'I'm glad to hear that.'
'I mean, we all make our mistakes, right?'
Hood said nothing but she offered no explanation.
'You still don't trust him, do you, Charlie? But you like him. You see something of yourself in him. And something of his mother.'
'I owe him. I hurt his chances in life when I took up with Suzanne.'
'You don't get to take any blame for what happened to her, Charlie. Suzanne was hell-bent and she got unlucky.'
He nodded.
'Something's changing,' she said. 'I don't know what it is but I'm changing.'
Hood considered this. Her words were an eerie echo of Sean and Seliah Ozburn's. 'Explain that if you'd like.'
'I can't. I have nothing firm to report.'
'Good change or bad?'
'It feels like both. Maybe it's two different changes.'
'I'll be your ears anytime, Erin.'
'I'm seeing that he's like his mother. More and more.'
Hood tried to find the right words but he couldn't. 'If you know something-'
'God, Charlie, I married him and I love him.'
'Love him all you want. But don't take a fall for him.'
'You're trespassing.'
'I didn't see the sign.'
'I don't think you miss much. You just blunder in anyway.'
'Man, that's the truth, Erin.'
Hood watched a flock of gnatcatchers swoop in unison into the oak tree. They vanished into the leaves but he saw the flicker of tails and wingtips. He set his empty bottle on the deck and stood. She rose and hugged him with one arm, the other hand clamped to the neck of the Gibson.
'If I run across Mike Finnegan, I'll tell him you want to talk.'
'I'd appreciate that.'
'I really don't like or trust that man.'
'Don't ever change.'
'I just told you I was changing.'
'Well, okay. But not too much.'
'See ya, Charlie.'
Hood waved to Bradley and got into his Camaro. He swung a turn and rolled down the dirt driveway, glasspacks rumbling and the dogs setting up a dust storm behind him.
20
Two nights after the great crash of his faith, Ozburn landed Betty at a private strip near Indio, California. The runway had been offered by one of the Desert Flyers. He called a cab that took him to one of the motels along Interstate 10. He had his mane tucked up under a cowboy hat, and he wore a Mexican poncho over his shoulders. As always now, he wore his sunglasses against the brightness of the light, even after dark. It felt right to change his look. ATF was certainly out there, tracking him like a pack of silent hounds.
He got an upstairs king with free Wi-Fi. He swung his duffel onto the bed and pulled out a fresh bottle of tequila and poured half a plastic cupful. He drank it in a gulp, to an ovation of warmth and excitement inside. He counted out his vitamins and supplements and washed those down with another gulp.
While Daisy sniffed around the room, Ozburn drew the curtains tight against the night and hung bath towels over the bathroom mirror. He could look at his reflection only very briefly before revulsion made him look away. He closed his eyes against this apparition and he felt the urge to pray. But who do you pray to when you have pulled your faith out by the roots and flung it into the dust forever?
At eight P.M. the room phone rang as planned, and Ozburn told the caller his room number. He made sure both of the Love 32s were fully loaded and off safe and he slung one over each arm and moved a chair to the middle of the room facing the door and waited for the knock.
Half an hour later he heard it and said, 'Come in.'
Big Paco lumbered into the room with the same briefcase in which Ozburn had delivered the first Love 32 to him. He was not as tall as Ozburn would have thought but he was certainly as big. His sport coat must have been fitted by a skilled tailor. He wore his sunglasses as before and his pitted face caught the light unhappily. Paco shot out a stout leg and the door slammed shut. Ozburn stood.
'Tequila?'
'Yes, please.'
Ozburn poured drinks into plastic bathroom glasses while Paco set the briefcase on the bed and opened it. Ozburn handed him a drink and Paco handed him a small digital postage scale. Ozburn set the scale on the tabletop and turned it on and reset it. When the weight settled to zero he set the stacks of hundred-dollar bills on it and read the readout: one pound, eight ounces. Ozburn tapped his calculator. Seventy two thousand dollars. Then he weighed the twenties and the fives. There were eighty-seven thousand, five hundred dollars-one-half of the total.
'The first ten are almost ready,' said Ozburn.
'The sample gun is very good. Is quiet. We are ready for the first ten.'
Paco placed the money back in the briefcase and shut it. He slipped the scale into the pocket of his sport jacket. They touched plastic cups.
'I want to trust you,' said Paco.
'As I trust you.'
'But you now have eighty-seven thousand and five hundred of our dollars and we have nothing. You know that the Gulf Cartel can't be in the business of loaning money to strangers.'
'You have my word and you will have the guns. Someone has to trust someone for things like this to work, Paco.'
'We have something even better than trust. Come see.'
Ozburn followed Paco outside to the parking spaces where a new Escalade waited. The windows were darkened but Ozburn saw movement inside. Then a rear door opened and a man in a green military uniform stepped out. He had a machine gun strapped over his shoulder. He looked at Paco and Oz, then reached back into the vehicle and brought Silvia out by the hand.
There was no sign of her having been severely stung by the scorpion but the girl was plainly terrified.
'We have friends in Agua Blanca.'
'There's no reason to bring her into this.'
'We want no reason to hurt her. She is our guarantee that our money and our good friend Sean Gravas will not disappear. She guarantees that the guns will be delivered to us.'
'You people have no rules anymore.'
'You saved her life. Now her life depends on you, again.'
Ozburn turned and walked back into his room. Time to call an old friend, he thought. He unwrapped one of his several new preloaded phones. He drank more tequila, then lay back on the bed and called Charlie Hood.
'Charlie, Gravas here.'
'It's good to hear your voice.'
'Do I sound like me?'
'You do.'
'I looked in the mirror a second ago and I thought, man, what happened to you?'
'Something did happen to you and we can find out what it is.'
