by Chuck Logan
Several took a sideways look at Broker, then dropped their eyes. John’s outsider.
Mouse’s bulk was unmistakable at the end of the room next to the coffeepot. Their eyes made solid contact on the order of an eight-ball break shot.
“I got something for you,” Mouse said.
Then the phone on Broker’s hip rang. He picked up and heard Jack Malloy’s voice. “Is this personal, or are you working?” Jack asked.
“Can you stay put? I need a sec,” Broker said.
“You are working,” Malloy said.
“Yep. For John Eisenhower.”
Broker came up to Mouse and took him by the arm and walked him through the security door into the hall. He held up a finger to shush Mouse and turned back to the phone. “Victor Moros was a caretaker priest at St. Martin’s in Stillwater. Are you with me so far, Jack?” Broker said.
“Yes, we heard this morning that Moros died. But the details are coming very slowly.”
“Are we cool, Jack? Like way off the record here?”
“You’re going to have give me cause, but we’re cool.”
“Good. Then I can tell you that the details are slow in coming because he was shot to death last night, in his confessional.”
“Oh, my God-here . .” Malloy’s voice staggered. It was silent on the line for a moment, and Broker didn’t need paranormal powers to divine what Malloy meant when he blurted: here.
“It gets a lot worse, Jack. We have to keep this strictly between us,” Broker said. “You still with me?”
“Sure.”
“He had a St. Nicholas medallion stuffed in his mouth,” Broker said.
Jack Malloy groaned. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph-the Saint. Great, so now it’s really come here. We’ve had charges made, threats; but not a death. The press. .”
“No press; not yet. We’re sitting on the case. But I need a fast read on Moros’s background, and it has to be absolutely discreet.”
Malloy exhaled, steadied, and said, “I’m on it. Meet me here, at the rectory, at ten tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll be there.”
Broker hung up and turned to Mouse, who was pushing the last crumbs of a doughnut into his mouth. “Okay-he’s not home; his car was piled up against a tree in his driveway.”
Mouse chewed, swallowed, and looked around for a place to get rid of his foam coffee cup. Broker took the cup from his hand. The door to Investigations snapped open; a young cop started out into the hall. Broker handed him the empty cup. The young cop looked at Broker, then at Mouse, and went back inside.
“And I talked to Annie Mortenson. She sounds way too straight for our boy,” Broker said.
Mouse nodded sagely. It was a look he cultivated and played well with his battered features, weary blue eyes, and his bristly gray flattop haircut. “I figure Annie’s his last resort; he keeps her around for formal occasions. She knows which fork to use, like that. So I figured this is a case where you go to the last resort first.”
“Well, he got her to pick him up and lend him her car to take roses to his dear old mom who’s in the nursing home,” Broker said. “Except he’d already split from the nursing home by the time I got there.”
“Down deep, when it comes to a dog like Harry taking flowers to his mother, even a sensible woman will melt into your basic enabler,” Mouse said.
“His place was open, so I went in and looked around. He’s got enough guns and ammo in his basement to rearm the Taliban,” Broker said.
Mouse squinted his way into something like a smile. “Okay, so he’s a hazard to navigation. Maybe he should be off the streets. Just so happens I found him.”
“Goddammit, Mouse, why didn’t you-” Broker said.
Mouse raised a finger to his lips, then pointed to the door to Investigations, which appeared to be open a crack. He shook his head. “Cops. Snoopy bastards,” he whispered. “Worse gossips than junior high girls.”
They walked down the hall, left the sheriff’s office, and stood in the lobby. Mouse yanked his thumb back toward the unit. “I run the north team; Harry runs the south team, right? Harry’s lead detective used to be Benish, who got transferred to Fraud. But they stay in touch.
“So Benish comes up to me an hour ago and says, ‘Tell Broker that Harry is playing cards at Ole’s Boat Repair.’ He also says Harry don’t see the need to rush going to treatment. It ain’t like they’re going to move St. Joseph’s in the next two weeks.”
Broker allowed a faint smile. “Sounds like Harry. He figures to use every minute of his suspension to party. So he knows I’m on the job and about Moros and. .”
