there. He scrolled to a clean screen and typed
The desk contained basic office supplies, which he took to his room, along with the printed material. Using a Kleenex to mask his fingers, he folded the sheets with the writing on it and slid them in envelopes. Then he used a scissors to cut out the addresses. The desk drawer had a Glue Stic, which he used to affix the addresses to the envelopes. There was also a roll of first-class stamps. Recently purchased. Madonna and child. The stick’em kind. No need to lick. Carefully, again employing Kleenex, he stuck one stamp on Broker’s envelope, eight on the other.
Now he just had to wait until he could sneak them in the mail. He slipped the envelopes into a copy of
Lorn Garrison sat across the kitchen table, rolling a blue tip safety match in his lips. Ex-smoker. He watched Tom read the stories about Caren’s death and Angland’s arrest for the tenth time. Then he leaned over, gathered all the sections and piled them in the wood box. A Franklin woodstove, fire blazing, sat on a pedestal in the center of the room. Lorn bunched one of the sections and tossed it into the flames.
“A little advice,” he said. “Our recommendation carries a lot of weight with the U.S. attorney when he makes his decision to put somebody in the program. But the final say is up to the Marshals Service. And they are real sticklers for detail.
“If the marshals see you drooling over your press clippings, they’ll figure you’ve got an ego connection to your past. They won’t take a chance on you. Catch my drift.”
“Good point.” Tom nodded. But he resented the agent messing with him. He asked, “How long since you quit, Lorn?” The agent narrowed his eyes and Tom smiled. “Your fingers are still stained yellow from nicotine. Camels? Un-filtered Luckies? Pall Malls?”
“Pall Malls,” said Lorn. “And it’s fourteen months.” The agent cleared his throat. “This time.”
Tom hobbled to the windows and wondered if he could get Lorn Garrison to smoke a cigarette as part of his deal.
Whole pack. One after another.
Tom found it interesting, setting up housekeeping with FBI agents. They had been distant figures when he was a reporter. Their personal manners were always obscure behind a tightly controlled official screen. Now he saw them in a relaxed state. Because the safe house was remote, it was easier to do their own cooking than order out. Surprisingly, the laconic Garrison turned out to be the chef.
This afternoon he planned to make spaghetti. He had slipped a red apron over his pinstripe shirt. And, as a concession to static duty in the safe house, he had removed his tie.
The apron bulged over the big pistol on his hip.
Seeing him standing there, wincing a little as he methodically sliced onions, reminded Tom of a scene in
Cooking for an army of hoods who had gone to the mattresses.
“What kind of gun is that?” asked Tom.
“Pistol,” corrected Lorn patiently.
“Okay then, pistol.”
“Forty caliber.”
“Why not a nine millimeter? I thought everybody used nine millimeters?”
Lorn looked warily from side to side, a conditioned reflex.
“Nine millimeter is for pussies,” the agent said phlegmatically.
Tom grinned. Lorn was the kind of material that would make a great color piece on the changing of the guard at the FBI. Probably shook J. Edgar’s dainty little hand when he received his badge. Wonder if he’s ever thought about that dainty little hand buttoning on a dress. But that was too over the top for Garrison. That would probably get Tom knocked on his ass. So he pursued the gun talk: “Why for pussies?”
Lorn smoothly moved the sliced onions aside with the edge of a long butcher knife and assessed a green pepper.
“’Cause it’s a woman’s gun. Light, to fit in their nice little hands. Not too loud. Not too much recoil. Makes tidy little holes. You know; like we don’t really want to hurt anybody.”
A serpent of mannered distaste coiled in his border state accent.
“Can you carry any kind of gu-pistol you want?”
“Forty cal. is the current policy.”
“But if you could pack anything you wanted, what would it be?”
Lorn set the knife down and wiped his hands on a dishtowel. Then he carefully unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves. His forearms were heavy, thick with black hair, liver spots, and freckles. A fading blue tattoo in the shape of a globe, anchor and eagle showed just below his rolled cuff.
“Forty-five.” Lorn was emphatic.
“Isn’t that kind of dated?” observed Tom.
“Yeah,” Lorn grinned. “Make a hole in you the size of this.”
He held up a gnarled right fist.
“You’ve actually seen that?”
Lorn Garrison’s piercing eyes passed right through Tom for a second and then he turned back to his knife and cutting board. Tom thought, So you’ve seen people shot. Big deal.
I’ve
Tom stood up. “I’m going out for a walk. The doctor said it was okay if I take it easy.”
“Take Terry. Just stay down near the shore,” said Lorn.
Before he left, he couldn’t resist dialing up his messages one more time. The first saved message was from Ida. “If you need to talk, Tom, I’m always here…”
He tapped number three twice, which speeded up the message, then he erased it.
Agent Terry was a scrubbed, light-skinned black guy with freckles. Real in-shape. Like Tom was going to be when he became Danny Storey. They were about fifty yards down the beach, making slow progress through driftwood. Tom marveled how fluid his imagination had become. He fantasized Ida Rain’s flawless body, naked and headless, skipping in the cold. Conversationally, he asked, “Hey, Terry, you ever screw an ugly woman?”
Terry quipped, poker-faced, “When I was a little kid I remember seeing a few ugly Negro women. As I got older I might have seen one or two plain black women. But now, THE BIG LAW/143
I know for a fact, there is no such thing as an ugly woman of color-so you must be referring to white women.”
Tom grinned. “But if you wound up with an ugly one-you think making her wear a mask would improve things?” For the rest of the walk, Tom gave Ida back her head-because she gave such great blowjobs-but he made her wear a mask.
After their walk, Tom asked Terry how he stayed in such good shape. So, downstairs, Terry changed to a sweat suit and showed Tom the calisthenics routine he used on the road. It involved stretching, push-ups, crunches, a jump rope and weights. Terry was coaching Tom through the exercises, a little impressed because Tom was taking notes, when cold gravel scattered outside. The agent from Duluth wheeled up to the house with the tape.
26
Lorn, Tom, and Agent Terry gathered before the TV/VCR
in the living room. Front row seats. The others sat in back.
Terry inserted the tape in a Play Pack cassette and pushed it in.
“Okay,” said Lorn. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Terry thumbed the remote. The blinds were pulled. A pack of Red Hot Blues corn chips was open on the coffee table.
Diet Cokes had been set out.
