The Jaguar: A Charlie Hood Novel Part 2

Ciel removed the card key from his pocket with a guilty smile. He swiped it through the lock, then ushered out his two charges and let the door swing shut behind him. Erin listened to the buzz and the clunk of the deadbolt thrown home.

She already hated those sounds.

He was not what Erin was expecting. Into the room pushed a large and disheveled man with a head of wild gray-black hair and a hang-dog expression on his face. He wore a Cerveza Pacifico T-s.h.i.+rt and shorts and he was barefoot. He had a beer belly and stooped slightly, as if it were pulling him over. His complexion was pale for a Mexican and he had at least a two-day growth of whiskers. His eyes were black and s.h.i.+ny. She guessed him to be fifty years old.

He stopped and stared directly at her face. "Do you have everything that you need?"

"Everything but safety and freedom."

"That is up to your husband. He has ten days."

"Saturnino has a key to my room."

Armenta pulled two card keys from a pocket in his shorts, fanned them for her like playing cards in his thick fingers. "No more."

"How could you threaten to skin me alive?"

Armenta looked at her matter-of-factly and said nothing for a moment. "They tell me you are Erin of Erin and the Inmates. I believe I heard you on the radio."

"It'll just be the Inmates if you do what you've threatened to do."

Armenta raised a hand and waved it gently, as if shooing away a slow fly. "I love music of all kinds. We have performances here. I record music also. Many important people come here to listen and dance. Do you know the Jaguars of Veracruz?"

"Everyone knows the Jaguars of Veracruz."

"Do you like them?"

"I saw them in Los Angeles. Fantastic show. They played so long the fire department made them quit."

"They will be here this week. To perform."

"And do you skin them alive if they don't bring you millions of dollars?"

He smiled at her bleakly. "I grew up with them. I have been cruel in my life but I have never lacked compa.s.sion. I am strongly loyal."

"Your son threatened me."

"I will discipline him. Sometimes he has large ideas that are bad ideas. You don't worry."

"When I looked in his eyes I saw that he could do bad things and enjoy them."

Armenta nodded slightly. "This is his way. He will not hurt you while you are here."

"You seem like a good man. Let me go. Fly me home. I'll mail you the million cash if you really need it all that badly."

He studied her again and she studied him back. His hair stood out from his head, an unbrushed nest. His face was morose and his eyes looked exhausted and suspicious and piggish. She wondered if his paleness was from prison or illness or just from being inside all the time.

"Your husband has taken hundreds of thousands of my dollars in the last year. He has taken many pounds of my best products. He has cost me thirty men to be deported or prosecuted. He has allowed the murders of another nine of my men to go without any authentic investigation. Nine! He himself killed two more last night."

"You have taken the wrong man's wife. Bradley is a sheriff's deputy and you invaded our home."

"He has been paid large money for doing some things and not doing other things."

"His salary is not large."

"But he is also employed by the North Baja Cartel of Carlos Herredia. You maybe do not know this. Maybe you spend your time making music. As you should. But there are many secrets in a marriage, some small and some not small. Maybe you are not welcome to this type of information. Maybe he does not want you to know where your fortune comes from."

"I don't believe you."

"What you believe does not change the measure of things. Your husband is more than a thorn in my paw. He must surrender L.A. to me. Surrender it absolutely. Business is the thing we all do. Statements are to be made and answered. This is my example. A man must attend to the small things so that the larger things will occur properly."

"Fly me home and you'll get what you want from my husband. All of it. I promise."

Armenta beheld her and Erin looked back. His sad hound eyes appeared clear and calm, resigned to things she did not know, and apologetic for things she did not want to know. "I will fly you home when I get what I want from you."

5.

LOS ANGELES SHERIFF'S DEPUTY CHARLIE HOOD watched Bradley's Cayenne bounce up the dirt road toward his house. He's early, thought Hood, not surprised. Bradley had sounded intensely worried on the phone, though vague. He had never asked Hood for help in anything until now.

It was evening here in Buenavista but still 102 degrees, according to the thermometer in the shade of Hood's patio. Buenavista straddled the border and was often the hottest place in the nation. Hood was attached to an ATF task force working the Iron River-the gun trade-between the United States and Mexico, and he had moved here from L.A. to be near the action. Hood liked action and the idea that he was needed and that what he did mattered. He was thirty-three, tall and lanky, with a forthright face and strong eyes.

