Homefront. Part 12

Broker raised his eyebrows. "You know Harry?"

Susan rolled her eyes. "Gets so a single woman will do just about anything up here for some decent conversation. Yes, I know Detroit Harry." She lowered her eyes and raised them in a certain way.

The bold remark, along with her knowing and saying Griffin's street name, created instant intimacy. Broker looked her up and down and couldn't help grinning, "And?"

"Harry's been up here ten years, and people say he doesn't fit either."

Now it was Broker who narrowed his eyes.

Susan shrugged, "Look, you're up north. The men up here are p.r.o.ne to drinking too much and fighting." She smiled painfully. "I know you didn't ask, but here's my two cents anyway-you and Harry are getting too old to fight. You just don't know it yet." Susan blew on her bare hands and plunged them into her coat pockets. "Tell Harry to be careful. You too."

Susan Hatch walked back toward the school's front door and left Broker standing by the Dumpster, inhaling the greasy odor wafting out from the lunch-room grill through the exhaust fan.

The smell reminded him he had one more stop to make.

Klumpe Sanitation housed its trucks and maintained an office in a big Morton building behind a cyclone fence on a lot a mile west of town. The gate was open. Driving up, Broker saw no trucks, no lights in the office windows that straddled one corner of the garage. No sign of anyone, in fact.

Slightly disappointed that he didn't have an audience, he pulled into the parking ap.r.o.n, then backed up until his tailgate was almost flush with the office door. He got out, climbed into the truck bed, lifted the heavy bin, and upended it, dumping the trash dead center on the welcome mat.

Chapter Seventeen.

At 11:00 A A.M. Gator paced on the front porch in his Carhartt parka, hunched against the drizzly mist, sipping a fresh cup of coffee. He was a few drags into a new Camel when he saw the gray Pontiac GT's low beams poke through the gloom, sweep across the Fordster on display next to his sign, and swerve into the drive. on the front porch in his Carhartt parka, hunched against the drizzly mist, sipping a fresh cup of coffee. He was a few drags into a new Camel when he saw the gray Pontiac GT's low beams poke through the gloom, sweep across the Fordster on display next to his sign, and swerve into the drive.

Sheryl.

Just like she was supposed to, she drove the car into the open sliding door on the lower level of the barn, so it was out of sight. The locals, stir-crazy with cabin fever, noticed a new car in the neighborhood. Would drive clear into town and tell everybody at Lyme's Cafe, "Hey, I seen this strange Pontiac going out Twelve, near the big woods..."

Sheryl came out and struggled, hauling the wide wooden door shut. She turned toward the house.

Sheryl Marie Mott.

They had met in the visitors' room at Stillwater. He'd agreed to make a pickup for Danny T.'s organization, to pay his tax to stay in population. So they put her on his list. She walked up to the table in the visitors' room like some improved hippie dream in a beige pantsuit. Leaned over the table and planted this open-mouth kissed on him, expertly ramming a tiny balloon full of cocaine down his throat with her tongue. Then she patted his cheek and whispered, "Hey, you're kinda cute; now swallow, don't spit."

One look, and he knew he had to see her again. Kinda cracked her up when he asked for her phone number, like it was a blind date.

Gator had read this story in the joint, and he figured her secret was like in the story; some Dorian Gray deal with the devil that enabled her to keep all the debauchery of her life compacted inside so she looked so d.a.m.n good on the outside. Couldn't even begin to guess her age. Older than him.

Sheryl had deep indigo eyes, flared cheeks, and long black hair down past her shoulders; the kind of dusky looker who coulda played a blue-eyed Indian princess in 1950s Hollywood, alongside Sal Mineo.

An East Side St. Paul street kid, somewhere around seventeen years old she'd discovered she liked really bad white guys who rode fat-boy Harleys even more than real bad black guys.

Biker chick. Rode with the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang, the OMG.

Central to the hard-core OMG ethos was the injunction, You must know the difference between good and evil and choose the evil. She traded in her patched jeans and tie-dye for greasy leather and denim. She'd done it in the dirt, pulling the s.h.a.ggy biker trains at bonfires in the woods with the predatory relish of an MBA trying to make the cut on Donald Trump's Apprentice Apprentice. In two years flat she went from anybody's groupie to briefly becoming a fixture on the back of Danny Turrie's chopper.

Always thinking. Mind-f.u.c.k Mott. The story was, she'd moved Danny out of weed, and almost convinced him to sidestep the urban crack drama with its well-armed g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers. Got him into the suburbs, into c.o.ke. Then Danny shot those two North Side jigs and went away forever. Gang bangs were one thing; g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers and real bullets were another.

Sheryl split the cities, moved to Seattle during the great meth awakening, and shacked up with a guy who owned a perfume company. She took some chemistry course at a community college, learned her way around chemicals, dabbled in designer drugs, learned to cook meth, and socked her money into a lot on the beach in Belize.

Then her Seattle boyfriend had a weak moment and couldn't resist buying List I chemicals in bulk from a firm going out of business. Except the firm was a DEA cover operation, and Sheryl beat the battering ram coming through the door by half an hour. With just the money in her purse and a credit card, she took a cab to the airport and arrived back in Minnesota with thirty-four bucks.

