“You mean, besides attracting women that you can make a run at?”
“Yeah. Besides that.”
A truck rolled into the yard, and they both looked out the window. “It’s Clarice,” Johnson said. “I called her and told her to meet me here.”
Clarice came in a moment later and said, “Goddamnit, Johnson, you been reading again, without your Chapstick.” She looked at Virgil, who was looking down her cleavage again. Clarice was on her way to Friday’s, and looked, Virgil thought… nice. “His lips get chapped when he reads too much.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Virgil said. “You look… nice.”
“Especially with her tits out to here,” Johnson said.
Clarice’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t have tits, if you’ll just excuse the shit out of me, Johnson. I have breasts.”
Johnson agreed that she did, indeed, and Virgil nodded in agreement, and she and Johnson went out the door. “Don’t let those pictures get out of sight,” Johnson said. “They are something.”
When they were gone, Virgil called Sandy back and asked her to start working on the Cloud concept. “Gonna need subpoenas and all that,” she said.
“I’ll leave that to all you large brains back at HQ,” Virgil said. “Let me know what happens.”
Virgil went back to his computer and read the e-mails that Sandy had sent earlier, the details on Conley and Laughton. When he was done, he got a Leinenkugel’s from the refrigerator, kicked back on the glider, and thought about it. Was it really possible that Conley had discovered a case of public corruption, and had been killed to cover it up? If so, how big would the conspiracy have to be? How many people would have had to know about the planned killing? Had it been one guy, panicked, who decided to solve the problem? Or had it been several people?
As soon as Johnson mentioned the possibility of a big public organization, Virgil had thought of Bill Don Fuller, who’d seen Conley getting into his car in the predawn darkness, right there by the high school.…
He was still thinking about it when Frankie called and spent a half hour keeping him up on the happenings around the farm, and her architectural salvage business. Her second-oldest boy had taken his girlfriend up the Minnesota River to an island where he knew there were lots of raspberries, and he and his girlfriend had picked four quarts, and in the process, had gotten two of the worst cases of poison ivy in the history of poison ivy.
“They had to go into the clinic to get special stuff. Tall Bear is bad enough, but poor old Tricia went back in the bushes to pee.…”
“Ah, God…”
“Yup. Won’t have to worry about Tall Bear knockin’ her up for a month or so. Anyway, the Bronsons are over cutting hay, be nice if you could be home when we’re doing this sometime. You missed all of last year and the first cut this year when you had to go out to Windom.”
“We weren’t seeing each other last year,” Virgil said. “And you know how much I love baling hay. I’d give anything to be there with you.”
“I’m beginning to suspect you’re not telling the whole truth about that.”
“Aw, Frankie…”
If Virgil were given a choice between following a hay wagon around a field, throwing bales, on a hot summer day, or dropping his testicles into a bear trap, he’d have to think about it. They were still talking when another call chirped in. Gomez.
“Gotta go, Frankie. Gomez is on the line. We could be moving on the meth—”
“You be careful! Take your gun!”
“Yep. Call you back.” He clicked off and answered Gomez’s call. “What’s up?”
“They’re cooking,” Gomez said. “We’re moving in on them. If you want to come along, get down by that bridge in the next fifteen minutes.”
“I’m coming. Wait for me.”
Virgil ran out to his truck, missing a porch step and nearly falling on his face. Night had settled in since he’d started talking with Johnson. On his way north, he called Frankie back and said, “Yeah, the feds are going in. I won’t be on the front line, though.”
“Call me back and tell me what happened. I won’t sleep until you call.”
“Could be late.”
“Call me.”
Kind of an odd feeling, he thought, having a woman who wanted to know where you were, and what you were doing, and wanted daily updates. Virgil had been married, very briefly, three times, and he couldn’t actually remember any of the other three worrying about where he was; he could remember wondering where the hell they were.
Another interesting thing about Frankie, Virgil thought, was that she had no problem with him going face-to-face with people who carried guns. Unlike some cops’ wives and girlfriends, she didn’t pay much attention to possible negative consequences. She herself liked excitement, and she liked guys who liked excitement, and she thought his job was exciting.
Which it was, at times. Knowing that his job wasn’t a burden on her lifted a burden off him; left him free to feel the rush.
When he got to the bridge on Highway NN, he was last in the line of five SUVs. He got a vest, gun, and camo jacket out of the back and hustled down to the bridge, where he found three DEA agents waiting for him. Gomez was not one of them. The three were dressed in black-and-tan night camo and were wearing vests and helmets with night-vision glasses, and had M16s dangling from their hands. They also had headsets with earbuds and microphones.
“Where’s Gomez?”
“He’s already up the hill,” said the shortest of the three. “We’ve got four guys spaced around the place already, in case we get runners. Four more are going in now, with Gomez and Jackson behind them. We’re the backstop. You got night-vision gear?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Gomez thought you might not. We don’t have a spare set, but I’ve got some glow tape. I’ll stick a couple inches on the back of my helmet — stay close and you shouldn’t bump into any trees. If there’s trouble, I’ll pull the tape off, and you get behind something solid, and wait. We’ve got an audio link for you, so you can hear what’s happening, and talk to us if you have to. There shouldn’t be too much trouble. We expect to be right on top of them before they can move. After we leave here, try not to talk unless you have to. Voices carry in the night.”
“I’ve got a Godzilla-rated flashlight in the truck,” Virgil said.
“You might want to get it. Just make sure you don’t accidentally turn it on.”
Virgil went back and got a 2800-lumen flashlight, of the kind that poachers used to jacklight deer; in fact, he’d gotten it from a game warden. He slung the carry bag over his shoulder and went back to the DEA guys. One of them gave Virgil an earbud and a microphone that attached around his neck, with a microphone that looked like a stick and pointed at his mouth. It was hand-activated by a button set at the base of his throat. When he’d figured it out, which took about eighteen seconds, they set off across the first field, and Virgil wondered, What if the assholes have a lookout up on that ridge? Of course, if they did, they’d have already started running.
Staying with the guy with the glow tape wasn’t a problem, and while there wasn’t much moon, there was enough to light up the overall landscape. The biggest problem was stepping into holes or onto bumps, and he stumbled a few times as they crossed the field.
The leader stopped at the far fence, held the top strands of barbed wire as Virgil climbed over it, and then they were in the trees and climbing. The climbing was actually easier than walking through the field, because it was slower, and he was only a couple feet behind the guy in front of him, and could sense what the other man was doing. The biggest sensory input was olfactory: he could smell the damp earth beneath the matted oak leaves, and the brush they were passing through, and thought of Tricia and the poison ivy.…