Chuck Logan - Homefront

“You hungry?” Shank asked after the waitress left them alone.

Sheryl rolled her eyes in mild revulsion at the shuffling feeding frenzy and shook her head. “Coffee black,” she said.

Shank got them two cups of coffee, resumed his seat across the table, and spread his hands in a respectful preamble. “First, Werky says Danny says hello.”

“Yeah, okay.” Sheryl took a deep breath, let it out.

“And he says to treat you right. You’re the birthday girl. ’Cause, guess what-so far your end checks out. There was a dude name Broker who hung out on the fringe of things. Seems he was more into running guns around than dope. Though there is a story about him bringing in a semi flatbed from North Dakota; piled with hay bales on the outside, bales of weed on the inside. He fixed things, had a bunch of tools in a truck and some landscape equipment. You been out to Danny’s place in Lakeland?”

“Yeah, before the feds took it away for taxes.”

“So, remember the backyard, all the terracing, rocks and shit?”

“Overlooking the river?”

“Yeah, well, Danny told Werky this fuck, Broker, did all that. And one of the guys recalled he put in Jojo’s sound system in Bayport.”

“Bingo,” Sheryl said.

“Meets our probable-cause threshold,” he said. “I don’t suppose you have a picture?”

“’Fraid not.” Sheryl thinking, Christ, I just became an accessory to murder one.

“No problem.” He leaned forward, agreeable. “So what’s it take to locate this ratfuck? You know where he is, correct?”

“Uh-huh. Him, his wife, his kid.”

“And to give them up you want…?”

“Let’s just say, down the line, I got this little project you guys might be interested in…”

“Uh-huh. You know, your name came up a couple weeks ago. Billy Palmer saw you in Arelia’s on University. Said you were talking around selling some shit?”

Sheryl sniffed, looked away, “Billy wasn’t interested, treated me like some meth whore.”

“So, what? You sold to another culture, huh? Mexicans probably, the brothers aren’t really into meth…”

“Do I have to answer that?”

“Nah, it’s cool,” Shank said.

“Heck, you know me.” She wiggled her hips in a taut rumba. “Wanna rattle my pots and pans.”

“I thought you gave it up.”

Sheryl leaned across the table. “Look, the reason I been laying off the scene is there’s too many meth suicide bombers out there burning down houses and littering the countryside with toxic waste. Agreed?”

Shank folded his arms across his chest, listened.

Sheryl carefully arranged her coffee cup, a spoon, and the napkin on the table. Tidying up before she began to speak. Then she said, “I’m not asking for anything for this narc. He’s a gift, understand?”

“Uh-huh. Right. Continue,” Shank said.

Sheryl’s face clouded with concentration. “Let’s just say I’ve spent the last year assembling state-of-the-art gear, the perfect partner, the perfect location, and the perfect operation.”

“Perfect,” Shank said judiciously, giving her his best North Pole stare.

“Absolutely fucking perfect,” Sheryl insisted, meeting the stare.

“Okay, go on…”

“Thank you. My problem is logistics and distribution. I need someone who can provide precursor and chemicals in large volume and deliver it in a discreet and timely fashion. If I can get that-with my setup-I can cook twenty pounds a heat-”

Shank made a face. “Twenty pounds, bullshit.”

Sheryl’s eyes didn’t waver. “Twenty pounds. No mess. Pfizer couldn’t do it cleaner. That’s twenty pounds of ninety-nine-percent-pure crystal four times a month for two months.”

Shank rubbed his chin, squinted at her. “How’re you going to have all that smelly chemical crap coming and going without drawing attention?”

“We’re way out in the sticks, right? So we have a huge tank of anhydrous parked in a barn, and”-Sheryl paused for effect-“we got the local garbageman.”

“Huh?”

“Here’s how it could work. Somebody with the resources-maybe you guys-phonies up the supplies to look like trash and trucks it to the local garbage dump, after hours. We can work out some bullshit contract to make it look cool. Our guy loads it in his truck and delivers it when he runs his normal route. We cook, then the garbageman disposes of the waste back in the woods, then brings the product back to the dump. You pick up when you deliver the next load of supplies.” Sheryl savored the way Shank’s cool eyes appreciated her, like he’d just spotted a plump seal on an ice flow.

“No shit,” he said, steepling his fingers, sounding impressed. “A super lab.”

Encouraged, Sheryl’s voice raced ahead, “Yeah, and we take our time. We’re thinking next January and February. See, we need winter-”

Shank had sat patiently. Now he leaned abruptly across the table and silenced her speech with a medium harsh look. “No disrespect, Sheryl; but let’s nail this Broker guy first .”

“Absolutely,” Sheryl agreed, sitting up straight, grinding her teeth together. “How about we meet again tomorrow.”

Shank studied her for several long seconds, and Sheryl got this feeling she was like the chick in the stage show, strapped to a rotating wheel while the magician threw knives at her. Except these were icicles.

She continued carefully, “That’ll give me time to contact my partner. He’s the one who got the line on Broker. You’re gonna have to talk to him.”

“Sure, makes sense,” Shank said slowly. “Give us time to tidy up some details, think over your project. This, ah, place you got your lab; it’s way out in the sticks, right? Real remote…”

“Yeah, you’re gonna hear wolves,” Sheryl said.

“No shit.” Shank grinned spontaneously. “I never seen a wolf, except at the Como Zoo; they run along the chain-link fence…”

“Yeah,” Sheryl said, nodding, blindsided by his disarming easy smile. “I been there.”

“Okay. Cool. So your partner lives there…and there’s wolves.” He looked off, thinking. “Where’d you meet this guy?”

Sheryl heaved her shoulders. “When I got back from Seattle, I was bringing balloons into the joint. You guys put me on his list.”

Shank narrowed his eyes. “One of our members?”

“Nah, he was just, you know, paying his rent, so your guys wouldn’t jack him around. He was in Education, right. Practically lived in the Vo Tech Shop. He didn’t want to get stuck in seg. Did a year for transporting coke with intent to sell.”

“I need a name, Sheryl. We know you. But we won’t do business on this scale with strangers, you understand,” Shank said frankly.

On this scale. It was gonna happen. “Okay, it’s Morgun Bodine. Spelled with a u , gee-you-en.”

“Anything about him we’d remember?”

“He’s got this alligator tattoo on his left forearm. Goes by Gator.”

“So it’s up north.” Shank gnawed his lower lip, running it in his mind. “So maybe he bumped into Broker near where he lives?” He raised his eyebrows.

Sheryl pursed her lips, balked.

Shank lifted his palms in comic exasperation, “C’mon, Sheryl, let’s put this motherfucker on the fast track. You got a lot riding on this. Whatta ya say?”

Sheryl’s palms started to sweat. She rubbed them together in a nervous reflex, then put them in her lap. It was rushing the plan. But they were so close. And she didn’t want to piss Shank off, not now. She brought her hands back up and placed them on the table and said, “North of Glacier Falls, near the border. And yeah, that’s where he is.”

“Where Broker is?”

“Yeah.”