Storm Front

what he did with this woman in Israel. He knows
another
guy who’s out of town right now, and he’s broken in there, and he’s driving that guy’s car.”
    Virgil thought about it for two seconds, then said, “Probably. Unless he’s at Ma’s. If we had just a little more time, we could go jack up the people at Gustavus, find out who’s out of town, start going door-to-door.”
    “You say we might not do much this afternoon. . . . Shrake and I could run up there, see what we can see,” Jenkins said.
    “It’s a plan,” Virgil said. “Let’s see what Ma has to say.”
    —
    T HEY FOUND R OLF , Ma’s oldest boy, unloading salvage lumber from a Ford flatbed truck—dry salvage, that he said came from Elijah Jones’s old farmhouse—into the barn. Ma, he said, had gone out to the creek, but she had her cell phone with her. Another of Ma’s kids came out, a big kid, said his name was Tall Bear, and when Shrake asked him if he had a minister hiding under his bed, Tall Bear said, “No, but Mom said Virgil is busting her balls about him.”
    Virgil got Ma on the phone and told her that he was at her house, and if she didn’t mind, he and a couple of other cops were going to look under the beds, in the closets, and out in the barn.
    “Pisses me off, but go ahead,” Ma said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
    Virgil clicked off and said, “She says go ahead, which means we don’t have to.”
    “Maybe we ought to, just for form’s sake,” Jenkins said, looking up at the house.
    “Go ahead if you want,” Virgil said. “I’ll be out here.”
    Jenkins got Tall Bear to show him around, and Shrake and Virgil stood around watching Rolf unload lumber, and then Shrake took off his tie and said, “Well, shit, let’s give him a hand,” and so they did.
    When Ma got back, she looked at them unloading lumber, shook her wet head, and said, “Sometimes you people . . . Virgil . . .”
    —
    J ENKINS HADN ’ T FOUND anything at all in the house, and on the way back to town, said, “Nice boy, that Tall Bear. He said Ma was out swimming in the creek.”
    “Boy, I’d bet that’d be a sight,” Shrake said. He looked casually over at Virgil and said, “Wouldn’t that be a sight, Virgie? Those nice little pink tits, she’s floating around on her back . . . Wait, what am I saying, ‘little’? Anyway, the sight—”
    “Yeah, that’d be a sight,” Virgil said.
    Shrake said to Jenkins, “Virgil agrees that would be a sight.”
    After a minute, Virgil said, “Fuck you,” but he didn’t laugh, though Jenkins and Shrake did. A lot.

22
    J enkins and Shrake spent the afternoon checking the homes of college professors who were believed to be traveling. They got the list after consulting with administrators at Gustavus Adolphus, and twice thought they might be on to something—the houses were occupied, one by the owners, who’d come back before they were expected, and one by the owners’ adult children, who’d stayed behind while their parents visited Budapest.
    At six o’clock, they gathered out back of Virgil’s house for brats and beer and tried to figure out what they’d be doing that evening. Virgil changed into cargo shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, and sandals for the occasion.
    “I’m mostly worried about Ma,” he said. “I don’t know exactly why she’s involved with Jones, but there’s something going on. Anyway, we’ll track her. She told me herself that Jones had something tricky planned for the exchange. I think I’ve got it all covered, but we’ll see.”
    “So we just sit on our asses until she starts moving?”
    “That’s about it,” Virgil said. “I gotta tell you—I’m a little suspicious about this whole auction thing. Why would he even bother to have it? But I have two different bidders telling me that’s what’s going to happen, so we’re going with it.”
    Shrake said, “I don’t worry so much about Ma. I worry more about this Mossad chick. From what you say, she wants to try out a little combat.”
    “I don’t want anybody to get shot, and I don’t doubt that she can shoot,” Virgil said. “If she pulls a gun, and if it’s safe to do, we might want to give her a little firepower demonstration.”
    Shrake brightened. “We talking tracers?”
    “You got some of those fast-ignition rounds?” Virgil asked.
    “Does a bear excrete in the woods?”
    “Have another brat,” said Virgil.
    Sitting around the grill, waiting for the trouble,