They didn’t seem to know where the hell Emil Bretagne was either.
Not only that, it seemed I might have prodded a small area of doubt in the local psyche. Curiouser and curiouser, said the man.
*
In the morning, I was brought some corn flakes and warm milk, long after the sun and I had risen. I slopped them down, paced, stared out of the window. Standing by my door, I listened to distant voices and the occasional ringing of a telephone, but I could never make out any of the words spoken. I wondered about Maria. I hoped they were treating her a bit better than me, but I doubted it. I wondered what she had told them when they had spoken with her, as they must have by now.
I was grateful that I had kept my real reason for being involved in the whole mess to myself. Maria was intelligent and strong. But how long they could keep us incommunicado and what they might do to us while they had us was a matter on which I did not wish to speculate at great length. People are frail things, and while I would confess to anything to avoid excessive discomfort this fact would come to be noted before very long, and the credibility of anything I said would be destroyed. While this would make it easy to get a confession from me, it would make it difficult to tell whether what was being gotten was the truth. And I had the feeling that the truth was what Morales and his fellows wanted. I mean, if someone were to punch me in the stomach and say, "Confess that you are an agent of the CIA," I would say, "Okay, I am an agent of the CIA." After a time, this would tend to pall. I would not see anyone asking me this question without a reason, though. So I was hopefully safe from having the whole story pulled out of me. That would be terrible. Not because I gave a damn about the agency, but because the story was unbelievable and would just lead to further questions for which I had no real answers. Hell, I found it hard believing it myself.
On the other hand, if Maria were to mention those three magic initials, I could see us either being released quickly or detained indefinitely. I did not wish to gamble on the former, because I was certain that I would lose. The agency would disavow me and nobody here would buy it. There is a strange, sad Limbo for persons like that, I understand. In the meantime, I could feel them taping the electrodes to my cojones.
If I seem to overdramatize, there were several reasons. First, what we were receiving seemed pretty strong treatment for foreign citizens who were only suspected of a possible connection with what might have been a robbery. They claimed they did not know what, if anything, had been stolen; and the allegedly injured party seemed a pretty suspicious character himself. In the absence of any real evidence against us, the logical, civilized thing to do would be to take our statements and keep tabs on us. Then there was the matter of the lockup itself; the place just didn’t seem like a police station, isolated as it was, staffed as it was, looking the way that it did. No, there had to be more to the situation than we had been told, and I feared those goblins in the dark corners.
A lunch of dreary-looking cold cuts came and went, and my water bottle was refilled. My jailers remained uncommunicative.
Dinner was something of an improvement: juice, soup, bread, fish, milk and coffee. The guard gave me a cigarette and lit it for me—whether out of kindness of his heart or pursuant to an order, I could not guess. He would not answer my questions, though.
Either the wait was meant to be a psychological pressure or they were checking on some of the things I had said. Or they were checking on something completely different. Circle any number of the above. Or none of these. Hell.
*
The following morning, I worked several pieces of wire loose from the cot’s frame and spent over an hour working with them and the lock on the door. It was old, as was everything else in the building, and I got it partway once, but the wires were too soft and kept bending. I stuck them down behind the baseboard then. Maybe I could get it open with them, with a bit of luck and bit of time, but what would I do then? Get into more trouble, probably. I doubted I could get out of the building, and even if I did I had no place to turn for help. I didn’t even know where we were. And what about Maria?
We had to wait, hoping they would find something to vindicate us or implicate somebody else.
I did not have to wait very long, though. Two guards—a different pair this time—came for me and conducted me back to the room where I had been questioned.
The same chair, the same routine. The guards took up positions behind me while the captain shuffled papers at his desk. When he finally looked up, he stared at me for several moments, then nodded several times.
I continued to meet his gaze as he said, "You appear to have told us something of the truth, Ovid. But we want all of it."
I did not say anything, since he had not asked me a question.
After a pause, he went on, "We have checked with Lisbon. There is indeed a record of a Claude Bretagne recently found shot to death in a hotel room in that city. They are still investigating. So far, there have been no arrests."
"I hope that proves something to you," I said.
"Yes, it proves that you know about it. Nothing more. In fact, it raises questions. The obvious one, of course, being whether there is a connection between the death there and the housebreaking here."
"And Emil’s disappearance," I said.
"He did not disappear! He is on a business trip!"
"Well, his business trip then."
He slapped the folder with the flat of his hand.
"That is not an issue!" he said.
"Then perhaps it should be—" I began.
A very heavy hand fell upon my shoulder, and I shut up. The fingers dug in beneath my collarbone and squeezed.
Collarbones are very fragile things, and I did not doubt that the hand could demonstrate this if it squeezed much harder. The captain saved me this lesson, though, with a gesture. The hand withdrew.
"I was not soliciting your opinion," he said.
I rubbed my shoulder.
