Body Broker

by Daniel M Ford

  The wine helped with that. I started worrying about the calories with the second glass and began entering them into an app on my phone. Dani glared at me again, refilled my glass, and took away my phone. It was about then that the constructed Wellingtons — lightly seared tenderloin, slathered with Dijon, wrapped in prosciutto and duxelles and then a homemade crepe, then the puff pastry — went in the oven.

  “Why’d you only make two,” Dani asked when she saw the sheet go in the oven.

  “Would you look at how clean this thing is,” I said, tapping a finger on the gleaming gas stove. “You could just eat straight off of it.”

  “Jack, you didn’t think you were going to make us dinner and then leave did you?”

  “It’s…kinda how I was operating.”

  “Well, it ain’t happening,” Dani said, tapping me in the chest with one sharp finger. “Those monsters can each feed three people, and you’re going to be one of them.”

  I didn’t fight too hard about it. I demurred when Emily asked about the cost of the groceries as we ate.

  “Nice to cook for other people. Those muscles’ll atrophy, I don’t use ’em once in a while.”

  “So will these,” Dani said, poking my arm. “You been in the gym? I’ll check with Nick. It was me who sicced him on you.”

  “Why’d you do that? Don’t like him?”

  “No,” Dani said. “I like him just fine, and I wanted to make sure you weren’t hurting yourself.”

  “Plenty of other folks lined up to do that,” I said. “And I have been in the gym. But there’s the matter of a wrenched-up back and bruised, possibly broken ribs holding me back a little.”

  “Dumb-bell comp…”

  “Dumb-bell complexes and cardio. I know. I’ve been doing that. I won’t try to lift anything heavy until next week at the earliest.”

  “Enough with the gym talk,” Emily declared. Neither of us were going to argue with her.

  “You wrap up whatever case you were working on?”

  “Mostly. Just paperwork and closure meetings now. And uh, I wanted to ask you something about that, Dani.”

  She set her fork down as she savored a bite of Wellington. The food on her plate had been as carefully cross sectioned into perfect pieces as if she’d been performing surgery on it.

  “Is this another favor?”

  “Might be.”

  “Is it to do with an email I got out of the blue from some high school kid?”

  “Ah,” I said. “Liza is not the shy and retiring type.”

  “Why’d you give her my address?”

  “Because she reminded me of you,” I said. “She’s her class mom. Trying to protect people, take care of them, but in ways that were gonna get her in trouble eventually.”

  “Explain,” she and Em said together. So I did, telling her about running into the kid at the party-barn and the drugs she was carrying.

  “Lot of coincidence in this work of yours,” Emily said.

  “I prefer to think of it as being open to the whims of the universe,” I said, only realizing how dumb it sounded when it was out of my mouth. We all laughed, though the two of them went first.

  “Anyway,” I said, “this girl’s gonna keep looking for ways to be proactive about protecting the people around her, and I thought, gee, who do I know like that?”

  This time Emily laughed, I joined her, and Dani grimaced.

  “You don’t have to become the girl’s mentor,” I said. “Just seemed like there’s something in her that’s an awful lot like something in you.

  “Kid need a way to pay for college? I could help with ROTC scholarships.”

  “I think her parents could probably buy a small liberal arts school,” I said. “But that’s the sort of thing that might appeal to her, if she thought it was her own idea.”

  “Fine. I’ll take the girl’s emails. Can we get on with dinner? And what’d you make for dessert?”

  I froze, wine glass halfway to the table. More laughter.

  It was the best night I’d had in ages, and it ended in Dani getting out a bottle of Springbank Ten, and me sleeping in their spare room.

  Chapter 50

  I slept that night in the absolute extravagance of a full-size bed. I did not, as far as I could recall, dream of bikers, knives, or gunshots. I did wake up with an unusual weight on my chest. I looked up to see an impossibly large orange cat sleeping on my chest. He had a huge ruff of fur around his neck, hiding the collar he wore.

  “Hey, Gimli,” I muttered. I sat up cautiously, petting Dani and Emily’s cat, who immediately started playfully gnawing on the bones of my wrist. I am certain it was playful because he probably could have bitten at least a finger off if he had a mind to. I cautiously moved my head around on my neck, took some deep breaths.

  No signs of a hangover. No missed calls or voicemails. Seemed like a good day to take off, read, maybe give the Belle a thorough cleaning. Dani and Emily were both gone, and had left a travel mug full of coffee next to the boxes with my sparkling clean knives, and small bag of other tools — favorite spatulas and such. There was also a spare set of keys and a note in Emily’s fine, slanted handwriting.

  It simply said Anytime.

  I used the keys to lock the door behind me, hid them in a plant, and texted Dani to thank her and tell her where I’d put them.

  I hailed a cab and was in the process of giving the Belle the stem to stern interior cleaning she deserved when Ms. Kennelly called, asking me if I’d talk with Gabriel.

