Broker threw into reverse, fishtailed back behind the garage, apologized to Kit for leaving her alone again, and rolled out; county police radio in one hand, 45 in the other.
He approached the Ford, still no license plates, keyed the radio, about to ask for some backup when he peeked through the cracked driver’s side window and saw the classic, felt, porkpie brown hat perched on the dashboard. He took his thumb off the transmit button and clicked the pistol back on safe.
Garrison.
The porch window presented a view of the man, sitting in the dark flickering living room. Definitely Garrison. In out of the cold. Building fires in Broker’s fireplace. A minute later, with Kit dozing on his left shoulder, Broker mounted the porch and heard the mournful voice warble through the ajar door.
“As I walked out on the streets of Laredo As I walked out in Laredo one day
I spied a young cowboy all wrapped in white linen All wrapped in white linen and cold as the grave…”
Lorn Garrison, calm as can be, in a red Pendleton wool shirt, jeans, and hunting boots, sat in front of a roar 384 / CHUCK LOGAN
ing fire. A lined Levi’s jacket hung from the back of the kitchen chair. A section of the Duluth News Tribune spread on the floor, by the hearth, under his boots. Wood shavings littered the newsprint.
Broker carried Kit into the living room and saw that Garrison delicately held an old Randall pocketknife in his right hand. Firelight flickered on the sweat-cured walnut handle, the pitted shank and the razor-sharp wink of the blade. In his left hand, he turned a flitch of basswood that was becoming the comical head of a six-legged insect, complete with feelers. Garrison cleared his throat,
“Hope you don’t mind I let myself in. Got a little weather-some in the back of the truck when this storm hit.”
“Am I under FBI surveillance?” asked Broker, very alert, fatigue forgotten. His mini-Ice Age, north of Grand Marais, was suddenly crowded with possibilities: first the break-in, then the news about Ida, now Garrison.
Garrison grinned, folded the knife with a flick of his fingers and stuck it in his back pocket. “Sit down. Relax. I’d offer you a cup of coffee, but you haven’t made it yet.”
“Answer the question. I picked up that truck on my tail over a week ago in St. Paul. Saw it again, right out there in my woods. You might as well be driving a fire engine.”
“Beauty, huh? Cost a big chunk of my early retirement bonus.”
“Retirement?”
“Yeah.” Garrison raised his elbows and gyrated his hips.
“No badge, no cuffs, no gun. I don’t work for uncle anymore.
Some bean counters at headquarters are cooking the books for the budget, clearing off as many old-timers as they can.
So I signed up. Cashed in a couple days after pulling Keith off you in that cell.” Garrison shrugged. “Maybe I’ll write a book about President Clit’s love life and go on Larry King Live like everybody else. But first, I figured we should talk.”
“I’m listening.” Broker walked to the kitchen, took candles from the cupboard and set them on the counter. He filled a teakettle with bottled water and put it on the stove. He had propane. No lights. No water. Checked the phone. No phone.
Garrison stood up. Without a suit coat, he looked like an aging wrangler, barrel chest, heavy shoulders, narrow hips.
He squatted and handed Kit the carving. “Hello, little girl, this is for your daddy.” He rose slowly, favoring his knees, and joined Broker in the kitchen.
Kit stared at the carving, at Broker, at Garrison, then back at Broker. “Bring it here,” he said. She darted under the kitchen table, sat down and hugged the carving to her chest.
“Smart move, kid,” said Garrison.
“So, what-?” Broker started to ask.
Garrison cut him short, raising a finger to his lips. He smiled, reached over, plucked up the pen off the magnetized notepad refrigerator door and scrawled on the pad. Broker read in the failing light: YOU GOT COOTIES!
Garrison roved his eyes over the living room and drew a little bug on the note for emphasis.
Broker took the pen from Garrison and wrote: “Talk in the workshop.” Garrison nodded, picked up his coat.
Five minutes later, Broker had instant coffee in a thermos and candles. Garrison had moved his truck into the garage.
By candlelight, Kit was banging the carved bug on a bench in the workshop.
Broker snapped trim pieces of maple, shoved them in the woodstove with handfuls of wood shavings. He took a matchbook from the bench, lit a crumpled piece of newsprint.
The stovepipe creaked as the tinder ignited. He turned to Garrison.
Garrison said, “I started out following you. After your session with Keith. I wound up following the guys who are following you.”
A slow wave of heat melted the chilled puff of Broker’s breath. “What guys?”
Garrison crossed his legs. He sat in a distressed rocking chair, sipped his coffee, rolled a blue tip match in his lips.
He’d brought a heavy plastic briefcase in from his truck and balanced it across his knees.
Whack. Whack. Kit laid about her with the carving.
“Three guys, one dolly,” said Garrison, “in a VW van, a gray Saturn and a blue Plymouth Horizon.” Garrison rubbed his chin. “You talk to Keith in jail. People start following you. Gotta be a reason. So I don’t sleep for a couple days, drive a lot and get a lot of parking tickets. You had lunch with Captain Merryweather. You tooled all over the freeway system. They’re on you. They put you to bed at your motel and stayed on you when you got up. You talked to a guy in St. Paul City Hall, they drifted past, stood around chatting, listening. You met that woman in a coffee shop across the street, they sat at the next table. They followed you up to the big place on Summit Avenue, back to your motel in Stillwater. Then to Sergeant Street in St. Paul, where the woman you met for coffee lives.
