J. Bertrand - Nothing to Hide

After brushing myself off, I go to the back door with its row of dead bolts, pounding out a beat with my fist. Nothing. I knock again, then try the handle. The door doesn’t budge.

I call out. “Jeff?”

Silence.

I walk around the garage, trying the big bay doors, which are firmly shut, looking for gaps in the blackout that covers all the glass. The old entrance, a metal-framed glass door, is missing its bottom panel, the gap covered in cardboard. I work the corner free with my foot, but there’s something blocking the other side. It feels like a heavy cart or shelf, maybe some kind of workbench. There’s no space to crawl through, even if I relished the thought of forcing my way in on hands and knees, ruining my clothes on the greasy concrete.

The workers at the Burger King are stealing glances my way. It doesn’t matter. They are not going to call the cops to report a suspicious prowler on a seemingly abandoned property. They’re just curious, that’s all.

I try Jeff’s number again, listening at the gap in the cardboard in case the phone rings inside the garage. There’s no sound in there and no answer on the line. I make up my mind to get inside, so I start scouring every car on the lot, peering into threadbare backseats and holed-out trunks for a stray crowbar or a length of pipe.

Then it happens.

The crowd at Burger King starts going “ Oh ” and “ Ah ,” like guys in front of a football game when the quarterback is sacked, and then I hear the metallic rattling of chains and the big gate heaving on its dry hinges. I step out from behind the trunk of a catercorner land yacht just in time to intercept Jeff with his arm cocked high in the air, some kind of vicious-looking club in his hand.

I raise my arm to block, clenching my teeth for impact.

“March,” he says, lowering the club. He takes a step backward.

“Where did you come from?” I ask. “Why aren’t you answering my calls?”

He glances at the club in his hand, a short, studded hardwood rod that swells toward the tip, the handle wrapped in tape, and smiles with embarrassment. “I’ve had some trouble with people trespassing, mostly vagrants, so I made them a little something to remember me by. If I’d have realized it was you. .”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

Through the open gate I see an old Camaro on the curb behind my car, its door hanging open, the finish dull enough that it could have been stored in a barn for the past decade. Parked on this lot, it would pretty much blend in, only it runs.

“Listen, let’s go inside,” he says. “People are watching.”

“Give me that,” I say, reaching for the club.

He surrenders it. “Can we go in now?”

I walk back to the garage while he retrieves his car and drives it inside the gate. We head around back, side by side and silent. He works some keys out of his jeans pocket and undoes the dead bolts. Inside, the air is stifling. He turns on the fan, then goes to a window unit air-conditioner I hadn’t noticed the first time. It shudders to life with a dull hum.

“I’ve been reading that book you gave me,” I tell him. “You made some interesting notes in there, and underlined some things.”

“That’s a great little book. I highly recommend it. Living down here in the Bible Belt, it doesn’t hurt to inoculate yourself against all the stupidity.”

“What I was particularly interested in was the word you kept spelling.”

Digging through the books on his folding table, he seizes on a floppy softback with a lurid cover. “That’s what I’m talking about. You ever read this one?” He fires the book across at me, forcing me to catch it against my chest. “Dante’s Inferno . It’s all in there, all the hysteria. What he does is, he writes a poem about hell, and guess what? Everybody who crossed him in life happens to be down there in torment. I mean, yeah right. That’s why they invented hell, so they could send their enemies down there.”

“Don’t tell me you’re interested in poetry.”

The book is heavy in my hands. A memory surfaces. The same copy of Dante-the very same one-thumping down on a picnic table at Ft. Polk more than twenty years ago.

“Mr. Nesbitt, he gave me that book. He wanted me to read it.”

The pages are brown with age. I turn them slowly. “We both know the significance of Inferno, right? Let’s not make this harder than it has to be. You know more about Nesbitt’s operation than you led me to believe.” I put the book down. “Tell me what you know, Jeff.”

“If I didn’t give you everything,” he says, “maybe it was for a reason. Maybe I wanted to see if you were going to keep me in the loop or not. After all, I’ve been working on this longer than you have, and there’s more at stake for me.”

“Like what?”

“Like everything, man. They’re after me. Why do you think I holed up here? What do you think I’ve been doing ever since they killed Mr. Nesbitt? Twiddling my thumbs? Hardly. I’ve been getting on top of this thing, figuring out who they are and how they operate.”

“So tell me who they are. Tell me how they operate.”

“I could,” he says, wagging his finger. “Oh, believe me, I could. Only there’s nothing you could do about it, March. I realized that right off, even before I decided to bail you out that night. You can’t help me. You’re too tied up in the rules. You’ve got no room to maneuver.”

“Try me.”

His smile is halfway to a sneer. “What were you doing anyway, trying to break in here? If you wanted to rile me up, congratulations. I’m riled. I did you a favor-more than a favor-and this is what I get in return?”

“I’ve been trying to reach you ever since I saw the underlining in your Foxhole Atheist book. You gave me the book for a reason. You wanted me to make the connection.”

“Did I? You took your time.”

“I’ve been busy since last time. I caught up with Hilda, for one thing, and now I have names on all the guys who came after me that night. It was one of them who killed my partner. I’m pretty sure it was one of them we found in the park, which is what started this whole thing.”

“What started it for you ,” he says.

“And I found out about Nesbitt’s intelligence operation down in Matamoros, and the code name of his insider there. Inferno. But you already knew about that, Jeff.”

Something I’ve said flips a switch in Jeff’s head. He freezes a second, then turns, his eyes burning. He starts coming toward me, raising a finger in the air. Not threatening, but argumentative, like he’s determined to set me straight. “You wanna know what I know? You want me to tell you what I know? You think I’m the one who’s holding out-?”

As he rushed forward, my pocket starts to buzz. The ringer grows louder and louder as we stand there looking at each other, waiting. His mouth twitches. He blinks. A smile cracks across his lips.

“Are you gonna get that or not?”

I smile, too. The absurdity of the situation. I take out my phone and step away. The number on the screen is unfamiliar and I don’t recognize the voice at first.

“You’re gonna want to hear this,” the voice says in my ear, “but first I need assurances. Just because I came by the information doesn’t mean I’m in any way involved-”

“Who is this?” I ask.

“What?” He sounds disappointed. “It’s Sam Dearborn. From Dearborn Gun and Blade. You said if I found out anything, you’d be in my debt.”

“Right. Mr. Dearborn.” I motion Jeff to sit tight for a minute. “What did you find out?”

“Like I said, I want assurances.”

“Absolutely. Now what do you have for me?”