Chuck Logan - The Price of Blood

“So,” said Nina, “Tuna never had a visitor between the time he had the fight with LaPorte and the moment he contacted me.”

Broker nodded. “Could be he had a buddy inside he confided in and might use as a mailbox. Let’s see what Ryan comes up with in federal corrections.” He stood up.

“There’s more, he gave me-” she said.

“Not now. Watch the phone. I need to take a walk.”

Storm shadows seeped up from the rock crevasses and ran inky between the smooth lakeshore cobbles. Boulders wore an ebony sheen. Broker had to force the charged air into his lungs and then wring it out.

He walked up the driveway and turned north onto Highway 61. He liked to jog along the shore road, but he usually took Tank on those runs.

Today he changed his pattern and crossed the highway and took an overgrown gravel lane inland until he came to a buckled, tar, two-lane road that ran parallel to the highway. The creepy old road had grass marching across the washouts and the rickety skeletons of wood-frame houses dotted the brush. It was a depressing place that he usually avoided.

Nineteen-eighty was stuck in his memory. Don’t try to figure it head on. Unfocus. Trick it out. Think normal thoughts. He turned right on the road and followed it north. Two hundred yards away, screened by dense poplar and birch, he heard the traffic race toward Grand Portage and the casino up there, toward the Canadian border, toward the millennium. The year 2000.

The smart thing would be to just move up here, run the lodge, live out the century in a landscape that was familiar…But his thoughts turned back to Jimmy Tuna and his fascination with funerals.

Tuna had not been a normal NCO. A lot of high-ranking officers are abetted by Machiavellian senior sergeants. Tuna was in that mold, with the appearance and the wile of a Renaissance condottieri. Why would he beg for money and fixate on his own last rites over and over with Nina? Funerals. Burial. Graves.

Another thing about Tuna. Always the joker.

He stopped in mid-thought. The unmistakable stench of decaying flesh clotted the heavy air. Fifty yards ahead, a black shiny shape spilled from the brush into the road.

He padded forward, instinctively checking the surrounding forest. Alone with the sweaty zing of cicadas, he closed the distance to the feeding frenzy of the flies.

A heavy-duty, black plastic garbage bag was dumped in the weeds. Under the fat swarming deer flies, Broker saw the boned-out ribcage of a deer and the maggots that foamed on the shreds of sun-spoiled meat. His gag reflex cocked.

Another argument for winter.

Broker stepped back and grabbed for a cigarette. Why he’d started smoking in Vietnam-it put a lid on that particular odor. He thought of Bevode Fret sitting in jail and mused that New Orleans might smell a little bit like the deer carcass, slick with gamey sweat on the edge of the Tropic of Cancer.

Then the shadow flitted in his memory and he clearly recalled the Chinook struggling up over the flare-lit tile rooftops of Hue, straining with the dangling cargo net while tracer rounds stitched the rainy night.

Broker grinned. Jimmy, you sneaky old fucker, what are you up to ? He turned and ran back toward the cabin.

Nina jumped up from a bench on the back porch and waved him in. “He called, the ATF guy.”

Broker breathing hard, his thumb banging, “What did he say?”

“Wouldn’t talk to me, said for you to call him back.”

Broker punched in Ryan’s number. Nina plucked the cordless phone from the bedroom.

Ryan said, “Your guy’s cell mate is a lifer who’s never getting out. Name is Waldo Jenke. He’s a real yard bull. I mean big. Name he goes by in the joint is Walls. Whiskey alpha lima lima sierra.”

“What’s he in for?” But Broker was thinking. Jimmy needed someone to watch his back if Cyrus was after him.

“Creepy shit. He kidnapped children and their pets in Michigan and Illinois in the late seventies. When he was through with them he buried them together on his farm. He was back before video. He took Polaroids.”

“Any notes on him?”

“Ah, he fixated on pictures of his victims. That’s what caught him. They found a picture of a Rottweiler named Heidi in his truck during a routine traffic stop. They let him out of maximum security five years ago and put him out to pasture in Milan. The bureau hasn’t been forth-coming on the paperwork thing.”

“Keep trying. Thanks, Ryan.”

Nina came into the main room and gave Broker a thumbs-up sign. He went to the fridge, took out a bottle of Grain Belt and popped it open on the opener screwed to the counter. Grinning, he kicked open the screen door and went out through the front porch, down the stairs and the path, and out to his favorite rock. Nina followed him.

He sat down and watched the storm marshal its artillery.

“Nineteen-eighty.” Broker savored a swig of beer and poked the bottle at Nina. “In July 1980 the gold market peaked. That’s why LaPorte lost his cookies with Tuna.”

“All that gold appreciating like hell and it’s rusting at the bottom of the ocean and only Tuna knows where it went down.”

“Gold doesn’t rust,” said Broker.

“LaPorte found a helicopter wreck,” Nina speculated. “But maybe it’s the wrong wreck-”

“Could be. And if Jimmy knows where it is, he’s willing to tell us something . He sure isn’t making himself available to LaPorte.” Broker pulled Tuna’s crumpled note from his pocket, smoothed it out and pointed to Trin’s name.

Nina cocked her head. “Trin and my dad were friends. But I don’t see how he fits.”

“It could mean that Tuna, in prison, somehow located Trin in Vietnam after twenty years.” The idea excited Broker. “If Trin’s in our future he’d work better with somebody he knows. And the trail Tuna is setting up probably needs an investigator to follow.” Broker paused. “The thing about Jimmy Tuna, he loved pulling practical jokes. And setting booby traps. Fall asleep on ambush, Jimmy would tie your bootlaces together.”

“So it could be a trap for us, too?”

“That’s the fun, isn’t it?” said Broker with a tight smile.

“What about Trin? The phone number?” Nina asked. “You want to give it a try?”

“Let’s wait. I don’t want to bump into Trin blind after twenty years.”

“He helped save your neck in Quang Tri City. You saved his. I thought he was a buddy?”

“Nguyen Van Trin was a strange guy. He fought for the Commies and for us and was disgusted with both sides. He even designed his own flag. A white lotus in a sea of fire.” Broker shook his head. “The only person Trin is buddies with is the ghosts of his ancestors. We’ll wait.”

Their voices had dropped a register and their heads had drawn close. Nina’s eyes were slits. “Now that you’re hooked on gold fever, let me explain where my interest lies. He knows how to get LaPorte. Jimmy does.”

“Wishful thinking.”

“No. He knows. He showed me. But it was like the pension. I didn’t see it.” Her voice trailed off and her eyes conjured.

Her enthusiasm was going to be a definite obstacle. But he needed her. How much he wasn’t sure. At least to talk to this Jenke character and hopefully pick up Tuna’s trail. As an excuse to see LaPorte.

“How about we find Jimmy Tuna and ask him,” Broker said with a gentle hint of rebuff. “And let’s spend some of your money. Grab a charter to Ann Arbor and talk to Waldo Jenke. Then I’ll need a day in New Orleans to see LaPorte before Bevode Fret gets out of jail.”

“There’s fifty thousand in the bank in Ann Arbor. I’ll spend it all to clear Dad’s name and to see LaPorte stand trial.”