Deep Freeze (Virgil Flowers #10)(46)

—

When Virgil emerged on the street five minutes later, he’d successfully scared the shit out of Barker, who wouldn’t be talking about the interview, and Virgil believed he’d made serious progress.

Fred Fitzgerald had a primitive website that Virgil and Barker looked at on Barker’s laptop. That gave Virgil an address, and, after leaving the store, he called the duty officer at the BCA, gave him the name and address. The duty officer came back with a rap sheet.

“He’s a bad boy but a small-timer,” the duty officer said. “Couple of small burglaries, lots of fights and assaults, a DUI four years ago, charged with theft of motorcycle parts out in Sturgis, did a little time on that. Let me see . . . I’d say an assault back in 2009 is the worst of it. Went after a guy with a pool cue, broke his arms, did a year less a day in the county jail. Apparently, part of a deal where he put a tattoo on a guy and misspelled something and the guy went around bad-mouthing him.”

“Smells like a loser,” Virgil said.

“Maybe. But I’ll tell you what, Virgie. The guy’s got a bad temper and a violent streak. You want to have somebody with you when you go to see him.”

“Gotcha. Talk to you later.”

—

Virgil met Johnson Johnson and Clarice at Tony’s Chicago Style, and Johnson said Fitzgerald was not a bad guy. “He’s made some mistakes.”

“Busted up a guy with a pool cue,” Virgil said.

“Well, who hasn’t?” Johnson asked.

“You and Virgil,” Clarice said, “for two. Don’t give me any of that tough-guy bullshit, Johnson, you’ve never busted anyone up with anything, except maybe you punched a couple of guys in the nose.”

“You’re harshing my buzz, man,” Johnson said to Clarice.

“He do your ink?” Virgil asked.

Johnson had full sleeves. “No way. I got primo work by one of the godfathers of art tattoos. Fred’s not a bad guy, but he’s second tier.”

The pizza came, a lot of pepperoni swimming in a lake of extra-sharp cheddar, all of it scooped out on top of a sugar-free piecrust. Nothing like it had ever been served within a hundred miles of Chicago.

“To get back to Fitzgerald . . . He is a bad guy, Johnson,” Virgil said. “The question is, would he have killed Hemming if he felt the need?”

Johnson considered and then said, “No. It would have been an accident. He wouldn’t have thought about it.”

“I can buy that,” Virgil said. “She was probably hit only once, in the head. Like somebody got mad, swatted her with a bottle.”

“You know, I can’t even see him doing that,” Johnson said. “He’s been in enough fights that he’d know that he’d hurt her bad. I can see him twisting her arm, maybe choking her a little, slapping her . . . Not hitting her with a bottle. Not cracking her skull.”

“You’re not helping here,” Virgil said.

“I’m telling you the truth, though.”

They gnawed through a few slices of the pizza, which turned out to be tougher than it looked. Clarice asked Virgil, “So . . . you found a place that sells sex stuff?”

“Back room at Bernie’s Books.”

Her eyebrows went up. “Really? I didn’t know that—but I guess I’m not surprised. Jimmy’s always been a sleaze dog. A friend of mine told me he was coming on to her daughter when the daughter was fifteen. He was thirty-four.”

“That’s called statutory rape in Minnesota,” Virgil said.

Johnson: “You can’t rape statues anymore?”

Clarice ignored him. “They hadn’t slept together before the mom found out. He might have introduced the daughter to reefer madness, though. My friend went down to the sheriff’s office and talked to Jeff Purdy and Jeff had a word with Jimmy. That ended that.”

Johnson asked, “When are you going to talk to Fred?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Virgil said, “if I can get out of your driveway.”

“Well, if you can’t, Fred’s place is on Melon, right where it comes down to the highway. You could ride one of the sleds down there, if you aren’t ascared to walk across the railroad tracks.”

“We’ll see what happens,” Virgil said.

Johnson looked at Clarice. “What do you think?”

“Don’t know him that well,” she said. “From a woman’s perspective, though, I can put him with Gina if she was sleeping with Corbel. Fred’s good-looking, has got the same kind of rough-trade vibe that Corbel has. If bad boys did it for her, Fred would fit the bill.”

“The duty officer at the BCA called him that,” Virgil said. “Bad boy.”





FIFTEEN Corbel Cain didn’t drink every day, or even every week; but once in a while, when the weight of the world grew too heavy, he’d go off on what he called a run and what his doctor called a binge. During the run, Corbel told the doc, he’d likely get screwed, stewed, and tattooed—and, more than likely, correct some grievous wrongs.

He didn’t win all the fights, because he tended to pick on even larger brawlers, but he won most of them.

“The problem with that is,” his doc said after the last run, “somebody will eventually kick you to death. Or cripple you. Or you’ll forget to stop sometime and you’ll hurt somebody bad and wind up in prison. You got to cut this shit out, Corbel.”