Storm Front

thought,
asshole
, was,
Run
. You completely left me behind, you, you,
stupid
.”
    “What was I gonna do, carry you?” the boy whined.
    Virgil broke in: “Did this minister look sick? Or hurt?”
    The girl shrugged. “We were playing Hacky Sack and didn’t pay too much attention until they started talking louder . . . but he seemed okay to me. After he started shooting, I didn’t see him. I just ran.”
    “The two men who were shot—they didn’t get the black stone?”
    “No. They just started running like everybody else,” the girl said.
    Virgil got descriptions of the men who were shot, and looked at Yael, who said, “Turks. Two of them.”
    “I think so. Let’s get some cops and go down to the Holiday.” He thanked the two kids and walked back to Scott and said, “If you could give us a couple of cops, we have an idea where the two wounded guys might be . . . if they haven’t checked into the hospital.”
    “Here in town?”
    “Holiday Inn downtown,” Virgil said.
    “Well, hell, let’s go,” Scott said.
    —
    T HE H OLIDAY I NN was an older building downtown, left over from the sixties or seventies, slowly failing in place, with most potential patrons going to the Downtown Inn, where Yael was, or the City Center Hotel, or a newer Holiday Inn Express out on the edge of town.
    On the way down, Yael said, “I don’t understand how they could flee . . . if they were shot so badly. Why didn’t they stay? Why aren’t they in a hospital?”
    “Good question. Ellen Case said he’d never hurt anyone.”
    “He’s gone crazy from the illness, or the pain, or the drugs.”
    “Maybe,” Virgil said.
    —
    A T THE H OLIDAY I NN , they all unloaded, Virgil, Yael, Scott, the other plainclothesman, and three patrolmen. One of the patrolmen said, “You see the ass end of that green SUV down there?” He pointed to the far end of the hotel parking lot. “That’s a Benz.”
    Scott positioned the patrolmen around the parking lot and exits from the hotel, and he and the other detective, along with Virgil and Yael, walked down to the Mercedes and looked in the windows. Both the front seats were stained with what looked like blood, and Yael said so.
    “Doesn’t
look
like blood, it
is
blood,” Scott said.
    Scott told the other detective to sit on the car, but the cop said, “Bullshit, I’m coming with you,” so they got a patrolman to watch it, and the four of them walked down to the hotel office and explained the problem to the manager, who then summarized what they’d said: “They’re bleeding to death in my room?”
    “That’s why we need the key,” Scott said.
    They got the key and walked down to the Turks’ rooms—they had two rooms, as it happened, with a connecting door. Virgil listened at the first one, and heard two men talking. He listened at the second and heard nothing. So he pointed at the first one, and Scott knocked.
    “Who knocks?”
    “Mankato police. Open the door, sir,” Scott said, and he and the other detective pulled their pistols. Yael looked at Virgil, who said, “Back in the car,” and she rolled her eyes.
    Scott pounded on the door again. “Mankato police. Open up.”
    A chain rattled on the door, and a man looked out. He was bare-chested, had a bloody bandage on his ear and neck, and was holding a pair of tweezers.
    Scott said, “Step back, please.”
    The man stepped back. Inside, a larger man sat on a chair, also shirtless, with a bloody patch on his furry chest.
    “We are . . . cleaning up,” he said.
    Scott turned to the other detective and said, “Get a goddamned ambulance over here.”
    “We are not hurt so bad,” the bigger man protested.
    “You’ve been shot.”
    “But only with these baby bullets.” He looked at a room service menu by his elbow, whose black plastic cover was dotted with tiny lead shot.
    “Snake shot,” Virgil said.
    Scott said, “You’re going to the hospital anyway. You can’t just sit here and pick shot out of your skin. You could get infected. And we need to talk to you about the Reverend Jones.”
    “We have no time for hospitals,” the big Turk said.
    “You’re gonna take time,” Scott said.
    “You did not get the stele?” Yael asked.
    The Turk looked at Scott: “Why is there an Israeli here?”
    Scott: “How’d you know she is an Israeli?”
    “She looks like one,” the Turk said. “Why is she here?”
    “We are trying to recover property that belongs to the state of Israel,” Yael