“My biggest fear is getting shot in the ass,” Virgil said. “He’s got to make some kind of move before we can take him. If I’ve gotta climb that ladder before he tries to jump me, he’ll be shooting up at me, not straight at me. And the armor doesn’t fit that well around my ass.”
“That could be Jenkins’s second product,” Shrake said. “Ass armor.”
“I gotta be honest, I don’t think he’s gonna fall for anything at all,” Jenkins said. “We tried to ambush Kerns, and he never showed up. Now we try to ambush Laughton… I’d be surprised if he shows up.”
“If he doesn’t, he’s given up,” Virgil said. “If he thinks I’m going to get a recording of the school board meeting, he’s either got to show up, or concede the fact that he’s going to prison for murder. There has to be something serious on that memory card or Kerns wouldn’t have murdered Will Bacon to get it.”
“But there isn’t a second memory card,” Shrake said. “There was only one.”
“But there are two slots. Whoever killed Kerns got one card — but can’t take the chance that there really is a second one. He can’t know that there isn’t a second one.”
“Maybe. I guess we’ll see.”
It was just getting dark when they started over to the school in Virgil’s truck. On the way, Shrake said that Jenkins’s talk of making his fortune with office camo reminded him of a rumor going around BCA headquarters. According to the rumor, a BCA team had been digging out financial information about a defunct investment company in St. Paul. Virgil knew about the criminal part of the investigation, because it had been handled by Lucas Davenport, his boss.
“The question was, did a bunch of other people take out money before the collapse, because they’d been tipped off by the owner that trouble was coming?” Shrake said. “And if so, should that money be reclaimed?”
“That’s the kind of shit that puts me asleep,” Jenkins said.
“Me, too,” Shrake said. “But that’s not what the rumor was about. Supposedly this team was looking at all these income tax returns, and somebody decided to take just a wee peek at Davenport’s returns.”
Virgil said, “Uh-oh. If they did that, and anybody official found out, they’d be fired.”
“Probably,” Shrake agreed. “But the rumor is, they took a peek, and as close as they can figure it, he’s worth something between thirty-five and forty-five million. Can you believe that?”
Virgil thought it over for a few seconds and finally said, “I honestly have no idea. I know he’s richer than Jesus Christ and all the Apostles. I know that two weeks ago, when he flew down to El Paso after Del got shot, he wrote a check for the plane he borrowed from the governor. I know he buys what he wants, he has expensive cars… but I don’t know a number. You could do all that if you had a half-million in the bank.”
“It’s not a half-million,” Shrake said. “He’s way, way on the other side of that. The question is, say the guy is worth something like the rumor says he is. What the hell is he doing working for the BCA? Why’s he going mano a mano with some psycho fruit in the basement of a torture castle? What the fuck is he doing? He could be living in… LA. Or Paris, if he likes cheese.”
“If he likes cheese, he could be living in River Falls, Wisconsin,” Jenkins said.
“You know what I mean, man.”
Virgil said to Shrake, “You know why he does it.”
Shrake said, “No, I don’t. I really don’t. Not if he’s got forty million…”
Virgil said, “Shrake, you’ve got a fuckin’ shotgun between your knees, you’re wearing an armored vest, and there’s a chance you’re about to shoot it out with a psycho killer in the dark. Why is that?”
Jenkins laughed, and said, “Yeah, why is that, putter boy? How come so many guys, including you, try to get on SWAT squads? Come on, admit it.”
Shrake tried to hold out: “It’s my job.”
“Oh, bullshit,” Jenkins said. “You do it because you like it, because you get that feeling in your balls like you’re in a falling elevator, and you like it. We all like it. We get all grim and warriored-up about it, but the bottom line is, we like it.”
“That’s somewhat true,” Shrake admitted.
“That’s why Davenport does it: it’s better than money,” Jenkins said.
“You guys bum me out sometimes,” Virgil said.
“Getting that feeling in your balls?” Jenkins asked.
“I’ve had it for about three days now,” Virgil said.
“Attaboy.”
As they came up to the school, Jenkins said, “The question is, is he inside waiting for us, so we get hosed the minute we go through the door, or is he planning to come in after you have a chance to find the memory card?”
“Or is he home eating fried chicken and trying to decide what to watch on TV?” Shrake added.
“I got a key from the crime-scene crew that’ll let us in the back door, all the way around by the ball diamond, where he won’t be expecting us,” Virgil said. “We go around there right quick, and in through the doors. Once we’re inside, we’ll be even.”
“What are the chances he’s got night-vision glasses?” Jenkins asked.
“Unlikely — no reason for him to have them. Besides, right inside the door there’s a whole bank of switches. I’m going to light up the halls all the way down to the auditorium. Then, inside the auditorium, there’s another bank that’ll light that place up.”
They thought about that for a minute, then Jenkins said, “Most likely hiding inside a classroom. Hard to know exactly where, but probably between the auditorium and the door he thought you’d come through. He’d make sure you’re alone, then he’d watch you go in there, and maybe peek to see if you were finding anything… and then, boom.”
“Or he could already be stashed in the auditorium. There are quite a few places on the stage, or in the projection booth, at the back, that’d give him cover,” Virgil said.
“So we go in, with full lights, and we watch for any classroom doors that are cracked open. Then we go into the auditorium in a regular clearance formation, ready to hose him. If he’s not there, we wait.”
“One of us up high, one low, while Virgil climbs up the ladder and looks for the chip. You know where the ladder is?”
“Still in the auditorium,” Virgil said. “The crime-scene guys were processing it, and I told them to leave it.”
At the school, Virgil said, “I haven’t seen his truck.”
“Probably wouldn’t show it,” Shrake said. “But he’d want to have it close, in case he had to run — so he’s probably not here yet.”
“Probably at home, eating chicken,” Jenkins said.
Virgil took the truck into the student parking lot, then swung onto the track that took them behind the school by the baseball practice diamond, then across some grass and right up to the back door. They piled out of the truck, jacking shells into their shotguns, and Virgil knelt below the windows in the door, and fitted the key into the door lock.
“Okay,” he said, and turned the key and the lock popped. The door was sheathed in thin steel; good against a shotgun, but not against a deer rifle. He pulled the door open, staying behind the door, waited, and then crawled inside, felt for the light switches, turned on five or six of them at once.
The lights flickered down the long hallway — which was empty. Jenkins and Shrake moved inside, and Virgil pulled the door shut. They walked cautiously forward, spread across the hall, their shotgun muzzles at chest height.
Fifty feet in, Shrake said, “Door on the left.” Virgil saw the crack between the door and the jamb. He and Shrake kept their weapons pointed at it, while Jenkins kept his tracking down the hall. As they came up to the open door, they moved to the door side of the hall. As they got to it, Virgil called, “If there’s anybody in room 120, you best come out, because we’ve got three shotguns pointed at it.”