His rented home sat in the steep hills outside of town and from the eastern patio where he now stood he could see the little city huddled below, with its odd amalgamation of old and new: the ornate dome and cross of St. Cecilia's, the zocalo, the narrow cobblestoned streets of the old town. And around them, like the growth rings in a tree trunk: the Rite Aid and the Blockbuster and the Ralph's and fast food places on the U.S. side and the Sam's Club and Wal-Mart and the stretch of maquiladoras and new apartments on the Mexican side. Hood could also see the new twenty-foot steel border wall. This had recently replaced the old chain-link fence, a porous formality along which Mexicans and Americans used to meet friends and family, trade news, exchange minor goods. Beyond the new wall were sharp mountains to the south and west.

They sat inside with the air conditioner blasting. Bradley declined a beer. He had two b.u.t.terfly bandages across gashes in his forehead. His eyes were rimmed in red and their hollows were dark and he had not shaved. He paced back and forth in front of the cavernous black fireplace, Hood watching him from an old sofa. Hood's dog Daisy lay on the paver tiles at his feet, her snout on the cool tile, her dark brown eyes tracking their visitor. She was black and slender with a white blaze on her chest, and had the high-standing, flap-topped ears common to the border dogs from which she had come.

Bradley told Hood the story of Erin's kidnapping. Hood's heart fell but he listened without interrupting. Erin had long been one of his favorite people and Hood had long believed that she would suffer someday at the hands of her husband.

When Bradley was finished he came to the couch and sat and buried his head in his hands.

"Can you get the money?"

"I've got the money."

"A million cash?"

"Mom left us plenty. I invested it in gold before the crash."

"A million cash?"

Bradley looked at Hood as if at an annoying child but said nothing.

"You're not going to talk to our people, or the FBI?"

Again that look from Bradley. "They can't help officially. You have to know that, Charlie. All they can do is get her killed. The more noise we make the faster she'll die."

"They're some of the best law-enforcement people in the world."

"Gringo law enforcement means nothing in Mexico. The government doesn't want us, and the cartels hate us. We're ants. You should know that better than anyone, after what happened to you with the Zetas."

That last word sent a breeze of nerves across Hood's scalp. The Zetas were military defectors, special forces men who had thrown in with the cartels and then become their own cartel. Hood had seen their violence, their beheadings, and their torture in Mexico and in the United States. "Calderon's government helped us get Jimmy back."

"Yeah, after he was tortured and broken. Jimmy was federal. Erin's a singer. How much help are they going to give her, Charlie?"

"So you're going to run that million dollars to the Jai Alai Palace in Tijuana tomorrow afternoon at three, and wait for a call from a guy named Gonzalvo?"

"Those are the orders."

"Then what?"

Bradley looked over at Hood. "When I show the money I get to hear her on the phone. Proof of life. Then I wait for the next order."

"When do you deliver the cash?"

"Ten days. I told you."

"After they run you all over Mexico."

"Probably."

"I hate your chances," said Hood. "But you don't seem to. Why?"

"I have a plan."

"Explain it."

"I've been working narcotics for almost a year now, right? Jack Cleary is my boss and he's smart and tough and he's taught me a lot. We've got friends in Mexico. Counterparts. They're smart and tough too. They'll help, but not through official channels. And I'm going to use my ten days and these guys to find her because you know what? There's a good chance that the minute Armenta gets the money he'll kill her anyway."

Hood knew that this was more than possible. It was happening more and more in the narco kidnappings-murder left less witnesses and ignited even more terror in the living, more submission and compliance.

"How are you going to find her while you lug forty pounds of cash from California to G.o.d knows where?"

Bradley looked at Hood and offered a small smile. "I love your optimism, Charlie. I love your can-do att.i.tude."

"That's not an answer."

Bradley marched out and a car door opened then slammed and a moment later he was back, pulling a piece of wheeled luggage across the pavers behind him. Daisy's head was up and she was watching. Bradley stopped in front of Hood and pushed down the handle and flipped the luggage over at Hood's feet. He squatted and unzipped the flap and threw it back.

"The answer is teamwork," said Bradley. "You and me. You deliver this while my friends and I are coming in the back door. If I can find the back door, that is. When Heriberto's men contacted me late this morning, I told them I have the money but I don't have the stomach for delivering it. This produced great laughter and witty insults. I am now a f.a.g without b.a.l.l.s with a kidnapped wife who desires real men. And many other things almost as bad. But I can dispatch a brave friend to deliver. Because money is money, after all. So, what do you say, Charlie? What do you say?"

