by Chuck Logan
The black arm that shot out from the ajar door looked like a railroad tie cooked in creosote and the hand at the end of it pawed around until it seized Bevode by his still-in-place ducktail hairdo.
“What the…” Bevode was yanked off his feet with the aid of Broker’s foot, placed strategically to trip him. J. T. Merryweather emerged from the toilet. Working effortlessly in tandem, they jackhammered Bevode to his knees.
“Broker, my man,” exclaimed J.T., “there’s no toilet paper in this outhouse.” Then he turned his coal-hard eyes to Bevode who was immobilized, stretched out between J.T’s hand in his hair yanking his head back and Broker’s heel in the small of his back. Bevode was wide-eyed, but not with actual fear. More puzzled and indignant, like a man who had just discovered a garter belt in his underwear drawer.
“What’s that you got in your hand, J.T.?” asked Broker.
“Why,” J.T. peered into Bevode’s wide eyes, “it’s Louisiana baby-soft Charmins. I’ll bet I can just wipe my ass with this baby soft face and then…”
Together they sang happily, spontaneously, “Toss it down the hole with the rest of the shit.”
40
“GUYS,” IMPLORED BEVODE IN A STRANGLED VOICE.
“You hurt Nina, so I hurt you,” said Broker. “But you suckered me down to New Orleans, while some of the boys went after Nina—”
J.T. glowered. “And for that we’re going to take your southern manhood. Grab your balls for the last time, Fauvus…‘cause tomorrow you gonna be a bitch and I wouldn’t be surprised somebody makes an anonymous call down to New Orleans and tells the whole fuckin’ police department how we put your sorry ass down.”
Bevode roared to life and twisted and thrashed like a large carnivore caught in a net and that’s why Broker needed J.T. here because he’d never be able to put him down alone and what he had in mind was something that even Lyle Torgeson in Devil’s Rock wouldn’t countenance. For this, Broker needed a partner.
The plastic shed rocked as they battled him through the doorway. J.T. dragged, one hand in Bevode’s hair and the other on the chain between the cuffs. Broker pushed. The main threat came from Bevode’s powerfully kicking feet. Broker managed to get his arms over the tops of both of Bevode’s knees and, with his knees up under his armpits, they forced him through the door.
Inside, the light was filtered through green and white corrugated plastic. Flies buzzed in a heady, early summer soup of disinfectant and several cubic yards of human feces and urine that percolated up through the stout brown plastic commode bolted to the cement foundation. Broker thanked the DNR for building strong biffies.
They got him to the commode and J.T., groaning with the effort, pulled Bevode’s hands down in front of him with one hand and slammed his face on the toilet seat with the other. With the muscles of his arms stacked in ripped cuts, he manhandled Bevode’s cuffed hands through the opening and put a knee to his back. Momentarily free, Broker knelt and smiled into Bevode’s biblically outraged eyes.
“First the handcuff keys.” He dropped the key a few inches past Bevode’s nose and crossed eyes, through the hole into the foulness below.
“Aw jeez,” lamented Bevode, gritting his teeth.
Broker dug items from the manila envelope and dropped them one by one. “Wallet. Rental car keys. Travelers checks.” Gingerly he held up the leather folder that held Bevode’s police identification. “One New Orleans police ID and badge, used.”
Then they both surged down on him as he put up a mighty struggle to fight away from the oval maw of the toilet. “Gimme some air,” gasped Bevode. “I can’t breathe.”
“What’s your deal with Lola?” Broker yelled.
Bevode panted, pinned to the toilet. “No deal. Aw, man, she played prick tease with me to pick my brain like she did you. She don’t fuck nobody no more,” he gasped.
Broker seized Bevode’s long wild hair in his right fist and yanked his head back. “Now listen up. You go back to New Orleans and tell your boss I ain’t playing games from now on.”
Bevode rolled his eyes at the plastic toilet seat and groaned. “Oh, man, wait a minute here. Just slow down.”
It really bothered Broker that Bevode was probably more worried about his suit than his life. “Who else is in this? In Vietnam?” he yelled.
