The Power Of The Dog (92 page)

It’s too soon, Art thinks.

And maybe too late.

Nora talks all about her last visit to San Diego.

How she went shopping, what she bought, where she stayed, how she had lunch with Haley, a nap, a run, dinner.

“What did you do that night?”

“Hung out in the room, ordered dinner, watched TV.”

“You were in La Jolla and you just watched TV? Why?”

“Just felt like it. Being by myself, hanging out, vegging out in front of the tube.”

“What did you watch?”

She knows she’s going down the slippery slope. She knows it, but there’s nothing she can do about it. That’s the nature of slippery slopes, isn’t it? she thinks. What I really did that night was go to the White House and meet with Keller, but I can’t say that, can I? So …

“I dunno. I don’t remember.”

“It wasn’t that long ago.”

“Dumb stuff, you know. Some dumb movie. Maybe I fell asleep.”

“Pay-per-view? HBO?”

She can’t remember if the Valencia has pay-per-view movies or HBO or anything. She’s not sure she ever even turned the TV on there. But if I say I watched a pay movie, then that would show up my bill, wouldn’t it? she thinks. So she says, “I think it was HBO or Showtime, one of those.”

The interrogator senses that he’s moving in on the kill. She’s an amateur; a professional liar is vague about everything. (“I don’t remember—it might have been this, it might have been that.”) But this woman had been certain and detailed about everything that she’d done. Up until her account of the evening, when she became uncertain and evasive.

A professional liar knows that the key is not to make his lies look like the truth, but to make his truth look like lies.

Well, her truth looks like truth, and her lies?

“But you don’t remember what the movie was.”

“I was, you know, channel surfing.”

“Channel surfing.”

“Yeah.”

“What did you have for dinner?”

“Fish. I usually have fish.”

“Watching your weight.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll be back in a bit. While I’m gone, please think about what movie you watched.”

“Can I sleep?”

“If you sleep, you can’t think, can you?”

But I can’t think if I don’t sleep, Nora worries. That’s the problem. I can’t think of any more lies, I can’t keep them straight, I’m not even sure myself what happened and didn’t. What movie did I watch? What movie is this? How does it end?

“If you can remember what you watched that night, I’ll let you sleep.”

He knows the process. When put under enough pressure, the mind will create an answer. It doesn’t matter if it’s fact or fantasy in this case. He just wants her to commit to an answer.

In exchange for sleep, the woman’s mind will “recall” the information. It might even seem real to her. If it turns out to be so, fine. But if it turns out to be false, she will have given him the crack from which everything else will splinter.

She will fall apart.

And then we will have the truth.

“She’s lying,” the interrogator tells Raúl. “Making things up.”

“How can you tell?”

“Body language,” the interrogator says. “Vague answers. If I put her on a polygraph and ask her about that particular evening, she fails.”

Do I have enough to convince Adán? Raúl wonders. So that I can dispatch this lying bitch without starting a civil war with my brother? First Fabián sends a message through his lawyer saying that the woman is the soplón. Now the interrogator is on the edge of catching her in a lie.

But do I wait?

For Rebollo to get us a definitive answer? If he can get us an answer?

“How long before you break her?” Raúl asks.

The interrogator looks at his watch. “It’s five o’clock now?” he says. “Eight-thirty, nine at the latest.”

Now the clouds are on our side, Art thinks, as the fishing boat cuts through the choppy water. He listens to the rhythmic slapping of the hull against the small waves that break against the bow. The bad weather that had obscured their intelligence-gathering operations is now working for them, hiding them from the view of spotters on the coast as well as other boats, some of them doubtless loaded with Barrera security.

He looks at the men sitting silently on the deck. Their eyes shine bright against their blackened faces. Smoking has been forbidden, but most of the men have unlit cigarettes playing nervously in their lips. Others chew gum. A few talk quietly, but most just sit and stare out at the gray fog glimmering under the moonlight.

The men wear Kevlar vests over black jumpsuits, and each man is his own arsenal, carrying either a Mac-10 or an M-16, a .45 pistol on one side of his belt and a wicked, flat, palm-leaf-killing blade on the other. The vests are festooned with grenades.

So these are the “outside resources,” Art thinks.

Where the fuck did Scachi get them?

Callan knows.

