“It is, and she doesn’t like it any more than us guys. But it’s not up to her. Somebody else could say I was walking too close to her, and, the next thing you know, there’d be an inquiry and we could both have career problems,” Wood said. “The world is getting goofier by the minute, Virgie.”

“I will be talking to you,” Virgil said. And to Skinner: “We’re outta here.”

—

Skinner was silent for the first ten minutes of the ride back, but shortly after they crossed the Minnesota line, heading north, he said, “I kinda liked that.”

“What? Being a cop?”

“It’s embarrassing,” Skinner said. “All I ever knew about cops was that they’d hassle you for having a beer.”

“When you were twelve,” Virgil said.

“Minnesota and Wisconsin are to beer what wine is to France, and, in France, kids can drink a little wine,” Skinner said.

“Okay. Now, let me tell you about cops,” Virgil said. “There are a lot of good ones, but I couldn’t claim that they’re in the majority. Maybe a third of them are pretty good, another third are just getting through life, and the last third are bad. They’re poorly trained or burned-out, not too bright, have problems handling their authority. You got cops who’ll hassle women for sex, use drugs, steal stuff . . . basically, criminals. But you get a job like mine, it’s interesting. And you’re doing some good.”

“I don’t know if I could handle making people feel bad, like Jill and Billie,” Skinner said. “Of course, there’s the money thing. Cops don’t make any.”

“There are some downsides,” Virgil said. “The money thing, and, then, crooks are human. They cry. They get sad, they apologize. But you know what? All that comes after they fuck somebody over. You gotta keep that in mind. The money thing . . . I have a hard time worrying too much. I got enough.”

“Stealin’ Legos? Is that really fuckin’ somebody over? Bet it all got covered by insurance.”

“Probably. But people who steal and don’t get caught, they don’t stop until they do get caught. They do all kinds of damage along the way. If Van Den Berg hadn’t gotten caught, and if he’d gotten rid of all those Legos, he’d be looking for another score,” Virgil said.