Bevode grinned weakly, surging away from the latrine opening. “Just us, don’t cha see. Thing like this, gotta keep it tight. It’s a foreign place. Bunch of Godless atheists. Just the salvage crew, general’s picked men.”
“And you expect me to lead you to it,” said Broker flatly.
Bevode smiled painfully. “General decided that there’s no way that cu…,” he caught himself, eyed the slime waiting below, and his smile stretched a bloody inch, “Miss Nina Pryce could track down that old jailbird herself. He’s bettin’ on you.”
Broker eased up on his hold. J.T.’s corded arms relaxed. Bevode took a breath and some hope. “Be reasonable, man; Nina’s a crazy lady. She don’t get it. Tuna and her dad were in it together. Think about it. The general stuck up for them and it ruined his career. Hell, if the army wasn’t in such a bummer about Vietnam, even they would’ve figured that out.” Bevode took another breath, his voice getting stronger. “They used you, man. Pryce’s kid and Tuna are still using you.”
Broker balked for a second. LaPorte, Tuna, and Pryce. Inseparable buddies for years. Could have been all three of them. He shook his head. What he got for believing in heroes.
J.T. eyed him for a cue. “What?”
Broker peered at Bevode. “Who are the other guys following Nina?”
Bevode ignored the question and smiled. “Look here. Only one way it can end. We got the fuckin’ boat. And we got the gear to get it off the bottom. We’ve bribed the shit out of the whole government. Hell, we can work it out.”
Broker decided to keep it simple and said, “You shouldn’t have killed Mike’s dog.” He nodded to J.T. They both surged down on the Cajun.
“Oh oh. This about the fucking dog?” Bevode gasped, eyes wide, amazed.
They each grabbed a leg and levered him into the toilet. “He won’t fit through,” growled J.T. With one hand he reached down and tore at the seat. On the third try it came screeching loose from under Bevode. Then J.T. smashed at the plastic sides of the commode, cracking the plastic, kicking at the springy shards that twanged around Bevode’s twitching head.
They jammed one of Bevode’s shoulders and his head through the widened hole and his voice continued to bellow, but muffled. J.T. took the yoke of the toilet seat in both hands and began to pound on Bevode’s back with the flat. Between blows, Broker stomped.
“Two hundred pounds of crap,” whack, “won’t fit through a ten-pound hole,” whack. J.T. kept swinging, glistened with sweat. But then the other shoulder did go through and Bevode screamed like a cat nailed to a stump and his hips balanced on the edge of the cracked stool and his feet wildly churned in midair.
“Bevode,” yelled Broker, “rhymes with commode.”
As Bevode’s pant legs and shoes disappeared, Broker and J.T. leaped toward the door in a fit of hysterical laughter and got tangled together trying to fit through, now fighting each other to escape the mighty splash.
Still laughing, they made it outside and slammed the door shut and planted themselves side by side, backs up against it in an effort to suppress the subterranean thrashing howl emanating up from the ground.
“Like a goddamn monster movie,” gasped J.T.
“Like The Creature from the Black Lagoon,” giggled Broker.
They both went to the faucet and scrubbed off furiously. Broker returned to the lavatory and snapped a Yale lock on the door.
As they walked to the Jeep, J.T. mused, “Somebody should call one of those bleeding heart liberal anchor-persons on TV and report a case of po-leece brutality.”
“Should call Paul Wellstone,” Broker agreed.
A few minutes later Broker pulled the Jeep to the side of the access roa
d leading into the remote campground. They opened the gate and after Broker drove through, they wrestled the gate shut. Broker turned to J.T. and shook his hand.
“You really going to do it? All the way to Vietnam?” asked J.T.
“I’m going to do it.”
“You gonna have backup?”
“I’m working on it,” said Broker.
41
BROKER SAT AT THE TABLE IN HIS CABIN AND waited for Ed Ryan to call. He lit a cigarette and made a face. He’d lit the filter end. In a foul mood, he hurled the cigarette across the room.
“What is wrong with you?” said Nina, who sat opposite him counting money. She had withdrawn ten thousand dollars from her savings in Ann Arbor. Now she was dividing crisp hundred-dollar bills into two piles. Two rubbery white security belts curled at her elbow. Their flimsy elastic straps reminded Broker of female undergarments.
