Mad River

are going to hurt for a week. And you’re still concussed. We’re going to keep you for a while—overnight, anyway—to make sure that the concussion isn’t too bad. We’ll give you something to help you sleep.”
    •   •   •
    THEY DID THAT.
    When Virgil woke in the morning, Davenport was sitting next to the bed, tapping on an iPad, looking grim. Virgil cleared his throat, and Davenport looked up and said, “Well, you’re still alive.”
    “That’s the good part,” Virgil said. “But I need a drink, and I’ve got to pee.”
    “I can get you some water, but you’ll have to pee on your own,” Davenport said. “I’ll call the nurse.”
    With the nurse helping, Virgil got out of bed and walked to the bathroom, hurting every step of the way, peed—happy to see no blood—and when he came back out, Davenport handed him a glass of water and Virgil said to the nurse, “I’m okay. I’ll use the chair.”
    He sat down—and it hurt to sit down—and Davenport said, “Tell me.”
    Virgil told him, and Davenport said, “We’ll talk to this Marjorie, but five’ll get you ten that whoever called Richards saw her talking to you, and used that to pull you back to the bar.” Richards was the BCA duty officer who’d called Virgil the night before.
    “That sounds right,” Virgil said. “I really had my head up my ass: I bit on it like a hungry trout.”
    “Gotta rework your metaphors,” Davenport said. And, “Duke was here. He said he’d see you this afternoon, but they’re out running the search again.”
    “Wrong spot, I think,” Virgil said.
    Davenport continued, “Jenkins and Shrake are out tearing up the countryside, looking for the two guys who jumped you. Those frat boys showed up at the right time, but they didn’t get a license plate, and we can’t find anybody at the bar who knows who they are. But we’ll find them.”
    “Couple of assholes, not important,” Virgil said. “They weren’t very good at it, either. Probably friends of Dick Murphy. Maybe even Dick Murphy, for all I know. But: I think I worried Murphy enough for him to do this. That’s the only reason I can think of that somebody’d jump me. If I could find those guys . . . maybe they’d talk.”
    “What do you have on Murphy?”
    Virgil laid it out, and when he was finished, Davenport said, “I agree with you that he probably paid Sharp. We need Sharp to say so. Or Welsh to say that Sharp told her that.”
    “So we need to keep at least one of them alive,” Virgil said.
    Davenport stood up and said, “You take it easy. I think they’re going to let you out this afternoon, but I already told the doc that if he thinks you ought to stay, that they ought to make you stay. Not to take any bullshit from you.”
    “All right. But I really do need to get out of here. This whole thing is probably going to end today.”
    “Can’t go much longer,” Davenport agreed. He stepped toward the door, then said, “You notice I didn’t say a single fuckin’ thing about you going up to that bar without a gun.”
    “I appreciate that,” Virgil said.
    “But if you had a gun with you, like you should have, as soon as you were hit, you could have rolled and come up with the weapon and just squeezed off a couple of rounds . . . even if you didn’t hit anything, that would have ended it. They’d have run, and you wouldn’t be in here. And if you’d hit one of them, we could talk to the guy about Murphy.”
    “No. That’s what would have happened if
you
had a gun,” Virgil said. “You can do that, because that’s the way you think. If I’d had a gun, and even remembered it, I probably would have dropped it trying to get it out. Then I’d have really been up shit creek, with a gun floating around. I’m just no damn good with pistols, Lucas.”
    Davenport looked at him for a moment, then shook his head and said, “Take it easy, man. We’ll find these guys. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they resist arrest.”
    Virgil said, “Take care,” and Davenport was gone.
    •   •   •
    HE STILL HAD a residual headache, but he’d had worse; and he’d hurt worse, like the time he got thrown off an ex–rodeo horse and pulled a groin muscle. He remembered the wrangler looking down at him and saying, “You take good dirt.”
    Maybe he did, he thought as he hobbled around the hospital room, because even though he hurt all over, he would have given a hundred American dollars to get five minutes alone