“Sure; if Benish didn’t tell him, there’s half a dozen other people who could,” Mouse said.
“So where’s this Ole’s?”
“Take Highway Ninety-five south toward Lakeland. About two miles this side of the slab, on the east side of the road there’s this sailboat repair shop that went out of business.”
Broker squinted, placing the location. “The slab” was cop talk for Interstate 94. “Yeah, okay. Tell me about the game,” Broker said.
Mouse shrugged. “No sweat. It’s a regular game in the back room. No actual bread on the table. It’s all chips and markers. They settle up someplace else. Some hustlers cruise by and give it some flavor; but nothing heavy, they all know who Harry is. Mostly it’s local guys with leisure time who like to rub shoulders with mildly criminal types. Harry is a regular; he uses it as a listening post.”
Broker and Mouse stared at each other for several beats. Finally, Broker said, “It’s too easy.”
“Yeah,” Mouse said.
Broker extended his hand.
“What?” Mouse said.
“Gimme your cuffs. Just in case.”
Broker sat for several minutes in his idling truck as the A/C hummed up to speed and put a sheet of artificial cool between him and the day.
Okay. C’mon. Let’s do it.
He left town and drove south on Highway 95. It had been more than a decade since he rode with a pair of manacles hanging from his belt. The thought of a take-down grapple to the pavement in this heat. . Broker shook his head, leery. The fact was, he assumed the worst. It smelled like a setup; Harry making an overture like this, setting a time and place.
He stared out the windshield, and the day glared back. Crazy-making hot. The cars and trucks went by like brightly painted blisters. Even buttoned up in air-conditioning, he could feel the sweat puddle on his scalp.
Carefully, he reviewed the last time he’d seen Harry. At the Washington County Fair, last summer. A sweltering night perfumed with animal barns and sweat and cotton candy. Broker had been with his daughter, Kit, standing in line for the pony ride when Harry walked up.
He’d just looked at Broker, tried to smile, and said, “I heard you were married. Cute kid.”
So they attempted to get a conversation going, but their small talk hobbled like stragglers through the no-man’s-land yawning between them. When Harry awkwardly started to tousle Kit’s reddish hair, Broker instinctively reached over and pulled her out of his reach.
“Must be reflexes, huh?” Harry had said. So the time machine had kicked in and they were back to it. They’d exchanged poison looks while his daughter unconsciously wrinkled her smooth broad forehead, soaking up the ambient hostility.
Harry half-turned as he was walking away. “You never had anything to lose before, did you, Broker?”
Broker once had heard a counselor describe alcoholism as a progressive disease, implying that just because you stopped putting alcohol in your mouth, it didn’t mean the condition was cured. It continued to grow inside like an invisible vampire. Take a drink after ten years, and the vampire sitting on your chest was ten years older and stronger than he was the last time you saw him.
Broker figured the thing he had with Harry was like that.
He came up to his turnoff and spotted the building. Weeds grew in the broken asphalt of the parking lot. Fading blue lettering spelled O
le’s Boat Repair on dirty white cinder block, and the showroom windows were boarded with plywood. An ancient sailboat was beached, unmasted and rudderless, on a trailer. The tires on the trailer were flat.
Broker drove around back and saw a dozen cars, SUVs mostly, and a brand-new shiny red Subaru Forester with a license plate that matched the numbers and letters on the clipboard on the seat next to him.
He parked, got out, and encountered the deeply locked-down feeling that was Diane waiting for him in the heat. Dark hair worn in a flip. The soft breathy voice.
Did you see her? She looks like Jackie Fucking Kennedy with tits. Harry’s studied reaction the night he met her.
Years ago, the sensation would close off the light and last for whole days; now he processed it fast, working through the doubt and remorse to a bedrock determination.
He could never bring himself to say he’d done the right thing. But he was confident he’d done what he had to do. So he took a deep breath through his nose to steady himself, walked up to the back door, and knocked.
The door opened a crack. A tubby guy with senatorial white hair and a melanoma golf tan peeked out.
