The Big Law

eyewitness, said so. Suddenly he’s got lots of credibility, and it’s more believable he killed Gorski, too.”

“Where’s Gorski?” asked Broker.

Garrison shrugged. “Probably going through WITSEC

orientation in D.C., with James.”

“It all comes down to what happened at the waterfall,”

said Broker.

Garrison hunkered forward, gestured with his bottle.

“Could be Keith overreacted. They fought. Somehow James took one in the leg. She fell in, Keith tried to save her. James freaked. But he knew about the money, so he sees a way to escape from his messy little life. He exaggerates, makes it into a war story. Hell, he probably believes Keith pushed her in.”

Broker recalled Keith, his icy rage, strutting in the cell.

“Keith…improvised. He’s taking credit for her death to give himself better cover. Almost like he piled her corpse on a barricade, to hide behind. Which only leaves him with one problem.”

“Yeah,” said Garrison. “James knows what really happened.

James can burn him. Keith reached out to you, didn’t he?”

Broker nodded. “He staged the fight in that holding cell, told me James had the money, to find him.”

“He’s using you. You know that.”

Broker thought of gold wedding rings jingling on Keith’s purple, swollen fingers. On the same hand with the claw marks, the tattoo. Help. That felt more personal than finding money. Something between them. About Caren. He glanced up at the glow of the night-light burning softly in Kit’s window. His safe place. It wasn’t protecting himself that worried him; it was protecting the space where he stopped and Kit started.

Garrison was saying, “I like to read old Civil War journals, stuff written by the actual soldiers. In one account-I think it’s a Union soldier writing about the fighting in the cornfield at Antietam-the word translated is used to describe surviving the point-blank fire. Well, Keith has taken up residence in hell, those wounds on his arm are his permanent passport.

He’s been translated. He’s different now. This isn’t law enforcement, where you catch the bad guy and provide him a lawyer.”

Garrison picked up a smooth cobble and threw it at a breaking wave. “Keith’s at war, and in a war there are acceptable casualties. Caren was one. Ida Rain might be another.

And you could be the next. If you do find James and lead these bastards to him, you won’t be coming back. And that pretty little girl sleeping in there is going to be out one daddy.

That’s why you need some insurance. You roger my last, soldier?”

They finished their beers without talking. Broker listened to the anthem of the surf tossing against the ancient stones.

There were no ethics in nature, no impossible missions, no heroes.

Just survival lessons.

It was an old-fashioned patriotic tragedy, playing to an empty auditorium in the land where Jerry Springer rated number one. The players rose above themselves, tried to do the right thing, and walked straight into the propellers of history. Caren, doomed, ironically, by her husband’s love, died blind to his real motives. Broker’s attempt to fill in at shortstop could still cost Ida Rain her life.

All because Keith had climbed on his Russian cross and decided to go out there and try to save the goddamn world.

69

They took four-hour shifts, watching the cabin down the beach. The next morning, still no electricity. No black Audi.

Routine kicked in. While Garrison slept on the living room couch, Broker put breakfast out for his daughter. Kit called yogurt “aga.” Possibly related to her word for spaghetti, which was “spaga.” Broker noted the new word in the journal he kept for Nina.

He heard a vehicle up on the road, glimpsed the mail truck through the trees. Early. Catching up after the storm. He carried Kit out to pick up the mail. Maybe there would be a letter from Nina.

When he opened the lid to the rural route box he found no letter from his wife. Just junk mail, a phone bill and a manila envelope.

After reading the neat angular printed name on the return address, his stomach churned, sweat popped on his temples: Ida Rain.

He tore open the seal and pulled out several paper-clipped photocopied sheets. A note attached on a memo under the logo of the St. Paul paper. FYI was printed across the top.

Then Ida’s vigorous slanting penmanship:

Broker,

I should have given this to you before, but I was a little embarrassed by what it reveals. But, what the hell.

The notion of Tom’s writing being a link to recent events intrigued me, so I dug out an old manuscript he played with last year.

When you read the first few paragraphs it’s clear he was projecting a personality along the arc of his fantasies, not to mention fine-tuning his narcissism.

The rude part is that he insisted I call him his protagonist’s name in bed. And I confess, I did on occasion.

And when I did, it enhanced his performance. Which was never more than B minus, top end.

I called the local FBI media representative and asked if people entering Witness Protection can choose their new names. It’s common practice that they do, as long as the name is “secure.” I thought you might find this interesting.

Regards, Ida

Broker checked the postmark. Mailed on the day she was attacked. He flipped up the memo and studied the typed pages below.

UNTTTLED

by Tom James

There were first-time suckers and forty-year Vegas Strip alumni at the table, the bejeweled wife of a man who owned the casino sat elbow to elbow with a $500-a-night call girl. What they all had in common was fascination for the tall man with the cold blond hair and steady blue eyes as he blew in his fist to warm the dice. More money was riding on this toss than he had earned last year.

Oblivious to the envious eyes trained on him, and to the chips heaped before him, utterly without hesitation, Danny Storey threw the bones.

There was more, but Broker went back and reread the first paragraph. He did not read literally, he listened to the language. The cry of it.

Disliking the clarity of his imagination, he pictured Ida Rain locked in a carnal embrace with Tom James.

He squinted at the typed paragraph again.

Danny Storey.

Hugging Kit, he said, “I take everything back I ever said about newspaper people.”

Running on the ice, taking the steps two at a time, kicking open the door.

“Garrison!”

“Hiya, Madge.”

“What’s up.” She looked up as Broker came into Dispatch.

Since the National Guard arrived, the pace had slackened.

Madge was alone in the office. Kit had been handed off once more to Sally Jeffords, who said she was going