Heat Lightning

thought about it for a minute, then went to his truck, fished around under the seat, got his pistol and a leather inside-the-waistband holster, and tucked the gun into the small of his back.
    Then he sat on the top step of the cabin’s stoop, where he could be seen from the driveway. The woman and the girl were down at the dock, messing around in a boat, and Virgil watched for a couple of minutes, then a Jeep rolled into the parking lot and parked. The two men who got out weren’t fishermen, Virgil thought, and he stood up, and as they looked around, he nodded and they walked over.
    “Virgil?” The two looked like bookends: tall, dark-haired men with bent noses and an air of competency, both wearing black sport coats and khaki slacks and L.L. Bean hiking shoes and black sunglasses.
    “That’s me. But neither one of you is Carl,” Virgil said, remembering the portrait photo at the dealership.
    “No, Carl’s coming in, he’ll be here in a minute or two,” the man said. He looked down at the lake, and the half-dozen boats tied to the pier, and the woman and kid. “Sal, why don’t you go get a few beers.”
    Sal nodded wordlessly and walked down to the bar.
    Virgil said, “You’re security.”
    “Yeah, sorta.”
    “Where’d you get your nose bent?” Virgil asked.
    The man grinned, and Virgil suspected all of his short glittering-white teeth had been capped by a very good dentist. “Chicago, actually.” He looked down at the pier. “You know the chick?”
    “I asked about her, they know her in the bar,” Virgil said. “And the owner didn’t know I was coming until this morning—I sorta dropped in.”
    “All right. Woman with a kid, they make a good recon team, you know?” the guy said. “You got a woman with a kid on the street, who’d think they might be wired-up?”
    Virgil said, “I’ll write that in my notebook.”
    The man said, “You do that.” Then he tapped Virgil’s chest. “The Pogues. Goddamn good band. I’m Irish myself.”
    “You didn’t say what your name was,” Virgil said.
    “Pat. O’Hoolihan. Pat O’Hoolihan.”
    “You’re shittin’ me.”
    The man showed his teeth again. “Yeah. I am.”
    Sal came back with two cold six-packs: “Four drunks talking about bait. I thought my ears was gonna fall off, and I was only there for two minutes.”
    “Gotta learn to relax,” Virgil said. “Get in the flow of the conversation.”
    Sal popped his gum. “I’d rather be dead.”
    The man who wasn’t named Pat O’Hoolihan got on his cell phone, dialed a number, and said, “We good.”
     
 
KNOX ARRIVED in a black GMC sport-utility vehicle with an unnecessary chrome brush guard on the front, and two little tiny chromed brush guards on the back taillights, and Virgil said to Sal, “These taillight brush guards look kinda gay.”
    Sal popped his gum. “I hadn’t thought about it, but you’re right.”
    Knox climbed out of the passenger seat, and another bent-nosed guy from the driver’s seat. Knox was a large man, balding, with a fleshy face and a heavy gut, who looked like he might deal in bulldozers. He was wearing khaki cargo pants, a white shirt, a black sport coat, and more L.L. Bean hiking shoes.
    He walked down to Virgil’s place and said, “Mr. Flowers.” Not a question.
    Virgil shook hands with him and said, “Why don’t we go inside?”
    Knox looked at the cabin and shook his head. “Nah. I hate enclosed spaces that I don’t know about. Let’s go find a stump.” To the security guys, he said, “Why don’t you guys hang out?” and to the one who wasn’t named Pat, he said, “Larry, come on with us.”
    Virgil said, “Yeah, come on, Larry.”
    Larry said, “That’d be Mr. Larry to you, Virgil. Let me get one of those six-packs.”
     
THE THREE OF THEM strolled down to a picnic table behind one of the cabins, out of sight of the bar, out of sight of the driveway. The mom and daughter were kneeling on the dock, peering into the water, and Larry said, “Nice ass,” and Knox said, “C’mon, man, she’s only eight,” and Virgil had to laugh despite himself. They all took a beer and settled on the picnic table bench. Larry faced away from them, looking up at the cabins; the other two men were wandering around the driveway.
    “So what’s the deal?” Knox said. “I understand you’ve been talking to my daughter.”
    “The deal is, somebody is killing people—and all the people who are dead went to Vietnam in ’75 and stole a