Homefront pb-6

by Chuck Logan

  Sheryl.

  Just like she was supposed to, she drove the car into the open sliding door on the lower level of the barn, so it was out of sight. The locals, stir-crazy with cabin fever, noticed a new car in the neighborhood. Would drive clear into town and tell everybody at Lyme’s Cafe, “Hey, I seen this strange Pontiac going out Twelve, near the big woods…”

  Sheryl came out and struggled, hauling the wide wooden door shut. She turned toward the house.

  Sheryl Marie Mott.

  They had met in the visitors’ room at Stillwater. He’d agreed to make a pickup for Danny T.’s organization, to pay his tax to stay in population. So they put her on his list. She walked up to the table in the visitors’ room like some improved hippie dream in a beige pantsuit. Leaned over the table and planted this openmouth kissed on him, expertly ramming a tiny balloon full of cocaine down his throat with her tongue. Then she patted his cheek and whispered, “Hey, you’re kinda cute; now swallow, don’t spit.”

  One look, and he knew he had to see her again. Kinda cracked her up when he asked for her phone number, like it was a blind date.

  Gator had read this story in the joint, and he figured her secret was like in the story; some Dorian Gray deal with the devil that enabled her to keep all the debauchery of her life compacted inside so she looked so damn good on the outside. Couldn’t even begin to guess her age. Older than him.

  Sheryl had deep indigo eyes, flared cheeks, and long black hair down past her shoulders; the kind of dusky looker who coulda played a blue-eyed Indian princess in 1950s Hollywood, alongside Sal Mineo.

  An East Side St. Paul street kid, somewhere around seventeen years old she’d discovered she liked really bad white guys who rode fat-boy Harleys even more than real bad black guys.

  Biker chick. Rode with the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang, the OMG.

  Central to the hard-core OMG ethos was the injunction, You must know the difference between good and evil and choose the evil. She traded in her patched jeans and tie-dye for greasy leather and denim. She’d done it in the dirt, pulling the shaggy biker trains at bonfires in the woods with the predatory relish of an MBA trying to make the cut on Donald Trump’s Apprentice. In two years flat she went from anybody’s groupie to briefly becoming a fixture on the back of Danny Turrie’s chopper.

  Always thinking. Mind-Fuck Mott. The story was, she’d moved Danny out of weed, and almost convinced him to sidestep the urban crack drama with its well-armed gangbangers. Got him into the suburbs, into coke. Then Danny shot those two North Side jigs and went away forever. Gang bangs were one thing; gangbangers and real bullets were another.

  Sheryl split the cities, moved to Seattle during the great meth awakening, and shacked up with a guy who owned a perfume company. She took some chemistry course at a community college, learned her way around chemicals, dabbled in designer drugs, learned to cook meth, and socked her money into a lot on the beach in Belize.

  Then her Seattle boyfriend had a weak moment and couldn’t resist buying List I chemicals in bulk from a firm going out of business. Except the firm was a DEA cover operation, and Sheryl beat the battering ram coming through the door by half an hour. With just the money in her purse and a credit card, she took a cab to the airport and arrived back in Minnesota with thirty-four bucks.

  When Gator met Sheryl she was marginally connected, but out of the loop. Burned, paranoid; she cooked a few batches of meth for the OMG, didn’t like the flaky level of the operation, and wound up muling dope into Stillwater Prison to help make her car payments.

  Gator heard the stories about her in the joint. When he got out, living in a halfway house, taking a tractor mechanics course at Dunwoody Institute that he could have taught better than the pencil-neck instructor, he asked her out for coffee.

  He had this idea, see, that he’d been refining for a year behind bars…

  Waiting tables, barely paying the freight on her apartment and the GT, Sheryl was ready. They started out in a Starbucks and conducted the second round in her bed, where his performance had lagged considerably.

  This was before she understood Gator never really could get it going in a bed.

  Gator grinned. Sheryl in high-heeled boots taking little bird steps through a foot of soggy snow. The biker-girl duds were long gone. Now she was more into business casual-designer jeans, the Donna Karan sweater picked up at Goodwill, the fancy hip-length leather car coat, a joke in this weather.

