Chuck Logan - The Big Law

“I’ll tell you what’s funny. We have some waterfalls up here. People go in, they’re never seen again. My partner’ll put your kid in the Devil’s Kettle if you cross me, Konic.”

“Take it easy, we checked you out. We know you. A deal’s a deal.”

Broker glanced away from the table, across the living room at the twisted tenth-century dragon. Hello, Keith. Shake hands with darkness .

They had a deal. The unspoken part of the deal was that James was going to die.

Broker had not shared the story of the rings with Garrison.

But Garrison had called it. Women have bad luck around Tom James.

Tom James wasn’t going to die because Konic’s people wanted revenge on a rat. Or because he could endanger a deep FBI undercover operation by telling the truth about Caren Angland’s death.

You know who did it, but you can’t prove it .

Keith had missed. Broker wouldn’t.

He drove to Duluth to catch the shuttle to Minneapolis and his connection to San Francisco.

The trip carried him back into that zone he’d tried to escape, where ordinary life became so many silly commercials you passed though on your way down to the basement to bang on the backed-up human plumbing. The public wanted Asshole Control. Keep the shit moving in an orderly manner through the pipes. Out of sight, so they could pretend life was like Prairie Home Companion . Like public TV.

So here he was again. Learning more than he’d ever wanted to know. And not the kind of knowledge that necessarily makes you wise. More like vampire droppings you cleaned off your shoes after working sundown to dawn, marching up dim stairways into the mystery of other people’s lives.

Eventually you found it all out. Who the mayor was sleeping with. The governor. Even the archbishop. You kept a list of the guilty ones you couldn’t quite catch. You kept your weapon clean and your traps baited.

The strain got to her, Keith had said. Back at the beginning. Same thing he’d said fourteen years ago. The strain got to her then, too-except that time, Broker was the one working undercover.

Broker preferred a window seat, to watch the plains coil up into the Rockies. But he had the aisle. Two teens with California tans sat between him and the window. They wore T-shirts with splashy logos that advertised an amateur bowling tournament in Bloomington, Minnesota.

They both had cassette player plugs screwed into their ears. They both played the same handheld video golf game.

They were ignorant of, or bored with, the Rocky Mountains.

He landed in San Francisco on time, carrying nothing but a light overnight bag with a change of underwear and toilet articles. An intense muscular young man shadowed his arrival. He had curly dark hair, a gold chain around his neck, wore a green running suit, Nikes and did not hide the blue star tattoo on his left hand. He had touched Rasputin eyes.

A poet-priest who kills people.

Without acknowledging each other, they walked slowly through the terminal. Broker sensed there were others. He yanked on the brim of his brown hat and followed along to the cab stand.

Rasputin walked to a waiting cab, spoke briefly to the driver and then got in the second cab in line. When he was sure everybody was on the same page, Broker climbed in the first cab and gave the address in Watsonville.

The cabby smelled of patchouli, an unsuspecting ponytailed escapee from a time capsule. He was pleased with the long fare and chatted amiably about the weather. Rain, seventeen out of the last twenty-one days. “El Meno” he called it, played hell with his landscaping business.

Broker fingered one of David Konic’s Havanas. Carefully, he clipped the cap with his cheap guillotine cutter, stuck it in his mouth and lit up.

He rolled down the window and inhaled the mildewed, gasoline-scented freeway air. Pink clouds sweated over the coastal range, gamey as mold on a spoiled peach.

73

The house smelled like a runaway wood-burning set.

Danny was drenched in sweat and clinging sawdust. His hands took the shock off the handle of the heavy floor sander and distributed the violent vibration up his arms into his chest and back. Grit filtered through his face mask and ground between his teeth. Bulbous ear protectors muted the grinding racket.

He was nothing but happy.

The money had arrived the day after he did. Two packages.

Just sign here. For the interim, he’d removed a ceiling panel and tucked it into the narrow space between the rafters above the closet in the back storage bedroom.

He’d returned without a hitch and never looked back.

Three days now and not even a call from Joe Travis. He expected a call. That website nonsense might filter up the chain of command, and they’d have to decide. Danny’s position was that his appearance had altered so much that the threat of identification was minimal.

The computer was packed away, under plastic sheeting in the back room to protect it from the dust. Not looking back meant not even checking the St. Paul paper website for news of Ida Rain’s death. His scary retreat from Broker’s house had chastened him. He wanted nothing to do with the

“danger zone.” No communication. Telephone, computer. Nothing. like Tom James, Minnesota had ceased to exist.

Keep it low profile. Day trips to Tahoe and Reno. Take the first one in about two weeks. And something else. This small born-again desire to find his way back to writing had come forward. Danny smiled fondly. But right now he had work to do.

He tipped the sander and hauled it back to start another course of floorboards, paused to adjust the heavy cord over his shoulder, glanced at the TV going in the corner. Under a thick film of sawdust, CNN was “investigating the president.” New scandal, breaking news. Danny had been following it since this morning. Couldn’t hear with the sander going, but he loved the action. Old Bernie Shaw and Judy Woodruff with fever charts tracking the polls behind them. Wolf Blitzer out in front of the White House. Sniffing the presidential crotch.

It was high fun. To see the slavering reporters from the outside, as it were. As a just plain Joe.

Danny switched off the sander, untied the floppy white dust bag from the exhaust tube and walked through the dis-mantled kitchen, out the garage, and dumped the contents in his garbage can. Clouds hugged the Santa Cruz hills, the air was dank bubble bath. A moist tickle of drizzle streaked his dirty arms.

Turning back to the house, he saw Terra, Ruby’s partner, drive past in a vintage Volkswagen minivan. Danny had to start the process of making amends. So he waved. Friendly.

Terra had black, stringy romp-hair and this amazing flat face, like she’d grown up wearing a jar on her head. Wonder what her story was. Probably a six-inch prolapsed clitoris.

He laughed aloud at his own joke, went back in and opened a Coors. As he stooped to the sander he listened to the press feed on gossip.

His hands set to the work of loosening the steel drum with a T-wrench. He removed the worn sheet of sand-paper, bent a fresh sheet to the drum jaws. He was on the medium coarse. By this time tomorrow he’d be finished with the fine.

Be ready to start on the sealer. That stuff put out a stink.

And PCBs. Hydrocarbons killed brain cells. Spend the night in a motel. Charge it to Travis’s VISA. Business expense.

He grimaced, glanced at the cloudy twilight through the screened porch. One day of sunshine would be nice. To help it dry. Air the place out.

As he fitted the new sheet of paper to the drum, he was struck by the clean power of his hands. Physical labor was toning him up. He studied the network of prominent veins, the subtle play of tendon and muscle. Ennobled, almost, by the fine wood dust and sweat. By honest work.