“Nothing,” said Broker. He got up, manhandling his chair out of the way. The clatter echoed in the silence.
A lot was wrong. He was beginning to feel like a kid from a small town who’d gone off to see the world and had been turned around by some big leaguers.
Bevode’s warning still echoed in his ears. They’re still using you.
There was one person who definitely hadn’t used him that night, unless he’d masterminded the gold robbery from his cell in a Communist jail.
Broker walked to the table and snatched at the phone.
“I thought we were waiting for Ryan to call,” said Nina.
“I’m calling Trin.” Broker dug in his wallet for the card with the Vietnam number.
“Isn’t that jumping the gun?” said Nina.
Broker took a deep breath to clear away twenty years of cobwebs and punched up an international patch and hit the number. Satellites played tag during an eerie silence. Then, after five rings, a sleepy Vietnamese voice answered.
“English?” asked Broker.
“Okay. Huong Giang Hotel on Le Loi Street.”
“I’m trying to locate Nguyen Van Trin. I was given this number,” said Broker.
“Sure, Trin,” said the voice. “He work this desk sometime.”
“I have to talk to him.”
Pause. “It’s four in the morning here.”
Broker had totally overlooked the time zones. “It’s urgent.”
“I’ll have to wake people up,” said the clerk. He took Broker’s phone number and asked what message he should give to Trin.
“Tell him I’m with Ray Pryce’s daughter and I want my cigarette lighter back.” Broker repeated the message slowly so the clerk could write it down. Broker hung up the phone.
“Feel better now?” said Nina with a lilt of sarcasm. She stuffed the thick wads of hundreds in the security belts.
Broker looked over his shoulder. He had recurring visions of Bevode Fret howling and bounding through the tamarack like a Sasquatch tarred and feathered in turds and clammy wads of toilet paper.
“Trin’s a long shot,” said Nina.
“We need someone we can trust over there. An expediter, to finesse the Vietnamese authorities.”
“Finesse? You haven’t seen this guy in twenty years.”
Broker shook his head. “Trin used to be a real sharp individual.”
“Used to be won’t do it,” said Nina in a slightly testy voice. “I’m starting to think we should keep it American right down the line.”
“The new world order don’t cut shit in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, goddammit. They belong to a small exclusive modern club, people who have won real wars. The Gulf doesn’t count.”
“There’s the U.S. Liaison Office in Hanoi,” she insisted.
“We were both in the army, remember. We both got the royal shaft.” He glared across the table. “What did you talk about with your army buddies while I was in New Orleans?”
Nina recrossed her arms. “I was curious to see if anybody I knew was in or had been in Hanoi on the MIA mission.”
“Well?”
She shook her head.
“Good,” said Broker.
“Why good,” she snapped.
“Because the minute we tell anybody else what we’re doing the whole thing blows up in our faces. They don’t call it ‘gold rush’ for nothing.”
“I presume we’re going to let someone in on it who has some authority, to—you know—arrest them,” said Nina. Anger turned her freckles slightly purple.
“Look,” fumed Broker. “What I do isn’t a science. It’s not enough to know the peasant wants to steal the goat. You have to catch him stealing the goddamn goat. We have to catch them digging it up and loading it. In the act.”
“Right,” she shot back. “If Tuna turns up. If the gold’s where he says it is. If LaPorte goes for it after you robbed his house. If Trin’s reliable. If we can get the Vietnamese to cooperate…if, if.”
Broker ground his teeth and rubbed his eyes. He was exhausted. His whole body ached from the tussle with Bevode. They were both beat. Getting snarly.
Striving for control, he said, “I’m thinking, we get there and check out Trin. We locate the stuff. Then you approach the MIA mission. I tip LaPorte. The MIA people bring in the Vietnamese and hopefully they don’t screw up dropping the net—”
“I don’t like it,” said Nina.
“What don’t you like?”
“Relying so much on Trin.”
“I know how to do this,” he asserted.
“I’m not so sure.”
“Are you on the rag or something?”
“Hey. Fuck you.” She balled her fists.
Edgy, he shot back a flash of street. “You fuck me your heart’ll give out.”
