Homefront. Part 21

Shank did some time for manslaughter after Werky pleaded him down from second degree for killing his ex-wife's boyfriend. In the joint, Danny's organization was impressed by his icy focus and recruited him after he decimated a bunch of Mexicans in the showers.

He had matured in prison and never killed in hot blood again. Now he only operated with methodical planning. Some people were into beginnings, and some people like to stretch out the middle. Shank was an expert on endings.

He killed people.

This corkscrew sensation squirmed through Sheryl's chest. Old tapes. She had been around a lot of dangerous men in her life, and most of them had made her nervous, mainly because they were unpredictable and had poor impulse control. Shank had zero impulses, barely a pulse.

Wow.

s.h.i.+t, man, something must have clicked for them to trot out the Shank.

At two-thirty sharp, Sheryl, face washed clean of makeup, hair gathered in a ponytail, stood at the check-in line at the Country Buffet chewing Juicy Fruit. She wore a pair of faded Levi's, a brand-new, itchy purple Minnesota Vikings sweats.h.i.+rt, scuffed tennies, and a cheap Wal-Mart wind jacket. Some Spanish was being spoken in the line, several gangs of Mexican laborers coming in for all-you-can-eat-a grotesque gallery of obese flesh fighting a losing battle against gravity. On top of which, excessive meat was apparently difficult to wash; the place smelled like an elephant house. Should hose them down, she was thinking when she heard the familiar voice behind her, in a loud whisper: "Hey, Sheryl Mott, long time no see."

She turned and saw Shank, icy smooth, standing behind her. Sinewy, six feet tall; he had white-blond polar bear hair and eyebrows and startlingly pale blue eyes. They'd been an item briefly, when she returned from Seattle, just before she quit cooking for Danny's crew and took up her waitress career.

The smooth pigment of his face avoided the sun and reminded her of the texture of mushrooms under cellophane in the produce section. He wore busted-out denim work duds and beat-up steel-toed boots to fit in with the crowd. Looked skinnier than the last time she saw him.

"Shank. You lose some weight?"

He heaved his shoulders, said, "I feel like a real heel-I shoulda called. You see, right after the last time we were together I tested HIV-positive..."

Sheryl clasped his horn-hard hand, noting the manicured nails set like jewels among the callus. "You're s.h.i.+tting me, right?"

"Yeah," he grinned. "It's the South Beach diet."

She cast her eyes around, sniffed. "You sure know how to show a girl a good time."

"Let's say I'm comfortable around real fat people. They eat like gamblers play slot machines. Totally oblivious to what's around them."

Sheryl gave him an appreciative nod. She liked what she saw so far. They were treating her decent for a change.

Shank paid admission, and they followed a tired-looking waitress who seated them at a booth, brought them gla.s.ses for their beverages, and said in a tone both cryptic and bored, "You can start start now." now."

"You hungry?" Shank asked after the waitress left them alone.

Sheryl rolled her eyes in mild revulsion at the shuffling feeding frenzy and shook her head. "Coffee black," she said.

Shank got them two cups of coffee, resumed his seat across the table, and spread his hands in a respectful preamble. "First, Werky says Danny says h.e.l.lo."

"Yeah, okay." Sheryl took a deep breath, let it out.

"And he says to treat you right. You're the birthday girl. 'Cause, guess what-so far your end checks out. There was a dude name Broker who hung out on the fringe of things. Seems he was more into running guns around than dope. Though there is a story about him bringing in a semi flatbed from North Dakota; piled with hay bales on the outside, bales of weed on the inside. He fixed things, had a bunch of tools in a truck and some landscape equipment. You been out to Danny's place in Lakeland?"

"Yeah, before the feds took it away for taxes."

"So, remember the backyard, all the terracing, rocks and s.h.i.+t?"

"Overlooking the river?"

"Yeah, well, Danny told Werky this f.u.c.k, Broker, did all that. And one of the guys recalled he put in Jojo's sound system in Bayport."

"Bingo," Sheryl said.

"Meets our probable-cause threshold," he said. "I don't suppose you have a picture?"

"'Fraid not." Sheryl thinking, Christ, I just became an accessory to murder one. Christ, I just became an accessory to murder one.

"No problem." He leaned forward, agreeable. "So what's it take to locate this ratf.u.c.k? You know where he is, correct?"

"Uh-huh. Him, his wife, his kid."

"And to give them up you want...?"

