“What do you think? About what I should do,” she yelled back.
“No you don’t.” Tom dug out his wallet. He held up Garrison’s card. “I can call the guy who was at my place this morning. Right now, on my cell phone. He’s ten minutes away, day or night, he told me.”
“But then I wouldn’t get to see Phil.”
Tom stared at her, confused.
“Look,” she explained. “Once the feds see what I’ve got they’re going to stick me in protective custody. Before that happens I want to talk to Phil, I want to make sure what I have. And he’ll know the best way to negotiate.”
“Negotiate?” There was something wrong here. Some im-balance.
“Yes,” said Caren brightly. “Because I might be looking at Witness Protection.”
“That’s forever.” Tom’s head snapped to the left, alert.
“So is turning over a federal informant to the bad guys.
Where do you think that goddamn tongue came from.” She pounded the steering wheel with both fists so hard her sunglasses fell off. “And…he hit me.”
“Jesus.” He reached to steady the wheel. Her swollen cheek pulsed. Her eyes were…fury. “I think I’d better drive,” he said.
Caren ignored him, set her jaw and stuck her glasses back on. “You don’t rat out brother cops for money, that’s basic…”
her voice trailed off.
Tom mumbled, “I don’t get it, you know this how?”
“It’s on tape. I filmed it,” said Caren.
“Filmed what?” Tom’s voice broke. A tape. The media’s Holy Grail. Tom actually put his hand on his chest over his banging heart. My God. A tape. I’m going to be on Larry King Live.
“What Keith did. Why the feds are after him.” She jammed her hand into her purse and withdrew a compact plastic cassette. “Right here. If it’s all right with Phil, you can give it to the FBI.”
On tape. Independent confirmation. No hearsay. To hell with spousal immunity. “What’s on tape?”
“Keith ratting out an FBI informant, taking money from some guys who run rackets in Chicago. They’re opening up a dope business here and Keith gave him the keys to the state. Check it out,” said Caren grimly. She slung her head back, indicating the cargo area to the rear. “That suitcase is full of money they gave him, packets of hundreds. It was in our basement.”
“Stop the car!” shouted Tom, transfixed.
She pulled over onto the shoulder, worried he might be sick. He was out before the wheels stopped rolling, walked to the rear, and oblivious to the traffic rushing by, tried to open the hatchback. Locked. Impatiently he waited for Caren to come around and unlock the rear hatch. He lifted it and climbed in with the suitcase and seized the handles in both hands. Heavy. His heart fluttered. It could be fifty pounds.
His fingers flew over the clasps and clicked them open.
Caren hugged herself. A semitrailer rocketed past. Blasted her two inches sideways.
Tom opened the bag and- Aw God, Sweet Jesus, look at that-row after row of currency. A solid wall of hundreds, two feet square, in crisp packets. Pounds and pounds of hundred-dollar bills.
He was just a gentle tug of a man. He’d spent his life quietly pulling on loose threads and hoping one of them would lead to a big fish. Until this moment. What a mighty urge came over him-to reach out and grab. Thank you, God. Here was Moby Dick. He leaned over, pressing his hands down on the dollars, feeling the dense little ridges comb his fingers. He slammed the case shut and they got back in the car. The classic questions pranced before his eyes.
Who-what-where-when-why-how.
Only then did he realize that he had taken one of the bills.
He turned it in his fingers. Ben Franklin’s subtle smile gazed enigmatically up at him. Questioning.
“So, who’s your ex-husband?” he asked, more calmly.
“He’s”-she paused-“married to Nina Pryce.”
Tom sat up. He never forgot a name he’d read in a headline. “She’s the one…the army, some stink from Desert Storm?”
“That’s right, the one with the Joan of Arc complex. The first woman ever to pee standing up.” Etched acid diction.
“So, ah, what’s he do?”
“He has this chair at his kitchen table. When you’re in trouble you go sit there and explain it to Phil.”
“I see,” said Tom dubiously.
“No you don’t.”
“Where’s he live?”
“Right now he’s up on the North Shore. Past Grand Marais.”
Tom tried to gauge her. An ex-husband suddenly waiting in the wings had an uncertain edgy feel. On the other hand, Grand Marais was the end of the world, and that gave him time to think about the best way to orchestrate…
The story, he reminded himself. All that money and he’d actually touched it. Right back there.
“Are you…involved with your ex-husband?” he asked.
She actually blushed. Horrible to see under the swollen bruises. “Phil. God no. I haven’t seen him in years.”
“Does he know we’re coming?”
Caren nodded. “I called him and told him I was in trouble.”
Her lower lip began to tremble. “I told him Keith hit me.”
Every time she mentioned being hit she trembled with anger. She shouldn’t be driving. He should get her off the 76 / CHUCK LOGAN
road. The safe thing would be to call Lorn Garrison right now. Jesus Christ-he had a tape.
“Once we get up north you’ll give me the tape?”
“Right. I want you to crucify the sonofabitch.”
Really should wait. But he couldn’t resist it. He flipped open his cell phone and punched Ida’s number. He recalled this vintage newsroom poster, a guy in a 1940s hat-like Lorn Garrison’s hat-with a press card stuck in the band, talking on an old-fashioned pedestal phone-Hiya doll, gimme rewrite.
“Ida Rain.”
“Ida, it’s Tom,” he tried to sound brisk, but he could hear his voice puff up importantly. He twirled the hundred-dollar bill in his fingers as he spoke.
“Jesus, you all right?” She didn’t hide the concern in her voice. Then she yelled, “It’s Tom, it’s Tom.”
Tom imagined the whole newsroom alerted at the mention of his name. Converging on the phone. Everybody talking about him.
New voice. “Hey, Tom, how’re you doing, man?” said Bruce Weitling, the city editor. More words in the greeting than he’d spoken to Tom in the last year.
“I’m on to something really big here, Bruce…”
“We’re starting to appreciate that. The guy who gave you a hard time this morning. He’s Angland, right? Mixed up in some kind of FBI investigation? We called the feds already and they were very cool, like, what ever gave you that idea?”
“No. No. No calls. I want to work out some ground rules.
First, it’s exclusive and copyrighted…”
“Tom, c’mon back to the office and we’ll talk. We need you to work the phones and brief Wanger and Kurson.”
“Hey, screw that. This is my story.” Tom was incensed.
Cheryl Kurson was just a kid. A girl.
“Sure it is and your name will be on it. We just want to field a full court press, if it’s big.”
“No,” said Tom calmly. Mine. Dammit. Mine.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Bruce’s voice was ruffled, in-dignant.
Tom punched off the phone. Caren was watching him, so he shrugged confidently. “They can wait. Let’s go.”
Caren nodded. “It’s a six-hour drive to get north of Grand Marais.”
“Good,” said Tom. He could use the time to think. Distracted, he started to slip the bill into his pocket, but she was still watching. Quickly, he tucked it out of sight, in the glove compartment.
16
Broker eyed the clock, pictured Caren on the road and envied Kit her world of friendly talking puppets and animals. She was watching them now, stamping from bare foot to foot as credits rolled on the television screen. Sesame Street ended with a furry monster tribute to the number nine. Kit poised, defying gravity, pitched slightly forward.