“Got you a little mouse out of the deal.”
Gingerly, Broker took over the hankie and moved his jaw around. He was grateful for the shock of the fight, and the blow to the face. It disguised his rising excitement.
Keith, you devious creep, what are you up to?
In a bruised voice, he said, “He’s not exactly feeling remorse about his wife.”
Garrison shrugged. “Had to try.”
“So,” said Broker. “I tried. What about James?”
The sympathetic Garrison of yesterday had changed into a practical horse trader.
“I can’t bring him back, even if I could, shoot-not like I got a lot of incentive. Keith didn’t say anything new in there.
Just accused you of banging his old lady. You, ah, weren’t banging her, were you?”
Broker flung the bloody hankie at the FBI man’s face.
Garrison plucked the cloth in midair, squinted. “Didn’t think so. But what’d he mean, about you owing him?”
Broker shook his head. “You never meant to cut me in on James.”
Garrison’s shrugged again. Not arrogant, just realistic.
“You know how it is.”
“Yeah,” Broker quipped bitterly, “it’s tough poop.” A concept he was preparing his daughter for.
Garrison smiled, sad, wise, cynical. With a trace of mournful music in his voice, he admonished, “Now you put some ice on that cheek, hear?”
42
It was the money. James and the money. But now it was something else. From the climate-controlled purgatory of the jail, Broker drove south into a picturesque Minnesota snowstorm.
You owe me.
Of course, Keith had always been nuts. Driven, single-minded. Like the Wright Brothers were nuts.
There was the time Keith-in his gadget phase-had this insane notion he could get all the Homicide squad guys to wear these beepers that would send a signal to a tower and the tower would relay to his office at the station, where he could plot the position of all his men, at every moment, on a wall map.
Just like that character in Catch-22, somebody had joked, wiring the platoon together so they’d march better. And Keith had shot back, “I know that book, it mocks authority.”
Owe me.
Broker pummeled the steering wheel. Keith would never bring that up. Had never mentioned it. Unless…
His hand searched for a cigar in his jacket, found the cellophane bag, pulled one out and stuck it in his mouth. Okay.
Break it down. Keith wouldn’t give a straight answer about Caren. But he would link James to the money.
The “owe me” part-Broker grimaced.
God, we were young that night on St. Alban:
That night Broker had been reminded that heroes are like the rest of life, a come-as-you-are party. They can be unbear-able assholes-
And still save your life.
How it had happened at St. Alban was like this: Jimmy Carter was the president and Keith was a sergeant; Broker, J.T., John Eisenhower, and Jeff were patrol grunts. They got the call. Eight in the evening on an inky soft June night. Man with a gun, threatening his family. Little house on St. Alban, on the East Side. When Keith arrived, they had the house secured. The SWAT team had been called. Guy had the family in the kitchen. Wife. Three kids, all under ten years old.
Broker-young, dumb and full of come-crouched at the back door with a shotgun. Could hear the guy raving in there.
This one didn’t want to talk. This one was working up to it.
And that’s what he told Jeff and Keith. What he yelled to J.T.
and John in the front. Can’t wait for SWAT to tie the laces on their spit-shined jump boots. No time.
“He’s gonna do it. We gotta go in.”
So he went, figuring angles, slamming off doorjambs. Air-borne. Ranger. Veteran of house-to-house close combat in a forgotten place called Quang Tri City. Dived on the tacky linoleum, shotgun sweeping on target as he hit the floor. Jeff scrambling to cover him. Saw the guy right there, skinny, runt-of-the-litter redneck piece of shit. Should have been drowned at birth. Saw his mad rabbity eyes, bad teeth, thin lips screaming, saw the wife screaming, kids screaming. Then a shot and the wife wasn’t screaming and Broker sighted the shotgun at the guy who was barricaded behind the cowering fetal shape of the woman. She was down, bleeding profusely from a messy head wound. The guy hid in back of his kids, all three of them pulled tight to him, human shield fashion, with one arm, while he extended his other arm, and the pistol at the end of it, straight at Broker, who was lying in the prone position, on the kitchen floor, ten feet away.
Broker could still remember those kids. Towheaded, terrified cornflower blue eyes in sugar-diet faces. Two little girls and a boy. Them screaming. The mother bleeding. The guy yelling.
No way he could take the shot. Not with the kids in the way.
Then, so fast Broker never even shut his eyes, the guy pulled the trigger. Except someone moved over him, put their body between Broker and the round. The bullet blew the back of Keith’s right shoulder all over the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink.
Keith just kept walking. Slow. Hands up, talking calm, taking the bullet. No gun. Threw the guy off just enough. His next shot went wild and Keith smothered him, grabbed the gun. The kids were all right. The mother made it. Keith, the college quarterback, never threw a football again.
And Keith, the asshole, wrote Broker up for recklessness.
Think fast.
Everyone tended to forget how fast Keith could think on his feet, how slippery his mind worked, how he could adapt and innovate…
Broker had to stop at a convenience store and check a phone book. He didn’t know where Keith lived. When he had the address he checked it in the Hudson’s Street Atlas he carried in the glove compartment. He located the road and continued up Highway 95, through Afton.
Gentle snow. Kids in colorful mufflers and mittens toting sleds. He turned off Highway 95, onto the back roads.
The house would look great once it was fixed up, but right now, with so much trim missing and patchy from sanding, it had warts.
The key was where Keith said it was, embedded in a wedge of snow under the decorative rim of the garage light. He went up the steps and let himself in. The heat was turned down, cold enough for his breath to cloud.
Two steps into the front hall he looked into the barren living room and…
The footlocker lay on its side on the dull, dusty maple floor.
It had resided in Caren’s closet when they were married.
Every Christmas…
Strewn around the trunk, he saw the set of decorations, minus the loon, he had turned out on a jigsaw the first winter of their marriage. The room was empty, no furniture, so he slid his back down a wall and sat on the floor.
The wooden baubles caught a random moment in Caren’s life. The house was like a blueprint of her hopes. Roomy enough for a big family. Miles of yard to run in. Near the water. Swimming and sailboats and canoes. But also a shambles.
He heaved himself up and went into the kitchen. On the counter, filmed with dust, he saw a perfectly preserved lump of chocolate halved by the neat incision of teeth marks.
The kitchen drawers were tidy but contained no tools. He backtracked to the breezeway and found drawers where the tools were kept. He took a WunderBar and went down the basement stairs. A musty veil of dust hung over the den. A discarded pair of rubber gloves lay on a pile of siding torn out of the wall. The feds hadn’t cleaned up after themselves.