“The Saturn followed you when you left the Sergeant house, but the Horizon and the VW stayed. So I hung with them. In the morning, the woman left for work. The young guy and the chick in the VW van broke in the house. The Horizon stood watch. They came out, split from the Horizon, drove the VW to the Maplewood Mall, left it, got in a black Audi. I followed the Audi up here.” He pointed out the window, south along the shore to the cabin on the point.
“Did you take pictures of them going in her house,” asked Broker. That impatient stamping sensation was back in his chest.
“I always take pictures; got my Nikon in the truck,” said Garrison. “Just costs more now to get them developed.” He popped open the briefcase. It was custom-fitted to hold a cordless drill, screwdrivers, electrician’s pliers, coils of wire, screws, staples, other stuff Broker couldn’t identify. A stack of glossy, black-and-white, eight-by-ten photos slid out. And two VCR recording cassettes. The labels were dated and numbered-two days last week.
Broker picked up the top picture. David and Denise, the
“lawyers” from Chicago. They were using Ida Rain’s storm door for cover as they worked on the inner door. The next picture showed them coming out.
Seeing Broker eye the case on his knees, Garrison explained, “I paid a visit next door. Nobody home. Picked up this kit. Thing is, there’s no recording equipment. Just a TV, VCR, and lots of tapes. I don’t know how he’s doing it.”
Broker said, “The woman in the Sergeant house is Ida Rain, she’s an editor at the St. Paul paper and Tom James’s girlfriend…”
“Little shit James never mentioned a girlfriend,” said Garrison with a salutary nod.
“I get the feeling it was discreet. And you never checked,”
Broker said pointedly. “Ida Rain is in intensive care at Regions. Somebody beat her head in last night. Left her for dead. St. Paul Homicide called. She had my card on her refrigerator. I’ve been talking to her.”
Garrison rocked, exhaled, reflected, “Knowing Tom James sure is hard on women, ain’t it.” After a pause. “You think she has a line on him?”
“She’s the kind of woman who gets under a guy’s skin. It’s possible. She’s my best bet.”
Garrison nodded in agreement. “Good call. It’s the most likely security lapse, James gets lonely. Phones. Writes a letter.” He stabbed a finger at the picture in Broker’s hand. “I don’t think they did it. That blond kid isn’t in the bone-breaking end of the family. He’s an electronics freak. I figured he wired you and Rain.”
“Family?”
Garrison palmed another photo, one Broker had seen before, in the cemetery in Wisconsin. Keith shaking 388 / CHUCK LOGAN
hands. The distinguished guy with close-cropped hair in an expensive suit. Garrison pointed to the lean gentleman. “Nice Chicago family. There’s miles of insulation between Victor Konic and the Paulie Kagins of the world. Got this monster brownstone on North Lake Shore Drive. Banking. Imports.
The blond kid is his son, David; degree in computer science, Stanford. The apple of his eye.”
“This Russian Mafioso sent his kid to bug me?”
“A bunch of weight lifters with blue tattoos on their hands would kind of stick out up here. But they’re exactly the guys who could have worked on the Rain woman.” Garrison shook his head. “If she knew anything, they know it now…”
“Maybe,” said Broker. “She’s tough. Another thing, if these guys are such pros why’d they make it look like a shivering junkie with a claw hammer did it? Why’s she still above ground?”
Garrison glanced out the window, toward the cabin down the shore. “If they come back, we’ll find out.”
Broker ignored the dark undertone in Garrison’s voice.
“So the bureau finally is taking me seriously about James and the money.”
“Well, it’s tricky, isn’t it. Someone in the bureau actively discouraged my attempt to investigate your questions about James. I got used. On both ends. James hustled me. And the bureau kept me in the dark. I don’t like being used. So I walked. Now I’m taking you seriously. And I’m here to tell you you’re going about this all wrong.”
Broker studied the FBI man. “Who are you, the Good Fairy?”
“No. And neither are you. You’re the guy who went to Vietnam, dug up a pile of lost gold and smuggled it out of the country. You find things. That’s why Keith put you on his list.”
Broker engaged the weary knowledge in Garrison’s eyes.
“What do you want?”
“Same as Keith, same as the people he’s got following you.” Garrison grinned. “Stop playing cop. Be yourself.”
Kit barged into Broker’s knee, looked up, thrust out the carving. He picked her up, tousled her curls, smelled her innocent breath. He had been a happy exile in babyland.
Hiding out, up here in his smuggler’s cove. Now, here was Garrison, making sense. Kit would have to go into a compartment for a while.
“How do I know you’re alone?” asked Broker.
“You don’t. But we both know who is. Way out there, deep, alone.” Garrison squinted. “Don’t we?”
Broker went with his gut. “Yeah,” he said.
Garrison nodded. “To get Keith off the hook you need a motive these Russian bastards can understand. Like making a few bucks off his misfortune.”
“Are you that smart? Didn’t you tell me cops need big hearts and weak brains.” Broker grinned.
Garrison shrugged. “Well, you know-you work the edges long enough, you come to a place where your edges intersect with someone else’s edges…and you feel your way along the new edge and suddenly you’ve poked your foot into this little Manhattan Project.”
Broker met the ex-FBI man’s serious gaze, held it.
Garrison rocked back in the chair, swept stray wood shavings off his lap. His voice was quiet, resigned. “You may owe him. But clearing that debt don’t mean you can trust him. Not the way he is now. The only person you can trust is me.”