"I'll tell you what, Joe," Lucas said. He took a sip of beer and looked at Joe Mack over the rim of the glass. "Large parts of this case are really confusing for us. Did your dad know about the whole thing? Or was he just a victim? We know you put the drugs into the tank up there."
Joe Mack talked for a while, Virgil serving up a series of highballs--the broken front door started banging, letting in cold air, and Lucas went and wedged it shut with a chair--and when they were done, after an hour or so, they had the whole story.
Virgil said to Lucas, "You were mostly right."
"Bet I talked way too much, didn't I?" Joe Mack said.
"Well, hell, Joe, you know, this whole thing has been pretty awful," Virgil said. He shook his head. "That MacBride woman ..."
"I get nightmares," Joe Mack said. "I blew my guts ..."
"Doesn't help Jill MacBride or her daughters," Lucas said.
"Ah, fuck," Joe Mack said. He stared into his nearly empty glass. "The whole problem was, we're stupid people. That's what caused all this trouble. We weren't smart enough to run this bar, without buyin' and sellin' out the back door. We sure as shit weren't smart enough to pull off a big-time robbery. Mikey kickin' that guy? Just stupid. Cappy? Stupid. I only ran away from you guys because I'm stupid. I know that. Everybody knows that."
He finished his drink, the fourth since they'd arrived, and Lucas said, "Time to go."
"One more," Joe Mack said, pleading, his eyes watery. "You know, I'm an alcoholic. I always liked being an alcoholic. One of the only good things that ever happened to me. This could be my last drink, forever."
"One more?" Virgil looked at Lucas.
Lucas turned and looked out the windows, at the dirty cars hissing by on the snow-choked highway, the gray clouds piled up overhead, the barren trees like black lightning. The clouds were going out, and the cold was coming in: minus ten, that night, maybe fifteen below the next. He said, "Hell, why not? What better to do on a day like this?"
John Sandford, Storm Prey
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