Broker eased the Ranger from Ole’s driveway into traffic on Highway 95. He actually felt better after the physical exercise of preventing Harry’s escape. He felt a kinetic hum in his muscles. He was smiling as he waited for the A/C to kick in.
Harry came down with a fit of shaking and filled the cab with a meaty scent of sweat, alcohol, and Mennen’s aftershave. Sweat dripped down his brow and streaked his cheeks. His eyes flitted. His nose began to bleed.
Broker reached over, opened the glove compartment, took out a small box of Kleenex, and handed it to Harry, who wadded some of the tissue and stuck it in his nose. Suddenly he looked like a sick kid. He said, “It had to be you.”
“That’s a song,” Broker said.
“Yeah, an old one,” Harry said.
Abruptly, Broker pulled to the shoulder in a spray of gravel. When the truck stopped, he rested his weight forward on his forearms against the wheel and slowly turned his head. “So what’s it going to be? More fun and games?”
Harry shrugged. “What I meant was, John sent you to rub it in.”
“Maybe a little,” Broker said.
Harry shook his head. “Got to be more. John can be mean- but he ain’t petty.”
“You tell me,” Broker said.
Harry’s smile struggled to arrange his unreliable facial muscles and failed. Some blood dripped from his nose and streaked his neck. He reached for another Kleenex and said, “You’d like that, get me talking about the Saint, wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah we would,” Broker said. So Harry knew about the medallion along with everyone else.
Harry fumbled with his pack of smokes, and the shakes raced down his arms and spasmed in his fingers. Trying to extract a cigarette, he snapped it in half. More carefully, he took another one out. Then the book of matches defeated him. His agitated fingers couldn’t manage the flimsy cardboard match and striker. Broker took the matches and gave Harry a light.
Broker hit the window controls to vent the smoke; the glass hissed down, and the lava air pushed in. The smoke just hung in place. He glanced at the matchbook, which had a red-and-blue Toucan on it: Treasure Island Casino. He put the matches in his chest pocket.
“Okay,” Harry said, “one of the guys at the game told this joke. There’s this couple on their way to get married, and they get in a fatal car wreck.
“So they’re up in heaven at the Pearly Gates, and they get to talking, and when St. Peter shows up they ask if they can get married in heaven.”
Harry puffed on the cigarette, blew a clot of white smoke into the muggy air.
“St. Peter says he isn’t sure; he’ll have to go check. So he leaves, and they wait and wait a couple of weeks. While they’re waiting they began to speculate-like getting married in heaven has a terminal feel to it. If it’s really forever, what if it doesn’t work?
“So they’re talking this over when St. Peter finally gets back. Yes, he tells them, you can get married in heaven. That’s great, they say, but we were just wondering, If it doesn’t work, can we get divorced in heaven?
“St. Peter is drag-ass tired, so he loses it and shouts: Give me a break; it took me a month to find you a priest up here. How long will it take to find a lawyer?”
“Funny,” Broker said.
“And relevant,” Harry said. He flipped the cigarette out the window and tried to hold Broker’s eyes in a direct gaze. “You were going to be a lawyer; what happened?”
Broker looked away from the sputtering light in Harry’s eyes, back at the road, and said, “I don’t get the St. Peter joke.”
“Yeah, you do. John’s got a dead priest with a medal in his mouth. Christ, I know the Saint case better than anybody, but John’s shipping me to the alky ward.” Harry shook his head. “And at the last minute he sends you in like a shock treatment to see if I’ll give something up. Is that a cry for help or what?” Harry’s forced laughter degraded into a coughing fit; he gagged, leaned out the window, spit several times, fought off the dry heaves, and flopped back into the seat.
“So who’s the real sick fuck in all this?” Harry said weakly, his face turning pale. He began to shake. His eyes darted. “I know it sounds bad, but I need a drink.”
Broker put the truck in gear, stepped on the gas, and pulled back onto the road. “Just how bad you want a drink?”
Harry, trembling in the tropical heat, hugged himself. “That ain’t funny.”
Broker studied him from the corner of his eye. John had said push hard. “Why don’t I grab a couple bottles; you and me go park under a cool shade tree, have a little chat,” Broker said.
Harry stopped hugging himself to raise both hands and scratch at his cheeks. “No shit. Feels like I got fire ants under my skin,” Harry said.
“Drown ’em in Jack Daniel’s.”
“C’mon, Broker, don’t fuck with me, I know what you want. Kung biet, toi dinky dau,” Harry said, reverting to Vietnamese slang.
