The Big Law (1998)

by Chuck Logan

  Nina carried a lot of weight. Broker's job, despite all his misgivings about her career, was to give her a safe place to lay it down for a few days.

  They bumped together. They shared the trait of grace in action and being awkward in polite society. She reached for Kit with the happy growl and nuzzle of a cougar for her cub. But Kit drew back and cried. Her teared eyes reached out to "Daa-dee."

  Nina bit her lip, stumped. Withdrew back into her armor. Kit scrambled into Broker's arms. "Patience," he said gently.

  They kissed chastely. As they always had in public. The chill of the Yugoslavian mountains lingered on her lips.

  On the one-and-a-half-hour drive home, by unspoken agreement, they avoided subjects with dead people in them. They would not talk about Bosnia or Caren until after Christmas. She scanned the diary Broker had brought for her, a list of Kit's vocabulary, menus, sleeping schedules, sickness. She read seriously, cramming for a test.

  When they arrived, Nina entered a house that was hardly ready for inspection. So shoot me. Everything takes longer with a kid. He hadn't cleaned up the living room, which looked like it had been shot point-blank by a howitzer full of toys. The tree was probably overdecorated. Presents were lumpy, amateur-wrapped. "Puf" the scowling dragon wore a huge crimson bow around his bronze neck. Broker had put out a punch bowl for eggnog and hung a sprig of mistletoe from the living room ceiling fan. The turkey dinner in the fridge was catered from Grand Marais.

  When she'd left to go back in the service, the big living room was half done, rolls of insulation spilling from the naked studs. Broker had painstakingly completed the finish work himself; sometimes working with Kit slung in a backpack harness, up on the roof, putting in the skylights. Now the room was snug with maple siding, trestle beams, a chandelier.

  "This is very nice, but is it us," said Nina.

  Broker narrowed his eyes: army brat. She had lived her life in base housing, dorm rooms, barracks and officer billets. "I know what you mean. Why don't I knock out that corner over there; we could have a party, fill some sandbags, teach Kit how to build a bunker, rig a shelter half."

  "Asshole." She lifted a plate of her armor, jabbed, explored a weary smile.

  "Ah, we don't swear in the house, elephant ears is listening," cautioned Broker.

  "A-S-S-H-O-L-E," she spelled. Then she pirouetted, put out her arms and, in an ultimate gesture of trust, collapsed backward into the deep couch cushions. With a freckled grin, she let down her guard, and he saw the jaws

  of bone-deep fatigue yawn and crunch her. She probably hadn't slept more than two or three hours a night for months. While Kit watched, Broker knelt, unlaced her boots and eased them off. Gently, he removed her tunic, trousers and socks.

  Her lidded eyes clouded, then glazed. She sighed, "That's the nicest thing anyone ever did for me in my whole life." Tawny and sleekly muscled in her olive drab underwear, she wantonly molded herself to the cushions.

  "There's a king-size bed in…"

  Too late. She was ten fathoms down, sinking to the bottom locker of sleep.

  33

  She slept for sixteen hours, waking before dawn on Christmas mas morning. Broker, who got up regularly to cover her and Kit during the night—"both his girls"—heard her cautious reconnaissance of the unfamiliar kitchen in the dark.

  Coming out, he found her hugging her blanket, stumbling, still groggy with fatigue. But now she smiled more readily. They kissed; a clumsy married embrace, lips off target, lousy footwork.

  "God." She made a sound between a giggle and Bronx cheer. "When we courted, you were an acrobat; what happened?"

  "Got beyond that physical mastery stuff. How are you doing?"

  "Need coffee." She pointed to the cupboards. "You changed everything."

  "I organized everything."

  "Coffee," she repeated.

  While Broker made the coffee, Nina stood over Kit's crib and passed her right hand over her daughter, palm down, caressing a cushion of air. Not quite ready to touch.

  The aroma of brewed coffee brought her back to the kitchen. Steaming cups in hand, they crept into the living room. Broker turned off the Christmas tree lights. They sat on the floor, backs against the couch, and watched the

  dark horizon melt from iron to pewter to nickel until it caught fire with the day.

  "Hard to believe I had her inside my body," she wondered.

  "Only thing we come equipped to do, replace ourselves," said Broker.

  She patted his cheek. "You'd like that, see me barefoot and pregnant in there again." She nodded at the kitchen.

  It was the truth. He wanted her out. "You know me: Fuck the army." He shrugged.

  "They don't say that anymore, they like the army now," she mused.

  "Bad sign. The army should be ugly and dangerous, and they should bitch every minute they're in. If it's a nice place to be, God help us in the next real war."

  Nina didn't take the bait. This particular subject tended to get irrational; she had fought tinhorn Panamanians and Iraqis. And won. He claimed the moral high ground, having been beaten by one of the great warrior races of history, the North Vietnamese.

  "I'm sorry," Broker apologized. "It's Christmas."

  "Don't apologize. Glad to see you still have a few of your old edges." She tweaked an inch of his belly fat between her thumb and index finger.

  Indignant, Broker huffed. "You try taking care of that kid and finding the time to—"

  "Shhhh, hey dude, I love you."

