Dark of the Moon

from someplace else—Kansas City, most likely, with the Missouri plates. You could get a pretty damn good shooter in Kansas City. So he fills it up just before he leaves town, drives up here, does the job, picks up an extra twenty gallons, and that’ll get him all the way back. Never stops at a gas station, nobody ever sees him. He’s not on any security tapes…How far could you go with a full tank and forty gallons?”
    They both thought awhile, and then Stryker said, “At least to Kansas City.”
    “But then,” Virgil asked, “why didn’t they just put it in the tank here? Fifteen gallons, anyway.”
    Stryker said, “There’s something else in the cans, Virgil.”
    “That would be my thought,” Virgil said.
    Another two miles: “Unless he’s just picking up some lawn mower gas,” Stryker said.
     
    T HERE WAS LIGHT in the east when they pulled into the courthouse. Stryker led the way into the office, where a dispatcher lifted a hand inside his Plexiglas cage and Stryker got on a computer and ran the Missouri plates. They had a return in ten seconds: Dale Donald Evans of Birmingham, Missouri. Birmingham was just outside Kansas City. With his name and birth date, they ran Evans through the NCIC, and came up with six hits.
    “Burglary, burglary, burglary, assault, theft, assault. Done two, three, five years, total, all in Missouri,” Stryker said.
    “Thought they gave you the first three burglaries for free,” Virgil said.
    “Not in Missouri, apparently. Or maybe he stole something big.”
    “Or from somebody big.” Virgil tapped the screen. “You know what he is? He’s a trusted small-timer. Did his time, kept his mouth shut. So now, he’s a driver. Run up to Minnesota, pick up a load, a few beat-up cans of gas mixed up with some firewood and a chain saw and maybe a generator and some tools…nobody gives him a second look.”
    Stryker leaned back in his chair: “I could use some recommendations, about what to do about all of this.”
    “We need to take a meeting,” Virgil said.
     
    D AVENPORT GROANED into the phone: “Virgil, goddamnit…”
    “Get your big white ass out of bed and call the DEA,” Virgil said. “I need to talk to one of their serious guys, like right now.”
    “You got something?”
    “Biggest meth lab in the history of big meth labs,” Virgil said. “Maybe.”
    He could hear Davenport yawning. “Okay. I can call a guy. But is there some reason that you’re calling me at five-thirty in the morning?”
    “Yeah. About forty gallons of meth is driving down to Kansas City. We need to get somebody on it, and we figure the feds are as good as anyone.”
     
    A DEA AGENT called back twenty minutes later. With Stryker sitting across from him, Virgil gave the agent a précis of the investigation, the killings, the ethanol plant, and what they thought. The DEA man, whose name was Ronald Pirelli, and who said that he was in Chicago, said, “Sit there, at that telephone.”
    Ten minutes later another DEA man called and said, “Can you brief a team in Mankato in four hours?”
    “We could do that,” Virgil said. “Why Mankato?”
    “Because it’s almost halfway between here and there. Ten o’clock at the Days Inn.”
    “We could be there in two hours,” Virgil said.
    “Got the big guy flying in from Chicago,” the DEA man said. “He can’t make it before ten.”
     
    V IRGIL HUNG UP and said to Stryker, “We started a prairie fire, boy. You’re gonna be a hero.”
    “Either that, or I’ll be a farmer again,” Stryker said. But he looked happy enough. “Rather leave that to Joanie, tell you the truth.”
    Virgil retrieved his car from Stryker’s house, drove back to the Holiday Inn, tried to catch an hour’s sleep, and failed. Instead, he got caught in a recursive semiwaking dream involving dogs and running in the rain. At seven-thirty, he got up, found a good, clean, conservative Modest Mouse T-shirt, took a shower, and went and got Stryker.
    Stryker was wearing a necktie. He looked at Virgil’s shirt and said, “That’s nothing but cold, deliberate insolence.”
    On their way to Mankato, the accountant called on Virgil’s cell phone: “When can we get together?”
    “We’ve been called to a meeting up in Mankato; we’ll be back this afternoon. You got something?”
    “A headache and a big bill. And, I have to say, our friend is in worse shape than we thought. I can’t prove it, because it doesn’t have anything to do with numbers, but he