Homefront. Part 17

The stall was empty.

She parked one floor up in hourly, took the stairs down, and walked a figure eight in the crowd of sleepy-eyed nine-to-fivers getting out of their cars and marching into the skyways. She kept a sharp watch on the parking stall.

Two Merits later: bingo. The s.h.i.+ny black Escalade wheeled in on a plush squeal of Michelin radials. Sheryl took a deep breath. The OMG gang had matured around dope from street thugs into serious big-time crooks. Trick was to be nimble, like a fly zipping through a sticky spiderweb. Get in and out fast. And not get wrapped up and eaten. She walked up to the tinted driver's-side window and tapped.

The window zipped down an inch. An eye appeared in a thick puddle of a gla.s.ses lens.

"Yeah?" said the eye.

She watched the eye cross-reference a databank of faces, names, levels of trust and threat, and quickly reach a decision: "How you doin', Sheryl?"

"Hiya, Werky."

"What's up?"

"Need you to look at something."

The eye fluttered, amused. "Like your tattoo? You still got it?"

Mastering an impulse to puke all over his fancy wax job, Sheryl said, "You gonna make me stand out here in the cold?"

The door locks snapped open. Sheryl walked around the front of the SUV, opened the pa.s.senger-side door, and slid into the deep leather bucket seat.

Same old Werky, piled up like Jabba the Hutt's pinstriped baby brother. He licked his gummy lips and said, "You're looking well, Sheryl. Threadbare but righteous. Sorta like the Little Match Girl."

Sheryl resolved to keep her cool. She had once known a Las Vegas hooker who swore that men were all just physical extensions of their d.i.c.ks. Werky fit the pattern; short, sixty pounds overweight, and lopsided with a head too small for the rest of him.

She removed the sheaf of papers Gator had lifted from Broker's house from her purse and handed them to him.

Seeing the doc.u.ments, Werky's demeanor changed. Focusing fast, he flipped through the pages, his voice concentrating in a meditative "Hmmm." Sheryl sipped the remains of her coffee and waited. Another, longer "Hmmmm" followed by an impressed: "No s.h.i.+t." Now Werky had tilted his thick gla.s.ses down his nose, looking over them as he scanned the warrant, the memo, the Visa statement, and the Was.h.i.+ngton County pay voucher. "The missing puzzle piece. Perhaps," he said slowly. When he looked up at her, his eyes darted fast and alert. "Where'd you get this?"

Sheryl gave him a brief, ambiguous smile.

"So," he said.

"So?" she said.

"You want something," Werky said, waffling the papers in his hand. "In exchange."

Sheryl pursed her lips and said, "Consider it a gift. For now, just make Danny aware of what's in those papers. I know it nags him, the way Jojo checked out. You can talk to Danny, right? So no one's listening in."

"I can do that." Werky c.o.c.ked his head.

"Just tell him I said h.e.l.lo. And, ah, maybe, after you make that call, we could talk again," Sheryl said.

"I see," Werky said slowly, watching her as he heaved in his seat, reached in the back, and pushed open a square leather briefcase the size of a small Duluth pack, started to insert the papers. "May I?"

Sheryl shrugged, "Sure, they're yours."

"Good," Werky said. He tucked the papers out of sight and removed a yellow legal pad, picked up a pen from the dash, and handed pen and pad to her. "Give me a number where you can be reached day or night."

Sheryl jotted down her cell, handed back the pen and pad, and started to open the door.

Werky laid his porcine hand on her arm, friendly. "Nice seeing you again, Sheryl," he said, no games, level and businesslike.

"Yeah, me too," she said.

Werky maintained the pressure on her arm. "Welcome back," he said.

"Yeah," Sheryl said, trying to maintain her una.s.suming expression and stuff her building antic.i.p.ation. s.h.i.+t, they might actually go for this. s.h.i.+t, they might actually go for this.

