Brimstone

67

VIRGIL AND I SAT ON the riverbank and waited for Pony to do what he needed to.

“I don’t know if we’re really smart or really dumb,” I said, “hiding the women upstairs at Pike’s.”

“Nobody goes up there but whores and customers,” Virgil said. “Pony told me employees ain’t allowed.”

“Pike sure as hell wouldn’t look for them there.”

“No,” Virgil said.

A fish splashed in the river and left a series of concentric ripples. Bass probably, snapping up a dragonfly.

“Why is it exactly that we’re going to kill him?” I said.

“That what we going to do?” Virgil said.

“ ’Course it is,” I said. “ ’ Less he kills us.”

“Just want to talk with Pike,” Virgil said.

“Horseshit,” I said. “You took his money and double-crossed him, and now you’re gonna go and shove it in his face. You know he is gonna have to pull on you.”

Virgil smiled.

“I do,” Virgil said.

“Maybe what we doing ain’t quite exactly law-officer business anyway,” I said.

“Must be,” Virgil said. “We’re law officers.”

“Some folks might say we should have stepped in between Percival and Pike,” I said.

“You miss Percival?”

“Nope.”

“He was a fraud,” Virgil said. “He was in cahoots with Pike to drive out all of Pike’s competition. He messed with Laurel. He messed with Allie. He give Allie to Pike.”

“At least that’s how she saw it,” I said.

Virgil looked at me for a time.

“Allie is Allie,” he said. “You gonna miss Pike?”

“Might have saved a lot of trouble if he’d told us all he knew ’bout Buffalo Calf,” I said.

“Might have,” Virgil said.

“So, is it tactics?” I said. “Let the vermin fight to the death and then pick off the winner?”

“Sure,” Virgil said.

“Or is it personal?” I said. “ ’Cause of Laurel and Allie… maybe Mary Beth?”

“Sure,” Virgil said.

“So you’re feeling all right ’bout this business,” I said.

“We not gonna back-shoot anybody,” Virgil said. “We risk our lives to do what we think, the right thing to do. Somebody told me once that was pretty much all you could ask for.”

“Who was that?” I said.

“A smart fella,” Virgil said, and sipped some coffee. “Went to West Point.”

“Oh,” I said. “Him.”

The resident bass, or whatever it was, jumped for another dragonfly, or whatever it was, and left the circles of his jump on the surface of the water. We both watched the ripples as they widened slowly out until they disappeared against the riverbank.

“When we’re finished with Pike,” I said, “what you gonna do with Allie?”

“Gonna keep her,” Virgil said.

“You think she’s changed?” I said.

“I think she has,” Virgil said.

I didn’t say anything.

“You think she has?” Virgil said.

“Don’t know,” I said.

“It’s the girl,” Virgil said. “I see her with the girl and I see a different Allie.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“People change,” Virgil said.

“Not a lot of them,” I said.

Virgil was silent for a moment.

Then he said, “No, not a lot of them.

“Somebody got to take care of Laurel,” Virgil said.

“That would be Allie,” I said.

“That would be Allie,” Virgil said.

“Guess the question’s settled for the moment,” I said.

“I guess,” Virgil said.