"Let's just say, down the line, I got this little project you guys might be interested in..."

"Uh-huh. You know, your name came up a couple weeks ago. Billy Palmer saw you in Arelia's on University. Said you were talking around selling some s.h.i.+t?"

Sheryl sniffed, looked away, "Billy wasn't interested, treated me like some meth wh.o.r.e."

"So, what? You sold to another culture, huh? Mexicans probably, the brothers aren't really into meth..."

"Do I have to answer that?"

"Nah, it's cool," Shank said.

"Heck, you know me." She wiggled her hips in a taut rumba. "Wanna rattle my pots and pans."

"I thought you gave it up."

Sheryl leaned across the table. "Look, the reason I been laying off the scene is there's too many meth suicide bombers out there burning down houses and littering the countryside with toxic waste. Agreed?"

Shank folded his arms across his chest, listened.

Sheryl carefully arranged her coffee cup, a spoon, and the napkin on the table. Tidying up before she began to speak. Then she said, "I'm not asking for anything for this narc. He's a gift, understand?"

"Uh-huh. Right. Continue," Shank said.

Sheryl's face clouded with concentration. "Let's just say I've spent the last year a.s.sembling state-of-the-art gear, the perfect partner, the perfect location, and the perfect operation."

"Perfect," Shank said judiciously, giving her his best North Pole stare.

"Absolutely f.u.c.king perfect," Sheryl insisted, meeting the stare.

"Okay, go on..."

"Thank you. My problem is logistics and distribution. I need someone who can provide precursor and chemicals in large volume and deliver it in a discreet and timely fas.h.i.+on. If I can get that-with my setup-I can cook twenty pounds a heat-"

Shank made a face. "Twenty pounds, bulls.h.i.+t."

Sheryl's eyes didn't waver. "Twenty pounds. No mess. Pfizer couldn't do it cleaner. That's twenty pounds of ninety-nine-percent-pure crystal four times a month for two months."

Shank rubbed his chin, squinted at her. "How're you going to have all that smelly chemical c.r.a.p coming and going without drawing attention?"

"We're way out in the sticks, right? So we have a huge tank of anhydrous parked in a barn, and"-Sheryl paused for effect-"we got the local garbageman."

"Huh?"

"Here's how it could work. Somebody with the resources-maybe you guys-phonies up the supplies to look like trash and trucks it to the local garbage dump, after hours. We can work out some bulls.h.i.+t contract to make it look cool. Our guy loads it in his truck and delivers it when he runs his normal route. We cook, then the garbageman disposes of the waste back in the woods, then brings the product back to the dump. You pick up when you deliver the next load of supplies." Sheryl savored the way Shank's cool eyes appreciated her, like he'd just spotted a plump seal on an ice flow.

"No s.h.i.+t," he said, steepling his fingers, sounding impressed. "A super lab."

Encouraged, Sheryl's voice raced ahead, "Yeah, and we take our time. We're thinking next January and February. See, we need winter-"

Shank had sat patiently. Now he leaned abruptly across the table and silenced her speech with a medium harsh look. "No disrespect, Sheryl; but let's nail this Broker guy first let's nail this Broker guy first."

"Absolutely," Sheryl agreed, sitting up straight, grinding her teeth together. "How about we meet again tomorrow."

Shank studied her for several long seconds, and Sheryl got this feeling she was like the chick in the stage show, strapped to a rotating wheel while the magician threw knives at her. Except these were icicles.

She continued carefully, "That'll give me time to contact my partner. He's the one who got the line on Broker. You're gonna have to talk to him."

"Sure, makes sense," Shank said slowly. "Give us time to tidy up some details, think over your project. This, ah, place you got your lab; it's way out in the sticks, right? Real remote..."

"Yeah, you're gonna hear wolves," Sheryl said.

"No s.h.i.+t." Shank grinned spontaneously. "I never seen a wolf, except at the Como Zoo; they run along the chain-link fence..."

"Yeah," Sheryl said, nodding, blindsided by his disarming easy smile. "I been there."

"Okay. Cool. So your partner lives there...and there's wolves." He looked off, thinking. "Where'd you meet this guy?"

Sheryl heaved her shoulders. "When I got back from Seattle, I was bringing balloons into the joint. You guys put me on his list."

Shank narrowed his eyes. "One of our members?"

