Storm Prey

out, clicked the radio on, pushed the first tuning button and got a rock station. Cappy sat almost silently, except for the sniffing, and watched the streetlights go by. Two blocks before they would have gotten to the 1-94 entrance ramp, Barakat turned east, down the dark streets, toward St. Paul’s downtown.
    Snow was filtering through the trees, and the streets were empty. Four blocks, five, around a couple of blocks, past a closed market and a couple of open bars, town houses, apartments, back through the residential area. They crossed Lexington, still going west, when they saw the man walking alone down the sidewalk. He was wearing a parka, and carrying some kind of bag.
    “Pussy,” Barakat said. He stopped the van, pulled the pistol from his pants, undid the safety, got out of the van, shouted, “Hey, mister. Hey, mister.”
    The man stopped, looked at him, slipping and sliding across the street; tall thin white man on ice.
    “What’s up?” Black man with a briefcase. For some reason, the briefcase irritated Barakat. An unwarranted assumption of status.
     
     
    He pointed the gun at the man’s chest and said, “This,” and pulled the trigger. There was a bang, and a lightning flash, and the gun jumped in his hand, and the man went down. Barakat ran back to the van and they were off.
    Cappy was laughing hysterically. “You crazy fuck, you crazy fuck, you shot that motherfucker ...”
    “Am I a pussy? Am I a pussy? Tell me ...”
    They jogged out onto Snelling Avenue and idled back toward Barakat’s place. A block or so away, Cappy said, “That was cool, but you know what? I could use another bite to eat. I don’t know. Let’s go someplace else, get another sandwich.”
    “I would like a doughnut,” Barakat said.
    “You’re right. Let’s get a doughnut. We could go to Cub. They got good doughnuts.”
    “Maybe two doughnuts,” Barakat said.
     
     
    VIRGIL FLOWERS had the sense that things were out of control, that they didn’t know what was going on. He could see the same worry reflected in Lucas. Virgil had taken three pillows off the living room couch so he could sleep in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, where he could intercept any traffic coming into the house, from any direction. Weather thought that was ridiculous, and made Lucas help Virgil carry the couch to the same place, so he’d have an easier night.
    Easier, but still not easy. He woke with the unfamiliar sounds in the house, and he woke when he heard a car turn into the driveway at four in the morning. He looked at his watch, in the dark—paper delivery. He rolled off the couch and peeked out the window, recognized the car, and then the paper hit the porch with a solid thunk, and the car was backing away. He sat for another two minutes, watching. Nothing moved, and he went back to sleep.
    At six, he woke again when he heard movement: Weather was up and about. Virgil went quietly back to the guest bathroom, washed his face and brushed his teeth, then out to the front porch to get the papers.
    Lucas and Weather came down together, quietly, not to wake the kids, and found him reading at the kitchen table. At the same moment, another car pulled into the driveway, and Virgil checked: “Shrake,” he said. He could see light snow coming down, in Shrake’s headlights. Still dark as pitch. “It’s snowing.”
    “That’s great,” Lucas said. “I love getting up in the middle of the night when it’s snowing.”
    Shrake came in: “Good morning, everybody.”
    “Shut up,” Davenport said.
    Virgil: “I’m gonna shave and take a shower.”
    “Anything in the papers?” Lucas asked.
    “Some poor bastard got shot off Snelling. He was walking home from his job. Somebody shot him in the chest. Paper says there was no robbery ... says he was an interior decorator guy, working late on some remodeling plans. St. Paul says it looks like a random shooting.”
    “Poor guy,” Weather said. “Why would anybody do that?”
    “Gangs,” Lucas said. He yawned, stretched, and said, “Doesn’t have anything to do with us, anyway.”
    “And that’s a good thing,” Shrake said. “Are we talking coffee?”

12
    WEATHER WAS HEADED out to the car when her cell phone rang. Gabriel Maret: “Go back to bed. Sara’s got problems again. I’ll be down in the cafeteria about nine o’clock, maybe you could come by.”
    “Are you at the hospital now?”
    “All night. They’re cycling. Sometimes they’re fine, and