by Chuck Logan
Absolutely, thought Broker. The back of the house was walled off from the rest of the lawn and the alley by thick hedges. A second-story balcony ran the length of the back of the house and was supported by grillwork and hung with showers of geraniums and impatiens. An oak tree, draped in Spanish moss, grew conveniently close to a corner.
“What’s behind the hedges?” asked Broker.
“Swimming pool.”
“Okay. Now take me here.” He handed the cabby the address of the hotel Larson had squeezed him into.
The cabby nodded. “Doniat. On Chartiers. That’s a nice place, too.”
Broker missed the romance of the French Quarter. He keyed on the cramped passageways gated with more spear-tipped wrought iron. The iron was topped with tangles of barbed wire. The wire was pulled serpentine in a tangle-foot pattern that he associated with Developing World wars. A billboard poster emblazoned with the astronomical New Orleans homicide statistics shouted on a store window. MORE THAN BOSTON, MORE THAN DETROIT. Letters large enough for Broker to read from a passing car.
The cabby demanded his attention. “Now listen up, Minnesota. This here’s Rampart Street we crossin’ now, just don’t be wandering round north of here drunk with money hanging out of your pocket and you just might make it.”
Broker thanked him, tipped him generously with Nina’s money and checked into the Doniat. He took a bottle of mineral water from the honor bar and let a young porter carry his small athletic bag up the stairs and to a room at the end of the hall with windows that opened on a gallery that overlooked the street.
After tipping the kid for his exertion he called Nina’s.
“I’m two hours from meeting the great man. How’s your end?”
“I’ll be at the bank tomorrow morning as soon as it opens. Watch yourself, Broker.”
“You too.”
Broker tucked the Xerox copy of LaPorte’s map and the sonar graphic in the inner lapel pocket of his jacket, called a cab, and went to the Civic Center to visit the main library. He spent an hour and a half skimming every reference to the LaPorte family that a harried librarian could locate. Then he grabbed another cab and headed for the Garden District. This time he drew a short, bald white firecracker for a driver.
“Guadalcanal, Saipan, Okinawa, and Iwo. I made all those goddamn landings. And now I’m seventy-two years old and I have to take shit from these fucking trash-talking jungle bunnies in my own hometown. Threw three of the shitbirds out of my cab just the other day.”
The man’s neck was the color of angina, veins ridged his cranium.
“Damn niggers are taking over the goddamn streets. Hell if I’m going to ride any more those sonsabitches—”
“Hey, man, just drive the fuckin’ car, okay?”
Finally the apoplectic cabby dropped him off. He didn’t get a tip. Broker stood on the street and watched men in suits and women in formal dresses roam the lawn with plastic glasses of champagne. Maybe no one could afford to live in a house like this anymore, even in Louisiana, where you didn’t have to foot the heating bill. So even Cyrus LaPorte had to accommodate and peddle his living space.
Broker went through the stockade of iron lilacs and the uniform was alert enough in the heat to come out of his lounging posture in the shade and challenge the tall, serious-moving man in the ponytail. Broker flashed his badge. The cop nodded and stepped back. Broker went in.
The lower level was a gleam of varnished wood floors and intricately carved antebellum woodwork. Servants glided with silver trays or arranged platters of finger food. The gay mountains of floral arrangements smelled damp…like funerals. He asked one of the waiters where to find Mr. LaPorte.
The waiter rolled his eyes to a spiral oak staircase. At the top a snake-boned young man with strawberry hair, who nobody would want at their wedding, leaned against a railing. His feral handsome face and hot hazel eyes suggested that he and Bevode Fret had hatched out of the same stagnant malarial pool and had grown up fighting the gators for their supper. But his anemic complexion and the sniffles suggested that he was on a Colombian diet. Broker mounted the stairs and said, “Phillip Broker. I have a three o’clock appointment with LaPorte.”
“That’s General LaPorte. What you got under the coat?” The punk assumed a blocking stance. Broker showed his badge again. “Give me the badge, your ID, and the piece,” said the guy.
“Fuck you,” said Broker. He eyed the cocaine pathology squirming in the punk’s sinuses and in his dilated pupils. The current American nightmare—armed, popcorn tough, ready to blow at a moment’s notice, and not much underneath to back it up after he’d touched off a magazine of nine millimeter. “Go announce me.”
