Storm Front

nobody he could really call, or anything he could effectively do.
    But sleep was impossible. Eventually, figuring that if he was up, everybody else should be, too, he cleaned up, and at four-thirty in the morning, drove to the Holiday Inn and woke up Sewickey. Sewickey came to the door looking stunned, and Virgil sensed that it wasn’t an act. “We’re having a meeting at eight o’clock in in the back room at Custard’s. Be there.”
    Sewickey, confused, looked around at the parking lot, and then up in the sky, and finally asked, “What the heck time is it?”
    He got a similar reaction from Bauer, who was at the Downtown Inn. Yael, however, was awake and staring at the television, still jet-lagged.
    “The stone is gone?”
    “Meeting at eight o’clock,” he said.
    “But why would I take the stone? I
had
the stone.”
    “Eight o’clock,” Virgil said.
    The Turks were gone, but he drove to Awad’s apartment and pounded on the door until Awad opened it. He was wearing what appeared to be black velvet pajamas and yet another stunned expression.
    Virgil said, “Invite me in?”
    Awad looked over his shoulder and said, in a loud voice, “Of course, you are the police.”
    Virgil stepped inside, and saw a sheet and blanket crumpled on the floor next to the couch. He nodded at the bedroom door and raised an eyebrow, and Awad nodded.
    Virgil stepped over to the bedroom door and knocked: “This is the state police. Please come out. Now.”
    A voice from inside: “Why?”
    “We’re having a conversation about the Solomon stone, and you need to be in it.”
    The door opened and an elderly gray-bearded man edged out. He was wearing Jockey briefs that were way too long in the crotch, and a white V-necked T-shirt. “What have I done?”
    “I don’t know,” Virgil said. “Now: the two of you. You’ve been under surveillance. I know you’re trying to buy the stone. You should know that I had the stone until earlier this evening, when my garage was firebombed and the stone was stolen while I was fighting the fire. So. We are having a meeting at eight o’clock at Custard’s Last Stand.”
    And so on.
    With some sense of righteous revenge—everybody was now awake and either frightened or worried—he headed back toward his house, but then thought,
Ma
.
    Ellen and Ma had some kind of friendly relationship. Was it possible that Ma had stolen the stone? He continued past his house and out into the countryside, to Ma’s house, pulled into the driveway and pounded on the door until lights went on.
    Ma came to the door, peeked past a curtain, then opened the door. She was holding a Remington autoloading shotgun. “Virgil?”
    “At eight o’clock . . .”
    —
    B Y THE TIME he’d finished the rounds, it was almost six. He called Ellen again, and again got switched to the answering service—but the phone was ringing a half-dozen times before he was switched, so it wasn’t turned off. She was either not hearing the ring, or was ignoring it. He called her every half hour until he got to Custard’s at five minutes after eight, and never got an answer. Was she on the run?
    —
    C USTARD ’ S BACK ROOM was usually reserved for cardplayers, but they never started until ten, so it was clear at eight. The meeting got held up because Sewickey, who arrived early, had ordered pancakes and bacon, and then Awad showed up with his Hezbollah associate, whose name was Adabi al-Lubnani, who ordered pancakes but got French toast by mistake, but was impressed by the name, and so accepted it; and by the time Virgil got there, everybody was fussing over food, and who had the ketchup and was there more syrup, except Ma, who was hunched over Tag Bauer, big-eyed about his television show. And not only big-eyed, Virgil thought sourly, as he tracked Bauer’s eyes down to her cleavage.
    He called the meeting to order by rapping on a water glass, and said, “This is gonna be short. I know you all want this stone, but as I keep telling everybody, if you buy it, you’ll be violating a large number of laws. Do all of you understand this? That you could go to prison? I’d like a show of hands by those who understand this.”
    They all raised their hands.
    Virgil said, “Further. For those with the money—I’m looking at you, Bauer, and you, Mr. al-Lubnani—there are some extremely suspicious circumstances involving the discovery of the stone, and its removal from Israel. If you wanted to bet me, I’d take either side of a