Heat Lightning

down and Jenkins slowed and held up his ID. Davenport called, “That guy’s okay,” and they went through. Sinclair said, “I wonder if that’s his dress gun?”
     
 
DAVENPORT MET Virgil in the street: “We’ve got people coming in on the corners: they’ll do it all at once, when they isolate the streets.” He looked at Sinclair, still cuffed in the backseat, then asked Virgil, “What’s the deal?”
    “I’m not exactly clear on that,” Virgil said. “But Professor Sinclair has been talking up a storm. Things have gotten a little out of my pay grade.”
    “So maybe I should hear his story,” Davenport said.
    “Little out of your pay grade, too. And Rose Marie’s,” Virgil said.
    “So whose pay grade are we talking about?” Davenport asked.
    “Dunno—maybe the president.”
    Rose Marie Roux was walking toward them in a political orange dress the size of an army tent.
    “Got to be quite a story,” Davenport said to Sinclair.
    “Oh, it is,” he said. He nodded across the room at a cluster of men in front of a fireplace. “Is that the governor? I’m sure he’d be fascinated.”
    THEY TOOK Sinclair into the women’s locker room. Davenport spoke quietly with Rose Marie, who got another glass of something and tagged along.
    “First piece of business,” she said to Sinclair. “We’re not talking about a machine gun or a rocket or a bomb?”
    Sinclair shook his head. “They’re operating under pretty strict guidelines: nobody dies except the people involved in the original rape and murder. There were actually five killed back then: the woman, her two young children, three and two years of age, the woman’s grandfather, and a housekeeper. These people, Hoa and her team, messed up when they killed Wigge’s bodyguard. That wasn’t supposed to happen. That was a lapse. The cop up in Red Lake was an even bigger lapse, but I think by that time they didn’t care so much. They were making the final run.”
    “My God,” Rose Marie said. She looked at Virgil. “You knew this?”
    “Not the details—the outline,” Virgil said. “I was getting pieces.”
    Rose Marie said to Jenkins, “Go get Warren.”
    When Jenkins had gone, Davenport asked Sinclair, “How many more people are on their list?”
    “Warren and one more. Six altogether, or seven, if you count Chester Utecht. The last guy—I don’t know the name—lives on a lake somewhere. They were having a hard time tracking him down, exactly, but I think their . . . outside . . . contacts came through on that.”
    “He means Homeland Security,” Virgil said to Davenport and Rose Marie. “The guy they were looking for is Carl Knox.”
    WARREN WALKED IN a minute later, followed by Jenkins and a security man. Rose Marie said, “We’ve identified the people who are trying to kill you. Agent Flowers has information that they will attempt to shoot you, probably with a rifle. We’re putting officers around the golf course, where we think they are. If you wish, you could go out the back unseen.”
    Warren bobbed his head. “I’ll do that. I’ll be at home. I’ve got some serious protection there. Call me when you get them.” He glanced at Virgil, his upper lip rippled, and he left, followed by his security man.
    Sinclair said, “There goes the worst man in this whole episode, dressed in a tuxedo and patent-leather shoes, untouched by human hands.”
    Davenport said to Sinclair, “All right—we’ve got ten minutes before we drop the net around the golf course. Tell the rest of us what happened.”
    At that moment, the governor walked in, shadowed by Neil Mitford, his personal weasel. The governor smiled at everybody, said, “Ah, that fuckin’ Flowers. How are you, Virgil?” He shook Virgil’s hand. “Love the cowboy boots. I just bought a pair myself. What’s up with all you people? Are we going to be assassinated, or what?”
    Rose Marie said, “Governor, I’m not sure you want to be here.”
    “That’s what I said,” Mitford muttered.
    “Better than making small talk with a guy who wants more ethanol subsidies.” He looked around. “I haven’t been in a women’s locker room since my junior year at Princeton.” He chuckled. “Anna Sweat, I swear to God she had . . . Never mind.” He peered at Sinclair. “So—let’s hear it.”

24
    A WONDERFUL, soft summer night: when Mai returned to Vietnam, she would take with her, she thought, the memory of these nights. There was nothing quite like them in Hanoi,