“Be more specific,” she said.
Broker explained, “You don’t tell the truth. Two of you can read a police report and come up with two different versions of the crime, neither of which are completely faithful to the original.”
He picked up the tea cup and studied it in his hand. “The newsie comes and asks the cop what’s going on. The dumb cop says it’s an empty blue and white teacup with little flowers on it. The newsie goes back to the office and turns real life into a story with his name on it. Has to jazz it up. Find somebody to balance the facts from another perspective. Say they remember the cup when it was full once.
If it’s a big story, they’ll grab at anything.” He looked straight into her eyes. “Real life doesn’t fit into tidy stories, Ida.”
“Real life doesn’t even fit into most lives, Broker,” she replied, boldly holding his gaze.
Slowly, her slim hand reached across and gently disen-tangled the teacup from his fingers. She placed it flat, picked up the teapot and poured it half full. Her eyes swept his face.
The cup was no longer his literal example. Now it was that powerful cliche: half full or half empty.
Broker asked, “How did you wind up with James?”
She touched her hair with her right hand and looked away.
When she faced him again, her eyes registered the faintest glisten. “Maybe I can’t compete with the Nina Pryces of the world for guys like you.” She composed herself. “All I try to do is improve things,” she said simply.
Broker waited a few beats, for the air to clear. Then he got up. “I’d appreciate it if you’d give what I’m about to tell you to Wanger. We go back a way.”
“Sure.” She bounced back from vulnerable fast as a speed bag. Stood up.
“Probably the place for him to start is the Hennepin County coroner’s office. Apparently they have a direct line to the horse’s mouth at the FBI lab in Virginia.” He smiled.
“Tease.” She lifted slightly, forward. Up on her toes.
“The famous tongue, that was mailed to the federal building? That they announced in a news conference as being a male tongue. And hinted it came out of a missing FBI informant…”
“Well?” She kind of twitched. A full-body, news-junkie twitch.
“They screwed up on the forensics. It’s a woman’s tongue.
Probably from a medical school.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“That’s a great tip. We’ll try to get it right.”
Broker nodded, they walked to the closet, carefully skirting the puzzle. She gave him his coat. As he pulled it on, his eyes swept the living room, and sitting on a cabinet shelf, he saw a framed photograph. Tom James’s sincere face, glasses, longish hair, and mustache. A regular “Minnesota Nice” poster boy.
“You have an extra copy of that picture?” he asked.
Ida shrugged, crossed the room, plucked the picture off the shelf and tossed it to him. “He’s all yours.”
51
Danny, wearing his new contact lenses, his hair combed back, made money plans at thirty-five thousand feet.
The problem with cash was it attracted attention. Even relatively small amounts consistently deposited in a bank would arouse suspicion. Most successful laundering schemes involved other people. Setting up a cash-and-carry business, falsifying books.
Danny wasn’t interested in trusting other people. Or lugging “twenny bricks” to the Cayman Islands.
He would fix up houses. He would write. And slowly.
SLOWLY. Very slowly, he would take weekend trips to casinos. He’d just play the slots at first. The long-odds megajackpot slots. He’d invest thousands of quarters and dollars. Until he hit a jackpot.
It might take years. But once he did, he’d have a legitimate income. He’d pay taxes. He could invest. He’d become known as a professional gambler who was expected to deal with large amounts of cash.
How long did it take to drive from Santa Cruz to Tahoe, Reno, Las Vegas?
Danny smiled and hugged his worn brown parka.
Twenny bricks. Flying with the sun. He pictured the barren cistern in the woods, above Highway 61, under a featherbed of fresh undisturbed snow.
He shut his eyes and imagined walking through the doors of the Sands. The sounds, the smells, the coin-song of the trays.
From the window seat, he watched the great plains pucker into the steep, shadowed wrinkles of the Rocky Mountains.
Two more deputy marshals, who had taken vows of silence, escorted him to San Jose. The jet wallowed down through about a mile of clouds and landed with a splash in rain puddles under an overcast early afternoon sky. Sunny California had the El Nino flu.
In the small terminal, the escorts turned him over to a tanned man with a confident smile. Early thirties, he was part bodybuilder, part cowboy, in a lightweight sports coat, black T-shirt, faded jeans, cowboy boots and sunglasses.
One of the escorts said, “He’s all yours, Travis.” And they ambled away.
Travis smiled, displaying perfect California teeth. A tiny stud twinkled in his left ear, and his styled hair had been ir-radiated to the color of ash by the sun.
“Inspector Joe Travis, pleased to meet you,” he said, holding out a brown muscular hand. Danny saw a strap when the collar of Travis’s coat shifted. Wearing a gun in a shoulder holster.
“Danny Storey,” said Danny, shaking confidently.
“Prove it,” challenged Travis, tightening his grip.
Danny froze, explored Travis’s merry prankster smile and resolved to show no fear. “Hey, what is this?” he demanded.
“Ground zero orientation. Survival lesson number one coming up-where is the center of gravity in your new world?”
Danny studied this young, assured, armed weight lifter.
Caught the drift. “You are the center of gravity.”
“Good,” said Travis. “You feel the slightest vibration, the tiniest temblor, you get on the horn to Travis. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Hell, pardner.” Travis slapped him on the back. “This is going to go off slicker than whale shit.”
They were walking out of the terminal toward the parking lot. Danny asked, “You’re from the West, right?”
“Snowflake, Arizona.”
Danny took a Power Bar from his pocket and tore off the wrapper. Made a joke. “Are there any marshals from, say, the Midwest or East?”
Travis’s hand shot out and intercepted the energy bar wrapper. “Gotta watch that out here. You can’t litter or smoke anywhere anymore. Not even beer joints. You drop a butt or a wrapper anywhere outside and it’s a two-hundred-dollar fine.”
“Jesus,” said Danny, as he devoured the Power Bar.
“Fine his ass out here, too, they catch him littering in public. You’re in California, man,” quipped Travis. After several steps, he asked, “Now, what were you saying?”
Danny shook his head. He had just discovered how won-derful the blase air tasted. Under luminous clouds he strolled through an open-air greenhouse. “When’s the last time it snowed here?”
“Oh, that’s good, I like that.”
Travis led him to a mud-spattered Chevy pickup. Under the thick coat of dirt it might have once been maroon. New tires, though. The box was piled full of sawhorses, scaffolding and several large plywood, pad-locked boxes.
They got in, Travis turned it over and the engine purred.
“Like the ad says. Like a rock.” He wheeled from the lot into traffic and onto a freeway. A small portable cooler sat on the seat between them. Travis popped it open and took out a can of diet Coke. “Help yourself,” he said.
Danny selected a Sprite and leaned back while Travis dodged through lanes of congested traffic. They passed an orange Kharmann Ghia, a mustard Volvo, an eggshell blue Saab; makes and colors more exotic and expensive than Danny was used to seeing on Minnesota highways.
“Trying to beat the rush to the hill,” Travis explained. “All this around here is Silicon Valley. Right over there.” He swung his pop can at a jungle of vegetation and buildings.