by S. D. Perry
He lit the box, the sudden hiss and flare of the multiple match heads catching like a promise, a chemical reaction that would flare all the way down to the soaked paper, and he threw it and dived, crashing into the wall of the theater with one shoulder in his hurry to get away.
There was no fireball, but there was a sound like whooof, and the flames came up right away, orange and yellow and blue, the air heating quickly, and he leaned against the wall and felt himself swell with joy.
He waited a moment, then risked a look down the stairs—and was disappointed. The flames were licking at the door, and the pool at the bottom of the stairs was afire, but the brightness was already fading. The fire seemed content to burn itself, a guttering candle against the treated wood. It would get through the door eventually, but that wasn’t what he wanted.
He looked around. The night was still; there were no windows lighting up, no doors opening, no dogs barking. He stepped to the side of the building again and opened the backpack, selecting something plastic, nail polish remover, and threw it down the stairs.
Aaron waited, grinning, pressed against the wall, and seconds ticked past, and there was a brief flare of light accompanied by a furious crackling…and then nothing again.
Before he could reconsider, he picked up the entire backpack and threw it down the stairs, knowing at once that he was being stupid but unable to stop himself. He wanted something to happen so badly; he needed to see the thing he’d been dreaming, the great fire, the explosion.
Grabbing the propane tank, he stumbled away, leaning against the damp hedges as behind him, there were explosions, but muffled and flat, nothing like in the movies, more like aluminum cans stuffed with firecrackers, but then there was a big crack and a bright rattle of thin metal hitting concrete, and he was sure the door had blown open, was sure that his liquid fire was pouring into the basement even now, finding the ancient wooden support pillars, the storage racks of nylon and polyester costumes wrapped in plastic, acetate, old wooden props, and everywhere layer upon layer of thick, dry paint…
He found a safe spot on the other side of the theater, between a hedge and a dumpster, and he waited.
A few lights had come on, and two or three dogs barked. Someone had opened their front door, and Aaron didn’t hear it close, but a minute, two went by, and he didn’t hear anything, so they’d probably closed it again. He knew he wouldn’t have long once the call went out, but it seemed that God was watching over him, granting him another chance at happiness; the night went silent again.
Time passed, eternal moments, and he reveled in each one. Aaron could feel the fire working, could smell it and hear its gasping breath, even if no one else could. There were no cars, no lights or sirens. The world was deaf and stupid and blind, and only he knew the huge thing that he had done, that was happening right now.
He had to see it. He wanted to drop the tank into the stairwell and run, but first he wanted to see for himself. He’d waited as long as he dared.
He lifted the tank and crept back around the theater, between the hedges and the back wall, the smell of smoke thickening, the blaze finally catching on, he could see by the orange light coming from the far side of the building, shining against the hedges around the corner, fogged by gathering smoke. Aaron could hear the sizzle of frying heat, and he couldn’t remember ever being happier. Holding the tank in nerveless fingers, he stepped around to the side of the building where he’d set the fire…and was transfixed.
Bright flames swept up from the cellar door, over the wall, spreading up to the antique raftered ceiling inside in sheets of brilliant, wavering copper and white. He could hear glass breaking somewhere inside. The heat was intense, blasting his face, reddening his exposed skin, but he didn’t feel it, his wondering gaze fixed to the thing he’d made. Sparks cracked and popped into the troubled air, lifting into the sky, and the smoke was hovering over it all like a shifting, flickering mass of darkness, of hate, and he felt excited and peaceful all at once; he felt vindicated. The fire wasn’t just beautiful, it was a force of fucking nature, and he’d unleashed it, fuck you all very much, wouldn’t everyone just shit if they knew that ol’ Starin’ Aaron had given birth to such a magnificent creature.
