J. Bertrand - Nothing to Hide

“Well,” he says. “You’re not going to believe this. I just got off the phone with a certain friend of mine, and what he told me I think you’re gonna be interested in. You were asking me all those questions about Brandon Ford, on account of him being dead.”

“I remember.”

Jeff walks back to the window unit, sucking up the cool air. I turn away from the corner of the garage he’s converted to living space, picking my way into the garage’s dead zone, the empty lift hole and the grime-covered, long-abandoned equipment.

“Only this friend of mine,” Dearborn is saying, “it turns out he’d been contacted by Ford a while back about getting some assault rifles. He wanted ten M4 carbines and. . well, he didn’t want them tracing back to him. This friend of mine, he’s apparently not as ethical as me. Point is, he has the guns in his shop, but never heard back from Ford for the obvious reason that he was dead.”

“So where are these guns exactly?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jeff stand upright. Alert. He starts coming toward me.

“He moved them to a storage lockup he has, but that’s not important. The important thing is that just a minute ago he gets a call wanting to arrange to collect them. And it was Brandon Ford on the phone.”

“It was Ford?”

Jeff’s eyes go wide.

“Who’s supposedly dead,” Dearborn says.

“And when is this collection supposed to happen?” I ask, my pulse racing.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It’s happening right now.”

Five minutes later I’m pushing my way out the door, heading around the garage toward my waiting car. Behind me, Jeff does up one of the dead bolts and runs to catch up. Later, I’ve already told him. We’ll continue this later.

“What’s going on?” he asks. “Where are you going? You’ve found out where Ford is, haven’t you?”

“I’ll call you,” I tell him. “Answer next time.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“You’re not coming with me.”

“I am,” he says. “Try to stop me. Besides, you’re flying solo now. Who else are you gonna call for backup? You know I can handle myself, March. Come on.”

He’s standing at my passenger door, his hand on the latch.

“Fine. Get in,” I say. Knowing I’m going to regret it.

With Jeff riding shotgun, I take the Gulf Freeway into downtown, snaking back and forth through midday traffic, availing myself of the shoulder when necessary. Jeff wants to slam a flashing light onto the roof, Starsky and Hutch -style, but I’ve been driving my own car since my unofficial suspension began. Traffic stacks up at the Southwest Freeway exit, reducing our progress to a crawl. Once we’re through it, the pace picks up and I steer to the far left lane, hurtling by at ninety miles per hour. We slow down again at the Loop, then pour on the speed through Sharpstown, past Houston Baptist, hooking a left on the Sam Houston Tollway en route to Missouri City.

Exiting the tollway, we pull into a gas station along the feeder, where Dearborn waits in the front seat of a glossy black Chrysler with a stacked Bentley-clone grill. He locks up and jumps in the back, reaching over the seat to shake hands.

“It’s just up the road,” he says. “I just got off the phone with him, and he says he’s still waiting for Ford to show up.”

“So we beat him?”

“I think Ford might have a number of stops to make.”

The assurances Dearborn wanted weren’t mine to give. I gave them anyway in the interest of time. His “friend” was only willing to cooperate if I would agree that he wouldn’t be prosecuted.

“The past couple of weeks,” Dearborn says, “this friend of mine has been filling the order, picking up one piece here, one piece there, buying from private sellers when he can find them and from dealers if he can arrange a straw purchase. This is not my kind of business-you know that. He came to me because he knew I’d been asking around about Ford, after our first conversation. From what he says, it sounds like Ford had several people freelancing for him, putting together a nice little cache of weapons.”

“They’re all M4s?” I ask. Military carbines, basically updated M-16s.

“Far as I know. And Ford was offering good money to make it worth everybody’s time.”

On the drive down I explained to Jeff what I expected of him: basically silence. You’re just along for the ride, I told him, and he agreed. Now he sits there quietly, lips pursed and arms crossed as if to hold himself back from talking.

“So what makes you think Ford has other pickups to make?”

Dearborn leans forward between the seats, blocking the rearview mirror. “Because when he found out the guns weren’t in the shop anymore, that they were sitting down here in a lockup, he wasn’t too happy. Said he was on a tight schedule and didn’t have time to mess around.”

Jeff can’t keep quiet anymore. “Which means when he gets here, he’ll have an arsenal with him, probably some other guys. And you’re gonna take him all by yourself?”

“You’re offering your services?”

“I’m not even packing. But yeah, I’ll pitch in.”

“You don’t sound as gung ho as you did back at the garage.”

“I’ve had time to think.”

Dearborn jabs a finger at Jeff, catching my eye in the mirror. “So this guy’s not a cop? I guess you have, like, a SWAT team or something lined up?”

“Let me worry about that.”

Neither one of them seems satisfied with that, Dearborn because he doesn’t know what he’s gotten himself into, and Jeff because, with his military background, he realizes there’s a level of planning required to go up against armed men successfully, not to mention overwhelming force. Trouble is, I’m in no position to call on what resources I have, and even if I were, there may not be time. My plan at the moment is to see what develops and go forward from there, something I don’t intend to share with Jeff or Dearborn, neither of whom would want to hear it anyway. Instead, I resolve to project an attitude of calm-in other words, to bluff my way through.

We pull up across the street from a gated plot of corrugated, subdivided longhouses, with red-painted garage doors granting access to each stall. If Dearborn’s friend had an outer stall, everything would happen out in the open, but instead it’s on the inside. We can watch them drive up and go inside, but whatever happens after that will be invisible.

“How are we gonna play this?” Jeff asks.

I sit and think for a moment. All that matters is that I take Ford into custody. I’m not trying to build a case against him for gunrunning. So the important question is whether he’ll be more vulnerable and off guard inside the facility or out in the parking lot loading his cargo. The answer seems obvious. Once he’s outside, his radar will be switched on. The only way to get the jump on him is to get inside.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” I say, turning in my seat. “Dearborn, I want you to take me in there and introduce me to your friend. Then you can make yourself scarce while I get into the lockup. That’s where I’ll wait for him.”

Jeff is already shaking his head. “And what about me?”

There are lines you cross without realizing, and others you step over deliberately. I pause, knowing I’m on the verge of stepping over and not feeling good about it.

“You. .” I say. “How about overwatch?”

I get out of the car and lead him around to the trunk, conscious of Dearborn watching from the backseat. I pop the lid, obstructing the gun dealer’s vision, then open up the padded case mounted into the trunk that holds my AR-15 carbine.