again, grinning and wheedling and talking twice as fast as before. “Officer… sir… I’m the, the chief of police, you see-from, from Teotitlan del Valle? I have… there was… Sergeant Nava, he said to… he knows me, he told me-”
He was cut off by a weary bellow from down the hall. “Donardo, for Christ’s sake, will you put an end to that goddamn racket and bring them back here?” Gideon’s Spanish wasn’t up to getting every word, but following the gist was easy enough.
“Yes, Sergeant,” Donardo muttered with a roll of his eyes. Giving them a silent look that made it clear they had made no friend of him and would be wise not to cross his path again, he turned and led them down a linoleum- floored corridor bordered by a string of ramshackle office cubicles constructed from shoulder-high, building-grade plywood partitions that had been nailed together and covered over in watered-down white paint, the many knotholes, patches, and joints still plainly visible.
Sergeant Nava’s cubicle was no different from the ones they had glimpsed on their way: a cramped enclosure with an old metal desk and chair, a computer, a file cabinet, two unmatched metal chairs for visitors, and papers and files scattered over every available surface. There was nothing in it that wasn’t utilitarian in the extreme; not a photograph, not a coffee cup, not an ashtray. The Sergeant himself was cut in the Donardo mode, thickly built, blackly mustached, wearing black fatigues with the gun tucked into his belt. He was, however, marginally more polite than his subordinate-not polite enough to smile or say hello or get out of his chair, but enough to indicate with a wave of his fingers that they should take chairs as well, into which they squeezed, Gideon with some difficulty. With the back of the chair shoved right up against the wall to make some Space, his knees were still pressed against the desk.
Wordlessly, Nava watched them sandwich themselves in. Then, with a tired sigh, he leaned back-he had more room than they did-and addressed Sandoval.
“So. You again. This time a mummy.”
Sandoval giggled. “Yes, Sergeant, I’m afraid it’s me again. I’m sorry to bother you with this, but I knew that the proper action, in a matter such as this, was to inform you at once, so after Dr. Bustamente kindly-”
“This happy little village of yours-it’s getting to be quite a dangerous place, isn’t it? As bad as Mexico City.”
“Well, this didn’t happen in the village, Sergeant. Neither did the other one, the little girl. They were both found-”
Nava silenced him with a brusque motion of his hand. “All right, just tell me about it. And speak more slowly, for God’s sake. I already have a headache.” He jerked up the cuff of his shirt, grasped the face of his watch between thumb and forefinger, and studied it, sending a clear message: I am a busy man. My time is extremely valuable. I will allot a little of it to you, but be quick about it.
Still, he listened to what Sandoval had to say, or at least he allowed Sandoval to talk without interrupting him, other than the occasional finger-waving “Yes, yes,” to hurry him along-for almost five minutes. But he made it no secret that his mind was elsewhere. He asked no questions and jotted down only a couple of brief notes.
Obviously, he wasn’t much interested in the case, for which Gideon couldn’t blame him: a drifter, his body subjected to the depredations of the desert for half a year before anybody found it, with no apparent clues as to who had killed him or why-there wasn’t much the policia were going to be able to do about it, or, frankly, much impetus for them to try. Nava was doing pretty much what an American police Sergeant would do in his place: going through the motions for the record. But most American sergeants, or so Gideon hoped, would have done it a little more courteously.
Sandoval too was quick to spot the lack of interest, and it cheered him up perceptibly. His thoughts flowed across his mobile face as clearly as if he’d spoken them: maybe this wasn’t going to be as bad as he’d feared, maybe they’d just tell him to go ahead and bury the body and they’d get around to it when they could sometime, maybe Nava had been thumbing abstractedly through the thin folder that Sandoval had supplied, and his first question, interrupting Sandoval in mid-sentence, was directed at Gideon. He held up the report on Garcia’s body.
“You’re Professor Oliver? You wrote this?”
“Yes.”
“It’s in English.”
“Yes.”
“But obviously you speak Spanish.”
“Speak, yes-a little. But I don’t write it well enough for a police report. I assumed you’d have somebody here who could translate. I’ll be glad to help.”
“Mm.” Nava’s lips, barely visible under his mustache, were pursed. Sandoval held his tongue, only too happy to have the sergeant’s attention directed at Gideon and not at him. However, when Nava spoke again it was to Sandoval. With a jerk of his head at Gideon, he said, “If you think we are paying for his report, you’re mistaken. It was authorized without my permission. God knows we spent enough on your last case. Unless you have a budget for it, he will have to go without his fee.”
“There’s no charge for my services,” Gideon said, more curtly than he’d intended, but the continuing rudeness from Nava and from the guard had riled him. In most matters he didn’t have a particularly short fuse, but some things could quickly get under his skin, and gratuitous rudeness from people in positions of power was one of them. Especially when they were gun-toting guys with necks that were thicker than their heads. Bullying was what it was, plain and simple. Still, he understood all too well that he was in a culture not his own, with mores he wasn’t accustomed to. His readiness to take offense at this sort of treatment in similar situations had gotten him into difficulties more than once before. He resolved to do better at holding his temper, if for no other reason than to keep from getting Sandoval into trouble.
Fortunately, Nava hadn’t even noticed his sharpness. He was thinking, his fingers drumming on the desk. He lifted his head and called: “Cruz! Who knows English around here?”
The reply came over the partition from the next cubicle. “The colonel speaks very good English, Sergeant.”
“Maybe, but I’m not bothering him with this. The less he knows about what’s going on, the happier I am. Is there no one else?”
A moment of thoughtful silence. “I’m pretty sure his adjutant knows some too. Corporal Vela.”
“That will be better. All right, I have something for you to take to him for translation.”
“Now?”
“No, next month. Of course, now.”
Another mustached, slab-like face loomed up over the shoulder-high partition, although on Cruz it came only up to the middle of his chest. Where do they get these monsters? the physical anthropologist in Gideon wondered. In Mexico, especially this far south, you wouldn’t expect to run into too many men over five-seven or five-eight. But he’d yet to see a member of the policia ministerial who wasn’t a good six-two, and built like a UPS truck to boot.
With the cubicles as compact as they were, Cruz didn’t have to come around for the report, simply reaching a brawny, black-clad arm down for it.
“Now make sure you ask the colonel first if it’s all right with him if we borrow Vela for a few minutes,” Sandoval cautioned, handing it up to him. “We don’t want to get into trouble with him.” Gideon thought he saw Nava’s right hand make an incipient sign of the cross, a warding off of calamity. “You know what he can be like.”
“I know, I know.”
Nava began to wrap up their interview, but Cruz was back before a minute had gone by. “The colonel wants to see him,” he told Nava.
“He does?”
Sandoval paled. “Mother of God,” he said in English, “I don’t want to see no colonel.” He looked futilely around him for help.
“Not you. Him.” Cruz pointed at Gideon. Sandoval closed his eyes and sagged with relief.
“Him?” Nava was puzzled. He looked at Gideon, looked at Sandoval, and looked again at the folder, reassessing. Was there more to this than he’d realized, some import he hadn’t grasped, something on which he’d better make sure he was up to snuff?
