“You’re on,” Virgil said.
Jenkins examined him for a moment, then said, “You’re too confident.”
“Because I gave them one of Shrake’s business cards,” Virgil said.
Shrake, in the backseat, said, “What? What?”
Jenkins snorted and said to Virgil, “You’re my new role model.”
“You really couldn’t do much better,” Virgil said.
Shrake’s phone rang and Jenkins started laughing.
–
Frogtown was a low-income neighborhood in St. Paul, mostly built in the later nineteenth century for working-class families. Although a few old Victorians still spotted the neighborhood, the streets were dark and close and many of the houses were failing.
Virgil turned down one of the narrower streets, and Jenkins said, “What the fuck?”
Up ahead, not far from what Virgil supposed was the address of the target house, two white trucks were parked on the side of the street. Television trucks.
“How did they know?” Shrake asked.
“You know goddamn well how it happened,” Virgil said. “Somebody at the office tipped them off. Sandy must have mentioned it to somebody, and the word got around. I don’t think she’d have done it on purpose. Never has in the past.”
“That ain’t right,” Jenkins said. “If they were there, they’re gone-unless they’re inside waiting for us.”
“Doubt that they’d hang around,” Virgil said.
–
The address where the meat dryers had been delivered was worse than most of the houses around, a crumbling two-story with a narrow porch. Virgil stopped the truck a few houses away, and they all looked at the unlit windows of the target house until Shrake said, “Well, shit. Let’s go knock.”
“You guys got your guns?” Virgil asked.
“Does a fat dog fart?” Jenkins asked. “Which doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get yours.”
“You’re right,” Virgil said. “Shrake-pull up the other seat and hand me the safe.”
Shrake pulled up the backseat that he wasn’t sitting on, dug out the gun safe, and handed it to Virgil. Virgil punched in the safe’s combination and took out the pistol and the belt-clip holster.
Jenkins, watching, said, “You know, chicks don’t go for guys who carry Glocks.”
Virgil said, “Yeah, but they go for guys who carry what I’m carrying.”
“Hope you got a safety on it, whatever it is; unlike a Glock.”
“Let’s shut up now, and stop being all nervous, smile for the cameras, and go knock on the fuckin’ door,” Virgil said. “Shrake, there’s a flashlight in the door pocket. Bring it.”
They got out of the truck and Shrake muttered, “I hope a Glock can stop a tiger.”
As they walked down the street toward the target house, ignoring the TV trucks, a girl came out on the porch of a house they were passing and said, “Hi, policemen.”
Shrake said, “Hi, honey. Listen, who lives in the house two doors up? Not the next one, but the one after that? Who lives there?”
“That’s a rent.”
“So you don’t know who lives there?”
“Nobody, now,” she said.
An older woman came to the door, carrying a dish towel, and asked, “Janey, who’re you talking to?”
“Some policemen.”
The woman looked past the girl and said, “Oh. Oh, are you the policemen? We’ve been waiting for you. The television reporters said you were on the way, but that was a long time ago.”
Shrake: “Ah, boy.”
Virgil said, “We’re going to the house on the other side of your neighbor, here. Your daughter says it’s a rental?”
“Always has been,” the woman said. “Nobody there now. They moved out a couple of weeks ago.”
“How long were they there?”
“Not long, hardly ever saw them.”
They chatted for another couple of minutes: the renters had been two men, one large and one much smaller, but who looked alike-brothers, the woman thought. “You know who’d know better? Mrs. Broda. She lives right across the street from them, the house with the porch light. She’s an old lady, she watches everything.”
–
They continued up to the target house, moving slowly, looking for any movement at all. There was none, and while Shrake and Jenkins waited on the sidewalk, Virgil climbed two steps up to the narrow board porch, looked in the mailbox-it was empty-and knocked on the door. There was no movement inside. He knocked louder, still got no movement, and the house lacked the organic feel of an inhabited place. Virgil couldn’t have explained that feeling, but a lot of cops experienced it, and it was rarely wrong.
Shrake came up on the steps and said, “Window shade’s up over here.” They walked down the porch to the front window and Shrake turned on the flashlight and they looked inside.
The place was empty: no furniture, no rugs, no nothing. They could see the corner of a small kitchen: no glasses, no soap.
“Goddamnit,” Virgil said.
Jenkins, from the sidewalk, said, “Let’s go talk to Ms. Broda.”
–
I want to look in the side door,” Virgil said. He took the flashlight from Shrake and walked around to the side of the house and looked through the window on the side door. He could see a mop in a corner, dried out, no bucket.
He turned the flashlight off and walked back to the front of the house and said, “Old lady.”
As they walked across the street, the doors popped open on the TV trucks, and cameramen hopped out, and the lights came up.
“Ignore them,” Virgil said.
Across the street, the door opened as soon as they started climbing the porch. An old iron-haired woman in a dark brown sweater was talking on a cell phone. Her hair was neatly combed, and she wore dark red lipstick, though she hadn’t entirely managed to keep the lipstick inside the lines. “Yes, they’re here now. The blond one might be a cop, but the other two look like Mafia. Yes, yes, I know. Talk to you as soon as they’re gone.”
Shrake said, “We do not look like Mafia.”
“Yes, you do,” Broda said. “Can I see some ID?”
“You do, kinda,” Virgil said to Shrake, as he showed Broda his ID. “But it’s a good look for you guys. They’d like it in Hollywood.”
“That’s true,” Broda said. “Anyway, that house is owned by Chuck Dvorsky, who lives over in Highland Park. He rents it, when he can. He rented it to two thugs a month ago and he says they skipped on the next month’s rent. Don’t think they ever lived there-I only saw them a couple of times. Once when a UPS truck delivered a bunch of big cardboard boxes. Wouldn’t be surprised if they were full of drugs. Anyway, they were pretty heavy. They were driving one of those orange trucks you rent from Home Depot for nineteen dollars. They loaded up the boxes and took off-haven’t seen hide nor hair of them since.”
“You know when this was? The date?” Virgil asked.
“Nope. About a month, I suppose, give or take.” She scratched her chin, then said, “I take that back. Probably three weeks. Less than a month.”
“Definitely a Home Depot truck?”
“Oh, yeah. People around here rent them all the time when they’re moving. People here move a lot.”
The cameramen were on the street, lighting up the front of the house, making movies of the interview.
Jenkins asked Broda, “How come you’re all dolled up, hon? You going on TV?”
“I thought they might ask,” she said. “When I saw the trucks arrive, you know, I walked down and asked what they were all about, and they said you’d be coming. About the tigers. I haven’t seen anything like a tiger, though.”
Virgil asked for descriptions of the men she’d seen, and Broda described Hamlet Simonian in some detail, and another, larger man who she said resembled Simonian. Like the first woman, she thought they might be brothers. Virgil took out his cell phone, called up the Channel Three website, and showed the woman the Simonian mug shot. “This him?”