Homefront. Part 13

Broker finished his cigar and came back into the kitchen. He was still pondering making the call when Nina wandered in, doing her bathrobe shuffle but, Broker observed, with a little more swing than usual. She stopped, c.o.c.ked her head to the side, and said, "Broker, you feeling all right? You don't look so hot."

"Yeah, sure," he said, backing up a step. Not used to her making and maintaining direct eye contact. Not used to seeing the hint of color in her cheeks. "Just cleaning the place up."

She nodded, "Uh-huh. How'd it go with the princ.i.p.al this morning?"

"Ah, they're moving her to a different home base, away from the kid she hit. No recess for a week. They'll keep an eye out," he said, thinking, first eye contact, now she's tracking and making conversation. Christ, she is is coming back. Not used to being scrutinized by her green eyes, he had to remind himself that Nina coming back was a good thing. coming back. Not used to being scrutinized by her green eyes, he had to remind himself that Nina coming back was a good thing.

Then she poured a cup of coffee and took up her position at the stove, flipped on the overhead fan, and lit a cigarette. Broker was actually relieved when she pointed the TV remote like an escapist wand. The set popped on, dropping an electronic curtain over the room and hopefully cloaking his agitation.

For once he didn't mind.

Usually the cable shows reminded him of undercover work that had taken him into endless barrooms where it was always 11:00 P P.M. The time when the smart people had long departed and only the drunks remained, yelling their pet peeves at each other. Chris Matthews brayed on one stool, Bill O'Reilly on another. Sean Hannity off beating his meat in the john. CNN had less volume and droned in a thorazine monotone. PBS was different, a station that delivered its monotone with footnotes.

C-SPAN was okay, free of commercial breaks, it came at you in agonizing real time like a dogged AA group crusading to get the nation to go on the wagon of sober politics.

Broker retreated to the washer and dryer in the bathroom and reached in to haul towels from the washer, except the G.o.dd.a.m.n towels were tangled like wet pythons around the washer stalk, resisting him. Suddenly he yanked at them, jarring the machine. He stopped and stared at his hands. Close to shaking. The flash point idling hair-trigger...

Primed and ready, just a surge away.

Deep breath, center down. Slowly, he disentangled the twisted towels from the washer column. Looked up through the doorway, snuck a look at Nina, thinking how she'd always favored colors that complemented her hair and complexion; shades of green and amber. Harvest colors. Now she grabbed whatever came to hand first in the drawer or laundry basket. At this moment, under the green terry-cloth robe, she wore a gray T-s.h.i.+rt, a pair of red sweatpants. Purple sweat socks.

Kit was just beginning to be aware of her appearance and how to dress. She would avert her eyes from her mother's outlandish costumes. Come to him with tops and bottoms, ask him if they matched...

Broker blinked, caught in mid-spiral; Nina was looking back at him. No, watching watching him. him.

Deliberately now, under the gaze of her increasingly alert eyes, he transferred the towels into the dryer, sorted another load into the washer, measured soap, set the control, started the water. When he went back to the kitchen, she continued to check him from the corner of her eye as she paced and chain-smoked and watched the Abrams tanks and the Bradleys rolling up the Euphrates River valley.

"So, what do you think?" she asked in a level voice, gesturing at the televised war just as some particularly sharp audio threw a rattle of shots into the kitchen. This distinctive whoosh, then an explosion.

"The AKs and RPGs sound the same," Broker said, turning away. "I gotta go in town, pick up the flat, do some shopping before I get Kit," he said over his shoulder, accelerating in an uninterrupted motion toward the door, stepping into his boots, grabbing his hat, gloves, carrying his coat, which he put on in the garage.

He didn't have to check his wrist.w.a.tch. He knew it was just after noon. Three hours till school let out.

As he wheeled down the driveway and onto 12, he decided he needed some drive time away from the house. He'd been living too close to her.

And her ghosts.

