He answers with a snort of derision.
“When you stop believing God controls everything, Carter says, then you start making up all-powerful conspiracies to take the Almighty’s place.”
“This Carter sounds like a moron. Plus, some conspiracies are real.”
“That’s what I told him.”
“And anyway,” he says, his voice charged, “I happen to be a determinist. I think things happen for a reason, too, but not because Zeus or Allah or God or whoever says so. My determinism isn’t top down; it works from the bottom up. We’re products of our environment, March, pure and simple. Genetically determined, socially determined, whatever you like. To people like me, the God hypothesis is a conspiracy theory-the ultimate conspiracy.”
“Still, there’s something to it-”
“There’s nothing to it, March. There’s no heaven or hell, no angels floating on the clouds, no good, no evil, none of it. We’re just animals who like to tell ourselves stories in the dark. Animals making up rules for each other to follow. And when you die, that’s it. End of the line.”
“You don’t think there’s something out there-?”
“There’s nothing. Absolutely nothing. Read the book, March. You told me you did.”
“I’ve been a little busy recently.”
We sit in silence awhile. I can tell Jeff’s angry, the emotion coming out of nowhere like a flash fire. All I’d intended was to rib him a little, to pass the time as we drove, but the turn in the conversation has gotten him riled up.
“You’re a bit of a fundie, you know that?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he says.
“Anyway. We’re coming up on Brownsville. I guess this isn’t looking too good. They’re gonna have to stop somewhere, though. They can’t just drive those guns into Mexico. The odds of the van being searched are too much to risk.”
“Not if they already have a plan. Someone could wave them right through.”
I laugh. “Now you do sound like a conspiracy theorist.”
“Do I?” He doesn’t even smile. “Or maybe I’ve happened to see some things in life that you haven’t. On our side, I doubt they’re searching vehicles that are leaving the country, and I’m guessing the cartels pretty much own the Mexican side.”
“You’re probably right,” I say, trying to sound conciliatory. There’s no point in stoking the tension between us. I need him focused on the situation at hand.
He points up ahead. “The van’s turning off.”
“Here we go.”
We’re just inside Brownsville, flanked by a row of chain hotels on one side and a suburban strip mall on the other. The van turns off the frontage road into a big shopping-center parking lot, cruising down the rows until it slides into an empty space. I drive past them, keeping an eye on the rearview mirror, circling the row and doubling back on the other side. The van doors open. The driver climbs out, leaving his door ajar, while the passenger makes a beeline toward the Best Buy electronics store.
“I’ll follow him,” Jeff says. “Any of these guys sees you, they might recognize your face. You keep an eye on the van.”
I head up the row and drop him on the front curb just as the passenger walks up. Jeff pauses, then follows him inside. Then I double back and find a space halfway between the store entrance and the van.
The van’s driver leans against the fender, propping his foot up. He cups his hands in front of his mouth, and then there’s a flame. He drops his hands and exhales a cloud of smoke. In the twilight I can see the cigarette’s cherry, if I’m not imagining it. The man seems relaxed, not bothered about the time or concerned that he has a payload of illegally obtained assault rifles in the back of his van.
I take my phone out and rest it on my lap. This isn’t the end of the line for these guys, and there’s a limit to what I can expect of myself. If I lose sight of them just once, if those guns disappear and end up in the hands of the cartel. .
I dial Charlotte’s number. It rings and then her voicemail picks up.
“You’re not going to believe where I am.” I pause, not certain what to say. “I told you I couldn’t let go of this thing, right? I guess I wasn’t kidding. I’m going to be out of pocket for a while. Something’s come up-a lead-and I’ve got to follow it.”
I look up and see the passenger emerging through the sliding doors, walking out past a yellow concrete stanchion.
“I’ll call you later, Charlotte. I love you.”
Stopping in front of a garbage basket, the man digs through the plastic shopping bag in his hand, removing the contents. He tosses the bag, then rips the package open and throws that in after it. He slips whatever he’s purchased into his pocket, then starts toward the van. Jeff walks out with a bag of his own.
When he reaches the car, I ask: “What did he buy in there?”
“A GPS unit. Wherever they’re stopping for the night, it’s not here. Pop the trunk for me.”
“What for?”
“Hurry, before they take off.”
I push the trunk release, then go around back to see what he’s doing, glancing at the van to make sure it’s not moving. He takes the AR-15 out of its case, resting the rifle at the bottom of the trunk, then dumps the contents of his own bag out. A pack of plastic zip-ties drops out. He rips it open and stuffs a handful in his pocket. Then he takes the rifle and crawls underneath the car.
“What are you doing? Anyone could see you!”
“Are they leaving?” His voice sounds muffled. His legs protrude from under the bumper.
“The engine’s running. The headlights are on. It looks like they’re talking.”
“Hand me your pistol.”
Down on one knee, I peer under the car. He’s slotted the rifle into a gap in the undercarriage, securing it in place with the plastic ties. As I watch, he gives it a tug to make sure everything’s tight. Then he reaches his hand out.
“What are you doing?”
