Storm Prey

street. We had four people go blind, and two people die, before we caught him.”
    Virgil: “Wonder if he’s out yet?”
    “He got twenty years ... but I think that was under the old two-thirds rule ... so not yet, but he’s getting close.”
    “Pretty stiff, for a semi-accident,” Lucas said.
    “The judge didn’t believe him,” Marcy said. “Barney was a drunk himself, but he didn’t drink any of it.”
     
     
    WEATHER CAME IN, carrying a coffeepot, followed by the housekeeper with a tray full of cookies, and Weather kissed Virgil on the forehead and messed up his hair, and said, “Your nose looks fine.” And to Marcy: “The last time I saw him, he had this big aluminum thing on his nose. From a fight.”
    “I read about it,” Marcy said. “The buried car thing.”
    “How you doin’?” Virgil asked Weather.
    “I’ve been thinking about it, and thinking about it, and thinking about it,” Weather said. “You know what? I can’t think about it. I’ve got too much to think about already, with this operation. So I’m not going to pay any attention to it. I’m going to let you guys take care of me.”
    “Good plan,” Marcy said. “If they come again, we’ll get one. Could break it for us.”
    “They spotted her in the hospital. Somebody in the hospital set it up,” Lucas said.
    “I think so,” Marcy said. “We’re putting hammerlocks on everybody. We’re pushing it—we’ve pulled people off about everything else.”
    “So there’s no reason for me to jump in,” Lucas said.
    She smiled at him. “Nope. No reason at all.”

    As THEY were shutting down for the night, with the kids asleep and the housekeeper in her apartment, Weather already gone back to the bedroom, Virgil was jacking triple-ought shells into his twelve-gauge and he said to Lucas, “There is a good reason for you to jump in. You’re the second smartest cop in Minnesota. They can always use more of that.”
    “I’m always a little sensitive around Marcy,” Lucas said. “She used to work for me, you know.”
    Virgil snorted. He knew about their history.
    “Hey...”
    “The point remains,” Virgil said. “Never hurts to have a little more IQ on the job. Fortunately, you got me.”
     
     
    IN THE WINTER, Weather slept in a variety of ankle-length flannel nightgowns, and on really cold nights, she wore socks, even though it was no colder in the bedroom on really cold nights than on halfway-cold nights. When Lucas got back to the bedroom, she was wearing a man’s wife-beater undershirt that clung to her body and was low-cut enough to show the rim of her nipples at the top; and white bikini underpants.
    Lucas said, “Oh, God. I’m so tired, too.”
    “Poor baby,” she said. “Let me help you with your shirt.”
    Another thing that Lucas liked about Weather, right from the start, was that when it came to sex, she knew what she wanted, and how to get it, and one thing she didn’t want was excuses. So they rolled across the bed, talking and sometimes laughing, stroking this, pulling on that, and Weather wound up on top, straddling his hips, and said, like she might say to an overanxious horse, “Steady, boy,” and “Whoa, slow down,” and “Easy, there,” and she rode up and down and up and down, chewing her lower lip, still wearing the shirt, but now rolled up above her breasts, moving like she wanted to, until she got to the orgasm part, and then she made a sound like a tiny steam whistle from a miniature paddle-wheel boat, urgently signaling a need for more firewood, Ooo, Ooo, Ooo, Ooooooo ...
    Then, after a few moments of lying with her head on his chest, with some aftershocks, she said, “Okay, go ahead. Pay no attention if I look at my watch.”
    “You’re in no shape to read a watch, even if you were wearing one,” Lucas said, rolling her onto her back. “Brace yourself, Bridget ...”
    When they were done, she asked, “You think it’s a bad sign when you’re funny when you’re having sex?”
    “Depends on what you’re laughing at,” Lucas said. “That wouldn’t apply to myself, of course.”
    “I’m serious.”
    “I’m too screwed to be serious. So, why don’t you shut up? Or, tell me something.”
    “What?” In the dark, turning toward him.
    “Are you really not scared?”
    “Background scared. But I’m not going to dodge. I’m going to do what I do.”
    “Not gonna fight it, not going to play us.”
    “No. I’m going to think about the twins, I’m going to take