Broker hung up and turned to Mouse, who was pushing the last crumbs of a doughnut into his mouth. “Okay-he’s not home; his car was piled up against a tree in his driveway.”
Mouse chewed, swallowed, and looked around for a place to get rid of his foam coffee cup. Broker took the cup from his hand. The door to Investigations snapped open; a young cop started out into the hall. Broker handed him the empty cup. The young cop looked at Broker, then at Mouse, and went back inside.
“And I talked to Annie Mortenson. She sounds way too straight for our boy,” Broker said.
Mouse nodded sagely. It was a look he cultivated and played well with his battered features, weary blue eyes, and his bristly gray flattop haircut. “I figure Annie’s his last resort; he keeps her around for formal occasions. She knows which fork to use, like that. So I figured this is a case where you go to the last resort first.”
“Well, he got her to pick him up and lend him her car to take roses to his dear old mom who’s in the nursing home,” Broker said. “Except he’d already split from the nursing home by the time I got there.”
“Down deep, when it comes to a dog like Harry taking flowers to his mother, even a sensible woman will melt into your basic enabler,” Mouse said.
“His place was open, so I went in and looked around. He’s got enough guns and ammo in his basement to rearm the Taliban,” Broker said.
Mouse squinted his way into something like a smile. “Okay, so he’s a hazard to navigation. Maybe he should be off the streets. Just so happens I found him.”
“Goddammit, Mouse, why didn’t you-” Broker said.
Mouse raised a finger to his lips, then pointed to the door to Investigations, which appeared to be open a crack. He shook his head. “Cops. Snoopy bastards,” he whispered. “Worse gossips than junior high girls.”
They walked down the hall, left the sheriff’s office, and stood in the lobby. Mouse yanked his thumb back toward the unit. “I run the north team; Harry runs the south team, right? Harry’s lead detective used to be Benish, who got transferred to Fraud. But they stay in touch.
“So Benish comes up to me an hour ago and says, ‘Tell Broker that Harry is playing cards at Ole’s Boat Repair.’ He also says Harry don’t see the need to rush going to treatment. It ain’t like they’re going to move St. Joseph’s in the next two weeks.”
Broker allowed a faint smile. “Sounds like Harry. He figures to use every minute of his suspension to party. So he knows I’m on the job and about Moros and. .”
“Sure; if Benish didn’t tell him, there’s half a dozen other people who could,” Mouse said.
“So where’s this Ole’s?”
“Take Highway Ninety-five south toward Lakeland. About two miles this side of the slab, on the east side of the road there’s this sailboat repair shop that went out of business.”
Broker squinted, placing the location. “The slab” was cop talk for Interstate 94. “Yeah, okay. Tell me about the game,” Broker said.
Mouse shrugged. “No sweat. It’s a regular game in the back room. No actual bread on the table. It’s all chips and markers. They settle up someplace else. Some hustlers cruise by and give it some flavor; but nothing heavy, they all know who Harry is. Mostly it’s local guys with leisure time who like to rub shoulders with mildly criminal types. Harry is a regular; he uses it as a listening post.”
Broker and Mouse stared at each other for several beats. Finally, Broker said, “It’s too easy.”
“Yeah,” Mouse said.
Broker extended his hand.
“What?” Mouse said.
“Gimme your cuffs. Just in case.”
Broker sat for several minutes in his idling truck as the A/C hummed up to speed and put a sheet of artificial cool between him and the day.
He left town and drove south on Highway 95. It had been more than a decade since he rode with a pair of manacles hanging from his belt. The thought of a take-down grapple to the pavement in this heat. . Broker shook his head, leery. The fact was, he assumed the worst. It smelled like a setup; Harry making an overture like this, setting a time and place.
He stared out the windshield, and the day glared back. Crazy-making hot. The cars and trucks went by like brightly painted blisters. Even buttoned up in air-conditioning, he could feel the sweat puddle on his scalp.
Carefully, he reviewed the last time he’d seen Harry. At the Washington County Fair, last summer. A sweltering night perfumed with animal barns and sweat and cotton candy. Broker had been with his daughter, Kit, standing in line for the pony ride when Harry walked up.
He’d just looked at Broker, tried to smile, and said, “I heard you were married. Cute kid.”
So they attempted to get a conversation going, but their small talk hobbled like stragglers through the no- man’s-land yawning between them. When Harry awkwardly started to tousle Kit’s reddish hair, Broker instinctively reached over and pulled her out of his reach.
“Must be reflexes, huh?” Harry had said. So the time machine had kicked in and they were back to it. They’d exchanged poison looks while his daughter unconsciously wrinkled her smooth broad forehead, soaking up the ambient hostility.
Harry half-turned as he was walking away. “You never had anything to lose before, did you, Broker?”
Broker once had heard a counselor describe alcoholism as a progressive disease, implying that just because you stopped putting alcohol in your mouth, it didn’t mean the condition was cured. It continued to grow inside like an invisible vampire. Take a drink after ten years, and the vampire sitting on your chest was ten years older and stronger than he was the last time you saw him.
Broker figured the thing he had with Harry was like that.
He came up to his turnoff and spotted the building. Weeds grew in the broken asphalt of the parking lot. Fading blue lettering spelled Ole’s Boat Repair on dirty white cinder block, and the showroom windows were boarded with plywood. An ancient sailboat was beached, unmasted and rudderless, on a trailer. The tires on the trailer were flat.
Broker drove around back and saw a dozen cars, SUVs mostly, and a brand-new shiny red Subaru Forester with a license plate that matched the numbers and letters on the clipboard on the seat next to him.
He parked, got out, and encountered the deeply locked-down feeling that was Diane waiting for him in the heat. Dark hair worn in a flip. The soft breathy voice.
Years ago, the sensation would close off the light and last for whole days; now he processed it fast, working through the doubt and remorse to a bedrock determination.
He could never bring himself to say he’d done the right thing. But he was confident he’d done what he had to do. So he took a deep breath through his nose to steady himself, walked up to the back door, and knocked.
The door opened a crack. A tubby guy with senatorial white hair and a melanoma golf tan peeked out.
“You have an invite? This is strictly an invitations-only party,” the guy said.
“Phil Broker for Harry Cantrell. I need to talk to him,” Broker said.
The guy squinted. “Oh yeah?”
Broker shifted his weight irritably from foot to foot. “Hey, c’mon. Get Harry out here.”
The guy turned and called into the dark air-conditioned interior, “Harry, there’s this guy here says. .”
A deep, slightly slurred, but amused voice boomed, “Yeah, yeah, my fucking process server-bring him in.”
The guy at the door thumbed Broker to enter.
Broker stepped inside and squinted. He was in a huge deserted workshop with a concrete floor and half-torn wooden racks. An industrial-strength chill churned from a dripping wall-mounted A/C unit. Stratas of cigarette and cigar smoke stacked up in a shower of light. It came from an oblong pool hall light that poured down on a round table covered with a green felt tablecloth.
Six men sat around it among a clutter of cards, chips, ashtrays, and drinks. Six or seven other guys lounged at a side table that held platters of sandwich makings, an ice bucket, some bottles. An old couch, some chairs, and a refrigerator rounded out the decor. Mouse had accurately called the crowd; ten years ago, in their late thirties, they’d probably taken some chances; now they looked as if they wanted to sit down a lot and mainly talk. Most of