  “What the hell is this?” she protested, kicking the snow off her footwear, coming up the steps. “It’s the end of March.”

  “Your memory is impaired by global warming. This is old Minnesota normal. How you doing, Sheryl?”

  She walked up to him, shrugged her shoulders, and went up on tiptoe. “Here I am. What’s so urgent?”

  He shied away from her upturned face. “Not yet.”

  She furrowed her brow, studied him. “Aw shit, aren’t we done with that routine yet?”

  “Let’s go inside,” Gator said firmly.

  Sheryl followed him, shaking her head. “I forgot, isolated up here you didn’t get the word how when the apes climbed down from the trees they invented these things called beds…”

  Gator ignored her, knowing how much she really dug the weirdness of it. He walked through the kitchen, down the hall into the bathroom, and turned on the shower.

  “Aw, jeez, what you got better be good.” She grimaced. “I was up at six, been on the road for almost five hours driving straight drinking coffee. Man, first thing, I gotta pee.” She wiggled out of her coat, unzipped the boots and kicked them off, and headed for the bathroom. When she returned, she drew herself up, knit her brows, and pointed a finger. “No gas, understood.”

  Gator nodded. “Agreed. No gas.”

  “Good. I can do weird. I draw the line at fucking crazy.”

  “C’mon, humor me,” Gator chided, his voice wide, stuck in his throat. Maneuvering her back into the bathroom.

  “Been missing it, huh?” She slithered out of the sweater, elbows out, hands back in that contortionist trick chicks do, unclipping her bra. Then she peeled off the jeans and panties. “I don’t suppose you got a shower cap?”

  Gator didn’t hear. He was staring at her. Sheryl and her tattoo. Not like the twisty flowery bullshit the girls these days get, curled around their waists and back. Uh-uh. This was from the old days when tats were the exclusive domain of crooks and GIs. This pair of red Harley wings spread out two inches below her navel. Hip to hip. Framed just so in her bikini bottom tan marks. Gator didn’t trust his voice. He pointed at the shower.

  “Okay, okay.” She reached her hand past the curtain and tested the water, adjusted the handle, and stepped into the tub.

  Gator let it build for about a minute, then threw back the curtain. She stood face to the nozzle, drawing her hands through the dark glistening stream of hair. He reached out and clamped his hand on her wrist, pulled her.

  “Hey.” She stumbled over the side of the tub, banging her shin. She collided into him, slick, shadowed, her ribs tiger-streaked with tan fading from the beach in Belize. He spun her and forced her forward over the sink, his left hand straight-arming her, pressing on her neck. His right hand fumbled with the buttons of his jeans.

  She always resisted, at first; like now, rearing at his rough grip on her neck, swinging her head around, dark eyes flashing, the long wet hair swinging round like black whips. “Christ’s sake, Gator; can’t we work this out a little?”

  “Shut up, face forward. Stand.”

  Pouting, she turned back to the sink and muttered, “Too damn old to get fucked flatfooted…” Then she broke out of her brooding stance, hips warming up in a slow canter. “…then again, maybe I’m not…”

  “Shush,” he said hoarsely.

  “There…you…go…”

  He finally got his angles working and hit the rhythm. Unsteady on his feet now, jeans around his knees, he leaned forward, forcing her head down with both hands so all he saw in the mirror w
as the top of her dark hair and the water beaded up glistening on her back, jiggling where her smooth ass…

  Oh, yeah.

  Shower running, little chain hanging down from the lightbulb got to dancing as she grabbed the sides of the sink with both hands to brace against the thrust of his hips.

  “Ain’t you slippery.” He groaned.

  He watched the muscles in her arms and back tense, corded, popping sweat; her voice a throaty chant: “One a…these days…gonna…tear…this sink clear outa THE WALL!!!”

  When her cherries lined up, she just paid and paid-ca-ching-ca-ching-the coin coming in a hard hot rush handled endlessly, loaded by the sackful…

  Gator just holding on now; ears plugged with blood, other parts of him getting away, runny with his sweat, her sweat. Panting, staggering back, he watched the cannibal gene seep down the inner curve of her thigh. Only way it worked for him. Worked really good. Here in this damn moldy room with the floor joists rotting out under the crummy linoleum. Sheryl, thinking he had potential, patiently went along. All year they’d been starting like this, here in the bathroom.