Now he heard doors and people; now he heard a neighbor shouting. It was time to leave. He lifted the propane tank and edged for the fiery pit, the metal warm in his hands, the heat from the burning theater like a wall, like a slap. He had to get rid of tank and go; it was past time. He aimed for the burning, blackening concrete well and threw, and the tank went right in, a perfect shot, and he turned to run. From the video, he knew that he probably had at least a minute before it blew, but to be safe he—
The tank gauge snapped off when it hit ground, ejecting a liquid jet of propane into the burning soup that Aaron had created. Traveling at better than seventy-five feet per second—a fairly low velocity, he might have remembered from his reading at the library—fist-size chunks of concrete and three separate twists of metal from the propane tank gauge and a substantial piece of the burning door slammed into Aaron’s back, taking him down. He had time to feel his body burning, but he was, in fact, dead before he hit the ground. Considering how far he was thrown, that was no great mercy, but then, not everyone can be a winner.
Officer Trey Ellis was doing his turn on night shift. They were all pulling it at least twice a week to deal with what the chief called “serious” stuff. He wanted one of his best people watching, all the time, and though the other guys crabbed about it, Trey was proud as all shit to be getting so much responsibility so fast. Vincent trusted him; he’d already shown how much by having Trey fix up that guy’s house, to get that fucking cock-blocker Dean out of the port. A lot of things had changed since Annie Thomas had gotten herself killed. The way things were now, it was so much better. He and Leary had accidentally dropped a wife-beater on his face when they were taking him into custody last week. Five or six times, they’d accidentally dropped him, and that was fucking job satisfaction, right there. The chief was all about justice since Annie’d died, and Trey was a hundred and ten on that shit. He had been pumped up all summer, seemed like, and Trey liked the rush; he liked being able to do the right thing because he said it was the right thing, he was the man, and Stan Vincent was one big-dick cop; he was walking the walk. Trey was ready to take a bullet for him, he just respected him all to shit, more than he could even say.
It was just about four when the chief came into the station, to the back room where Trey was keeping an eye on the roads, waiting for something to happen. When he saw Vincent’s pale, sweaty face, Trey was on his feet in a second.
“They’re coming,” Vincent said. He looked angry and…and afraid? No, no way.
“Who is?”
Vincent was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and his hair was sticking up, like he’d been sleeping. “Dean called me at home. Said he felt like it was professional courtesy to let me know. Smug fucker. Him and one of his top IA people, they’ll be here first thing. By eight, he says.”
Trey clenched his fists. “What for?”
Vincent had a tic under one eye; the thin skin there spasmed as he spoke. Tic. Tic. “He said they’ve got some questions about how we’re running things out here. He says there’s been some complaints. He wants to talk about Elwes, too.” The chief smiled thinly. “Guy says he was set up, apparently, and some kiddie freak’s word is enough for a man like Dean.”
“What are we gonna do?” Trey asked.
Vincent shook his head slightly. Tic. Tic. His eyes were haunted by the shadows beneath them. “I think we should stop them,” he said. “What do you think? You think you might be able to help me with something like that?”
Trey clenched and unclenched his fingers, excited and a little freaked. He was all for banging some asshole’s face on the pavement, but Vincent was talking about other cops.
Deputies, though, he told himself. And he’s asking me, not Henderson, not LaVeau. Wes Dean and someone off the rat squad, no
great loss for law enforcement in the state of Washington, but it was some serious shit nonetheless, and Vincent had picked him.
“You bet, Chief,” Trey said, and that was when the explosion thundered down the street, and the phone started ringing out in the squad room.
The explosion woke Poppy up a few minutes after four. He told himself he’d dreamed the sound and got up and shuffled to the bathroom and shuffled back and sat on the edge of the bed. He heard the fire engine heading south on the waterfront. He heard his next-door neighbors, a young couple with a baby, outside on their porch, talking, and heard a car start up down the street and wondered what had happened.
