by Chuck Logan
Okay. Allen resigned himself to it. He had to start somewhere.
“The Argentine tango begins in the center with a stable upper-body frame,” Trudi said. She touched his sternum. “This is your center.”
So far so good. Still no music.
“We’ll start with side-to-side steps.” They faced each other, holding hands. “Move your center over your left foot, move only about six inches.”
Allen shifted to the left.
Trudi frowned. “You’re too tight. You’re pumping your shoulders, your upper body must remain relaxed and upright. It’s all in the legs.” They tried again. He moved left and then right, and this time Trudi floated with him. “Better. In tango, the man must lead and the woman must follow, and the man must lead from the center.”
That was more like it. But what he had in mind were the lunges and dips he’d seen Al Pacino execute in Scent of a Woman. And where’s the music?
Allen chose the tango because it was a male-controlled, choreographed seduction and therefore conformed to an elaborate fantasy that featured Jolene Sommer.
“Again,” Trudi said.
Allen stepped to the side and lost his balance.
“Patience,” Trudi said.
Allen winced gamely. He was a long way from Al Pacino. Still. He couldn’t resist asking, “How long before we get to, you know?” He leaned forward and circled his arms around an imaginary woman.
Trudi smiled. “That might take a while. Let’s try some silver boxes.”
The silver box was a six-step pattern. They’d wait on the eight-step box because, Trudi explained, la crasada—the crossover step—would only confuse him at this point.
Still no music.
Three moves into his tenth silver box, Allen felt his pager vibrate against his hip. He excused himself, checked the number, and his heart skipped. It was synchronicity. It was Jolene. He walked over to the window with the cactus fringe, flipped open his cell phone, tapped in the number, and suddenly the dull day came up keen as the cactus needles.
“Allen, it’s Hank, please hurry,” Jolene shouted into the phone. Full-blown panic. Dammit, he must have stopped breathing and she caught it late.
“Call nine one one.”
“It’s not like that, just hurry, okay?”
“I’m on my way,” Allen said.
Allen ignored stop signs and ran two red lights. Coming down the snaking driveway to Hank’s house he jammed the brakes and fishtailed and dented his rear left bumper on a tree trunk.
Couldn’t be helped. He grabbed his medical bag and sprinted for the door.
Jolene met him in her robe. And although her eyes were bright with alarm, they were also very clear and vital. In fact, she looked much better than he’d seen her in a long time—rested, color in her cheeks, even her short hair had a plush spring to it.
She led him through the house toward the studio. Garf was there, of course, unshaven, looking barely awake but amused, in a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. He spooned a bowl of cornflakes close to his chest and rolled his eyes. There was a damp spot on his shirt where’d he’d slopped milk.
“And then,” Jolene said, “just as I was waking up, the TV came on in Hank’s room. And I went in and he was looking right at me.”
“Gee, you mean like he knew you did something,” Garf said, defying Jolene’s furious glare with a mild grin.
“Just relax,” Allen said. “Take a deep breath and tell me what happened.”
“Earl thinks it’s funny to leave the TV clicker in Hank’s hand. He turned the TV on and off.”
“Earl did,” Allen said, getting a little perplexed.
“Hank did,” Jolene said.
Hank resolved that this—his last story—was one time he couldn’t afford to screw up. This time he intended to do justice to his characters. And here they came. He couldn’t reach out and touch them but he’d heard their confessions. All the ingredients were present for them to start fighting among themselves.
He just had to figure out how to get the party rolling.
He could move one finger a half inch and he could control his eyes. So he could communicate. He took a chance contacting Jolene, but her reaction had been to call the other two. He had to control himself; what he did was spite after seeing the tape.
He’d have to think out the next move. Make it count.
For now he was going to lay low and be the best vegetable in the garden. So his eyes rolled. His fingers, with their mighty new muscles, were as motionless as white banana peels on the TV remote. They drew near the bed. Allen and Jolene stood on the right, Earl was on the left, munching cereal.
* * *
“He was just like that with the clicker,” Jolene said.
