Iron River

44

Hood served the di

“That was a bad scene today in the ER with the sergeant.”

Hood nodded and forked the asparagus onto Beth’s plate. He had noticed over the years that cops and medical professionals often made unusual di

“Did you know him?” she asked.

“No. But I heard he assigned the guards for the hospital that night those two men came for Jimmy. Well, didn’t assign them is more like it.”

“This is cop talk, right-not public knowledge?”

“It’s going to get public.”

“This guy made sure the real guards weren’t on duty, so the fake ones could kill Jimmy? That means he was doing a favor for the Gulf Cartel.”

“Yes.”

“Has there ever been an American cop on the take from a Mexican drug cartel?”

“Not that I know.”

“That’s going to be a huge scandal.”

“It will fit right in with everything else that’s happening.”

“Five cops murdered in Tamaulipas just today, Charlie. Heads in coolers left in a park. Notes on top.”

Today’s body count, thought Hood. Heads. Coolers.

The Imperial County Sheriff’s sergeant had shot himself this morning with his service gun. Hood heard that ICSD’s internal affairs team had been investigating him. Hood had learned that law enforcement rumors were almost always true. It was said that the sergeant had made the overtime deputy assignments for Imperial Mercy that shift, when Jimmy Holdstock’s room had gone unprotected. Investigation ongoing. Beth had seen the sergeant as they wheeled him into ER just moments before he expired.

“I treated a man once who lived through a wound like that,” she said. “But he was never the same. Not even close to the same. Imagine.”

Hood poured the wine. “We have a lighthearted pinot noir for your enjoyment.”

“No absinthe?”

“I’ll make you one later.”

“No. Please no.”

After di

“Where do you think he is-Mike.”

“Somewhere in California,” said Hood. “They’ll ditch the stolen plates on the convertible and get others. Or maybe just sell off the car and get a fresh one.”

Of course Hood had gotten LASD to issue an all-units watch for Mike and Owens Fi

Unless the little devil gets another flat and a lady runs him down and breaks practically every bone in his body, Hood thought. Yeah, if that happens again, we’ve got him.

“Why California?”

“He seems to like it here.”

Owens had called him earlier in the day.

What are you to him?

An associate. I do what he tells me to do.

How much money does he pay you?

It doesn’t matter.

Where is he?

You don’t know anything.

Since he had seen the drawing that Mike had done, not one waking hour had passed without Hood thinking of him. He propped the drawing up beside the coffeemaker in his kitchen each morning and rested it against the lamp on his bed stand at night. If Mike was a man, then he was certainly the most cu

The one thing he had come up with was that whoever and whatever Mike was, he had wanted Hood for something. Something more than having his brain picked and fouling a bust and letting a thousand guns get through, that is.

A partnership? Mike had joked about that. But maybe it wasn’t a joke.

Hood and Beth took their wine and sat side by side on a wooden bench that had been there when Hood moved in. He heard the snapping of brush off to the south and Mi

A moment later in the moonlight, Hood saw them moving down in the arroyo, a man in the lead and a woman behind him. The man carried a handful of plastic shopping bags with one hand, their necks stretched and thi

Hood and Beth and the dog watched them traverse the dry gully south to north and when the couple was directly below Hood’s home, they stopped. Briefly they looked up at the candlelight. The woman slowly straightened and placed her hand against the small of her back. Then they continued. Hood listened to the sowing of the sand in the vast desert, and the warrior engines thrumming at the border and the thump of the helos and the thump of his heart, and to him these were one sound, the sound of human beings scratching along the pathways of their own free will.

Not long after the family had vanished into the northern darkness, a sudden wind came up and blew out the candles. It was a southern wind, monsoonal and sweet. Beth put her hand in his and they watched the lights.