When Gator met Sheryl she was marginally connected, but out of the loop. Burned, paranoid; she cooked a few batches of meth for the OMG, didn't like the flaky level of the operation, and wound up muling dope into Stillwater Prison to help make her car payments.

Gator heard the stories about her in the joint. When he got out, living in a halfway house, taking a tractor mechanics course at Dunwoody Inst.i.tute that he could have taught better than the pencil-neck instructor, he asked her out for coffee.

He had this idea, see, that he'd been refining for a year behind bars...

Waiting tables, barely paying the freight on her apartment and the GT, Sheryl was ready. They started out in a Starbucks and conducted the second round in her bed, where his performance had lagged considerably.

This was before she understood Gator never really could get it going in a bed.

Gator grinned. Sheryl in high-heeled boots taking little bird steps through a foot of soggy snow. The biker-girl duds were long gone. Now she was more into business casual-designer jeans, the Donna Karan sweater picked up at Goodwill, the fancy hip-length leather car coat, a joke in this weather.

"What the h.e.l.l is this?" she protested, kicking the snow off her footwear, coming up the steps. "It's the end of March."

"Your memory is impaired by global warming. This is old Minnesota normal. How you doing, Sheryl?"

She walked up to him, shrugged her shoulders, and went up on tiptoe. "Here I am. What's so urgent?"

He shied away from her upturned face. "Not yet."

She furrowed her brow, studied him. "Aw s.h.i.t, aren't we done with that routine yet?"

"Let's go inside," Gator said firmly.

Sheryl followed him, shaking her head. "I forgot, isolated up here you didn't get the word how when the apes climbed down from the trees they invented these things called beds..."

Gator ignored her, knowing how much she really dug the weirdness of it. He walked through the kitchen, down the hall into the bathroom, and turned on the shower.

"Aw, jeez, what you got better be good." She grimaced. "I was up at six, been on the road for almost five hours driving straight drinking coffee. Man, first thing, I gotta pee." She wiggled out of her coat, unzipped the boots and kicked them off, and headed for the bathroom. When she returned, she drew herself up, knit her brows, and pointed a finger. "No gas, understood."

Gator nodded. "Agreed. No gas."

"Good. I can do weird. I draw the line at f.u.c.king crazy."

"C'mon, humor me," Gator chided, his voice wide, stuck in his throat. Maneuvering her back into the bathroom.

"Been missing it, huh?" She slithered out of the sweater, elbows out, hands back in that contortionist trick chicks do, unclipping her bra. Then she peeled off the jeans and panties. "I don't suppose you got a shower cap?"

Gator didn't hear. He was staring at her. Sheryl and her tattoo. Not like the twisty flowery bulls.h.i.t the girls these days get, curled around their waists and back. Uh-uh. This was from the old days when tats were the exclusive domain of crooks and GIs. This pair of red Harley wings spread out two inches below her navel. Hip to hip. Framed just so in her bikini bottom tan marks. Gator didn't trust his voice. He pointed at the shower.

"Okay, okay." She reached her hand past the curtain and tested the water, adjusted the handle, and stepped into the tub.

Gator let it build for about a minute, then threw back the curtain. She stood face to the nozzle, drawing her hands through the dark glistening stream of hair. He reached out and clamped his hand on her wrist, pulled her.

"Hey." She stumbled over the side of the tub, banging her shin. She collided into him, slick, shadowed, her ribs tiger-streaked with tan fading from the beach in Belize. He spun her and forced her forward over the sink, his left hand straight-arming her, pressing on her neck. His right hand fumbled with the b.u.t.tons of his jeans.

She always resisted, at first; like now, rearing at his rough grip on her neck, swinging her head around, dark eyes flashing, the long wet hair swinging round like black whips. "Christ's sake, Gator; can't we work this out a little?"

"Shut up, face forward. Stand."

Pouting, she turned back to the sink and muttered, "Too d.a.m.n old to get f.u.c.ked flatfooted..." Then she broke out of her brooding stance, hips warming up in a slow canter. "...then again, maybe I'm not... not..."

"Shush," he said hoa.r.s.ely.

"There...you...go..."

He finally got his angles working and hit the rhythm. Unsteady on his feet now, jeans around his knees, he leaned forward, forcing her head down with both hands so all he saw in the mirror was the top of her dark hair and the water beaded up glistening on her back, jiggling where her smooth a.s.s...

Oh, yeah.

Shower running, little chain hanging down from the lightbulb got to dancing as she grabbed the sides of the sink with both hands to brace against the thrust of his hips.

"Ain't you slippery." He groaned.

He watched the muscles in her arms and back tense, corded, popping sweat; her voice a throaty chant: "One a...these days...gonna...tear...this sink clear outa THE WALL!!!"

When her cherries lined up, she just paid and paid-ca-ching-ca-ching-the coin coming in a hard hot rush handled endlessly, loaded by the sackful...

