The Price of Blood Part 2

"You can't be here...now," he fumed.

"Got no place else to go." She shot a glance over her shoulder. "And there's some creep following me."

Broker backed up a step and dry-swallowed.

"Guess you guys scared him off." She shrugged and started for the door. Earl and Tabor scanned the street defensively. Andy moved to block her, big hands out, warding.

Nina c.o.c.ked her head and took a stance that really annoyed Broker because, right now, he didn't need any utter fearlessness of youth bulls.h.i.t. She read the sentiment on Andy's gross belly. "You married, Sport?"

"Yeah, so," said Andy.

"If I was your wife and I caught you wearing that I'd wait till you were asleep and lump you good with a castiron frying pan."

Andy looked past Nina. "Earl?"

"Who's following you?" asked Earl.

"This New Orleans cop," said Nina. "Don't worry, he's a dirty New Orleans cop. Off the force."

"Why's he after you?" asked Earl.

"I stole something from his boss, okay? Jesus, what is this-a Boy Scout meeting?"

"Let her go," said Earl. He turned and peered into Broker's eyes. Broker's shock was real, it couldn't be faked. He removed his cap, scratched his sweaty hair, and glanced up and down the street, finishing with his arms out, palms up.

They went in. Broker grimaced when Nina sang out from the living room, "Holy s.h.i.t, Broker. You're not selling gra.s.s to college kids anymore."

"Ah, Earl," said Andy with a touch of gruff alarm in his voice.

Nina had kicked off her sandals and stood barefoot on the stained hardwood floor holding one of the fierce-looking weapons up and inspecting it. There was no other way to say it, even though it was not correct in circles Nina wouldn't be caught dead in. She didn't hold a gun like a girl.

Earl, Andy, and Tabor noticed this instinctively.

"Nina, what are you doing?" demanded Broker.

She smiled. "Haven't handled one of these in a while."

"Where?" asked Earl, quietly fascinated.

"Where what?" Nina placed the rifle back in its place on the couch.

"Did you handle one of those?" finished Earl.

Nina shrugged. "In the Gulf."

"You were in Desert Storm?" asked Earl.

Nina drew her fingers through her sunstreaked hair and c.o.c.ked her head and her hips and purred in a honkytonk drawl. "Honey, I still got sand leaking into my shorts."

Broker clamped his eyes shut and grimaced. When he opened them he saw Earl studying her with a queer reverence, like she was alien royalty or a deadly new virus. Earl wasn't sure. He shrugged and looked intrigued. "It's possible. There were women over there." He squinted. "You look kinda familiar."

"You get up to Michigan much?" asked Nina.

"I been to Flint."

"Ann Arbor," said Nina. She flopped into the easy chair and picked up the pint bottle of Hennessy cognac from where she'd left it on the floor.

Broker's wince deepened. Her dad's label. Nina took a pull on the bottle and narrowed her eyes.

"Nina, you never could drink," stated Broker. "No drinking. Go clean up."

"Let her be," puffed Earl. "If her New Orleans cop shows up it's his tough luck. h.e.l.l, she alone's worth the trip up here." He turned to Andy. "Check 'em out," nodding at the military hardware. Then Earl swung the briefcase up on the marble slab.

"Aw right," breathed Broker.

"First why don't we look in the lady's purse and suitcase, just to keep the game friendly," said Earl. "Jules, check it out."

While Tabor went into Nina's things, Earl paced the room. He stopped at the bookcases and scanned the t.i.tles.

"You read a lot for a guy who fixes washing machines," he said flatly.

"The dude I bought this place from left them."

"Uh-huh, he liked history."

Tabor wheezed and stood up. He tossed items from the purse on top of the briefcase. "Airline ticket. Northwest flight from New Orleans landed not over an hour ago. Two thousand, three hundred, and change in cash. Another two thousand in travelers checks. College ID from the University of Michigan. Driver's license issued to Nina Pryce, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Picture matches."

Earl raised his eyebrows. Nina swigged on her pint and shrugged. She lit a cigarette like she'd watched too many French movies and almost coughed when she inhaled. "The suitcase," said Earl.