“So it’s the hospital; well, I’ll just have to come visit. Out at the VA I hear they have people sit with guys who are drying out with the DT’s; keep them from chewing their lips off,” Broker said.
“Name, rank, serial number. C’mon, driver, take me to St. Joe’s. I ain’t afraid,” Harry said.
“We’re on the way,” Broker said as the signs for Interstate 94 came up. He hit his turn indicator. A straight freeway run to St. Paul.
“Wait, I can’t go in like this,” Harry said. “Can we swing by my place? I need to pack some clothes, a razor, a toothbrush for Christ sake.”
“Okay,” Broker said. A little more time to sweat couldn’t hurt. He drove past the freeway entrance, checked his mirrors, and swung a fast U-turn. They traveled in silence, came up on Stillwater, angled off to miss the business district, and skirted the town. After about ten minutes Harry’s bout of shaking eased off. He leaned forward and ran his hand across the leather surface of the contoured dash.
“So this is the new F-150, huh? Got the Triton 4.6 LV8 engine. Lot of horses under the hood.” He shook his head, stabbed a finger at the steering column. Lookit that. Story of our lives.”
“How’s that?” Broker said.
“The speedometer goes up to one hundred twenty.” Harry pointed out the window. “And that speed limit sign says fifty-five.” He flopped back on the seat. “Says it all right there. Living our lives with one hand tied behind our back.”
Harry smoked another cigarette, and Broker drove over the speed limit. Finally, Broker turned off and was going down Harry’s driveway. He slowed to a stop next to the scarred tree where the Acura had been.
“Tow truck must’ve come. I’m keeping them in business,” Harry said, turning to Broker. “There was a squirrel, you know, I swerved to miss him. .”
“I came out this morning. I figured you were eating pizza while you were driving,” Broker said.
Harry sat up, more alert. “Not bad. So you went in the house?”
Broker said, “The door was open. So I went in and saw the receipt from the pizza place.”
“You went in my fucking house,” Harry said with a sag in his voice and his shoulders.
Broker interpreted Harry’s fixed stare into the middle distance as resignation, passivity. “Yeah, like I said, it was open. You bought the pizza at six oh four. The clock on your car was stopped at six forty-two. That gives you time to stop off at St. Martin’s on your way home. At least one of your colleagues thinks we should test your hands for nitrates.”
Harry forced a shaky grin. “Lemme guess. My good buddy Lymon. Except after I bought the pizza I pulled into that car wash place in River Heights Shopping Center, gassed up, and put the car through the car wash. Paid for that on my VISA too, so there’ll be a record. Doesn’t give me much time to go around killing people, does it?”
Broker put the truck in gear and drove on to the house. They got out and went inside. Harry picked up the pizza box from the living room, stuffed it in the garbage, and tied the drawstring bag. “Gotta get this out, or I’ll have critters in this heat.”
After he took the garbage outside the door, he walked through the house as if he were looking for something. He went out on the deck and pointed to the deck chairs. “Gotta bring in the cushions; just throw them in the living room through the patio door.”
Broker was leaning over to pick up a chair cushion when he heard Harry pushing around in the stack of magazines and newspapers on the side table next to a chair. .
And the short hairs on Broker’s neck rose up. .
In that frenzied slow motion that wraps sudden danger, he watched Harry’s hand come up gripping a stubby, nickel-plated.357 revolver.
Broker tried not to freeze as he processed the information. Gun coming up, pointed at me. His reflexes were engaging so slowly, his hand swinging back, but like underwater, reaching for the Colt under his shirt. How dumb. .
Harry extended his arm and pulled the trigger. Broker winced at the sound, felt the whiskers of gunpowder brush by his face. A loud metallic clank echoed in back of him. Turning, he heard the lead pig target crash to the top of the picnic table fifty yards away, down in the yard.
“And this little piggy had none,” Harry said as he swung open the cylinder and dumped the empty casings in his hand. Harry grinned. “I knew this thing was out here somewhere. Had you going there, didn’t I?”
Yes, you did.
Harry sorted through the magazines and pulled out a nylon-zippered pistol case, put the revolver and the brass inside, and zipped it up. Then he gathered up the cushions, magazines, the pistol case, and turned toward the patio door. “Course, now it won’t do any good to test me for nitrates, will it?”
Broker, aggravated, shook his head; Harry and his freaky tricks. He was so aggravated that, as he reached to get the last deck chair cushions, he broke one of his basic rules-which was never turn your back on someone who is potentially dangerous. .
Wham!
Harry sucker punched him from behind, and Broker’s vision popped to static to black and his knees turned to water.
“She would have been forty-four this March, you fuck,” Harry said.
Broker collapsed forward on the deck.