“We don’t have time to discuss this. They’re gonna pull out any second.”
“What about the spare magazines?”
“Find something to put them in, and I’ll stick them under here, too.”
After scanning side to side and making sure no one’s watching, I slip the Browning out of its holster and quickly drop the safety to lower the hammer. I place the pistol in his hand and it disappears immediately. In the trunk I pull a nylon bag from my crime-scene kit, dump the contents, and jam the three spare mags for the AR-15 inside. There’s enough room left, so I add the spare hi-cap for the Browning from my belt rig, along with the holster and mag carrier, then zip the bag closed and pass it under to Jeff.
“Hurry, they’re leaving!”
The van pulls back, stops, then accelerates down the row. I can see the red running lights over the tops of the parked cars.
“Come on, come on.”
Jeff slides out, brushes his hands on his jeans, and gives the trunk a quick search. “Is there anything else in here we need to dump?”
“It’s gonna look strange, me having an empty gun case bolted into the trunk.”
“Right.” He reaches into the case and starts ripping out the molded gray foam. I lean in and try to help. We toss the foam onto the pavement, then slam down the lid of the now-empty case. “That’s the best we can do. It’s good enough.”
In the car, racing to keep the van in sight, he outlines his plan. “If they do try to cross, I’ll get out and you can follow them alone. The odds of your car being searched are pretty slim. They’ll look inside, but they’re not gonna tear it apart. Don’t flash your badge or anything. Just show them the passport card like you’re any other visitor. If worse comes to worse, tell ’em that van is smuggling guns. That should distract them.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll make my way across on foot. You’ll be sitting in line, so I might even get there ahead of you. I’ll call you and you can pick me up.”
“And what if you can’t get across?”
&nb
sp; “Don’t worry about me.” He notices my phone in the cup holder. “Did you break down and make the call?”
The van exits the highway, turning onto International Boulevard. There are signs up ahead for the University of Texas at Brownsville and the Gateway International Bridge.
“I can’t,” I say. “There’s no one I trust. With my own people it would take too much explaining, and with the Feds, I think they might be playing me. I have to see this one through. I don’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” he says.
“Then I guess I’m making it.”
Brake lights flash in front of us. The traffic ahead rolls to a halt. The white van is four cars ahead, edging its way toward the Mexican border.
“You’d better let me out,” Jeff says.
He crosses to the sidewalk in front of the duty-free shop, walking toward the bridge without waving, without glancing back, giving no sign that we’re together. A group of pedestrians, black-haired kids in shorts and T-shirts, files in front of my car. I scoot forward toward the bridge’s entrance, a line of kiosks that reminds me of a toll plaza or a drive-through bank teller. I have my passport card ready, but on the American side a man in uniform is waving everybody forward.
I can’t see Jeff anywhere. As I move onto the bridge, its sides lined with hurricane fencing topped by rusted barbed wire, I try to center my mind, to think only positive thoughts. My phone starts to buzz, and then the ringer fills the car.
It’s Charlotte.
“Honey, I got your message. Where are you?” she asks.
This makes me laugh. I briefly imagine what would happen if I told her the truth, that I was sitting in line waiting to enter Mexico with my guns zip-tied to the bottom of the car. The absurdity of the situation surges through me and suddenly I can’t stop laughing.
“Sorry,” I say. “I’m gonna be a little late.”
I glance out across the brown ebb of the Rio Grande, gilded by the sinking orange sunset. I’m not sure what side of the line I’m on anymore.
“I’m calling you from the hospital,” she says.
The hospital. Every dark thought flashes through my head. It’s been ten years almost since the car accident that put Charlotte in the hospital and our daughter Jess in the grave, but those words drag me right back, flooding me with the same helplessness.
“Are you all right, baby? Did something happen?” I’m hours away. There’s nothing I can do. My hands begin to shake.
“No, I’m fine,” she says, the fear she picked up in my voice forcing her into her uppermost, euphoric register. “Honey, it’s time. You need to get down here or you’re gonna miss it. Carter’s pacing so much he’s gonna wear a hole in the floor.”
The cars ahead of me roll forward. The white van disappears under the shade of the roofed checkpoint on the opposite end of the bridge.
“Baby, you got my message, didn’t you? I’m working a lead. I’m not even in Houston. I’m hours away.”
“Roland, they’re having the baby. Gina’s in labor. She was asking for you. Where are you? Can you at least tell me that?”
“I’m about to crawl over the devil’s back,” I say. “No, listen, that’s wonderful. I feel terrible that I’m not there. I would be if there was any way in the world. You tell them I’m thinking about them, and I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
“Are you in trouble, Roland?”
The white van is no longer in sight. The cars move forward again. The phone is hot against the side of my face, hot and silent.
“I’ve got to go, Charlotte. I’m so sorry.”
“Are you all right?”
“Don’t worry about me. Everything’s going to be fine. I love you. Tell Carter and Gina I love them, too. And I want to see that baby when I get there. I want to hold it.”
