Heat Lightning

just need to speak to you for a minute, ma’am,” Virgil said.
    She buzzed them and Virgil pushed through, and a moment later a door opened to their right and a woman looked out. Virgil put his finger to his lips, showed her his ID, and said, “We’re here for another apartment. If you could go back inside, please. Everything should be okay.”
    The woman’s eyes flicked to Del. Del had taken his pistol out and was holding it along his pant leg. “You’re sure . . .” and she was backing away.
    Virgil put his finger to his lips again, breathed “Shhh . . . ,” and he and Del moved down the hall as the woman closed the door.
    “You want to take the door, or do you want to try knocking?” Del asked.
    “Knock first. If he doesn’t answer, I’ll kick it,” Virgil said.
    Del knocked, and they both stepped back sideways from the door. They heard steps inside, and Del ticked his finger at the door, and Virgil put his hand on his pistol at the small of his back.
    The door opened, and Sinclair looked out. “Took you long enough,” he said. “Come on in.”
     
 
SINCLAIR WAS dressed in faded blue jeans, a soft white shirt, and sneakers, the gold tennis bracelet still rattling around his wrist. Virgil followed him into the apartment as Sinclair backed away. Virgil said to Del, “Get Jenkins in here. Clear the place.”
    “She’s gone, Hoa is gone,” Sinclair said. “I don’t think she’s coming back—you spooked her.”
    “Hoa?”
    “It means ‘flower,’” Sinclair said. “Mai means ‘cherry blossom.’ Quite the coincidence, huh?”
    Jenkins came in through a back door in the kitchen, and he and Del did a quick run-through of the apartment. Sinclair said to Virgil, “Come on the porch and we can figure out what we’re gonna do. Your friends can sit in.”
    “I know what I’m going to do,” Virgil said. “I’m taking your ass down to jail and I’m charging you with murder.”
    “That’s not a bad idea, except that you’ve got nothing to convict me with,” Sinclair said. He pointed at the circle of chairs on the porch, where his laptop sat in a circle of light. “And there would be some serious fallout that I’m not sure you’d want to deal with. But: If you are willing to deal with the fallout, it’s an option, and we should talk about it.”
     
DEL HEARD the last bit of the conversation, and he said to Virgil, “Apartment’s clear,” and then to Sinclair, “What’s up with you? You’re pretty calm for a guy who’s looking at thirty years without parole.”
    “Never do thirty years,” Sinclair said. “My family’s programmed to die at eighty-five. I wouldn’t do more than twenty.”
    Jenkins said to Del, “The man’s got a point.”
    “If anybody wants a beer, we got some Leinenkugels in the refrigerator,” Sinclair said. To Virgil: “You want to sit down?”
    Virgil sat. “What the hell is going on?”
    Sinclair said to Jenkins, “If you’re gonna get a beer, could you get me one?” He said to Virgil, “This is complicated. But one thing that’s going to happen, if it hasn’t already, is that this Warren guy is probably gonna get killed tonight.”
    “Warren’s at a big political party,” Virgil said.
    “Blowing him up at a big political party would just about make Hoa’s day,” Sinclair said. Jenkins handed him a beer, and he said thanks and took a sip.
    “Blowing him up?” Virgil said. He was digging his cell phone out of his pocket. “They’ve got a bomb? Jesus . . .”
    “No, no, not literally. They’re going to shoot him,” Sinclair said. “I don’t know any details, but I believe they’re going to shoot him. The shooter, who’s the guy you met named Phem, doesn’t do bombs. But I’m told he’s a marvelous shot. Olympic quality. And Tai, who’s a researcher, an intelligence operator, an interrogator, doesn’t do assassination. He might tear you apart with a pair of pliers, but he won’t try to snipe you. He doesn’t have that cold temperament—he gets all excited when he’s killing somebody. That’s what I’m told.”
    “What about Mai?”
    “Hoa—she’s the coordinator. She’s the one who can pass as American. Got all the right American accents. You oughta hear her Valley Girl.”
     
 
VIRGIL WAS on the phone, and Davenport answered: “What’d you get?”
    “There are three Vietnamese, two men and a woman, and they’re planning to kill Warren. I’m told that nothing would make them happier than killing him