Janey, Holly, and Ace Shuster. The casualties from Northern Route. He repeated the names in his mind like a diagram of her condition. She blamed herself for Janey most, and then Ace. Holly had disappeared, vaporized from the face of the earth in the explosion at Prairie Island. Broker had been two hundred yards away...

He shook his head, focused on the road. Ghosts were mind games, just mental artifacts. Invisible.

Like radiation.

Broker had come to view Nina's depression as an asylum where all the ghosts got out. Thing about ghosts. You had to keep them locked up.

Broker stabbed his right boot sole down, heavy on the gas. Maybe not the best time to call Griffin.

Chapter Nineteen.

Gator was jangled on too much morning coffee, and now rubber-kneed from the bout at the sink, but when they entered the shop, he immediately started another pot. As the Mr. Coffee gurgled and dripped, he paced and watched Sheryl drift over to the cot in the alcove, tuck her knees under her, and start combing out her hair. morning coffee, and now rubber-kneed from the bout at the sink, but when they entered the shop, he immediately started another pot. As the Mr. Coffee gurgled and dripped, he paced and watched Sheryl drift over to the cot in the alcove, tuck her knees under her, and start combing out her hair.

No afterglow booze. No drugs. He and Sheryl agreed. The first rule of the Great Monk Crooks was, they never used. Like Danny T. said in the joint: "You use, you lose the count."

"So?" Sheryl asked, drawing the comb through her long hair, staring quizzically at the black kitten that emerged from a folded blanket under the desk and arched up against Gator's s.h.i.+n.

"Jojo," Gator said, picking up the cat, stroking it.

Sheryl's eyes clicked around. "You mean...Danny T.'s Jimmy Jo?"

"Yep." Gator gently put the kitten down, poured a cup of coffee, and handed it to Sheryl. She set down the comb, took the cup in both hands, blew on it to cool it.

"The bust in Bayport, what? Eight, nine years ago, she said. "I hear it still cuts Danny like a knife."

Casually Gator opened his desk drawer and took out the sheets of paper. "No one ever figured out who snitched on Jimmy Jo. Gave him to the narcs."

Sheryl nodded. "Eats at Danny. Gave him ulcers, losing his only kid like that."

"Wasn't a snitch. Was an undercover cop." He tapped the paper.

Sheryl narrowed her eyes, taking the papers; she drew up her knees cross-legged, got comfortable. "This is a search warrant," she said as she flipped up the blue memo stapled to the top page, raised her eyebrows.

"Read," he said.

She put on her serious thinking face and carefully read the warrant. Then she scanned it again. He reached in the desk again and tossed her the Was.h.i.+ngton County letter, the Visa statement.

"Connect the dots. I don't trust myself," Gator said.

Sheryl took her time reading, turning the pages, going back and forth, sipping her coffee, the student in her engaged. Times like this, he was grateful she was...o...b..ard. His deep bench. She glanced up, her eyes luminous, impressed.

"This guy, Broker," she said slowly.

"I figure he was an undercover they didn't want to show in court."

"Maybe." They locked eyes. "How'd you get this? Where?"

Gator smiled, "Never mind how. I got it from a house, yesterday afternoon. Where he's staying."

Sheryl's eyes popped. "Up here?"

"Yep."

"A state narc is up here?" Showing lots of whites, her eyes darted around the shop. "s.h.i.+t, man..."

"Relax. If something was up, I'da heard from Keith. In fact, I'm working on that, to make sure," Gator said.

Sheryl wrinkled her nose. She didn't entirely approve of the way he played footsie with his childhood buddy, the sheriff.

Gator hurried to rea.s.sure her. "Way it looks, I don't think he's on the job anymore. Just living with his crazy old lady and his kid."

Sheryl uncrossed her legs, got off the cot, and paced the narrow office. "Let me get this straight. You just stumbled stumbled on this?" on this?"

Gator shrugged. "If I told you how, you wouldn't believe it. Doesn't matter. What's it mean?"