Allen leaned over the bed and carefully inspected Hank’s eyes and his hands.
“This is exactly the way he was?” Allen asked again.
Jolene bit her lip. “No, actually, now that I think of it, Ambush was on his lap.”
Garf giggled and backed away, gamboling like a jester and humming the jangled Twilight Zone theme.
“The cat?” Allen said. Confounded, he moved his hands in a jerky pantomime, acting out a miniature drama. “Cat on lap,” Allen said slowly, sounding like Dr. Seuss.
“No, no; it wasn’t like that. It was him.” She pointed at Hank.
Allen steepled his long fingers and raised them slowly to his lips. With the attitude of a thoughtful prelate, he stepped closer to Jolene.
“Jo, I think the strain is getting to you.”
She shook her head. Allen started to place his hand on her shoulder, saw the swell of her bare throat and collarbone, and, hearing a rush of the tango music Trudi never played, held it back.
“Why don’t you get dressed, let’s go sit down in the kitchen and have a cup of coffee,” he suggested gently.
“Good idea,” Garf said, chewing with his mouth open. “I’ll watch Hank and make sure he doesn’t jump in the river.”
“You’re not helping things,” Allen said, a little testy. He turned back to Jolene and raised his eyebrows expectantly.
Jolene dropped her shoulders. “Okay.”
“Good,” Allen said. “I’m going to go wash my hands.” He walked through the bedroom into the bathroom and shut the door.
Garf moved in and nudged her shoulder. “Better take a shower, girl.”
“What’s that?” Jolene narrowed her eyes.
Garf smiled. “You don’t want to be staring into Allen’s eyes talking about the meaning of life and have Broker trickle down your leg, now do you?”
Jolene swung her right hand to slap Garf in the face but he caught her hand easily. She narrowed her eyes, questioning.
Garf winked. “Hank told me.”
“Oh, yeah?” she shot back. “What he told me was that Broker copied your whole hard drive, especially your ambitious banking records.”
“Bullshit.”
Jolene smiled sweetly.
“When?” Garf squinted when he saw she wasn’t kidding.
“Last night.” She hunched her shoulders like a starlet and let them drop. “Afterward,” she said coyly, “he made a duplicate copy off your Zip Drive.”
They glared at each other. Then, as Earl backed off, he said ominously, “Broker’s ass is grass.”
“Don’t be selling me wolf tickets, and if I were you I’d be real nice to Broker to make sure those disks don’t wind up in the wrong hands,” Jolene mocked.
Allen and Jolene traded places in the bathroom and, while Jolene showered, Allen paced back and forth in front of Hank’s bed. He was aware of Garf, leaning against a bookcase next to the doorway, eating the last of his cereal, watching him.
Garf crossed the room, finished the bowl, placed it on the writing desk, ran his hand along a shelf of video movie cassettes, and asked, “You really kind of dig her, don’t you?”
“Maybe,” Allen said. It wasn’t the right word, but then he resented the direct question coming from someone like
Garf.
“I’m going to give you a little advice,” Garf said.
“Really,” Allen said.
“Really.” He pulled a rectangular movie container from the shelf, came across the room, and handed it to Allen.
The film was entitled The Blue Angel. On the cover, Marlene Dietrich wore a top hat at a rakish angle and a skimpy cabaret girl’s costume. She sat in a provocative pose, hands clasped over one carved knee.
“I’ve heard of it,” Allen said.
“If I were you, I’d watch it very carefully,” Garf said. He then turned and left the room.
Slob. Forgot to take his cereal bowl, Allen observed.
Alone now, he resumed his pacing. He was satisfied that the incident that had upset Jolene was just a fluke caused by the damn cat. Still, it left a spooky aftertaste.
It was clearly time to relocate Hank. Jolene needed some therapy or some medication to deal with the strain. And having a smart-ass like Garf around certainly didn’t help.
He glanced at the movie Garf had given him; B&W, 1930, German dialogue with English subtitles. He dropped it in his bag. He’d been glib, he had no idea what the film was about; only that it was referred to as a classic.