Gator just holding on now; ears plugged with blood, other parts of him getting away, runny with his sweat, her sweat. Panting, staggering back, he watched the cannibal gene seep down the inner curve of her thigh. Only way it worked for him. Worked really good. Here in this d.a.m.n moldy room with the floor joists rotting out under the crummy linoleum. Sheryl, thinking he had potential, patiently went along. All year they'd been starting like this, here in the bathroom.

Breathing not quite returned to normal, Sheryl rolled to the side and sat heavily on the toilet seat; hair tangled, arms down straight between her knees like a spent runner.

"So much for foreplay," she said, getting her breath.

Gator grinned, wiping off, doing up his jeans.

The real s.e.x happened out in the shop, where everything was clean and in its place.

Where they talked about the plan. And where he would reveal his find.

Chapter Eighteen.

Broker drove back home, parked the truck, climbed up into the bed, and kicked the garbage bin off his tailgate. Standing there in the sour wind, he gauged the anger pulsing in his throat, hot in his chest. parked the truck, climbed up into the bed, and kicked the garbage bin off his tailgate. Standing there in the sour wind, he gauged the anger pulsing in his throat, hot in his chest.

Usually his anger was fast surface burn, like spit hissing on a griddle. This was inside, and he couldn't get it out. It just kept circuiting on this loop. His eyes traveled back into the woods, where he'd left Kit's toy stuck on the pole. Sagging, he got down, closed the tailgate, and straightened up the bin, positioning it where it belonged.

Should call Griffin. He knows these people.

But Griffin had a tendency to go from insult to breaking bones in seconds flat; once he got involved, it might be impossible to hold him in check. Have to think about that.

He went inside, and after confirming that Nina was sleeping upstairs, he resolved to work it off. Clean the house. Stow the clutter. Wipe down the surfaces. If not a solution, at least a distraction. First he moved all the unpacked boxes into the garage and arranged them neatly along one wall. Then he attacked the downstairs bathroom, where he got stuck for a moment staring at the cat litter box as Kit's words from this morning washed back in a wave.

When I die, will I get to see Ditech again?

Like dying was a reasonable price to pay to be reunited with a cat? Did he think like that when he was eight? He stood, holding a scrub pad and Comet cleanser, peering at the lathered washbasin, trying to remember. The main thing he recalled was his mother yelling at him about wearing a hat and unthawing his fingers and toes after playing hockey until after dark in subfreezing weather.

He shook it off, removed the cat box, and put it in the garage. When he finished in the bathroom, he went into the living room and stacked Nina's weights in a tidy row. Then he brought a basket of laundry from upstairs and loaded the washer.

As he stuffed in towels and washcloths, he speculated how Mrs. Helseth's admonition to contact the sheriff would now be complicated by his ad hoc garbage dump at Klumpe's office. Then he considered how he had not advised Nina about his engagement in low-intensity yokel warfare. How he had enlisted Kit as an accomplice in keeping mom out of the loop.

He revisited his talk with Susan Hatch, who had weighed in with more advice. Both Helseth and Hatch were suggesting he needed filling in on Ca.s.sie and Jimmy's "local soap opera."

That he was getting his foot into...

Twenty minutes later he left the bathroom in perfect sparkling order.

As he opened the hall closet and took out the Kenmore canister, he caught himself again and looked upstairs. Vacuuming would wake her. Take a break.

There was still coffee in the thermos on the kitchen island, so he poured some into a travel cup, put on his coat and boots, and went out on the back deck, where he sat down on the steps and lit a cigar.

Didn't work. He found himself staring at his footprints in the snow, leading into the trees. Where he'd been out walking around last night with a loaded shotgun.

Okay. Klumpe was here. But he could have found the bunny in the truck when he knifed the tire.

If he knifed the tire. he knifed the tire.

There was even a chance Broker had not entirely closed the garage door and the cat had escaped on her own. But someone-Klumpe-had definitely removed the cat's collar and strapped it on the toy and rammed it on the pole at the trail intersection.

Kit was still missing her cat.

With considerable effort, Broker tried to step back from the spiral of anger and evaluate motive. You humiliated Klumpe in front of his wife and kid. You humiliated Klumpe in front of his wife and kid. No need to slap the choke hold on him like that. The sheriff was getting out of his car. No need to slap the choke hold on him like that. The sheriff was getting out of his car. All you had to do was back up. All you had to do was back up.

He'd always taken his ability to function under pressure for granted...

Broker sipped his coffee, puffed on the cigar, and watched the smoke dissipate in the wind. Kinda like Nina, always taking her iron will for granted.

Okay. So maybe it was time to back off. Reach out.

Broker actually grimaced at the idea of calling Griffin and asking for personal help. Help with Nina was one thing. But help for him personally...Jesus...

Up till now Griffin had provided a place to stay and the bare bones of a cover story. That done, he stayed at a respectful distance. How much did he know? Broker a.s.sumed Griffin gossiped with J. T. Merryweather and Harry Cantrell. They all used to come up here to hunt. He was one of the few "civilians" those two allowed into their confidence.

Face it. The problem with reaching out to Griffin-besides his tendency to overreact-was that he was a Vesuvius of advice waiting to erupt. He had almost thirty years saved up, twenty-five years of it stone cold sober. And Griffin tended to be blunt.

And even being longtime friends, they had some issues.