John Sandford - Mad River

She said, “Jimmy? Jimmy? Oh my God, Jimmy, are you dead or alive?”

Virgil went to bed early, because he could. He hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep for a while, and was starting to feel stupid. He slept like a dead man for the first part of the night, but at five o’clock his eyes popped open, and he was wide awake.

He didn’t want to be-a couple more hours of sleep wouldn’t hurt at all, but his mind was moving and he couldn’t get back. He tried a couple of sexual fantasies about Sally, but they didn’t catch fire, so he spent some time thinking about God, and why he made people like Jimmy Sharp and Becky Welsh.

What part could they have in God’s plan? Were they simply put here to kill people at random, because, for some people, people needed to be killed at random?

A mystery. He remembered a bumper sticker he’d seen in St. Paul that said: “Remember: Half the People Are Below Average.” That, he thought, was probably the key to Jimmy Sharp and Becky Welsh.

They were below average, and God had made them that way. There was no way that they were ever going to be anything but that; they could watch all the above-average people they wanted, on television, driving around in big cars and making enormous amounts of money out of nothing. . or just working at the post office, or going to trade school to be plumbers or carpenters. They’d never be able to do that. They were condemned from birth to a life of hard times and trouble.

If people were to tell the truth about Becky, her only route to a condition even resembling prosperity would be to sell herself for sex. That was all she had. The problem with that, morality aside, was that she probably wasn’t bright enough to make the most of selling herself.

As for Jimmy-Jimmy had no chance at all. Abused as a child, neglected in school, he probably couldn’t drive a nail. Or generate the ambition to do it.

Virgil rolled around for a while, thinking about it, blessed his parents for their genes. He was almost back to sleep when the phone rang, its screen popping to life, a brilliant white rectangle in the dark.

The duty officer was stressed: “Got Becky Welsh for you, calling on a cell phone that’s registered to David Gates. We’re trying to track it.”

Virgil sat up, dropped his feet to the floor, so he could think: “Put her on.”

Becky came up. “Hello? Is anybody there? Hello. .”

“Becky, this is Virgil. Are you okay?”

She was crying. “Aw, God, I think Jimmy is dying. He’s got big red streaks coming out of his leg.”

“You gotta come in. He needs a hospital, really quick. If he’s got red streaks, he could lose his leg. . or die. Where are you?”

“I don’t know, exactly. In a woods. I want to quit. I want to come in, and make people stop chasing us. I gotta get Jimmy in. .”

“Do you know about where you are?” Virgil asked.

She said, “I know where that town is. . the town with the gas station I was at. I’m down where you were looking yesterday, not too far, but kinda far, from that old man’s house.”

Virgil: “If you can get to Arcadia, I can meet you at the gas station. I can get an ambulance. We might have to take him to the Cities in a helicopter.”

“Okay. . okay. Don’t shoot us,” Becky said.

“We won’t. I will be in Arcadia in a half hour. Can you get there by then?”

“I have to take a bunch of shit off the truck. . We have a bunch of shit on the truck so the helicopters can’t see us.”

“This is Mr. Gates’s truck? A red Dodge?” Virgil asked.

“I think so. . yeah, it’s the old man’s truck. The last one we took,” she said.

“Becky: you’ve got to carry through with this. Meet me in a half hour at the gas station. It’s the only way you can save Jimmy’s life.”

She started weeping again, and said, “Oh, God. .” and then she was gone.

The duty officer came back and Virgil asked, “Did we get her?”

“I doubt we can get close to her. The GPS needs tracking satellites, and that takes a few minutes. We can see what phone tower she’s closest to, but out there in the countryside, that’s not going to give us much.”

“All right, but see what you can get,” Virgil said. “I’m going. I’m going.”

“Take care.”

Virgil got into his jeans and boots, pulled on a shirt and his jean jacket, got his gun, and went out the door, ran down the hall, and pounded on Shrake’s door. Shrake came to the door wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts, and asked, “Where are they?”

“Arcadia. Becky’s meeting me there in half an hour. Get Jenkins and get moving.”

“You gonna call Duke? Might be sort of a diplomatic problem if you don’t.”

“Yeah, I’ll call him. . Fast as you can.”

Virgil hurried on, punched up Duke’s cell phone, and was instantly kicked over to an answering service. Phone was turned off. He called the Bare County sheriff’s office on the way to his truck, nearly running into a light pole as he jogged along looking at the cell phone, dodged it at the last minute, and when a deputy came up, he identified himself: “I need Duke’s home phone, right now .”

He got the number as he fired up his truck. He punched the number in, and a moment later a groggy-sounding woman answered the phone: “Hello?”

“Miz Duke?” Virgil realized he was shouting and tried to tone it down. “This is Virgil Flowers. I gotta talk to your husband.”

Duke took the phone: “You got ’em?”

“I talked to Becky four or five minutes ago. She says Jimmy’s dying of infection from the gunshot wound. She’s going to bring him into the gas station at Arcadia. She was down south of there, somewhere around the Gates place. I’m meeting her in twenty-five minutes or so. I could use some backup.”

Duke said, “Oh, man, oh, man. You got it.”

“No sirens, no lights, let’s not scare her.”

“Got it. See you there.” He was gone, and so was Virgil. He turned on his flashers, figuring they’d be okay for the first fifteen miles or so, and might keep him from clipping some farm lady out early, walking the dog. The sun was not yet up, and judging from the eastern sky, it probably wouldn’t be for ten or fifteen minutes.

They were done, he thought. Best of all, nobody else was dead, if Becky and Jimmy were really hiding out in a woods, and he believed her when she said they were.

A flock of Canada geese flew overhead, not high above the road, in a pretty V; if he’d been walking, he could have heard their wings, and their informational honking.

Damn, he thought. Damn: not a bad day to be alive.

Shrake called: “We’re coming. We’re. . seven minutes behind you.”

Then Duke: “We’ve got the roaming patrols headed into Arcadia. Not the Guard, just deputies. They’ll see you at the gas station. I’m on my way. I’m leaving the house now.”

Becky sat for what seemed like a long time before she could make herself move. Jimmy was dying. If he didn’t die, they’d put him in prison for sure. And probably her, too, unless maybe Jimmy took the blame. But if that goddamn McCall gave himself up, he probably told them that she killed that woman at the rape house. But two could play that game-she’d tell them that Tom did it, and then raped her. They knew he raped her. . and they knew he shot the cop. He was the killer-not her.

Goddamn him. She chewed on a thumbnail. Nothing was going to work-they weren’t going to make it to Mexico, they weren’t going to get married and have kids, it was all over. They wouldn’t be able to keep the money. . though maybe if she gave the money back, they’d go easier on her.

She tried talking to Jimmy again, but he was so deep that she knew it was impossible: he might never hear her again.