Deadline(154)

            VIRGIL GOT D. Wayne Sharf in the backseat of the 4Runner, thanked the woman with the aluminum bat, who said, “Maybe I should break his legs anyway,” and Virgil said, “No, that’s okay,” and cuffed Sharf to the ringbolt in the floor. Sharf said, “I’m gonna sue your ass for—”

            “Shut up, or I’ll turn you over to the Auntie Vivians,” Virgil said.

            The woman with the bat told Sharf, “You really wouldn’t want that.”

            Virgil walked around to the driver’s side, tagged by the yellow dog. Virgil looked at the dog, and the dog looked at Virgil. The dog had golden eyes, and it looked past Virgil into the empty passenger side of the truck.

            Virgil said, “All right,” and waved his hand, and the dog hopped up onto the driver’s seat, then crossed to the passenger seat and sat down. Virgil said to the dog, “With my lifestyle, I can’t have a dog.”

            The dog nodded, and looked out through the windshield, ready to roll.

            D. Wayne said from the backseat, “When I get you—”

            “Shut the fuck up.” And to the dog, “Really. I can’t. I’ll give you a lift back to Trippton.”

            The dog nodded again and smiled a dog smile.

            Virgil said, “Really.”





                     29


            JOHNSON JOHNSON did the entire TV interview wearing his mask, which didn’t keep anyone in Buchanan County from knowing who he was. He got a death threat from one of the local dog-stealing morons, and being a moron, the moron hadn’t thought that his cell phone number would pop up on Johnson’s phone.

            Johnson being Johnson, he traced the number, using an Internet service, recognized both the name and the attitude that went with it, jumped in his truck, drove to the guy’s usual bar, and dragged him outside. After a humiliating confrontation in the parking lot, the other guy drove away in his truck, while the other bar patrons laughed at him and even threw a couple of rocks at his truck. Dognappers were not popular people in Trippton.

            —

            JOHNSON DID NOT FARE so well with Clarice, who thought that he’d been entirely too friendly with Daisy Jones. “And right on camera. You had your hand on her ass, Johnson, I could see where your arm was going, I saw the way her eyes got wide. You had to give her cheek a squeeze, didn’t you? You think my girlfriends didn’t see that? How can I hold up my head?”

            Virgil said, “Give it to him, Clarice, he deserves every bit of it.”

            “Shut up, Mr. Big-Time Cop,” Clarice said, poking Virgil in the chest with her index finger, hard enough that it hurt. “Who did he go out there with? Who told this Daisy person who to talk to?”

            She wound down after a while, but Johnson was worried, and told Virgil, “I might have to propose again just to get right with her. Seems like a lot of trouble over a friendly gesture.”

            “By ‘friendly gesture,’ you mean squeezing Daisy’s ass while you were on the air.”

            “That’s an uninflected way of looking at it,” Johnson said. “I assumed you were more sophisticated than that.”

            —

            JOHNSON HAD a lot more to say about his shot-up jon boat. Virgil found an identical jon boat online for $565, and pointed out that Johnson had already gotten eighteen years’ use out of the old one, but Johnson sensed a chance to step up. It took several dozen calls over the next month, but he eventually convinced a claims clerk with the state government that the only similar and available jon boat was a $1,149 model from Bass Pro Shops. By late autumn, he’d launched it on the Mississippi.