He lay down on his bed, pulling the soft, aging comforter up to his chest, and thought about what Bob Sayers had said to him about helping people. He’d fallen asleep earlier thinking about it; no reason to think it wouldn’t work a second time. After a few minutes he closed his eyes, and a few minutes after that he was up and pulling his pants on over his boxers, looking for his shoes, wishing he’d been able to go back to sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I an Henderson pulled the patrol car into one of the designated slots at the back of the station, noting with some dismay that there were at least two news vans in the lot. Maybe because of the community theater…and what the fuck was that about, anyway? The theater was a good ten blocks away, he couldn’t see it from the lot, but the air smelled like smoke, like burned trash. Was the fire out? Had anything else burned? He half ran to the back door, wishing to fuck he’d had a cup of coffee at least, feeling like a little caffeine would at least prep him to face whatever was coming. He’d been snug and deep asleep in bed less than twenty minutes ago; it just wasn’t fucking fair.
Through the back room, where the battered coffee pot was always gurgling, where the lockers branched out on either side. Margot Trent was talking to Dave Miller near the cafeteria table, and they both shut up when he came through, conspicuously looking away. Miller had a smear of what looked like ash on his forehead. Henderson considered stopping to tell them what might happen but still thought there might be time to avert the disaster, and he didn’t want to waste it talking to those two. Margot took herself way too seriously, and the only reason Miller wasn’t wearing jackboots with the rest of them was because he was a pussy.
He settled on saying, “Heads up,” and patted his Glock.
There were a couple of cops milling around in the squad room, part-timers. The press liaison from the council, a retired lawyer named Dawes, was talking to a trio of reporters in the waiting area plus a handful of summer people, some kind of impromptu press conference at the very front of the building, but Henderson ignored all of them. The man he wanted was where he’d expected, in his glass box of an office at the grand, old building’s northwest corner. LaVeau, Leary, and Trey Ellis were with him. Vincent’s team. All armed, including Vincent.
Henderson didn’t bother knocking. Leary and LaVeau both looked anxious, but Trey was bouncing on the balls of his feet; he looked wired, like he was going to jump out of his skin. The naked gratitude in Vincent’s eyes made Henderson feel sick. He closed the door behind him.
“You’re here,” Vincent said. “Good, that’s good. They’ll be here anytime.”
“You said Wes Dean was coming, with county IA?” Henderson asked.
“A fuck and his rat,” Trey said, and barked laughter. Henderson and Vincent both ignored him.
“They have questions,” Vincent said.
“Are you going to answer them?”
“Whatever I do, Dean’s going to nail me. Us.” The chief drew himself tall, his chin up. “We going to let that happen, Ian?”
Henderson answered carefully. “I don’t want to die, Stan.”
“Anyone dies, it’ll be that fuck and his fuckin’ rat,” Trey said.
“Shut up,” Henderson said. He kept his gaze on Vincent’s, but the chief’s kept darting away. He looked crazy, his face twitching, his attention all over the place.
“No one’s going to die,” he said.
“Yeah, I might think that, except all of us are carrying, and you know they will be…and none of us are exercising much self-control lately; you know that, right? You gotta know something’s weird.”
“Weird?” That from Frank LaVeau, who’d watched the exchange with some interest. Frank had taken it upon himself in the last six weeks to roust anyone with a seedy look, to convince them that Port Isley was not a good place for them, and he’d used his fists to do it. One of the drifters he’d beat up had traveled on and died at a shelter in Port Angeles from injuries sustained during his run-in with the cop. Upon being informed of the death, LaVeau had said, “Well, that’s one less coming back, right?”
“The way things are, the way everyone is this summer, since June,” Henderson said, still looking at Vincent. “Think about it. You know what it’s been like. Like what those people were saying, the reporter and that doctor, how violence is up, how we’re all…” Henderson trailed off, grasping at the concept, applying it to himself for the first time.
“We’re all what?” Leary sneered. “Seems to me, you’re either on the team or you’re not, Ian. You’ve been here, haven’t you? Man up. That fuck is coming in here to bust us for running things the way they should be run, and you know it.”
Trey laughed, a high, whinnying sound. “Straight up.”
