Both Vega and Cleary stared back. He sensed that this idea appealed to Vega's young sense of adventure but Cleary looked uninterested.
Bradley heard Erin singing in the background, a ballad she'd written called "Blue Rodeo," but not even the pretty melody and high emotions of the lyrics could penetrate the heavy silence at the table. He held the gazes of Cleary and Vega one at a time, back and forth, thinking, Screw you two wimps if you can't see an opportunity and take it.
Then, into the silence scratched only by the music of his wife, Bradley dropped his final bomb:
"Two grand a week for each of you."
Now he felt not just exposed but utterly naked-stripped down to his bare chassis-no extras, no options.
"Say that again," said Cleary.
"Please do," said Caroline.
Bradley said it again. Neither of the other deputies said anything for a long moment. Bradley stared at his wife onstage, ignoring them.
"Two thousand a week? To fuck over the Mara Salvatrucha, Brad? Well, that's pretty much what I do anyway. I'm in."
"Good, Jack. Good." Whew. Wow. One down, he thought. "You, Caroline?"
"Finally, a little something to go with four twelves a week and a skimpy paycheck. I can build on a couple grand a week. I'm way in."
Bradley looked at each of them in turn and they touched their glasses. He felt as if something had been loosed inside him, a torrent of relief and richness and possibility. He felt as if he were riding a bull, and he was staying on; he was winning.
He went back to watching Erin and the Inmates. Bradley's heart slowed to its usual rate and he felt all of his exposed parts retracting back into the new shell that was now not his alone but comprised of the three of them. The power of three. And another six grand into his own pocket every week. Three hundred twelve thousand a year. Bradley caught their sideways glances over the next hour, but neither Vega nor Cleary asked him the obvious question of who was paying large sums of cash each week to mess with the Maras. They must have figured that Bradley got lucky with Rocky Carrasco's boy, and maybe Rocky and Bradley talked later, and maybe they talked about how the old days were better, before the Gulf Cartel invasion of L.A.
This pleased him, because he wanted his team to be self-starters who could figure the score in their heads without fuss. People who understood the power of silence. People who knew an opportunity when they saw one. And had the drive and the skills to take care of business. It was early morning, nearly four, when Bradley and Erin got home to Valley Center. The drive was long but worth it. The ranch had grown to eighty acres now, and the house had been recently remodeled and the outbuildings updated and Bradley had installed a secret bunker beneath the barn and he was the only one on earth who knew it was there.
Bradley drove onto the property first, winding up the dirt road between the Indian land and punching his gate opener as he watched the headlights of Erin's X5 settle into the dust behind him. Then he drove through a gentle swale and along a fence that blossomed with climbing white roses and he passed the barnyard with the enormous oak tree in its center. The dogs had surrounded him by now, an eclectic pack of purebreds and mongrels led by a huge husky named Call in honor of Jack London. Call loped alongside Bradley's Cayenne, looking up at the driver, and the larger dogs stretched some to keep up and the little terriers spent more time in the air than on the ground, flying, arch-backed and ears flapping, yapping furiously but slowly falling behind. There were twelve of them total. They roamed the acres with proprietary arrogance for everything but human beings, who, they had been clearly taught, ran the show. Bradley sped past the barn and looked ahead to the cottages scattered back on the hillside where lived Clayton the forger, Stone the car thief and Preston the fraudster, crooks all but nice young men, paying their rents on time and pooling their skills and resources-sometimes with and sometimes without Bradley-and generally doing okay for themselves in a tough economy. They had straight jobs, too, and under Bradley's influence they had developed good instincts for the bigger paydays, the easier, the better.
They pulled up in front of the house and Bradley got Erin's gig bag and purse and carried them up the stairs to the porch and into the house. He put his arms around her and kissed her lightly.
"I gave Mike the message from Charlie."
"I saw you. Why are we talking about Hood?" He kissed her again.
"I'm so wrecked tonight, baby," she said.
"I was hoping to wreck you further."
"You're an animal with no morals or conscience."
"When you're around."
"I want a long hot shower."
"You take it. I'll slop the dogs and be waiting for you."
"I've got a little something for you, Brad. When you come to bed."
"Umm-hmmm."
In the flickering fluorescent tube lights of the barn Bradley fed his twelve associates. They ate seventy dollars' worth of food and fish oil each week. Call began first and the others made not even a feint at his bowl. One of the Jack Russells lay flat on the floor opposite Call, her muzzle to the concrete and her eyes aimed upward at the big dog while he methodically ate. Bradley turned off the lights and left the big sliding barn door half-open so the pack could come and go. While they ate crunching and snorting he stood out by the big oak tree and again counted this place as a gift and remembered his mother, who had first fallen in love with it, and thought of Erin upstairs in the shower by now, exhausted after nearly three hours of performance, and he saw again that he had been blessed hugely in this life not once, but twice.
When he came upstairs Erin was waiting for him in the big sleigh bed. A bedside lamp was on, and that was all. She was propped up on pillows and she had the spread snugged up to her chin. Most of her hair was in a tight ponytail, except for the sides, which were swept up and back. To Bradley, a car guy, they looked like the exhaust pipes on a dragster.
"What's with the do?" he asked.
"What I feel."
He smiled and began to undress.
"Stop," she said. She growled at him. Bradley hopped to a stop with one boot in his hands and a question on his face.
She growled again and threw back the bedspread and brandished her fists at him. Three long white claws protruded from each hand where her fingers should have been and Bradley thought of Wolverine, a favorite character of theirs, and he saw as she slashed at him that she was holding the claws firm, and now that he looked closer he saw the funny little windows on them and realized what they were. She growled, then beamed at him.
"Yes?" he asked.
"Yes. Six tests. I just couldn't stop once the good news started."
"God and again."
"We're going have a baby, baby."
He launched onto the bed and braced his landing and Erin screamed and released the pregnancy testers and they fell back into the sheets.
28
Ozburn stood in Mateo's room at the Solmar Hotel near Ensenada and looked down at the ten Love 32s arranged in two rows of five on the bed. Each lay upon an oil-dotted red shop rag. Mateo had screwed on the noise suppressors and extended the telescoping butts and fitted an empty fifty-shot magazine into each weapon. They had a stainless steel finish that shone dully in the hotel room light. Their presence was dramatic, Ozburn thought: tiny machine pistols, perfect and deadly, born live and ready to bite. A carton of ammunition sat on the floor beside the bed.
Daisy stood beside him, trim and alert. Mateo, his face weathered and his eyelids heavy, stood over a small desk with the empty ice bucket and an ashtray on it, weighing the money.