Storm Front

down at the far end, where fifty kids and forty parents and coaches were either playing or watching two separate games. Closer to the picnic area, a half-dozen teenagers were kicking a soccer ball around, and at the other end of the picnic area, three stoners, two male and one female, were playing Hacky Sack. Poorly, and passing a joint.
    The stoners glanced at the Turks as they came up, then turned away. The two gave off a specific vibe: they didn’t want to be looked at, so you’d best not do it. They were both broad men in silvery suits, with wide pale shimmery neckties, like the sides of king salmon. The broader of the two had a gray Stalin mustache. The other one was wearing round sunglasses as black as welding goggles, which made him look like a malevolent Mr. Mole. He was carrying a briefcase, and Jones felt a quick spark of hope: maybe it would happen.
    The broader man led, came up, stopped ten feet away, and asked, “Reverend Jones. Good to see you again. You seem better.”
    “The bleeding stopped,” Jones said. “That’s always good. You have the money?”
    “Do you have the stone?”
    “I do.”
    “May we see it?”
    “You may,” Jones said. He fumbled with the zipper on the bowling bag, got it open, reached inside with both hands, and with some effort, pulled out the rock and placed it in the center of the table, where it seemed to soak up most available sunlight; the atmosphere around it literally seemed to grow dimmer, and the two Turks looked around uneasily. Jones looked into the sky and saw that a bass-boat-sized cloud had momentarily covered the sun.
    The sun came back and the bigger Turk stepped forward and seemed about to reach toward the stone, when Jones put his arm around it and pulled it toward himself. “Uh-uh,” he said. “Not until I see the money.”
    The Turk straightened. “We don’t have the money, here, exactly, because we thought it unwise to walk about with five million dollars in a briefcase.”
    “Then where is it?” Jones asked. The spark of hope was dying.
    “At our hotel.”
    “You left five million dollars in cash in your hotel room, where fifty minimum-wage workers have keys to your room? You can’t possibly be that dumb, so I can’t possibly believe you.” Jones pulled the stone closer, and again fumbled with the bowling bag, to put it away.
    “Don’t do that,” the big Turk said. “We will take it with us.”
    “I don’t think so,” Jones said. He lifted a hand overhead. He said, “I have a friend in the woods with a deer rifle. If you try to take the stone, he will shoot you dead. All I have to do is drop my hand.”
    The big Turk said, “This is, mmm . . .” He turned to his smaller partner. “The American idiom. The one we spoke of.”
    The smaller man—who was not small—said, “Shit from the cow.”
    The big man shook his head and said, “No, no, no, this is one word, this . . . cowshit. No, bullshit.”
    “Same thing,” said the smaller man.
    “But this is not how you say it,” the big man said. He turned back to Jones. “This gunman, this is bullshit. Drop your hand, tell him to shoot me.”
    “Ah, you’re right,” Jones said, and dropped his hand.
    “The stone, please,” the Turk said.
    “Nope.”
    The Turk slipped his left hand into his jacket pocket and took out a switchblade. He squeezed once, and the blade flicked out. He kept it against his leg, so the stoners couldn’t see it, smiled to show his thick white teeth, and said, “We insist.”
    Jones smiled back, showing slightly bucked but yellower teeth, and said, “There is another American idiom that you should know: ‘Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.’”
    With the right hand, he pulled back the right side of his jacket, to display the stock of a handgun tucked under his belt buckle.
    The Turk considered it for a moment, and then said, “I have some experience with the knife. Do you think you can withdraw the gun before I can reach you with the knife?”
    Jones said, “You’re fifteen feet away. You’d have to jump over the picnic table to get to me. I don’t have to jump over the picnic table to get to you.”
    The bigger man said, “We will take the stone.”
    “No.”
    The smaller man said to his companion, “Be very careful. I think he is tense.”
    The bigger Turk said, with a quick backward glance, “He is a man of religion. He will not shoot us. We will take the stone.”
    He took a step forward and Jones pulled the gun, a large