Chuck Logan - After the Rain

Broker looked past Yeager, scanning the scrolls of clouds that filled the sky, as if he’d find a list of instructions spelled out. Damn.

Yeager, ever patient, watched the wheels revolving in Broker’s eyes. “Okay. Tell you what. Instead of just standing around looking out of place, why don’t you hop in my cruiser and let me show you around. I’ll do all the talking. You just listen. Then, later, if you want to talk or get ahold of me-like, if something were to happen…” Yeager heaved his shoulders, let them drop.

“What the hell,” Broker said. The more he saw of Yeager, the more sure he was that it was the guy, the one in the van, who broke into his truck. Deal with that later.

“Get in. Your Ford’ll be just fine here.”

Broker got in, looked around. “No computer.”

“Nope, we got us a time warp going here when it comes to budget. So it’s old-style. Just the radar and the radio.”

They were easing east on 5 and came up to the flashing red stop. Yeager hung a left, looked across the seat. “So when’s the last time you worked patrol?”

“Jesus. Hadda be the eighties.”

“Goddamn. And I thought I was old. Things have changed, huh?” He paused. “Not here, maybe.”

Broker wished he still had Kit because the fields started to roll out like a scene from the Wizard of Oz , all green and yellow. Swirls of blue. Dizzy with the heat. But no contour to the crops. Flat.

“Yeah,” he said, “things have changed. The new breed of cops are a lot smarter than I was.”

Yeager grinned. “Got to be smart to drive, talk on the radio, type on a computer, answer your cell phone, and ding out messages on your Palm Pilot all at the same time.”

“Way too smart to rush into things the way we did,” Broker said.

Yeager leaned back and rubbed his chin with the knuckles of his right hand. “Something to be said for rushing in. I watched that Columbine thing live on TV. Those Colorado boys sure didn’t do any rushing in on that one.” He cut Broker with a frank look. “Just my opinion-but my gut read was if there would have been more dead cops, there would have been less dead kids.” After making his point, Yeager swung his eyes back on the road. Then he said, “Your wife and her army pals are old-style, when it comes to rushing in…”

Broker didn’t take the bait and so Yeager drove in silence. They passed two deserted farmhouses in as many miles, the driveways filled up with weeds, the white paint on the wood siding peeled back to gray pith. Stark as rib cages left to molder in the wheat.

“Looks like the real estate market is kinda depressed,” Broker said.

Yeager shrugged. “Some of it’s consolidation. Big ones eat the little ones. Cheaper to just plant around the abandoned houses than tear them down. But some of it’s just changing times. That last house, they still farm but they moved into town. When I grew up we had animals, an orchard, a big truck garden-enough stuff to keep a family busy. And a cushion to fall back on during a bad year.” Yeager twisted his lips in a cynical smile. “In addition to durum, we used to grow more of a certain kind of kid out here. Yeah, well-couple years ago they closed down the Future Farmers of America program at the high school.”

Yeager slowed as they came up to a long capsule-shaped white tanker on a wheeled gurney parked next to the road. He pointed to the hose coming off a coupling. “This is a dumb shit, leaving his hoses on the tank.”

“I don’t follow,” Broker said.

“You’re out of touch, Broker. These white tankers you see all over. It’s anhydrous. Liquid fertilizer. There can be enough ammonia left in the hoses to cook a batch of meth. A gallon of anhydrous is worth less than half a buck to a fertilizer dealer. But it converts to two ounces of meth, worth a thousand bucks on the street in Grand Forks, Fargo…Minneapolis.”

They lost the asphalt and were driving on gravel now.

Yeager jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Those deserted houses we went by? Perfect sites for Beavis and Butt Head meth labs. Little assholes come up from Fargo, Bismarck. Road-trip around, assembling their cook kit, then come up here for the free anhydrous sitting all over the place. Then they find a deserted house to cook in.”

Broker nodded. “It’s just starting to hit Minnesota. Since they regulated the ephedrine, it’s harder to cook it down from commercial cold medications, like Sudafed. Can only buy two packs a pop.”

“Yeah,” Yeager said. “They have to cover a lot of territory to come up with quantity. Mostly it’s kids making it for their personal use. The real problem is the border.”

Broker saw a cluster of buildings. A flutter that could be flags.

“Maida,” Yeager said. “Port of entry.” He turned left on a less maintained gravel road. They bumped along in silence for a couple miles and then Yeager turned right into a rutted path. Just two tire tracks running off into the green, empty, treeless horizon. But they were well-worn tracks, no grass growing in them. Yeager drove slower now, the weeds swishing up to the windows of the cruiser. Finally he stopped the car. “Let’s get out, stretch our legs.”

They walked down the path. Yeager pointed to the ground that was damp enough to clearly show fresh tire treads. “Mulberry Crossing. Active.” They continued walking. A hundred yards further and the path turned and paralleled a slight road embankment. A yellow sign was set in the ground next to the tire tracks that climbed the embankment. It said: ILLEGAL BORDER CROSSING.

“See how easy it is,” Yeager said.

Broker nodded. “This is Canada.”

“Yep. And in good weather this prairie road will support a tractor-trailer. Pick a no-moon night. Turn off your lights. From here to the road we came up on,” Yeager pointed back toward his cruiser. “Maybe twenty seconds and you’re across. Like we were talking before, less and less people living out here now. And them that do, hell, they all shop in Canada, because the dollar buys more. They see somebody coming through here at night, it could be their neighbor buying fertilizer at a forty-percent savings. Just come across, go east, in an hour you’re on the interstate.

“So,” Yeager went on, “ephedrine is still easy to get in bulk in Canada. Say, a case of seventy-five thousand pills might go for eighteen thousand bucks. Makes about eight pounds of meth that wholesales for around forty-eight thou. Figure a hundred cases of pills in a trailer. Adds up to serious money.”

Broker squinted back toward the customs station. “What about the border patrol?”

Yeager smiled. “They say they got sensors, but I don’t hear any alarms going off, do you? They started sending more bodies up after 9/11. Guys mostly with names like Martinez, from Texas. Right after they started showing up, that first October, it was about thirty-eight degrees out and I noticed them all out in front of the Motor Inn plugging in the tank heater on their shiny new Tahoes. So I go over and ask, ‘What’s up?’ ‘Getting cold,’ they said.” Yeager shook his head. “They come and go in thirty-day rotations, like R amp;R. Hell, I understand they need a break, they got some hairy duty down south. But the point is, they don’t stay long enough to know the ground. And they don’t patrol, anyway. They sit on the official crossings.”

Broker shifted from foot to foot. Thought of starting another cigar to keep his hands occupied. Clearly Yeager was laying foundation, leading up to something. Gamely, Broker tried to hold up his end of the conversation. “They just watch the crossings?”

“Yeah. Used to be, when the customs shut down the border and went home from ten P.M. to six A.M. they’d put orange plastic cones across the road. Of course, after 9/11 they geared up for heavy-duty action and built these little steel gates. Border patrol, they watch the gate. And, sure, there’s a few aircraft overhead from time to time.”