The theme music for Barney and His Friends came on.
“Oh-oh,” she announced with a judgmental furrowing of her eyebrows and forehead. She weighed twenty-one pounds, and a third of that was baby fat. He wasn’t kidding Nina, their kid was a diminutive Churchill, sculpted in pink dough, crowned with copper locks.
What if Nina’s lean, mean tomboy gene skipped a generation?
“That’s right, a big oh-oh,” Broker said as he handed over her reward, an Arrowroot cookie strictly forbidden by Major Mom before afternoon.
Their secret.
Since Kit, there were rules in the house. No smoking and no profanity. So he spelled out the curse: “Ef-You-See-Kay Barney and the yuppie puke he rode in on.” He knit his own thick eyebrows and improvised on his favorite line from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. “We don’t need no stinking purple glob of fat.”
He disliked Barney with a savvy passion he reserved for all the forces he intended to arm his daughter against. He’d seen fat, jolly, beady-eyed slugs like Barney operate around kids before. And he thought that the corpulent reptile was a fitting mascot for America at the end of the twentieth century.
Like half the country, the lizard was an overweight blimp; and he mouthed the kissy-ass victim-speak that was smothering the culture like a tree cancer.
Broker pointed the clicker and punched Washington Journal up on C-SPAN. Brian Lamb appeared, sturdy as the smiling Quaker on the oatmeal package on the kitchen counter. Broker put Kit’s high chair next to the kitchen table and ladled oatmeal into two bowls. Daddybear bowl and Babybear bowl. He blew on hers to cool it, then placed it on a Winnie-the-Pooh place mat on the high chair tray.
Hoisted her into the chair.
He told her, “Right now life looks like all fun and games with Grover and Elmo. But what they don’t tell you on Sesame Street is it can get rough out there. People who don’t eat their oats grow up weak.” He held up a spoonful of oatmeal for her edification. “Kit, listen to Daddy: The weak die.”
Ring. Broker eyed the phone. Malignant plastic intruder in his house. He ignored it, sliced a banana in Kit’s bowl.
Ring. It was going to be a soap opera and he hated soap operas. Throw in stubborn people like Caren and Keith who had a knack for fighting dirty and soap opera translated to
“domestic” on a police blotter. Messy, probably dangerous.
Caren, always popular, managed never to have friends.
And Keith was, unfortunately, the smartest pompous asshole Broker had ever met. Always popping up where you’d least expect him.
Ring. He sprinkled cinnamon onto the oatmeal, stirred it with the baby spoon. Ring. The phone was an arm’s length 80 / CHUCK LOGAN
away on the kitchen counter. It was inevitable, so he picked it up and reminded himself. Be cool.
“What?” he said in a resigned voice.
“Broker? Yeah, this is kind of awkward, it’s Keith…” Like real concerned.
“Been a while,” said Broker.
Silence. Then:
“It’s Caren. She’s in trouble. Need some help. She’s in a real mess with this reporter from the St. Paul paper.”
“Yeah?…”
“I think she might be headed your way.”
“Oh yeah?”
Keith’s voice lost its veneer of concern. “What it is-she called this number this morning.”
“What gives you that idea?”
“I pulled the phone records.”
“Did you hit her?” Broker asked, striving to keep his voice level.
“So she is headed there. Yeah. I slapped her. Mistake on hindsight, but there was provocation.” Keith sounded like he was padding a police report.
Broker grimaced. “Give her some room to cool down. You too.”
“I’m looking for my wife, not half-assed advice from you.”
Keith hung up. Caller ID registered an Amoco station.
Probably already north of the Cities, on the road. Bastard always was sure of himself.
“Shit.”
Kit, wearing oatmeal all down her chest, stared up at him with saucer eyes and a truncated brow. Soaking up prickly new nuances and adrenal grace notes. Anger.
Broker mumbled, “You’re probably going to get to see your first fistfight.”
“Chit,” trumpeted Kit. She hugged a floppy, stuffed yellow dog that wore a sombrero, a serape and a beard of oatmeal.
When you pressed the toy’s tummy, it played a zoned-out version of “La Cucaracha.” A present from his folks.
Besides no swearing and no smoking, there was no hitting in Broker’s house. So he needed help to referee Keith and Caren. He picked up the phone and called a friend, Jeffords, in Grand Marais. Good. Jeff was in his office.
“Jeff, it’s Broker. I have a touchy situation coming my way this afternoon. Ah, Keith Angland and Caren are having a mean fight and she’s on her way here. No kidding. I’m serious…. She says he hit her…Yeah…I know. Haven’t seen either of them for years. Must be bad if she’s running. Yeah, guess he finally came apart. Nope. Keith just called and said she’s got something going with a reporter. So it could be that again. Who knows? But they’re both headed this way.
If he goes crazy on me I have the baby here. No. Hey. Okay.
I doubt they could be here earlier than noon. Okay. Appreciate it.”
Broker hung up the phone and lifted his daughter out of the highchair. “Looks like we’re going to have a party. Uncle Jeff is coming over, too,” he said.
Tom Jeffords had copped with Broker in St. Paul, part of the freewheeling rookie “big five” that had included Keith, before he became a power-hungry asshole, and J.T. Merryweather and John Eisenhower. Jeff was the Cook County sheriff.
17
Caren staring straight ahead, tugging on her wedding band, driving eighty-five miles an hour.
“What’s Broker like?” Tom tried again.
Thoughtful chevrons creased her forehead. “He never grew up. He’s an…adventurer, I guess.” The creases deepened.
“He and Keith were partners for a while, way back, when Phil was a St. Paul cop. Then Keith used to be his boss. It’s like-Keith loves giving orders. And Phil hates taking orders.
And Keith was always trying out new approaches to improve Phil’s attitude. And then there was me.”
She smiled gamely. “They don’t really like each other much. Funny thing was, they made a hell of a team.”
Quite possibly she was impaired. Concussion perhaps.
Out on the road, alone with him. With a priceless tape and at least a million dollars. Spiraled off on a tangent, reliving her first marriage.
“Is he still a cop?” he asked.
She shook her head. “He got rich. His folks have this cabin resort in Devil’s Rock, he plays at managing it sometimes.”
Tom cleared his throat. “Is he quick-tempered? Calm?”
Armed? Dangerous? Still in love with you?
She removed her sunglasses, inclined her head and searched for words. “He used to watch that Robert Redford THE BIG LAW/83
movie- Jeremiah Johnson-over and over. Every year, just before deer season. It used to drive me nuts.”
“Be serious.”
“I am. It drove me right up the wall, every November.”
She cranked her neck and stared at the rearview mirror. “I hope nobody is following us. Something bad always happens at the end of a car chase.”
“So, does he know about…the stuff on the tape,” Tom thought out loud.
“Not yet. I need you to act as go-between? To, you know, set up a meeting. Let him know it’s serious and not just some dumb fight I’m having with Keith.”
Tom stared out the window at the toothpick wreckage of a cornfield. A woman has a fight with her husband. The husband hits her. She runs for help to her former husband.