He stared the punk down. The punk went.
Broker looked around. He didn’t know much about real money. So he didn’t really register the magnitude of the furnishings and art objects and the Persian carpets strewn all around him. He knew that the air became smoother, taking a subtle bounce along the pigment of paintings and the scarred volcanic faces of pre-Columbian art. He rubbed the sweaty stubble on his chin and felt like a Goth who’d slipped into Rome. And planned to be back with a lot of his pals.
The punk returned wearing an obsequious sneer and yanked his head for Broker to follow him. He was admitted to a spacious room with high ceilings and walls festooned with trophies and mementos. The room took up the right rear corner of the house. The foliage from the oak tree on the lawn shaded the windows that over-looked the wedding party.
The general would be with him in a moment and would he like a refreshment.
Broker ran his eyes over the decor and said, “Rum.” Then he eased into an upholstered leather chair that faced a heavy carved teak desk elevated on a two-step dais so that the man sitting behind the desk could look down on his visitors.
An elderly black man in a shiny black suitcoat and trousers, with a bulbous hearing aid growing in his left ear and his back bent by scoliosis, or the pressure of place, shuffled in. Eyes downcast, he carried a tray on which sat a bottle of rum, a glass, and a decanter of ice cubes. His tempo was geared to the listlessly turning ceiling fans, which slowly stirred the languid air. Time definitely slowed down here. Broker wondered if there was a plan to turn it back.
He poured a shot of rum and lit a Spirit and squirmed slightly in the studded leather upholstery. His thumb throbbed and sweat itched on his chin. The room made his bones glow like an X-ray machine.
It had never occurred to him that he could have things. He’d accepted the fact that the most he could hope for was to do things.
Three of the walls held the bric-a-brac of the stillborn greatness of LaPorte’s life. Broker perused the athletic, academic, and military mementos. There was the glass case with eight rows of combat decorations, including two Distinguished Service Crosses and five Silver Stars. There were pictures of LaPorte with William Westmoreland and Creighton Abrams.
Another wall was an abattoir of trophy antlers and skulls mounted in the European style. The configuration of the horns was exotic to Broker’s Northwoods eyes. Things that died in Africa and Asia.
The last wall was a true museum, hung with plantation implements arranged in an almost votive pattern around an imposing, larger-than-life, full-length portrait.
Broker recognized the set of that intense furrowed brow and gimlet eyes staring down from the oil. The thin slash mouth and the stingy lips projected a cold Creole profile of power.
Royale LaPorte, a hero of the Battle of New Orleans, was portrayed in a gentleman’s ruffled shirt and a brocaded greatcoat. His left sleeve was empty and pinned to the shoulder. His right hand was inserted in his lapel, Napoleon fashion, and the buckled shoe on his stockinged right foot rested on a globe of the world.
Broker raised his glass to the painting and drank his shot of rum. He set the glass aside and continued his inspection. Directly underneath the painting a shiny braided bullwhip coiled on a wooden peg. Below the whip, its filigree all but melted by time from the steel, sq
uatted a square antique safe. The safe took a key. The keyhole was nicked and bright from use.
French doors made up the fourth wall and opened out onto the gallery that overlooked the swimming pool. Broker’s eyes drifted back to the desk. Not one cubic inch of off-white computer plastic in the whole damn place. The phone was a 1940s ashtray style, obstinate black ceramic and heavy enough to crack a coconut. So LaPorte, like Broker, was still a wood-and-steel kind of guy.
An energetic beam of minty aftershave cut the bouillabaisse air.
“Broker. It’s been a long time, son.”
The voice was a generous muddy baritone, vigorous and amused. Broker turned his head and his skin prickled. Gen. Cyrus LaPorte ambled into the room with the alien grace and vigor of a six-foot-tall, two-legged spider.
28
LAPORTE WORE SNOWY TOPSIDERS, A TAN SHORT-SLEEVED shirt, and casual pleated trousers. His bare, corded arms had shriveled but not weakened, and his neck compressed toward his shoulders, which added to the sidling insect gait. His eyes were pale blue, pitted and shiny as two musket balls, but seemed darker because of the pressure ridge of his brow. Salt-and-pepper short-cropped hair capped his bony head and the hand he extended was hard as tanned hide.
