No crime was committed.
More magic.
The safe house was outfitted with a computer, printer, and copier-fax. Happily, the computer was on-line, so Tom could browse the Web. Mainly, he scouted out information on the Witness Protection Program. Or WITSEC, as Lorn referred to it.
He didn’t really need to bone up on WITSEC. He’d read a book about the U.S. Marshals Service in the last year, and he had a fundamental knowledge of the program.
If the tape was good, he’d have no problem getting in.
He’d be all right. Just had to be patient and don’t do anything dumb. That’s how most people got caught. They did something dumb.
Tom’s dumb hang-up was a recurring fantasy. He imagined Broker’s chubby baby, now big as a cow, sitting in the woods, at the cistern where he’d hidden the money. One by one, she ate the bills.
That’s really dumb, Tom, he told himself. But every hour the crazy image rolled by, like a goddamn crosstown bus.
He found himself wondering if the kid was precocious and could communicate with her father. Tap her foot like a trained pony. Tell him what had happened in the workshop.
Broker had put his hands on Tom’s throat, wanted to hold him on suspicion.
There it was again. Baby Huey, eating his money; crapping green like a goose.
Broker wouldn’t be so tough if he weren’t worried about his kid all the time. Cops were weird about their kids. He’d done a story on a cop once who got in trouble for running background checks on the boy who was dating his daughter.
He was somebody now. He didn’t have to take shit from hicks. Maybe write a little something. Send a note to the fancy pants wife in the army, too. Give her something to think about.
Don’t mess with Tom.
Tom opened a new file and began to play with words. Not the straightforward AP style that characterized his reporting.
No, this was a mood piece. This was twitchy.
Send a little love note to Broker. And the wife.
Just a page to keep him up nights.
Only mail them if he got into the program.
His fingers flew over the keys, inspired. He went over it a few times, hit the spell check, polished here and there. He scrolled to a clean screen and typed Phil Broker, General Delivery, Devil’s Rock, Minnesota. Then he typed the wife’s military mailing address. Quickly, he printed out the sheets.
The desk contained basic office supplies, which he took to his room, along with the printed material. Using a Kleenex to mask his fingers, he folded the sheets with the writing on it and slid them in envelopes. Then he used a scissors to cut out the addresses. The desk drawer had a Glue Stic, which he used to affix the addresses to the envelopes. There was also a roll of first-class stamps. Recently purchased. Madonna and child. The stick’em kind. No need to lick. Carefully, again employing Kleenex, he stuck one stamp on Broker’s envelope, eight on the other.
Now he just had to wait until he could sneak them in the mail. He slipped the envelopes into a copy of Newsweek and tucked them under his mattress.
Lorn Garrison sat across the kitchen table, rolling a blue tip safety match in his lips. Ex-smoker. He watched Tom read the stories about Caren’s death and Angland’s arrest for the tenth time. Then he leaned over, gathered all the sections and piled them in the wood box. A Franklin woodstove, fire blazing, sat on a pedestal in the center of the room. Lorn bunched one of the sections and tossed it into the flames.
“A little advice,” he said. “Our recommendation carries a lot of weight with the U.S. attorney when he makes his decision to put somebody in the program. But the final say is up to the Marshals Service. And they are real sticklers for detail.
“If the marshals see you drooling over your press clippings, they’ll figure you’ve got an ego connection to your past. They won’t take a chance on you. Catch my drift.”
“Good point.” Tom nodded. But he resented the agent messing with him. He asked, “How long since you quit, Lorn?” The agent narrowed his eyes and Tom smiled. “Your fingers are still stained yellow from nicotine. Camels? Un-filtered Luckies? Pall Malls?”
“Pall Malls,” said Lorn. “And it’s fourteen months.” The agent cleared his throat. “This time.”
Tom hobbled to the windows and wondered if he could get Lorn Garrison to smoke a cigarette as part of his deal.
Whole pack. One after another.
Tom found it interesting, setting up housekeeping with FBI agents. They had been distant figures when he was a reporter. Their personal manners were always obscure behind a tightly controlled official screen. Now he saw them in a relaxed state. Because the safe house was remote, it was easier to do their own cooking than order out. Surprisingly, the laconic Garrison turned out to be the chef.
This afternoon he planned to make spaghetti. He had slipped a red apron over his pinstripe shirt. And, as a concession to static duty in the safe house, he had removed his tie.
The apron bulged over the big pistol on his hip.
Seeing him standing there, wincing a little as he methodically sliced onions, reminded Tom of a scene in The Godfather.
Cooking for an army of hoods who had gone to the mattresses.
“What kind of gun is that?” asked Tom.
“Pistol,” corrected Lorn patiently.
“Okay then, pistol.”
“Forty caliber.”
“Why not a nine millimeter? I thought everybody used nine millimeters?”
Lorn looked warily from side to side, a conditioned reflex.
“Nine millimeter is for pussies,” the agent said phlegmatically.
Tom grinned. Lorn was the kind of material that would make a great color piece on the changing of the guard at the FBI. Probably shook J. Edgar’s dainty little hand when he received his badge. Wonder if he’s ever thought about that dainty little hand buttoning on a dress. But that was too over the top for Garrison. That would probably get Tom knocked on his ass. So he pursued the gun talk: “Why for pussies?”
Lorn smoothly moved the sliced onions aside with the edge of a long butcher knife and assessed a green pepper.
“’Cause it’s a woman’s gun. Light, to fit in their nice little hands. Not too loud. Not too much recoil. Makes tidy little holes. You know; like we don’t really want to hurt anybody.”
A serpent of mannered distaste coiled in his border state accent.
“Can you carry any kind of gu-pistol you want?”
“Forty cal. is the current policy.”
“But if you could pack anything you wanted, what would it be?”
Lorn set the knife down and wiped his hands on a dishtowel. Then he carefully unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves. His forearms were heavy, thick with black hair, liver spots, and freckles. A fading blue tattoo in the shape of a globe, anchor and eagle showed just below his rolled cuff.
“Forty-five.” Lorn was emphatic.
“Isn’t that kind of dated?” observed Tom.
“Yeah,” Lorn grinned. “Make a hole in you the size of this.”
He held up a gnarled right fist.
“You’ve actually seen that?”
Lorn Garrison’s piercing eyes passed right through Tom for a second and then he turned back to his knife and cutting board. Tom thought, So you’ve seen people shot. Big deal.
I’ve been shot. And I’ve seen Caren Angland try to fly.
Tom stood up. “I’m going out for a walk. The doctor said it was okay if I take it easy.”
“Take Terry. Just stay down near the shore,” said Lorn.
Before he left, he couldn’t resist dialing up his messages one more time. The first saved message was from Ida. “If you need to talk, Tom, I’m always here…”