  Breathing not quite returned to normal, Sheryl rolled to the side and sat heavily on the toilet seat; hair tangled, arms down straight between her knees like a spent runner.

  “So much for foreplay,” she said, getting her breath.

  Gator grinned, wiping off, doing up his jeans.

  The real sex happened out in the shop, where everything was clean and in its place.

  Where they talked about the plan. And where he would reveal his find.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Broker drove back home, parked the truck, climbed up into the bed, and kicked the garbage bin off his tailgate. Standing there in the sour wind, he gauged the anger pulsing in his throat, hot in his chest.

  Usually his anger was fast surface burn, like spit hissing on a griddle. This was inside, and he couldn’t get it out. It just kept circuiting on this loop. His eyes traveled back into the woods, where he’d left Kit’s toy stuck on the pole. Sagging, he got down, closed the tailgate, and straightened up the bin, positioning it where it belonged.

  Should call Griffin. He knows these people.

  But Griffin had a tendency to go from insult to breaking bones in seconds flat; once he got involved, it might be impossible to hold him in check. Have to think about that.

  He went inside, and after confirming that Nina was sleeping upstairs, he resolved to work it off. Clean the house. Stow the clutter. Wipe down the surfaces. If not a solution, at least a distraction. First he moved all the unpacked boxes into the garage and arranged them neatly along one wall. Then he attacked the downstairs bathroom, where he got stuck for a moment staring at the cat litter box as Kit’s words from this morning washed back in a wave.

  When I die, will I get to see Ditech again?

  Like dying was a reasonable price to pay to be reunited with a cat? Did he think like that when he was eight? He stood, holding a scrub pad and Comet cleanser, peering at the lathered washbasin, trying to remember. The main thing he recalled was his mother yelling at him about wearing a hat and unthawing his fingers and toes after playing hockey until after dark in subfreezing weather.

  He shook it off, removed the cat box, and put it in the garage. When he finished in the bathroom, he went into the living room and stacked Nina’s weights in a tidy row. Then he brought a basket of laundry from upstairs and loaded the washer.

  As he stuffed in towels and washcloths, he speculated how Mrs. Helseth’s admonition to contact the sheriff would now be complicated by his ad hoc garbage dump at Klumpe’s office. Then he considered how he had not advised Nina about his engagement in low-intensity yokel warfare. How he had enlisted Kit as an accomplice in keeping mom out of the loop.

  He revisited his talk with Susan Hatch, who had weighed in with more advice. Both Helseth and Hatch were suggesting he needed filling in on Cassie and Jimmy’s “local soap opera.”

  That he was getting his foot into…

  Twenty minutes later he left the bathroom in perfect sparkling order.

  As he opened the hall closet and took out the Kenmore canister, he caught himself again and looked upstairs. Vacuuming would wake her. Take a break.

  There was still coffee in the thermos on the kitchen island, so he poured some into a travel cup, put on his coat and boots, and went out on the back deck, where he sat down on the steps and lit a cigar.

  Didn’t work. He found himself staring at his footprints in the snow, leading into the trees. Where he’d been out walking around last night with a loaded shotgun.

  Okay. Klumpe was here. But he could have found the bunny in the truck when he knifed the tire.

  If he knifed the tire.

  There was even a chance Broker had not entirely closed the garage door and the cat had escaped on her own. But someone-Klumpe-had definitely removed the cat’s collar and strapped it on the toy and rammed it on the pole at the trail intersection.

  Kit was still missing her cat.

  With considerable effort, Broker tried to step back from the spiral of anger and evaluate motive. You humiliated Klumpe in front of his wife and kid. No need to slap the choke hold on him like that. The sheriff was getting out of his car. All you had to do was back up.

  He’d always taken his ability to function under pressure for granted…

  Broker sipped his coffee, puffed on the cigar, and watched the smoke dissipate in the wind. Kinda like Nina, always taking her iron will for granted.

  Okay. So maybe it was time to back off. Reach out.