LaPorte pointed to the bandaged thumb. Broker did not respond. LaPorte’s smile effortlessly glossed over twenty years. “Appreciate you taking the time to come.”
He motioned for Broker to resume his seat, mounted the steps and sat, elevated behind his wide desk. The platform bothered Broker. It was a conceit that the LaPorte of twenty years ago would have had contempt for. He flipped open a manila folder and shot his lead eyes at Broker. “You were a lieutenant during that shitstorm back in seventy-five.” LaPorte let the folder fall shut. “Still a lieutenant, I see. Does policework agree with you, Phil?”
It was the first time that LaPorte had ever called him by his given name. Even prepared to discover that this man had arranged to leave him to die in Hue City, the small gesture affected Broker. He graced LaPorte with the most exhausted of cynical smiles.
“So,” said LaPorte, “you’re still mixed up with the Pryce family.”
“And now I’m mixed up with you.”
“You’ll recall, when we were at Benning for that witch hunt, I cautioned you to walk away. But you had to go over and help Marian move off the base.”
“Marian died and Nina doesn’t need any extra hassle. She has enough hassle inside her own head.”
“I hear you.” LaPorte squinted philosophically.
Broker withdrew the folded map from his inside jacket pocket and tossed it on LaPorte’s desk, knocking over a collection of terra cotta figurines. LaPorte pursed his lips and set the bundle aside.
“There’s your maps and sonar pictures. And I’ll let your friend Bevode go…” Broker pronounced Fret’s name Bee-voo-dee.
LaPorte corrected, with a dry smile, “Bevode. Rhymes with commode.”
“Whatever. I want your word that he leaves Nina Pryce alone.”
LaPorte grinned, revealing a half-inch of root on his molars. “My word.”
“I was thinking more along the lines that if you break it you and me will have a personal problem.”
LaPorte responded with a pompous tic, shooting the nonexistent cuffs on his thick wrists. “I can understand how you’d be upset. This came on sort of sudden.”
Broker rose slowly from his chair, letting his coat fall open to reveal the holster and his voice growled, intimate with menace. “Don’t think so. It’s been coming on for twenty years. And if you and I don’t reach an agreement, financial and otherwise, in the next few minutes I’m going to flat kick the slats out of your whole corncrib. I already stove in that pussy you sent up north.”
LaPorte shrugged his shoulders. “Bevode tends to be…overzealous.”
“He’s a punk. He had a fucking hickey on his neck.” Broker made a face and resumed his seat.
LaPorte leaned back and massaged a liver spot on his hand. “Would it surprise you to know that Bevode Fret was once a very dedicated cop, lavishly commended, and known throughout the parish as a man who couldn’t be bought?”
“Point being?”
LaPorte shrugged. The lead eyes probed. “Perhaps the work got to him. Does the work ever get to you?”
“You mean protecting the rich rats from the poor rats?”
“I mean too many rats in the cage. A man can start looking for options.”
Broker exhaled and inspected his hands. “Yeah, right. Crime’s supposed to be deviant behavior. Now there’s nothing to deviate from. Folks are choosing up sides. Some kind of cultural street challenge that’s going on.”
LaPorte smiled faintly. “Down here the rabble associate that dilemma with skin pigmentation.”
Broker flicked ashes into his turned-up Levi’s cuff. “It’s the climate. Encourages one-crop agriculture and simple-mindedness.”
LaPorte laughed and opened a drawer and stood up. He came around the desk and handed an ashtray to Broker. “Mind the ashes, Phil; that rug cost more than you earned last year.”
Broker took the ashtray and slowly rolled the ash into it. LaPorte leaned back on the desk and smiled. “Now, if we can get past the macho tantrums, I have a proposition for you.”
“Just like that,” said Broker. “After all this time. And your goon kicks down my door…”
LaPorte clasped his hands behind his back and walked to the window that overlooked the wedding party. He squinted down at the lawn then turned and picked up a pair of binoculars from a shelf on the wall. He bent, focused the glasses, then shook his head. He came back to his desk and pressed a button. He grinned at Broker and chuckled. “The minimum wage. They just can’t get it right.”
