Heat Lightning

really well. Two weeks of dinners. Every other Wednesday, rain or shine, we have Korean bulgogi. Not bad. But today is okra gumbo day. Good gumbo, but you know, sometimes I’ll wake up on gumbo day and I think I can’t look another okra in the face. . . . I can’t tell her that, of course.” He led the way to the back porch and his stack of papers. “What’s your Vietnam story?”
    Virgil laid it out: the theft of the bulldozers, the shoot-out at the house, the deaths of the men in the circle of thieves.
    “That’s a great story, Virgil,” Sinclair said, sitting back in a lounge chair, fingers knitted behind his head. “The business about the shooting in the house. The murders. That was a wild time—you think this could be a comeback?”
    “I don’t know,” Virgil said.
    “I did some research on you, you know, after you picked up that line from Virgil,” Sinclair said. “You’re a writer.”
    “I write outdoor stuff,” Virgil said.
    “Hey—I read that story about the moose hunt up in the Boundary Waters, and packing that moose out in the canoes. That’s good stuff, Virgil. There’s a great American tradition of outdoor writing, of exactly that kind. Teddy Roosevelt did it,” he said, and Virgil got red in the face, flushing, pleased by the flattery, had to admit it.
    Sinclair let him marinate in his ego for a moment, then continued: “Anyway, this Vietnam story, what you just told me. If you could get Bunton to repeat that, or any of them to repeat that, if they’d go on the record—and if there’s a connection going back to those old days—I could put you in touch with a guy on the New York Times Magazine . They’d buy it in a minute.”
    “You think so?”
    “I’ve been publishing for forty years in those kinds of magazines—they’d buy it,” Sinclair said. “I mean, aside from the facts of the matter, it’s a terrific story. A bunch of American rednecks flying into Vietnam as the place goes up in flames, to steal millions of bucks’ worth of bulldozers? Are you kidding me? Keep your notes, buddy.”
    Virgil nodded. “But what do you think about the story?”
    Sinclair ran his tongue over his lower lip, then shook his head. “I’ve worked with the Vietnamese for a long time. They can be a subtle bunch of people and they know how to nurse a grudge. On the other hand, they can be the biggest bunch of homeboy hicks that you could imagine. So I suppose it’s possible that there’s a Vietnamese connection . . .”
    “But you don’t believe it.”
    Sinclair shrugged. “I didn’t say that. Millions of people were killed back then. Millions. Whatever happened in that house, however bad it was . . . was nothing. And the lemon thing. That’s pretty obvious. It’s like a flag to attract your attention. Have you thought about the possibility that it’s coming from another direction?”
    “Yeah, I have,” Virgil said. “I’ve even got a guy I’m thinking about. But I don’t want to take my eye off the Vietnamese connection, either.”
    “Which is why you were harassing Tai and Phem.”
    “Checked them out—they seem like they’re on the up-and-up,” Virgil said. “That’s what the Canadians tell us, anyway. But who knows? They could be some kind of crazed Vietnamese hit team.”
    Sinclair nodded. “They could be. On the other hand, they could just be a couple of gooks who got lucky and were born in Canada instead of a reeducation camp.”
    “You still pissed about that?” Virgil asked.
    “Yeah.” He chuckled. “And they’re still pissed at me. They don’t believe that I didn’t tell you about them.”
    Mai came back carrying two big grocery sacks, plunked them on the counter; she was wearing a simple white blouse and blue jeans, and looked terrific. She even looked like she smelled terrific, but when Virgil sniffed, he smelled raw crab. She asked, “Can you stay for dinner?”
    Virgil thought about the okra. Okra is essentially a squid that grows in the ground instead of swimming in the ocean. He said, “I can’t. I’m looking for a guy. Wouldn’t mind walking you around the block, though.”
    “You should ask my daddy if it’s okay.”
     
“REALLY BORED,” she said. They ambled along, and somewhere down the block she took hold of a couple of his fingers, and they went the rest of the way hand in hand. “St. Paul would be a nice place to live if you had something to do. I don’t have anything to do.”
    “There’s always sex,” Virgil said.