“And, importantly, for a fuckin’ Flowers, soon to be available,” Lucas said.
“I didn’t know when she was going to get out, and I didn’t ask. Anyway, I gave her my card, and after I got out of there, I looked her up, saw what her background was, and why she was inside. Running a whorehouse. Like six months later, when she got out, she called me up and said, “Hey, I got a bottle of Cabernet and I’m looking for a get-out-of-prison party.”
Lucas snorted.
“I thought about it for a couple seconds. I mean, I did,” Virgil said.“I was unattached at the time. But, I begged off, never heard from her again. She was a very good-looking woman. Close as I ever came, I guess. She wasn’t looking for money, but she’d been selling sex wholesale, even if it wasn’t hers. And it might have been hers, as far as I know.”
“You’re a saint,” Lucas said.
“So, what would you have done?”
“The same. I’ve never met a hooker I really liked. Felt sorry for some. Not for some others.” After a moment, “You ever catch the strong-arm guy?”
“Yeah, we decoyed him out with Henrietta Mackey. You remember her?”
“Oh, yeah. I heard she moved to California. Good cop. Had some guts. She was SWAT for a while, when women didn’t do SWAT.”
“She was,” Virgil said. “But, she wanted to learn how to surf. Can’t do that on Lake Phalen. She wound up with the Santa Monica PD.”
“Good for her.”
Virgil nodded and said, “Next topic.”
15
They didn’t have to create a new topic because Jon Duncan, Virgil’s boss, did it for them. Virgil answered his phone and Duncan said, “Did you dickheads give pictures of Doris Grandfelt’s dates to the true crime sites?”
Virgil said, “Maybe.”
Duncan: “Ah, shit. I knew it! Iknewit! The first guy they found was the CEO of Earthwise Crypto, which, in case you didn’t know, is the fourth-biggest tech company in the state, and they give money to every politician in sight.”
“I’m sure you can handle it, Jon,” Lucas said.
“Handle it? I’m not looking to handle it. I’m looking for somebody to blame.”
“Blame us,” Lucas said. “We’ll be happy to pass the blame along to Henderson and the governor.”
“We could go onJonesing on the News,” Virgil said. “Daisy’d behappy to have us. We’re both old friends of hers. In fact, she already got in touch, but we put her off.”
“Stay the fuck away from all news outlets—YouTube, TikTok, TV, whatever else you can think of,” Duncan said. “Stay away until this quiets down. I mean, the guy has like six kids and the TV stations are parked outside the poor bastard’s house.”
“And you sent a crime scene tech over there to get a DNA sample?”
“I suppose somebody will. That’s not my job. My job is to shut you guys up.”
“We warned everybody. You were there,” Lucas said.
“I’ll deny that. Oh. Something else. You’re both movie stars on the true crime blogs. And it’s ‘fuck this’ and ‘fuck that’ and ‘fuck you’ and the guy who gets his wife to lick the tires of his shiny red car…”
“Tires weren’t mentioned,” Virgil said.
“You know what I’m talking about,” Duncan said. “We need one thing from you guys right now. It’s called discretion.”
“Too late for that, Jon,” Virgil said. “This is a snowball rolling downhill. You say the first guy was a CEO…what about the other ten?”
“Haven’t found them, but the crimers are out there beating the bushes. Just pray that a minister or a priest isn’t among them.” Pause. “Or a bishop. What are you guys doing now? Where are you?”
“On our way to the Wee Blue Inn to talk to one of the true crime people,” Virgil said. “Have you heard about Bud Light?”
