John Sandford - Escape Clause

“I need to talk to him today,” Virgil said.

“I can start calling right now,” Aarle said.

“I’d appreciate it.”

–

Aarle went inside the house to start calling-he said he needed to sit down-and Mrs. Aarle stood in the yard with Virgil and said, “Real nice day, isn’t it? A little too hot, though.”

Virgil looked up at the blue sky and puffy white fair-weather clouds and said, “Yep, sure is. Looks to go on like this. For a while, anyway.”

“Not that we couldn’t use some rain,” she said.

“Most always could use some rain,” Virgil said. “As long as it’s not too much.”

“Sure got it last year, in July,” she said. “Way too much. I think it was heaviest on the sixth.”

“I remember that,” Virgil said. “We got something like three inches in Mankato.”

“Five inches out here, on our rain gauge,” she said.

Virgil said, “Whoa. That must have been something.”

“Sounded like we had a drummer up on the roof,” she said. They both turned to look at the roof.

–

And so on. Aarle came out after ten minutes and said, “Well, I spread the word. I expect you’ll be hearing from him. You’re welcome to stay for dinner if you like.”

“Had a McDonald’s up in Young America; thanks anyway,” Virgil said. “I’d kind of like to get home before dark.”

“Mr. Flowers lives in Mankato,” Mrs. Aarle said, as they walked over to Virgil’s truck.

“That must be real nice,” Aarle said. “Nice town. We’ve talked about retiring there.”

“Probably not for a while yet, though,” Mrs. Aarle said.

Virgil waved and got the fuck out of there before his ears fell off.

–

He was three miles out of the Aarles’ gate when Strait called.

“This is Toby. Who are you, again?”

“Virgil Flowers. I got your name from Lucas Davenport.”

“He quit,” Strait said.

“Yeah, but he’s still got his database,” Virgil said.

“All right. I’m going to call Davenport and I’ll call you back if he says it’s okay.”

“Do that,” Virgil said.

Strait called back five minutes later: “He says you’re okay. Where are you?”

“I left the Aarle snake barn maybe ten minutes ago, heading south,” Virgil said.

“Then we could meet up in New Ulm. You go straight on south until you hit the river, take a right, come across the bridge,” Strait said. “There’s a Taco Bell off on the right side of the road, couple blocks in.”

“When?”

“I’ll be waiting for you,” Strait said.

–

Beans and corn, beans and corn, beans and corn, all the way down.

Strait was leaning against the back of his Chevy pickup, a soft drink cup in his hand, when Virgil pulled into the Taco Bell parking lot. Strait was a short, husky man in a canvas outdoors shirt, worn loose, and jeans and boots. He was wearing a camouflage PSE hat and mirrored sunglasses.

Virgil climbed out of his 4Runner and noticed the lump under Strait’s elbow and said, “You’re carrying.”

Strait lifted his shirt to show Virgil the butt of a full-sized Beretta, and said, “Wouldn’t you, if you were me? I still can’t walk right and maybe never will. I do got a carry permit.”

“Where’d she hit you?”

“Back of both legs. Didn’t lead me enough.”

“Looks like she got the elevation wrong, too,” Virgil observed.

“Well, it was a snap shot, and I was running. I got to give her that much,” Strait said. “She ain’t a bad shot. I saw her get out of her truck and I knew what was coming-this was back at my place in Owatonna-and I started running to get behind my truck. I was carrying, then, too, and when I went down, I got behind the tire and emptied a whole goddamn magazine at her. I measured it off later at three hundred and twelve yards. I gave her about six feet of elevation shooting my Beretta, which turned out to be right. That was the clincher when they arrested her-bullet holes and bullet dings on her truck. They got a slug with rifling marks that matched my gun.”

“Lucky that she didn’t have time to get set up,” Virgil said.

“You’re telling me,” Strait said. He hitched up his pants. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for those stolen tigers.”

“I don’t have them. I got enough to do with my bears and my snakes,” Strait said. “To tell the absolute truth, you’d have to be crazy to snatch those tigers. I mean, Jesus Christ, didn’t those people know what was gonna happen? That they were gonna have a world of shit rainin’ down on their heads? All of our heads. I knew goddamn well that when somebody stole those tigers, somebody would be coming around to give me a hard time. It’s just ain’t fair to legitimate businessmen to get painted with this broad brush.”

“I don’t know what they were thinking,” Virgil said. “That’s something I’d like to know.”

“They wouldn’t have done it, if they knew about my situation-that goofy twat Maxine hunting me down like I was a rabid dog.”

“You’re an expert in this stuff,” Virgil said. “If they’re processing these tigers for medicine, how long would it take?”

Strait took his hat off, brushed his hair back with one hand, and looked up at the sky. After a while, he said, “They were full-grown, right? I’d say a couple, three days apiece, if they got access to a good commercial dryer. That’s if they’re processing the whole animal. With tigers, over in Asia, sometimes the poachers will only take the eyes, heart, whiskers, teeth, penis and balls, and femur bones. You could do that in an hour, maybe, put everything in a sack. When you do that, you leave a lot of money on the ground.”

“What are the femurs for?”

“Well, all ground up, they’re supposed to cure about anything,” Strait said. “Everything from ulcers to burns. Then there’s the baculum-that’s a bone in the penis. You could get anything up to five thousand dollars for an Amur tiger baculum alone.”

“Really?”

“That’s the fact, Jack.”

“Who would you look at for this?”

Strait stuck a pinky finger in his ear, wiggled it around, then said, “Well… Amur tiger’s gonna be worth some serious money, but you’d have to be able to prove it was real. That’s probably why they don’t care about the publicity-maybe even want some of it, to prove it’s real Amur they’re talking. There’s a premium for endangered species. What I’m saying is, I don’t know anybody local who could handle two tigers, but there’s enough money involved that it could be an outsider. Crew goes around, looks at a bunch of zoos, picks out the most likely one, hits it.”

He hesitated, then said, “Of course, grabbing the tigers seems totally batshit anyway. Too much risk, no matter what the payoff is.”

“Nobody local.”

“There are some local people who handle animal products, I just don’t see them hitting the zoo.”

“Give me some names,” Virgil said.

“Three that I can think of. There’s a company in St. Paul called Carvin Exports, which mostly deals in wildlife hides-not furs, but deer hides, wolf skins, bear skins, that kind of thing. I sell them bear hides and some snake, though they’re at the lower end of the market. I can’t see them involved in this because they’re too corporate. Too many people would know, although I suppose the company business could have given the employees some ideas, and they went off on their own…”

“But doesn’t seem likely to you?”

“No, it doesn’t. Then there’s a guy in St. Paul named Winston Peck… a doctor…”

“I’ve been looking for him already,” Virgil said. “Haven’t been able to find him.”

“All right. I don’t think he could handle a tiger on his own. He buys in small amounts for his retail clientele. You know, for patients, and for people who go to his traditional medicine website. There’s a woman over in western Wisconsin who does deal in animal musks and so on. Her name is Bobbie Patterson, don’t know exactly where she lives.”