Free The Famous and the Dead by T. Jefferson Parker Page A

since.”
    â€œAlright. You want a car, see me and I
will
make you a deal. And if I need a shooting piece I’ll come see you.”
    â€œI buy, too. If you know legit people with high-end firearms.”
    â€œWhy would I?”
    â€œColeman said you were full of surprises.”
    Castro stood. “That’s me. I’ll walk you out. I want you just take one quick look at the new Taurus. Totally redesigned last year—they out-Germaned the Germans. Initial Quality? J. D. Powers went batshit over these things.”
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    Later that day, as he wrote up his report in the field office, one of his cell phones rang again. “Hood.”
    â€œThis is Lonnie Rovanna.”
    â€œHello, Lonnie.”
    â€œI saw Mike Finnegan. He was Dr. Stren, from the Superior Court in San Diego.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œTwo mornings ago. I was on your website months back. I like to check in on, well, unusual . . . searchers. Like you. I enjoyed the way you described the changeability of Mike. I believe people can be not what they appear. That they can change. That they can have several names and personalities and professions and lives. I believe this happens all the time. And I saw him. Mike. He has black hair, not red. And big glasses. It took me a couple of days to realize where I’d see him before. It came to me in a dream, in fact. But there’s no doubt he’s the same man as in your pictures. So, I’m doing what you asked. I’m contacting you.”
    â€œWhere was he?”
    â€œHere in my house. El Cajon. He came to talk about my firearms being returned. They were taken away without just cause.”
    â€œMay I come talk to you?”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œI’m leaving Buenavista now. Give me your phone number and address and an hour fifty minutes.”

8
    H ood sat on a white resin chair in Rovanna’s living room. The house was old and small and had the dusty burnt breath of the space heater that glowed orange in its corner. There was a layer of dust on everything—on the paperback thrillers grown plump with age and use, and the newspapers and magazines piled everywhere.
    Rovanna sat on a slouching plaid couch with a baseball bat leaning against the pad beside him. He allowed Hood to place a digital recorder on the low coffee table between them. Then Rovanna spoke briefly of growing up in Orange County, California, his service overseas, subsequent troubles adjusting back to civilian life, a suicide attempt, and a later assault on two Jehovah’s Witnesses. The police had arrested him and the court had committed him involuntarily to a hospital for evaluation. He was able to keep up the rent because of his disability checks. When he got home, his guns were gone. Lonnie Rovanna seemed straight to the point and factual.
    â€œIraq?” asked Hood.
    â€œTwo rotations. Mahmudiya District, then Anbar Province.”
    â€œAnbar and Hamdinaya for me. Infantry?”
    â€œFive Hundred Second, Hundred and First Airborne.”
    â€œWhich battalion?”
    Rovanna looked at him levelly, took up the Louisville Slugger, gripped it like a batter, then set it back down. “First. Bravo Company, First Platoon. Triangle of Death. We found PFC Tucker and PV2 Menchaca after the rag heads tortured and beheaded them. They put IEDs in one of their crotch cavities. That was oh-six. Then I deployed again a year later, but after the triangle I was already a wreck.”
    Hood nodded. He remembered clearly that 1st Platoon of Bravo Company—Rovanna’s outfit—had suffered terrible casualties in the so-called Triangle of Death. They had been isolated, outnumbered, terrified by videotaped beheadings circulated by the insurgents, and castigated by other B Company platoons. Four of them finally snapped, raping and killing an Iraqi girl and her family. It had been one of the darkest and most reported episodes of that