Chuck Logan - The Price of Blood

Broker held up his good hand. “Okay, here’s the thing. If we’re going to work together we have to understand each other.”

“Sure,” she said, not quite following.

“You’ve got this overall picture and you jam in the pieces. I have to work with pieces and see how they fit into patterns…”

Nina shook her head.

“Look,” said Broker. “Tuna’s a retired master sergeant. He had more than twenty years in. They don’t stop your pension because you’re in jail. He’s been collecting a pile of bread for nearly twenty years. He didn’t need your money.”

Nina slumped back, chastised. “I totally missed it.”

“Not your fault,” said Broker, starting to warm to it. “You follow Mars, the god of the overworld. I follow Pluto, I turn over rocks in the underworld.”

“Christ, you sound like your mother,” Nina quipped and sagged in her chair, brows knit, reappraising. “When you were talking to Mike last night she was quizzing me on astrology. My birth time. She said you had this heavy influence, a Mars-Pluto conjunction.” She studied Broker’s face and said slowly, “Unlimited potential for good or evil…”

Broker grinned. “Irene’s brain is stuck back in the McGovern campaign.”

Nina worried her lower lip between her teeth. “Okay, so Tuna…I played along. I figured he’d talk eventually. The day he was supposed to get out I made him an appointment at a mortuary in Ann Arbor. He said he wanted to see the coffin. He wanted to know who did the actual digging. What were the exact dimensions of the grave. Gruesome stuff like that.”

“But he got out early.”

“Left me standing at the prison gate in a tastefully cut black dress. When I got home a package was waiting with my apartment caretaker, with the Newsweek page and the note about you.”

“When did he get out?”

“Ten days ago. I walked a circle in my carpet and got completely wired into this thing. I wondered if LaPorte had nabbed him so I flew to New Orleans, rented a car, and hung around LaPorte’s house.”

“How are you paying for this?”

“Mom’s insurance, her savings, and money from the sale of her house.”

“How much?”

“Enough for anything we might need to do. Within reason.” She paused. “And going to Vietnam is definitely within reason. Which reminds me, I have visa forms.”

“Confident, aren’t you.”

She adjusted the scarf on her neck. “Tuna wasn’t there, but a lot of other people were. I followed some of them to a restaurant in the French Quarter.”

“People like Fret?”

“No. Oceanographers. Greenpeace guys. They were all staying in the Quarter. And they hung out in this restaurant on Decatur Street. They were throwing around a lot of money, so I did a little makeover and got next to one of them.”

“The tattoo, the girly outfit?”

Nina nodded. “This nice young guy named Toby was smitten with my tattoo and impressed me with tales of taking pictures of the bottom of the South China Sea.”

“He took the picture?”

“Correct, he was just back from a month on the Lola . They were documenting illegal oil drilling, taking water samples, stuff like that. He said they had way more high-tech stuff than they needed: a diving sphere, submersibles. But then he said something weird, the crew didn’t get to do a dive. They were flown out-bang-just like that, immediately after they located the wreck. Some rough-looking Cajuns came in, salvage guys from Louisiana.”

“Divers,” said Broker.

She nodded. “So I encouraged Toby to think he could get lucky if he took me back to LaPorte’s house to a going-away pool party. That’s where I met Fret. He hit on me. But I snuck into the house and rifled the office. I found the maps and the pictures under his blotter on the desk. There’s a safe in his office and I wish I could have got a look into it. Fret must have spotted me coming out.”

Broker leaned back thoughtfully. “Think about that,” he said.

She met his gaze. After a moment she said, “It was too easy.”

Broker nodded. “Remember last winter. The snowstorm. That restaurant in Wisconsin where we met?”

“Sure.”

“I bet LaPorte had someone following you, probably sitting in the next booth. He’s probably had you watched ever since Tuna agreed to meet with you.”

She eyed him, looking a little uneasy after his last remarks. “Okay. Then it really got weird. I called back to Ann Arbor to check my voice mail and there’s this creepy voice on my machine. You know, ‘Hi, Nina, looking forward to seeing you.’ So, being very paranoid at this point, I wisely deduced I was in over my head and took Tuna’s advice to find you. Somehow Fret tailed me.” She looked frankly into Broker’s eyes. “What’s your take on it?”

“They’re after Jimmy. You were his only contact. Now I’m a loose end connected to you. And Jimmy Tuna always was a cagey fella. They were watching you and I bet that’s how Jimmy slipped by them,” said Broker.

“He convinced me his brain had turned to oatmeal. I keep going over our talks. We’d sit in this room at Milan.”

“Describe it.”

“Wooden tables, chairs, plastic ashtrays. A lot of black guys and their families and-”

“C’mon-”

“The black guys, the young ones bothered him. Not that he said it but I could see it. And then…he’d talk about the building, the prison itself. How he’d miss the walls, the walls protected him. You could trust the walls. He said that a lot the last time I saw him and he’d smile at me.”

“Did he ask for anything else besides the money?”

“A picture of me. But that isn’t it. It’s the other reference, to the walls.” Her voice accelerated. “Yesterday morning, at the hospital, I checked voice mail again. Same creepy voice, but…”

She picked up Broker’s phone off the table and punched in a number, waited, punched in another number, and handed the receiver to him.

A computer voice said, You have one new message. To listen to your messages, press one .

Broker pressed one.

First message, left Thursday, May-at 11:03 A.M. : A slow rasping voice. Aldo Ray on downers crawling over broken glass and enjoying it. “Yeah, ah, Miss Pryce. My name’s Waldo and you don’t know me but I know what you look like and I, ah, put you on my list if you know what I mean.” Broker replayed the message and then erased it. He stared at Nina.

“Walls could be Waldo?” she wondered aloud.

“You know,” said Broker. “I can go into a prison and talk to a convict in total confidence, you can’t. You always have guards around. And LaPorte can afford to buy a few prison guards. Maybe that’s why Tuna wanted you to get me. To have a secure conversation. That’s why he talked in circles to you…dropping bread crumbs-”

“Clues?” said Nina.

“Could be.” Broker rubbed his palms together, carefully, because of the thumb. “Let’s shake the system and see if anything falls out.” He picked up the phone and punched in the number for ATF in St. Paul.

“Is Ryan there, this is Phil Broker. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s Saturday. Yeah, it looks like a burnt bratwurst.” Broker whistled soundlessly, stared at his swollen thumb. “Hey, Ryan, how do you like Rodney? He’s a real sweetheart, isn’t he. Sure. Look, I need a favor. There’s a federal prisoner who just got out of Milan. Bank robber named James Tarantuna, goes by Jimmy Tuna. Could you find out if he hung with a guy named Waldo in the joint? Another thing. Back in 1980 Tuna got in a beef in the visitors room with a Cyrus LaPorte. Could you check with the FBI and get me all the paper on that. Fax it to Tom Jeffords at the Devil’s Rock cop shop. Right. I’m up north at my cabin resting the thumb.” Broker gave Ryan his number. Said thanks and hung up.