"Clothes, travel things, toothpaste, makeup, and this." Tabor stacked a pile of manila folders and a roll of paper on the coffee table.

Broker's sternum vibrated like a wishbone being cranked back for a big wish. He stared at Nina hard. She held his eyes with an unshakable conviction that was out of place in this room, at this moment, with these people.

Earl riffled the pages in the top folder and squinted at Nina. "Very interesting," he breathed. "Xeroxed copies of some kind of cla.s.sified military inquiry. Fort Benning, July 1975. Just gets curiouser and curiouser, don't it?"

He paged through the folders and studied the contents of a slender one. He held up a photostat for Jules and Andy to see. "Copy of a police report on a Cyrus LaPorte. For misdemeanor a.s.sault in a federal prison."

Broker groaned out loud.

Earl squinted and his lumpy jaw muscles rippled, mulling as he rolled open the map. "This what you stole?"

"Yep," said Nina.

"Isn't LaPorte the retired general, the one with the boat?"

Nina smiled and crossed her legs. They were the kind of legs that laughed at nylons, and they sliced the air like scissors.

Broker, not known for attacks of nerves, felt a mild panic corkscrew up his spine. He had to take control of the situation. "We're through with the preliminaries. Nina's going to walk down to the corner for a pack of cigarettes-" he said.

"Uh-uh. I kinda like having her around," said Earl. "Go ahead. Open it." He nodded at the briefcase.

Broker stooped and shot back the latches. h.e.l.lo, sixteen grand. He opened the top and stood upright, tensed, hands floating at his sides. "What the f.u.c.k is this s.h.i.t?"

The briefcase held a King James Bible, a video ca.s.sette tape, and a .45 semiautomatic Colt pistol. The pistol b.u.t.t was a vacant cavity. Empty. In the ominous silence, Nina giggled. Broker felt the raw nerves in her giggle tickle him like poison ivy. He saw she was starting to lose it to the booze. d.a.m.n. Broker started to sweat.

"I thought I was dealing with Tabor, who are you, coming in here like this," he seethed at Earl, "with this...bulls.h.i.t."

Earl reached over, acquired the pistol, brought a magazine from the pocket of his jacket, inserted it and racked the slide. He did not set the safe. With the pistol hanging casually in his hand he proposed in a calm voice, "We all sit here for a few minutes and get acquainted and see if anything unusual happens. We already got notice of one cop in the area. Let's see if a million Yankee cops come through the door."

Across the room Andy methodically worked down the row of weapons, clearing bolts, checking chambers, toggling with the breech of the launchers. A cold metal snap and precision clacked in the tense room.

Nina leaned forward and looked into the briefcase and plucked out the ca.s.sette and studied the label. In the process she spilled a little of the cognac. The amber liquid splashed lightly on her knee and trickled slowly between her thighs.

"The truth about the alleged Holocaust. Lectures by Rev. Earl Devine," she read. Broker watched her eyes. The cloudy shiver in them. Little muscles at the corner of her lips twitched. "You gotta be f.u.c.kin' kidding," she said.

"Watch it, pottymouth," said Andy. "Earl's an ordained minister. Just thought you should know."

"You need a bath, Nina," said Earl. "I can smell you."

"Not as good as I can smell you, Elmer."

Earl chuckled. "Andy, Jules tells me that Mr. Broker carries a nine-mil Beretta in a hideout over the crack of his a.s.s under that baggy T-shirt. Take a look."

Broker put up with a rough hand stiff arming his neck, another frisking his back. "He's clean, Earl."

"Check his socks." Andy did.

"Take the battery out of that pager," said Earl.

Andy unclipped the device and dumped the battery to the floor. Uh oh, thought Broker. Then Andy tossed the pager to Earl who placed it on the marble slab next to the briefcase. With a casual show of force he raised the b.u.t.t of the .45 and smashed the plastic device.

"This isn't going to work. My guy won't show unless he beeps a number," said Broker. "Deal's off. And you people are outta here. Nina, get upstairs."

