Chuck Logan - Absolute Zero

“Hi, Denise, is J.T. there?”

“It’s him,” he heard her call out, and he knew she had rolled her eyes in that expressive way. “You know, him .”

The guarded but also curious deep voice of J.T. Merryweather came on the line. “Uh-huh?” In the background Broker heard Denise whisper: “Find out why Nina split.”

“Hey J.T., I need a little help.”

“Hmmm,” J.T. said. “You know, so do I. Maybe we should give a call over to Manpower, get us a temp. And by the way, hello, how are you, how’s the family.”

Broker smiled. He and J.T. came out of the service around the same time. Bored with ordinary life, they took the civil service test and were rookies together in St. Paul. They’d partnered together in narcotics and homicide before Broker went to BCA and specialized in guns. J.T. made it up to captain in St. Paul where he flunked office politics and took early retirement to go into business for himself.

“Very funny. Look, could you do me a favor? Call John E. over at Washington County and get the word on that crucifixion in the woods last week.” John Eisenhower was the Washington County sheriff. Also a graduate of the St. Paul Police Academy in the same class with J.T. and Broker.

J.T. said, “Wasn’t no crucifixion. Newspaper got carried away. Guy nailed his hand to a stump. You can’t call, huh?”

“I don’t really want anybody knowing I’m around.”

“Uh-huh. Just can’t shake the old peek-a-boo UC habits?”

“There it is.”

“You use people you know.”

“Yeah. Like how I used you to get a sore back hauling all those hay bales last August. Like I used you, leaving my truck to for you to use.”

“Humph. You only come around when you need something.”

Broker grinned. “Actually I could use a place to hang out because I’ll be nosing around in Timberry.”

“Timberry, that’s some serious Yup; I was over there at the mall and saw my first Humee. Cute little blond kid driving it looked about fourteen. Yeah, sure, c’mon by. Denise would love to talk to you.”

“Won’t work, J.T. I’m not in the mood.”

“I hear you, Broker. I don’t give a shit about your sorry personal life. But Denise wants to know, and she wields power over this place. Woman swings that vaginal wrench of hers around like a goddamn scepter.”

In the background, Broker could hear Merryweather’s wife scold him roundly-something about bad influences and people who refused to grow up.

“Call John E. and schmooze him up,” Broker said. “I’ll see you later this afternoon.” On the verge of laughter, they rang off.

Then he glanced at the canoe trip applications strewn on the table with his notes. Sommer and Allen Falken both lived in Timberry, which was as far away from Ely as you could get. It was an instant bedroom community that nineties’ wealth had erected in Washington County. The last time he drove through he’d been amazed to see a whole forest of evergreens transplanted from a nursery to screen the new homes going in.

Broker was up, pacing. Sommer’s keys hung from a peg on the clothes rack next to the door. He glanced out the window at the parking lot, where Sommer’s Ford Expedition waited, hunched and gleaming against the wilting snow like a black enamel bison.

After about ten seconds of debate he reached for the phone again and called Amy. As soon as she answered, he asked without preamble: “Is it weird that Sommer would be at home so soon after the accident?”

“Are you kidding?”

“I just talked to his wife. He’s at home.”

“Something’s off. He needs a full-care nursing facility at minimum.”

“She said he watches her.”

“C’mon.”

“No bullshit. You interested?”

“Maybe.”

“So, what are you doing?”

“Coming over to your place.”

“I’ll make another pot of coffee,” Broker said.

Jolene Sommer hung up the phone and paused for a moment with her palm on the plastic receiver where his voice had been.

Broker, the guide.

She sat at the kitchen table, exhausted, taking refuge in a cup of coffee, staring out the window. At the edge of the backyard patio, a red cardinal was inspecting an empty feeder that dangled from a barren tree limb. She knew what Sharon Stone wore to the Academy Awards last year, but she didn’t know what kind of tree it was. She never caught the knack of feeding the birds. She barely remembered to feed the cat.

Hank had. .

She looked away and restarted her thoughts. Broker. She had a notion of him from up north, paddling with Allen through the night in an effort to save Hank.

He was not smooth and all tucked in like Allen. He had a deep-set tongue-and-groove muscularity and he was at home in his body, which was important. He had a quiet voice; simple perhaps, but direct. She tried to remember his weathered face, the light, courteous touch of his hand that day at the hospital.

Jolene was good at first impressions. She was also good at puzzles, the ones with pieces. She wasn’t so good at crossword puzzles-yet-because her vocabulary needed work. She believed you liked a person in the first seconds when you met them or you didn’t. She had liked Phil Broker. He possessed a solid, old-fashioned quality, like he’d been made to last.

Her eyes moved across the spacious kitchen and back out the window past the bird feeder to a jumble of oak rounds strewn on the dead grass by the woodshed behind the garage. A heavy splitting maul was imbedded deep in one of the upright rounds. Rust had formed an orange scab on the wedged blade.

A muffled crash echoed up from the basement and that was Earl dropping his barbells on the carpet. Earl had installed himself downstairs, where, like a bilge pump, he’d siphoned away just enough of the bills to keep the house-and her-afloat.

Earl was a creature of habit. And so, to her regret, was she. When things fell apart, when she realized she was facing this crisis literally broke, with nothing for resources but a couple of credit cards-she’d reached out to Earl.

Which had been a large mistake.

Jolene rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. After all these years about the only thing she could say about Earl was that he’d peaked early and still looked good with his shirt off.

They just couldn’t seem to break the pattern-she’d go off on her own and wind up drinking too much. Earl would step in and pull her back from the brink. Her part of the deal was to manage Earl’s temper so he didn’t go berserk on people.

This dynamic spun in circles for more than thirteen years, since high school; except for the year and a half when Earl went off on his own tangent in the army. That was after the mess out in Washington. He’d signed on to Desert Storm, trekked deep into the Iraqi desert with the 24th Mech, eager to redeem himself. Spent six months battling nothing more serious than sand and fleas, and he came home without any real medals, just one sandy case of the clap. All his life Earl just couldn’t catch a break.

Until now.

Jolene finished her coffee and put the cup in the dishwasher, added detergent, and tapped the start button. Then she paced the kitchen, touching up the table, the island, and the counter with a damp washcloth. Her life had turned into one of those ads from a woman’s magazine at the check-out counter. Be thinner, richer; live in a beautiful house. .

Right.

The first few days she had been stunned and needed Earl to guide her. But now she was over the initial shock and not real sure she wanted Earl back in her life, living in her basement, playing his mind games, waiting for her to lose it and start drinking again so it would be old times again. Him calling the shots.