Storm Front

“Let’s not.”
    Virgil had hold of Ma, who twisted around and said, “She put a gun in my face.”
    Bauer said, “Yeah, she had a gun. She made me do it.”
    “I am a diplomat—”
    Virgil: “Fuck a bunch of immunity.” To Jenkins and Shrake: “Cuff them and transport them up to Ramsey. Aggravated assault, et cetera. I’ll talk to you later.”
    “Where are you going?”
    Virgil looked at his watch. Five minutes to nine. “I oughta know in the next couple of minutes.” Then he remembered, looked at Bauer, and asked, “Where’s the stone?”
    “Floor of the truck.”
    Virgil and Ma walked up to the truck, and Virgil saw the bowling bag. He picked it up, and turned to Ma.
    “So there’s no auction?”
    She took the bag from him, unzipped it, walked to the front of Bauer’s truck, and smashed the stone against the bull bars on the front. The stone cracked in half, showing a white interior.
    “It’s an imitation, made out of plaster of paris,” she said. “I told you Reverend Jones would do something tricky. The auction is over. The money and the stone are gone.”
    They all looked at the shattered fake, and then Bauer said, “Aw, shit.”
    Virgil asked Ma, “Where’s Jones?”
    “He’s turning himself in—to you. He should be down at the Perkins at any minute. He’ll need to go to a hospital, not to a jail. He’s in terrible shape. I don’t know how he holds together. Only willpower now, the medicine doesn’t work anymore.”
    “Okay,” Virgil said. To Jenkins and Shrake: “Change in plan. Jenkins takes these two up to Ramsey. Shrake comes with me and we’ll bust Jones, and Shrake will transport him to Regions. He walked out of Mankato once, I’m not going to give him another chance.”
    Ma asked, “What about me?”
    Virgil shrugged: “The way I see it, you just carried out the plan we talked about last night. As long as we get lots and lots of cooperation.”
    “Sure,” she said.
    “Let’s do this,” Virgil said. “We’ll lock the Range Rover and leave it. I’ll get it towed tonight. Ma, you can follow us down to the Perkins. Let’s get out of the rain.”
    —
    S O B AUER AND Z AHAVI were cuffed, Zahavi silent for once, and they all walked to whatever vehicles they were going to, and Ma said to Virgil, “You are strangely cheerful, and that worries me.”
    “Yeah, well, you know,” Virgil said, but he couldn’t help grinning at her. “You win some, and you lose some.” He looked up at the dark sky, the leading edge of the storm now well to the east, took a deep breath, enjoying the smell of the rain on the gravel and the corn, and said, “What a great night, huh?”
    —
    O N THE WAY BACK TO TOWN , Virgil got on the secret phone. When Lincoln answered, he said, “I’ve busted Bauer and Zahavi, the Israeli Mossad agent. She’s claiming diplomatic immunity, but you might be able to trade something for her . . . reasonable treatment.”
    “Somebody will think about that.”
    “You got your guy?”
    “That’s classified,” she said, and hung up.
    In other words, Virgil thought,
Yes
.
    —
    V IRGIL AND S HRAKE pulled into the Perkins, but Ma did not. Virgil saw her taillights disappearing down the highway and called to Shrake, “Where the hell is she going?”
    “Probably gonna pull some more bullshit,” Shrake said.
    “Jones better be here, or I’ll bust her ass, too,” Virgil said.
    There was a lot of water in the restaurant parking lot, but the rain had slowed. They went inside. No Jones. “Sonofabitch,” Virgil said.
    Then a moonfaced man with a buzz cut waved a hand at them and called, “Virgil?”
    Virgil recognized the voice, walked over and said, “You’ve changed.”
    Jones was sitting in front of a half-full cup of coffee and an empty pie plate, looking up at Virgil. He said, “I wanted to say good-bye to my wife. I couldn’t go as usual—this is my disguise.”
    Virgil said, “Well, sir, you’re under arrest. We’re going to take you up to Regions Hospital in St. Paul. You’ll be held in a security ward.”
    “I think you’re too late,” Jones said.
    “Never too late to go to jail,” said Shrake.
    “Well, big man, I have to tell you. I think you’re wrong about that.” Jones sighed, his eyes turned up, and he slipped out of the booth. Shrake tried to catch him, but he landed squarely on his moon face.
    Virgil tried to pick him up, but it was like trying to get hold of a two-hundred-pound lump of Jell-O. Virgil called