Wampler did some quick math, Castro style-offer babes and pennies to get the kid into capable hands, let the capable hands take his money and torture the Stinger phone numbers out of him, bury him in the Mexican desert and deal direct with the Pendleton wholesalers. One less middleman. ATF goes away. Save dollars. Save steps. He wondered, What makes people treat me like this?
“If you leave now, I can have the Explorer retagged and sent down to you. At least you’d be able to drive it. That cash in the bag ought to last you very nicely south of the border. The roll on the table is just for the senoritas. You can come back in a year, when things have settled down.”
“Why do you like me so much all a sudden?”
“I’d like to do business with you for the next twenty years, Clint. I can’t do that if you’re on death row for killing a federal agent.”
“That’s right. You can’t. Mexico sounds good to me.” Clint lifted the duffel in his injured left hand and swept the roll of bills into it. Castro smiled and held open the office door for him. “You first,” said Clint.
“Fine with me.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“That’s another reason you should take a vacation-so I can get a break from your froggy bad attitude.”
Clint followed Castro down the hallway and through the kitchen and into the back lot. They stood in the pale wash of a security light fixed high on the wall. Castro’s beat-up truck waited by the Kia and the two stout Mexicans leaned against it, their arms crossed and their white hats tracking Clint in unison.
“Well, my amigos,” said Castro. “You’ll be going to Mexico tonight. As protectors of our fine young friend, Mr. Wampler.”
Castro turned and spread his arms as if for an embrace and Clint dropped the bag and drew both guns from the peacoat and shot Castro in the heart with his right hand, braced his left and shot the others. Twice each, center shots, tightly grouped, a belch of chaos lasting only an instant. Clint felt disembodied. Through the smoke he watched one of the Mexicans writhe and fumble for his gun, and he thought, It’s amazing how fast I am. He looked down at Castro flat on his back, trembling and gasping and staring wide-eyed at the moon or whatever you stare at your last few seconds.
He kept an eye on them as he loaded his money and the Stingers back into his Kia, then hit the road.
• • •
Back in Imperial Beach, Clint brought the missiles inside through the garage, then took a cold sixer to the deck and sat back in one of the chaise longues. In spite of the blustery cold, he felt warm on the inside, prosperous and accomplished, though still furious at MK for her betrayal and at Hooper for what he’d done to his finger. He peeled off the dirty white tape and threw the wad over the balcony to the sand. The cut oozed watery blood and pus again and the whole finger still throbbed every time his heart did. Should have gotten Israel’s house-call doctor before I shot him, he thought. He wondered if he could risk an emergency clinic visit, what with his new hairdo, but decided not.
The beers went down swiftly and Clint listened to the waves and the quiet spaces between them, then the next crash and hiss. Too bad about Mary Kate, he thought, because this is the kind of time you want your honey around, when you’ve had a long hard day and you want to relax and feel good. The sky opened and the rain fell hard. He sat for a moment and watched the drops pelt the wet sand. He went inside and browsed the late-night porn titles on TV but what fun was it watching what you couldn’t get none of?
He surfed way up in the channels where he never watched, clicking through them fast. It was hard to believe people paid to watch this stuff. Junk jewelry and online college courses and something to keep the spices in your cupboard from tipping over. When he came to diamond-fanged ATF agent Charlie Hood on Fox News at Eleven, admitting to losing a thousand machine guns, one of which had been used in the killing of Representative Scott Freeman, Clint knew he’d had more than enough of this guy. He’d be doing the country another favor if he just took him out.
He looked at his watch: Eleven hours from now, Glitter Gums would be waiting for him to pick up Mary Kate Boyle at the Greyhound station in San Diego, based on MK’s fine acting and Hooper’s gigantic stupidity. Of course, Mary Kate was already in San Diego, at a different hotel, that ratty-looking Regal, down in the Gaslamp District. You really fooled me, MK. She’d looked a little rattled walking down the street the other day, talking on the phone. To Hooper? Hatching some crafty little plan? Probably. It had been much easier for him to watch unnoticed from the Kia than a brand-new cobalt blue SUV. Clint wondered how many agents Hooper would bring to bust him at the Greyhound station. He wondered what a Stinger would do to them. He wondered what a Stinger would do to the Imperial Bank building that housed the ATF office in Buenavista, to all the other offices inside, and to the little cafe that had so many people in it that evening when he’d seen MK and Charlie Hooper come out together and walk across the street. He could tell by the way she walked and looked up at him that she was trying to get his attention. You got alla my attention, Mary Kate. Then some. My stuff is all ready. Clint’s on his way.
40
Hood woke up with first light and listened to the rain roaring down on his roof. He pictured himself on the TV the night before, answering Theresa Brewer’s questions with his usual lack of guile. I am what I am, he thought.
Beth lay beside him, breathing slowly and quietly. Her honey hair was a tangle and the bare curve of her shoulder showed from under the sheet. For a while he lay still and was thankful. Four and a half hours until the Greyhound station, he thought. Clint wouldn’t show, but Hood knew that he himself had to show, just in case. Was Wampler crazy enough to try something with thirty lawmen waiting for him to show his face? He has to know we are on to him, Hood thought. He has to know.
Through a kitchen window he watched the raindrops boil on the desert rocks and waited for the coffee to brew. The sky was gray and the wind was strong enough to shiver the yuccas and sway the paloverdes.
Beth came in with her warmest robe and shearling boots. She came around the counter and they hugged. “I thought you were awake,” he said.
“I couldn’t sleep again.”
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
“My head is full of worries.”
“Thomas is healthy and good.”
“I love him and he’s only a day old. What was all that with you and Bradley? What’s going on?”
Hood watched the rain roar down. “Mike.”
“Somehow I knew that. What did big bad Mike do now?”
“He wants to decide how Thomas is raised. He’s wants Bradley and Owens to raise him. Not Erin.”
“She’ll fight to the death to keep him.”
Hood gave her a joyless glance.
“He wouldn’t. .”
“No. Not directly. But he can persuade and manipulate and get people to do things for him. I’ve seen the aftermath of what Mike does, Beth. It’s ugly stuff.”
“So, now more than ever, you want to lock him up.”
“I’m going to do it.”
“Good heavens, Charlie. God.”
Hood poured coffee and added the milk and gave Beth a cup. She sat on a stool at the breakfast counter and Hood sat beside her. Outside the rain slackened and the daylight grew slightly. From her robe pocket Beth brought a wadded tissue and wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry, Charlie.”
“For what?”
“For being what I am. A scientist. A humanist, I’d like to think.”
“I love you for those things.”
“You can’t blame Mike for everything bad that happens to people you love.”