The Price of Blood

Nina jumped up from a bench on the back porch and waved him in. “He called, the ATF guy.”

Broker breathing hard, his thumb banging, “What did he say?”

“Wouldn’t talk to me, said for you to call him back.”

Broker punched in Ryan’s number. Nina plucked the cordless phone from the bedroom.

Ryan said, “Your guy’s cell mate is a lifer who’s never getting out. Name is Waldo Jenke. He’s a real yard bull. I mean big. Name he goes by in the joint is Walls. Whiskey alpha lima lima sierra.”

“What’s he in for?” But Broker was thinking. Jimmy needed someone to watch his back if Cyrus was after him.

“Creepy shit. He kidnapped children and their pets in Michigan and Illinois in the late seventies. When he was through with them he buried them together on his farm. He was back before video. He took Polaroids.”

“Any notes on him?”

“Ah, he fixated on pictures of his victims. That’s what caught him. They found a picture of a Rottweiler named Heidi in his truck during a routine traffic stop. They let him out of maximum security five years ago and put him out to pasture in Milan. The bureau hasn’t been forth-coming on the paperwork thing.”

“Keep trying. Thanks, Ryan.”

Nina came into the main room and gave Broker a thumbs-up sign. He went to the fridge, took out a bottle of Grain Belt and popped it open on the opener screwed to the counter. Grinning, he kicked open the screen door and went out through the front porch, down the stairs and the path, and out to his favorite rock. Nina followed him.

He sat down and watched the storm marshal its artillery.

“Nineteen-eighty.” Broker savored a swig of beer and poked the bottle at Nina. “In July 1980 the gold market peaked. That’s why LaPorte lost his cookies with Tuna.”

“All that gold appreciating like hell and it’s rusting at the bottom of the ocean and only Tuna knows where it went down.”

“Gold doesn’t rust,” said Broker.

“LaPorte found a helicopter wreck,” Nina speculated. “But maybe it’s the wrong wreck-”

“Could be. And if Jimmy knows where it is, he’s willing to tell us something. He sure isn’t making himself available to LaPorte.” Broker pulled Tuna’s crumpled note from his pocket, smoothed it out and pointed to Trin’s name.

Nina cocked her head. “Trin and my dad were friends. But I don’t see how he fits.”

“It could mean that Tuna, in prison, somehow located Trin in Vietnam after twenty years.” The idea excited Broker. “If Trin’s in our future he’d work better with somebody he knows. And the trail Tuna is setting up probably needs an investigator to follow.” Broker paused. “The thing about Jimmy Tuna, he loved pulling practical jokes. And setting booby traps. Fall asleep on ambush, Jimmy would tie your bootlaces together.”

“So it could be a trap for us, too?”

“That’s the fun, isn’t it?” said Broker with a tight smile.

“What about Trin? The phone number?” Nina asked. “You want to give it a try?”

“Let’s wait. I don’t want to bump into Trin blind after twenty years.”

“He helped save your neck in Quang Tri City. You saved his. I thought he was a buddy?”

“Nguyen Van Trin was a strange guy. He fought for the Commies and for us and was disgusted with both sides. He even designed his own flag. A white lotus in a sea of fire.” Broker shook his head. “The only person Trin is buddies with is the ghosts of his ancestors. We’ll wait.”

Their voices had dropped a register and their heads had drawn close. Nina’s eyes were slits. “Now that you’re hooked on gold fever, let me explain where my interest lies. He knows how to get LaPorte. Jimmy does.”

“Wishful thinking.”

“No. He knows. He showed me. But it was like the pension. I didn’t see it.” Her voice trailed off and her eyes conjured.

Her enthusiasm was going to be a definite obstacle. But he needed her. How much he wasn’t sure. At least to talk to this Jenke character and hopefully pick up Tuna’s trail. As an excuse to see LaPorte.

“How about we find Jimmy Tuna and ask him,” Broker said with a gentle hint of rebuff. “And let’s spend some of your money. Grab a charter to Ann Arbor and talk to Waldo Jenke. Then I’ll need a day in New Orleans to see LaPorte before Bevode Fret gets out of jail.”

“There’s fifty thousand in the bank in Ann Arbor. I’ll spend it all to clear Dad’s name and to see LaPorte stand trial.”

Broker cautioned her again. “None of this is proof. The fact LaPorte may have found gold in the ocean doesn’t connect him with the alleged robbery or your dad’s death.”

“But he was in command,” said Nina.

“True,” said Broker patiently. “But he wasn’t there. And Tuna would have to change his story and impeach his earlier testimony, which means he’s a liar. And he’s dying. LaPorte has the right to cross-examine his accuser. And there’s no court with the jurisdiction to charge LaPorte for a criminal act during an undeclared war twenty years ago in a country that doesn’t even exist anymore.”

Nina stood up and put her hands on her hips. “Wrong. When you take that oath to the U.S. Constitution, it’s forever, mister. I told you. Tuna knows a way.” She spun and tramped up the path to the cabin. A minute later she came back down the path and tossed a thick oxblood-covered text book into his lap. Broker read the cover: UNITED STATES CODE ANNOTATED, TITLE 10, ARMED FORCES, 1 TO 835.

Broker clicked his teeth. The UCMJ. The Uniform Code of Military Justice. A Post-it note marked the pages. He opened to it and struggled through a paragraph underlined in yellow marker: “803. Article 3. Jurisdiction to try certain personnel: (a) Subject to section 843 of this title (article 43), a person who is in a status in which the person is subject to this chapter and who committed an offense against this chapter while formally in a status in which the person was subject to this chapter is not relieved from amenability to the jurisdiction of this chapter for that offense by reason of a termination of that person’s former status.”

“Define ‘certain personnel,’” said Broker.

“Once you’re in, and you’re an officer type and you’re eligible for a pension, you’re never really out. There’s precedent. I ran it kind of obliquely by a JAG guy I know. They reactivated a retired colonel in the seventies and tried him for misappropriating canteen funds in Vietnam in nineteen sixty-six.”

“Where’d you get this?”

“That’s my point. I didn’t underline that. Jimmy Tuna did. It was in the package he left the day he stood me up at prison. That note and the Newsweek page were folded, marking the section.”

Broker was impressed. It suggested another level to the thing.

Her eyes sharpened to pencil points. “So you’re a cop. Solve me a bank robbery.”

She was working on a full body flush of anticipation. Broker leaned away from her infectious excitement. “You got stars in your eyes. We need evidence,” he cautioned.

“Why would Jimmy give me the UCMJ unless he had evidence? But I need you to find him.”

“Before God does,” said Broker. “And we could still come up empty. And if you really want to nail LaPorte, it may not happen in the strict legal sense.”

“No. You can get the pieces any way you want, but I do it by the book. He gets tried. It gets on the record. My dad gets his name cleared.” Very serious, she planted her knuckles on her hips.

He reappraised Nina Pryce again. This time with pure intuition. She thought LaPorte’s head on a platter could pave her way back into the army. So she had a little Pluto in her, too. And stars in her eyes. Two, at least. One for each shoulder. He said, “I’m going to get some of it-”

“That’s your business.” She looked away. “I won’t help you steal. But what I don’t see, I don’t know.”

“This will go down in Vietnam. No sense letting the Communists have it.”

“It,” said Nina coolly.

He gazed across the turbulent plain of Lake Superior. There were three of them now. The third being a tangible presence that neither he nor Nina would invite out of the silence. The faint, dry rustle crept down the centuries, twisted serpentine through the bones of Cortes and Pizarro and Sir Francis Drake, and whispered in his ear.