"Nah, he was just, you know, paying his rent, so your guys wouldn't jack him around. He was in Education, right. Practically lived in the Vo Tech Shop. He didn't want to get stuck in seg. Did a year for transporting c.o.ke with intent to sell."

"I need a name, Sheryl. We know you. But we won't do business on this scale with strangers, you understand," Shank said frankly.

On this scale. It was gonna happen. "Okay, it's Morgun Bodine. Spelled with a It was gonna happen. "Okay, it's Morgun Bodine. Spelled with a u u, gee-you-en."

"Anything about him we'd remember?"

"He's got this alligator tattoo on his left forearm. Goes by Gator."

"So it's up north." Shank gnawed his lower lip, running it in his mind. "So maybe he b.u.mped into Broker near where he lives?" He raised his eyebrows.

Sheryl pursed her lips, balked.

Shank lifted his palms in comic exasperation, "C'mon, Sheryl, let's put this motherf.u.c.ker on the fast track. You got a lot riding on this. Whatta ya say?"

Sheryl's palms started to sweat. She rubbed them together in a nervous reflex, then put them in her lap. It was rus.h.i.+ng the plan. But they were so close. And she didn't want to p.i.s.s Shank off, not now. She brought her hands back up and placed them on the table and said, "North of Glacier Falls, near the border. And yeah, that's where he is."

"Where Broker is?"

"Yeah."

"Good girl," Shank said emphatically, reaching over and squeezing her right hand. "Okay, I'll talk to some folks. But I'll need a day. Tomorrow's kind of tight. How about we...have breakfast Monday morning? Where should I pick you up?"

Instinct kicked in; Sheryl didn't want to tell him where she lived. "Ah, I'll be on the corner of Grand and Dale, in front of the drugstore."

Shank stood up. "Monday. Eight A.M.; you handle that?"

"Sure, what're you driving?"

It took Shank a moment to answer, like he had to think about it. "Gray Nissan Maxima; got all the bells and whistles," he said. Then he gave her a thumbs-up, "You done good, Sheryl." As he turned to leave, he grinned again. "Wolves, huh?"

"Lot of wolves," Sheryl said, again catching some of his infectious smile.

"Sounds like my kind of place," Shank said, then he padded off through the milling herd of grazing food zombies and vanished out the door.

Sheryl drew the moment out. Reached down and raised the coffee cup, enjoying the slight tremble in her fingers. Then she left the booth and put a medium swing in her walk going into the women's restroom, where she jockeyed around with the lumbering herd animals to get some face time at the mirror. She removed the binder, shook out the ponytail, and leisurely combed her hair. Then she applied lipstick and a touch of eyeshadow. Walked out of that bathroom stepping like a Thoroughbred.

Two minutes later she stood in the parking lot next to her car, removing the Wal-Mart jacket, bundling it, and tossing it under the swayback rusted-out Honda Civic parked next to her. She thumbed the remote, opened the door, and pulled out her good leather coat, put it on. Then she got in, turned the key, and just sat in the Pontiac for a while, waiting on the heater, running her hand over the leather seat. Gonna miss this car, she thought. Took a deep breath, exhaled, and punched in Gator's pager number in her cell. When the voice mail came on, she punched in seven sixes, so he'd know it was her.

Now give him half an hour to get to the phone booth at the store.

Longest thirty minutes of her life.

She sat and smoked and listened to people on Minnesota Public Radio talking about the dumb G.o.dd.a.m.n war. Then she took a roll of quarters, went back into the Country Buffet, and made the call on the pay phone.

He answered immediately, his voice shaking with excitement. Or maybe it was cold.

"They remember Broker being around at the time Jojo got killed. I think we're eighty percent go. I just met the guy who's gonna do it. You ever hear of the Shank when you were inside?" Sheryl said.

"Before my time. I thought he was just a story," Gator said.

"No story. He's real, I had coffee with him thirty minutes ago. He says if it happens, it's going to happen fast. So start getting ready."

"How soon?" Gator said.

"Dunno. I got another meeting to talk details Monday morning. If it's on, how do you want to handle it?"

"Have him call me at the shop. He'll say he's interested in the restored 1919 Fordson I got sitting in front. Maybe he wants to get it for his dad or something. I'll give him directions."

"All right." Sheryl paused for three heartbeats, wondering if she really could peel off the life she'd lived like the cheap Wal-Mart jacket and throw it away. Then she just said it. "Love you, babe."

"Yeah," Gator said.