  Broker actually grimaced at the idea of calling Griffin and asking for personal help. Help with Nina was one thing. But help for him personally…Jesus…

  Up till now Griffin had provided a place to stay and the bare bones of a cover story. That done, he stayed at a respectful distance. How much did he know? Broker assumed Griffin gossiped with J. T. Merryweather and Harry Cantrell. They all used to come up here to hunt. He was one of the few “civilians” those two allowed into their confidence.

  Face it. The problem with reaching out to Griffin-besides his tendency to overreact-was that he was a Vesuvius of advice waiting to erupt. He had almost thirty years saved up, twenty-five years of it stone cold sober. And Griffin tended to be blunt.

  And even being longtime friends, they had some issues.

  Broker finished his cigar and came back into the kitchen. He was still pondering making the call when Nina wandered in, doing her bathrobe shuffle but, Broker observed, with a little more swing than usual. She stopped, cocked her head to the side, and said, “Broker, you feeling all right? You don’t look so hot.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, backing up a step. Not used to her making and maintaining direct eye contact. Not used to seeing the hint of color in her cheeks. “Just cleaning the place up.”

  She nodded, “Uh-huh. How’d it go with the principal this morning?”

  “Ah, they’re moving her to a different home base, away from the kid she hit. No recess for a week. They’ll keep an eye out,” he said, thinking, first eye contact, now she’s tracking and making conversation. Christ, she is coming back. Not used to being scrutinized by her green eyes, he had to remind himself that Nina coming back was a good thing.

  Then she poured a cup of coffee and took up her position at the stove, flipped on the overhead fan, and lit a cigarette. Broker was actually relieved when she pointed the TV remote like an escapist wand. The set popped on, dropping an electronic curtain over the room and hopefully cloaking his agitation.

  For once he didn’t mind.

  Usually the cable shows reminded him of undercover work that had taken him into endless barrooms where it was always 11:00 P.M. The time when the smart people had long departed and only the drunks remained, yelling their pet peeves at each other. Chris Matthews brayed on one stool, Bill O’Reilly on another. Sean Hannity off beating his meat in the john. CNN had less volume and droned in a thorazine monotone. PBS was different, a station that
delivered its monotone with footnotes.

  C-SPAN was okay, free of commercial breaks, it came at you in agonizing real time like a dogged AA group crusading to get the nation to go on the wagon of sober politics.

  Broker retreated to the washer and dryer in the bathroom and reached in to haul towels from the washer, except the goddamn towels were tangled like wet pythons around the washer stalk, resisting him. Suddenly he yanked at them, jarring the machine. He stopped and stared at his hands. Close to shaking. The flash point idling hair-trigger…

  Primed and ready, just a surge away.

  Deep breath, center down. Slowly, he disentangled the twisted towels from the washer column. Looked up through the doorway, snuck a look at Nina, thinking how she’d always favored colors that complemented her hair and complexion; shades of green and amber. Harvest colors. Now she grabbed whatever came to hand first in the drawer or laundry basket. At this moment, under the green terry-cloth robe, she wore a gray T-shirt, a pair of red sweatpants. Purple sweat socks.

  Kit was just beginning to be aware of her appearance and how to dress. She would avert her eyes from her mother’s outlandish costumes. Come to him with tops and bottoms, ask him if they matched…

  Broker blinked, caught in mid-spiral; Nina was looking back at him. No, watching him.

  Deliberately now, under the gaze of her increasingly alert eyes, he transferred the towels into the dryer, sorted another load into the washer, measured soap, set the control, started the water. When he went back to the kitchen, she continued to check him from the corner of her eye as she paced and chain-smoked and watched the Abrams tanks and the Bradleys rolling up the Euphrates River valley.

  “So, what do you think?” she asked in a level voice, gesturing at the televised war just as some particularly sharp audio threw a rattle of shots into the kitchen. This distinctive whoosh, then an explosion.

  “The AKs and RPGs sound the same,” Broker said, turning away. “I gotta go in town, pick up the flat, do some shopping before I get Kit,” he said over his shoulder, accelerating in an uninterrupted motion toward the door, stepping into his boots, grabbing his hat, gloves, carrying his coat, which he put on in the garage.