Heat Lightning

running down there, but not too fast, because of the shooting, and we only got the one other gun.
    “We get there, and there’s this dead guy in the yard. And we all freaked out. We all stopped, and I remember Chuck saying, ‘I’m getting the fuck out of here,’ and then there was some screaming from the house, and we can hear Warren yelling, and we’re all like going, ‘What the fuck?’
    “Then there’s nothing. We’re yelling, ‘Ralph, Ralph,’ and he yells, ‘I’m okay,’ and we go in there, look in there, and there’s these dead kids in the hallway, these two dead little kids, and we can hear this . . . this . . .”
    He stared away, across the lake, and Larry said, “Jesus Christ,” and Knox went on: “I went through that and I went into the next room, and here was Warren, and he was fuckin’ this chick. He was fuckin’ her, and I could see she was dead, or she was dying, but he was crazy drunk and he was just fuckin’ her. . . .”
    “Pictures,” Virgil said.
    Knox nodded. “I had this Instamatic. Like this little Kodak pocket camera. I was wearing fatigue pants, and, shit, I had this bad feeling that I could get blamed, that we could all get blamed, and Warren was banging her like mad and Sanderson was yelling at him and he wouldn’t stop, and Sanderson ran away and I took a shot of Warren banging this chick, and then I took off, but I took a shot of the kids, and the old man, and then I went running out of there. I was thinking if they tried to blame all of us we could use the pictures as evidence against Warren, who did the whole thing.”
    “But nothing ever happened?” Virgil asked.
    “Nah. We didn’t really understand it all at the time, but that whole country was going crazy. People were stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down, people were trying to get out, they were stealing boats and robbing stores for money, it was crazy. Chester, when he found out about the killing, he freaked out. He said we had to get the fuck out of there and keep our mouths shut. That’s what we did. We all got jammed in that van and we took off for the airport, and we camped out there for four days before I could get out, but some of the guys—Warren, I think, and maybe Sanderson—went with the boat.”
    “Ray said he saw Sanderson back at home just a couple months later, so he didn’t go with the boat.”
    “Well, shit, they just took them to Indonesia,” Knox said. “That’s only, like, three or four days away.”
    “I don’t know anything about that part of the world,” Virgil said.
    They all sat there, staring at the lake, then Virgil said, “I’ll see what I can do about the photos. About attributing them to Ray. But . . . I don’t know. I’m gonna have to have them, and if we have to argue about it in court, Warren’s gonna know where they’re coming from anyway.”
    Knox bit his lip and then said, “What if I tell the guys from Chicago to put a bullet in your head and walk away?”
    “I’m heavily armed,” Virgil said.
    “That won’t work, then,” Knox said. He dipped into his jacket pocket and handed Virgil an envelope. “What I did was, I scanned the negatives and then I printed them out. I really don’t have the negs with me—if you can get him with these, I’ll bring the negs around as the final nail in the coffin. But I’m not giving them up. They might be the only thing between me and Ralph. As long as he doesn’t know where the negs are . . .”
    “When Wigge was killed, his fingers were cut off. He was tortured,” Virgil said. “If Warren was his good buddy, why’d he do that?”
    Knox said, “Because he’s nuts.”
    “But that’s worse than nuts—it’s unnecessary. The pro they brought in, he might be willing to kill some people, but he’s not gonna risk his neck so somebody can get his rocks off slicing a guy up.”
    Knox rocked back and forth on the bench for a moment, then said, “After Sanderson got killed, I sent Warren copies of the pictures. Didn’t say who had them, I just said, ‘Back off or the police get the pictures.’”
    “Ah, man. He’s been looking for the pictures,” Virgil said.
    “That’s what I think.” Knox turned his head to Virgil. “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Pogues-Boy, I don’t think you’re gonna get him. He’s too well-connected. It was all too long ago. I don’t even know who could prosecute it as a crime. The Vietnamese? You think he’d get a fair trial? I don’t think anybody would send