Heat Lightning

“This thing in Vietnam, I don’t go two hours without thinking about it. For more than thirty years-”

Virgil said, “Somebody’s across the lake with a high-powered rifle, and you’re go

Knox made a huh-huh sound, which was his kind of big-guy chuckle. “ Warren.”

“Ralph Warren?”

“Yeah. I assumed you knew that,” Knox said. “His name, anyway.”

“I never got to anybody before they were dead, except Ray, and he didn’t know who Warren was.”

Knox laughed again, a short half grunt, half laugh. “Well… who else do you know who could import a bunch of bent-nosed, cold-eyed killers?”

“But one of the cold-eyed killers got killed,” Virgil said.

“Yeah? That guy up at that rest stop?”

“Yeah. Ex-military, special forces,” Virgil said.

“Probably Wigge’s man. Probably an accident. Warren wouldn’t have wanted Wigge to see it coming, because Wigge was a hard-ass himself. They’ve been tangled up forever-ever since Vietnam, anyway.”

“So-what happened in Vietnam? Warren did the killing?”

Knox nodded. They’d gotten as much equipment as they could onto the ship-even though that meant that some perfectly good stuff would be left behind-and called it a day. But when the last truck left, Knox said, and they knew the truck itself would be lifted onboard the ship, Warren and Wigge produced a couple of bottles of rum that they’d bought the day before from some Cambodian security guards, and they started mixing up rum and Cokes.

“ Cuba libres, they called them back then. Goddamn, they were good when it was hot outside,” Knox said. “So we’re sitting around drinking and we’d already had two or three gallons of beer, and we’re gettin’ pretty fucked up, and Warren says he’s go

“Anyway, there was this chick down there, we’d seen her a couple of times, coming and going on a bicycle, but… mmm… Warren goes down there carrying this gun-Chester gave us a couple of M16s, just in case-and he starts taking off all his clothes until he’s buck naked, and he’s drunk, and he gets under this water at the pump… and this chick comes along on the bike and she doesn’t see him until she’s already off it, and she tries to run around him, and he comes after her, and grabs her ass, and he’s drunk and sort of rubbing himself on her and laughing…

“So the old guy comes out, and this time he’s got a rifle, and he points it up in the air and fires off a round and we’re all, like, ‘Jesus Christ,’ and the girl runs into the house past him and he comes ru

“We get there, and there’s this dead guy in the yard. And we all freaked out. We all stopped, and I remember Chuck saying, ‘I’m getting the fuck out of here,’ and then there was some screaming from the house, and we can hear Warren yelling, and we’re all like going, ‘What the fuck?’

“Then there’s nothing. We’re yelling, ‘Ralph, Ralph,’ and he yells, ‘I’m okay,’ and we go in there, look in there, and there’s these dead kids in the hallway, these two dead little kids, and we can hear this… this…”

He stared away, across the lake, and Larry said, “Jesus Christ,” and Knox went on: “I went through that and I went into the next room, and here was Warren, and he was fuckin’ this chick. He was fuckin’ her, and I could see she was dead, or she was dying, but he was crazy drunk and he was just fuckin’ her…”

“Pictures,” Virgil said.

Knox nodded. “I had this Instamatic. Like this little Kodak pocket camera. I was wearing fatigue pants, and, shit, I had this bad feeling that I could get blamed, that we could all get blamed, and Warren was banging her like mad and Sanderson was yelling at him and he wouldn’t stop, and Sanderson ran away and I took a shot of Warren banging this chick, and then I took off, but I took a shot of the kids, and the old man, and then I went ru

“But nothing ever happened?” Virgil asked.

“Nah. We didn’t really understand it all at the time, but that whole country was going crazy. People were stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down, people were trying to get out, they were stealing boats and robbing stores for money, it was crazy. Chester, when he found out about the killing, he freaked out. He said we had to get the fuck out of there and keep our mouths shut. That’s what we did. We all got jammed in that van and we took off for the airport, and we camped out there for four days before I could get out, but some of the guys-Warren, I think, and maybe Sanderson-went with the boat.”

“Ray said he saw Sanderson back at home just a couple months later, so he didn’t go with the boat.”

“Well, shit, they just took them to Indonesia,” Knox said. “That’s only, like, three or four days away.”

“I don’t know anything about that part of the world,” Virgil said.

They all sat there, staring at the lake, then Virgil said, “I’ll see what I can do about the photos. About attributing them to Ray. But… I don’t know. I’m go

Knox bit his lip and then said, “What if I tell the guys from Chicago to put a bullet in your head and walk away?”

“I’m heavily armed,” Virgil said.

“That won’t work, then,” Knox said. He dipped into his jacket pocket and handed Virgil an envelope. “What I did was, I sca

“When Wigge was killed, his fingers were cut off. He was tortured,” Virgil said. “If Warren was his good buddy, why’d he do that?”

Knox said, “Because he’s nuts.”

“But that’s worse than nuts-it’s u

Knox rocked back and forth on the bench for a moment, then said, “After Sanderson got killed, I sent Warren copies of the pictures. Didn’t say who had them, I just said, ‘Back off or the police get the pictures.’”

“Ah, man. He’s been looking for the pictures,” Virgil said.

“That’s what I think.” Knox turned his head to Virgil. “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Pogues-Boy, I don’t think you’re go

“Then why all the killing?”

“Well-they couldn’t hang him for it, but if these pictures got out, that’d be the end of him, businesswise. Look at those little kids he gu

Virgil made Knox walk through it again, then said, “You think you’re okay where you’re at? For the duration?”