The Big Law

“An embalmer’s syringe full of hot ink, straight in your heart.”

Instantly practical: “Where shall we meet?”

“Someplace private, your house.”

She gave him directions. She left work in half an hour.

He worked his way back toward St. Paul, took the Cretin exit off of U.S. 94, continued south down Cleveland Avenue and turned on Sergeant. Ida lived across from a junior high.

Kids made bright blurs in the dusk, walking home in those absurd baggy pants. No snowball fights. No chasing and yelling.

Computer kids. Weak arms-different from the kids who climbed trees. Then he saw a suicidal skateboarder zoom on the ice.

Maybe not so different.

He checked the address she’d given him, found it, parked in front, got out, walked up the steps and knocked.

Ida swung open the door, looking fresh in a long, reserved burgundy dress after eight hours in the office. She ran her hand through her hair. “I just got home. Come in.”

He entered. She took his coat and hung it in the hall closet.

“Ah, watch your step,” she cautioned.

Crossing the living room he had to detour around a large-as in six by five feet-jigsaw puzzle laid out on the carpet. About a quarter of the tiny pieces were assembled, framed by loose corners. A constellation of colored cardboard filled the surrounding room.

“What is it?” Broker asked.

“The Tower of Babel. It’s a Ravensburger.”

“How many pieces?”

Ida shrugged. “Nine thousand.”

Except for the puzzle, Ida’s house was neater than he could imagine living. The old rambler was dense with ribbed cur-licued woodwork that insurance companies won’t insure anymore because the replacement value was off the charts.

She collected knickknacks. Teak elephants, Asian brass, pre-Columbian stone figures-probably souvenirs of world-trot-ting vacations. An old walnut-paneled Philco stand-alone radio sat in the corner of her dining nook.

A female bachelor’s house. Orderly, free of dust, and just shy of severe.

“Is coffee right? Or tea?” she asked.

“Tea sounds good.”

Her body swept like a sensual wand through her immaculate kitchen. Like the knickknacks on her shelves, her clothing was perfectly arranged, every crease and fold deliberate.

“Should I call you Mr. or Deputy?” she asked.

“Broker’s fine.”

“Sit down, Broker.” She pointed to one of the two chairs at the small table.

Broker sat and watched the teakettle. And her. Being married to a prodigy of Title Nine, he now noticed women who grew up forbidden to sweat. Ida was tremendously physical but in no way athletic. She’d wear blue jeans, but never get them dirty.

When the kettle boiled, she poured water into a teapot and placed the pot, two cups, two teaspoons, napkins, two tiny ceramic wafers to hold the used tea bags, a creamer and a sugar bowl on the kitchen table.

Then she brought her purse from the counter next to the stove, sat down and steepled her fingers. “I’m willing to share information with you. This puts me in a ticklish ethical situation. I’m a very private person.”

She pulled a folded sheet of paper from her purse. The copy of the sick, one-page letter he’d left with her.

“I resisted doing this because, frankly, I don’t like where it goes.” She placed her hand, palm down, fingers spread on the letter. “Tom could have written this. This part.” She tapped a stanza toward the end. “About the rats. There’s one particular grisly image. The gnawed bones. The marrow.”

“Go on.”

Ida nodded. “Two years ago, I worked the copy desk when Tom was general assignment. He covered an ugly story about an abandoned toddler locked in a basement in a condemned house. She’d died of malnutrition and animals got to her.

He was working on a tight deadline and I edited his raw copy.

“He wrote a straightforward story until he described the condition of the baby’s remains. Suddenly his language went into this over-the-top fascination with a single image. I remember it almost verbatim-along the lines of, ‘in the harsh glow of a naked light bulb, the tiny wrist bones had been snapped and the marrow methodically scooped out.’”

Ida made a face, sipped her tea. “He can’t help himself.

It’s like his signature. He writes a straight news story and then gets caught on one detail that he inflates with runaway similes and metaphors. The first thing I’d do with his stories was go straight for the overwritten item.” She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. “Just my opinion. Not exactly proof.”

Broker disagreed. “That’s how they caught Kaczynski; his brother recognized the phrasing in the Unabomber Manifesto and called the feds.”

Ida exhaled. “Tom is feeling sinister all of a sudden.”

Yesterday, Broker might have agreed with her. Today, James’s desperate motives were overshadowed, and he was reduced to a flawed little man who had blundered onto a huge chessboard. But Broker couldn’t say that to Ida. Or Jeff. Or even Nina. He only glimpsed the barest outline himself.

“My turn,” he said.

“Wait.” Ida rotated her teacup in her long fingers. In a cool, wagering voice, she asked, “You don’t like journalists, do you?”

Broker shrugged. “You know how it goes. The dog that bit me.”

“Be more specific,” she said.

Broker explained, “You don’t tell the truth. Two of you can read a police report and come up with two different versions of the crime, neither of which are completely faithful to the original.”

He picked up the tea cup and studied it in his hand. “The newsie comes and asks the cop what’s going on. The dumb cop says it’s an empty blue and white teacup with little flowers on it. The newsie goes back to the office and turns real life into a story with his name on it. Has to jazz it up. Find somebody to balance the facts from another perspective. Say they remember the cup when it was full once.

If it’s a big story, they’ll grab at anything.” He looked straight into her eyes. “Real life doesn’t fit into tidy stories, Ida.”

“Real life doesn’t even fit into most lives, Broker,” she replied, boldly holding his gaze.

Slowly, her slim hand reached across and gently disen-tangled the teacup from his fingers. She placed it flat, picked up the teapot and poured it half full. Her eyes swept his face.

The cup was no longer his literal example. Now it was that powerful cliche: half full or half empty.

Broker asked, “How did you wind up with James?”

She touched her hair with her right hand and looked away.

When she faced him again, her eyes registered the faintest glisten. “Maybe I can’t compete with the Nina Pryces of the world for guys like you.” She composed herself. “All I try to do is improve things,” she said simply.

Broker waited a few beats, for the air to clear. Then he got up. “I’d appreciate it if you’d give what I’m about to tell you to Wanger. We go back a way.”

“Sure.” She bounced back from vulnerable fast as a speed bag. Stood up.

“Probably the place for him to start is the Hennepin County coroner’s office. Apparently they have a direct line to the horse’s mouth at the FBI lab in Virginia.” He smiled.

“Tease.” She lifted slightly, forward. Up on her toes.

“The famous tongue, that was mailed to the federal building? That they announced in a news conference as being a male tongue. And hinted it came out of a missing FBI informant…”

“Well?” She kind of twitched. A full-body, news-junkie twitch.