J. Bertrand - Nothing to Hide

The first of them reaches the landing in a low crouch, gun extended. I let him come. He creeps over to the veranda, bending lower to inspect something on the ground. Probably Keller’s blood. A second one appears, and then a third. There are more footsteps on the stairs behind him. The Tritium inserts on my gunsights shine bright in the dark. I line them up over the first man, let out my breath, and fire.

I don’t know whether I’ve hit him, or anything else for that matter. Once the shooting starts, there’s nothing but the flash of the muzzle and a barrage of earsplitting concussions. All I can do is try and match my shots to the map of targets locked in my memory. How many rounds I let off, I don’t know-the shooting goes on forever, uninterrupted, like a stage of fire on the range.

And then the louvers shatter down on top of me, raining glass everywhere, and I have to crouch to the floor, hands over my head, to keep from being hit. Something burns against the side of my neck. I panic, thinking of Keller’s wound. When I cover the spot with my hand, though, I find one of my own spent cartridges. It must have kicked back from the ejection port and landed inside my collar.

I crawl along the base of the wall toward the next window, then the one nearest the door. From the corner I can see two men on the landing, emptying their clips into my original position. Another is coiled on the ground, clutching his guts. Very close to the window someone is whining pitifully above the roar of the guns.

Lining up my sights on the two shooters, I open fire. One of them drops like his strings have been cut, and the other stumbles backward and pitches over the side of the railing, falling to the alleyway below. When I crouch for cover, there’s no return fire, just the wet mewling of the man on the veranda and the echo of feet descending the stairs to regroup.

My pistol is smoking in my hand, the slide locked back. The 17-round magazine is already empty. I eject it to the floor and seat the other mag, dropping the slide to chamber a round. I don’t know how many times I fired in the first engagement. The mag could be mostly full or nearly empty and there’s no time to stop and check. Already I can hear them coming up again, this time with an unnerving deliberation, as if they’re pausing to get the next attack right.

“Hello in there?” a voice calls from around the corner. The English is clear, only lightly accented, with a friendly, paternal timbre. “We would like to have a word.”

“It’s him. The Jefe .”

I turn to find Keller at my side, hunched down with a seeping hand towel against his neck, secured in place by what looks like a rolled pillowcase with a jaunty knot on the side opposite the wound. In his fist, the shiny revolver, its hammer cocked back. The thought of him lurking there behind me, the snub nose in hand, sends a chill through me.

“I believe,” César says, “there is a misunderstanding. We have not come here for you, whoever you are. It’s Meester Keller we want. Send him out and we will go, you have my word.”

In my ear, Keller whispers: “Don’t engage with him.”

“What did you do with Brandon Ford?” I call out.

“ What did I just say? ”

“We had a matter to discuss with Meester Ford, I am afraid. But you? You are no one. If you like, you can put down your weapon and go.”

The voice hasn’t changed at all. Hearing him speak, I’m back in that Leesville parking lot, my fists cocked ready to beat him down. One thing in my favor: Magnum was teaching torture techniques to the cabana boys, not combat tactics. The apartment isn’t exactly a fortified position, but with the advantage of the wall and the confined open ground the cartel shooters have to cover just to reach us, we can hold out as long as we have ammo. If they keep rushing us like they did before, we have a chance.

In the distance, I hear the faint ring of sirens. They could be miles away or just blocks, it’s hard to tell. I turn to Keller, who hears them, too, but doesn’t look encouraged. He shakes his head. “The police around here, they’re in his pocket.”

“I have a proposition,” I call out. “Why don’t we discuss this man-to-man, out in the open? I’m not afraid. Are you?”

It’s a silly idea, but I’m grasping at straws. If I can shame him in front of his men, call his machismo into question, then maybe. . But no. Keller’s shaking his head again, disappointed in my maneuver. And in spite of the dire situation, I find his censure irritating.

“If you have anything better to suggest. .”

The sirens are sounding louder. They echo down the nearby streets. I want to believe Keller’s wrong about the local police, that all I have to do is buy time. My gun hangs heavy in my hand, and when I glance down, I find that I’m trembling.

“Well, what do you say?” I yell.

“This is a very interesting proposition. Allow me to think it over.”

He speaks with exaggerated courtliness, inserting long pauses between the words, his conversational tone wholly unsuited to the circumstances. The man is confident, I’ll give him that. The approaching sirens don’t seem to worry him at all.

But perhaps I’m not the only one buying time.

I motion Keller to be quiet and sit tight. Then I creep backward on hands and knees, between the couch and chair, passing the cocktail pitcher. Back at the far window where I started, I pause at the perimeter of broken glass, listening intently.

“Now, señor , I have a proposition for you.”

Just outside the window I hear the faint crush of glass underfoot, the sole of a boot pressing down and twisting slightly. While César was talking to me, they must have sent someone to climb up over the veranda railing. Not bad. I listen to his progress and as his head breaks the plane of the sill, I raise the Browning and light him up.

The man pitches back into the shadows, a vaporous cloudburst erupting from his brow. Keller screams and starts firing his revolver two-handed through the window, each loud, throaty bang accompanied by a long tongue of flame. They’re rushing us again, spilling onto the veranda, and the six rounds in his chamber won’t hold them for long. I scramble along the wall, firing through each window as I pass, then shouldering the door open to empty the last of my clip point-blank into the writhing mass.

Flashing blues and reds cast their glow down the alleyway and the sirens are right on top of us, right inside my head, threatening to burst out. I am slung sideways against the doorframe, my pistol shot dry, looking back at Keller as the hammer of his revolver snaps down on one spent chamber after another. He can’t tell the gun is empty, because he’s still yelling at the top of his lungs, his eyes clenched shut.

On the veranda, men are crawling on top of each other, stumbling back down the stairs in retreat. A pair of blank eyes stares up at me from right at the threshold. I reach out and twist a cocked.45 from his hand. I’m running cold again, my trembling gone. I emerge into the night, stepping over the bodies of the dead and wounded, ignoring the carnage. The landing is slick under my feet. At the top of the stairs, two bloodstained men hold a third between them-silver-haired, in a sodden guayabera. I reach down, taking César by the collar, pressing the borrowed gun into the ear of the carrier on his right.

“Leave him,” I growl.

They spring back, dropping the Jefe against my leg. The one under my muzzle just runs, while the other lets a stray round fly. I snap the.45 toward him and fire. He goes tumbling down the stairs.

Then I start dragging César back, grunting with the effort, my whole body radiating, enflamed. I drag him across the landing, leaving contrails in the blood. I drag him across one of the wounded, who crawls away with a frightening gasp. I drag him across the threshold and into the apartment, kicking the door shut, releasing his shirt.