Chuck Logan - The Price of Blood

Like he was proud of the brawny backwoods mojo that enabled him to lure a big dangerous animal into killing range. Like he was in control.

The Louisianan sat at a small table under bright electric lights. His lanky frame was relaxed on a folding chair as, tentatively, he sipped from a Styrofoam cup of coffee. He had a bandage on his big jaw and a puffy bruise down his left cheek. He had meticulously combed his duck-butt hair. The charcoal gray, athletic-cut tropical suit he wore must have cost eight hundred bucks. With a twinge of disgust, Broker noticed the prominent day-old suck mark on his neck under his left ear. Vain Elvis boy has a hickey .

“You gonna charge me?” he asked as Broker and Jeffords entered the interrogation room.

“How’s B amp;E and felony assault sound?” said Jeffords.

“Where’s the felony? She had the shotgun, bro, not me. I ain’t carrying. Got no permit up here.”

Broker did not mention the marks on Nina’s throat or the dog. That would be a personal discussion he’d have later. He said, “You came through my door at four A.M. You didn’t knock.”

“Door was open.”

“Door was locked,” said Broker.

Fret shrugged. “Opened for me. I just walked in. Was going to collect some things that didn’t belong to her and quietly be on my way. She jumped me.”

Jeffords folded his arms and leaned against the wall. Broker sat down in the other chair, facing Fret.

Fret grinned. “Give me my rights and my phone call. I ain’t saying do-do.”

Broker and Jeffords stared at him. His muddy hazel eyes did not waver. His grin broadened. “Didn’t think so. This ain’t the kind of situation we want getting more complicated than it already is for you guys or my client.”

“Tom, could Sergeant Fret and I could talk privately?” asked Broker.

“Sure, just keep the door open.”

Fret grinned again, showing alligator rows of teeth. “You the local badass? Going to trip me down some stairs?”

“Talk,” repeated Broker. Jeffords nodded and left them alone. “I’m a cop,” said Broker.

“Yeah, so I gathered when I saw the army bust into your house in Stillwater. Checked you out…” A little honey humor ran with the mud in Fret’s eyes and he let Broker fill in the blanks. Fret knew he had history with LaPorte and Nina and they were talking between the lines. “You’re the kind of cop who don’t wear a uniform. So if you’re a cop why you been driving that cunt around?”

“Her name’s Nina Pryce,” said Broker.

“Yeah, the nasty little cunt who wormed her way into my client’s social circle and then robbed some items.”

“What’re you getting at?” asked Broker.

“She took some stuff. I take it back. Everything’s copacetic. Oh yeah,” Fret loosened his features and like some lightbulb coming on in the dungeon of his mind, he recollected, “my client has a soft spot for the…girl. That’s why he didn’t charge her down home. Yet.”

“We checked your phone calls. You work for Cyrus LaPorte.”

“ General Cyrus LaPorte.”

“And he has a soft spot for Miss Pryce?”

Fret smiled and shifted into a lazy intimate tone of voice, a personal touch that southerners seemed to own as a birthright and that Broker resented because it was absent in himself. “It’s like this,” said Fret reasonably. “Mr. LaPorte and the girl’s daddy were in the army together. Some fuckin’ thing way back. She blames General LaPorte for her daddy’s shortcomings, you could say. She’s messed up her life behind this shit and the general don’t necessarily want to lean on her. He’d be willing to let it go if he gets his stuff back and some kind of understanding she leaves him alone.” Fret knit his thick blond eyebrows in a convincing display of concern.

“What’s the big deal about this map?” asked Broker.

“Not real sure on that, bro,” said Fret, smiling broadly and winking. “Not my area of expertise. Something to do with illegal oil drilling General LaPorte detected over in Asia. General LaPorte has these do-good projects, sorta like Jimmy Carter, you understand. Some deal with the Vietnamese government. If it gets in the wrong hands, it could create a problem. But it ain’t the paper. It’s her intent. General LaPorte is a prominent member of the community. Don’t need extra hassle from a nutcase.”

“So you’re up here on a goodwill mission?”

“Yeah,” said Fret. “Just my nature, I guess.” He paused and massaged his hands together and a lazy, bullying contempt surfaced in his swampy eyes. “You could say all my life big dogs been lickin’ my hand.”

The ugly challenge hung like smoke between them. The barest of smiles drew down Broker’s lips. This new ogre was intentionally goading him.

Fret, enjoying himself, asked, “You her boyfriend, huh?”

“Friend of the family,” Broker said.

“Oh yeah?” said Fret. They were playing a game. Broker didn’t mind games.

“Yeah,” said Broker. “She’s been…upset. Since her mother died. She doesn’t need any more crap in her life.”

Fret became absorbed in dusting at a dirt smudge on his trousers with his big hands. And Broker chastised himself for being so cavalier about security last night. Fret had contempt for them, and he was vain. Mind the threads . He had worn a suit. He didn’t expect to get dirty. He had planned to get caught. I’m letting you do this, you understand . Just a sadistic sonofabitch who couldn’t resist killing something. Casually, Fret looked up. “She don’t count, bro. Turns out now it’s you the general wants to talk to.”

Broker stood up. “I’ll be in touch.”

“Do that,” said Fret. As Broker left the room he sang out, “Hey, sun’s coming up. Can a guy get some breakfast?”

Jeffords pushed off the wall when Broker came into the hall. “How long can you hold him?” Broker asked.

“Thirty-six-hour rule,” said Jeffords. “Which doesn’t include weekends. So it’s Saturday. So I can run him up to county and lock him up and the clock will start as of midnight on Sunday. We don’t have to charge him till noon on Tuesday. That give you enough time?”

“That’ll do just fine.”

“What are we doing here?” said Jeffords.

Broker nodded at the door. They took their coffee to the waterfront. Sunlight steamed the dew on the boulders.

“I was eavesdropping in the hall,” said Jeffords. “So, is she really a nutcase?”

“I suppose she is, the way Joan of Arc was a nutcase.”

“What? She hears voices?”

“She has a fixed idea that drives her life. Maybe Fret has a point. LaPorte was her dad’s commanding officer in the army. He pressed charges against her dad for stealing. She’s really twisted about it. Maybe it’s time she faced up to the truth.” Broker spoke easily, playing into the scenario that Fret had sketched. Dissembling, something he’d watched Trin do effortlessly to Americans in Vietnam, that he had perfected when he first started working undercover with J.T. Merryweather: Let ’em see the black man and they can’t see the person. Gives me extra room to maneuver on their ass . Stillwater prison was full of people who suspected everybody in the state, except Phil Broker, of turning them. They saw a limited, dangerous blue-collar mensch who worked with his hands when they looked at Broker, and he flowed naturally into their expectations. Talking to Fret he did it innately. Now he was doing it with a friend.

Tom exhaled. “So now what?”

“I’ll have a heart to heart with her and then I’ll talk to this LaPorte. Arrange to get him his stuff back. If he’ll drop charges on her, then we let the redneck go. A trade.”