Chuck Logan - Homefront

“I hear you. I’ll get ready.”

Sheryl hung up the pay phone in the lobby of a Country Kitchen and waited while Shank paid for breakfast at the cashier’s counter. When they got back in the car and pulled back on the road, Shank just asked, “Everything all right?”

Sheryl nodded. “Told him we’d be in around one in the afternoon. He said to check the local stations when we get up north. Could be a storm coming down.”

“Good idea.” Then, after a pause, “Not to pry, but what’s he like, Gator? I asked around, and he kept a low profile in the joint. Just a few pickups in the visitors’ room to keep our guys off his back.”

Sheryl thought about it. “He’s a real hard worker, crackerjack mechanic.” Thought some more. “A compulsive planner.”

“A mechanic would be, they know how things fit together,” Shank said.

They settled in for the long middle of the drive. Sheryl thumbed through the photos again, mentioned how times had changed. People weren’t hanging it out on the street in leathers, tooling around on fat boys, like they used to.

Traveling north on 371, coming up on Little Falls, they started talking about The Sopranos on HBO.

“I don’t buy the bit about a boss going to a shrink,” Shank said. “That’s contrived. I think they do that to suck in a wider audience. None of them ever known a gangster, but lots of them go to shrinks.”

“You got a point,” Sheryl said. After a moment, she wondered out loud, “How do you think it’s going to end?”

“The way I see it, there’s two possibilities; you got a war brewing with Johnny Sack in New York, then you got the family angle cooking underneath.”

“Yeah, Carmela and her thing with Furio. That ain’t over. He’ll be back, Furio will,” Sheryl said seriously.

“True. Furio is a stand-up guy,” Shank said.

“So Furio returns and has a showdown with Tony over Carmela,” Sheryl said.

Shank smiled and wagged his finger at her. “No offense, but you’re thinking like a woman. Making it all romantic-”

“Hey,” Sheryl countered. “TV shows are like everything else. They’re a business, and I bet most of the viewers are women.”

“Granted, they could pussy out and do it that way,” Shank said. “But I think, ah, what would be more true to life is Tony gets caught making this big choice between his family and the mob.”

“How do you mean?” Sheryl said.

“Well, what’s he going to do if push comes to shove? Sacrifice his family to save his business? Al Pacino would do that, right. He had Fredo killed in Godfather II. But Tony goes to a shrink, right? He’s got guilt and panic attacks. No, I think the way to end it is, he has to turn into the thing he hates to save the thing he loves.”

Sheryl considered it, cocking her head.

Shank continued. “So Tony makes a deal with the feds, rats out all his buddies, and goes into Witness Protection. There he is, living in a crummy track house in Utah, driving a garbage truck. Carmela is shopping at Wal-Mart. The End.”

“Jesus, that’s grim,” Sheryl said.

“Yeah. I kinda like it,” Shank said.

Sheryl took out her Merits and her lighter. “You mind?” she asked.

Shank shrugged, hit the window controls, zipped the front seat windows down an inch, and turned up the heater.

Sheryl lit the cigarette and blew a stream of smoke into the icy draft. After a minute or so she turned and caught Shank watching her.

“What?” she asked.

He shrugged affably, turned back to watching the road. “Shouldn’t smoke those things,” he said. “They’re bad for your health.”

Monday morning was another first. Nina drove Kit to school. Not just to drop her off, but to go in and talk to the principal about gathering Kit’s records and transferring them back to the elementary school in Stillwater. Maybe sit in on some of her classes. Today would be Kit’s last school day in Glacier Falls. Nina had set the tone at Sunday breakfast when she casually suggested that Broker should call Dooley.

He’d called Dooley and told him to get the duplex straightened up and turn up the heat; they be arriving Wednesday afternoon. That gave them Tuesday to finish packing and clean Griffin’s place. He called Griffin, explained their plans, and they agreed to have supper Tuesday night at the Anglers to settle up and say good-bye.

Now it was almost one-thirty in the afternoon, and Nina hadn’t returned yet. Broker stood in the garage studying the stack of boxes and suitcases that he, Nina, and Kit has assembled on Sunday. Seeing them, he remembered the tense days last January, the rushed packing. He raised his right hand to his throat, felt the key to the gun locker on the leather thong. The guns would be the last thing he’d load in the Tundra.

His cell rang. It was Griffin.

“You think I could get a little more work out of you, before you split?” Griffin said.

“What’s up?”

“My truck’s still in the shop. And my wood trailer’s got a broken axle. Teedo’s home with a sick kid, so I don’t have his truck. I need a couple loads of oak carted over here at the lodge. Want to get it under a tarp before this big mother of a storm moves in.”

“Sure,” Broker said. “I’ll get on it as soon as Nina gets the truck back.”

“Look, I know you’re packing. Just bring one load over. We can trade cars, and I’ll come back for the second load.”

“No problem, any way you want to do it,” Broker said.

After he ended the call, Broker walked out into the driveway and looked at the storm clouds marshaling over the northwestern treetops. Persistent spitballs of frozen snow rattled on his parka. The mini sleet drew a faint veil over the road, and he saw Nina’s high beams knife through it. He watched the Tundra pull up the drive. Walked out to meet her.

“How’d it go?” Broker said.

Nina gave him a droll smile and did a snappy little curtsy. “Am I a soccer mom from central casting or what?” She was wearing the cross-country ski outfit he’d given her for Christmas. “I talked to the principal, Helseth, and sat in on a reading and math class. Kit wanted me to stay for lunch and for her gym class. You know, she wanted to put me on front street. Like, ‘See, I got a mom, too.’ And the paperwork is all set. They’ll ship it end of week. How’s it going here?”

Broker explained Griffin’s call, how he’d drive over to the lodge with a load of wood, then use Griffin’s Jeep to pick up Kit.

“You might want to go in early to school. When I left, they were all watching the weather in the office. They might start the buses early if this thing rolls in before school lets out.”

“Okay, I better get on it.”

Nina nodded. “I’ll sort through the upstairs bathroom, pack everything except essentials, then-” She perused the sky. “Maybe get in a run before we get dumped on.”

They set off to their separate tasks. Nina went inside as Broker took off his good parka and pulled on the beat-up brown work-crew jacket. Then he started the Tundra and backed it up to the woodpile. Half an hour later, he had the bed full of oak, got in, and headed off for the lodge.

When Broker arrived at the lodge work site, he found Griffin upbeat, busy squaring away his gear as if he relished the prospect of working in the midst of a severe winter storm. They unloaded the wood, covered it with a tarp, and weighted the tarp down with hunks of flagstone.

“You planing to work tomorrow?” Broker asked.

“Nah, but if we really get a lot of snow, it’ll take a day for the plows to clear the roads. Might as well get the wood in before it hits, so we can start on Wednesday,” Griffin said.