Chuck Logan - The Price of Blood

“Fine,” said Broker.

The guard nodded. “Take a few minutes to fetch it.” He went to the door. They heard him speak to someone in the hall.

Jenke’s watery eyes finished their rove over Nina and then fixed on Broker and stopped at his taped thumb. He studied the discolored, stitched flesh with interest. His blunt rabbit nose nuzzled the scent of the wound.

He smiled slightly. His yellow baby teeth were imbedded in massive gums, like crooked kernels of new corn stuck in a cob of bubble gum.

“You know what this is about,” stated Broker.

“I ain’t saying shit,” Jenke replied with great deliberation. Then, in a display of elaborately guarded reflexes, he removed a single cigarette from the pack in the kangaroo pocket of his sweats and lit it with a plain matchbook. His big white fingers fluttered. Elegantly long, the fingernails were manicured and dusted with talc.

Minutes passed. Nina untied the scarf and retied it. Jenke showed two inches of gum in a horrible grin when he saw the bruises on her throat.

Then he crushed out his smoke and lit another and leaned back, a torpid mountain of flesh. His lips puckered and his chest jerked. Wreaths of smoke rings floated on the damp air and softly tore apart in front of Nina’s face.

“You notice how I talk funny?” he asked her.

“I noticed,” she said evenly.

“Reason is, when I was a kid Andy Devine was my favorite actor. He talked like that because when he was a kid he got stabbed in the throat with a fork.” He grinned. “So I stabbed myself in the throat with a fork.”

The door opened and the guard came through. He had a battered, water-damaged, blue softcover book in his hand. Broker saw the embossed crucifix on the cover and recognized it as an old Armed Forces New Testament. Jenke took the book and said to Broker in a gravel whisper, “Get the screw out of here.”

Broker jerked his head at the guard, who nodded and went through the door and watched through a heavy glass window reinforced with mesh. They were alone on the patio.

As if conveying an object of ceremony, Jenke placed the Bible in the middle of the table. He opened it and pointed to the faded name written on the flyleaf: S. Sgt. James Tarantuna . Again the inquisitive gaze, prompting. Broker nodded.

Jenke opened the Bible to the place marked with the photograph of Nina. Her college graduation picture. He removed the picture and held it face up in his palm. Then he leaned forward.

Jenke smiled and flicked the picture in his long fingers, turning it over with almost magical speed. They both read the note printed on the back in blocky ballpoint pen: If he stole it, why’s he buried with it ?

Nina drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Porcupine sweat stabbed the muscles of Broker’s chest where the cool, gold-tipped arc lay, prodding his banging heart.

Buried implied dig as in dry land . That’s what Tuna’s grave-digger fixation was about.

He glanced at Nina and saw the same thought ignite in her eyes. They both crouched forward, ready to race from the prison like it had just caught on fire.

“We’re cool,” said Broker, dry-mouthed.

“Absolutely,” said Nina in a steady voice.

Jenke watched their reaction, not particularly impressed, and then prompted with his eyes. You got it . Broker nodded. Yes . Jenke withdrew the picture and artfully, beyond the guard’s line of sight, tore it into quarters, which he hid in his spacious palm as he raised his cigarette to his lips. Quick as a snake he fingered the pieces into his mouth and methodically chewed and then swallowed. Then he nodded a final time. Their business was concluded. His favor to Jimmy Tuna was discharged. Broker didn’t care to think about how it had been incurred.

Abruptly Jenke got up, turned and lumbered to the door. He nodded to the guard and never looked back. The door opened and Waldo Jenke disappeared.

The guard came to the table and pointed to the Bible. “He told me that’s for the lady. Because she used to visit Jimmy. No good to Walls. He’s terminally dyslexic. He can’t read word one. All TV, that guy.” The guard paused. “Ah, you all right, miss?”

“Oh yes,” said Nina. Her eyes glistened. “Just fine.”

They sat on the floor in Nina’s apartment halfway through a deluxe Domino’s pizza with excitement smearing their eyes as hot as the grease on their fingers. Broker took in the reins on his runaway imagination. When you’re charged up, you overlook things.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Where’s that Bible?” He got up and washed and dried his hands. When he picked up the Bible, Nina squirreled in close and recited, “Everything Jimmy Tuna does is for a reason.”

“Need a sharp knife,” said Broker.

With a small paring knife he slit the plump water-swollen back cover and peeled away the mildewed cardboard. He removed a square of folded paper.

“Bingo,” said Broker.

“What is it?”

“Follow the money.” He unfolded the paper and held it up for her to see. “It’s a customer consent form from the goddamn bank allowing Nina Pryce to see his records.”

“He’s playing games with us,” mused Nina. “Poor Jimmy, sitting on a fortune, then-do not pass go, do not collect ten tons of gold, go directly to jail and get cancer.”

Abruptly Broker looked her in the eye. Their visit with Waldo had nudged him toward her conspiracy theory. “Nina, this ‘poor’ guy might have killed your father.”

Nina went out on her small balcony and stood in the light rain for a few minutes. She returned more sober and said, “During the inquiry, it came out. The radio call. They were damaged and setting down for repairs. Remember?”

Broker remembered. “Tuna testified they didn’t land.”

“They made an emergency landing.”

“Maybe,” said Broker.

“They did, and they dumped my dad with it.” On their knees, bumping foreheads, they unrolled LaPorte’s Xeroxed nautical map. Broker studied the familiar coast of central Vietnam-Quang Tri Province below the old DMZ. Where he’d been. LaPorte had marked the wreck off the coast of the next province to the south, Thua Thien, where Hue City was located.

Broker shook his head. “That’s for a boat. We need a one to fifty thousand grid, a tactical map. Then what have we got? We could draw an arc around Hue based on a loaded Chinook’s probable flight time. And it was rainy, humid; that affects a chopper’s lift. To handle a ten-ton load they probably cut back on fuel. And it was hit by ground fire. So how do we estimate the air speed or even if they were flying in a straight line? It could be anywhere, north into Quang Tri Province, south. Hell, they could get to Laos. Even if we find him, if he doesn’t have a precise location we’re screwed.”

But they were getting close.

Nina’s brow bunched in concentration. “So how do we find him?”

“It has to be in his banking records. That’s your job.” Broker waved his pizza slice at the consent form on the coffee table. “I go to New Orleans and get reacquainted with Cyrus LaPorte.”

“I don’t like splitting up,” she said.

“It’ll save time.”

Nina studied him carefully and backed off before it became a test of wills. “Okay,” she said.

Broker nodded. “Up till now it’s been mostly talk. Once I call LaPorte the thing’s in motion.”

“How are you going to play it?” she asked.

Broker shrugged. “Burned-out cop starts doing an old war buddy’s daughter a favor and sniffs a stash of found money to which he has a peculiar link. He has a map with a location. He sees a once in a lifetime blackmail angle to parley that map into an early retirement bonus.” Which wasn’t that far from the truth.