Storm Front

all this, and then go on TV at the end of it and become the
authority.
Make those guys in Midland
happy.
”
    “So . . .”
    “So nobody’s going home.”
    “That all sounds pretty cynical,” Virgil observed.
    “Virgil, have you even bothered to look at the economy? Another seven years and I’ll have nailed down a substantial pension,” Sewickey said. “If I’m kicked out of UT before then, it’s thirty years of microwave dinners, thinning hair, and fattening waistline. I’ll have spent fifteen years wearing a fuckin’ string tie and these goddamned cowboy boots, for nothing.”
    Virgil thought about that, then said, “Tell you what. You hole up in your room. I took a bunch of high-res photos of the stone last night, and I’m a pretty goddamned good photographer. You hole up, stay out of this, and I’ll get you a set.”
    Sewickey brightened: “Deal. You got yourself a deal, Virgil.”
    As he said that, Bauer emerged from the back room, trailed by Ma. Bauer asked, “What kind of a deal are we talking about?”
    “Mr. Sewickey has agreed to withdraw from pursuit of the stone,” Virgil said.
    Bauer: “Really? Hard to believe. Once he gets his teeth into a project, he’s a regular Chihuahua.”
    Sewickey half stood: “You want me to rattle a few of your fake pearly whites, wristwatch boy?”
    Virgil: “Stop that.”
    They stopped it, and Ma said to Virgil, “You’re getting pretty authoritarian, you know that?” and Virgil said, “Shut up, Ma,” and she said, “Oh, no, I kinda like it. Gives me little shivers,” and one way or another, thirty seconds later they all rolled together out the front door of the restaurant, and somebody yelled, “There they are!”
    Somebody else screamed, “Virgil Flowers: Is it true somebody firebombed your house and stole the stone?”
    Fifteen television people stampeded toward them, five of them with cameras on their shoulders.
    Sewickey and Bauer surged past him, but the reporters ignored them and closed on Virgil. Virgil gave them one minute of noncommittal answers, and then said, “That’s all I got.”
    As he stepped back, the cameras still on him, his phone rang. He took it out of his pocket and looked at the screen.
    Davenport.
    Virgil said, “Ah, shit,” and to the TV people, “You can quote me on that.”

15
    D avenport: “Why am I hearing about this on television? Somebody firebombed your house?”
    Virgil was walking away down the street, leaving the TV crowd behind. “Ah, man, Lucas, I’ve been running around like a rat ever since it happened. I know who took the stone, or had to be involved.”
    He told Davenport how only three people knew that he had the stone, how Yael had no motive to steal it, so, “It had to be Ellen Case. She told her old man, and he firebombed me to get me out of the house. And it wasn’t the house—it was my garage.”
    “Jesus, the garage? What happened to the boat?”
    “The boat’s fine. Not touched.”
    “That’s a break. You got to give it to this preacher—he’s got some balls.”
    “More like he’s got nothing to lose,” Virgil said.
    They talked about the situation and finally Davenport said, “I’ll send Jenkins and Shrake over to pick up Case. Show her that you’re serious.”
    “I hate to, because she seems like a nice woman. I doubt she had anything to do with the fire.”
    “But she’s involved, Virgil. There’s nothing funny about a Molotov cocktail.”
    —
    V IRGIL WALKED BACK to his truck and found Ma Nobles leaning against the front fender. “That Tag Bauer is a handsome young hunk. He has asked me out to dinner tonight, and I have accepted. However, my heart still belongs to you, if you act quickly,” she said.
    “What’d he do, tell you he’s in love?”
    “I figured that out for myself,” Ma said. “Unfortunately, it’s not with me. That boy’s desperately in love with his own self, and it would take some serious spade work to break that down. But if you don’t do something soon . . . I mean, I
got
a spade.”
    “You can tell by his hairline that he’s gonna wind up bald,” Virgil said. “He’ll probably get one of those hair-replacement little sewing machine–looking things on his scalp.” He sounded truculent in his own ears.
    “I’m not talking about a long-term relationship,” she said. “Anyway, you gotta admit, if him and me were to have a child, it’d be a good-looking one.”
    “Ma—”
    “See ya,” she said, and she pushed off