January Justice (18 page)

She was obviously drunk. I said, “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head while taking a long drink of wine. She swallowed, put the empty glass down on the table, and said, “It doesn’t matter. I just want her caught. Do you think you can do that?”

“There’s a chance.”

A deep voice from behind me said, “Semper Fi, right, Gunny?”

I turned to see a man entering the room. He was almost as tall as I was, but not as wide through the shoulders. Still, he wore his suit very well. As he approached, he extended his hand but kept his elbow tucked against his side to make me do most of the reaching. It was an old trick, a way of saying, “I can make you come to me.” I didn’t mind. He was a United States congressman, after all.

“Hector Montes,” he said. “And you must be Gunnery Sergeant Malcolm Cutter of the United States Marine Corps.”

“I haven’t been a marine for a while, sir,” I said. I didn’t mention that I had been a private on the day they discharged me. I figured the congressman had looked into me and knew all about it.

“Nonsense. Once a marine, always a marine. Isn’t that what they say?”

“Something like that.”

I watched as he bent to kiss Doña Elena’s cheek, then said, “Hello, my love.” He turned to me without waiting for a reply. “It was quite a surprise to hear from my old friend Simon earlier. How’s old Simon doing?”

“He’s well, I think. How do you two know each other?”

The congressman flashed a set of thousand-watt teeth. “Oh, I think we’d better let Simon explain all that. He tells me you’re investigating poor Arturo’s murder?”

“Yes, sir. Mrs. Montes and I were just discussing it.”

“That’s fine. We’re both happy to help in any way we can, aren’t we, my love?”

“Of course,” said Doña Elena.

“Have a seat, Cutter. Have a seat.”

He settled in next to Doña Elena, leaning back against the cushions and crossing one impeccably garbed knee over the other before draping an arm across the back of the sofa behind his wife. There was something possessive about the gesture, as if he were staking a claim. The two of them looked too perfect somehow, as if they were posing for a publicity still. I got the impression that the only thing holding them together was the mutual gravity of their fame, wealth, and power.

Congressman Montes said, “I did a little checking up on you after Simon called. I hope you don’t mind. Very impressive record. Very impressive. Right up until the end.”

I said, “Thank you, sir.”

“Bosnia, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan. Did I leave anything out?”

“I can’t really say.”

“Not even to a congressman?”

“Respectfully, no, sir.”

He laughed. “Absolutely right. Absolutely. Say, I want you to know I think it’s a real shame one of our finest warriors like you ended up driving limos and running interference between actors and their fans. Things would have worked out differently if I’d had any say in it. These pantywaist liberals just don’t understand the fog of war.”

“Thank you, sir, but I don’t mind how things have worked out. It’s a living.”

He smiled and leaned forward a little to adjust the cuff of his slacks. “Mr. Cutter is being modest, my love. I’m told he’s one of the best one can hire in the line of personal protection.”

Doña Elena’s eyes went wide. “But I thought you were an investigator.”

I smiled. “I’m sort of a jack of all trades, ma’am. I’m a chauffeur and a bodyguard most of the time, but I had a little law-enforcement training in the military, so sometimes I offer that to clients too.”

After a moment, Congressman Montes said, “Tell me Malcolm, who are you working for today?”

I had prepared myself for the question, since it seemed obvious that one of them would ask it eventually. There was no way they would continue the interview if I refused to answer, so my choices were to lie or tell the truth. I knew Valentín Vega would prefer that I not tell the truth, but then again Vega had hired me to get to the bottom of things as I thought best.

I looked up. It was important to watch their faces when I said, “The URNG.”

Doña Elena shot to her feet. “WHAT?”

She swayed a little, obviously feeling the Chablis as she stood there glaring down at me.

I said, “The URNG hired me to find out why the Delarosa woman killed your first husband, ma’am.”

“But… but…
they
killed him! She was one of them! Everyone knows that!” She turned to look down at her husband, who had remained seated beside her, legs still crossed, arm still draped casually along the sofa’s back. His calm expression never wavered as Doña Elena said, “What’s going on here? I thought you said he was coming over to help!”

“Please, dear. Sit back down,” said the congressman. “Let’s find out a little more before we lose our tempers, shall we?”

Still swaying slightly, Doña Elena stared from him to me and back at him before she settled onto the sofa.

I said, “The URNG deny that Alejandra Delarosa was a member of their organization or that they had any role in the kidnapping and murder. They want to clear their name. They’re especially interested in setting your mind at ease regarding this crime, congressman, so they asked me to try to find the woman responsible and bring her to justice.”

Montes said, “When you took this job, didn’t you realize they have a bad track record with the truth?”

“I have to deal with the facts in front of me. I know about your caucus on Central America. I know you’re working to cut funding to a few aid programs that benefit the URNG. I know they think you’re doing that for personal reasons, because of what the kidnapper did to Ms. Montes and her first husband.”

“Hector would never let his personal life influence his work in the Congress,” said Doña Elena. “He’s going to cut the budget because it’s the right thing to do.”

Montes smiled and patted her shoulder. “My dear wife is extremely loyal, as you can see. But I’m also loyal to her, and since it’s only the three of us here, I will say there is some truth in what you say. Part of my motivation for the upcoming reductions is my wife’s history with the URNG. It would be very gratifying to take revenge on them for her. But in this case, my personal and political duties coincide. After all, the United States doesn’t fund terrorist organizations, and what happened to Doña Elena and Arturo proves that the URNG are terrorists. Or at least they were terrorists before the end of Guatemala’s troubles.”

“You mean it’s proof if they really did it,” I said.

He nodded. “Yes, if they really did it.”

