Shock Wave

them for? Art studios? If he got killed and they pulled the plug on this store, it’d be like I got a reprieve from the death penalty.”
    Virgil looked at him for a moment, and from behind him, the secretary said, “I second everything Ernie just said.”
    “Where were you last night?” Virgil asked.
    “At home. Ate dinner down at Bunson’s with my wife and my youngest kid, got home about seven, watched a ball game until about nine o’clock or so. Put the kids to bed, watched TV with my wife until eleven, went to bed. Of course, that alibi’s no good, because it’s only my wife and kids, and this whole deal will drag them down, just as much as me.”
    “You been out of town in the last month?”
    “No, sir. I been here every day,” Stanton said.
    “And you’ve got people who aren’t in your family . . . aren’t your secretary . . . who’ll say that?”
    “Well, hell, I don’t know,” Stanton said. “Probably. I use my credit card for most everything I buy, and I usually buy something every day. Groceries, or something. But, how’d I know I’d have to prove I was here every day? If I’d known that, I could have set something up.”
    “Good answer,” Virgil said.
    He saw Stanton relax just a notch, his shoulders folding back and down into his office chair. From behind Virgil, the secretary said, “I also have a calendar which gives you his appointments every day. Like he went to the dentist twice last week.”
    Virgil swiveled around and said, “Don’t throw it away.”
    Going back to Stanton, he asked, “You know about the car bombing this morning?”
    Stanton nodded. “Yeah, I went out and looked at it. It’s still sitting there. Didn’t hear the boom, but my wife was down at County Market, shopping, and she heard it, and saw it, and called me.”
    Virgil said, “The bomb was probably triggered when the limo went over a bump or something. Something that jarred the car. About a minute before it went off, the driver went past a bunch of elementary school kids on a field trip. If it had gone off next to them, you’d be missing a few kids.”
    Stanton leaned forward and said, “That’s why I wouldn’t be a bomber. If I was going to kill Pye, I’d figure out a way to shoot the sonofabitch. But a bomb . . . this bomb in Michigan, killed that gal, the secretary. Why would you take a chance of doing that? Then our first bomb, he killed the construction super. That won’t stop the store—they’ll just get another supervisor. I mean, what the guy is doing is nuts.”
    “But shooting him with a gun wouldn’t be?”
    “Be a hell of a lot less nuts,” Stanton said. “Wouldn’t it?”
    “I wouldn’t make that kind of judgment,” Virgil said.
    “You would if you were a real shitkicker, and not some phoniedup city cowboy in crocodile boots and a Rolling Stones tongue shirt.”
    “Listen—”
    “Come on, admit it,” Stanton said. “You got a guy like Pye, wrecking a town, and you might not like him getting shot, but it’s a hell of a lot less nuts than taking a chance of blowing up some schoolkids. Isn’t it?”
    “Well . . .”
    “C’mon, say it,” Stanton said.
    “All right. It’s less nuts,” Virgil said. “I still don’t hardly approve of it.”
    “Neither do I,” Stanton said. “That’s one reason I didn’t do it. Shoot him, I mean.”
    Stanton said he’d thought about the bomber, but the more he thought, the more bewildered he became. “I know guys around town who could do it, but they wouldn’t. I mean, they’ve got the skills. Hell, I could probably do it. Me and my friends, we sit around talking about it—we’re asking each other, who’s nuts enough? We really don’t know anybody like that.”
    With that, Virgil left.
    As he was going out the door, the prairie flower said, “If you see that cocksucker Pye, tell him I hope he roasts in hell.”
    “I’ll try to remember,” Virgil said.
     
     
    OUT IN THE SUNSHINE, Virgil looked at his watch. Time was passing, and he wasn’t getting anywhere. And, he thought, the bomber was probably already at work on another bomb. He took a call from Ahlquist. “The TV’s already here, taking pictures of the limo and the blown-up pipes, interviewing everybody in sight. They’re asking if you’re gonna make a statement for the BCA?”
    “No, no, apologize if anybody asks for me. Tell them that I’m tracking down leads, or something,” Virgil said. “But I’ll sneak in the back and watch.”
    “Are