Werky released her arm; she opened the door and got out. As she closed it, she saw him reaching for the car phone. She headed for the stairs. Three minutes later she was strapped into her seat belt and pulling the Pontiac out of the parking garage.

Chapter Twenty-five.

Nina lay in bed watching the stucco ceiling slowly emerge from darkness; a hieroglyphic of veined cracks and blots of water that had taken months to master and finally read: the stucco ceiling slowly emerge from darkness; a hieroglyphic of veined cracks and blots of water that had taken months to master and finally read: "Crazy," Nina whispered to the half-light in the shuttered bedroom.

Just a word, two syllables, two sounds. That is, until it finally wears you down like a sweaty high school boyfriend who just won't stop insisting: "If you really love me, you'll..."At some point you give in.She had not made love to her husband in over a year. Crazy was the Thing that shared her bed, and now she knew it more intimately than Broker's body. Its smell, its familiar stir, the urgent touch of the incessant demands it made in the night.The last word she said at night. The first word she said every morning.

But this morning something was different, as, beyond the ajar bedroom door, the sounds and smells of morning filled the house and meandered up the stairs. She heard Broker enter Kit's room, pull the window blinds. Heard him say in an upbeat voice, "Not a cloud in the sky. It's gonna be sunny today." Then to Kit, "C'mon, get up. Feet on the deck."

Less distinct was Kit's grumbling as she stirred in the warm covers. Nina pictured her rotating her hips, planting her feet on the floor, rubbing her eyes, and staring at her father as he left the room and went down the stairs.

Kit dressed, made her bed, descended the stairs. Breakfast; a muted clatter, far away. Nina continued to lie on her back, arms across her chest, motionless as a medieval statue on top of a tomb.

Then she moved her arms, stretched, and enjoyed the movement. The inertia trembled around her, crumbling. She dry-washed her arms, her chest, ran her fingers over her face, touched her hair. Pushed off the invisible detritus. In the faint light creeping at the edges of the drawn window shades, she saw the first glow of a Monarch dawn.

Broker entered the room wearing his busted-out work clothes. He c.o.c.ked his head, seeing her sitting up in bed. He'd always been a man who approached you slow and quiet, reserved. Today he was too upbeat. A little jagged.

"Sun's out. You got the house to yourself. I'm going to hang with Griffin today, do a little work," he said.

Then Kit vaulted up on the bed and kissed her on the cheek.

"Bye, Mom."

She waved vaguely, thoroughly enjoying the tactile glide of her skin through the musty air. Then she flopped back in the covers as Broker and Kit left the room. Again she studied the ceiling stains and cracks. Now they hovered; Delphic, potent.

What had changed?

The answer came as she heard them leave the house. She remembered...all of yesterday. Normally, in real-time sequence; not sliced in random wedges. The ceiling had not changed. It was the way she looked at it.

For the first time in months her first thoughts were not of herself, but of Broker. Depression seemed to turn on a simple inside/outside trick. The more you climbed out of your own head, the more you broke its hold. So Broker. After he dropped Kit off at school, he'd go help Griffin at Glacier Lodge. Which was good. He'd been cooped up in the house all winter, and now he was starting to screw up, like leaving the garage open. Losing the cat. His explosion of nerves yesterday morning-raging at the towels in the washer...Then Griffin dropping in after supper. What was that about? She heard the door shut. The truck start up. She was alone.

As she swung her feet off the bed, she felt the sheets and covers; they were dry. Cool to the touch. No longer sweat-fouled. She pulled on her robe, put on her slippers, and walked down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Coming into the room, she paused, eyes downcast out of habit, and braced for her first look at the sky out the windows at the far end of the kitchen.

Fear of clouds that would steal the light.

Nina Pryce-B.A. in liberal arts, master's in business administration, University of Michigan; Phi Beta Kappa; eligible for Mensa, too cool to accept-had come to exist on the superst.i.tious level of an Egyptian peasant from the Middle Kingdom; paying homage to the sun.