It’s old-fucking-home week, sitting here with the Red Mist boys, some of them his old bunkmates from Las Tangas, waiting to do what they do.

“Interdict the terrorists’ arms supply at its source,” was the way Scachi had put it.

Three Zodiac boats covered with canvas tarps are lashed to the deck. There will be eight men to a boat and they’ll land fifty yards apart. The men in the two northernmost boats will head toward the larger house. The crew of the third boat will make for the smaller cottage.

Whether or not we get there is a good question, Callan thinks.

If the Barreras have been tipped off we’ll be walking into a cross fire coming from stone houses, pinned down on a bare beach with no cover but the fog. The beach will be littered with bodies.

But they won’t stay there.

Sal’s been clear about the spec: No one is to be left behind. Dead or alive or anywhere in between, they’re getting back on the boat. Callan glances over at the pile of cinder blocks on the aft deck. “Headstones,” Sal called them.

Burial at sea.

We ain’t leaving no bodies in Mexico. Far as the world is concerned, this was a hit carried out by a rival narco looking to take advantage of the Barreras’ current difficulties. If you get captured—and don’t get captured—that’s what you tell them. No matter what they do to you. Better idea? Swallow your gun. We ain’t the Marines—we won’t be coming to get you.

Art goes below.

The strong smell of diesel fuel makes his stomach lurch. Or maybe it’s nerves, Art thinks.

Scachi’s drinking a cup of coffee.

“Like old times, huh, Arthur?”

“Almost.”

“Hey, Arthur, you don’t want this to happen, say the word.”

“I want it to happen.”

“You got thirty minutes on that beach,” Sal says. “In thirty minutes we’re back on the boat and heading out. Last thing we need is to get stopped by a Mexican patrol boat.”

“I got it,” Art says. “How long until we get there?”

Scachi kicks the question to the boat’s captain.

Two hours.

Art checks his watch.

They’ll hit the beach around nine.

Nora makes her mistake at 8:15.

She starts to fall asleep standing up, but they shake her and walk her around the room. Then they sit her down again as the interrogator comes in and asks—

“Do you remember what you watched that night?”

“Yes.”

Because I have to get some sleep. Have to sleep. If I can sleep I can think, and I can think my way out of this. So give him something, a little something, buy some sleep. Buy some time.

“Very good. What?”

“Amistad.”

“The movie about slaves.”

“That’s right.”

Go ahead and ask me about it, she thinks. I’ve seen it. I remember it. I can talk about it. Ask me your questions. Fuck you.

“There are no network movies on a weeknight, so it must have been pay-per-view or HBO.”

“Or some other—”

“No, I checked. Your hotel has only HBO and pay-per-view.”

“Oh.”

“So which was it?”

How the hell should I know? Nora thinks.

“HBO.”

The interrogator shakes his head sadly, like a teacher whose student has disappointed him.

“Nora, that hotel does not get HBO.”

“But you just said—”

“I was testing you.”

“Then it must have been pay-per-view.”

“Was it?”

“Yes, I remember now. It was pay-per-view because I can remember looking at that little card they put on top of the television and wondering if the staff thought I was ordering porn. Yes, that’s right, and I …what?”

“Nora, I have copies of your bill. You didn’t order a movie.”

“I didn’t?”

“No. Now, why don’t you tell me what you were really doing that night, Nora?”

“I did tell you.”

“You lied to me, Nora. I’m very disappointed.”

“I’m just confused. I’m so tired. If you let me get some sleep …”

“The only reason to lie is to cover something up. What are you covering up, Nora? What did you really do that night?”

She puts her face in her hands and sobs. She hasn’t cried since Juan died, and it feels good. It’s a relief.

“You were somewhere else that night, weren’t you?”

She nods.

“You’ve been lying all this time.”

She nods again.

“Can I sleep now, please?”

“Give her some Tuinol,” the interrogator says. “And get Raúl.”

Adán’s door opens.

Raúl comes in and hands him a pistol.

“Can you do this, brother?”

She feels a hand on her shoulder.

Thinks it’s a dream at first, then opens her eyes and sees Adán standing over her.

“My love,” he says, “let’s go for a walk.”

“Now?”

He nods.

He looks so serious, she thinks. So serious.

He helps her get out of bed.

“I’m a mess,” she says.