The car in front of me advances under the soaring red arch that marks the end of the bridge. Half the lanes are blocked by orange pylons. Off to my right a flock of pedestrians passes through, the air around them humming with laughter. I pull my phone away, imagining a sterile hospital hallway, Charlotte standing off to the side, stricken with worry.
“Are you doing something stupid?” she whispers.
“Possibly. But get in there and be with them, okay? Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself just fine.”
I should turn around and go back. But I’ve come too far already.
“I love you,” she says.
“I love you, too.”
Up above me, as my car moves forward into the shade, there’s a string of words emblazoned across the entry terminal, like the motto at the gates of Dante’s hell. “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” Only in this case, it’s a Spanish epitaph:
BIENVENIDOS A MEXICO
Interlude: 1986
When the phone rang, I was twisted in my sheets, reliving old memories in my dreams. The glowing clock said it was two in the morning. The voice on the other end of the line belonged to Sgt. Crewes. He spoke quietly, with great precision, like a man who doesn’t want to repeat himself. Like a man who doesn’t want to be overheard. “Report to base,” he said, only not to the office. I was to meet him at the special housing block set aside for the cabana boys.
“You know that’s off-limits to me,” I said.
“Ten minutes.” He hung up the phone.
When I arrived, a couple of MPs were descending the second-floor stairs. They wouldn’t answer any questions. “Sergeant Crewes is upstairs, sir. We were never even here.”
I went up. The building layout reminded me of a dormitory. An entrance at either end led into a long corridor with doors on either side. Because of the hour, the common area lights were dimmed. Some of them flickered as I walked beneath them. I glanced up to see the husks of dead insects trapped inside the plastic.
Crewes stood outside one of the doors, looking pale and thin as woodsmoke.
“I couldn’t put this on my men,” he said. “But you know the score.”
Then he led me into the suite. The front room was bare apart from the furniture and a couple of garbage bags with bright yellow twist-ties. The hallway opened into a central bathroom with a bedroom on either side.
At the right-hand door stood Magnum, his expression blank.
“All right,” he said, patting my shoulder. “Good man.”
In the bedroom there were two bunks. She was on one of them, covered to her forehead with a green woolen blanket so that only her bobbed hair showed.
“What is this?” I asked.
“We need your help,” Magnum said. “This has to disappear.”
I walked to the side of the bunk, my hand edging toward the blanket.
“I wouldn’t do that-”
She looked barely human, she’d been so badly beaten. She looked like a mutant in some kind of genetic experiment gone wrong, covered in blood, her bones smashed and twisted, her bruised skin a record of fingertips and the tread of boots. The stud was missing from her nose. Shaking, I forced myself nearer, listening for breath.
“There’s no point in that,” Magnum told me. “I’m not an idiot.”
I wheeled on him. “What happened?”
“It was one of the cabana boys,” Crewes said. “They’ve ordered up some girls before, which is what put the major on the warpath.”
“And this time,” Magnum said, “it got out of hand. He was alone with her; otherwise it would have been stopped.”
“Where is he? Do we have him in custody?”
Crewes studied the linoleum floor while Magnum got the same amused look he’d had in the major’s office.
“We’re talking about your golden boy, right? César?”
“I asked for you,” Magnum said, “because you seemed reliable. We’ve got some tough hours ahead of us, and the longer we spend talking, the closer daybreak is.”
The protocol wouldn’t come to me. An image of the warrant officer at the PX flashed in my mind. That’s who should have been there, not me. I had no
business at the scene of a murder, no business witnessing what was under that blanket. I looked from one man to the other, my features twisted in shock. Crewes wouldn’t make eye contact. Magnum seemed disappointed, like he’d expected me to be made of stiffer stuff.
“What. .” I said. “What do you expect from me?”
“We’re going to need more blankets,” Magnum began. “And some kind of conveyance so we can move her quickly and cleanly. Apart from the mattress, everything’s taken care of, so no worries on that score.”
The trash bags in the front room. Everything’s taken care of. The evidence, he meant.
“You want to move the body?” I asked, incredulous.
“Lieutenant,” Crewes said, his voice paternal and warm.
I had come straight over when the sergeant called, which meant I didn’t have a side arm. Ordinarily I didn’t. Magnum, if he’d been true to his namesake, would have had a Government Model tucked into the small of his back, but I hadn’t seen one. Crewes had one, though, hidden under the leather flap of a duty holster.
My eyes rested on that holstered pistol, calmness shrouding me. In four years of military service I’d never been threatened, never had the opportunity to test whether I would bear up under life-or-death stress or not. But I’d known since I was a boy that I could be cold-bloodedly serene in times of danger. When the stress got so intense that others couldn’t think, I could. And that’s how it was that night. I saw the holster, envisioned the movement, and suddenly I made my move. I rushed Crewes, using my hip to knock him off-balance, opening the holster flap and drawing his weapon.
The two men watched me, frozen. I stepped back, then racked the slide, glancing down into the chamber in time to see the shiny full-metal-jacketed round slide into place. We all stood there, looking at each other.
“That’s not what I was expecting,” Magnum said, smiling so hard his laugh lines deepened into slits.
Nothing to Hide drm-3 Page 26