"So I gather."
"The connection, as I see it, is yourself," he continued. "I cannot believe your story of investigating a murder at the request of a few friends of the deceased. You do not seem that sort of person. I would be more inclined to believe that you see a profit somewhere in this. Perhaps you even killed Claude Bretagne yourself."
"I can prove I wasn’t in Portugal at the time."
"…or had him killed," he said, shrugging. "No, I do not believe your story. You will tell me now what you did with the items you removed from Emil Bretagne’s safe."
"If I had broken in and stolen something," I said, "would I not have been a fool to return the following morning, laying myself open to questioning and arrest?"
"You miscalculated," he said. "That is obvious. Perhaps you thought you had something he would not report missing. Perhaps you want to sell it back to him."
"Blackmail? Was he engaged in criminal activities?"
"Enough!" he said. "You are here to answer my questions! Not to question me! What did you do with it?"
"What?"
"Whatever you removed from the safe."
"Nothing," I said. "I took nothing. I was not even—"
The hand returned to my shoulder and the fingers began to dig once more.
"Then who did? Who took it?"
"I don’t know."
He stood.
"I am going to take a walk," he said, "and smoke a cigar. You think about my questions. Perhaps when I return you will be able to answer them."
"I would tell you now if I knew," I called after his retreating back.
Then the grip on my left shoulder was transferred to my bicep and my right arm was similarly seized. The second man moved around to my right and stared down at me. He smiled, removed a heavy ring from his right hand and put it into his pocket. I took a small measure of solace from this indication that they were not ready to scar the merchandise yet.
Then, still smiling, he slapped me.
It was not a hard slap. It was a get-acquainted sort of thing. A promise,
as it were.
As I jerked from it, he pushed my shoulder and the other pulled back on my arms. Then he slapped me and pushed me again.
He waited a moment after that, then punched me in the stomach. As I snapped forward, my arms were jerked again, wrenching my shoulders, and he seized my hair and pulled my head back. He spat in my face and shoved me against the back of the chair.
I gasped and shuddered at the same time. He allowed me to catch my breath, then repeated the performance.
I did not say anything. A curse? A threat? They are laughable responses, and I had nothing else to say.
The pummeling continued. He was careful not to strike my ribs with any of the low blows, though they came harder and faster now. I passed out twice, briefly, and pretended to remain that way for as long as I could. I tried to roll with it whenever he cuffed my head, but was only partly successful. He pressed my right wrist against the arm of the chair and used his lighter to singe the hair off the back of my forearm. I clamped my teeth and watched. He kept smiling the whole time and never said a word.
Then he pulled a watch from his pocket, glanced at it, hit me in the stomach again and returned to his little corner of the world. My arms were released then and I sagged.
My face tingled and felt flushed. My breakfast lay between my feet and in my lap. Coming or going, it hadn’t been a very good breakfast.
I was still slouched forward, breathing heavily, when the captain returned. I heard him rummage in the desk.
"Would you care for a cigarette, Ovid?" he asked.
"Yes."
He brought me my pack and I took one. He lit it for me.
"You have had some time to think now."
"Yes."
He strolled back to his desk, rested his rear on its front edge.
"Now do you recall what you took and what you did with it?" he asked.
I took a long, deep drag on the cigarette, feeling it would probably be my last for a long while.
"No matter what you do to me," I said, "I can’t tell you something I don’t know."
He sighed.
"I cannot accept that as an answer," he said. "Give me a better one."
"I would, if I had it. Believe me."
He rounded the desk and reseated himself.
"I do not believe you," he said. "I fear that I will have to ask you the question in many different ways. You will not like some of them."
"I want to speak to a representative of the United States government," I said.
"You have already told me that. Now tell me what I want to hear."
"I’m sorry. I don’t have the answer you want."
"I am sorry, too—for you. You could make it very easy for yourself, and of course the young lady."
"She knows nothing, either."
"She was the priest’s whore," he said. "She told us that this morning. She learned of this thing from him and told it to you. Then you had him killed and the two of you came and stole it."
"You know that isn’t true."
He shrugged.
"I know only what she told us."
"Have you let her speak with a representative of the Italian government yet?"
"You will get to speak with your people eventually. After you have spoken to us. They will not be happy to learn that you came here to abuse our hospitality."
"How is Maria?" I asked.
"She is unhappy," he said. "Unhappy because you will not tell us what you took from the safe."
"Oh. Wasn’t she there with me, holding the light?"
The hand fell upon my shoulder again.
"She does not know this Monsignor Zingales," he said.
"No. She doesn’t."
"But you said a group of Father Bretagne’s friends prevailed upon you to speak with Emil."
"I said that a number of his friends were concerned. This was as individuals, not as a group. They are not all acquainted with one another."
"And they asked you to come here and question Emil, and you said yes."
