The Price of Blood

LaPorte inhaled, blew a stream of smoke and immediately rested two fingers on his left wrist to test his pulse. Broker remembered what his dad had said and he wondered if LaPorte, who was in his early sixties, had glimpsed death creeping the iron lilacs, staking out squatter’s rights on his estate. LaPorte tossed the smoke away and made a face. “I haven’t had one of those in eight years.” He spun on Broker. “So you can see why I’m not crazy about Nina Pryce nosing around in my affairs.”

“What do you care. You’ve found your helicopter.”

“Goddammit, man, we’ve gridded the bottom and sonar mapped the whole area. We’ve been all over that wreck and we’ve got bones and coral-wrapped hand grenades, but we’ve only brought up seven bars of gold,” said LaPorte. “It’s not there.”

“And you think Tuna knows where it is?”

With a glare like point-blank muskets, LaPorte fumed, “Of course I do. Don’t fuck around. So do you!”

29

The woman walked out from beneath the balcony, staying to the dappled shadows along the right side of the pool deck. Divots of sunlight peeked through the hedge and caught in her dark hair and flowed in snake-skin patterns on her olive arms and legs. She wore a high-necked T-shirt and light shorts like a coat of black cotton paint and she carried a faded blue rubber mat under her arm. She used absolutely every muscle in her body in the simple act of walking.

Broker’s eyes stayed fixed on the woman as she knelt and smoothed out her mat.

“I don’t know about Minnesota, but down here it’s not considered polite to stare at a man’s wife,” said LaPorte.

“Very attractive,” said Broker.

“Really? All you can see is her back.”

“And young.”

LaPorte snorted. “No, Lola’s merely well preserved.”

Impolitely, Broker continued to stare at Lola LaPorte as she swung her body through a continuous series of postures. Her limbs swung light as balsa, but they were anchored in the tension of driven pilings.

Yoga. Irene Broker studied it to file down the teeth of aging. But Mom did it on rocks.

LaPorte leaned over the balcony and called out, irritably, “Lola, cut that shit out and come over here.”

Lightly she unwound from a pose and stood, staring up at them. Her large eyes, wide cheeks, full lips, and perfect shoulder-length hair communicated a certain taboo physical range: rich guy’s wife. As cool in the tropical heat as a pristine winter shadow Lola LaPorte walked halfway to the balcony and put her hands on her hips. “What?” she said, annoyed, not turning her face up.

LaPorte rose and leaned over the balcony. “Mr. Phillip Broker is up here, he’s the detective from Minnesota we discussed last night. I get the impression he’s embarking on a new career as a blackmailer.”

“Is he here to study or to practice?” said Lola in a bored voice. Broker appreciated that the LaPortes, in conversation, volleyed a siege energy of contempt.

LaPorte made a face and lowered his voice. “You married, Broker?”

“Divorced.”

“Kids?”

Broker shook his head.

“I wanted kids,” said LaPorte in a sour tone. Then he called to his wife. “I was thinking of inviting Mr. Broker to supper.”

“Sorry, I have plans,” said Broker who didn’t want to seem too eager to curry LaPorte’s favor.

“So does Cyrus,” said Lola sweetly. She waved her wrist idly in parting and returned to her exercise.

LaPorte grimaced and then inclined his palm back toward his office and they went inside and sat in the chairs in front of the desk. This time their eyes were on the same level. “Let’s get down to it, Phil. I’ll tell you what I want. You tell me what you want.”

Broker waited, expressionless.

“I need Nina Pryce contained,” said LaPorte. “Bought off, diverted, made happy, whatever it takes. Things are too delicate right now to have a loose cannon on deck. Second, I have to locate Tuna.” He held up his hand. “Let me enlarge a bit: I’ve had Tuna watched for years. Every approach I’ve made to him he turned down. When Nina started visiting him I had her watched. So, after she went to see you last January, I’ve had you checked out in detail.

“Bevode can do more than drag his knuckles. He ran a credit profile on you. We know you’ve been trying to arrange large loans through your employees’ credit union. We’ve been in contact with Neil Naslund, the banker in Devil’s Rock. We know about your problem.” LaPorte steepled his fingers. “If we can find a way to cooperate, I can make that problem go away.”

Broker’s turn. He ad-libbed easily.

“The map I gave you is a Xerox. The original shows a grid coordinate circled in grease pencil that pinpoints a location well within the coastal waters of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. And I have the original chopper graphic. And a transcript of an FBI inquiry into a ruckus in the Milan Pen visitor’s room between you and Tuna in 1980.”

LaPorte stroked his chin ruefully. “Now there’s a hitch that Robert Louis Stevenson didn’t have to deal with. Xerox machines.”

Broker paused to let it sink in. “I left them in a sealed envelope in my lawyer’s files in St. Paul. And I wrote a speculative letter that mentions your name frequently. If anything unusual happens to me or Nina Pryce the envelope gets delivered to the United States Attorney. Another copy goes to the Vietnamese Embassy.”

LaPorte glanced at his watch, then smiled. “Maybe you and Bevode Fret are more kin than you think. Have you put a figure on it?”

“First let’s get Nina off the table.”

LaPorte leaned forward. “Is she really…unbalanced?”

“She’s just extreme.”

“Okay, okay…What do you think would solve her problem?”

Broker smiled. “To see you hang for killing her father.”

LaPorte chuckled. “Does she have a fallback position?”

“I could suggest one,” said Broker.

LaPorte opened his hands in an entreating gesture. Broker continued. “You pay for a year of discreet counseling. I mean serious stuff, a psychiatrist. Then you make a good-faith effort to help her get reinstated in the army.”

LaPorte sputtered and smiled at the same time, instantly grasping the symmetry in the solution. “Getting back in would make her well, huh?”

“Just my opinion.”

LaPorte shook his head. “God. I’d lose my pension. The good old boys in the army think she’s a libber fanatic bitch. She was all over the TV.”

“You could do it,” Broker said mildly.

“Jesus Christ, I don’t know. Maybe with the Bush crowd but these Arkansas hippies-”

“Easier with the hippies. You could do it,” repeated Broker. “For Ray.”

“Fuck Ray Pryce, the horse he rode in on, and the colonel who sent him.” LaPorte thumped his chest. “I signed for that fucking helicopter he lost. They made me pay for it. You know how much a Chinook costs. I was pay-deducted through Ford and Carter and finally Reagan got me off the hook and got me my money back.”

Broker found the outburst curious. In the public library he’d read that the LaPorte family was worth $70 million. His eyes strayed to the tall portrait of the pirate on the wall. “You’re not in this strictly for the money, are you?” he asked.

“We’re not talking about money. Money just sits in a bank and accrues. This is…treasure. I’m sixty-one years old. This is probably the last exciting thing I’ll do in my life.” LaPorte shook his head impatiently. “The Pryce kid? Will