Then two of Rocky's men carried all three suitcases downstairs. They re-packed the cash into a cutout under the rear cargo space, then set the carpet back in place and slid in the two decoy suitcases. Around and on top of them they packed in store bags of loose clothing-jeans and shoes and shirts and underwear, all new, all in children's sizes. Store receipts, too.
Bradley got in. He strapped on the seat belt and glanced at his personal luggage on the seat beside him. On top of it lay a letter from the Los Angeles Catholic Diocese, beautifully forged by a friend, introducing him as a delegate of the Sacred Heart Charity of Santa Monica and tasked with delivering weekly gifts of clothing to the poor of Mexico. Beside this letter was a clipboard thick with invoices and charitable-donation receipts and IRS forms, and page after page of Mexican charities and churches to be receiving the gifts, and maps showing how to find these places. It was a blizzard of forged documents and scavenged forms but it was also his history-some of the dates went back almost three years.
'Vaya con Dios, Bradley. You listen close to Herredia. I think you're gonna like his idea.'
He drove away from Rocky's compound. There were armed escorts in the truck behind him and in the SUV ahead of him and they accompanied him onto the freeway, then vanished.
Bradley drove the speed limit and thought of his wife, Erin. He looked at the picture of her that he had taped to the dashboard and his spirit lifted. It was a promotional shot for Erin and the Inmates. They had her turned out pretty well, he thought-the hair and the makeup and the clothes and the whole 'tude of the shot. But there was so much more to Erin than simply her beauty. There was her heart, her soul, her life, her music. What heart, what music. Bradley glanced at the picture again.
Since meeting her nearly four years ago, not an hour of his life had passed without him thinking of her. He had long wondered if this was not love at all but some kind of obsession. He had read about love, and talked about love with his friends and teachers and his mother and a minister he once liked, yet he had never heard nor read of a love like his. He absolutely craved being near her. Same room. Same space. He didn't have to be touching her, didn't need her attention. But she had to be close. And if she wasn't there, he would imagine her, daydream her, mutter to her. He would picture himself as seen by her.
He wondered if he was wired differently from other people. But wasn't everyone? Didn't they spend half their time and energy hiding the odd wires, the frayed connections, the suspect splices? Maybe nobody talked or wrote honestly about love. He wished he could write a poem about it. Poetry was big enough to handle love. The poets got closest to making sense of love, in his opinion. Neruda did. He thought of Neruda. A line came to him and he spoke it out loud in Spanish, then in English. Bradley wished he could steal a good poem the way he had stolen other things-an Escalade, say, or fifty thousand rounds of factory.32 ACP ammunition. But some things could not be stolen.
He took a deep breath and spoke a voice-dial command into his headset.
'You,' said Erin.
'It's so good to hear your voice. Talk to me. Say anything you want. Just talk and don't stop.'
'Okay. I can do that…'
He listened. She talked to him for miles, his heart brimming with love at the sound of her, his mind firing with images, but every mile that led him farther away caused its own specific pain, too. The lights along I-5 stretched south toward the border, as if pointing the way to his fortune. But they were taking him away from Erin, and for this he cursed them. Two hours later he was at the border crossing in San Ysidro. It was Tuesday night and the traffic was light. Bradley rolled down the window and dangled his arm into the cool night. He wondered if he should show his badge. He tried to use it sparingly, but an aggressive ICE agent was always worth badging. He could see the agent questioning the next driver. The agent was an expressionless black man with big arms. He waved the Volvo through with hardly a word and Bradley thought: Piece of cake.
He had yet to show the forged letter at the border-the Americans rarely asked more than his destination and time of stay. And the Mexicans, under Herredia's firm influence, had yet to pull him over into secondary. The only thing they didn't want coming into their country was guns, anyway.
But, in Bradley's opinion, it was important to give the border guards different looks: Sometimes he hid the money under pounds of fishing gear instead of charity donations. Sometimes he drove his black Dodge Ram; sometimes the classic Cyclone GT he'd restored. Sometimes he used forged plates. Sometimes he made the run in the early morning; sometimes at rush hour.
'Destination?'
'Ensenada, then Mulege.'
'Business or pleasure?'
'I have charitable donations from the Los Angeles Diocese. Mostly clothing. Nowhere near ten thousand dollars' worth. I make this trip four times a year.'
'What's in the luggage?'
'More clothing.'
'To churches? Schools?'
Bradley tapped the clipboard. 'Mostly churches. Some orphanages. It's all here.'
'May I see that?'
Bradley handed him the clipboard. The big man leafed through the first few pages, then placed a dark thumb under the bottom sheet and riffled through the stack like a deck of cards. Bradley sensed the sheer volume of the useless information dimming the agent's curiosity. He handed back the clipboard.
'Good deeds. Have a safe trip.'
'Thank you.'
Bradley left his window down and lit a cigarette as he joined the traffic moving south through Tijuana. He smiled to himself, checked his new haircut in the rearview. It was short but casual, kind of a jarhead meets Brad Pitt thing, he thought. This part of the trip always found him happy. He put on a new demo CD by Erin and the Inmates. God, could she sing. And write music. Gifts, he thought. But I have work. Work is for those who don't have gifts.
And Bradley was happy to have the work. These weekly runs from El Monte to Herredia's compound, El Dorado, were the real corner-stone of his fortune. He made roughly fifteen thousand dollars per week, tax free, in cash, fifty-two times a year, year in and year out. Eight hundred grand in the last twelve months. All this for roughly eight hours of work per week-it was four hours down and four back, depending on the northbound wait at the border. Sometimes he'd stay overnight and party with El Tigre, but most weeks he would hurry home to Erin. That was the longest four hours he had ever experienced. It wasn't like he could break the speed limit with fifteen grand vacuum-packed and hidden in the car, but seventy miles per hour was torture to Bradley with four hundred Porsche horses under his foot and Erin waiting for him just a few miles away. The danger, the cash, the speed limit, the lack of sleep and the absence of Erin all conspired to make Bradley something close to crazy. They made the most emotional love on those strangely beautiful mornings.
So, coupled with his base LASD paycheck of $1,280 per week and the decent health benefits and retirement plan, not to mention Erin's increasingly handsome income from her performances and recording and publishing, Bradley was amassing a fortune that hardly even showed. Erin had no idea of it, though to explain some large purchases, Bradley had intimated a substantial inheritance from his mother. He felt shame in this, one of his two large dishonesties with Erin. But he couldn't tell her the truth without turning her into a criminal accomplice. His second sin was using Erin as part of an alibi to cover killing a man he hated. He had badly needed that alibi. He had not felt good about it and he still didn't. She suspected what he had done but she had not confronted him. Charlie Hood knew he'd killed the man but he couldn't prove it. The cops couldn't prove it, either. Screw them, he thought: I did what needed to be done.
He pictured his secret vault, beneath the big barn on their property. It contained his most important secrets- his history, his fortune, even the poems he had slaved at over the last five years. Maybe someday I can show her our fortune, he thought, driving through the black Baja night toward El Dorado. It's really her fortune, isn't it? She's the reason for all this, isn't she? It's for her. For the children we'll have someday. For their children. So they won't ever have to be the weak of the world. So they won't have to work their hands to the bone for someone else. So they can live a little.
He imagined showing Erin the safes with the cash he'd earned, and the jewelry and watches he'd been stealing since he was eleven years old. He imagined showing her Joaquin, El Famoso, his ancestor. He'd love to watch her run her beautiful fair fingers through all the diamonds and gold and pearls, even the cold, grimy loot. All
