Holland was hauling in more edible crap when Virgil walked into the store. The crowd was noticeably thinner than it had been the other times Virgil had been there, and he overheard two people who looked like townies complaining about the toll the shootings had taken on the tourist trade. “If I catch that rat, I’ll pop his head like a fuckin’ pimple,” one guy said to the other, who replied, “Shhhh. That’s the cop.”

Virgil nodded, and said, “How ya doin’, boys. If you catch the guy, let me know. I’ll come over and shoot him for you all legal-like.”

“Nice thought, but that’s not what I heard about you,” the pimple popper said.

Hung up deciding between a turkey potpie or a chicken, Virgil took a chicken, then put it back and took a turkey, then put that back, and one of the guys said, “Take the chicken. The turkey gives you bad gas.”

Virgil took the chicken, walked it into the back room, and shoved it in the microwave. Holland came through with a box full of blue corn chips, and said, “Hope I can sell this stuff.”

“I ought to bust you for trying,” Virgil said.

“That’s how Communism got started,” Holland said, as he disappeared through the curtain into the store. He was back a minute later, and said, “You know what goes with a chicken potpie?”

“A water glass full of Everclear?”

“Well, yeah, but I was thinking of Zingers. I got a gross of Zingers coming through in a minute.”

Virgil waved off the Zingers, when they came through, and poked holes through the potpie cover with a plastic fork. Holland took the Zingers into the store. He was back a couple of minutes later, pushing through the door curtain with the empty box, when Virgil heard Skinner’s voice call, “Wardell! Wardell!”

Wardell turned, halfway through the curtain. “Yeah?”

Virgil couldn’t see Skinner but clearly heard him say, “That fuckin’ Larry beat up Jennie, man, real bad. She’s got—”

He suddenly stopped talking, and Virgil knew that Holland had cut him off and was making some finger gestures that meant “Flowers is in the back.”

Virgil swallowed some potpie, and called, “Come on back and tell me about it, Skinner. Janet getting beat up and all.”

Skinner poked his head past the curtain. “You don’t know Janet.”

“Come in here. I want to hear about it, and I want to know why Janet got beat up,” Virgil said.

Holland came through with Skinner a step behind him, both obviously uneasy, shuffling their feet. Holland said, “This has nothing to do with the shootings. This is something else.”

Virgil kept eating, and, between swallows of molten chicken grease, said, “Tell me about it anyway.”

“Ah, man,” Skinner said. Then, to Holland: “I think we ought to tell him. We can’t let it go.”