“You have an invite? This is strictly an invitations-only party,” the guy said.
“Phil Broker for Harry Cantrell. I need to talk to him,” Broker said.
The guy squinted. “Oh yeah?”
Broker shifted his weight irritably from foot to foot. “Hey, c’mon. Get Harry out here.”
The guy turned and called into the dark air-conditioned interior, “Harry, there’s this guy here says. .”
A deep, slightly slurred, but amused voice boomed, “Yeah, yeah, my fucking process server-bring him in.”
The guy at the door thumbed Broker to enter.
Broker stepped inside and squinted. He was in a huge deserted workshop with a concrete floor and half-torn wooden racks. An industrial-strength chill churned from a dripping wall-mounted A/C unit. Stratas of cigarette and cigar smoke stacked up in a shower of light. It came from an oblong pool hall light that poured down on a round table covered with a green felt tablecloth.
Six men sat around it among a clutter of cards, chips, ashtrays, and drinks. Six or seven other guys lounged at a side table that held platters of sandwich makings, an ice bucket, some bottles. An old couch, some chairs, and a refrigerator rounded out the decor. Mouse had accurately called the crowd; ten years ago, in their late thirties, they’d probably taken some chances; now they looked as if they wanted to sit down a lot and mainly talk. Most of the guys at the card table were culturally correct, drinking from plastic bottles of spring water.
“Well, well, well,” Harry said. He sat behind an ashtray, a whiskey tumbler, and a big pile of chips.
Same old Harry. He went five eleven, weighed around 175, and was fifty years old. As Broker came across the room he recalled that Harry always looked slightly smaller than he actually was. The illusion was created by the fact that Harry’s clothes always fit him so well.
Today he wore gray stonewashed jeans and a green golf shirt. But even dressed in a white bedsheet Harry would still evoke a man-in-black persona. It was the thick dark curly hair, the sideburns, and the promise of dangerous excitement cocked in the slouch of his hips. His face was slightly flat, with Cherokee cheekbones and a chin that matched his brawny bone-prominent hands. The three red 7s were engraved on his tanned right forearm.
Harry had a Lucky Strike dangling at a sporty angle between lightly clenched teeth. But his eyes betrayed his jaunty smile, looking about as easy as two chunks of indigo dye melting in tomato juice. A clip of toilet tissue was nailed to his chin by a rusty dot. He blinked and raised a hand to knuckle at a runny nose. He was busted inside. Stuff was leaking.
“Is this guy here to play or what?” someone said.
Harry’s eyes were fever brilliant but so very empty as he said, “Nah, he don’t gamble with money, but he’ll sure as fuck gamble with your life.”
Chapter Nine
“Cash me in,” Harry said, pushing back his chair. One of the guys came over from the side table, began counting chips and entering numbers in a small notebook.
Harry stood up, studied Broker, blinked several times, and tried to stand erect, but gravity was toying with his internal bearings. Harry was listing to port in Ole’s Boat Repair.
He smiled. “So John gave you a badge and a gun and everything, huh? My own official escort to the booby hatch.”
One of the guys said, “Aw, it ain’t so bad; I been to St. Joseph’s.”
“I been there twice,” someone said.
“The groups are fucked, though. They don’t let you smoke anymore. Gotta go outside,” someone else added.
Broker gauged the patter, which was along the lines of a reluctant but firm farewell. He shifted his weight, kept his hands at his sides. Waited.
Harry put his right hand behind his head and massaged his neck, stretched, turned, and looked at Broker.
“Look at you. Nothing ever gets to you, does it? You just keep going like the fuckin’ Energizer Bunny. Why is that?”
“This isn’t the time,” Broker said.
“I mean, don’t it ever bother you?” Harry said. Then he raised his hands in mock surrender. “I know, I know, it’s not the time.” He waved a hand in a cavalier farewell, turning toward his poker buddies, who came forward to gather in a group. Then he stopped, snuck a quick look at Broker, and said defiantly, “I want to finish my drink.”
Broker shrugged. “Sure, what the hell.”
