Heat Lightning

“No, no, it’s always wonderful,” he said. “It’s just like opening your Christmas presents when you’re eight years old. Ah, jeez…”

Then it was underpants and she was pulling on Virgil’s jeans, which still smelled a little fishy from one of the northerns they’d caught, and then they were all over the place, and somewhere during the proceedings, though Virgil didn’t bother to check the time, she began to make a low ohhhh sound and then Virgil lost track, but not for long.

WELL, HE THOUGHT as he lay on his back, the sweat evaporating from his stomach, he’d thought it would be pretty good, and it had been. And would be again in about, hmm, seventeen minutes.

She said, “Why…” She giggled. “That was so crazy-all of a sudden, I realized, this afternoon, before we went out, you said you got a phone call from China. From China? You get calls from China?”

“No, it’s this case. Trying to go back in time. There was a guy killed in Hong Kong a year or so ago, and there’s a question of how exactly he died. He’s connected with the guys here. The Chinese are going to look into it, see what they can find out.”

“All the Chinese? That’s a lot of Chinamen.”

“The Hong Kong police force.”

“Really. Indians, Chinese, Hong Kong, the North Woods.”

“Yeah… I gotta tell you, when I brought you up here, I was mostly thinking about this…” He slipped his hand up her thigh. “But I worry about your father and you. You don’t know anything about this case, do you?”

She propped herself up on one elbow. “Why would I know anything about it? Why would you ask?”

“Because your father, you know, he was talking to Ray and Sanderson, and when I asked what they were talking about, he didn’t have much to say. The thing is, if this killer even thinks your father was involved, he might go after him. And if you’re in the way… Look, I really, really don’t want you to get hurt, and if your father’s involved, you could be in the line of fire.”

“Oh… Virgil. You don’t really think so? I mean, my father…” She trailed away.

“Was he in Vietnam in 1975?”

“He’s been there a lot. When I was a child, it seemed like he was gone all the time, but that was in the eighties. As I understand it, the Vietnamese really thought they had allies with the American people, and that he was one of them. So he was there during the war, and right after it, and later, he was there more… He was there a lot. But 1975, I don’t know.”

“I’m amazed he was never busted,” Virgil said.

“Busted…”

“Arrested. By the feds… you know, ‘giving aid and comfort.’”

“Well, when he went, he went as a journalist,” Mai said. “So that gave him some status.”

“Still. You gotta ask him about it,” Virgil said. “If there’s anything, he’s got to talk to me.”

“How many more killings do you think-”

“I don’t know… I’ll tell you something, but you gotta promise not to tell.”

“All right, sure,” she said.

“The last one, the killer was probably seen, and he was an Indian guy. Ray was an Indian guy. Some of these guys were living on the edge, and there’s a question of whether there was a dope deal going down somewhere. So… it’s all really confusing.”

“Do you know who the other targets might be?”

“Yeah, I talked to one the other day. I can’t really tell you his name-it’s, like, a legal thing. But he’s out there traveling around. He told me he’s safe. He’s got a security guy who travels with him, he says the president couldn’t find him. But hell, it’s possible he’s involved somehow.”

“You’ll figure it out. Dad says you’re a pretty smart guy,” Mai said.

“I don’t feel so smart; I feel like my head is stuffed full of cotton. Something is going on, and I don’t know what it is.”

She squeezed him. “Feels like something is going on down here.”

“I know what that is,” he said. “I have that completely under control.”

“Right. Mr. Control.” She gave him a yank. “How many women have you slept with, Mr. Control?”

“I have a list on my laptop,” Virgil said. “I’d hate to say without consulting my list.”

“Just names, or… talent, as well?”

“Everything. Names, photographs, resumes, criminal records. I give them all grades, too. For example, a couple of women might call me up, and I don’t remember them that well in the fog of all the women, but I’ve got to make a decision. So I look at my computer records, and one of them I’ve given a B-minus, and the other a C-minus. So the decision is clear.”

“What’d I get?”

“You got a B-plus,” Virgil said. “You could easily move up to an A, if you play your cards right.”

“Lying in bed,” she said. “Joking.”

“Ah, well…” He sat up, looked down at her. “It’s what happens when you become a cop. Something curdles your sense of humor. My problem is not really that I sleep with so many women. My problem is that I fall in love with them.”

She was lying facedown on top of the sheet with her face turned toward him, and he ran his hand down her back and over the rise of her butt. “Women don’t understand how beautiful they are. They don’t understand it. They get beauty all confused with personality, or charisma, or a nice smile… but they really don’t see the simple beauty of this…” and his hand glided again over her bottom. “It’s a goddamn tragedy that you can’t see it. But you can’t; I know you can’t. And it’s just so beautiful.”

19

VIRGIL WAS moving early the next morning, out at dawn, heading southwest out of the Twin Cities, still feeling the glow of the afternoon and evening with Mai. He’d spoken with Shrake the evening before, after he’d dropped Mai, and Shrake said that he and Jenkins had spotted several more bodyguards working the streets around Ralph Warren’s home.

“We gave it up. We were staying way back, but they were still going to see us. We can get on him again tomorrow, but it seems like he’s moving at night, if he’s doing these killings. We need to do something electronic with his truck, to follow him, or something-this ain’t working.”

Virgil spoke to Davenport, and they agreed that Shrake and Jenkins would resume the surveillance in the morning, just tight enough to keep track of Warren ’s general location. “We ought to try the sting, see what happens,” Virgil told Davenport. “We need an undercover guy who Warren wouldn’t know, and between him and his pals, they’ll know a lot of cops around town.”

“I’ll make some calls,” Davenport said. “I’ve got an ex-cop in Missouri who could do it. He’d be perfect for the job.”

SO VIRGIL got up early, headed back to Mankato, his home base, with ten pounds of dirty clothes. He lived in a compact 1930s brick house on the edge of downtown, on a block with trees and quite a few kids. When he bought it, the house had belonged to an elderly widower whose children were moving him to a nursing home. The old man had been a mechanic before he retired, and had restored cars as a hobby. His two-and-half-car garage was nearly as big as the house, and provided good room for both Virgil’s truck and his boat.

He left the truck in the driveway, checked the place to make sure everything was okay, stuck the dirty clothes in the washing machine, collected his mail, paid bills, and walked downtown and dropped them off at a mailbox. He got an early-morning cup of coffee and a croissant at a coffee shop.

Eating the croissant as he went, he walked back home, put the clothes in the dryer, and made a phone call to Marilyn Utecht, hoping he wasn’t waking her up; but she was an early riser, and said, “Come on ahead.” He got in the truck and headed to the town of New Ulm, which had at one time been the least ethnically diverse town in the United States -everybody had been of German ancestry.