  I said sure, which is how I found myself at their house just a couple of hours later. The kid was folded awkwardly on the couch, wrapped in a blanket. He looked a little dazed, and was probably either lightly medicated or wanted to be. I took a chair opposite him and watched as he flicked channels. Susan stood by a little awkwardly, leaning against the chair I sat in.

  “What’d you want to talk about, Gabriel?”

  He put the remote down and looked at me. Making eye contact was difficult for him.

  “I wanted to thank you,” he said. “For finding me. My mom says you got hurt doing it.”

  I waved that away. “Pain heals. And I’m still not sure what that had to do with your case.”

  “It’s because his father is a paranoiac,” Susan muttered behind me.

  I decided to try and pull the conversation away from that. “You, uh, decided what you’re gonna do yet?”

  He nodded. “In a couple more weeks I go back. Audit classes this semester, then take them again next semester. I can still finish and graduate in the summer.”

  I nodded. “Gonna go back to running?”

  He shrugged. “Why?”

  “Heard you were good at it.”

  That brought the eye contact. “Just ‘cause you’re good at something doesn’t mean you like it.”

  “I know how that is.”

  He sat up straighter. “Do you?”

  I nodded.

  “What was it for you?”

  “Wrestling.”

  “What, high school?”

  “And college, on a scholarship. Big Ten,” I said. “Hated every second of it.”

  “But you kept doing it?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Quit my sophomore year.”

  He smiled. “How’d that feel?”

  “Felt great. For about five minutes,” I said. “Then I realized I had no other way to pay for college and they weren’t gonna keep me around out of the goodness of their hearts.” I realized this particular part of the story maybe didn’t track for Gabriel. His father could certainly pay for college, if the check I’d gotten yesterday was any indication.

  “What’d you do?”

  “I literally ran away and joined the Navy.” He laughed weakly. “I don’t really recommend that particular method.”

 
“So what would you do? Go back and rejoin cross-country?”

  Why did everyone keep asking my advice? I was the biggest screwup I knew.

  “I’d talk to my friends, and my mom, and my pastor or priest or chaplain or guru, if I had one. I’d especially talk to a friend like Liza, who was as worried about you as I think she ever has been about anything. And then I’d see what I felt, and whether it was worth keeping it in my life. You stop doing a thing that suddenly, you might find a hole in your days where it used to be.” I wasn’t sure what I was saying, but the kid was listening.

  “Running was why I took some pills in the first place.”

  I leaned forward. “Eh?”

  “It hurt, you know. Running that much. And I never got a moment’s rest from it. Just…coaches always in my ears, letters from colleges, texts. Nobody asked if I wanted to run, they just kept throwing the uniform at me, telling me to eat, telling me to get in the gym, telling me to get to practice.”

  “Look, if you want me to go shake down your coaches, I can do that, but…”

  Thankfully they both recognized the joke. “That all sounds miserable,” I went on. “And a lot of folks will tell you misery builds character, teaches you who you are.”

  “What do you think?”

  I thought I certainly lived like I believed that, because I’d heard it all my life. I didn’t think it was what Gabriel wanted to hear.

  “Tell a coach to fuck off once in a while.”

  Gabriel laughed. Susan tried to shoot me a dirty look but she was trying too hard not to laugh to really sell it. “Really, though, tell a coach to back off. Take some time to be a kid. Do something that you want to do, whether that’s reading or napping or playing a video game. There’s a difference between discipline and misery. You can have one without the other.” Or so they told me. I had rarely handed anyone as big a raft of bullshit as I was currently unspooling for the kid. At least, judged in terms of how I lived.

  Gabriel nodded. “Maybe I’ll go back for track.”

  “Always your call, kid.”

  He cracked a yawn and I glanced up at his mom, who frowned.

  “I, uh, should probably get out of your hair.” Handshakes with both of them, and I was out the door. Susan had tried to press a twenty on me for a car, but I demurred.

  I left pondering if I was going to ever take my own advice, which I realized was almost exactly what Emily had said to me the night before.

  Chapter 51

  Saturday morning I went to the gym and did absolutely as much as I could get away with for the third time in four days. Swallowing no small amount of self-loathing, I even used a curl bar. I looked longingly at the squat racks. I might even have walked over and tapped one, promising I’d be back soon.

  Then it was off to the barbershop. It had been a few weeks. My hair fell away from the clippers in a curtain of light brown, or dark blond, depending on the lighting and angle, I guess. I’d never really decided what color it was. I even had him trim and shape my beard, putting it nice and neat against my face, and shave my neck and sides with the razor.

  Then I went back to the Belle and used a beard brush and a wet rag to wash away any remnants of the haircut from my neck and chest. The last thing I needed was the distraction of an itch. I started wondering if this was really a date.

  “Sure it is,” I said aloud.

  But what if it isn’t?

  “She used the word,” I muttered. “And anyway, I’m not going to spend all day worrying about it.”

  Saying that aloud didn’t mean I was going to do it, though. I did spend most of the afternoon reading, before finally deciding to officially get ready. I considered my shirts, and decided on the only currently intact button down I had on the boat, a kind of soft green. I might have called it sage if I was feeling fanciful. Jeans. Shoes were going to be a bit tougher. My black Converse were far too sweat-stained. My running shoes were a mess. I looked at the still mud-stained dress shoes I’d worn when tussling with the two security goons in the park.

