15
Deadline pressure was one thing. Dead people was another.
And raw fear was something else. Until this morning it had lurked on the streets between the safe buildings of his life.
“Is someone following you right now?” he asked, looking around.
“Not anymore. I did the old serpentine car switch in the Hertz parking garage. Keith showed me how-the prick. He learned it at the FBI Academy.”
“Did he do that to your face?” Tom asked.
“Yes he did.”
Tom’s thing was talking and writing. He drew the line at physical violence. He thought of Lorn Garrison. Big hands and shoulders-as big as Angland’s. Lorn had a gun. Hell.
Lorn was federal. He had the marines. He turned and looked back at the skyline of St. Paul dropping below the horizon.
“We’re going in the wrong direction. We should go to the FBI,” he stated.
“There’s somebody I have to see first,” Caren said doggedly.
“Who?”
“My ex-husband.”
“Why?” Tom’s voice strangled. Ex-husband? The situation took a sickening pulp fiction plunge.
“Because he can protect us and I need his advice.”
“About what?” Tom yelled.
“What do you think? About what I should
“No you don’t.” Tom dug out his wallet. He held up Garrison’s card. “I can call the guy who was at my place this morning. Right now, on my cell phone. He’s ten minutes away, day or night, he told me.”
“But then I wouldn’t get to see Phil.”
Tom stared at her, confused.
“Look,” she explained. “Once the feds see what I’ve got they’re going to stick me in protective custody. Before that happens I want to talk to Phil, I want to make sure what I have. And he’ll know the best way to negotiate.”
“Negotiate?” There was something wrong here. Some im-balance.
“Yes,” said Caren brightly. “Because I might be looking at Witness Protection.”
“That’s forever.” Tom’s head snapped to the left, alert.
“So is turning over a federal informant to the bad guys.
Where do you think that goddamn tongue came from.” She pounded the steering wheel with both fists so hard her sunglasses fell off. “And…he
“Jesus.” He reached to steady the wheel. Her swollen cheek pulsed. Her eyes were…fury. “I think I’d better drive,” he said.
Caren ignored him, set her jaw and stuck her glasses back on. “You don’t rat out brother cops for money, that’s basic…”
her voice trailed off.
Tom mumbled, “I don’t get it, you know this how?”
“It’s on tape. I filmed it,” said Caren.
“Filmed what?” Tom’s voice broke.
“What Keith did. Why the feds are after him.” She jammed her hand into her purse and withdrew a compact plastic cassette. “Right here. If it’s all right with Phil, you can give it to the FBI.”
“Keith ratting out an FBI informant, taking money from some guys who run rackets in Chicago. They’re opening up a dope business here and Keith gave him the keys to the state. Check it out,” said Caren grimly. She slung her head back, indicating the cargo area to the rear. “That suitcase is full of money they gave him, packets of hundreds. It was in our basement.”
“Stop the car!” shouted Tom, transfixed.
She pulled over onto the shoulder, worried he might be sick. He was out before the wheels stopped rolling, walked to the rear, and oblivious to the traffic rushing by, tried to open the hatchback. Locked. Impatiently he waited for Caren to come around and unlock the rear hatch. He lifted it and climbed in with the suitcase and seized the handles in both hands. Heavy. His heart fluttered. It could be fifty pounds.
His fingers flew over the clasps and clicked them open.
Caren hugged herself. A semitrailer rocketed past. Blasted her two inches sideways.
Tom opened the bag and-
He was just a gentle tug of a man. He’d spent his life quietly pulling on loose threads and hoping one of them would lead to a big fish. Until this moment. What a mighty urge came over him-to reach out and
Who-what-where-when-why-how.
Only then did he realize that he had taken one of the bills.
He turned it in his fingers. Ben Franklin’s subtle smile gazed enigmatically up at him. Questioning.
“So, who’s your ex-husband?” he asked, more calmly.
“He’s”-she paused-“married to Nina Pryce.”
Tom sat up. He never forgot a name he’d read in a headline. “She’s the one…the army, some stink from Desert Storm?”
“That’s right, the one with the Joan of Arc complex. The first woman ever to pee standing up.” Etched acid diction.
“So, ah, what’s he do?”
“He has this chair at his kitchen table. When you’re in trouble you go sit there and explain it to Phil.”
“I see,” said Tom dubiously.
“No you don’t.”
“Where’s he live?”
“Right now he’s up on the North Shore. Past Grand Marais.”
Tom tried to gauge her. An ex-husband suddenly waiting in the wings had an uncertain edgy feel. On the other hand, Grand Marais was the end of the world, and that gave him time to think about the best way to orchestrate…
The story, he reminded himself. All that money and he’d actually touched it. Right back there.
“Are you…involved with your ex-husband?” he asked.
She actually blushed. Horrible to see under the swollen bruises. “Phil. God no. I haven’t seen him in years.”
“Does he know we’re coming?”
Caren nodded. “I called him and told him I was in trouble.”
Her lower lip began to tremble. “I told him Keith hit me.”
Every time she mentioned being hit she trembled with anger. She shouldn’t be driving. He should get her off the 76 / CHUCK LOGAN
road. The safe thing would be to call Lorn Garrison right now. Jesus Christ-he had a tape.
“Once we get up north you’ll give me the tape?”
“Right. I want you to crucify the sonofabitch.”