As Sheryl pondered her response, the black kitten reappeared from under the desk and glided to a bowl of water, then poked its head into a second bowl of cat food.

"I think Danny T. had a contract out on whoever snitched Jojo," she said slowly. "It never went anywhere."

"So," Gator tossed up his hands in a gesture of great abundance, "let's renegotiate the contract."

Sheryl inclined her head so her hair fell in this dark cascade, and their eyes batted the idea back and forth. She frowned. "You mean...?"

"Make an approach, propose trading this ratf.u.c.k narc for..."

"A reliable supplier of precursor," Sheryl said.

Gator took her hands in his, pulled her up from the cot, and twirled her in a celebratory circle. Sheryl went along for a moment, then her face went beetle-browed with concentration. She released Gator's hands.

"Easier said than done, making an approach. When I tried putting out feelers to Danny's guys, they treated me like a retread throwaway b.i.t.c.h. They're still p.i.s.sed at me 'cause I walked away from cooking for them. s.h.i.+t, Gator, they wanted to know if I'd do prison visits again."

"But this is different," Gator said. "It's got a personal angle, like a favor to the great man. We start out humble. Give them the guy like a gift. Don't go to street guys. Go right to the top, Danny's lawyer..."

An authentic ripple of disgust distorted her face. She clamped her arms across her chest. "You go see d.i.c.kie Werk, go see d.i.c.kie Werk, you you blow him." blow him."

"C'mon, this is different different," Gator insisted. Then he took her hand and walked her through the shop, past the disa.s.sembled tractor and the part.i.tioned area where he kept his paints, paint gun, two protective suits with state-of-the-art rebreather masks. They entered the paint room. Hooks dangled from the ceiling on which he hung tractor parts. It was an almost hallucinatory s.p.a.ce, swirled with layers of spray from the paint gun-red, orange, green, yellow. Empty now, kept scrupulously clean. Just a long workbench, a wide elaborate fume hood, and a color photo taped to the wall; a view of Sheryl's sand beach lot in Belize. Gator believed in visualizing goals.

"We're all set up-we got an industrial-rated exhaust system, the gla.s.sware, the mantles, the generator," he said. "Got the perfect location, a pig tank full of anhydrous in the barn...and I got pickup, delivery, and disposal all figured out."

"Figured out in theory," Sheryl said tartly, bringing him back to earth. "Or have you forgotten what a mess it was two weeks ago, just cooking two pounds? All thumbs, the country kids...you getting stuck in the woods with a truck full of precursor and chemicals you ripped off..." She raised her finger and wagged it. "You got it figured out on paper, honey; not in real life."

"Okay, two weeks ago was hairy; but we needed operating cash. I owe my brother-in-law, remember..."

"Your brother-in-law the lush, your buddy the sheriff "-she rolled her eyes, then clamped her arms across her chest-"f.u.c.king wolves howling all night." Again the wagging finger. "No way I'm going back to those West Side Mexican creeps; I don't need the exposure. To lay off that s.h.i.+t we took a fifty percent cut in price"-her eyes flashed-"and me digging around in the water tank of some crummy nightclub toilet for the bread...there was vomit on the floor, in the woman's john." Sheryl finished up fierce and indignant.

"You're absolutely right." Gator made calming motions with his hands. "That's why we need a reliable organization that can a.s.semble the chemicals in volume, discreetly. Dead drops."

"Gator, I don't even know if OMG has a network in Canada to bring stuff down. They're still a bunch of f.u.c.king bikers, man."

"Work with me, here, will ya?" Gator pleaded. "Not like we're in hurry; this year's shot. If it happens, it'll be next winter. We got time. Long-term, remember?"

Sheryl's tantrum pa.s.sed. She unfolded her arms and paced the room. "Okay, maybe it could work." She pirouetted and raised the stern finger for a third time. "You're forgetting something," she said, still beetly, still thinking. "If this guy checks out and they go for it, they're going to kill him. We can get indicted as coconspirators in murder one. This won't be like the last time. Your buddy, the sheriff, is going to have to investigate an ex-cop with a bullet in the back of his head. Says in the paperwork he worked for BCA. They'll bring in the state investigators. And they're pretty good."