Nina glowered and stamped from the room, slammed the screen door, and stalked off the porch. Outside, she paced back and forth, arms locked across her chest, trampling pine needles. Broker smoothed his fingers through his new short hair. The pressure was definitely starting to get to them.
Then the phone rang. Broker snatched it up. A calm voice on the other side of the planet announced in impeccable English, “I need some flints for the Zippo. They’re hard to get over here.”
The screen door slammed and Nina stood at his side. “Ryan?”
Broker shook his head and turned to the receiver and wondered aloud, “Trin?”
“It’s me.”
“I’m coming over there,” said Broker.
“I know.”
“What do you mean, you know?”
“It’s all arranged. Jimmy bought you and Nina Pryce a tour. I’m a tour guide. I have hotels reserved in Hanoi and Hue. We’ll take the train from Hanoi. I just need a time and a flight number.”
“Where’s Jimmy, Trin?”
“Don’t you know? He’s in jail. In America.” Trin’s voice sounded confused. The long-distance connection had a delay and a background rush like the inside of an artificial lung. Hard to talk.
“I’ll be in touch as soon as I have a flight,” said Broker. There was an awkward silence. “Long time, Trin,” he said.
“Yes,” said Trin. “Long time.”
He hung up the phone, crossed his arms heavily on the table and lowered his head. What did he expect. Trin had been an intelligence operative. He’d never discuss business on the phone.
He looked at Nina and said in an amazed voice, “He’s expecting us.”
“Oh boy,” she breathed.
Now they paced. They re-aired all their speculations and anxieties. They finished a pot of coffee and made another one. They watched the sun sink lower in the sky. They stared at the phone.
Finally it rang. Broker picked it up and Ed Ryan said, “I don’t know why I do this shit for you.”
42
“ANN MARIE SPORTA ATTENDED THE UNIVERSITY of Wisconsin at Madison between 1988 and 1993,” said Ryan. “Which is interesting, because her mother was collecting food stamps in Chicago and Ann Marie wasn’t on a scholarship. We checked. Her grades weren’t that good…”
An
d Broker thought: Jimmy Tuna, sponsor, champion of gimpy Viet Cong and underachieving college students.
Ryan paused for tantalizing seconds. “Her father, Anthony Sporta out of Skokie, was a guest of the government at Marion at the time, for transporting a stolen car across state lines.” Ryan paused again. “So you probably want to know why your guy in Milan was his daughter’s benefactor…”
“Ryan?”
“Aw. Take a guess.”
Broker batted at the air, too tired for jokes. But he had pulled Ryan out of bed at four A.M.
“Give up?” taunted Ryan. “Okay. Tony Sporta’s father married James Tarantuna’s aunt. They’re fucking cousins. And I just happen to know where Tony Sporta is because I thought you might ask.”
“Ryan, I love you,” shouted Broker. He flipped Nina a bandaged thumbs up.
With mock sobriety, Ryan stated, “We here at ATF have been through diversity, team, and sensitivity training. Doesn’t mean you can get near my asshole.”
“Where?”
“You ever hear of Loki, Wisconsin?”
“Spell it.”
“Lima Oscar kilo India. Sounds Indian…” Ryan speculated.
Ryan was Boston. Southie. Irish. Broker shook his head. Not Indian. Norski. In the stories Irene told him as a little boy, Loki ran with Thor and Odin. “Where is it?” he asked.
“Polk County. Near Amery. There’s nothing there—literally—except a cheese factory. And a lot of cows standing around.”
“Shit, that’s right across the river from the Twin Cities. What’s Sporta doing in Loki fucking Wisconsin?”
“Runs the cheese factory. According to the bureau, there’s certain Italian gentlemen in Chicago who own the Red, White, and Green pizza franchise. It does a good cash business and that’s always a great way to launder money. They make lotsa pizza. So they need cheese in bulk. So they bought this factory. I have no idea why they put Tony in there. By the way, you never told me what you’re doing.”
“Thanks, buddy.” Broker slammed down the phone and jumped up from the chair. He pawed at the air. “Wisconsin road map!” Nina dashed out to look in the glove compartment of the Jeep. Broker rifled his kitchen drawers and shelves. Outside, Nina held her hands, palms up.
