The Price of Blood Part 33

She jerked her lips in a bawdy grin. "Somebody has to be the first swinging v.a.g.i.n.a to command a rifle company." She climbed on the bed and straddled his hips. "You secure enough to handle that kind of ambition?"

"Sounds fine to me." He reached up for her.

"Uh-uh. This time I get to be on top."

"Okay."

"Can you handle that?"

"Like I said, some men-"

"Confident, aren't you?"

"Too much talk."

"One last thought before the next round of killing starts. Could you handle being a general's wife?"

"What?"

Nina looked down with a warm smile and said, "See." Broker threw the pillow at her. She threw it back.

More serious now, she lay down beside him. A prolonged silence buried the banter and she said, "Tell me about my dad, Broker."

Broker adjusted a pillow under his head. "His left foot was a cornerstone. Guys like him hold inst.i.tutions together."

Nina flicked a curl of lint from a tidy breast and knit her brows. "Had he lived and stayed in the army he'd never have made it past colonel. You know what I mean?"

"Uh-huh. He lived by the book but he wasn't an a.s.s kisser. He told me once he'd grown up in the shadow of giants. He was talking about men like Ridgway, Bradley, Patton. He had a little of that aura."

"All gone now."

"Yeah."

Nina tossed her head and aimed a puff of breath at her mussed hair. "Oh I don't know, I just got rolled around by a little of that aura." She grinned.

Broker slowly clipped her chin with affectionate knuckles. Nina took his cigarette and rolled over and dragged experimentally, holding the smoke between her thumb and index finger.

"In a funny way it's guys like my dad who held me up in the army. The dinosaurs," she said, handing back the smoke. "Just a bunch of old white men b.i.t.c.hing about upper-body strength."

"Powell wasn't an old white man, he didn't want you guys in the foxholes."

"He's wrong. h.e.l.l, I'm not a fanatic. I know that most women can't handle it. But what p.i.s.ses me off is that they won't admit that most men can't handle it either." She laughed. "John Wayne is still the macho symbol of the soldier. Did you ever see John Wayne run in a movie. No. He always walked."

"I kinda liked the way he walked." Broker grinned.

"He was tippy and overweight. He would have dropped dead on a PT test." She turned to him frankly. "Look at me, what do you see?"

"A d.a.m.n good-looking female human," said Broker playfully.

"Right. A female human who weighs about the same as Audie f.u.c.king Murphy." She set her jaw. "Maybe I'll make it, maybe I won't. Whoever makes it, she won't be off the PC funny farm that took over after Tailhook...

"In the end we'll do it the old-fas.h.i.+oned way." She sat up and linked her arms around her knees. "It's just arithmetic. More and more of us are in forward positions. And we'll be in some dead-end posting and there'll be a total cl.u.s.terf.u.c.k-like the Rangers in Somalia. When the body parts stop dripping from the trees, the pile of dead ovaries will be bigger than the pile of dead t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. That's how you get a soldier's attention. With a bucket of blood. We know about blood. h.e.l.l, we should all be awarded Purple Hearts when we get our first period."

Broker chose his words carefully. "I think it's older. We decided we can get dirty in wars and we always lie about how f.u.c.ked up it really is. If women start getting dirty the same way, who's going to raise the kids?"

She licked her index finger and chalked a number one in the dark. Her lips curved down. "So how was I? Dirty?"

"Nina..."

Her lips formed a smile but she wasn't smiling. "I shot two Republican Guards no farther away than it is to that doorway. They came around a burning track. They hesitated. I didn't. I've never felt bad about those two guys in the moral sense. But sometimes I wish I'd had a kid before I killed my first man in combat."

The Jericho eyes were back and the pliant lover of twenty minutes ago departed her like vapor. She stood up and walked to a chair where she'd thrown her luscious black dress. She picked it up and held it for a moment and rocked it against her cheek. Then she dropped it to the floor and when she turned to him again she wore her nakedness like a tailored Cla.s.s-A uniform. She planted her knuckles on her hips again and teased, "So, now are you going to tell me where you got the hickey on your neck?"

46.

BROKER WOKE UP AND STRETCHED. FOR A WONDERFUL half second he drowsed with an adolescent languor until an odor smacked him that was about as far from the memory of lovemaking as you can get: Hoppe's gun-cleaning solvent.

A shower had knocked the quaff from Nina's hair and her face was bare of makeup. She wore baggy jeans, a pebble-gray T-s.h.i.+rt, and busted tennis shoes. He sat up and squinted. Probably changed to the bigger jeans because he'd said that dress was too tight at the store...

Her pant legs were drenched almost to the knees. c.o.c.kleburs stuck to them. Wet gra.s.s and bits of brush were pasted to her rubber soles. He reached for his car keys on the bedside table. Gone.