Frank LaVeau looked to Vincent, who wasn’t looking at any of them. His attention was fixed on the squad room outside the glass box of his office, on Wes Dean and a pretty woman with a decidedly unhappy face at his side, at the pair of uniforms that accompanied them. Debra had stalled them for a moment at the front desk, but they were about to go around her. Henderson recognized one of them, his counterpart on the county, Dean’s right-hand guy, Brett Rusch.
Early. He might have gotten somewhere with Vincent, but he had been counting on another five minutes, at least.
“Don’t do it,” Henderson said, giving it all he had. “Surrender your weapons, lay them down now, we can get out of this, whatever it is. Don’t let it get out of hand. Think about Ashley, Stan. Ashley and Lily. You want her to grow up without her daddy?”
“Get out,” Vincent said.
Trey Ellis had his hand on his weapon; so did Leary. Henderson had no doubt he could outdraw them, but Vincent was letting him go; he should get out and be fucking thankful. Vincent had gone Brando from whatchama, that awesome flick; Henderson had tried to read the book it was based on like four times and couldn’t get past the flowery descriptions, guy’s name was…
Get out! Go!
He half turned and walked sideways to the door, not wanting to turn his back on Trey, who wanted to draw down. The dumbshit was looking forward to the confrontation; that was written on his face and in his stance. Henderson backed out of the office watching Vincent’s face, a brave commander witnessing an act of cowardice. Henderson respected war veterans all to hell; his family had always had someone in the military, a cousin, an uncle. When he was a kid, he hadn’t understood how people could put themselves on the line for an ideal, for a principle…but after some time as a cop, he’d started to get it. Soldiers fought for the guys standing next to them, because they’d all been stuck with a shit deal, because they didn’t want to die…but this wasn’t a war, and these weren’t his brothers because they all wore badges for the fucking PIPD. He had been sincere and honest with Vincent; he did not want to die, and if that meant a dipshit rookie or a fat shit like Leary or some closet Nazi thought he was chickenshit, so be it. Vincent’s reproach didn’t hurt nearly as much as the idea of being dead, of no more fucking or watching movies or eating fresh fish he’d caught himself. And all because they’d been infected with something, maybe. That was like eating a bullet because you caught the flu.
He backed into Wes Dean, but it was his guy who stepped up, Rusch.
“You want to watch it, Ian,” Rusch said, working to get in his face, but Henderson couldn’t think of anything more ridiculous,
more useless at the moment.
“Vincent’s crazy,” he said, speaking as he backed past the posse. “Get out of here.”
The unhappy-looking woman spoke. “Officer Henderson? Perhaps you could make yourself available to us for—”
“Shut the fuck up, he’s 5150, you get it?” The name from the movie and the book suddenly came to him. “Kurtz, he’s gone Kurtz. Back out or you’re looking at a situation, you copy? Anyone?”
Debra, at the front desk, gave him a wide-eyed look and then hurried for the back room, pulling one of the rookies with her.
Dean spoke up, his voice naturally commanding. “Someone get those civilians out of here.”
“All over it,” Henderson said. He stepped around the front desk, grabbed Henry Dawes, and whispered in his saggy ear that everyone needed to be evacuated ASAP, that there was an emergency. The press liaison barely skipped a beat, turning a calm, solemn face to his group of listeners.
“Excuse me, I’m told that we need to clear this area immediately,” Dawes said. “If you’ll come with me—”
Two of the three reporters started snapping questions at him—the third was apparently involved in an important cell conversation, one he just couldn’t walk away from—but Henderson was still really feeling the whole not-wanting-to-die vibe. He was tempted to keep moving in spite of the sudden blockage, to just push his way through…but he also wasn’t such a selfish dick that he would leave without trying. He turned to the nearest person, a summer man with a cane, his fat wife at his side, and spoke low and clear, so that everyone around might hear.
“Bomb threat,” he said loudly, making eye contact with the surprised tourist. “Everyone get out, now.”
A half dozen shocked expressions, and then they were all turning, heading for the door, quickly, Henderson right in the middle. The third reporter had finally snapped his cell phone closed.
