Free Vapor Trail by Chuck Logan Page A

counselor describe alcoholism as a progressive disease, implying that just because you stopped putting alcohol in your mouth, it didn’t mean the condition was cured. It continued to grow inside like an invisible vampire. Take a drink after ten years, and the vampire sitting on your chest was ten years older and stronger than he was the last time you saw him.
    Broker figured the thing he had with Harry was like that.
    He came up to his turnoff and spotted the building. Weeds grew in the broken asphalt of the parking lot. Fading blue lettering spelled Ole’s Boat Repair on dirty white cinder block, and the showroom windows were boarded with plywood. An ancient sailboat was beached, unmasted and rudderless, on a trailer. The tires on the trailer were flat.
    Broker drove around back and saw a dozen cars, SUVs mostly, and a brand-new shiny red Subaru Forester with a license plate that matched the numbers and letters on the clipboard on the seat next to him.
    He parked, got out, and encountered the deeply locked-down feeling that was Diane waiting for him in the heat. Dark hair worn in a flip. The soft breathy voice.
    Did you see her? She looks like Jackie Fucking Kennedy with tits. Harry’s studied reaction the night he met her.
    Years ago, the sensation would close off the light and last for whole days; now he processed it fast, working through the doubt and remorse to a bedrock determination.
    He could never bring himself to say he’d done the right thing.But he was confident he’d done what he had to do. So he took a deep breath through his nose to steady himself, walked up to the back door, and knocked.
    The door opened a crack. A tubby guy with senatorial white hair and a melanoma golf tan peeked out.
    “You have an invite? This is strictly an invitations-only party,” the guy said.
    “Phil Broker for Harry Cantrell. I need to talk to him,” Broker said.
    The guy squinted. “Oh yeah?”
    Broker shifted his weight irritably from foot to foot. “Hey, c’mon. Get Harry out here.”
    The guy turned and called into the dark air-conditioned interior, “Harry, there’s this guy here says . . .”
    A deep, slightly slurred, but amused voice boomed, “Yeah, yeah, my fucking process server—bring him in.”
    The guy at the door thumbed Broker to enter.
    Broker stepped inside and squinted. He was in a huge deserted workshop with a concrete floor and half-torn wooden racks. An industrial-strength chill churned from a dripping wall-mounted A/C unit. Stratas of cigarette and cigar smoke stacked up in a shower of light. It came from an oblong pool hall light that poured down on a round table covered with a green felt tablecloth.
    Six men sat around it among a clutter of cards, chips, ashtrays, and drinks. Six or seven other guys lounged at a side table that held platters of sandwich makings, an ice bucket, some bottles. An old couch, some chairs, and a refrigerator rounded out the decor. Mouse had accurately called the crowd; ten years ago, in their late thirties, they’d probably taken some chances; now they looked as if they wanted to sit down a lot and mainly talk. Most of the guys at the card table were culturally correct, drinking from plastic bottles of spring water.
    “Well, well, well,” Harry said. He sat behind an ashtray, a whiskey tumbler, and a big pile of chips.
    Same old Harry. He went five eleven, weighed around 175, and was fifty years old. As Broker came across the room he recalled that Harry always looked slightly smaller than he actually was. The illusion was created by the fact that Harry’s clothes always fit him so well.
    Today he wore gray stonewashed jeans and a green golf shirt. But even dressed in a white bedsheet Harry would still evoke a man-in-black persona. It was the thick dark curly hair, the sideburns, and the promise of dangerous excitement cocked in the slouch of his hips. His face was slightly flat, with Cherokee cheekbones and a chin that matched his brawny bone-prominent hands.