think about how it had been incurred.
Abruptly Jenke got up, turned and lumbered to the door. He nodded to the guard and never looked back. The door opened and Waldo Jenke disappeared.
The guard came to the table and pointed to the Bible. “He told me that’s for the lady. Because she used to visit Jimmy. No good to Walls. He’s terminally dyslexic. He can’t read word one. All TV, that guy.” The guard paused. “Ah, you all right, miss?”
“Oh yes,” said Nina. Her eyes glistened. “Just fine.”
25
They sat on the floor in Nina’s apartment halfway through a deluxe Domino’s pizza with excitement smearing their eyes as hot as the grease on their fingers. Broker took in the reins on his runaway imagination. When you’re charged up, you overlook things.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Where’s that Bible?” He got up and washed and dried his hands. When he picked up the Bible, Nina squirreled in close and recited, “Everything Jimmy Tuna does is for a reason.”
“Need a sharp knife,” said Broker.
With a small paring knife he slit the plump water-swollen back cover and peeled away the mildewed cardboard. He removed a square of folded paper.
“Bingo,” said Broker.
“What is it?”
“Follow the money.” He unfolded the paper and held it up for her to see. “It’s a customer consent form from the goddamn bank allowing Nina Pryce to see his records.”
“He’s playing games with us,” mused Nina. “Poor Jimmy, sitting on a fortune, then-do not pass go, do not collect ten tons of gold, go directly to jail and get cancer.”
Abruptly Broker looked her in the eye. Their visit with Waldo had nudged him toward her conspiracy theory. “Nina, this ‘poor’ guy might have killed your father.”
Nina went out on her small balcony and stood in the light rain for a few minutes. She returned more sober and said, “During the inquiry, it came out. The radio call. They were damaged and setting down for repairs. Remember?”
Broker remembered. “Tuna testified they didn’t land.”
“They made an emergency landing.”
“Maybe,” said Broker.
“They did, and they dumped my dad with it.” On their knees, bumping foreheads, they unrolled LaPorte’s Xeroxed nautical map. Broker studied the familiar coast of central Vietnam-Quang Tri Province below the old DMZ. Where he’d been. LaPorte had marked the wreck off the coast of the next province to the south, Thua Thien, where Hue City was located.
Broker shook his head. “That’s for a boat. We need a one to fifty thousand grid, a tactical map. Then what have we got? We could draw an arc around Hue based on a loaded Chinook’s probable flight time. And it was rainy, humid; that affects a chopper’s lift. To handle a ten-ton load they probably cut back on fuel. And it was hit by ground fire. So how do we estimate the air speed or even if they were flying in a straight line? It could be anywhere, north into Quang Tri Province, south. Hell, they could get to Laos. Even if we find him, if he doesn’t have a precise location we’re screwed.”
But they were getting close.
Nina’s brow bunched in concentration. “So how do we find him?”
“It has to be in his banking records. That’s your job.” Broker waved his pizza slice at the consent form on the coffee table. “I go to New Orleans and get reacquainted with Cyrus LaPorte.”
“I don’t like splitting up,” she said.
“It’ll save time.”
Nina studied him carefully and backed off before it became a test of wills. “Okay,” she said.
Broker nodded. “Up till now it’s been mostly talk. Once I call LaPorte the thing’s in motion.”
“How are you going to play it?” she asked.
Broker shrugged. “Burned-out cop starts doing an old war buddy’s daughter a favor and sniffs a stash of found money to which he has a peculiar link. He has a map with a location. He sees a once in a lifetime blackmail angle to parley that map into an early retirement bonus.” Which wasn’t that far from the truth.
“And me?”
Broker grinned. “I think you’re the nutcase albatross hanging around everybody’s neck. LaPorte’s playing philanthropist. I’ll appeal to his charitable side to get you some help: Expensive long-term therapy. How’s that sound?”
“Kiss my rock-hard buns.”
“I thought you’d like it.”
Nina reached for the phone and handed it to Broker. “Let’s do it.”
Broker nodded and punched in the New Orleans number. LaPorte’s screening machine was purely utilitarian. “You have reached…leave a message.”
After the beep Broker said in his best judgmental cop voice: “This is Det. Lt. Phillip Broker from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. We’re old asshole army buddies. Right now I have a fugitive from an Elvis lookalike contest named Bevode Fret cooling it in a jail cell. He keeps getting calls at his hotel room from this number. I also have Ray Pryce’s daughter, who can charge Fret with felonious assault. Let’s talk.” He left Nina’s number.
The call from New Orleans came back in ten minutes. A callow young voice, “So why should General LaPorte talk to some Yankee copper?”
“Ask him what doesn’t fly anymore and sits in a hundred feet of water. I’ll be on LaPorte’s doorstep tomorrow at three P.M. Put me first on his schedule.”
There was a pause. Then, “I’ll pass it on.”
“Three o’clock in the afternoon, cornpone.” Broker hung up and smiled.
“You’re having a good time.”
“Absolutely.” Then Broker pawed in his wallet for the flight numbers and times he’d gotten from Larson. He called J.T.’s home in St. Paul and left a message on his machine. “Calling in a chit. Nina is arriving at Minneapolis-St. Paul on Northwest 97 from Detroit at five-thirty P.M. on Monday. Need you to meet her at the airport. Appreciate it if you could keep an eye on her till I get back in town.”
“I can take care of myself,” Nina reminded him.
“I know. I’m just old fashioned.”
The phone calls completed, Broker leaned back and sighed.
“Good. What else?”
“We’re set,” said Nina.
“My flight leaves Detroit at nine-thirty in the morning.”
Nina nodded. “I should get you to the gate by nine A.M.”
“By eight. I need to play credentials with airport security about that.” Broker pointed to the.45 laying in its holster on a chair. “Enough. We need some sleep.”
26
Broker took a shower, changed the dressing on his thumb, and swallowed two Tylenol. Leery of using too many antibiotics, he’d left them behind in Minnesota.
The rain had stopped and now a sweet, warm June breeze teased in through the open windows and balcony door. Nina’d laid out sheets for him on the couch so he draped a sheet toga-fashion around his waist and shoulders