"What the h.e.l.l?"

"I took the Jeep up into the hills. Ran a few rounds through the .45 to see where it shoots," she said mildly as she held up the pistol. "A foot off to the left at eight o'clock over approximately fifty yards..."

Broker rubbed his eyes. "Let me have that cannon. Take the Beretta, it's lighter."

Nina hefted the Colt's weight and said fondly, "Uh-uh, this lump of iron is the longest continuing in-service military handgun in the world for a reason."

She sat at the table by the kitchenette surrounded by bore brushes, patches and plastic bottles, little wire brushes, cleaning rods, and a box of pistol ammunition. His Beretta lay to one side, obviously oiled. Her fingers flew, rea.s.sembling the Colt. The slide ratcheted forward with a springing snap. She fixed him with a direct, scrubbed morning stare. "Last night doesn't mean I'm your squaw, you got that?"

"C'mon-" said Broker.

"It could complicate taking care of business, agreed?"

"Just a weak moment," said Broker.

"A choice I made. Nothing weak about it," she said with finality.

Broker made a face and needed to brush his teeth. Grumbling, he headed to the bathroom.

At the sink he wondered how he would get his Colt back. Should have brought the shotgun. Maybe they should stop on the road and buy one. He'd never relied on handguns, which he considered wildly inaccurate in the hands of normal people-he recalled the army pistol-shooting trophy in Nina's apartment in Ann Arbor-unless you were an obsessive-compulsive nut who spent thousands of hours at the range. Which she could very well be.

Broker continued to grumble through a shower and a shave. When he came out, he dressed quickly. They packed their bags, clipped on their security belts, jammed guns in their waistbands, left their T-s.h.i.+rts untucked to cover them, and walked from the fancy room without looking back.

Broker jump-started his heart with three thimbles of espresso on the deck of the fern-elegant pastry shop next to the resort. As Nina had a vegetable omelet he watched the pewter sky heat up over the lake. With uncharacteristic ennui he wondered if he'd ever see snow again. Then they hit the road. n.o.body tailed them as far as he could determine.

Nina read aloud from Tuna's prison jacket while Broker monitored the rearview. "Graduate degree in business administration from the University of Michigan extension service. Two years of Vietnamese. Graduate courses in international investment. Tuna and I were going to school together."

"Biding his time, getting ready for something. He always was a tricky guy but-"

"But what?"

"He always had bad luck."

"No s.h.i.+t."

In an hour they had crossed through Duluth and Superior, Wisconsin, and were speeding south on the road they'd originally taken up to Mike and Irene's. The early morning haze burned off and humidity hugged the fields and tree lines like a lazy bejeweled python. Barefoot, early summer day, when the yellowjacket stings you in the soft flesh under your instep in the tall wet gra.s.s.

They didn't talk much. The map lay open on Nina's lap. Twenty years telescoped for Broker. Twenty years in which he had failed at a marriage and put a lot of guys and two or three women in jail. Not much to show. He glanced at Nina, who stared straight ahead. He wondered if some of her concentration was morning-after blues. Pa.s.sion and spontaneity had overruled precaution last night.

He smiled tightly, remembering his mother's maxim: Our only real job here on earth is to replace ourselves.

But the fact was, when you're driving toward who knows what with loaded guns in your pants, you're a long way from workaday hedges against reality like condoms and diaphragms. Seeming to sense his thoughts she turned and asked, "How are you doing, Broker?"

"We'll do just fine," he said.

"I think so too." For a few moments she held his hand. Broker leaned forward and stepped on the gas.

They turned east on Highway 8 at St. Croix Falls, and then south on County 65. They consulted the map and made a turn on County F and raced down the winding tar two-lane that was hemmed in by hilly fields and a lot of swamp and small woods. They found Loki near a place called Wanderoos.

Like Ryan said. There was nothing there except a decaying A & W Root Beer stand with weeds growing in the parking lot and a two-story cinderblock building with four pickups parked behind the loading dock.

The peeling white paint on the building's side had sprouted quaint Burma Shave whiskers and failed to blot out huge faded letters that spelled out a previous owner: CAMP'S EXTRA MILD CHEESE. 1926. A newer sign was bolted to a pillar on the loading dock and bore an Italian flag-colored c.o.c.kade logo and the business name: RED, WHITE, AND GREEN, INC. Cracked cement steps rose to the dock and a sign jutted at one end. Office.

The sun was high and cropped their shadows short as they crossed the gravel lot and mounted the steps. A bell jingled as they entered.

