The Big Law

“Were you fucking my wife, you shit?” hissed Keith, exploding forward, driving Broker off balance, back through the open door to one of the cells. They smashed into the tight masonry pocket, tripped over the stainless steel combin-ation sink and toilet. Keith’s hand at his throat smelled like rotting flesh.

“Think fast. Cells aren’t miked,” Keith rasped.

Broker’s reflexive defensive left hook glanced off Keith’s face. Felt like hitting a pig, hard gristle. But very alert now.

They clinched. Keith’s voice, low, sinister in his ear: “Find James.”

“Wha-?”

“In your yard, James said Caren took the money.”

The outer door burst open. Incoming shoe leather. Keith continued to whisper, “Check Afton. False wall under the antelope. Key, garage light.”

Three guards dove into the cell, tackled Keith. He swung as they tangled him up. Broker took the punch on his arms.

With manic strength, Keith wrenched free, charged. Broker saw the stinging left hand coming, a glitter of gold rings that snapped his head back. Stunned, he got off a wild right hook, which connected with Keith’s nose. They clinched again.

Went down. Keith’s hot sour breath taunted, low, “Catch me a thief.”

Broker saw it was two deputies and Lorn Garrison piled on Keith. This time, breathing heavily, they bore down and cuffed him. “Outside, Angland,” panted a deputy. They hauled him to his feet. Keith shrugged, his nose was bleeding.

He smirked at Garrison.

“How’s it feel, Lorn, to have spent your whole career in law enforcement peeking through keyholes?”

Garrison shoved Keith aside and went to help Broker to his feet.

Keith grinned again, and his gaze locked on Broker’s eyes with icy traction. He hurled his voice like a curse: “You owe me, fucker…”

The last Broker saw of Keith Angland was his broad denim-covered back as the deputies dragged him, yelling, from the transport room. His voice carried crazy off the brushed stone walls: “Owe me…”

The shout ended in a collision of flesh and bone on brick.

“Watch your step there, Keith,” a deputy sang out.

Without a word, another deputy handed Broker the two halves of the torn photograph and escorted Broker and Garrison back up to the master control bubble.

The deputy said, “You want a first aid kit for your face?

See the doctor?”

Broker shook his head.

“We told you he was fucking nuts,” the deputy said in a tired pitiless voice. He turned on his heel and slipped back into the maze, his outline shimmered, then swam away through layers of soundproof, armored glass. Broker and Garrison exited the locked perimeter. Garrison retrieved his weapon from the wall vault, and they left the building.

Garrison dabbed a handkerchief at Broker’s right cheek.

“Got you a little mouse out of the deal.”

Gingerly, Broker took over the hankie and moved his jaw around. He was grateful for the shock of the fight, and the blow to the face. It disguised his rising excitement.

Keith, you devious creep, what are you up to?

In a bruised voice, he said, “He’s not exactly feeling remorse about his wife.”

Garrison shrugged. “Had to try.”

“So,” said Broker. “I tried. What about James?”

The sympathetic Garrison of yesterday had changed into a practical horse trader.

“I can’t bring him back, even if I could, shoot-not like I got a lot of incentive. Keith didn’t say anything new in there.

Just accused you of banging his old lady. You, ah, weren’t banging her, were you?”

Broker flung the bloody hankie at the FBI man’s face.

Garrison plucked the cloth in midair, squinted. “Didn’t think so. But what’d he mean, about you owing him?”

Broker shook his head. “You never meant to cut me in on James.”

Garrison’s shrugged again. Not arrogant, just realistic.

“You know how it is.”

“Yeah,” Broker quipped bitterly, “it’s tough poop.” A concept he was preparing his daughter for.

Garrison smiled, sad, wise, cynical. With a trace of mournful music in his voice, he admonished, “Now you put some ice on that cheek, hear?”

42

It was the money. James and the money. But now it was something else. From the climate-controlled purgatory of the jail, Broker drove south into a picturesque Minnesota snowstorm.

You owe me.

Of course, Keith had always been nuts. Driven, single-minded. Like the Wright Brothers were nuts.

There was the time Keith-in his gadget phase-had this insane notion he could get all the Homicide squad guys to wear these beepers that would send a signal to a tower and the tower would relay to his office at the station, where he could plot the position of all his men, at every moment, on a wall map.

Just like that character in Catch-22, somebody had joked, wiring the platoon together so they’d march better. And Keith had shot back, “I know that book, it mocks authority.”

Owe me.

Broker pummeled the steering wheel. Keith would never bring that up. Had never mentioned it. Unless…

His hand searched for a cigar in his jacket, found the cellophane bag, pulled one out and stuck it in his mouth. Okay.

Break it down. Keith wouldn’t give a straight answer about Caren. But he would link James to the money.

The “owe me” part-Broker grimaced.

God, we were young that night on St. Alban:

That night Broker had been reminded that heroes are like the rest of life, a come-as-you-are party. They can be unbear-able assholes-

And still save your life.

How it had happened at St. Alban was like this: Jimmy Carter was the president and Keith was a sergeant; Broker, J.T., John Eisenhower, and Jeff were patrol grunts. They got the call. Eight in the evening on an inky soft June night. Man with a gun, threatening his family. Little house on St. Alban, on the East Side. When Keith arrived, they had the house secured. The SWAT team had been called. Guy had the family in the kitchen. Wife. Three kids, all under ten years old.

Broker-young, dumb and full of come-crouched at the back door with a shotgun. Could hear the guy raving in there.

This one didn’t want to talk. This one was working up to it.

And that’s what he told Jeff and Keith. What he yelled to J.T.

and John in the front. Can’t wait for SWAT to tie the laces on their spit-shined jump boots. No time.

“He’s gonna do it. We gotta go in.”

So he went, figuring angles, slamming off doorjambs. Air-borne. Ranger. Veteran of house-to- house close combat in a forgotten place called Quang Tri City. Dived on the tacky linoleum, shotgun sweeping on