Gator made a quas.h.i.+ng gesture with his hands. "I thought of that. We'll make it part of the deal. He dies in a house fire. They put a plastic sack over his head or do him with a small caliber in the ear, huh-that ain't gonna show if he's burned up. Bad connection on the propane. Gas rises to the pilot light in the furnace. Boom. Happens all the time in old houses up here."

Sheryl enlarged her eyes. "Another house fire, Gator? You just had one last year...And for starters, you don't dictate to these guys..." house fire, Gator? You just had one last year...And for starters, you don't dictate to these guys..."

"Aw, c'mon, maybe they'll do it somewhere else, huh? Let's take a shot. Take the papers to the lawyer. He can talk to Danny on the phone, and no one's listening; they turn the tape off, right, when he's talking to his lawyer?"

Sheryl chewed the inside of her cheek, angling her head back and forth, weighing it. "So go in humble, serve them up this guy, then later we angle for an audition," she said.

"There you go, think positive," Gator said.

"They'd have a whole year to put it together. And they'll want to check out the operation, send out an appraiser, like a bank doing a mortgage."

"Hey, we're ready."

"No more little jobs. No more sweating middlemen. All we do is cook and get paid. The big batch," Sheryl said.

"Biggest batch ever cooked east of California. Right here," Gator said.

"With the right support system, we could cook ten pounds a heat..."

Gator shook his head. "h.e.l.l, with our setup we could do twenty pounds of ninety-nine-percent pure gla.s.s. Easy." He couldn't help laughing, picturing it as he shuffled toward her in a stilted Frankenstein stagger, jerking his arms. "Our stuff hits the street, it's gonna look like Night of the Living Dead Night of the Living Dead out there, all the dumb doomed tweakers lurching around the countryside." out there, all the dumb doomed tweakers lurching around the countryside."

His comic routine finally brought laughter to her eyes. Why she liked him; he had a sense of humor.

"Okay, okay, cut the clowning. This is serious," she said. "One heat a week, at twenty-five K a pound. But then there's overhead and Danny's cut. Still, s.h.i.+t, man..." She walked across the paint room and touched the beach photo taped to the wall. Then she turned to him. "There's a lot of ifs; if they can deliver in volume and on time, if they don't screw up was.h.i.+ng the money, if you can get a new set of ID..." Finally his enthusiasm swept her up and she grinned. "s.h.i.+t, Gator, in two months we could get free. Disappear."

"Say good-bye to winter," Gator said.

"Belize."

"Placencia, here we come. Build on that property. I could work on boat engines. Two-cycle diesel, not that different from tractors. Go straight, live on fish and coconuts." He put his arm around her and walked her back into the mechanics bay. Then he gently pressed her forward against the disa.s.sembled bare metal of the old tractor, nuzzled her ear, inhaling the great hair. "Lean over, baby; grab some Minneapolis Moline."

"I guess this is what they call progress, huh," Sheryl sighed as she unb.u.t.toned her jeans.

Chapter Twenty.

When Broker picked Kit up at school, their conversation consisted of three words. up at school, their conversation consisted of three words.

"Kitty?" Kit asked.

"No kitty," Broker said. After a glum drive home, they walked into the house, and it was immediately apparent that Nina's morning rally had continued into the afternoon. She still wore the odd outfit, minus the robe, but she'd combed and gathered her hair in a ponytail. The weights were strewn around the living room in a circle that suggested she had been working out. More than circ.u.mstantial was the tone of her voice when she saw her daughter: "Young lady, you are vacuuming all the rugs, remember..."

Broker left them debating over the sound of the vacuum cleaner-Kit trying to make a case that all five rugs were too many demerits to work off.

Broker went into the backyard, making a vague reference to the woodpile. He walked far enough into the woods to verify that the ski pole and bunny were still in place.