The elderly black man who had brought Broker his drink crab-walked into the room. LaPorte spoke with elaborate politeness.
“Hiram, get on Artis down there to tell the guests not to put the knives, forks, and spoons into the trash containers. Keep it separate. And the glasses.”
“Okay, Mr. Cyrus,” the servant replied and shuffled off.
LaPorte sighed. “I’ve been telling that man for ten years to drop the ‘Mister.’ Old habits.”
“You were saying?” said Broker.
A puff of wind stirred the long curtains and LaPorte said, “Maybe we’ll get an afternoon breeze. Let’s go out on the balcony.”
They sat in wrought-iron chairs as a tremble of impending rain ruffled the cascading impatiens. Beyond the hedges, the wedding party buzzed in pre-event conversation.
LaPorte looked up and found the sun in a hazy hole in the clouds. He stared directly at it unblinking and stated, “The fact is, I’m in a ticklish spot.”
Broker hawked, leaned forward, and spit over the balcony. “You don’t strike me as the ticklish kind. You’re more the agony of psoriasis.”
LaPorte cleared his throat. “Who else knows about the map?”
Broker answered offhand. “I called Mel Fisher for an opinion—”
“That’s not funny,” said LaPorte. “The Hue gold is a remote legend. I’d like to keep it that way. When the war ended the Communists didn’t register a complaint that it had been stolen. Which is part of the mystery. It crops up from time to time as a low-key buzz in the international treasure hunting community. But, with Clinton getting ready to normalize relations with Vietnam, and with Nina Pryce waving around the Freedom of Information Act, I suspect interest will start picking up.”
“So?”
“So answer the question.”
“Nina Pryce. Me.”
“Let’s cut the bullshit. It’s Jimmy Tuna I care about. If you can’t see that, we’re both wasting our time.”
“Okay,” said Broker. “He disappeared without a trace from Milan.”
“Did you talk to the prison doctor?” asked LaPorte. Broker shook his head. “I did,” said LaPorte. “Tuna has weeks left. Maybe days. He always was a hard luck guy…” LaPorte’s eyes cruised the far wall where he kept
his war mementos. “He married this foxy German girl in sixty-six. She gets over here, gets her citizenship, buys everything in sight, and then sends Tuna this tape of her screwing a guy as a Dear John.” LaPorte shook his head. “He played it over and over. Her screaming with bed-springs in the background.” LaPorte lapsed into a guttural German accent: “‘Fok me, hunny,’ Christmas Eve, 1970. Rainy night in the team house on the Laotian border.” He sighed and shook his head. “Went off the deep end. Tried to rob a bank…prison all these years. Now cancer.”
“Maybe robbing banks was habit forming,” said Broker. The words hung in the heavy air with his cigarette smoke.
LaPorte leaned back in his chair, squinted into the sun, and shook his head. “It was the fucking war. We all went wrong.” He turned to Broker. “Bound to happen when you lose human scale.” He laughed cynically and slid in and out of past and present tense: “We let them bring in the gadgets. You know, like, they used to pollinate the jungle with these dealy bobs—body heat sniffers. So a monkey comes along and trips one. And it’s B-52 time and it starts raining dead monkeys. Not to mention blowing a lot of fine hardwoods to bits…”
His leaden eyes drooped, too heavy for his face and his voice lowered, speaking to himself. “The hill tribesmen told me that the tigers were growing up without learning how to hunt. They just fed on all the dead monkey meat laying around. So they grow up and don’t know how to teach their young to hunt…”
Cyrus LaPorte caught himself and laughed. “Do you know that they give recruits these stress cards now in Marine boot camp? If they’re feeling abused they hold them up to the drill instructor. God in heaven; the new gadgeted-up American tiger that never learned how to hunt.”
LaPorte became aware that Broker was staring at him and asked softly, “Does it really matter what happened that night?”
“It matters to Nina Pryce.”
LaPorte grimaced and exhaled slowly. “Phil, she really doesn’t want to know.”
“Try me.”