"That’s right. It wasn’t much out of my way and it would only have taken me a short while."
"What did you hope to learn?"
"Anything his brother might have mentioned to him concerning difficulties, problems, enemies."
"And what would you do if you came across such information?"
"Turn it over to the authorities investigating the killing. I still think the inquiry should be made. Perhaps you should make it. The Portuguese authorities would probably appreciate whatever you can find out. Perhaps Mrs. Bretagne would remember her husband’s mentioning something about this."
He jerked his chin upward and the hand left my shoulder. Then he found his pencil and made a note. After that, he leafed through the file for several minutes.
Then he raised his eyes and gave me a smile.
"You know," he said in a more confidential tone, "if you were to tell me what I want to know and the object were to be recovered, I believe that something could be worked out with the Bretagnes. It might be that my department and the family would agree that it would not be necessary to see you charged with the crime. You and your girl would be free then, to enjoy our beautiful state for as long as you wish to remain."
"I wish I had something to give you," I said, "but I don’t."
He sighed again.
"You are not a stupid man. Why do you cause yourself so much difficulty?"
"I wish that I had something to give you," I repeated. "Since you do not believe me, I fear you will maim me or kill me. I do not want either one, but I see no alternatives. Do you not have some truth drugs—amytal, pentothal—or a polygraph? They will show you I am telling
the truth."
"Drugs are not dependable," he said, "and we do not have a lie detector. But do not talk of death or of maiming. We are not like that. All that we want is the truth."
I said nothing. I finished the cigarette and added it to the mess on the floor.
"You have nothing more to say?"
I shook my head.
"Very well."
He rose and departed again.
I felt a hand upon my shoulder.
*
I awakened sore and weakened. I was lying face down on the cot in my lockup. My thoughts were a jumble, and I didn’t try to order them. I just let them go by like figures on a dance floor at 3 a.m. during a drunken masquerade as the ship slowly sank.
After a time, I moaned and the band quit playing. I rolled over and pressed the back of my hand against my forehead. This was a mistake.
When I was able, I sat up and took a long drink of water, waited, took another one. Then I cleaned myself as best I could. The smell was nauseating and I felt filthy. I went to the window and stared outside, trying to figure how much time had passed. The air was cleaner there, though the day was hot and getting hotter.
I reviewed my earlier thinking of forced confessions. I realized that a willingness to confess to anything was not the answer here. They wanted something that could be verified locally, quickly. If I constructed a tale, it had better be a good one. I considered and rejected one where I had broken in and stolen some papers, precise nature unknown, and mailed them to a person in, say, Santiago, Chile. I didn’t think they would buy it—and if they did, it might land me in prison. I knew nothing of their penal system and wanted to postpone learning about it until I could read something on the subject in the New York Public Library.
If they were really cops, as they claimed to be, I had a feeling they would have informed our State Department by now that they were holding me. Someone should have been around to see me. If they were not cops, their reasons for wanting whatever might have been taken from Emil’s place were doubtless illicit. This being the case, an unverifiable story on my part might result in something even more unpleasant than prison.
Whichever, they seemed to want it awfully badly.
Since Emil Bretagne seemed party to his late brother’s financial doings, it seemed safe to assume that his dis
appearing act had to do with their discovery. The rifling of his safe and the zealous investigation of this act could be seen as connected with the missing three million.
Which meant there was absolutely nothing I could say that would get me off the hook, and poor Maria was in the same canoe up the same smelly creek, watching our paddle disappear behind us.
Doubting that there would be any help coming from his direction, I damned Collins for the thousandth time and decided that I would have to try to escape. It would have to be soon, too. A few more questioning sessions and I’d be unable to leave if they left the doors open.
I reexamined the bars on the window, but they were too firmly set in place. The walls were solid, the ceiling out of reach, the floor firmly nailed where it belonged. That left me the door, one way or another.
I needed a weapon. Perhaps one of the legs of the cot could be worked loose…
I tried them and got one to the point where I could remove it in a hurry.
If I could manipulate the lock properly, say late at night, I might be able to take someone by surprise. I wanted a gun. None of my jailers bore any visible arms, but there had to be a weapon somewhere about. I wished I had an idea how many people there were about the place.
A little later, they brought me some stew and a piece of bread. As usual, one man brought it in while the other waited at the door. They were the same two who had worked me over. We said nothing to one another.
I stretched out then and watched a spider begin a design in the window. Before very long, I fell asleep.
*
I was awakened, not for dinner but for a repeat performance.
The questions were unchanged, as were my answers. I didn’t get a cigarette this time, and I congratulated myself on being able to pass out more quickly than I had on the previous occasion. One of them explained that this was the last time things would go easily for me. I believed him.
Back on my cot. Darkness all about me. Pain inside.
It had to be tonight.
I couldn’t move, though.
I drifted in and out of sleep—briefly, I think—several times.
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