Harry leaned over the table, picked up the glass, and raised it to his lips. But instead of downing it, he left half an inch in the bottom and hoisted the glass as if to say, See, I’m in control. He placed the glass down on the table with an emphatic thump and called out, “Well, guys; this is it.”
A chorus of send-offs ensued, handshakes, a few hugs even though Harry was definitely not the hugs type.
As he started for the back door, Harry paused and grimaced. “Christ, kidneys are shot. I gotta take a leak.”
Broker made a stymied spontaneous gesture with his hand which someone in the crowd captioned accurately: “You gotta go, you gotta go.”
Harry walked quickly toward a door inside of the room. As he pulled it shut, the gang of guys moved forward.
“Is he gonna lose his job over this?” one asked.
Broker shrugged. “Nah, it’s not exactly routine, but in-patient is covered by insurance.”
“Can he still, you know, hang out and play cards?”
“I suppose he could drink Sprite,” someone speculated.
It suddenly occurred to Broker in the course of this amiable little chat how the card players were forming a circle around him, a cordon as it were. Surrounding him shoulder to shoulder.
“Wait a minute,” Broker said, starting toward the door through which Harry had disappeared. The group, amoebalike, oozed along with him and separated him from the door.
Broker feinted left, shouldered hard right, burst through, and yanked open the door. Shit. It led to a hallway running the length of the building with an exit door going out the side.
He sprinted for the exit door as a scornful voice sang out, “Ha, you sucker. He’s gonna get his whole two weeks before you pry the bottle from his cold dead hand.”
Out the door fast. Then not so fast as his adrenaline floundered, the heat sapping his energy like quicksand. C’mon. Move.
Harry? There he is, crouched behind the wheel of the Forester, swearing and banging his shoulder at the door. Running toward him, Broker saw what he was swearing about. In his haste, Harry must have slammed the seat belt and buckle into the door well. Now the door was jammed shut and he couldn’t start the car because the door wasn’t all the way closed. And he couldn’t get the door open.
Seeing him coming, Harry yanked and banged harder on the door, and, as Broker came within arm’s reach, Harry broke the door free. As he disentangled the belt and leaned to turn the key, Broker thrust his arm into the h
alf-open window and grabbed at the wheel.
Harry was giggling like a boy playing a game. “Let go, motherfucker.” The engine quietly purred on, and the car started to move in a fitful circle because Broker was cranking on the wheel with his right hand as he ran alongside.
“Stop the car, Harry!” Broker yelled.
“Anybody but you; shit. I’d make the trip with Lymon Greene before you. John should have known. .”
“HAIR REEEE!” Broker yelled, seeing the side of the building loom up and letting go of the wheel just before the front bumper, headlights, and grille crumpled into the cinder block.
The Forester did a quick steel-crunching rhumba motion, the air bag engulfed Harry, and then the car settled. Almost the second it stopped moving, Harry scrambled out from behind the air bag and pushed out the door. He staggered over to where Broker was in a pushup position, getting up from the boiling asphalt. From the corner of his eye Broker saw the poker players coming out the back door. And something else. During the shock of hitting the pavement, his pistol had jerked from the holster and was lying about three feet from his head.
Harry stopped and shook his head. He had a crazy bewildered grin on his face. He said, “Shit, man. That’s twice in twenty-four hours I been kissed by a fucking air bag.” Then he saw the pistol lying on the asphalt. His grin broadened to show wolfish canines, and he said, “Gee, and I thought you didn’t like handguns? I thought killing people one at a time bored you. What was it you racked up in Quang Tri City back in seventy-two-something like six or seven confirmed kills? Course, by then they were scraping the bottom of the barrel, sending down half-trained fifteen-, sixteen-year-old kids. .”
“Harry, back off,” Broker said, getting up.
“More like child abuse than a war. Hell, I mean, we wasted all their real soldiers by seventy-one when I was there,” Harry said.
Limping slightly, Broker retrieved the pistol, secured it back in the holster, and pulled the shirt over it.
“You all right?” Harry said.
“No thanks to you, asshole,” Broker said.
“C’mon. It was fun,” Harry said.
