Heat Lightning

more feet across the garage, got a jean jacket, and shook a pack of Kools and a beat-up Zippo out of the pocket.
    Bunton was gaunt, with bad teeth colored nicotine-brown under the brilliant work lights. Once-muscular arms, now going to flab, showed purple stains that had been tattoos. He lit a Kool after flicking the Zippo a few times, and the stink of lighter fluid sifted over to Virgil. Bunton took a drag and said, “Bob’s time ran out, you know. What the fuck.”
    “You got any ideas why? Or who stopped his clock?” Virgil asked.
    “No, I don’t, but I’d like to.”
    “You know a guy name of Utecht from down in New Ulm?” Virgil asked.
    “Ah, Christ, if it ain’t one thing, it’s another,” Bunton said, and Virgil felt the spark. Bunton knew Utecht: a connection.
    Bunton stood up and stretched, and Virgil noticed that he was wearing a leg brace. These were old guys: these guys were older than Virgil’s father. “Somebody told you that we were going to meetings together, huh? Me ’n’ Bob?”
    “Somebody,” Virgil said. “This all have something to do with Vietnam?”
    Bunton laughed, and then coughed, a smoker’s hack. When he finished, he patted himself on the chest with his cigarette hand and said, “Tell you what, pal—what’s your name?”
    “Virgil Flowers.”
    “No shit? Good name. But tell you what: I went to Vietnam when I was nineteen, and since then, everything has something to do with Vietnam. Lot of people like that, you know? They even go back there, like tourists, to see if it was real.”
    Bunton might have been part Indian, Virgil thought, but not too much: as in his photos, he looked more Scots than Indian—and a little like the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz .
    “Okay, I don’t understand that,” Virgil said. “I was in the military, but not in heavy combat. But I believe you.”
    “That’s nice of you,” Bunton said.
    “The thing is, I understand that Sanderson wasn’t in Vietnam,” Virgil said. “He was in Korea. Some guys have suggested I try to find out if he was in some kind of intelligence outfit and Korea was just a cover.”
    “Ah, jeez. Not Bob. Bob was . . .” Bunton had a wrench in his hand, and he dropped it into an open steel toolbox and interrupted himself to say, “Hand me that other wrench there, will you?”
    Virgil was standing beside the truck fender a couple feet from the old man, and he turned and looked at the hood and realized that there wasn’t a wrench there, and then he was hit by lightning.
    The impact was right behind his ear, and he went down. No pain, no understanding of what had happened, it could have been an electrical shock. He hadn’t quite understood that Bunton had sucker-punched him, and he tried to push up to his hands and knees, and then Bunton hit him again.
    There was a confused space.
    He heard the motorcycle start up, he remembered later, and then it was quiet, and then there was some talk, and then he tried to get up and there was another old man there, who said, “What happened, buddy? What happened?”
    And he fell down again and he heard the old man shout, “I think he’s having a heart attack or something. Call 911.” And the old man asked Virgil, “Where’s Ray?”
     
 
THE AMBULANCE took him to Hennepin Medical Center, and he woke up in a bed with a bunch of cops around, including Shrake and Jenkins. Virgil asked, “What happened? Was it that fuckin’ Bunton?”
    Jenkins looked at Shrake and said, “He’s back.”
    Maybe he was back, but Virgil’s head felt like it was in New Jersey. “What do you mean, I’m back?”
    “For the past hour, you’ve been asking, ‘What happened?’ and we’d tell you, but the needle was stuck, and after we told you, you’d say, ‘What happened?’”
    “Ah, man,” Virgil groaned. “That goddamned Bunton. Did he get my gun?”
    “Nope. You’ve got your gun, you’ve got your wallet, got your ID—which is why we’re here,” Shrake said. “You got a lump on the back of your head and a contusion and a bruise, like you were sapped.”
    “What happened to my truck?” Virgil asked.
    “I don’t know,” Shrake said. “Where’d you leave it?”
    “Ah, man . . .”
    A nurse stuck her head in. “He’s back?”
    “He’s back,” Jenkins told her. “Get the doc.”
    “I’ve been out?” Virgil asked.
    “Not exactly out,” Shrake said. “The lights were on, you know, but nobody was home.”
    “Not the first time you heard that, huh?”