Deadline(107)

            THE SECRETARY SAW THEM to the elevator, but didn’t ride down with them, and inside, Jenkins said, “That worked.”

            Virgil, “You think?”

            Shrake said, “I got a hundred dollars that says it did. But, come to think of it, if I were you, I’d call up our own attorneys and make sure they’ll support a deal. I mean, you’re sort of out here on your own.”

            “That’s called self-reliance,” Virgil said.

            “That’s called having your head up your butt,” Jenkins said.

            —

            OUTSIDE ON THE SIDEWALK, they were at loose ends, and Virgil said, “Let’s go look around.”

            “Maybe find a gun store, or something,” Shrake suggested.

            Jenkins said, “I saw a sign for a museum. . . .”

            They were crossing the street toward the auto repair shop, and Virgil saw a man looking up past their heads. He turned and looked, and on the fourth story of the Masilla, Oder building, Fred Masilla had lifted his venetian blinds and opened one of his tall windows. He was standing there, looking out, almost pensively, and Virgil blurted, “Oh, boy, look at this.”

            Jenkins and Shrake turned and looked up, and Masilla looked down at them. Virgil thought, Fifty feet, sixty feet? Really wouldn’t make any difference if he jumped.

            Shrake was walking back toward the corner and bellowed: “Fred! Hey, Fred! Shut the window! Shut the fuckin’ window!”

            Masilla looked down at them for another beat, then seemed to sigh, nodded, and shut the window. A moment later, the blinds came down.

            Jenkins said, “Good going,” and the partners bumped knuckles.

            Shrake asked Virgil, “You gonna put me in for a citation? I saved that guy’s life.”

            “Quiet,” Virgil said. “I’m listening.”

            “For what?”

            “The gunshot.”

            They all looked up at the window, but Masilla never came back.





                     20


            THE THREE OF THEM spent some time in a café, eating pecan pie with ice cream, and Virgil called his friend at the attorney general’s office and told him that he was about to offer “consideration” to Masilla for any help he could give them.

            “He’s a fool if he takes it, because we’ll repudiate it instantly,” the attorney said.

            “I will testify in his behalf, if he gives these people up,” Virgil said. “I don’t have any reason to think he was in on the killings.”

            “Do what you want, but you could get your ass kicked in court, in any number of directions,” the attorney said.

            “So you’re saying I should do what I want, and it’s okay with you?”

            After a moment of silence, the attorney said, “No, that’s exactly not what I said. I’m advising you not to do this, and if you do, you’re on your own. I’ll tell everybody I know that I never heard of you.”

            “Thanks, that’s what I needed,” Virgil said. “It’s okay with you.”

            He clicked off, and when the attorney called back seven seconds later, he didn’t answer. “I think we’re good,” he said to Jenkins and Shrake.

            They spent some time at the public library, which looked like either a courthouse or a post office, but not a library, trying to read magazines, but that was boring, so Virgil went outside and sat on a bus bench and called Frankie and they talked about nothing, and eventually it was time to go back to Masilla, Oder.