This morning she felt a blush of warmth eke in from the east and caress her face. Galvanized by the sunrise, she continued into the room. Broker had cleared away the debris of the previous night, loaded the dishwasher, straightened up the clutter, and wiped all the surfaces clean. A fresh carafe of coffee sat on the counter. She poured a cup, sheltering it close to her chest, and stood huddled in her robe. She faced east, staring out through the patio door, over the deck, the sh.o.r.eline, and the broad gray expanse of Glacier Lake.

The platinum flare of late-winter sun burned through the mist, revealing a layered dawn of burnished seash.e.l.l pink and purple. She smiled, sipped the coffee, and watched the eastern tree line ignite into a happy morning sunrise that hurled bright skipping stones across the lake. Then long shadows jumped out from the cl.u.s.ter of paper birches in the yard. There were mornings she'd recoiled from the birches, seeing skeletal fingers in the crooked white trunks with their black markings. The shadows reaching for the house...

Today they were just trees, and she was able to remember an afternoon when Griffin had stopped over with Teedo, the Indian guy who worked with him. Teedo had explained to Kit how the birches got their markings. Nanboujou, the Ojibwa trickster, had angered the thunderbirds who were pursuing him through the forest. He'd ducked into a hollow birch trunk. The thunderbirds, unable to stop, had smacked into the trunk, leaving for all time their skid marks...

A normal thought.

Just trees. The shadows they cast stopped midway up the yard.

Nina set down her coffee cup and walked through the entire first level of the house, opening the shades and drapes, drenching the rooms with light. Stronger now, she refilled her cup and threw open the patio door, stepped onto the deck, and felt the pale sunlight on her face. The nip of the cold air.

She went back in hungry. A bowl of Total, a banana. Toast and peanut b.u.t.ter. Fuel. For the weights in the living room.

After breakfast, a tremble of doubt as the force of habit set in. A lingering whisper of the Crazy. A time of pacing on the deck, opening a fresh pack of cigarettes, brewing a second pot of coffee, waiting for the sunlight to slowly exorcize the darkness from the house. As the sun arced overhead, the shadows fleeing to the west would stall, retract, and began to shrink down and finally disappear. When the house was cleansed of darkness, she could finally begin her day.

Not today.

She poured the coffee into the sink, extinquished the cigarette, and went into the living room to confront the second challenge of the day.

The weights.

The dumbbells lined up on the broad seat of the bay window in the living room; nine pairs of them-five pounds to fifty.

The numbing two-pound repet.i.tions of the physical therapy had been completed. She raised her right arm, no longer antic.i.p.ating the tug as it approached shoulder level. Rotated her elbow left and right. No tug. No pain. Okay. The soft tissue had healed. To a point. She drew her shoulder blades together, aligning the bones in her shoulder and her back like the tumblers on a combination. Almost audible clicks as she slowly elevated the arm over her shoulder. She paused there, evaluating the slight hitch. Lowered her arm. Encouraged, she picked up the ten-pound weight. Lifted it smoothly.

She put down the ten and grasped the fifteen. Brought it up in a biceps curl. Then she raised her elbow and lifted her whole arm and felt the warning catch in the complicated architecture of her right shoulder. Just like yesterday. The impinged shoulder accepted ten, but protested and quit at fifteen.

She inhaled and started up again. Sweat popped on her forehead. A strand of hair fell across her eyes. She huffed a breath, blew the hair away, and lifted the weight, got to shoulder level, and hit the solid lock of the blown-out bursa.

Trembling, she lowered the weight. For a month she'd been telling herself: tomorrow, just keep gobbling down the Tylenol. Placate the inflamed bursitis. It'll start mending tomorrow. Knit back together, then the strength would come...

She let the weights fall to the carpet, turned, walked into the kitchen, out the door, and sat on the deck.

Stop kidding yourself. It was time to face the truth. It was time to face the truth.

Chapter Twenty-six.