Chapter Thirty-four
J.T. and his family left for Iowa before dawn, towing the trailer full of ostriches. So, when Broker and Amy woke up in their respective bed and couch, on separate floors, they had the house to themselves. About nine A.M., Broker heard her thump around in the upstairs guest room, then the bathroom pipes banged in the wall as he made coffee.
She came downstairs barefoot in a burgundy terry-cloth robe too bulky to have fit in her travel bag, and Broker figured it was Denise’s. She sat at the kitchen table and he saw she had painted her fingernails and her toenails a moody purple. He stood at the counter. There was no “good morning,” no “hey, how you doing?” He held up a coffee cup. “Black? Or there’s Coffeemate.”
“Black.”
He poured two black coffees, brought the cups over to the table, sat down, and they faced each other. Her freckles were lifeless gray and her gray eyes were shot with red; her face was puffy, unshowered, just splashed with wake-up water; her usually tawny hair was a snarl of platinum wire, sticking up.
By contrast, his eyes were clear and calm. His face was smooth and ruddy. His hair was happily tousled. “So,” he said, “did you get your flight?”
“Yeah . . .” she stared at the navy blue cup in her hands that was stamped with the legend ramsey county swat. Then she snapped her tired eyes on him. “. . . And did you get what you were after?”
The remark smoked past his ear with the incendiary velocity of a .50-cal tracer round, blew out through the wall, scorched a dry cornfield, and streaked out over the curve of the earth. Broker veered away from the comment, which pained him because, after sidling in a little too close to Jolene last night, he was happy to have escaped with all his fingers and toes.
Jolene had been disfigured with alcoholic stress fractures. Amy, even frizzed with pique, remained clean and attractive—a rounded female who looked like she could bounce as opposed to sticking like a dagger.
But probably it was a little late to discover how much he appreciated her. “I have one last thing to do and then I’ll be going back to Ely,” he said quickly.
“Uh-huh,” she said in a neutral tone.
“Just got to talk to a guy, that’s all.”
“The boyfriend?”
“Yeah. I’m going to explain a few things; kind of truth and consequences, and then I’m done.”
“You mean threaten him.”
“Okay, I’m going to threaten him. But no rough stuff.”
A quick peek directly into Amy’s eyes gave Broker the impression she could literally smell Jolene on him. So he took his coffee upstairs and soaked in a long, hot shower. When he came down she was still sitting at the table.
“You had a call,” she said. “There’s a number by the phone. From that lawyer, Milton Dane. The wife gave him this number.”
Glad for the distraction, Broker went to the phone and called the number on the pad.
“Law offices.”
“Milton Dane,” Broker said.
“Whom shall I say is calling?”
“Phil Broker, returning his call.”
Broker poured another cup of coffee, sipped; Milt came on the line.
“Hey, Broker, I heard you were in town.”
“I brought Hank’s truck back.”
“That’s what Jolene said.”
“How’s the arm?”
“Ibuprofen. And reps with tuna cans. Story of my life. How long are you in the Cities?”
“Over the weekend.”
“Look, could you drop by my office today? Take a quick deposition? It would save me the trouble of driving up north.”
“Sure,” he glanced at Amy. “I could be there, say—at ten.”
“Good. I’ll assemble the usual suspects.”
After getting Milt’s location, he said good-bye, hung up, and turned to Amy. “When’s your flight?”
“Six-thirty, check in at five-thirty.”
“You want to get out of the house, go into St. Paul?”
“And take a chance on running into Milton Dane, who is going to sue my ass off? No thank you. I’ll pack. Just get back in time to give me a ride.”
Driving west on 94, he decided it was time to let it go and head back up north. After seeing Milt, he’d call Jolene and nail down a time to have a sit-down with Earl Garf. Maybe someday he’d figure out a way to tie Garf to Stovall. But not today.
Then he’d take Amy to the airport.
When he got back to Ely he’d call her up. Dinner maybe.
