John Sandford - Escape Clause

The kid brightened. “You think?”

“Why not? Take a test or something, see if you got the aptitude. Talk to your school counselor, see what he thinks,” Virgil said.

“That guy’s a dick,” the kid said. “He already told me I’ll be washing dishes the rest of my life.”

“Fuck him,” Virgil said. “I hate people who tell kids things like that. You do the best you can and forget about him.”

“Okay… but listen, don’t tell anybody about, you know, sneaking out of my girlfriend’s house.”

“You’re good with me,” Virgil said.

–

When the kid was gone, escorted back through the police lines by the Apple Valley cops, Virgil called Duncan, who was caught in traffic halfway back to St. Paul. “We’re looking for a white van, blocked-out white windows, larger than standard, maybe a Chevy, no other information. The thieves could have had their own, but we need to get Sandy calling all the local rental places.”

“I’ll talk to her when I get back, if I ever get back,” Duncan said. “Sounds like you’re rolling.”

“Got lucky,” Virgil said. “From here on out, it’s gonna get harder.”

He hung up and from behind him, Bea, who was standing on a stepladder squinting at the lightbulb in the garage door lift mechanism, said, “Hey: we got some prints.”

“Really,” Virgil said. He was interested, but not excited. “I got two bucks says they’ve got nothing to do with this.”

–

As the afternoon, then evening, wore on, Virgil walked around to all the houses on the block, introducing himself and asking about the white van, and about possible security cameras. The neighbors were cooperative, but he got nothing but the aerobic exercise.

The Apple Valley chief stopped by, found Virgil, and when Virgil told him what he was doing, offered to send a few more cops around to the nearby blocks asking the same question. Virgil took him up on it, and a half hour later, cops were interrogating people across a five-block range.

The neighborhood was intensely residential, though, and except for one insomniac who had seen a late-night white van in the neighborhood-right time, right place, but not as much information as the kid had provided-there were no surveillance cameras of the kind found on convenience stores and gas stations. None of the three churches in the neighborhood or the elementary school had cameras looking out at the street.

The crime-scene crew had finished with the garage. Bea had gotten good prints off the lightbulb and had sent digital copies to BCA headquarters, to be relayed to the FBI, and she confirmed the spot on the floor was blood, species unknown. The crew was now working along the route that the tiger thieves had taken across the zoo property, looking for anything else that might help.

Virgil walked back to Landseer’s office to watch the press conference on the evening news. He and Landseer stood together in front of the TV, and Landseer said, “We’re not missing any tranquilizer darts. They’re all accounted for, and they all have International Orange tails, not red.”

“Okay.”

The news came up, and a reporter named Daisy Jones, whom Virgil considered a possible sexual refuge if all else failed, and whom he suspected of classifying him in the same way, did a quick rundown of the investigation so far and a follow-up interview with Jon Duncan.

Duncan was smooth on camera and stacked up the threats of long prison sentences and remorseless investigation. “We will get the cats back, and we will send these jokers to prison.”

When she was done with Duncan, Jones turned back to the camera and said, “Duncan tells us that the BCA’s top investigator, Virgil Flowers, has been assigned to the tiger recovery. Flowers has been involved in a number of high-profile cases that have resulted in major convictions. Duncan said that he thought the result here would be the same-that Flowers would get the tigers back to the zoo and send the thieves to long terms at Stillwater prison.”

Landseer, who was watching the show with Virgil, said, “That’s very flattering. I’m glad to have you on the case.”

Virgil said, “Daisy never flatters without a motive. I expect she’ll be calling me in the next five minutes.”

–

He took a call a few minutes later, not from Daisy Jones, but from Frankie.

“I wasn’t kidding about sleeping over and I’m not going to wreck my back on your crappy old mattress. And I’ve had baby mattresses that smelled better. Anyway, I’m down at Slumberland and I’m buying us a new one. The question is, California king or eastern king?”

“What’s the difference?”

“California is a little longer but a little narrower,” Frankie said. “I’m thinking we go that way, because I don’t take up much space and you need the length.”

“Let’s do that, then. Will it fit in my bedroom?”

“I measured. If you get back tonight, we can give it a test drive,” she said.

“You can get it tonight?”

“I can get it in twenty minutes,” she said.

“Well… see you tonight. Before you buy it, though, talk to the manager,” Virgil, said. “Make sure it can take a vicious pounding.”

“I’ll be sure to ask,” she said.

–

Virgil got off the phone, now distracted: somehow, buying a bed with his girlfriend felt like an important step. There were, he suspected, extensive implications to the purchase, about which most women could have long consultations in coffee shops. He shuddered and called Jon Duncan.

“I’m going home,” Virgil said. “I’ll be back early tomorrow.”

“Why don’t you crash in a motel?”

“I don’t have my stuff,” Virgil said. “I left in a rush and it’s less than an hour from here anyway. I can be back before anybody wakes up tomorrow. I’ve got some household chores to do and I’ll pack up a bag in the morning.”

“Hate household chores,” Duncan said. “Two days later, you gotta do it all over again.”

“I hear you, brother,” Virgil said.

–

Later that night, a sweaty Frankie said, “Let’s do that all over again.”

“Gotta get up early,” Virgil said.

“Not before you finish the household chores,” she said.

He was about to finish the chores when an image popped up in his mind, a tall, broad-shouldered, naked blonde about to dive into the swimming hole.

Sparkle? That you?

Winston Peck VI was standing in his driveway, smoking a Marlboro, double garage door in the up position, when Zhang Xiaomin wheeled his Ferrari California around the corner, dropped it into second, and accelerated up the street, generating enough racket to wake the heavily tranquilized.

He pulled into the driveway, revved the engine a few times to annoy anyone who hadn’t already been awake, so they could witness his involvement with Peck.

Zhang got out of his car with a selfie grin, as though he expected to be congratulated and possibly photographed. Peck snapped his cigarette out into the street and said, “X, for God’s sakes, what are you doing? Put the car in the garage and get in the fucking house.”

Zhang, a slender man of middling height, wearing a black silk athletic suit with a small tiger’s face on the breast, poked a finger at him: “You do not speak to me like this. You know who I am.”

“Yeah. You’re the son of a Chinese rich guy who thinks you’re a worthless pain in the ass.”

Zhang dropped into a combat stance, two fingers extended in a snake hand. “Bring it,” he said.

Peck said, “Oh, fuck you. Get the money.”