  Broker moved closer, no longer clumsy. "Glad to see you still have a few of your old weaknesses."

  "Mmmmm…"

  "Why don't we just tiptoe to the bedroom," he suggested.

  The sunrise forgotten, arm in arm, they had made it halfway across the room when Kit started wailing and started throwing, first her tippy cup and then her stuffed animals, out of her crib.

  Clad in bathrobes, they opened presents, crunching through wrapping paper, cardboard and ribbons. Broker's parents called from Arizona, extolling the joys of sunshine. He gave her the latest lightweight long underwear and socks from the Outfitters in Grand Marais. Kit got an old-fashioned wooden sled with steel runners. Broker had bolted on a wooden box to hold her for now.

  She gave him an ornate Macedonian dagger from the fifteenth century.

  Kit's presents from Broker's mom and dad were evenly split between dolls, puzzles, and videos. The dolls with dresses Nina marched off, out of sight. She approved of the puzzles. And of the box of Winnie-the-Pooh movies.

  Broker was thinking of reheating the skipped dinner when Nina emerged from a long hot shower and disappeared into the bedroom. He went in to check. An old T-shirt he'd brought back from New Orleans, black, with a chorus line of alligator skeletons across the front, was hooked in her right elbow. She had fallen asleep again, in the middle of putting it on.

  Broker spent an enjoyable hour, walking with Kit on his shoulder, watching his wife sleep. The first night, on the couch, she had curled in a defensive ball, knees drawn up, arms crossed across her chest. A cold scent had seeped off her skin; nerves marinated in steel, solvents, mud and leather.

  Tenderized by rest, hot water and lotions, her clenched limbs began to sprawl. Her hard round arms were flung over her head. Tidy breasts pulled taut, faintly webbed with stretch marks. A light sepia stripe of pigment ran from her reddish pubic hair to her navel, intersecting the half moon bikini scar where Kit had entered the world. Modestly, her carved knees were tucked together.

  Shadows collected in a scarred whorl below her left hip where she'd taken two AK-47 rounds during Desert Storm. She'd kept the skull and crossbones tattoo on her left shoulder. Maybe it helped win over the grunts when she walked into a tent wearing an sleeveless T-shirt. She wore her copper hair in a practical wash and wear shag; but it was long enough to curl over her ears to conceal the scarred lump where Bevode Fret had sliced off her left earlobe, nearly two years ago.

  Nina's rib cage rose and fell. Kit's soft breath bus
sed his neck. Mommy was a fast ship pointed in harm's way; their marriage was a voyage in uncharted waters. More than once Broker had awakened of a dark night and rehearsed standing at a graveside, next to his young daughter. Practiced reaching out to accept the precisely folded flag.

  He faced it straight on. Why she chose him. Amen.

  He put Kit to bed.

  She and Kit woke in the late afternoon. Nina yawned, moving in one slow languid stretch. Famished, she flung open cupboards, loaded pots, pans, fired all the burners, the oven and filled the table with plates of turkey and trimmings. After they ate, Broker wanted to try out the sled, but Kit let Nina carry her on her shoulder. Soon they were swept away in a conspiracy of baby talk-girl talk. Nina put a Pooh video in the VCR, and constructed an elaborate nest in front of the TV: couch cushions, pillows and blankets.

  Broker watched them crawl into this lair, curl up and watch the cartoon. Nina coached: "Now, see that one, Tigger. See the way she moves—"

  "Nina," protested Broker. "Tigger is a guy."

  "Not anymore," said Nina, snuggling Kit into her arms.

  Long after the sun went down, when Kit had fallen asleep in Nina's arms and had been lowered into her bed and tucked in, they turned their backs on the living room, a toy town sacked by a marauding horde of Santa's elves.

  And finally, they wound up in the same bed.

  When they'd met, she'd been between hitches, a graduate student in Ann Arbor. Broker had never shared a bed with a jet-lagged woman wearing dog tags. She wore the two steel ID wafers taped together with black electrician's tape. So they wouldn't jingle. Like he'd worn his.

  Until 1993, all the dog tag blanks for the military had been made at the Duluth Federal Prison Camp. He didn't know where they made them now.

  The tags and chain twined, cool steel between the skin of his chest and a cushion of smooth muscle where her ribs met. He was very aware of the tiny notch incised into each tag. The notch was a guide for Graves Registration, to help insert the disc between a corpse's teeth. A swift kick from an army boot drove it into the cold gums, good and tight…

  Not exactly an aphrodisiac.

  But then, they were not a sensual couple. What they were good at was removing each other's armor, layer by layer, without being awkward or giving offense.

  They made love like they did everything: directly, unselfconsciously, and far better than most people.

  34

  The day after Christmas.

  Broker could feel morning light press on his eyelids and smell the fresh brewed coffee. But he kept his eyes shut, squirmed deeper to sniff the covers. Happy armpits.

  The aroma of coffee came nearer and he opened his eyes. Nina, hair pleasantly disheveled, lost in the folds of her old voluminous, burgundy terry cloth robe, sat on the edge of the bed. Holding a cup out to him.

  "Actually, you're not half bad for an old fart," she yawned.

