravel driveway on Hood’s property. Her legs and ankles were growing heavy from bearing the weight of the baby and Dr. David had advised very light daily exercise such as this. The afternoon was cool and bright. Bradley turned to see Reyes watching them from the courtyard, the top half of his face just visible above the low adobe wall.
“He’s worse than a bad conscience,” said Bradley.
“He’s a delight and I love him.”
They came to the dirt road and started up the gradual rise. The slender stalks of the paloverde were green now and just starting to flower out. A tarantula hawk buzzed past them, flickering black and orange in the sun. They came to the crest and stood with the peaks of the Devil’s Claws high and jagged to the west.
Bradley saw motion on the hills between them and the sharp mountains beyond. He saw two vehicles facing them on the hillcrest far away where no road or even trail was visible. They were parked a few yards apart, what looked like a white half-ton Chevy pickup truck and an older red Durango with its driver’s-side door open. Two very small men sat on the hood of the truck, side-by-side, legs crossed. It looked to Bradley as if they were both looking through binoculars at him. Standing between the vehicles was a giant wearing a black sweatshirt, hood up. Bradley recognized the dwarves from the Biltmore and assumed that the enormous man was the one who had delivered Mike the bottle of Scotch. What in hell, he thought. Why? Spying for Mike? If Erin is your enemy, she is my enemy and she must be approached as such. Or, horning in on Mike’s territory? Some of Mike’s envious coworkers have decided to try just that.
“I’ve seen them before,” said Erin. “Once where they are now. And once way over the opposite direction. East.”
“You should have told me.”
“I just did. Who are they?”
“I wish I had a rifle.”
“God, Brad. They waved at me once. They don’t seem to mean harm.”
Bradley pulled his service pistol from the holster snug in the small of his back. He aimed one-handed and held well above the giant’s head and squeezed off the round. A second passed, then a puff of dust rose from the slope behind the vehicles.
“Brad!”
The giant put his hands on his hips and it looked like the dwarves lowered their field glasses and spoke, then raised the glasses back again. Bradley thought he heard laughter reach him across the distance. He held a little lower and fired again. The bullet hit to the giant’s left and short. Bradley guessed thirty feet off the mark, adjusted his aim, and fired again. High and left, but closer.
Erin turned away and started down the road toward the house, but Bradley shot again and again. The first shot landed left. But the next one hit home with the familiar whap of a bullet hitting something solid and Bradley saw the giant flinch and step backward. Bradley lowered the pistol and watched the huge man. He seemed to be looking down at his middle, then he lifted the sweatshirt. Hood saw a patch of red on the man’s belly. The giant let go of his shirt and looked at Bradley and spread his arms out in a gesture of, really? The laughter of the dwarves carried to Bradley on the cool, dry air and hearing it he felt a fear that was different from any he had known. It was cold and constricting and on the move. With it came a crushing remorse and the humiliating knowledge that he alone had brought these demons upon her, and upon himself.
The giant walked to the Durango and climbed in and sat with his long legs dangling out. He knocked his shoes together to get the dust off them, and closed the door. The dwarves scrambled off the truck and got in. Bradley emptied his semiauto at them, six more rounds: One hit the Durango door with a metallic ring and two more threw up dust close to the pickup, but the others were off. The giant waved out the window at him as the vehicles headed over the rise and one of the drivers laid into his horn.
He caught up with Erin as she waddled slowly down the road. He took her arm gently but his voice was hard with anger. “Mike’s friends.”
“What do they want?”
“Thomas.”
She stopped and pulled her arm from his hand. “For what?”
“They’re just like Mike. They use good people to create chaos and to amuse themselves. When the good people are used up and ruined, they let them self-destruct. They like to start with children. Those things back there are either helping Mike or trying to take away his prize. Either way, they all want to befriend Thomas. They’re all evil, Erin. They claim to be devils. They don’t try to hide it. They want to make Thomas part of it. I made a deal with Mike. I took some stupid oath. It changed my fortune and something inside me. I’m utterly sorry and ashamed, Erin. It’s all my fault. I’ve never been this sorry for something I’ve done.”
He looked into her eyes as they searched his face. He saw the doubt in them and the fear. As she studied him, the doubt shrank and the fear grew. “What can we do?”
“Nothing right now. Don’t ever talk to them, or to people you don’t know. They won’t use force. It’s not their nature. They cajole. They persuade and deceive. They’re serpents in our garden. They won’t try to steal Thomas. They’ll try to become our friends and get to him through us. Like Mike did.”
“Mike. Do you believe me now?”
“I believe you now, Erin. You were right and I was wrong.”
“Is there a place where they can’t ever find us?”
“I don’t know the answer to that. But I promise you I will find a way to make us all safe.”
“I feel sick. I feel like when they kidnapped me. And you promised you would come.”
He put his arm around her. His heart was beating fast. “I did. I came and I got you. Now, Erin, walk slowly with me. We’re not in danger now. We’re okay. We’re okay. We’re okay.”
• • •
Cleary called when Bradley was halfway home to Valley Center. “Round two. Rocky and Jim Warren met at El Capitan lounge in El Monte yesterday. A two-hour lunch. Much intense conversation. Warren and Dez in conference this morning and your name came up. More than once. So did mine, and Vega’s and Hood’s. And Carlos Herredia’s.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Talk to Rocky Carrasco?”
“What else am I going to do?”
“I can think of one thing.”
“There’s a better way, Jack.”
“Name it.”
Bradley watched the paloverde flashing past and the flat desert greened by the winter rain. He hated this, thinking like some sociopathic gangbanger. Rocky had always treated him with respect and generosity. Of course, Bradley had single-handedly rescued Rocky’s young son from a ransom kidnapper so there was not just good money between Rocky and himself, but good blood, too. “Talk to me, Cleary.”