Harry Griffin woke up feeling the warm impression Susan had left in his bed. She'd left early, in a hurry, driving to Bemidji. But her words were fresh in his mind, how he should help his friend. feeling the warm impression Susan had left in his bed. She'd left early, in a hurry, driving to Bemidji. But her words were fresh in his mind, how he should help his friend.

He unsheathed the notion slowly over breakfast, as he filled his work thermos with coffee, made a sandwich. Sort of laid it out on the table, looked at it. There was another layer to this thing. The skiing part kept coming back, didn't track. Not for Jimmy.

Susan had invoked the subject of Gator Bodine. Another local mystery man, living alone in his spooky woods with his treasure trove of antique tractors. Only came into town to get his groceries, or d.i.c.ker over machine parts at Shulty's Implements.

And to ski the trails around the big lake.

He pictured Gator, hard packed with his grease-monkey muscles. Convict pensive. Spiky hair and perpetual two-day beard like a sweaty wire brush. Sporting his famous tattoo. They had never actually spoken, only nodded from a distance at the Last Chance Amoco or Perry's grocery. Like two big dogs, maybe. Knew of each other by reputation, respected each other's territory.

Bound to collide eventually.

So instead of driving straight to the job site, he took a run through town, out to Jimmy's garage. Coming up on Klumpe Sanitation, he saw Jimmy's brown Ford parked in front. Saw Jimmy through the open garage door, was.h.i.+ng down one of his trucks in a billow of steam.

Okay, let's do a little community outreach.

He parked next to the Ford and walked in through the open door.

Jimmy, hosing down his best Labrie garbage truck, wearing high rubber boots, watched the red Jeep wheel into the yard. Knew it was Griffin. Knew every car and truck in town. Now what's he want? He turned off the hose and waited for Griffin to approach through the cloud of steam rising off the wet concrete.

They didn't particularly care for each other.

Like Keith, Griffin was one of the men in town Jimmy couldn't intimidate. In fact, Griffin could be downright scary. Jimmy'd been in Skeet's couple years back; the November night a group of drunk hunters, up from the cities, jumped Keith's deputy, Howie Anderson, brained him out with a cue ball. Keith showed up a few minutes later with Griffin in tow for backup. The drunks unloaded a volley of pool b.a.l.l.s, and Jimmy recalled in pins-and-needles detail how Griffin had flashed fast-forward into the drunk-footed crowd. How he had snapped off a pool cue in a corner pocket, b.u.t.t-stroked two guys to the floor in blinding succession, and then jammed the jagged end of the stick up against this big dude's throat.

Jimmy clearly remembered the little beads of blood on the guy's neck, Griffin looking unhappy it was ending, taunting in a voice that had given Jimmy the s.h.i.+vers, "What's the spirit of the bayonet, motherf.u.c.ker."

Happened so fast.

No way Jimmy wanted Harry Griffin speeding up into his life. Not now, especially with the dicey arrangement he and Ca.s.sie had going with Gator. Uh-uh.

"Morning, Griffin," he said in a neutral tone.

"Let's skip the chitchat. You don't like me, I don't like you. But me and Keith had a talk with Phil Broker last night..."

"Yeah?"

"There's been some petty s.h.i.+t going back and forth. Nothing that can be exactly pinned on anybody. Is that a fair a.s.sessment?"

"f.u.c.ker dumped his garbage in front of my office. That's what I know, 'cause Halley, my driver, saw him leaving. So I called Keith. And his sneaky kid sucker-punched Teddy," Jimmy said slowly, belligerently. Adding a scowl.

Oh-oh, the scowl was a mistake.

Because Griffin stepped in close and stabbed his right hand, stiff fingers tight together, into Jimmy's chest. Hard, so it hurt. Jimmy's hands started to come up defensively but stopped when he saw the merry antic.i.p.ation in Griffin's eyes, like he'd enjoy seeing Jimmy bleed at eight in the morning. Jimmy backed up. Griffin grinned, a sort of wild, mindless face, like an animal who smells fear. d.a.m.n.