Chuck Logan - Homefront

J. T. checked the blackjack tables. Cantrell was primarily a blackjack addict. No Cantrell. Then he walked into the high stakes slots alcove. Cantrell knew you couldn’t beat the slots. But he believed you could surprise the slots. Sneak up on them at random moments.

Cantrell believed you could get lucky.

J. T. spotted him slouched in jeans, a black T-shirt, and a leather jacket on a high-backed chair like a flesh-and-blood extension grafted onto the machine. Tapping the spin button, recirculating the energy between himself and the slot.

Cantrell didn’t age. In his late fifties, Minnesota by way of New Orleans PD, his face was still Elvis smooth and ruddy, his sleek dark hair still combed in a fifties duck-ass hairdo. To J. T., who considered himself a mature black man, the rebel twinkle in Cantrell’s eyes had always raised the worst abiding ghosts of Dixie.

“You lost, J. T.?” Cantrell asked casually without moving his eyes off the rolling sevens on the machine screen. Always had great peripheral vision.

“You don’t answer your phone,” J. T. said. “We got a mandatory formation.”

Cantrell nudged the spin button again. Scattered sevens. Not lining up. “We do?”

“Griffin called me last night. He needs a favor.”

Cantrell turned in his chair and squinted through the smoke coming off the Pall Mall straight in his lips. “And?”

“I got a feeling it involves our buddy, the unsung hero.”

“Broker, really?” Cantrell removed the cigarette from his lips. “I thought he was bulletproof. So whattaya got?”

“A name. Some chick. We got to check her out.”

Cantrell shook off his casual slouch, straightened up his back. “Let’s go.”

A few minutes later they were breathing the cold fresh air in front of J. T.’s truck. Cantrell looked in the direction of the two gray nuclear reactors poking above the trees. “Fuckin’ Broker,” he said. “You know, I ran into Debbie Hall last week.”

J. T. grunted. Debbie was now a lieutenant in St. Paul homicide. Years back, when she’d been a profane fireball, she and Broker’d had this explosive street romance.

“She confessed she’d made a pass at him, couple years ago when he and Nina were separated. She put it out there, and know what he said? He said, ‘If I wanna play games, I’ll go to a fuckin’ casino.’” Cantrell shook his head.

J. T. handed Cantrell a sheet of fax paper. A one-paragraph criminal history on Sheryl Mott from the St. Paul gang task force. “Griffin had a license number. I ran a DL, talked to Tommy in the gang task force,” J. T. said.

“Known affiliation with OMG. Suspected of transporting narcotics into Stillwater Prison…no charge…” Cantrell looked up. “Not much here. You talk to Dave at Corrections about the prison stuff?”

J. T. gave him a slow smile and shook his head. “I thought maybe…Rodney.”

Cantrell shrugged. “Hell, you don’t need me to talk to a piece-of-shit snitch like Rodney.”

“Wrong. I always…sort of scared Rodney. He’s poop-hispants terrified of you.”

“Yeah.” A rakish grin spread across Cantrell’s face. “Good ol’ Rodney,” he said with slow glee.

Cantrell followed J. T. back through Hastings, then up 95 to Stillwater, where he left his Outback sedan in the Cub parking lot. He got in J. T.’s car, and they drove a few blocks and pulled into the parking lot at the River Valley Athletic Club.

“Why here?” Cantrell asked.

“His scumbag body is a temple, remember,” J. T. said. “He works out here every Saturday morning, according to Lymon at Washington County. Check this: Lymon says Rodney is trying to go straight, they got him working full-time in a health food store-”

“You can sell a lot of dope in cute little bottles in health food stores,” Cantrell said.

“Whatever. Okay. We wait. He’s still driving that red Trans-Am.”

As they waited, Cantrell watched the midmorning female traffic alight from their SUVs and saunter into the club.

“Where do they get these chicks, man? Lookit that blonde-she’s got Spandex skin; she’s got makeup looks airbrushed on-”

J. T. nibbled the end of his pipe and said, “I hear they got this Stepford Wife production line pops them out at this new McMansion development a little ways west of town.”

Cantrell marveled, “Sounds about right; whatever happened to old-fashioned nasty pussy? I mean, they’re so clean .”

J. T. did not respond. Cantrell grumbled, took out a Pall Mall, studied it, then placed it behind his ear. “He was always lucky, Broker was.”

No response.

“Debbie said she talked to a guy who talked to a guy at ATF,” Cantrell said.

“Uh-huh.”

“’Bout the Prairie Island thing.”

This time J. T. looked up. “Yeah?”

“Said they found lots of this residue, like clay silicates or something. Wasn’t the usual shit they find when you blow off a lot of plastique…”

“And?”

“Just a stupid wild-ass guess, but the guy thought maybe those terrorists got short weight on their explosives. Somebody sold them a bunch of play dough mixed in with the Semtex. Guy said that’s why the shock wave didn’t stove in that cooling pool.”

“Bingo.” J. T. pointed his pipe at a red Trans Am that wheeled into the lot and parked six stalls away. The shaggy driver bounded out of the car in a silky blue wind suit and hefted his gym bag, looking like a young buffalo wearing lifter’s gloves.

“Rodney all right,” Cantrell said, sitting up. “What’s his last name again?”

“Rodney Jarue,” J. T. said. “Let’s give him a few minutes to settle in.”

They entered the club lobby and were immediately challenged by the lean, tanned redhead wearing horn-rims behind the reception counter. “Excuse me, but are you members?”

She kept her smile in place, but furrowed her brow ever so slightly. A big black guy traveling with a stringy well-preserved Elvis clone didn’t fit her normal Saturday-morning walk-in client pattern.

“I’ll make this easy,” J. T. said amiably, opening his coat so she could see the gold detective shield on his belt. He left out the part about taking the badge off a decorations wall mount in his den.

“You guys are cops ,” she said, biting the inside of her cheek, lowering her voice, casting her eyes around like she was relieved they were alone in the lobby.

“Hey”-Cantrell scowled indignantly-“it’s just a job. Take it easy.”

Still wary but a bit more agreeable, she asked, “Is something wrong, Officer?”

“Nah,” Cantrell said, coming closer, leaning over the counter, staring at her blouse, which was very tight and had this string tie dealy that accentuated her bodice. “Say, I used to play racquetball here…”

“Things have changed. The new manager tore out two of the courts, put in a nursery,” the woman said. Then her eyes clicked on J. T.

“Look. We just want to talk to one of your members, kinda quiet like.” He dropped his voice a register, oozing sympathy. “You know, don’t want to bother him at work…in front of people…”

Her eyes darted back and forth between them.

Cantrell said, “Just be a few minutes.” They were already heading for the stairs in the right corner of the lobby. “Weights still upstairs?” Cantrell called to her as they started up the stairs.

“What’s she doing?” J. T. asked.

“Not sure. Possibly debating whether to reach for the phone.”

They jogged up the stairs, peered through the glass door to the right, where an aerobics class was in progress on a highly polished gym floor. To their left a long room with two rows of cardio machines stretched the length of the building, facing three wall-mounted TVs. Halfway down the machine room the club opened into another area with lots of stainless steel showing, half fixed weight stations, the other half free weights. Floor-to-ceiling mirrors lined one wall. They headed into the weight room.