Heat Lightning

Virgil said. “Phem threw a flash-bang and tried to come in behind it. It hit a tree and bounced off and I was right there. Almost knocked me on my ass. . . . If Louis hadn’t been ready, they’d of had me.”
    “Well—what are you gonna do?” Queenen asked. He looked away, across the river. “I wish we’d gotten the other two assholes.”
    “I gotta get up to see Rudy,” Jarlait said. “His mom is gonna kill me.”
    Queenen said, “Virgil, you gotta come up and talk to these deputies. They’re getting antsy as hell. The sheriff’s on his way in.”
    Virgil nodded and said, “Let’s go.” To Jarlait: “Get your truck, head on out, but stay in touch.”
     
 
BEFORE THEY TALKED to the deputies, they took a quick detour through the woods so Virgil could look at the bodies: Phem, Tai, and another Asian man he didn’t know. Had there been some other way to do this? Or had he really wanted to do it after being used around by the Viets? He’d think about it some other time.
    “Lotta blood,” he said to Queenen.
     
 
ON THE WAY up the driveway, Virgil got on the cell phone and called Davenport. “What happened?” Davenport asked as soon as he picked up the phone.
    “We had a hell of a gunfight,” Virgil said. “We got three dead Vietnamese, and two got away, into Canada. We need to call the Mounties . . . hang on.” He turned to Queenen. “Did you call the Canadians?”
    Queenen said, “I called the office, they’re gonna get in touch.”
    Virgil went back to the phone. “I guess Bemidji’s getting in touch. There might be a little dustup coming there.”
    “Virgil, tell me you didn’t cross the river,” Davenport said.
    “I didn’t cross it by very much,” Virgil said. “I was in hot pursuit.”
    Davenport pondered for a moment, then said, “You thought that if these desperate killers encountered any Canadians, they’d ruthlessly gun them down to cover their escape, and so, throwing legal nit-picking to the wind, you decided to put your own body between the murderers and any innocent Canucks. ”
    “Yeah—that’s what I thought,” Virgil said.
    Davenport said, “We had a good talk with Mead Sinclair. We put him in Ramsey County overnight until we decide what to do. I don’t think he’d run. But—we’ve got a couple of guys coming in from Washington to speak to us.”
    “Who’s us?” Virgil asked.
    “Rose Marie, me, you, Mitford, hell, maybe the governor,” Davenport said. “They’ll be here this afternoon. You gotta get down here. I’m going to call around, see if I can get you a plane out of International Falls. You got somebody you can give the scene to?”
    “We’ve got a crew coming up from Bemidji, and there are two Bemidji guys here. There were three, but one got a scalp cut. . . . One of our guys from Red Lake got dinged up . . .”
    Virgil told him the whole story, a blow-by-blow. When he was done, Davenport asked, “Where’s this Raines guy?”
    “Still at the hospital, I think. There were gunshot wounds, so he might be talking to the International Falls cops.”
    Davenport said, “Okay . . . listen. Go talk to the deputies. Tell them to secure the scene. Keep them out of the house. Keep everybody out of the house. Then go in there and take a little look around. You were invited in . . . are there any file cabinets?”
    Virgil said, “You’re an evil fuck.”
    Davenport said, “Call me when you can move. I’ll find a plane.”
     
 
VIRGIL DID ALL THAT: brought the deputies in, made them feel like they were on top of things. Let them look at the bodies; kept them out of the house. Got Queenen to talk to the sheriff when he arrived.
    A little over an hour later, Virgil was climbing into a Beaver float-plane that taxied right up to Knox’s dock. The plane felt like an old friend: Virgil had flown over most of western Canada in Beavers and Otters, and he settled down, strapped in. The pilot said her name was Kate, and they were gone.
    Virgil hadn’t found much in Knox’s house. The big computer was used, apparently, for photography and games. There’d been another small desk in the main bedroom, with a satellite plug and a keyboard, and Virgil decided that Knox must travel with a laptop. In a leather jacket tossed on the bed, he had found a small black book full of addresses and phone numbers. There was no Xerox machine in the place, but he went and got his bag, took out his camera, and shot a hundred JPEGs of the contents, to be printed