Chuck Logan - The Price of Blood

“We’ll do just fine,” he said.

“I think so too.” For a few moments she held his hand. Broker leaned forward and stepped on the gas.

They turned east on Highway 8 at St. Croix Falls, and then south on County 65. They consulted the map and made a turn on County F and raced down the winding tar two-lane that was hemmed in by hilly fields and a lot of swamp and small woods. They found Loki near a place called Wanderoos.

Like Ryan said. There was nothing there except a decaying A amp; W Root Beer stand with weeds growing in the parking lot and a two-story cinderblock building with four pickups parked behind the loading dock.

The peeling white paint on the building’s side had sprouted quaint Burma Shave whiskers and failed to blot out huge faded letters that spelled out a previous owner: CAMP’S EXTRA MILD CHEESE. 1926. A newer sign was bolted to a pillar on the loading dock and bore an Italian flag-colored cockade logo and the business name: RED, WHITE, AND GREEN, INC. Cracked cement steps rose to the dock and a sign jutted at one end. Office.

The sun was high and cropped their shadows short as they crossed the gravel lot and mounted the steps. A bell jingled as they entered.

A plaque on the desk announced ANTHONY SPORTA, MGR. The man behind the nameplate filled a red T-shirt and bib overalls with the swollen dignity of a Sumo wrestler. Beneath ringlets of black hair, his beady eyes peered from a face the texture of Italian sausage. The real hard kind. A twist of flypaper hung directly above his head coated with a jam of dead insects. He squinted at them. His right index finger described a dainty curlicue in the air that signaled, “Hello, come in. I know who you are.”

A muted sound of machinery carried through the walls. Lactose mist seeped in the air. Not looking real happy, Tony Sporta opened a drawer, pulled something out, and tossed it on the desk. It was a picture, twenty years old, that had been taken in a waterfront restaurant in Hue City. LaPorte, Pryce, Tuna, and Broker sat behind a forest of beer cans. An arrow drawn in marker indicated Broker’s head. Younger, but the eyebrows. Sporta’s practiced gaze settled on Broker.

“Now why does a guy who’s in shape wear his shirt out?” he said.

“Is that a bathroom?” asked Nina, pointing to an open door next to some file cabinets.

“Just stay put a second.” Sporta glowered.

Nina offered him a pained smile. “I have a female situation I have to attend to.”

Sporta grumbled, “Leave the purse.” Feigning indignance, Nina put her purse on the desk and pulled out a travel pack of super maxipads. Sporta jerked his thumb at the door and perused Broker as Nina locked the door behind her. “He says you’re a cop, but I shouldn’t let that bother me.”

“How is he?” asked Broker.

“Real fucked up. He wants you and the girl in quick, out quick, and he’s got rules.” The toilet flushed behind the bathroom door. Water pipes rattled.

“Okay,” said Broker.

“Nothin’s okay. He should see a doctor.” Sporta cleared his throat and stood up, light-footed for a big man. “He should see a priest.” The bathroom door opened and Nina came out holding up her wet hands. She was walking a little funny, but you had to have been in bed with her to tell.

“You’re out of towels,” she said.

“Sorry,” said Sporta. He turned back to Broker. “You leave your vehicle here. I drive you partway. You walk the rest.”

Broker nodded.

“You take nothing in there. No cameras, no tape recorders, no bags or purses, and no guns . So I gotta pat you down. Both of you. Empty your pockets. Put it on the desk.” Change and keys and spare folding cash made two little piles on Sporta’s dirty desk blotter. Then he motioned to Broker, who reluctantly lifted his arms. Sporta’s hand went right to the Beretta jammed in his waistband in the middle of his back. Broker watched Nina’s eyes, which had gone very quiet and neutral. Sporta placed the pistol on his desk.

“What’s this?” asked Sporta, patting just below Broker’s belt loops.

“Security belt.”

“What’s in it?”

Broker pulled the elastic folder out and zipped it open. “Money, ID.”

“Okay. Keep that. Lift up your pant legs so I can see your socks.” Broker did. Sporta turned to Nina. “Now you.”

His thick fingers quickly circled her waist, went lower, and hit the security belt. She pulled it out and opened it. He nodded and went through the socks routine with her. As he straightened up from inspecting her ankles he grimaced slightly. “Sorry, miss, but you got a little bulge there, front and back.”

Nina reddened and handed Sporta the maxipads. “Go ahead,” she said grimly. “You’re the one out of towels…”

Sporta delicately scratched his chin and decided to pass. He told them to retrieve their pocket items, took her purse, collected the Beretta, and put them in the desk drawer, which he then locked. “You’ll get them back.”

He bent and picked up a Coleman cooler that sat next to the desk. “You can take him some lunch. C’mon,” he said.

When Nina was sandwiched in the front seat of a huge red truck between Sporta’s girth and Broker riding shotgun, Sporta paused before he twisted the ignition. “Won’t do you any good to ask me because he didn’t tell me anything. He just gave me the picture and said bring you the minute you showed up.”

“You brought him over from Milan?” asked Broker.

“Yeah. I did do that. My mother’s his aunt. He made me promise not to even tell her he was here.”

As they drove away from the Red, White, and Green cheese factory a black Subaru station wagon overtook them and passed at high speed on the hilly, curving road. Broker felt a hitch in his stomach when he saw the tinted windows zip past. Bevode Fret had driven a green Saturn with smoked glass. Sweat trickled down the small of his back where the Beretta had been.

Sporta puffed on a Camel straight. His forearms, draped on the wheel, looked like tattooed Easter hams. “Now this place we’re going to is on a thousand acres my employers bought to go deer hunting. So they only use it in November.”

“How bad is he?” asked Nina.

Sporta shook his head. “Last week I’d get four shopping bags of food at the grocery. Now I get a bag at a time.”

They came over a hill and Broker saw the black station wagon, going slower now, keeping pace in front of them. “You recognize that car?” he asked.

“Lotta lake homes around here. There’s all kinds of cars.” Sporta shrugged. “Relax. There’s only one way in and I’ll be blocking it. I got some firepower in the back.” Sporta grinned. “Don’t tell my parole officer.”

They turned off on a gravel road and Sporta pointed to a high stand of pines and oak about a mile away. “Cabin’s up there. Swamp runs all around that hill. The water’s been high so the road don’t go through. You have to get your feet wet and walk the last three hundred yards.” He stopped the truck at a padlocked steel gate. The posts were festooned with No TRESPASSING and ARMED RESPONSE signs.

When Sporta got out to unlock the gate, Broker turned to Nina. “Where’n the hell did you put the Colt?”

She batted her eyes. Sporta got back in and they drove through shadowy screens of young alders that grew dense as bamboo. Sporta said, “This is second growth. It opens up ahead. Fields we put in the land bank.” They bounced down the rutted road and the tires began to churn through mud wallows. The thick jackpine, poplar, and alders ended abruptly and the gravel road bed disappeared into a glue of trampled cattails. A leafy grove of old oak trees stood cross the swamp. Access to the other side was over a causeway of crushed rock and railroad ties. Now the roadbed was scattered and submerged. A rut of suction holes marked where someone had tramped back and forth.