That would do it, he thought. If somebody wanted to fish it out of there, good luck to them.
–
Virgil called Jenkins and Shrake.
“If you guys got the time, I got a target,” he told Jenkins. “We’ll probably need Shrake to add a little IQ to the expedition.”
“Well, shoot-we were planning to go out drinking tonight and pick up some loose women,” Jenkins said.
“You can still do that, as long as you don’t shoot anybody while you’re with me and get stuck with the paperwork,” Virgil said.
“Fine,” Jenkins said. “Where do you want to meet?”
“At the office-we won’t be going far.”
–
When Virgil got to the office, the duty officer said, “Jenkins and Shrake are upstairs, but there’re some guys looking for you. They’re out in the parking lot in an RV.”
“I saw the RV,” Virgil said. “Who are they?”
“Don’t know,” the duty officer said. “They came looking for you, said they needed to talk to the guy in charge of the tiger investigation. We told them you were on the way in.”
“Huh. Call Jenkins and Shrake. I’ll take them with me,” Virgil said.
Jenkins and Shrake came down the stairs a minute later, dressed in their usual overly sharp suits, pastel dress shirts, Frenchy pointed shoes, and nylon neckties. “Where’re we going?” Jenkins asked.
“First stop’s out in the parking lot,” Virgil said.
–
Jenkins and Shrake flanked him as they walked out and down the slight hill to the RV. As they approached, Virgil could hear the engine running. At a lit back window, they could see four dark-haired men, apparently sitting at a table, playing cards.
Virgil knocked on the door. A minute later, the door popped open, and a swarthy, black-haired man in black slacks, a black T-shirt, and Frenchy pointed shoes, wearing a heavy gold chain around his neck, looked down at him.
“You’re this fuckin’ Flowers?”
“That’s not…”
“That’s what they said you were called,” the man said, nodding toward the BCA building.
“Yeah, this is him,” Shrake said.
Jenkins added, “Say, those are some nice-looking shoes.”
“Thank you. Yours are also attractive.” The man turned to the back of the RV and said, “This is the Flowers.”
A moment later, six heavyset men, all wearing gold chains, in T-shirts and slacks or black jeans, with muscles and ample guts but no visible tattoos, dropped down out of the RV and lined up facing Virgil, Shrake, and Jenkins. Like the OK Corral, Virgil thought, except that he didn’t have a gun.
“You have information about the tigers?” Virgil asked.
“No. We know nothing about tigers,” the first man said.
“Then what…?”
“We are the Simonians,” he said. “We are here for Hamlet. To get justice for Hamlet.”
17
Virgil looked at the six Simonians for a moment, then said, “I hope ‘justice’ doesn’t mean ‘revenge.’”
Their spokesman said, “They can be the same.”
“Revenge can be a crime-usually is,” Jenkins said. “Whatever your shoes look like.”
One of the other Simonians said, “We want to know what is being done to capture this killer of Hamlet.”
“Everything we can,” Virgil said. He did a little tap dancing; he didn’t mention he was the only investigator on the case full-time. “The three of us are on the way to do another interview in the case. In the middle of the night. We don’t take murder lightly in Minnesota.”
A third Simonian nodded and said, “This is good. We need to look in the face of this Hamlet Simonian you say is dead. We have Hamlet’s cell phone number, and the Apple company says it is presently traveling through Kansas City, Kansas.”
Virgil’s eyebrows went up: “Really? We could use the number for his phone. It’s possible the killer took it from him.”
The spokesman said, “We will give you that number. When can we see the supposed dead Hamlet?”
“Right now, if you want.”
The six exchanged a long series of glances and nods, and the spokesman said, “Take us to him.”
–
They were five minutes from the medical examiner’s office, more or less, and when they got there, Virgil didn’t bother to go in with the Simonians. Instead, he stood in the parking lot and briefed Jenkins and Shrake on the Frogtown address where the meat dryers had been delivered.
When he was done, Jenkins asked, “We don’t know who lives there, or even if they’re involved?”
“That’s right. Don’t start shooting until we’re sure,” Virgil said.
“Okay. But…”
“What?”
“What if we kick in the door and find out we’re in a roomful of tigers?” Shrake asked.
“I’ll tell you what-you shoot a tiger, you’ll have to move to Texas,” Virgil said. “Don’t wait for a moving truck or anything. Get out of the state.”
They all thought about a house full of loose tigers for a minute, then Shrake asked, “How’s Frankie?”
He told them and about Catrin Mattsson taking the case.
Shrake nodded and said, “Catrin. That’s good. The main thing is, you won’t be around to kill whoever did it.”
“If either of those guys gets killed by a BCA agent and anybody finds out that Frankie’s the girlfriend of a BCA agent… there’ll still be a shitstorm,” Jenkins said.
“Maybe a little less with Catrin,” Shrake suggested. Because of her history.
–
One of the Simonians who’d gone inside came reeling back through the door of the ME’s office into the parking lot, making gasping, crying sounds, his hands pressed to the sides of his head.
“Guess it was Hamlet,” Jenkins said.
All six of them were out in a minute and one said to Virgil, “They cut off his arms. They cut off his arms.”
Virgil said, “I should have warned you.”
The man said, “They cut off his arms.”
Another one agreed. “His arms, they cut them off.”
The first one asked, “What do I tell his mother? They cut off his arms?”
Shrake said, “There can be some… adjustments… in a good funeral home.”
“They cut off his arms…”
Virgil tried to empathize, talking quietly to the Simonians about how he’d run down the killers, devote his life to it, if necessary, but in his heart, he worried a lot more about his injured girlfriend than a dead Simonian.
The Simonian, in his view, was another asshole who’d volunteered for a Bad Thing and paid for it. Given a choice, he wouldn’t have chosen for that to happen, but neither did he really agonize over it. The other Simonians may have sensed that, turning away from him and back to each other. Their head guy gathered the others around him and said, “This cannot stand. We will avenge our brother, I promise you.”
Jenkins said, “Hey, chill out, there,” but they ignored him.
–
The Simonians never did calm down. Virgil took out his ID case, pulled out several business cards, shuffled through them, found the one he wanted, handed one to the lead Simonian, and told him to call with questions. They said they would check into a motel and the original spokesman said, “We will call you and you can call us if you find anything.” He gave Virgil what had been a blank business card, with the name Levon Simonian and a phone number written in pencil.
As they drove away from the medical examiner’s office, Jenkins said to Virgil, “Better you than me.”
“What?”
“Giving those guys your business card. They got nothing to contribute, but they’re gonna call you every fifteen minutes.”
“Don’t think so,” Virgil said.
“You saw them, how freaked out they are,” Jenkins said. “I got a hundred dollars that says they call you fifteen times a day. At least fifteen times a day.”