  I got out the shoe polish kit and went to work.

  Dressed, freshly shorn and shaved, and wearing a judicious application of Club Man Bay Rum, I ordered a ride and went to pace in the parking lot and wait for it.

  * * *

  “You look stunning.” I felt like I blurted the words out when I met Gen in front of the restaurant, but they were true. She was. She wore a blue sundress that left her shoulders bare for the lingering heat. Her hair was swept back as usual, she wore very little in the way of jewelry — just small gold earrings.

  “Thank you,” she said, and I thought there was just the hint of a flush under her tan cheeks. “You clean up nice yourself.” I held the door for her, and she squeezed my hand at the hostess stand. I stopped wondering if this was a date.

  When we were seated with cocktails — we both ordered the one with gin, basil syrup, lemon, and club soda — we started the various conversational feints.

  “So, your boss sent me a letter.”

  She held up a hand. “I’d rather not talk about work. It’s Saturday.”

  “No problem. What would you like to talk about?”

  From there, we traded back and forth. She was from Elkton; dad worked on county maintenance, mom ran a day care, and she’d had to pay for her own education after high school. She would finish the MBA at UD in the spring and wasn’t sure what came next. Maybe law school, maybe looking for a bigger job at one of the Wilmington firms.

  “I don’t much like working for ADI, at least not just sitting at the desk,” she said, “and I know I said I didn’t want to talk about work. But it paid for college and grad school, up front. Not even reimbursement. Not a lot of places’ll do that.”

  I had to admit that was fair. I also had to reveal my own side of things, like dropping out of a Big Ten school on a wrestling scholarship and joining the Navy.

  “Had you always wanted to be a sailor?”

  “Not even a little bit,” I admitted. “But I was going to get kicked out of school at the end of the semester when the bill came due, and I walked past a recruiter’s office. It wouldn’t involve going home.”

  “So you let an impulse decide the next four years of your life?”

  “Pretty much,” I admitted. “But at least the Navy taught me to cook.”

  She leaned forward over her plate — she’d ordered scallops, me the crab cakes, after we split an appetizer of Brussels sprouts with chili oil and aioli — and said, “You can cook?”

  “I can feed two or two hundred, so long as I’ve got the ingredients, tools, and space.”

  “Going to have to test that.”

  “Name the time and place.”

  She smiled. We ate. We liked some of the same music; she had a more modern and indie-inclusive view, but we shared a certain respect for some of the American masters: Prine, Clark, Raitt, Emmy Lou. She made me promise to listen to a band called First Aid Kit, and another called Lake Street Dive. I probably would’ve promised her just about anything after my second gin cocktail.

  By the time dinner was over, and she’d ordered dessert and me a whiskey, it had been going so well I’d forgotten everything but the table and the woman sitting across from me.

  I walked her to her car, lightly holding hands.

  “So, when can I prove to you I can cook?”

  “Next week?”

  “Sounds good.” I started to lean down. She beat me to it.

  I floated home with some Prine lyrics in my head, from “Long Monday.” The part about a kiss that’ll last all week. I’d done my best. I think she had, too.

  All in all that beating I got last week was looking like my best luck in a long time.

  * * *

  I had that floating feeling as I walked down the dock to the Belle. I could’ve danced, done one of those jump in the air a
nd click your heel numbers. I went inside, poured myself a Manhattan, and started looking for something to read. I walked into my bunk, rummaging through the rows and stacks of books on the little-used kitchen table. And it was only then that I saw it.

  It took me a moment to register it atop the blanket, just in front of the pillows. I leaned in close, turned to my box of work gear and got my Maglite. I clicked it on, leaned back in close, and examined what had been left on my pillow.

  A bird skull. A raven’s, I’d bet. And with my initials carved delicately into the side.

  The warm elation of a successful first date turned sour and cold at record speed.

  Chapter 52

  For the next several days, I never put the Belle in at the same place. Overnight I docked out in a channel, or back at the Landing, or sometimes out in the middle of fucking nowhere. I slept well, at least, courtesy of a visit to Eddie and my newly improved finances.

  Every day I was a dutiful employee, showing up to do whatever office work Jason wanted, catching rides other office drones or via Lyft. For once, I liked the idea of having other people — some of them armed — around me for most of the light hours of the day.

  Finally, the time came for the auto auction, and I found myself down in Bel Air. Bob drove me, since there were some vehicles from his department going on the block.

  “You’re gonna look for something sensible, right?”

  “Bob,” I said calmly, “I am being forced into a lifestyle change that I don’t want and can’t afford. Please do not rub it in by pushing me into a goddamn hatchback.”

  “Just don’t go getting stars in your eyes over some convertible or sportscar.”

  “Death. First.”

  “Are you going to take this seriously?”

  “Only as seriously as it needs to be. I need to get from point A to point B. Occasionally to grocery shop. I’ll be fine.”