And the idea of staying at Uncle Billie’s held a certain appeal as opposed to returning to his empty house, with children’s books and toys gathering dust in the corners. So, he’d stay in Ely for at least November. Go deer hunting with Iker. Try to kick back for a while. Let things develop.
He entered St. Paul, parked, and found his way to the twenty-second floor of the American National Bank building where Milt had an office.
The pert blond gatekeeper told him to go right in, that Milt was expecting him. Broker went through a door next to the reception desk. Milt appeared at the end of the corridor and waved him into his corner office.
Gingerly, they shook hands. Milt was clearly still favoring his arm. The corner walls were primarily glass and, twenty stories down, the east side of St. Paul spread to the horizon like an Amish autumn quilt. In the foreground, the window ledges were lined with travel souvenirs: African carvings, Southeast Asian brass dragons, and South American masks. Framed pictures on the walls portrayed Milt strapped in a life jacket, glowering through whitewater, swinging a kayak paddle.
And there was this tall guy in a gray suit, with beetle brows and a widow’s peak, sitting in one of the chairs in front of Milt’s desk. A guy who did not get up to greet him, who did not smile.
His name was Tim Downs and he’d been a homicide investigator with St. Paul and had gone to law school at night. He’d quit and hung out his shingle. Downs had been a cop with a nose for politics, the kind who kept track of everyone and everything.
Not missing a beat, still smiling, Milt said, “You two know each other.”
“Yeah,” Downs said, getting up.
“Yeah,” Broker said, nodding at Downs.
Downs nodded back and walked from the office, leaving Broker in flat-footed appreciation of Milt’s understated style.
“So, have a seat,” Milt said. “You want some coffee?” Milt asked. Broker shook his head.
Milt now extended Broker the courtesy of addressing him as a player and a peer. “So Allen calls me up the other night and says Jolene’s houseguest, Earl Garf—alias Clyde—had a run-in with you . . .”
Broker, caught off guard by Downs’s appearance, went on the attack. “Hank belongs in a nursing home, he needs full-time, skilled care. She’s working hersel
f ragged.”
Milt reacted frankly, hands open, fingers spread. “I couldn’t stop her, she went ballistic when the Blue Cross tanked. Look, Allen’s been monitoring him every day. He’s in remarkably good shape for a . . .”
“Vegetable,” Broker said.
“I didn’t want to rush her. I also had to get a feel for working with her . . .”
Broker said, “What’s the matter? Afraid she might jump to another lawyer?”
Milt said, “Monday I’m moving him into a full-care facility.”
“Who’s paying?”
“I’m paying. I’m also on the calender in probate in Washington County. It might take a month, but Jolene will be appointed Hank’s guardian and executor of his trust. We all just got off to a bad start on this thing.”
“Too bad. Garf wouldn’t be there if she hadn’t come up broke because of Hank’s trust-fund antics,” Broker said.
Milt said, “I know that. If he would have listened to Jolene and paid his bills on time we wouldn’t be in this mess. But he didn’t listen to her, he went to his AA buddy. You know about that?”
“I know about Stovall,” Broker said.
The preliminary fencing ended and they both backed off. Milt glanced at his hands and inquired diplomatically, “Don’t like surprises, do you? Like Downs being here?”
Broker changed the subject and pointed to a medical monitor the size of a breadbox that sat on the desk. “What’s that?”
“That,” Milt said, “is our case. It’s a GE Marquette, it monitors vital signs; what they had Hank hooked up to. I rented one.” Milt reached across the desk and fiddled with knobs and dials. “And this is what I think happened: they had one nurse watching Hank and, to be fair, half the other patients in the place, plus covering the ER. Once you attach the leads to the patient, the monitor starts graphing vital signs. But if you don’t program the machine for a new patient, the alarm doesn’t activate.
“So I’m thinking the anesthetist miscalculated the amount of sedation she gave Hank throughout the operation and took him off the gas too soon. They get him up to recovery—but the nurse is busy, she hooks up the leads and forgets the programing procedure; she sees the wave forms going across the screen and thinks everything’s all right. She gets distracted, leaves the room, Hank stops breathing, and nobody knows.”