“I guess what I’m saying, Bradley, is that the LASD is a great place to launch from. It would give you an advantage that civilians don’t have. It would be your base and your force. From there you could engage the world. You can become a bureaucrat and rise up through the ranks. You can go into private or corporate security. You can position yourself for election to public office. On an everyday, practical level, you would be armed. The law would be on your side as you go about your day. You could move directly and efficiently toward getting what you want.”
Bradley said nothing. He had locked eyes with the wide biker, who had swiveled away from the bar and leaned his back against it. The tall one had his shaggy head pressed in close to Erin, and Draper could hear the low-pitched gravelly sound of his voice in some kind of narrative-a joke, he thought, or maybe a story about life on a chopper. Draper saw that the two men were rough and experienced, not weekend bikers or mere aficionados of the Harley-Davidson brand.
“If you want riches you take them,” said Draper.
“My mother said it’s not take what you get, but get what you take.”
“She was wise and beautiful.”
“She’s dead.”
“Those two men aren’t going to go away.”
“I can see that.”
“This uniform is provoking them. They know that Erin is with one of us and they’re hoping it’s me.”
“No. The thick one knows she’s with me.”
“I’ll bring her back over and we’ll avoid trouble.”
“No.”
Draper heard the louder, more guttural deliverance of a punch line from the tall man, and saw Erin turn away from him and looked back at Bradley. She looked annoyed. She pulled open her purse and threw in her pen. Wide, still looking at Bradley, hiked up his balls.
“Christ,” said Draper.
Bradley stood and walked over and stopped short. Draper got up and followed. Erin tried to rotate on her stool but Tall was leaning in tight on one side and Wide was leaning back staunch on the other and she didn’t have the strength to move their shoulders.
“Let her out,” said Bradley.
“She likes it here,” said Wide.
“And we like her here,” said Tall. “But she don’t have a sense of humor. Be honest, boy, do you fuck her enough?”
“Plenty, guys, plenty,” she said, and tried to shoulder past Tall but she couldn’t move him. Her purse slid off her lap to the floor.
Bradley took a step forward and knelt and picked it up and stood there with the strap in his hand. Then Wide slid off the stool and stood. He was taller than Draper had thought. He poked Bradley with a finger.
“I like your girlfriend,” said Wide.
“I love her. And I don’t like you.”
Erin had moved into the space vacated by Wide. Draper reached out and took her hand and ushered her back to the table.
“Enough, you idiots,” he said. Then, to the bartender, who had just picked up a cell phone, “Everything’s cool. Buy them a round of doubles.”
Wide poked Bradley in the chest again and Bradley let the purse fall and took the man’s hand in a casual motion and bent the wrist down with his thumbs and turned the hand sharply. Wide screamed and went to one knee and Bradley turned the man’s wrist further and Wide grabbed wildly with his free hand but Bradley stepped away and lifted and turned harder and Draper heard the bone snap and the anguished, breath-sucked scream. Tall stepped forward and threw a punch that caught Bradley on the head but he was already leaning away from it. When Tall followed with a big right roundhouse Bradley stepped inside and blocked it, popped him in the forehead with an elbow, clawed one eye with the fingers of the same hand, then pivoted and drove the butt of his open left palm up into Tall’s nose. There was a bloody explosion and Tall pitched backwards and Bradley threw himself high into the air and caught the man in the rib cage with a bone-crushing kick. Tall collapsed to the floor like a dropped blanket.
It took about ten seconds.
Draper threw Erin’s coat over one arm and pointed her toward the exit.
Then he pulled Bradley back by the collar of his shirt and looked briefly down at Tall, who was curled on his side, panting and bleeding. Wide was still on one knee, white-faced and clammy, his left wrist cradled in his right hand but twisted freakishly askew.
Bradley shook Draper off and took two quick steps to Wide but he didn’t throw or kick. He just stared down at the guy for a long moment, then turned back to Draper.
“If we stay I’ll get mad.”
“We should go.”
Draper pulled him toward Erin and gave her the coat, then went to the bar and offered sincere apologies to the barman and the waitress. He dug five hundreds from his wallet and set them by the drink garnishes and stir sticks. “I’ll be back in an hour to make sure everything is all right.”
“That’s okay, Coleman,” said the bartender.
“Who’s that kid?” asked the waitress.
“Just some brat who wants into the Sheriff’s.”
“You going to take him?”
“What do you think?”
“I’d take him. Be easier than fighting him.”
Draper went over to the bikers. Tall had progressed to his hands and knees. There was a puddle of blood under his bowed head and a long drip leading down to it from his nose. Wide now sat on a bar stool with a nauseated expression on his face and his mangled wrist already beginning to bloat.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Draper said. “If you assholes are still here I’m going to arrest you and take you to jail.”
“I’m going to kill that kid someday,” said Wide.
“Bring help.”
DRAPER DROVE them back to the Cal State parking lot and followed Erin’s directions to their car. It was a classic Cyclone GT that Draper had admired the first time he’d met Bradley, a long few weeks ago. Draper opened the door for Erin and closed it after helping her get the tail of her long black coat properly arranged inside.
“Can I borrow your boyfriend for a minute?” he asked.
“Sure. But don’t let him beat up anybody else.”
“Just a minute for some deputy-to-deputy talk. Ninety seconds, max.”
They walked down the rows of parking spaces, mostly empty now after the Career Crusade.
“Don’t tell Hood about today.”
“I haven’t told him about anything.”
“There’s more to the story of Terry Laws.”
“I know that.”
“Soon. Bradley, if you were the one who canceled Kick, congratulations. It’s what I would have done. I hope the little shit got to enjoy the feeling of the number six before he died. I admired everything about your mother, except that she took up with Hood.”
Bradley studied Draper’s face. “I didn’t care much for that, either.”
“And one more thing. As you’ve seen, to get what you want out of life, you will have to lie to Erin successfully. Other than that, you can build the life she wants. You can take her straight to her dreams. And of course to your own.”
“You’re like the Devil in a uniform,” said Bradley.
“Most people don’t notice devils.”
“Most people are fools.”
“Let’s prove that together someday.”
They were almost to the car. Draper could see Erin looking through a side window at them. He knew that she would be Bradley’s downfall, unless he was an extraordinary boy indeed. It was the way of the world.
Bradley got in and started up the Cyclone and screamed off with a fishtail and a billow of tire smoke. Draper shook his head and smiled as he got into his car. He had been young once, too, just about Bradley’s age when he had given up the dusty roads of Jacumba for the glittering promise of L.A.
In some ways Bradley reminded him of himself. In others he saw that Bradley was far behind him. Bradley had bravado and intelligence. He was hugely selfish, and had an outlaw pedigree. Draper wondered if, because of their similarities, Bradley might someday try to see him for who he really was. Draper had spent his entire life staying close enough to people to influence them but far enough away to remain unknown. Father and mother? Brother and sister? Yes, and okay and fine-he had loved them in the conventional ways. But he could not let them see him truly. Few had seen Coleman Draper and none for very long. But he thought that Bradley Jones could be different.