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don’t work two ways. The army does the killing, the poor people die.”
    â€œWhat about the airfield? Where is it? How did you get there?”
    â€œThe airfield’s down by the Patuca River — Rio Patuca, not too far from Nicaragua. Oscar and me, we can both navigate. The airfield’s pretty good, better than what they have in Texas, because this field was put down by army engineers.”
    â€œWhat army?” Leary demanded.
    â€œWhat other army? You don’t think those clowns down there can build a first-rate modern field.”
    â€œAnd that’s what it is?” Freedman asked. “A first-rate modern field?”
    â€œYou bet your sweet ass.”
    â€œAnd tell us, was there army personnel there?”
    â€œNot in uniform, except once or twice when a Jeep would pull up for some kind of conference, and then there’d be some uniforms, and they’d stay for maybe an hour or two and then take off. But there were three or four men in civilian clothes, and sure as hell, they were army.”
    â€œHow do you know?” Ramos asked. “Did they speak English or Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?”
    â€œFour years of high school Spanish, which is not much. I can make out with it. These guys spoke English. Maybe a little Spanish. There was Honduran army personnel all over the place. Also, you don’t have to be a genius to spot army, the way their hair is cut, the way they stand, the way they talk.”
    Freedman began to speak. Lefty, running the camera, cut the lights, interrupting Freedman’s train of thought. Ramos stood up and pointed to the office. Once he and Freedman were in the tiny office, the door closed behind them, Ramos said, “You know what we’re getting into, Lieutenant?”
    Freedman was calling the desk and asking them to pass any waiting calls up to the squad room, not the office. When he put down the telephone, he regarded Ramos bleakly and said, “There’s the kind of thing that happens and then you lose your common sense and remember that when you were a kid they still sang ‘America the Beautiful.’ Did he kill the priest? Or is he some kind of nut?”
    â€œMaybe he’s some kind of nut, but he’s telling the truth. You’re Jewish, Lieutenant. You can’t crawl into the soul of someone put together by the church. I can. I look at that man and I can go inside his head. Ask him what he takes back with him into Texas.”
    â€œYou know, Sarge, you and me, we’re — honest cops. That’s right. At least we got only a minimum of glue on our hands, but God Almighty, that’s all we are, a couple of cops in a tiny third-rate precinct house that’s so old and rotten it would fall down if somebody coughed too loud. Ten months now I been writing letters pleading with them to paint the place.”
    â€œI know,” Ramos said.
    â€œI wonder what the vintner buys, one half so precious as he sells.”
    â€œPoetry?”
    â€œSort of. Ah, fuck it! Let’s go ask him.”
    They returned to the squad room. The detectives were on their phones, catching up on the calls that were on hold. Lefty said that he was ready to go. Cullen asked to go to a john, and Ramos went with him. When the calls had been handled and Leary had taken off with something that couldn’t wait, Lefty turned up the lights and started his camera again. Cullen took his place in the same chair.
    â€œI’m going to ask you about this murder you say you did,” Freedman said, “but before I do I want to be very clear about one or two things. First: how many flights did you make, round trips?”
    â€œTwelve.”
    â€œGive me some dates.”
    â€œI started at the end of June and I made my last flight on September twenty-third.”
    â€œAll right. You went down with guns — every time?”
    For the first time, Cullen hesitated, looking from face to face before he spoke. He