Rough Country

it.”
    And to Windrow: “Are you in town overnight?”
    “Yup.”
    “So let’s get together at the studio tomorrow, we can talk to everybody at the same time, and I’ll give you the contract. You coming to the Goose?”
    “Gonna get something to eat first, if you got a recommendation.”
    Wendy looked at Zoe, who said, “Probably . . . the Duck Inn. Right downtown.”
    “This is bullshit,” Slibe said. “I say we take the whole thing to a lawyer tomorrow. What’s the rush?”
    “No big one-day, two-day rush,” Windrow said. “But I’ve got to get somebody lined up, quick. I got a hole I’m trying to fill. You take it, fine. You don’t—well, we’re lining up people for next summer and fall. That’d be your next shot with us. If Johnny Ray hadn’t drove his Mustang into a ditch, there wouldn’t be this hole.”
    “I’m doing it,” Wendy said. “I’m doing it.”

18
    ZOE SPOKE.
    Virgil put his hands on his head and asked, “What the hell you mean you can’t find him? We talked to him. We saw him coming out of this place. . . .”
    Sig said, “The Duck Inn.”
    “. . . three hours ago. He’s probably back at his motel—”
    “He’s not,” Zoe said. “I went over there and knocked on his door. I even went out to the airport and talked with Zack.”
    “Airport guy,” Sig said.
    “And Jud’s plane is still parked there.”
    “Probably in a bar.”
    “I cruised all the downtown bars. He was supposed to be there right at seven.”
    Virgil looked at his watch and turned to Sig. “I must’ve picked you up about then.”
    “I looked at the clock just before you got here and it wasn’t quite seven.”
    “So we must’ve got down to the Duck place at . . .”
    “Maybe ten after.”
    “So he was already running late,” Zoe said. “He doesn’t know anybody in town, he told us that. I couldn’t find him. Wendy and Berni and Cat are out looking for him. . . . I mean maybe he’s drunk out in a ditch somewhere. . . .”
    “Wasn’t drunk when we saw him,” Sig said, picking up some of her sister’s anxiety.
    Virgil said, “Aw, fuck me. If that guy’s off on a toot somewhere . . . Do we know what kind of car he was driving?”
    “It was a red Jeep Commander,” Zoe said. “He was out talking to Wendy this afternoon, when I went out there. I left at the same time he did, so I saw the car.”
    Virgil went out to his truck, got his phone, and called Sanders. “This may be a complete false alarm, but maybe not: we need to get your guys looking for a red Jeep Commander driven by a guy named Jud Windrow. . . .”
     
     
     
    SIG SAID, “Virgil—go.”
    He didn’t want to. “This isn’t an investigation, it’s a search,” he protested. “All I could do is go out and drive around.”
    “I can see what’s going through your head, okay? We can’t do this, not with you all cranked up, looking at your watch every two minutes. You’re going to be getting phone calls. So go. Find the guy. I’ll be here.” She smiled at him. “I don’t really think anything’ll break off.”

    HE WOUND UP in the driveway with Zoe, and said, “Thanks a lot.”
    “Well, what was I supposed to do, Virgil?” she asked.
    “Yeah, yeah . . .”
    She said, “I do feel bad. Siggy likes men, and since Joe’s been gone . . . and Joe . . .”
    “What about Joe?”
    “Joe’s a heck of a guy,” Zoe said. “He wanders off, like this, and it’s no way to have a marriage, but he was a heck of a guy and she misses having a guy around. You know, if he’d been an asshole or something, maybe she’d want to sign off men. But Joe wasn’t. Isn’t. He’s funny, he’s hot, and he’s sort of . . . out there. And I know she needs something like that. You guys are going to be good together.”
    “Christ, maybe you should have married Joe, if he was such a heck of a guy.”
    “Virgil . . .”
    “All right. I’m going,” Virgil said. “And you know what? Fuck a bunch of Joes.”
     
     
     
    DRIVING BACK TOWARD TOWN, he had a thought, pulled into a driveway, found his notebook, and called Prudence Bauer, in Iowa. She picked up on the second ring, and he identified himself: “I hate to bother you, but Jud Windrow didn’t call you this evening, did he?”
    “No. Why would he?”
    “Well, I got the impression that you were friends; I thought he might have given you a ring. He’s going to sign up Wendy.”
    “Virgil, we’re friends, slightly, but he was really friends with Connie,” Bauer