Hood thought. He knew Bradley was brash, fearless, and lucky. Knew that he was strong and bright and tainted. Hood suspected him of murder and lesser crimes but could prove none of them. Bradley's highest allegiance seemed to be to himself. He studied the young man's face. In it he saw Bradley's mother, Suzanne. He and Bradley had been trading blame and suspicion for the three years since her death, and now Hood wondered if he should just forgive and help him through the harrowing future.

"Why me?"

"Because you love my wife. In a chaste and honorable, Charles Hood kind of way. I know you wouldn't do it for me. But I think you'll do it for her. Will you?"

Hood looked down at the suitcase. Daisy sat beside it looking at him. He pictured himself waiting for a call in the parking lot of the Jai Alai Palace in Tijuana, three P.M. the next day. He thought of Gustavo Armenta, Benjamin's innocent, college-bound son, killed by an errant ATF bullet during an undercover buy that went bad. He thought of Armenta's vengeance upon ATF agent Jimmy Holdstock, of his own b.l.o.o.d.y journey across the border to Mulege, of the carnage enacted by the Zetas, of Sergeant Raydel Luna, his counterpart, slaughtered by his own countryman to prove that honesty and bravery and integrity were weaknesses in their world. And of course he thought of Erin.

"There's fifty grand extra in there," said Bradley. "Yours for trying. And another fifty for expenses. Fifty more waiting here if we actually get her back alive."

"I don't want your money."

"Donate it to Save the Dinosaurs or something. Her pa.s.sport is in there, too. I'm bullish. It's all I can afford to be."

"This is all wrong, Bradley. How did Benjamin Armenta know where you live? And that you and Erin would be home? How did he know about the hidden room? How did he know to pick a night when the dogs were kenneled and you didn't have guests? How did he know that your gate was wired for security but the fence wasn't? How did he know the security code for your house? Or that you had a million in cash just kind of handy? Why did he take such huge risks and lose two men for a million dollars? He makes that in an average week. So why the pyrotechnics? What did you do to him to deserve all the special attention?"

Bradley gazed down at the money and toed the suitcase with his boot. "Maybe we'll find out. But I'm not going to beg. If you don't want to help, don't."

"Where were your homies last night-Stone the car thief and Clayton the forger?"

Bradley looked at him sharply. "Stone is a car salesman, Hood. There is a small difference. And Clayton is an artist. You know that."

Hood stared at him.

"Anyway, Erin encouraged them to find other lodging after we got married." Bradley walked to a window and looked out at an orange sunset. When he turned back Hood could see his silhouette framed in the falling light. "Hood, if I don't make it back but Erin does, I want you to take care of her. She'll be a mother by February and she'll need help. Take good care of her and of my boy. The ultrasound showed him healthy. There's plenty of money in the bank. She's the most wonderful person you will ever know."

"You can't pa.s.s her like a football."

"But I couldn't protect her, either, could I? It was my number-one thing to do in this life and I didn't. I'll do anything to get her back. I'll die down there to make it happen."

"You know I'm in."

Bradley pulled a cell phone from his belt and tossed it to Hood. Daisy watched its flight. "Their phone. Pre-paid Mexico minutes, non-traceable by Mexican law enforcement. Just answer it when good old Gonzalvo calls and do what he says."

Hood pictured himself alone in Mexico with a million dollars and maybe a handgun, lined up against the Gulf Cartel. He felt the dread leaking into his brainpan like rainwater through an old roof.

"And here's a phone just for you and me." Bradley unclipped the satellite phone and handed it to Hood. "Best satellite job money can buy. I've signed us up for unlimited Mexico calling for the next two weeks. My number's already programmed in. They promised reception in all thirty-one Mexican states, plus the federal district."

Hood considered the two phones, the million in cash at his feet, and bright, lovely Erin McKenna in the hands of killers. "We'll make it work."

"It has to work. By the way, I thought the name Charlie Hood might get Armenta buzzing after what ATF did to his son last year. So I told them your name was Charlie Bravo. Charlie the Brave. That okay?"

"It feels like an unfair advantage."

Hood watched Bradley's smile go from wicked to haunted. "Deliver her, Charlie. And if I don't come back, well, you three figure it out."

They stood outside on the stone porch while the bugs slapped against the light and the mantids walked their elongated shadows on the adobe.

"Any luck with Mike Finnegan, Charlie?"

"No luck with him."