  Broker put the coffee on the night table and swatted at her hard ass, hiding somewhere in the baggy garment. She laughed, danced out of reach and wagged her finger.

  He grumbled, "Don't pick on us old farts who tend the home fires while you're out there being glamorous."

  "Glamorous. You sleep in this warm bed. Sometimes I sleep in the snow."

  Broker stuck his tongue out, wiggled his wolf eyebrows and mugged a satyr's grin. "Show me where it hurts and I'll kiss it."

  "Gawd."

  "Ha," said Broker. "I made the major blush."

  Nina quickly changed the subject. "I told you to stay in the Stillwater house. Hire a nanny. I told you you'd go crazy up here alone with a baby. Especially after your mom and dad went off to Arizona. But no—you were going to give Kit the Old North Woods Launch." She mimicked his deep voice and pointed her finger toward the ceiling: "Orion. The wind in the trees. The sound of the lake. Frostbite. Wolves…"

  "Yeah, yeah."

  Kit stumped in through the doorway, butt naked.

  "That's an accident waiting to happen," said Broker with authority.

  "Bo Bra," Kit pronounced proudly.

  "What's that?" Broker asked.

  "All-purpose Yugoslavian; means good," explained Nina.

  "Great," said Broker.

  "Correct, Dobra. Now get dressed, and let's try out that sled."

  They were returning to normal. But their unspoken pact continued, not to let the world intrude on them until tomorrow. They dressed, went outside and loafed. A rested, idle, unplanned day. They pulled Kit along the shore and through the snow-laden trees. Broker rolled his first snowman in thirty years, positioned it on a granite outcropping, complete with a carrot nose and a blaze orange hunting cap.

  The young skiers in the cabin on the point came snowshoeing down the shore, picking their way among the ledge rock. Seeing the snowman, they stopped to introduce themselves.

  David something and Denise something, from Chicago. On their honeymoon; fleeing the law firm where they worked. Crisp wind suits. Fancy cross-country skiing gloves and caps; slim physiques straight from Outside Magazine. They explained that their office represented the doctor who owned the cabin, so they'd arranged for an extended getaway. David produced a Polaroid camera from his knapsack and offered to record the snowman. Denise

  had a serious Nikon on a strap around her neck. David was in every way polite, but Broker disliked his carefully tended narcissism, his artfully askew blond hair, the way he watched Nina, to see if she was watching him. Broker and Nina shrugged, positioned Kit between and posed.

  The young Chicagoan snapped pictures and handed them to Broker, who held them in front of Kit, to see if she reacted to the images swimming up from the chemical emulsion.

  David asked if they could have a few for themselves. Sure. This time Denise did the shooting because David was out of film. She moved in close and snapped rapid-fire, moving in a half circle. She continued shooting, taking in the shore and the house, the cabin where they were staying. Then they said good-bye, Merry Christmas, and they slogged off on their snowshoes.

  "Yuppies," said Broker.

  "That term is ten years old," said Nina, putting the snapshots into her pocket. For a few beats, she tracked them carefully as they trudged away down the boulder-strewn beach.

  When they came in for lunch, Nina inspected all the frozen baby food in the freezer and read the list of ingredients on every package. Broker split some of the dry oak he'd been saving and built the first fire in the tall fieldstone fireplace.

  They made hot chocolate. Got out Hershey bars, graham crackers, marshmallows, and toasted smores in the flames. Broker dragged the mattress off the master bed, positioned it in front of the fire, and they curled up and fell asleep in a pile like newborn puppies.

  Nina, wearing only her dog tags and drops of water, vigorously rubbed her hair with a towel as she stepped from the bathroom. One hand still working the towel, she crossed the living room to the kitchen and stooped, retrieved the spoon Kit had just hurled from her high chair, went to the sink and washed it off with antibacterial soap. Tag team. Broker went into the steamy bathroom, twirled the shower nozzle and took a long shower, shave and shampoo.

  Time to get the letters out.

  When he emerged, he cleaned Kit's lunch off the floor, and her face, gave her a fresh tippy cup of milk and carried her to her room. When he returned, Nina had traded her towel for a pair of old Levi's and the black alligator T-shirt. She sat at the kitchen table and read through a pile of articles he'd torn from the Duluth paper and saved for her. They sketched Caren's death, Keith's arrest, James's role in turning over the incriminating tape and the cases against Chicago crime figures that proceeded from the tape.

  Broker went to his study, removed the letter from his desk, and brought it to the table.

  "Okay, homework's done." She pushed an envelope down the table. "Here's mine."

  He took hers, handed over the one in his hand and sat across the table. Nina had poured cups of fresh coffee. The afternoon had turned gray and windy. A fine sleet
y snow pecked the windows. Superior brooded, humpbacked with black swells.

  Broker opened the letter. "The type is the same," he said.

  "I make it Courier, ten point," Nina said without looking up.

  Broker read:

  Dear Ms. Pryce, or should I say Dear Ms. John,

  I just thought you should know. While you're over there freezing your famous butt in the Balkans your husband is augmenting his baby-sitting duties by living a B movie behind your back. He's seeing his ex-wife, Caren Angland, and I mean seeing.