He smiled and shut the safe door and spun the locks. Proximity to cash and Erin made him feel secure and full of heart and wicked horny. He put the hood on Joaquin and took the empty TV box and hit the fob. He stood and proudly watched the door ascend into the barn light.

27

The seven hundredth Love 32 is finished and I sit at the bench beside Marcos and take the weapon from him and feel its wonderful weight and balance in my hand.

“The crew is tired,” he says. “Twelve hours a day, thirteen days in a row. No rest.”

“They can take a day off if they want.”

“They want the full bonus at the end. Is why they work hard.”

“Six more days should do it. Five point six, actually.”

“They have a request.”

I set the gun on the bench and look at Marcos. He’s a heavy, jug-eared Baja Californian with a family of five, all of whom were born here and are citizens. Unfortunately, Marcos and his wife are not citizens and not legal workers, though why they haven’t become naturalized, I can’t tell you. His English is good and he is more than smart enough to learn the basics of our history and constitution. Over the years I’ve told him several times that Pace would pay for his citizenship classes, and for any work he might miss in order to attend. Same for Teresa, his wife. The first time I told him this was five years ago, around the time I took over as production manager. Marcos had smiled amiably and nodded and said he would consider this, and he’s been smiling amiably and nodding ever since.

“They would like a larger bonus,” he says. “They ask you for sixty-five dollars per day if the job is finish in eighteen days or less.”

“I offered them a fifty-dollar-per-day bonus if the run is finished in twenty days or less. And they agreed.”

This is even more important now than it was when the agreement was made because Herredia wants the guns ASAP. With the National Guard stationed all along the border, and the American military itching to charge south, and the Mexican military ready to repel boarders, Herredia doesn’t like feeling outgunned by the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas. All this chaos is a handy cover for him and Benjamin Armenta to blast away at each other and the other cartels and not draw the full wrath of the Mexican government.

“Yes,” says Marcos. “But you know, the gas is very expensive for they driving to work. They cannot live in Costa Mesa, so they live in the Santa Ana and drive far. They live cheap. They have children. Jesus needs the tires for the van. Lauro he has the baby, and Juan he has the two babies. They send money home.”

“They agreed, Marcos.”

“Yes.”

I do the math in my head. A bonus of fifty bucks a day for each worker would cost me a thousand dollars per worker if the thousand-unit run is complete in the agreed-upon seven days. A bonus of sixty-five will cost me eleven hundred seventy dollars per. There are twelve gunmakers, so the total difference to me would be two thousand forty dollars. If I agree to the larger bonus, I know full well that they’ll finish within eighteen days. So my total production payroll, with the higher bonus, would be seventy-four thousand five hundred and twenty dollars, with extremely good odds of finishing up quick. My personal net from this run, after overhead, payroll, and materials, will be around seven hundred grand.

I look down at the handsome weapon that lies before me on the bench.

“Okay,” I say.

“Thank you.”

“Five more days.”

“It will be finish.”

“Three days would be better.”

“We are working very hard. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pace.”

Marcos barrels away and I sit alone for a moment to feel good about myself. Generosity is a gift to the giver, too. In my expansiveness I reflect on how my life has changed in three short weeks. I have never really seen myself as the captain of my own destiny. This idea always struck me as specious and self-referential, what with gods and fate and governments and history and luck. I still don’t see myself that way, but I’m not about to turn away from life’s blessings no matter how mysteriously arrived they are. I’ve just blundered into things, into a fresh new business and into the chance to love the love of my life. To my small credit I have realized a few key things. I realized that I’m not as gutless and ineffectual as I thought I was. I realized that Mendez is actually Herredia, which has put me into business with one of the richest and most ruthless men in the Western hemisphere. And I’ve also realized that Bradley Smith is of course Bradley Jones, the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Joaquin Murrieta, the great and terrible El Famoso. It came to me a few nights ago just where I’d seen his face. Thirty seconds later, I’d found a short video of his mother’s funeral online and spotted Bradley prominent among the mourners. If I said that I was not personally thrilled to be marching through history beside a direct descendant of El Famoso I would certainly be lying.

Sharon and I have just made love for the third time today when there’s a ring on my security monitor near the front door. I put on my robe and go to the monitor to see Uncle Chester standing outside the lobby entrance.

“Hello, Uncle,” I say.

“I did not give you permission to change the locks,” he says.

“We had a break-in.”

“We need to talk.”

“In fact we do. Come on in.”

By now Sharon is in the living room in her indigo silk robe, glowering at me.

“You let him in.”

“He’s my uncle.”

“We didn’t change the locks to beam up Chester whenever he wants us to.”

“We need to talk. You know that. He’s coming up, Sharon. That’s what is going to happen here.”

She stares at me because she knows that she is partially responsible for my new assertiveness, and she knows she could ruin it if she wanted to. I derive a new strength from her. But I’m utterly in love with her and I tell her this often and I show it constantly in the most glaring and obvious ways: I bring flowers and gifts, I take her on short creative outings such as a day on Catalina and a pleasant lunch with Mom on the sunny lawn outside her mental hospital Victorian, and just yesterday I bought and boxed up a complete sushi and sashimi dinner, including a thermos of martinis, and we took it all to the end of the Newport pier and sat on the benches, watching the fishermen and ate and tossed balls of rice to the gulls. She knows I’m a fool for her, complete and total. I can’t fake that I’m not.

But I also can’t let my uncle stand outside in the dark. It’s time for me to tell him the new rules here at Pace. And Sharon knows this, too.

“We better get dressed,” I say.

We tour the production floor. Chester in his pale linen suit glides along ahead of me, hands behind his back, and despite the new rules here at Pace that I’m dreading telling Chet about, I can’t resist falling into his slipstream and holding my own hands behind my back and adopting his patient, noble stride. Sharon walks beside me, arms crossed. I have come to know her well enough over the years to understand that the slight tightness in her mouth and the odd flatness of her eyes and the barely detectable clenching of her jaw indicate uncut fury. You don’t mess around with Sharon when she looks like this. The gunmakers steal looks at Chester. Among them he was a man to be feared, and he still cultivates and enjoys their fear immensely.

The shift is almost over and the eight hundred thirty-seventh gun has just come off. Chester lifts it in his hand, aims up at the lights, and dry-fires. When Pace Arms was still in full production, Chester was known to fire men and women who dry-fired a Pace weapon. It’s hard on a semi.

“You would have fired you for that two years ago,” I say.