J. Bertrand - Nothing to Hide

“We don’t have a lot of time,” he said. “You’re sure this is what you want to do? All right, then. The thing is, I had you pegged for a different kind of guy-and I wasn’t kidding when I told you I was a good judge of character.”

“Is that right?” I spat the words out.

“Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t know himself.”

“I do now.”

He was studying me the way a climber might study a rock, looking for a way up, trying to assess whether the attempt was worth making.

“What’s your real name?” I asked. “Everybody calls you Magnum.”

“On account of this?” He stroked the mustache and shook his head. “You can go on calling me that. Doesn’t bother me.”

“Tell me something. If you’re such a good judge of character, how’d that girl end up dead? Are you sure you’ve got César pegged? Maybe it’s him that has the measure of you.”

“A man in the throes of passion will sometimes get carried away. He gets angry. He does something like this. Does that make him a bad man? An evil man? Or just a man like any other? I’ve seen a little bit more of the world than you have, son, and I’ll tell you this: I’ve never met a man who wasn’t capable of something like this.”

“I’m not capable of it.”

“You might tell yourself that.” He gets a faraway look in his eyes, maybe reminiscing about his own transgressions. “I judged you wrong, Lieutenant March, but I don’t think I’m that far off. You’re the one standing there with the gun, after all. I haven’t killed anyone tonight and I don’t plan on it. What are your plans, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I plan on bringing you to justice. You’re aiding and abetting a crime. You’re trying to cover up the evidence. And I plan on slapping the cuffs on César, too. If he thinks he’s getting a pass on this-”

“I’m only doing my job. And I told you already, I’m building relationships here that are going to last a long time. When you walked in and saw that girl, what went through your mind? You were horrified, weren’t you? So was I. But something else occurred to me. I’ve been watching these men. I’ve been looking to see which ones will last, which of them will rise to the top. When I saw this, I thought, he’s the one . The man who did this, if he doesn’t self-destruct, will go far. Trust me.”

“Shut up,” I said. “You’re not gonna talk that way with her lying there.”

I made him rise and walk down the hallway into the front room. I made him untie the garbage bags and dump out their contents on the floor. Up to that point, he’d been easygoing, as calm under pressure as I was. But emptying the bags got to him. His cheeks flushed with anger. The sides of the mustache curled down.

“You’re a student of history, aren’t you, March? That’s what you were checking out at the bookstore, if I remember. I’m more of a literature man myself, but as a historian, maybe you can appreciate this. There are certain historical events that, if you understand the relationship between them, will unlock the way of the world. You know what I’m talking about?”

“I think you’re insane.”

“You ever studied the French Revolution? Liberty, equality, fraternity, all of that rot. The whole of modern history is just footnotes to the French Revolution. In 1789, when the people started guillotining their masters, that got the slaves down in Haiti thinking, If you guys are all about freedom, then how ’bout giving us a little? Now, in Europe, the French were all about exporting the revolution. Every monarch on the continent started itching around the collar. But when their own colony starts talking about the rights of man, what do you think happened?”

“They suppressed it,” I said.

“That’s right. The ideas you champion for yourself become a threat when they’re embraced by the people you need to subjugate. You overthrow your tyrant, but you still have to make friends with tyrants everywhere. You have no choice.”

“You can choose not to subjugate anyone.”

“Can you?” He seems genuinely surprised. “That’s not as easy as you might think.”

Outside in the corridor, I could hear footsteps. Then Crewes’s voice. Then the voice of the major. I pulled the door open wide, leaving the pistol aimed at Magnum.

“Sir,” I said.

Major Shattuck strode through the doorway with Crewes in his wake. He ordered me to lower the gun and I did. Even Magnum stood straighter, halfway to attention. The major looked the room over, then turned to me for a report.

“There’s a dead girl in the bedroom,” I said. “One of the cabana boys-one of the Latin American officers-raped her and beat her to death. When I arrived, Sergeant Crewes and Magnum-and this gentleman-were in the process of cleaning up the scene. They expected me to help them remove the body, sir.”

Shattuck glared at Crewes. “Is this true?”

“Yes, sir. Lieutenant March took my side arm and threatened to shoot me if I didn’t come and fetch you out of bed. So that’s what I did. Sir.”

“And you?” He faced Magnum. “Anything to add?”

“Only that if we don’t do something about the body in there, this could get very ugly very fast. Like I told you before, we have to extend every courtesy.”

“There’s a limit.”

“Maybe so,” Magnum said. “But this isn’t it.”

Shattuck pondered the situation with a taciturn expression. As he did, I felt a weight drop from my shoulders. I had not only proven myself, I had defined myself. I had declared which side I was on. Years later, at the bed of a victim I’d been unable to help, a reverend by the name of Curtis Blunt would quote some Scripture at me, to the effect that cops are God’s instruments for doing justice, and only the wicked need to fear them. Setting aside any delusions of grandeur, an instrument is what I was. A servant of the abstract idea. “Justice,” I’d said to Magnum, and with a straight face, too. And I still believe it. The same fire burns in me, muffled though it is by cynicism and failure and the passage of so many years.

The pistol in my hand felt so heavy that when the major asked for it, I was happy to give it up. He ejected the magazine, drew back the slide, and released the chambered round. It thudded to the floor. He handed the pistol to Sgt. Crewes.

As soon as he did, Magnum sprang forward.

I never saw the blow coming. But there it was. The crack against my cheek, my neck twisting, my eyes clenched shut in agony. When they opened, the world was decked in gauze and I was reeling. I must have staggered back against the wall, because there I was, sliding down to the floor. I was down and out, and Magnum’s fist was already recocking for the next punch.

The last thing I remember seeing was Sgt. Crewes pistol-whipping the CIA agent. He crumpled and went down. Maybe I’m fooling myself, but the way I remember it, my eyes stayed open a moment longer than his.

I don’t have to get out of my car or even roll the window down. Like the white van, I just drive straight through, one of the hundreds, maybe thousands of tourists crossing back and forth across the border today. All the precautions were seemingly for nothing, though it brings me no relief. The sound of Charlotte’s voice still rings in my ear. The Rio Grande might as well be the Rubicon.

Three bridges over the river connect Brownsville to Matamoros, and we have taken the middle one, which feeds onto a fingerlike promontory wrapped by a bend in the river. The northbound lanes, like the ones at Sarita, are backed up with Americans heading home. The rush into Mexico must slacken by early evening, because once we’re through the checkpoint, the cars in front of me accelerate at a brisk pace. Keeping the van in sight, I scan the sidewalks for any sign of Jeff among the stream of pedestrians.