Bloody Genius (Virgil Flowers, #12)(43)

“Well, go open the door,” Weather said.

He dashed away, and, a minute later, Frankie tottered through the kitchen door, and said to Virgil, “You criminal. You did this to me.”

Davenport went over to kiss her, and said, “Did what? You look terrific.”

“You are such a charmer . . . If Weather hadn’t married you, I would have.”

“Hey, what about me?” Virgil asked.

“You could marry Letty,” Frankie said.

“We all know that ain’t gonna happen,” Davenport said. “I’m gonna go fire up the grill.”

When he’d gone, Frankie leaned toward Weather, and asked, quietly, “He still looks pretty rough. Are you sure you want him to keep working?”

“No. But Lucas is gonna do what Lucas is gonna do. It’s always been that way. I can slow him down most of the time, when he’s planning to do something crazy, but not all the time. This time, I can’t.”

“Can’t what?” Davenport asked, returning to the kitchen, looking for a can of briquette starter.

“Can’t wait for the babies to show up,” Weather said. “I want to see what that fuckin’ Flowers does with his dadhood.”

They didn’t talk about Davenport anymore or about the shootings in LA and Vegas. Davenport did mention that he’d stopped to talk to his adopted daughter, Letty, at Stanford before he went on to Los Angeles. She was about to graduate and was deciding between a hot job offer and an economics scholarship at Yale.

Virgil: “Did she ask about me? If she does, you could tell her I’m taken. For the time being anyway.”

“Don’t start,” Davenport said.



* * *



—

They ate steaks, and Davenport’s son Sam and Frankie’s son, also a Sam, roughhoused around the yard and shouted a few off-color words and were corrected in a desultory way. The adults talked about everything but crime, and toward the end of the evening a U.S. senator called Davenport to say that he was needed for a confidential job in Washington.

The senator gave Virgil a hard time for a few minutes—while governor, he’d been involved with Virgil when Virgil purchased his boat—then signed off after Davenport promised to call him the next day. At ten o’clock, Frankie followed Virgil and Sam out of Davenport’s driveway. Frankie and Virgil both had hands-free phone links in their vehicles and they raked over the details of Virgil’s case as they drove, finally giving up as they pulled into the barnyard.

Sam got out of the truck, and Honus the Yellow Dog, who’d been sleeping on the porch, ambled over in the dark to meet him.

“Don’t be going online,” Frankie said to her son.

“I’m too sleepy anyway,” Sam said, and Virgil rubbed his head.



* * *



—

Virgil woke up Sunday morning in his own bed, with gray clouds outside and a stiff wind blowing through the leaves of a sugar maple that grew in the side yard. He yawned, stretched, got up, and looked out the window. The hayfield was as slick as a Marine recruit’s haircut, not a single bale waiting to be thrown. He smiled to himself, stretched again, and went to get cleaned up.

Frankie was having a second cup of coffee when he made it down to the kitchen, and she said, “Virgie, we gotta talk.”

Virgil said, “Oh, shit. Listen, I didn’t have any choice about going up there. If I hadn’t been ordered to go, I would have thrown that hay. Really, I would have.”

“No, no, I’m not talking about hay. I want to tell you I enjoyed myself last night, but I’m getting pretty lumpy. We might have to, mmm, go easy on the more vigorous sex until the kids get here.”

“Oh, Jesus! Why didn’t you say something?” Virgil asked. “I’d never hurt you. I—”

“We’re not quite there yet. You didn’t hurt me, and I enjoyed the heck out of myself,” she said. “I’m not saying that the sex has to stop. We’ll have to go to, you know, alternatives.”

“I’m up for that,” Virgil said. “Anytime, anyplace. Well, almost anyplace. The roof of the barn wouldn’t be good. You’d probably roll off.”

“Thanks. Anyway, I figured you’d be cooperative.”

“Gotcha. We can start working on alternatives tonight,” Virgil said. “Or this afternoon . . . if I don’t have to do something with hay.”

“Barn’s full of hay. There won’t be any hay next year, so you’re in the clear. We’re four years into the alfalfa now, we need to kill it off. Rolf wants to rotate in some corn.”

She went on like that for a while, and Virgil heard “four years,” “Rolf,” as well as “alfalfa,” “corn,” and a couple other agricultural words, and when he realized she’d finished talking, he said, “You know what you’re doing, I can’t advise you. Except—”

“You going to advise me now,” she said.

“Yeah. I’ll advise you that next spring you’re going to have two new kids and not a hell of a lot of time to do farmwork or architectural salvage. I’ve got to keep working to bring in the cash. Maybe it’s time to ease off on the farming. And the salvage. Take a break. Or make a deal with Rolf: he does it all, he gets it all. He could use the money. That’d keep the company going.”