Heat Lightning

this case, do you?”
    She propped herself up on one elbow. “Why would I know anything about it? Why would you ask?”
    “Because your father, you know, he was talking to Ray and Sanderson, and when I asked what they were talking about, he didn’t have much to say. The thing is, if this killer even thinks your father was involved, he might go after him. And if you’re in the way . . . Look, I really, really don’t want you to get hurt, and if your father’s involved, you could be in the line of fire.”
    “Oh . . . Virgil. You don’t really think so? I mean, my father . . .” She trailed away.
    “Was he in Vietnam in 1975?”
    “He’s been there a lot. When I was a child, it seemed like he was gone all the time, but that was in the eighties. As I understand it, the Vietnamese really thought they had allies with the American people, and that he was one of them. So he was there during the war, and right after it, and later, he was there more. . . . He was there a lot. But 1975, I don’t know.”
    “I’m amazed he was never busted,” Virgil said.
    “Busted ...”
    “Arrested. By the feds . . . you know, ‘giving aid and comfort.’”
    “Well, when he went, he went as a journalist,” Mai said. “So that gave him some status.”
    “Still. You gotta ask him about it,” Virgil said. “If there’s anything, he’s got to talk to me.”
    “How many more killings do you think—”
    “I don’t know. . . . I’ll tell you something, but you gotta promise not to tell.”
    “All right, sure,” she said.
    “The last one, the killer was probably seen, and he was an Indian guy. Ray was an Indian guy. Some of these guys were living on the edge, and there’s a question of whether there was a dope deal going down somewhere. So . . . it’s all really confusing.”
    “Do you know who the other targets might be?”
    “Yeah, I talked to one the other day. I can’t really tell you his name—it’s, like, a legal thing. But he’s out there traveling around. He told me he’s safe. He’s got a security guy who travels with him, he says the president couldn’t find him. But hell, it’s possible he’s involved somehow.”
    “You’ll figure it out. Dad says you’re a pretty smart guy,” Mai said.
    “I don’t feel so smart; I feel like my head is stuffed full of cotton. Something is going on, and I don’t know what it is.”
    She squeezed him. “Feels like something is going on down here.”
    “I know what that is,” he said. “I have that completely under control.”
    “Right. Mr. Control.” She gave him a yank. “How many women have you slept with, Mr. Control?”
    “I have a list on my laptop,” Virgil said. “I’d hate to say without consulting my list.”
    “Just names, or . . . talent, as well?”
    “Everything. Names, photographs, résumés, criminal records. I give them all grades, too. For example, a couple of women might call me up, and I don’t remember them that well in the fog of all the women, but I’ve got to make a decision. So I look at my computer records, and one of them I’ve given a B-minus, and the other a C-minus. So the decision is clear.”
    “What’d I get?”
    “You got a B-plus,” Virgil said. “You could easily move up to an A, if you play your cards right.”
    “Lying in bed,” she said. “Joking.”
    “Ah, well . . .” He sat up, looked down at her. “It’s what happens when you become a cop. Something curdles your sense of humor. My problem is not really that I sleep with so many women. My problem is that I fall in love with them.”
    She was lying facedown on top of the sheet with her face turned toward him, and he ran his hand down her back and over the rise of her butt. “Women don’t understand how beautiful they are. They don’t understand it. They get beauty all confused with personality, or charisma, or a nice smile . . . but they really don’t see the simple beauty of this . . .” and his hand glided again over her bottom. “It’s a goddamn tragedy that you can’t see it. But you can’t; I know you can’t. And it’s just so beautiful.”

19
    VIRGIL WAS moving early the next morning, out at dawn, heading southwest out of the Twin Cities, still feeling the glow of the afternoon and evening with Mai. He’d spoken with Shrake the evening before, after he’d dropped Mai, and Shrake said that he and Jenkins had spotted several more bodyguards working the streets around Ralph Warren’s home.
    “We gave it up. We were