"I'm enjoying my conversation with Elmer here," she said. There was murder in her eyes, way more complicated than these good old boys could ever know. It was time to pull the plug. f.u.c.k the money.

Andy giggled at Nina's defiance. "Nice for a man to be taken so seriously in his own house."

"You just shut up, Broker," added Earl with a thin smile. "This lady don't add up and she's got some explaining to do. The kind of explaining that might take all night," said Earl with a thin smile.

Broker shot a poison look at Nina. The anger in his voice was real. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing here, G.o.ddammit!"

Nina tipped the bottle up, swallowed, and sneered.

"Gawd.a.m.n," grinned Earl, "do that again, honey, I love the way you swallow."

"I just want my f.u.c.king money," muttered Broker. Earl waved him silent with the big Colt.

6.

THEY WAITED. SWEAT RAN DOWN BROKER'S RIBS and pooled in his shorts. He paced, shadowed by Andy. Jules Tabor stood at the window and watched the street. Earl went upstairs, found Broker's pistol, came down and scouted the backyard; then he brought a chair from the kitchen and sat facing Nina, knees almost touching, and read through the dossier material that had been in her bag. He glanced up. "What good is this? Most of it's crossed out."

"That's the Freedom of Information Act for you," said Nina as she suicidally finished the pint. Then she picked up the video ca.s.sette and studied the blurb on the back.

Earl set the dossiers aside and spoke to Jules. "Go out to the van, check out the street for about five more minutes then pull in back. We'll load up there. Andy, look around for some rope to tie them up."

"Hey-" Broker started to protest. Earl snapped the .45 on him.

"Sorry, Broker, I came to do business with an arms dealer and I wind up with a redheaded chick with a suitcase full of government doc.u.ments. You lose, buddy." He grinned at Nina and his voice lowered, husky, thick in his throat. "So we're going to take you folks for a ride. Get to know you a little better."

Broker wasn't believing this. Standing there on razor blades and Earl was blushing. Where's the G.o.dd.a.m.n money? He had to see the money and the guns together.

It was strange in the room. The five rifles lined up. Earl's dry rustling breath. Andy rummaging in the kitchen. The skeletal Harley frame like a boned-out steel cheetah.

Nina wasn't impressed. She curled her lip and tossed the video ca.s.sette into Earl's lap. He twitched pleasurably.

"You write that copy on the back?" Nina mused. "The Jews made it all up, huh. The SS. The death camps."

Earl cleared his throat and said in a reasonable voice, "There's eyewitness accounts that the camps were built after the war. It's a side of things that should be heard."

Broker watched her bunch into a sinewy coil in the chair. He could feel the lances of adrenaline advance out of her pores.

"Hey, Earl," said Andy, coming in with a roll of duct tape, "come away, man, the b.i.t.c.h is drunk."

Broker heard the van engine start, listened to the sound move from the street along the side of his house into the backyard. Andy ripped off a length of tape. Like fingernails on a blackboard.

Then Nina's voice took on the flat meter of the army officer she had been for six years. "Be advised, mister, my dad liberated one of those nonexistent camps..."

Broker tensed when he saw her eyes cloud with holy wrath. Aw G.o.d, here comes "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

"And he told me the GIs were so d.a.m.n...taken by what they saw that they wouldn't even shoot those guards. They killed some of them with their...bare...hands!"

Nina Hour. Broker wasn't fast enough. She came up from her hip with the pint held by the neck and swung it in a backhanded chop like a cleaver across Earl's nose.

Gla.s.s and bones cracked. Andy dropped the tape and went for his pocket and pulled out a thick bone-handled gravity knife and started to flick it open with his big thumb. But some tape was tangled on his fingers and that gave Broker a precious second. First he had to deal with Andy. He pivoted and smashed an elbow in Andy's surprised face but then he had to go after Earl, who had sprung from the chair with blood pouring from his swelling nose. Earl, raging, growling, and evidently in shock that he had been struck by a woman, dropped the .45 and plucked the shattered bottleneck from his chest and threw it at Nina, who ducked, and it crashed through the window and, with the breaking gla.s.s and Earl's roar, Broker finally felt it start to happen outside.

7.