AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Cooper is a goddamned Hollywood liberal. How could she justify killing another human being? I don’t see it,” Virgil said. “What I could see is some kind of Miss Marple deal, where she sleuths around and someday expects to pop up and hand us the evidence, and then we go arrest the guy. In other words, a fantasy.”
“Nah.”
“Good point,” Virgil said. “Cogent.”
Lucas ticked a salad dressing-covered fork at Virgil’s nose: “She’s an actress. She’s been in four movies and a bunch of TV shows and one long TV series. I believe you’re right about Hollywood. How many Hollywood movies have you seen where somebody’s family is kidnapped or murdered and the surviving spouse goes after revenge? That’s what she’s got in her Hollywood head. She wants to kill somebody. She actually said that out loud, when we were sitting there, talking with Binky.”
Virgil wondered if Russo would really try to suck the FBI into backing a federal search warrant of Heath’s house.
“Russo’s not a lawyer,” Lucas said. “He doesn’t have to worry about being disbarred. He’s not the one who’ll go to court. If he can show the evidence to the feds without answering any questions about whether Heath could really have done it, it’s a possibility.”
“There’s the possibility of a galactic-sized pissing match, is whatthere is,” Virgil said. “One of my many tenets of life is, ‘Don’t fuck with federal judges. Or magistrates.’ They pretty much consider themselves right there next to God.”
“True.”
“Where are you at in the new novel?” Lucas asked.
“Halfway, or a little more. Fifty-two thousand words,” Virgil said. “I went to a book signing once, and this famous author said books have three parts: the set-up and the climax, and then in the middle, the swamp. He said he wanders around in the swamp like a lost soul. I now know where he’s coming from.”
“If you were writing the Sand case, where are we? In the swamp?”
“Yeah, we’re in the swamp, but we’re edging into the big build-up to the climax.”
A moment later, he added, “Thanks for reminding me.” He took out his cell phone and laboriously typed in a note with his thumbs.
“Reminding you of what?”
“The novel. Durey said something about Heath being crazier than a crack-house cockroach. I can use that.”
The restaurant didn’t like people in their parking lot unless they were eating, so after lunch they drove around the compact downtown area until they got lucky with a parking place three blocks from the Carter condo.
They walked over, a sunny brisk day with a bare edge of ice on the wind. Virgil was enjoying the autumn until Lucas said, “Say, is that Janey Small up there?”
Virgil flinched and looked. Judging from the woman’s hair, size, and ass, it had to be. Virgil stepped into a doorway. “Get in here,” he said. “She’ll see you.”
“I don’t care. Why should I care?”
“Do it because you’re my friend,” Virgil said. Janey Klein, previously Janey Small, and some husbands before that, Janey Flowers, was not somebody to trifle with, although Virgil had, in fact, trifled with her even after they parted ways. She was the second of his three divorces.
“Ah, Jesus.” Lucas stepped into the doorway. “Why did you ever marry her in the first place?”
“Did you evenlookat her ass?” Virgil peeked around the corner of the doorway. Small had ambled another hundred feet farther down the sidewalk.
“That doesn’t seem like a reliable predictor of marital success, though it is an architectural marvel,” Lucas grumbled.
“What would you know? You’ve only been married once.”
Virgil peeked again and Klein was getting in her car. A moment later, she pulled away from the curb and was gone in the traffic.
“Close call,” Virgil said.
“Instead of screwing around with novels, you ought to write a memoir about your failures with women,” Lucas said. “You’d go to number one on the bestseller lists.”
“You know the big problem with women?” Virgil asked.
“Yeah. They’re all good,” Lucas said.
—