“Hector!” said Doña Elena.

“My love, stop to think a moment. There is so much resistance to what we’re trying to get done in congress. Our enemies will say what you saw and heard was an act intended to divert suspicion in the wrong direction. I’m sure that’s what the sergeant here has in mind, isn’t that right, Cutter?”

I said, “It does seem possible.”

Doña Elena shook her head, her lower lip extended in a pout. “On her very best day, that so-called actress wasn’t good enough to fool me. She might have fooled Arturo, but I always saw right through her.”

“Of course. Of course,” said her husband. “But you know the liberal press has always used this possibility against me, the idea that I’ve been swayed on Central American policy because of what happened to you. If Mr. Cutter can prove beyond all doubt what really happened, if he can even bring this woman to justice at long last and demonstrate that she was definitely acting for the URNG, it would completely disarm my enemies.”

“But he’s working for the ones who did it!”

The congressman looked from her to me and said, “Mr. Cutter?”

I said, “As far as I’m concerned, my job is not to clear the URNG; it’s to find the truth.”

“And you’ll bring that truth to light no matter what it is?”

“I will. I told that to my clients.” I saw no reason to explain that I would also like to find out who had tried to blow me to pieces, and there was no way I could mention the fact that Haley had been working on a Guatemalan project without getting into the reason why I cared about that coincidence.

He nodded. “I believe this man. Don’t you, my love?”

“Why should I?”

“Because my old friend Simon vouches for him, and I vouch for Simon.”

Doña Elena stared at me a moment. Then she looked away and said, “I suppose.”

“Good girl,” he said. And then to me, “Is there anything else we can tell you that might help?”

I stood. “No, sir. We’ve covered everything for now. But as new information comes up, I’d like to be able to check in with you if that’s okay.”

“By all means. Do please keep us in the loop.” The congressman pushed the button on the side table, and Olivia Soto came into the room. “Olivia,” he said. “Would you please help Mr. Cutter find his way out? And perhaps you could take his card?”

“Certainly,” said Olivia.

I followed her back out the way we had come. She opened the front door for me and stood aside to let me exit. As I passed, she spoke very softly. “What if Alejandra Delarosa didn’t do it?”

I paused. “Excuse me?”

“If you find out she didn’t do it, then what?”

I said, “Ms. Montes was an eyewitness to the murder.”

“Didn’t the killer wear a mask?”

“Is there some reason why you think it wasn’t the Delarosa woman?”

“I was only curious.”

I searched her face. “Are you sure?”

“Of course.” She held out her hand, palm up. “The congressman wanted your card.”

I gave it to her, then walked down to Haley’s Bentley and drove away. The last thing I saw in my rearview mirror was Olivia Soto, watching from the open door.

20

Driving back from Beverly Hills
during rush hour, I had plenty of time to think about the congressman’s questions. Clearly he knew things about me that I don’t share with anyone. Because so much of the last year of my service in the Corps was public knowledge, I suppose I took some comfort from the fact that very few people on the planet could gain access to information about my covert operations before the so-called butchery of Laui Kalay. Knowing that a United States congressman had taken time to check my complete service record made me feel vulnerable. I didn’t like the feeling much. It touched on things best left undisturbed, things inside my head that I couldn’t control.

I was on the 55, and then Newport Boulevard and the Pacific Coast Highway, and then out along the harbor. The meeting with Doña Elena and Congressman Montes had reminded me of Haley, as almost everything seemed to do. The city below their plate-glass windows, the presence of a film star, his arm around her shoulders, the way she leaned into him. My hands grew slippery with sweat on the wheel of the Bentley. It was a Continental GT. The V-8 convertible with the burled walnut-and-camel interior, and the four-layered fabric top that was so silent you couldn’t tell it wasn’t made of steel. It was a good car. A lovely car, excellent and praiseworthy in all regards. But it was Haley’s car.

I drove through the massive gates, rolled up the winding driveway, and pulled into the long garage between Haley’s Range Rover and the stretch Mercedes. Her Escalade was in the fourth bay down. All excellent vehicles. All around me, everything was good. All of it was noble. But none of it was mine, or ever would be, just as Haley was no longer mine, and never would be mine again.

I was raised by God-fearing grandparents to believe in Jesus Christ. I was raised to believe it’s a sin to drink to excess. A man should never lose control of his mind. If I had learned anything in the hospital, it was that. Insanity was losing control of your mind, so of course it made no sense at all to meet insanity with alcohol, which made you lose control. But insanity was insane,

after all. Sense had nothing to do with it. I went into the guesthouse kitchen and poured myself a Scotch.

When that first glass was empty, I drank three fingers more. I thought of what was true. It was twenty-five years old, that Scotch. That meant it had been sitting in an oaken barrel in the Scottish Highlands on the day I signed with the Marines. Now it was sitting in my otherwise empty stomach. Whatever is excellent must include that Scotch, but three fingers or three hundred, it didn’t matter. There wasn’t enough of that kind of excellence in the universe to make up for the loss of Haley.

I carried the bottle into the living room and sat down on the sofa.

That’s where Simon found me the next afternoon.

He had a cup of french roast in his hand. He put it on the coffee table, then walked to the windows and drew back the drapes.

“Whaa?” I said, squinting toward the light.

He said, “You have a visitor.”

“Dah?” I mumbled.

“A lovely lady, if I may be permitted to say so.”

I cleared my throat and decided the Scotch on an empty stomach might have been a mistake, regardless of how old it was. “Who?”

“A Miss Soto. She said you met last evening.”

Memories returned of the woman who had admitted me into the Montes’s home, and that amazing smile. “Where?”