A plaque on the desk announced ANTHONY SPORTA, MGR. The man behind the nameplate filled a red T-s.h.i.+rt and bib overalls with the swollen dignity of a Sumo wrestler. Beneath ringlets of black hair, his beady eyes peered from a face the texture of Italian sausage. The real hard kind. A twist of flypaper hung directly above his head coated with a jam of dead insects. He squinted at them. His right index finger described a dainty curlicue in the air that signaled, "h.e.l.lo, come in. I know who you are."

A muted sound of machinery carried through the walls. Lactose mist seeped in the air. Not looking real happy, Tony Sporta opened a drawer, pulled something out, and tossed it on the desk. It was a picture, twenty years old, that had been taken in a waterfront restaurant in Hue City. LaPorte, Pryce, Tuna, and Broker sat behind a forest of beer cans. An arrow drawn in marker indicated Broker's head. Younger, but the eyebrows. Sporta's practiced gaze settled on Broker.

"Now why does a guy who's in shape wear his s.h.i.+rt out?" he said.

"Is that a bathroom?" asked Nina, pointing to an open door next to some file cabinets.

"Just stay put a second." Sporta glowered.

Nina offered him a pained smile. "I have a female situation I have to attend to."

Sporta grumbled, "Leave the purse." Feigning indignance, Nina put her purse on the desk and pulled out a travel pack of super maxipads. Sporta jerked his thumb at the door and perused Broker as Nina locked the door behind her. "He says you're a cop, but I shouldn't let that bother me."

"How is he?" asked Broker.

"Real f.u.c.ked up. He wants you and the girl in quick, out quick, and he's got rules." The toilet flushed behind the bathroom door. Water pipes rattled.

"Okay," said Broker.

"Nothin's okay. He should see a doctor." Sporta cleared his throat and stood up, light-footed for a big man. "He should see a priest." The bathroom door opened and Nina came out holding up her wet hands. She was walking a little funny, but you had to have been in bed with her to tell.

"You're out of towels," she said.

"Sorry," said Sporta. He turned back to Broker. "You leave your vehicle here. I drive you partway. You walk the rest."

Broker nodded.

"You take nothing in there. No cameras, no tape recorders, no bags or purses, and no guns. So I gotta pat you down. Both of you. Empty your pockets. Put it on the desk." Change and keys and spare folding cash made two little piles on Sporta's dirty desk blotter. Then he motioned to Broker, who reluctantly lifted his arms. Sporta's hand went right to the Beretta jammed in his waistband in the middle of his back. Broker watched Nina's eyes, which had gone very quiet and neutral. Sporta placed the pistol on his desk.

"What's this?" asked Sporta, patting just below Broker's belt loops.

"Security belt."

"What's in it?"

Broker pulled the elastic folder out and zipped it open. "Money, ID."

"Okay. Keep that. Lift up your pant legs so I can see your socks." Broker did. Sporta turned to Nina. "Now you."

His thick fingers quickly circled her waist, went lower, and hit the security belt. She pulled it out and opened it. He nodded and went through the socks routine with her. As he straightened up from inspecting her ankles he grimaced slightly. "Sorry, miss, but you got a little bulge there, front and back."

Nina reddened and handed Sporta the maxipads. "Go ahead," she said grimly. "You're the one out of towels..."

Sporta delicately scratched his chin and decided to pa.s.s. He told them to retrieve their pocket items, took her purse, collected the Beretta, and put them in the desk drawer, which he then locked. "You'll get them back."

He bent and picked up a Coleman cooler that sat next to the desk. "You can take him some lunch. C'mon," he said.

When Nina was sandwiched in the front seat of a huge red truck between Sporta's girth and Broker riding shotgun, Sporta paused before he twisted the ignition. "Won't do you any good to ask me because he didn't tell me anything. He just gave me the picture and said bring you the minute you showed up."

"You brought him over from Milan?" asked Broker.

"Yeah. I did do that. My mother's his aunt. He made me promise not to even tell her he was here."

As they drove away from the Red, White, and Green cheese factory a black Subaru station wagon overtook them and pa.s.sed at high speed on the hilly, curving road. Broker felt a hitch in his stomach when he saw the tinted windows zip past. Bevode Fret had driven a green Saturn with smoked gla.s.s. Sweat trickled down the small of his back where the Beretta had been.

Sporta puffed on a Camel straight. His forearms, draped on the wheel, looked like tattooed Easter hams. "Now this place we're going to is on a thousand acres my employers bought to go deer hunting. So they only use it in November."

"How bad is he?" asked Nina.

Sporta shook his head. "Last week I'd get four shopping bags of food at the grocery. Now I get a bag at a time."

They came over a hill and Broker saw the black station wagon, going slower now, keeping pace in front of them. "You recognize that car?" he asked.

"Lotta lake homes around here. There's all kinds of cars." Sporta shrugged. "Relax. There's only one way in and I'll be blocking it. I got some firepower in the back." Sporta grinned. "Don't tell my parole officer."